From the PIX News At Ten... to the Saturday Late-Night Movie
Here’s a New York story I’d like to share with you.
It’s 1983. I had been working in New York for only a year and a half when I got a call from a casting director who asked if I would be interested in appearing as myself in Paul Mazursky’s new movie, Moscow on the Hudson. I told him, no I wasn’t interested. I was way too busy anchoring the news with Roger Grimsby. WHAT????!!! Are you kidding me? OF COURSE I was interested!
First of all, Mazursky is huge! A Brooklyn kid who started out as an actor (played a juvenile delinquent in The Blackboard Jungle, for one), became a screenplay writer, and prolific director. Among his long list of directing credits, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, An Unmarried Woman, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, to name a few.
And then, when I was told the star of this movie was ROBIN WILLIAMS! I am SUCH a fan. He is an insanely talented guy! I could not believe my luck.
Again, remember, I was still a relative newcomer to the big city. This kind of stuff didn’t happen in Sacramento, where I worked before coming to New York. Not even in San Francisco, where I pounded the pavements for a few years as a street reporter for Channel 5. Kept waiting for someone to ask me to be in a movie. Never happened.
But New York? Whole different town, whole different story.
I meet Paul Mazursky, the great director himself. Asks if I can handle one line of script. I have to think about this, because I had never been in a movie before. But I start acting right then and there and say NO PROBLEMO.
The movie is about a Russian musician, played by Williams, who comes to New York with a circus troupe and defects while shopping in Bloomies.
The following Monday, I arrive at the set which is already teeming with actors and crew, make-up artists, Third Avenue lined with camera trucks, trailers for the actors, all the excitement you would expect on a big movie set. I actually get my OWN trailer! For my ONE measly little line.
Except that the director changes his mind about that one line, which I had practiced only a few hundred times. He says, throw out that script, I want to expand your scenes! You’re going to chase Robin Williams all through the store and then out into the street, yelling reporter-type questions at him, then do a report, just as if it were real. And you can just ad-lib the whole thing! What??? I wasn’t ready for this!
So what I thought was going to be a one-day shoot, turns into five days. Channel 7 was very easygoing back then, even did a story on me being in a movie, and didn’t once squawk about my missing work for a week.
The exterior shots were on location, at the corner of 3rd and 59th. Outside Bloomingdales. But the interior, now that was something else! They re-created the ENTIRE first floor of Bloomingdales at, I believe, the SilverCup Studio in Long Island City. It was so authentic-looking, I wanted to whip out my credit card and start charging! Truly awe-inspiring.
And then, I got to do my big scenes with the STAR. Everyone asks me what Robin Williams is like in person. I can tell you truthfully he is one of the nicest people I have ever met. But I didn’t know this until AFTER the movie. Because DURING filming, he stayed completely in character. A guy from Russia who spoke NO English! So you could be sharing an elevator with him between shoots, and he would be shy and intimidated. He never broke character. Not once.
I actually have more stories to tell about this experience, but I have to go work on tonight’s newscast now.
BTW, Moscow on the Hudson is shown often on television, usually in the middle of the night. It’s really a good movie. And funny. And I’M in it, for goodness sakes!
I just got another residual check for my role. It comes to $7.42, before taxes.
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Comments: 91
It must be a good movie if you're in it! And after taxes, that check will get you a yummy venti drink at Starbucks!
Unfortunately no one cares what your opinion is
Wow so does that mean you will get residuals for life? Very cool. Every bit counts, especially in this economy that's for sure. :)
That is actually one of the best comedy movies made in decades. I remember your scene outside Bloomie's - great street scene, and you and your microphone gave the scene a very New York feel.
why is everone sucking up to you, you read a script off of a prompter every night. LADY, YOU ARE NOT FAMOUS !
No matter how much you think you are. None of you in this so called business are
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