TOD:
The Trip
The Great Gatsby
That Championship Season
Family Plot
Smile
Drive, He Said
I find however that his daughter Laura is as annoying and untalented as her mother, Dern's ex-wife, Diane Ladd - who shows to what grotesque depths The Method can lead one who does not possess discernible skills....
I'd had a wonderful experience with Diane Ladd when she was doing a reading of a new musical for which she write the book, and a friend was writing the score. I had a ball helping out, got a producer or three there ["Diane Ladd is doing a brand new musical and Connie Stevens is in it with her" was actually quite a tell-me-more grabber and a few who couldn't make it asked for their script and demo.] I've kept the phone messages where she says "Hi Fred, this is Diane" or "Hey Fred, it's Diane Ladd" knowing me really only as her collaborator's friend, as if she were saying "Hi Fred, this is Cousin Miriam" or such.
I recall Skip said something to her and her collaborator that made me gasp at first, that the talents for writing the book, and the flat-out comedy talent for writing the laugh-out-loud comedy sketches within the book, might call for different people; but it seems she asked who some of Skip's BMI students had been, and then decided her letting another comedy writer write those sketches didn't diminish her work in any way. Plus it was a potentially strong showcase/vehicle for her and her then co-star Connie Stevens [who was incandescent at the reading, I thought], and also Lainie Kazan, who was ill then and couldn't make the NYC trip. They got so little rehearsal time in the space, which I found incredible that this could happen even to Diane Ladd!
One producer-director we'd gotten there (a Tony winner for producing) had tried after later reading the script to "grab" the show as both producer and director, but I suspect with all the name directors she really knows, she may have been hesitant to commit to him to direct. That if he produced, and directing didn't work out, might cause trouble business-wise. I've thought it was best not to ask the result there, but I guess that was show biz experience talking.
So I guess my Diane Ladd experience was a joy. (And i got to see Connie Stevens and talk to her. I had to resist asking her about "Back to the Beach" in which I loved her comedy performance so much. She was really something at the reading, yet I couldn't see her giving that performance that full-out 8 times a week for even a half-year run. Nothing to do with her age, she was only 71 or 72 at that point.]
