- [About how movies are made]:
Movies are all about photography, and for an actor, about getting your picture taken. Who does it and how makes a lot of difference.
A two hour feature movie intended for presentation in a movie theater or on a TV screen is made up of roughly 1,000 fragments. The average fragment lasts 6 seconds. A "long take" shot averages about 12 seconds, and a short "reaction shot" type fragment lasts about 2 seconds. Fragments are most often shot out of sequence, and require physical travel to different locations and different movie set shot in movie studios. "Re-takes" of fragments occurs often. Movie directors shoot various scenes and fragments several times, and then choose the "take" which will be included in the released movie. Much more film and/or video tape is shot than is actually used for the finally released "print." Actors and off camera movie production professionals must endure the exhausting process of "re-takes" which are a common and inevitable part of movie making.
Unlike stage actors, movie actors almost never perform a movie story from start to end as the movie audience eventually sees it and experiences. The last part of a movie story is often shot first, the first part may be shot only after the final part is shot, and the middle of the story may be shot after both the end and beginning parts of the story are already shot.
Stage actors who are used to performing a continuous story in real time often find movie actor work difficult, unpleasant, and unsatisfying.
The selection of shot scenes is decided in the editing room, and the presented final movie reflects choices the movie editor makes based on a variety of shots the movie director provides the editor. Not all scenes shot make it to the final movie. Completed scenes and fragments of those scenes (sometimes well acted and important to the story) often end up "on the cutting room floor" and are not used.
The actual production of movies is a process of shooting short fragments which are later "glued" end to end to end until a two hour story made up of roughly 1,000 separately shot fragments makes its way to theater and TV screens.
The movie production experience for actors and others is always made up of shooting short fragments, averaging 6 seconds, sometimes as long as 12 seconds, and sometimes as short as 2 seconds. This is very hard work and movie actors must trust the judgment of the movie directors and editors. Good actor performances may not make it into the final movie.
Movies are a bunch of still pictures run at 24 frames per second, and adding up to roughly 150,000 still photos in a standard 2 hour feature movie.
What's in each of those still photos, and how they are arranged and connected, end to end, makes all the difference between a terrible flop and a great classic.
Actors who do a good job make a big difference, but ultimately, it's all about input from and by many other people.
Movies are a group effort, and if a movie is victorious, it's always a group effort (very, very rare, statistically, over movie history....less than 1% of all released feature movies are classics or even simply good movies). - [About actor longevity and ability to reach old age in health and propsperity, and why lives of many actors end tragically]:
Actor health and ability to reach old age in prosperity are importantly connected to social networking and connections (family, friends, etc.) and also personal financial and material resources not earned through actor work or connection with the movie and televisions industries.
Actors who start out as young unknowns in Hollywood and New York City in the USA and go on to a long and prosperous careers and healthy, happy old age (not many) usually have connections and resources other actors don't.
The "have not" actors who start with few resources and do well are the ones who make a point of getting resources and connections at the soonest possible time. All this has very little to do with acting and artistic ability and accomplishment.
It reflects Darwin's correct "Survival Of The Fittest" hypothesis of fame, and it explains why so many talented actors over history have tragic and often short lives which come to unhappy endings. - [About biographies and autobiographies which are incomplete and/or inaccurate]
People (actors especially) glamorize and congratulate themselves over accomplishments in their lives. Autobiographies are often hagiographies, intended to portray or imply sainthood. Mostly, they avoid times of trouble, pain, failure, unhappiness. I really didn't have a "neat" career/ work life, even though accounts about me I've written and others writing about me made it seem better than it was.
I completed my undergraduate classroom degree requirements at Antioch College Ohio at age 21 in 1965, was hurled at high speed through many dozens of mostly short term jobs. I lived at 88 street addresses (snail mail addresses) over my life, most of them after my Antioch years.
I made no money worth talking about, certainly was unable to save any money, lived many places, had many bad jobs not one of which I miss or was not glad to leave. I was unable to marry and support a wife and children in stable, comfortable circumstances, and this accounts for the multiple (3) short marriages I had, and why I fathered only one child.
It was a rough life.
I calculated I worked at over 96 jobs during my life (more counting one day jobs, short temp jobs, etc., of which I had many).
I lived at 88 places (different street addresses) over my life.
I had mostly lousy jobs, was on the move constantly. Over the decades, basic life expenses (residential rents, motor vehicles, travel, etc.) got more expensive and I made less and less money. I was much more prosperous in my 20s than in my 60s. Finally I was able to retire and live in quiet, reasonable comfort when I inherited family money in 2006 at age 62. Old age has been a lot easier than times during my adulthood before old age. - [About Retiring From Movie Actor Work At Age 70 In 2014]:....
Here is a brief summary of my movie actor career before I retired in 2014:
I began work as a stage (choral singer) performing artist at age 9 in 1953 in Baltimore, Maryland USA and continued into stage actor work (lead actor in my senior high school play 1960, also lead actor in the Baltimore, Maryland USA Catholic Youth Organization annual one act play contest for St. Matthew R.C. Church CYO 1959).
In January 1963, I was the lead actor in an Antioch College Ohio 5 minute student film titled The Easter Parade, shot on location in downtown Chicago, Illinois USA. I played "Jesus In Chicago."
All movie actor career work is intermittent, and my career was no different. All movie actor jobs are "temp jobs" separated by periods of unemployment and non-movie actor jobs.
I first went to Hollywood, California USA to begin paid movie actor work in 1970, worked on many student, independent movies, and finally was hired by major Hollywood Screen Actors Guild signatory studios. In time, I became a member of the Screen Actors Guild, began using "Tex Allen" as my professional name, and was assigned a "name page" on WWW.IMDb.Com, the world's largest movie celebrity information website.
I "retired" from movie actor work in 2014 at age 70 and was granted "honorable withdrawal" status by the Screen Actors Guild (now named SAG-AFTRA).
I'm glad to be retired from movie acting. Movie actor work was very hard work, and included many, many 18 hour days, often lots of physical dangers of various flavors.
Movie sets were often unsafe, especially outdoor, on-location non-movie studio sets (e.g. high speed car chases, explosions, flying debris, dangerous sunburn, frostbite, etc.).
During my career I was injured often, and witnessed and heard about gruesome accidents and injuries other actors suffered. Actors are almost never compensated for injuries they suffer on movie sets, the SAG-AFTRA union usually doesn't help much or at all, and movie employers pass the buck, put the blame on others, and wring their hands.
The life of a non-movie star working actor is always hard, has been that way throughout movie history since early Silent Movie days.
Movie makers like to film dangerous scenes because the public likes to watch such scenes.
Presenting scenes dangerous makes for exciting movies. It's profitable and will never end (and neither will danger for actors) as long as movies are created, and sold to the bloodthirsty public. In addition to problems with physical dangers part of movie making, it is also true that the process of movie making involves shooting of very many short fragments (averaging about 6 seconds long).
These fragments are often re-shot, sometimes many times.
The nature of movie production involves the shooting of many fragments of the movie script out of sequence, and is thus often tedious and unsatisfying and tiring. Movie production days are sometimes very long and exhausting.
Movie actors are in the center of the theatrical feature movie process, and problems and difficulties which result affect every actor, no matter how well compensated or how well rewarded each actor may be.
Movie actor work is always hard work, always exhausting. An intelligent, experienced actor soon realizes this, and takes steps to defend himself or herself from problems always potentially part of movie actor work.
The "art of self defense" must be learned early and internalized. Actor survival depends on that.
Movie making is often dangerous, and not just for "stunt men."
This is true for all people working in an industry where bad labor conditions and practices are commonplace.
Bad work conditions are widely accepted as "unavoidable" and "inevitable." Neither of those conclusions is true.
Making movies under humane and intelligent work conditions is possible, and has been done before in the past.
Labor which cannot be performed under healthy and humane conditions should be refused. It is not sensible or logical to agree to or submit to brutal and unreasonable (and illogical) work conditions whether in the movie industry or in any other industry or enterprise which requires human labor.
Laborers should refuse bad labor conditions, not agree to be part of it or to accept it in any way.
Those who hire laborers have a moral obligation to provide only decent and healthy labor conditions. This includes, but is not limited to, reasonable hours of work.
The wrong motives and bad character of some movie employers along with workers who collude with such employers is at the heart of the problem.
Standing up to the bad guys, refusing to work for them, avoiding them, and evicting them is what the whole situation facing workers is all about.
Surviving and being part of movie making without the bad guys.....can it be done? Yes. It's been done before, and it can be done again. It just takes planning, high standards, and courage.
Hollywood style movie making (not necessarily in Hollywood anymore, and not limited to feature movies and certainly including national television drama filming) is dangerous and has been for a long time.........actually through the entire history of the movies as a big time business which time period extends back to the early 1900's and silent era "primitive" movies.
The history of dangerous working conditions and disasters and loss of life during and as a result of movie making is extensive and legend. - [Why I was married three times, always for short periods]
My parents were my role models, and they were married 62 years. I thought, when I was very young, it was natural to get married and stay married. I had no idea what it was like to be married, or how I would react to problems caused by marriage.
I was always attracted to independent, highly intelligent attractive women, and when I came of age in my early 20's when men and women most often engage in courtship relationships which lead to marriage, adult young women I courted as possible future marriage partners were influenced importantly by propaganda which dominated mass media in the late 1960's and 1970's which advocated radical feminism and extreme independence for adult women who did not desire to be dominated or controlled by males. This lead to huge problems for couples entering into traditional marriages during the late 1960's and 1970's (two of my three marriages occurred during the 1960's and 1970's). Leadership and control of marriages by male husbands was rejected by leaders of the radical feminism movement of those times. Women were exhorted to resist and refuse male leadership, even after entering marriages which began with traditional marriage ceremonies where women stated aloud they would "honor and obey" as well as "love." I insisted, after I was married to each wife, that wives accept my leadership decisions. I communicated a policy to all three of my wives of "my way or the highway." All three of my (independent, radical feminist minded) wives chose "the highway" over their husband's way ("my way"). Confrontations with new wives intent on refusing husbandly direction and dominance occurred in all cases soon after the marital honeymoons ended ..... roughly one month after the legal marriage ceremonies were completed and legal marriage began for me and my new wives. When new husbands face confrontations with new wives at the start of marriages, husbands often back down and accept wifely refusals to be obedient to husbandly direction and demands. It is the price of peace many (most) husbands pay. I didn't feel this was a price worth paying. I had observed the very rocky and unpleasant marriage of my parents (married 62 years until "death did them part"), and I decided I did not want to follow the path my father followed by placating and giving into my mother very often to "keep the peace." Some peace isn't worth having, I decided. Warfare is also horrible. The only way to end otherwise inevitable war is to end the marriage, unhappy and unpleasant as that always is. This is true regarding confrontations between husbands and wives over many non-sexual issues and agreements, but the subject of sexual relations (traditionally socially acceptable only between legally married couples) deserves specific comment here. When I got married (3 times over a period of 31 years), I learned that wifely sexual enthusiasm, cooperation, and availability at the start of marriage does not continue. The price of wifely favors increases over time, and the frequency of those favors diminishes.
I came of age in the 1960's when the Sexual Revolution of that decade was just beginning.
During the year 1964, I turned age 20 and stopped being a teenager! (I had always been immature teen-ager!).
I had a good time with the girls in my 20's.
From 1964 to 1974!
The Sexual Revolution was on..... birth control pills were everywhere ..... girls were ripe and luscious, and most had no last names!
All (well.... most) of the girls I met (my age, in their 20's) wanted to audition for the job of Mrs. David Roger Allen because I seemed to so many of them like the boy most likely (which I was!).
I was a very promising fellow.
It seemed to me girls I met desired to be pensioned off for life, and wanted me to pay mega-money for their expensive children (private schools, summer camps, private colleges, expensive weddings, etc. etc.). I also noticed the domination of the Honey Do syndrome (Honey do this, Honey do that) in marriages which seemed to me to wear husbands down the way dripping water can wear down and erode a giant bolder to the size of a sand pebble. The small tasks and errands wives insist that husbands provide from the Wedding Day and Honeymoon into white haired old age wear husbands down over time, and explain why wives often outlive husbands by 30 years or more.
It seems to me one of best and easiest available summations about grievances married men have about unsatisfactory wives and marriages is contained in the the joke song from the Broadway (USA) hit musical titled My Fair Lady (1956), sung by lead actor Rex Harrison. The song is titled "I'm An Ordinary Man" and has a refrain phrase "But Let A Woman In Your Life" about what often actually happens to "ordinary men" who are satisfied with their solitary lives until they get married, and find their lives dominated by women/ wives. It's a great "gripe song," and contains wisdom as well as humor. A well written song with similar wisdom from the same Broadway show (My Fair Lady 1956), also sung by Rex Harrison is titled "A Hymn To Hymn" and contains the recurring phrase which is also a question.... "Why Can't A Woman Be More Like A Man?" More humor, more wisdom I commend to all people pondering the questions and problems which arise in marriage, and usually are never resolved or corrected.
I got married three times (in 1968, 1976 and 1999), noticed honeymoons always seem to end after one month ......
These marriages reminded me of the Woody Allen joke about Jewish girls (applies to non-Jewish girls, too, I think!): Woody joked that Jewish girls don't believe in sex after marriage! I was also reminded about the famous Wedding Cake joke: Girls stop planning to provide sexual stimulation and relief for their man when they get their first taste of wedding cake.
Men are very gullible, and women are very opportunistic when it comes to the actual realities of marriage, its politics, and its so-called benefits. This has probably been true since the beginning of history.
St. Paul advises people (in the New Testament) not to get married. The Roman Catholic Church sometime around 1000 A.D., began a no more marriages for priests policy. I can see why. - [About the value of formal higher education for actors]
I am a formally educated actor who earned two university degrees. That is unusual. Of the literally tens of thousands of actors who have performed on screen since movie history began in roughly 1895 with the earliest Edison Studio films which used actors, only a tiny percentage of actors have attended accredited colleges and universities, and been awarded degrees.
College graduate actors include Arnold Schwartzenegger, Leslie Gore (Sarah Lawrence College), Joan Rivers (Barnard College), Ali MacGraw (Wellesley College), Gene Kelly (University Of Pittsburgh), Katheran Hepburn (Bryn Mawr College), Matt Daman (Harvard U.), Ben Affeck (Harvard U.), Owen Wilson, Harrison Ford (Rippon College), Ronald Reagan (Eureka College), Don Knotts (U. of West Virginia), Ron Howard (U. of So. California), Bill Cosby (Temple U.), Michael Palin (Oxford U.), Terry Jones (Oxford U.), Eric Idle (Cambridge U.), John Cleese (Oxford U.), Graham Chapman (Cambridge U.), Terry Gilliam (Occidental College), Robert Vaughn. Many actors have attended accredited colleges briefly, but then dropped out without earning a bachelors degree or higher.
I was awarded a B.A. from Antioch College Ohio USA and a Master's Degree from the University Of Maryland USA), and that made me different than most other actors I worked with over the years.
Actors have to be a lot of things - attractive, talented, comfortable with difficult personalities and situations, capable of enormous quantities of physical work, long hours, etc. etc. - but people don't expect them to be highly educated. I was different than most actors.
I went to school full time for 20 years, studied at 4 universities, earned two degrees, one with honors.
After school, I got actor work portraying educated people, and I knew about them because I was and am one of them.
I think it makes a difference to have actual experience with the worlds and personality types one is expected to portray. I was often cast as a businessman, politician, suburban middle aged husband, supervisor, military officer, CIA or Secret Service supervisory and management officer .... as characters who wore tuxedos and good quality business suits w/matching shirts/ties/belts. It was always important for me to have the social and verbal manner of the educated types whose life preparation prepared them for these roles.
Smart people aren't the same as the majority of people, and educated smart people aren't the same as uneducated smart people.
Education requires more than simply being smart.
It means having discipline also. - [on Acting As A Vocation Rather Than As A Profession, And Why I Was More Of A Vocational Actor Than A Professional Actor]
I never made much money for actor work I did during my working life, and thus I would state I have been much more of a vocational actor than a professional one.
Professional actors who are widely honored and well paid are at the top of world of actors.
These successful professionals are a minority group in spite of how widely publicized they are. They are not typical in the wider world of actors, most of whom are badly paid and compensated.
I was a serious actor from a very young age, way before I ever became a paid actor.
Most acting I did over my life was not paid, or not paid much.
For me, acting was a lifetime vocation at which I achieved great personal success and accomplishment, even though I made very little money from acting, and was seldom able to pay for basic material life expenses from money I got acting.
Professional actor work is all about, or at least mostly about money, and vocational actor work is not.
If making money and spending money are the most important things in life, as propaganda by self-interested commercial forces (which dominate world media and world governments) urge us all to believe and accept, vocational work badly paid is not important and does not deserve attention or honor.
I never believed this, and made my way through life (I'm almost 80 in 2016 as I write this) without earning much money or getting rewards money provides.
Vocations badly or inadequately paid (actor work is only one such vocation ..... most vocations in the fine arts and literary arts also share this) are important to people called to such vocations, and people like me pursue them anyway, in spite of money and material problems which result.
All the talk heard often among actors about being professional is talk about money getting, not usually or importantly about truth, beauty, or high moral and aesthetic standards valued highly by vocational actors and other vocational artists.
The marketplace, and those who control it, sets the standards for professional actors, and sets limits important to consider.
It is possible to be a committed and accomplished vocational actor without being a successful professional actor (success in the commercial world of professionals being measured by money getting).
Vocational actors have great influence, and always have been over history. They are important and worthwhile, and worthy of honor which very often never comes to them.
Their importance cannot be overemphasized, nor can that importance be downplayed when and where big or even moderate money and property fail to arrive in their lives based on actor work they have done. - [ On wrongful accusations about me that I suffer from Bi-Polar or Manic-Depressive mental health disorder, all untrue.]
Over the decades (since the 1970's, about 40 years) I have wrongly been labeled bi-polar or manic-depressive by people who have wrongly accepted a misdiagnosis about me made in the 1970's. Here are details about that:
I am NOT bi-polar or manic depressive, and never was.
I got the bi-polar label in the mid-70's after my marriage (to my second wife, the former Kathy Welsch (born 1950 St. Paul Minnesota - ), mother of my son Timothy Nicholas Allen, born 1977) by people interested in defaming me .... many gathered around to do this when it seemed I deserted my wife and child (which I didn't ..... my wife deserted me in 1976 due to the advice and cheer-leading of her family, which didn't like me .... I didn't want to work for her father's business, and had said so ...... my in-laws didn't like me for a variety of reasons, etc. etc.)
The bi-polar label is well loved by anyone who wants to claim a short term condition is actually life-long and can and will return frequently and unexpectedly. Nightmare thing, nightmare label, used for defamation .... used in the 70's and later (based on the single WRONG and INACCURATE 70's diagnosis.)
I've been stricken with Major Depression Disorder, which means a BIG depression which lasts usually about 6 months and is caused situationally ..... by a problem in one's life.
Last year (2016) I worried, got depressed about RETIRING, and moving to an OLD AGE govt. paid for building for low income oldsters. Ugly prospect, and I (intelligently) got depressed about that. I'm recovered.
I was not Manic before the depression set in. Eccentric behavior is NOT mania.
I have been guilty of getting Major Depression Disorder several times over the years. Was NEVER bi-polar or manic-depressive.
Many individualistic people who are eccentric at times get labeled Manic among other insults and defamatory descriptions. People (most) don't like eccentrics and/or individualists. Old story.
Eccentrics and individualists get attacked and defamed! Hence, the wrongly assigned bi-polar/ manic-depressive label to people like me (sometimes eccentric and unusual). - {On The Fact That Statistical Information About Movie Projects Are Often Under-reported Regarding Money Movies Earn And Professional Manpower, Especially Professional Actor Manpower Used In Movie Projects)
Figures about movie earnings and manpower used in movie projects are under-reported.
Movies earn more than public sources report, and use many more persons (actors, etc.) employed on projects than are reported. I believe this based on what I observed on the sets of many movie projects I've worked on, and other research I've done over the years.
Public information websites specializing in movie earnings and manpower statistics, such as WWW.TheNumbers.Com movie financial information website and WWW.IMDb.Com Movies, TV, and Celebrities website (the world's largest movie information website...4.4 million movie titles, and 8.5 movie personnel biographies, etc.) owned by WWW.Amazon.Com under-report statistical information regarding money earned and manpower hired erring on the low side of the truth.
From the very beginning of its history, the movie business has been guilty at times of varied forms of dishonest and unvirtuous behavior. Tolerating dishonesty and lack of virtue to some extent is a requirement for those who intend to profit from or just even enjoy the results of good movie making..... this includes people watching movies in movie theaters and on television screens worldwide. It is unlikely that this problem will ever end or be corrected, sadly.
Show business of all kinds (including non-movie industry show business) has always attracted criminals and unworthy people of various kinds and at various levels. Some of these bad people become major players in the movie business. That was always true, and still is. Tabloid publication reporting of movie business and personnel related scandals is importantly based on this truth.
The history of modern movie production and consumption is now (2017) more than 100 years old. Movie earnings and manpower used (actors, etc.) have always been under-reported, and accurate historical reporting about movie revenues generated and movie professional personnel used has always been rare and unusual.
Even ancient out-of-copyright movies continue, in modern times, to earn huge money, and particulars are unknown and speculative for the most part.
For instance movies such as "Birth Of A Nation (1913)" and "Broken Blossoms (1919)" continue to earn very big money in various ways more than 100 years after they were produced and first became famous, and after even the most far-reaching copyright laws no longer keep such movies out of the public domain. - [on Actors Who Work On Movie Sets And In Other Parts Of The Movie World To Get A Close-up Look And Therefore Understanding Of How The Movie World And Movies Work, Rather Than To Achieve Actor Prominence, Honors, And Skills]
I was always interested in the movies, and how they were made......what goes on behind the scenes.
For me, the best way to learn more about the movies was to become a player. I did this in order to gain legitimate status as an onlooker, as an observer.
I got into the movie world because I was, from early childhood, a natural actor, born to 2 private detective parents (Foy Allen 1910 - 2003 and Dorothy Hoppman Allen 1910 - 2005) who were also natural actors their whole lives. I learned acting from them and used actor skills I learned very early, in school dramatics and in childhood recreation projects such as talent shows at summer camps, and at the Catholic Youth Organization (of Baltimore, Maryland USA) one-act play contests.
For me, getting low level work in the movie world was very easy. I had the talents and abilities and qualities movie employers wanted, and I was willing to work cheap and under very hard work conditions.
I got movie actor work to get a close up look at the world of movies, to learn more about it, to understand it better.
I was born a good actor, didn't need to improve or to be important and honored in the movie world (almost always run by people whose taste and morals I did not respect ..... low class, low level people, cousins to amusement arcade and park operators).
I believe that most good actors were born that way. Actor formal training and study with acting teachers can never, by itself, change a no-talent actor into a high quality actor. Actors who go on to do well as actors always start out with talent and abilities not created by teachers or training experiences. Teaching and training can be useful and helpful but only in a supplemental way.
I wanted to learn how professional movie makers and workers did what they did. My motive was to bring increased knowledge about movies and movie acting into my personal life, which life was and always will be a perpetual acting performance which must be one of high quality if I expect to survive and have a happy life. - [on the Temp Job/ Short Term Job reality of the movie actor life, and also the non-movie life for actors not part of cinema]
Movie actor work is always short term/ temp work, even for top level, famous movie stars.
All actors experience long periods of inactivity between actor assignments.
The movie-actor "career" is never continuous, and for that reason never stable. This has always been the case from top to bottom ranked actors, from movie stars who get paid millions for a single movie to the lowest level, non-union extra/ background actor (in the ranks of which most future movie stars most often have begun).
Continuing and inevitable financial burdens and demands on actors (such as the need to pay rent monthly, eat food daily, and pay for reliable daily transportation using motorized vehicles, etc.) mean almost all actor must seek and obtain income work from a variety of courses, including commercial modeling and actor work in TV spot ads.
Over the years, my career has included many other typical "alternative jobs" common to most working actors, including TV ad work, print modeling work, and restaurant work as a waiter or restaurant host (also called restaurant "Maitre' De").
In my working past, I sold Briani (expensive Italian designer made) blazer sports jackets, Infiniti motor cars, Budweiser beer, and other commercial products for which actor/ model work I did made me a short term, de-facto salesman.
Long ago, Ronald Reagan earned money in the 1950's posing for commercial print media ads selling Old Gold Cigarette which featured movie celebrity photos holding up "Old Gold Cigarette" packages in the days when cigarette smoking was still fashionable and thought glamorous by many. Ronald Reagan needed the extra money in the 1950's when his days as a famous and successful 1940's era movie star were coming to an end in the 1950's.
When I started paid movie actor work in Hollywood, Caifornia in 1970, I was immediately signed by a then well respected and high profile Commercial Actors Agency located in Hollywood called the Charles Stern Agency, ranked along with the Abrams Rubiloff Commerical Agency in the Hollywood of the 1970's as one of the top agencies of its type in Hollywood. I was sent on many "go-see" type interviews for young commercial actors selling everything from clothes to automobiles during the Youth Culture mania of the 1960s and 1970s.
Over the years, I worked in many dozens of restaurants as a waiter, and very often as the "handsome greeting host" or "Maitre 'De" assigned to guide incoming restaurant customers from the restaurant reception station to suitable, available tables (including sometimes to undesirable but available tables located next to the kitchen door when the good tables were all taken up!). - [on the difference between "Big Audience" and "Smart Audience" movies]
Throughout movie history, terrible, low quality movies have earned big money for those who own and present the movies to paying audiences. The joke which states that "It is impossible to underestimate the low taste of the majority of paying movie goers" is true, I believe.
Commercial Hollywood type movies are always made for profit, and the larger the audience the movie reaches, the better the movie is ranked by commercial interests.
Big money movies are always big audience movies.
Publicity and advertising intended to boost the movies are mostly showered on movies which are already "big audience" movies, or thought to have the potential for that status.
Bad movies which made big money have always been a part of movie history. This has been true of several "Best Movie" Academy Award Winner movies over the decades. Highly honored bad movies.
Movies which have movie star lead actors (i.e. actors already movie stars of fame who get hired, usually for big money, to act in untried movies) are thought, rightly, to have a better chance for commercial success.
Stars with track records sell movies,
At the end of my 51 year career (the last ten years from 2004 through 2014), I was in a lot of big money, big success Major Hollywood Studio, SAG-AFTRA union signatory movies, all of which made millions of dollars in profits (more than $3 Billion were earned by the 24 movies I acted in over 10 years), and most all of which starred actors who were honored , winners of famous awards, and already "household names" before these movies were made.
Movies made for "smart audiences" rather than "big audiences" are often called "art-house movie theater) movies, and most do not make big money or even achieve a widely publicized reputation, at least not when they are first released.
I prefer to watch "smart audience" movies rather than "big audience" movies, and have gathered a list of "smart audience movie" titles, which list I have used to acquire ownership of inexpensive copies of used movies with these titles from vendors such as Amazon.Com from which obscure and very old movie titles can be obtained conveniently and at low cost.
Examples of "Smart Movies" (and TV Dramatic Projects) include The Docks Of New York (1929), The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936, Rosemarie (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938(, His Girl Friday (1939), all of the David O. Selznick produced movies of the 1930's including King Kong (1932), The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937), Gone With The Wind (1939), Rebecca (1940), Also the Preston Sturges written and directed movies of the 1940's (Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1943), The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek (1944)......Also The Maltese Falcon (1941), Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1943), The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948), The Third Man (1949). Also the Sopranos TV series (1999 = 2006) which the Screen Writers Guild called "the best written TV series of all time."
Not all "big audience" movies are bad, and I watch them often, including "big audience" movies I acted in over the years which are also interesting, entertaining, well prepared and delivered examples of performance art worth obtaining and enjoying repeatedly. Movies I acted in and screen at home repeatedly include Syriana (2006), Body Of Lies (2007), Safe (2012). TV dramatic shows I acted in and continue to re-screen often at home include West Wing (1999 - 2006), Something The Lord Made (2005), and House Of Cards (2014).
Even so, "little movies" which are well made not presently famous are worth learning about and collecting. These include foreign movies, low budget domestic movies, and movies from long ago in history which are now largely forgotten and unknown to most people. "Little Movies" I collected and watch often include "Child Bride" (1938), "The Antioch Adventure, Part One" (1967), and "The Return Of The Secaucus Seven" (1980), - I learned a lot about the life of professional actors early due to work I did in my twenties as a movie, stage, and nightclub entertainment publicist, during which I met many celebrity performers. After I began my career as a paid Hollywood movie actor at age 26 in 1970, I met many celebrity actors and non-celebrity actors in the course of my work, and over the decades have had many professional actor friends. Contact with these actor pros has been important in decisions I have made regarding my career and overall attitude about the profession of acting. Celebrity actors I've met personally (usually due to working on movies these actors also worked in) include Alan Rickman, Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Clint Eastwood, Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Keifer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, George Clooney, Ice Cube, Willem Dafoe, Sir Ridley Scott, Don Simpson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Clark Johnson, Rene Zellwegger, Kevin Bacon, Nick Stahl, Susan Sarandon, Amy Adams, Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Jullianne Moore, Ed Harris, Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Frank Zappa, Martin Sheen, John Spencer, Alison Janney, Julie Goldsmith Gilbert, Ken Sylk, Charles Erich Conrad, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Donald Pleasance, Maggie McOmie, Robert Duvall, Sally Forrest, Dino Natali, Penny Marshall, Rob Reiner, Hope Lange, Mrs. Ralph Smart, Toni Manix, Al Hodge (Captain Video), Gene Autry, Cass Elliott, Merv Griffin, Desi Arnaz, Gary Coleman, Tommy Newsome, Abby Lane, Xavier Cugat, Ed Sullivan, Chuck Traynor, Xaviera Hollendar, Ken Jenkins, Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Anthony Quinn, Bette Davis.
I was also influenced by non-movie actor celebrities I met during my life, including major politicians and sports celebrity figures. These included Queen Elizabeth II of England, Prince Phillip of England, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Vic Wertz, Jimmy Dykes, Earl Weaver, Richard M. Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Theodore McKeldin, Spiro T. Agnew, Ben Cardin, Barbara McKulski, Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Frank Zappa, Stephen Jay Gould, Linus Pauling, Daniel Brewster, Thomas D'Alesandro II, and Thomas D'Alesandro III..
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