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I was EATING up every minute.
The Years 1969 and Forward
In my red 1979 VW Camper with the pop-top bed I had an 8-Track stereo and had bought every Ennio Morricone tape that existed. I was adding other film scores and Italian pop music as well and was soon to discover the genius of Neapolitan song. As I drove around Rome the extremely personal nature of the reality I was living combined with the intense emotions provoked by Ennio's scores. "Was this possible?" I kept thinking.
While I had started working in
Hollywood at 19, then NYC for 2 years and then with a Hollywood company in
Europe for 9 months but this new world, Fellini,
Cinecitta', was like a trip to a child's fairy-tale, to Mars, to a
sidereal Heaven.
I took a purchase in a tower and invaded history below me then returned at night to count the events of the day, as if fireflies held in a bottle. They warmed me, the music transported me, the potential for each new day kept my ears alive, my brain whirring. Sleep was difficult.
I was walking distant shores of what I, at that age, considered an impossible dream. "Cabiria", "La Dolce Vita", "La Strada", not to mention "Lo Sceico Bianco" and the other earlier films. Then, while in college in Chicago I saw "Juliet of the Spirits".
Later in Hollywood I began to see the first
Sergio
Leone 
films
featuring the dramatic and haunting music of Ennio
Morricone. 
I
already knew the films of Lattuada, De Sica, Rosselini and the dozen or so
other European directors of note such as Lindsey Anderson, Bunuel, the 2nd
greatest of all - Bergman, the French then the Japanese 2 or 3. But now I
LIVED in the streets of Italy where my favorite films of all were dreamed
up, caste and filmed. "Bitter Harvest", "Two Women", "Love
Italian Style" and all the rest..."Rififi"...stop me!
Rossellini's "Paisą", De Sica's "Bicycle
Thieves", Zavattini-De Sica's "Miracle in Milan"
etc.
While I had first landed in Europe at 23 and had lived in Italy for a month in Nov./Dec. 1969 and from Jan. to June 1970 now I had returned and now I had found the country I loved most...and I still love it the most of all. Yes, more than the USA and more than my second favorite country, England.
Those around me in Rome who took it all so naturally.
I was a 24 year old American fan/professional filmmaker long ago convinced outside my own common sense that what was truly magnificent about life were the moving images and music in dark cinemas that magnified above reality all the human chaos of love, hate, comedy, irony, joy, regret, fear and every and all facets of the human condition. The pathos and bathos of "Life Itself" was not and never could be as exhilarating as seeing creations OF life as a roving invisible deus ex machina sitting silent in a chair in front of a flat, white wall.
Life in Rome stung me every moment of my consciousness with the feeling that here was the most unnatural thing I could ever do but I was doing it. Akin to having flown to a distant star and living amongst the twinkling dust in it's halo.
It must be everything that madness is to observe people motionless for 90 minutes in muted observation of a false-life and yet we are ever-re-honed in our emotional wits by scenes of our own human stories as played out in color reflections and sonic reproductions of astral humans telling a tale, against a wall.
I'll explain briefly about "quotas". In those years the best advise I was ever given about living in Italy I also freely, and wisely, gave out: Do NOTHING legally. No one but fools and those with legitimate contracted employment were properly listed with the police. The Permesso di Sogiorno (Permit to Visit) was a joke. Even if you went to the police for it they often told Americans to forget it and chased them out.
Americans were the Golden People. Legend has it that gold was clad to the arms and legs of every tourist, that cash money flowed as a river from mysterious springs in a shining wonder-world called "America del'Nord".
Any half educated American should have felt that his obnoxious culture was so systemically deprived of worth that no qualitative comparison could be made between it and any European state and many of us did feel this way.
Others walked the streets and silently admonished the natives for the "ancient" ("Oh, its so OLD here!") appearance of their city, the grime on it's walls and the 3 day old beards and mustaches the men (and women ) sported. But, in film work there was a quota for us Golden People. Any non-Europact national was restricted and the cast in an all-Italian financed movie usually couldn't be more than 1 or 2 at the most. Italian producers would hire a name or semi-name Hollywood actor and any other Americans that worked were usually not even given fake billing. In "SQUADRA ANTISCIPPO" Jack La Cayenne was hired to do the role I eventually got. When he got a theater contract and had to give up most of his part I met Bruno on the location set near the Hilton and he hired me to take over the bulk of Jack's role of Ballarin. But while Jack's name is in the film, mine is not. My name isn't in any of the Euro-financed films I made in Europe, not one.
I once met Sergio Leone in his production office once but he wasn't casting for a film so there wasn't much to say and I soon left.
On my 3rd day at Cinecitta' I once again asked Fellini about working with him and in front of his very beautiful, blond secretary he grabbed his balls and screamed at me, "Che' cazzo voi " ("What the prick do you want !") I repeated, "Lavorare con te.", "To work with you!" I meant in a permanent manner, not just as an actor in a film. Besides my being asked to direct the motions of a few cars in the autostrada scene I never got to do more that the two parts as an extra but I did spend about a week with him filming at Cinecitta' and then another 2 days in Trastevere a few months later as I drove a jeep with my, now returned from the USA, wife and son. That scene, 2 seconds on film, remains in the final release version. Years later I was to have worked with him as a proper actor with lines in "CASSANOVA" but just as that small part was being called I was rushed to Basel, Switzerland to start shooting "CASSANDRA CROSSING" in which I had fewer lines than with Fellini but 2 full weeks of work (1 week in Basel and 1 week in Rome). Most of my scenes in "Cassandra" were left in the release version. No telling what might have happened with Fellini.
RETURN OF SABATA Shot at both Elios Studios east and Dino Citta' (De Laurentis Studios) south of Rome Gian Franco Parollini told me that had I come in for an interview 3 days earlier I would have been given a much larger part. As it was they called my part "The Judge" and later I was told it would be 17 days minimum. I was very excited as this was one of my first acting roles and back in 1971 when the average Italian pay was about $100 a month I was being paid $80.64 a day. At that time in Rome you could eat a complete meal for $ .80, rent for a nice apartment was around $30/month and a liter of wine was cheaper than a bottle of water (this last fact remains almost true for today). My ex-wife, son Tom and I lived at Via Laurina near the Spanish Steps at that time. The first day's shooting for me with with Lee himself in the bar set at Elios. I was as nervous a rabbit as ever had lived.
There was the Great Man in front of me. Suddenly my heart and body began to shake, rattle and roll! I brazenly walked up and introduced myself to him and he was very kind and smiled and once recognized I was American introduced me to his wife and daughter. Actually, on film sets this sort of mixing of unknown actors and leads in both the US and Europe is usually limited only to cases in which actors would be working in a scene together, or, quite often, no introductions are made at all. Well, we were about to be working together but I still felt I was a bit out-of-line. I just couldn't resist being friendly and meeting him by name. Since 19 years of age I had started keeping record of the famous people I had met or worked with. I loved the business of film and I was a real fan as well. In future years I got even more out-of-line every chance I had, finally I got bored of meeting famous people as the small talk was just annoying anyway.
Years later I would even be hiring them myself and that was sometimes even worse than small talk. Sad to say but each of Lee's ladies were heavy, particularly heavy in the bum. The AD soon called me over and gave me a beautiful wooden case that held 2 small derringer-type dueling pistols. He gave me my cue and put me in place. I could hardly hold the little box, I was shaking so with fear of screwing up....just shaking with fear standing there inches from Lee van Cleef! "Giudice" ("Judge") called out someone and I entered and proffered the box to Lee. It had been only 4 years before in 1967 when I had first begun seeing the Leone westerns and this man with the "Angel Eyes", this evil-looking, western cad with a dozen weapons and unerring accurate shooting... Mr. Dread, Mr. Cold Blooded Stiletto Faced Assassin. Mr. Super-Cool Western Anti-Hero. And here he was still in the prime of his career, standing in front of me waiting for me to hand him a pistol so he could then "mow down" another cowboy. However, a couple of days later, once I realized I had a good part with 17 days of work, I made a crucial error. I decided $80/day wasn't enough. I went to the production office demanding Lire 75,000 ($121)/day. They said no. I said yes. I said I wouldn't be back unless I got it. They said they'd call me if they changed their mind. They never called. I called them. I called them day after day. They never wanted me back. I had broken our agreement of Lire 50,000/day and that was that. I never did that again. I had ruined a great opportunity and instead of getting 17 days or more (they often ran over) I ended up with only 2/3 days, as I recall.
I loved Spaghetti Westerns! Who didn't back then? I couldn't get enough of them. The Leone rip-offs were fun too so I was always dashing down to the Hollywood theaters, 42nd Street in NY or wherever I found myself in Europe. I saw "DUCK, YOU SUCKER" ("Giu La Testa") on the first day of release in Rome and stayed for a second viewing. I later went back 2 more times. I was seeing all the greatest films of Italy in their original release versions, in Italian in Rome. What a joy! I still do love the best Spaghetti Westerns but for me beyond a handful of non-Leone productions, and all of his (whether directed or produced) today I find the genre a bore. Some of my favorite non-Leone directed films: "UN GENIO, DUE COMPADRE e UN POLO", "MY NAME IS NOBODY" (though he had input into both of these!), "FACE TO FACE" & "CORRI UOMO CORRI".
