Hollywood Television Theater: "Carola" | Norman Lloyd

I have made it a point to never go to Milwaukee and you've still never been perceived well mr. Lloyd thank you so much for joining us here this is an incredible honor for us to have you on our stage and I know our audience as well so thank you very much we have a lot of material that we're going to be showing in this series beginning all the way back in 1951 with the omnibus documentary that you directed on mist on Abraham Lincoln but we're sort of taking up your television career tonight in mid in midway point in 1973 when Carolla was broadcast first broadcast you had completed your work with the Alfred Hitchcock series I believe in 1965 you had been doing some producing work at Universal for theater and Eartha for theatrical feature films and I wanted to I wanted to ask you if you could set the stage for your involvement with the series Hollywood television theatre so we could sort of set the stage for the production of Carolla how did you sort of come to KCET and in this Hollywood television theater series I had moments of intelligence but I had many lapses and so these lapses took the form of my acting Lewis Friedman was producer of the Hollywood television free theater and a superb producer first class producer he produced Andersonville for KCET which won the Emmy yeah and he had asked me at one point to do a production called scarecrow by Percy Makai which I did with Gene Wilder and it all worked very well we had a good time doing it at that point he I'm trying to remember exactly the continuity here at that point he was producing or shortly after scarecrow a production of awaken sing by typical Ritz and he had a director a very prominent director a very good director but they had a falling out somewhere in the middle of casting and he asked me if I would come in and produce and direct awaken singing well I had never directed for camera television I had directed one camera film single camera but he asked me to do this and I loved the play I think it's one of the finest American plays and so I agreed to do it and I brought along with me Walter Matthau and who always rehearsal would say to me Norman do you realize Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting he was a good friend so I brought along Walter and Marty RIT who was an actor before he became a director and as a matter of fact I'd acted with them in the theater so they came along and I had a good time doing it but I knew nothing about handling four cameras I saw everything from a single camera point of view the result of that was that another director was brought in Robert Hopkins who was a master of handling these four cameras as they went along as the show went along and the directors guild has a ruling that whoever calls the shots must get directorial credit so I would stage the piece from the single camera point of view I thought as a single camera but Bob Hopkins would then translate it to four cameras so you got all the movement of the cameras and it was a four camera show and that was how I came to KCET and will be showing the way can sing later on in this series so checking out when it's playing here so know you had a long relationship with jean renoir previous to corolla can you provide us some of the the background for how you met jean renoir your relationship over the years and how it came that he really entrusted you to direct the play for corolla for this for this TV show well I bet ja I was brought to his office aware that I was meeting a really great man in our profession one of the really great men and so I came in I was much younger than full of show-off you know I wanted to show all that I had all the energy in the world and so on he had more and I came in for this part of this sort of half-wit sort of typecasting this half-wit kid who roamed around the farm this is for the southerner black the southerner the film the southerner yeah it was I was having this meeting butch off because he was going to do this picture of the southerner and so I came in and I started doing a lot of acting in the office and look you know but he was sweet he was so full of humanity he was amused and as a result of that meeting I got the part and then we went out on location and we shot the picture and on location I got to know him much better and he was a fascinating individual and we became friends and then later my wife and I were invited to their home John Dido his wife's home and we spent time there that did is there and so up so gradually he became a great friend and we would talk about pictures and we would talk about what we'd see and I would listen to John I remember after he saw a particular picture the Blue Angel when I was over he said it's too bad masterpieces have to be so long [Laughter] he wrote one of the great lines in the history of the world think it's in one of his pictures the line is unfortunately everyone has his reasons I think that is one of the great worthy of Shakespeare so I that's the consequence of what I've described to you I got to know John very well and we became guests at their home and he'd mind and that so I knew Joe very well and along when when I had the Hollywood television theater he I wanted him to direct something for me and he had written this play called Corolla which had received a production at the University of California at Berkeley and now he wanted to do this film but unfortunately time and the human physique took their toll and John was at a very weak state and he wasn't well he was mentally great but physically he was not up to directing a picture so when I drop a Hollywood television theater I asked Joel could I possibly do do it on the hollywood television theater instead of having to go through a whole thing of getting money and getting a production all that kind of thing and he gave me permission to do it and that's how I came to direct it because she said you have to direct it meeting me he and he gave me some he gave us the play to do and I was very proud that I had a Renoir piece that I could attach my name to did that give you a particular a sense of responsibility when you were when you're producing the play when in for television I mean did you feel any kind of weight when you were putting it together or was it something that you just trying to project you do when you are working on a piece by Renoir you do feel an additional responsibility yes you do you know because he's watching you not on the stet not of the stage but you're reporting to him about who's playing which part and so and so forth and I consulted with him Leslie Cameron plays the leading lady and I did that with John and so forth you do feel an additional responsibility when you're working with those people when you're working with the Renoir when you're working with the Hitchcock when you're working with the Chaplin you're you know you're dealing in another sphere not just another director there's there's a demand made on you unconsciously that you are because you become aware of that you better make intelligent remarks because otherwise you're gonna be a fool there is an amazing scene or that you described in one paragraph in your memoir about a moment of time in Hollywood that I just when I finished reading it I almost has died because I was born felt like I was born in the wrong era and I probably wouldn't be hanging out with you even if I had been but still because it's anime scene you described you and John Houseman had started a theater company at a theater on Lok La Cienega is it the Crescent the Corinthian at the corn ethic are in it and in one paragraph you talk about you restored the Coronet Theatre and you were working with Charles Laughton who was performing in Bertolt Brecht's galileo that was world world premiere of his Galilei elaborate Galileo and when the theater was closed you were also booking classic films from the MoMA collection and bringing them out to show in the theater the lobby furniture had been designed by Charles and Ray Eames and you all had this amazing scene happening at the the Coronet Theatre where did well so you have theater you have film you have art and design all in the 40s what point did television enter this milieu and how did television fit into your sense of the arts in relation to theater and film did you feel the kind of passion for television when you started on I may I wish to make a book all the things you're describing before cost money yes and we rapidly ran out but it was worth it so television was just most people worth it and the people you mentioned Brecht Lawton and the actors we had they're wonderful actors and working on this play Galileo which i think is one of the great plays of the 20th century and as I said a moment ago if this was the first production of it that child had been working on it for two years and he was a caution he was an amazing guy he had genius he did but it was fascinating to work with him because you never knew what would happen no television came along about that time and I initially got into it because MCA started to do half-hour television shows of very small consequence but it was a way turning a little bit and it was between pictures pictures didn't come that up and as a matter of fact the reason that John Houseman and I had the theater we had been together in the Mercury Theater was awesome and the reason we had the coroner theater is that John and I said one day you know this is terrible there's no theater we have no theater we're not working enough and we did it so we could have a theater sir that was the only reason and we were lucky to be able to put it together but the point of it was to give us that theatrical activity you when this new thing television came along not so new although it goes back to 1939 now there abouts and you know the oldest piece of live television that exists is five minutes from 1939 is me yes you're in it it's you've got it up there we had it's at the Paley Center and we trying to get it for this series I was going to surprise you but we haven't got it yet but I do I just want to point out what I do in this scene the worst do you have Epis it is so bad it's good you can't believe it well it's remarkable because it was a it was a made-for-television drama directed by Anthony Mann that's right and the only surviving footage of it is I guess it's a someone filmed it off the off the television and only five minutes of it survived and there's no sounds so I guess you're acting couldn't we couldn't judge you're acting all that much because there's no sound but it's the oldest fragment of surviving television and you are in it from 1939 it's amazing the performance is amazing I enjoy watching it I say you are really the worst else was in it there was a girl named Phyllis Phyllis she changed her name to Jennifer Jones okay and there was George Caloris and there was John Cole but we were the three or four people in it I think I remember from that first experience in television is when I was finished doing it I got into the elevator on the third floor at NBC and it came well I know I got in on another floor and it came down to the third floor of the door open and it walks a very lovely NBC page lady and Frank Lloyd Wright and he is saying to this page he having just made an appearance on television he is saying to this page no one will ever watch this that was his prediction about television I have one more question and then we're gonna turn it over to the audience and we'll have microphones in the aisles so please raise your hand and we'll bring you a microphone but over the years working first with omnibus on the Abraham Lincoln biography with James Agee who wrote the script Alfred Hitchcock and then Hollywood television theater did you find even though you got into it to pay the bills that you developed an affinity or an understanding of the medium television and did you come to sort of did you ever come to appreciate gentlemen when I did shed elsewhere if it said elsewhere AHA right st. elsewhere primarily because of the writing I thought it was written as well as any movie that I and then it had a pretty good cast better than pretty good it had some remarkable people one of whom I wish to pay tribute to his head Flanders there was no better actor in America and that's a tragedy what happened with that but he was such a brilliant actor and one is very move one things about him we had Denzel Washington and who called himself the token black and we we had very good people cast and so that show for the six years of we did it I felt about that show that I was working at the highest level that you could work in this business which you usually feel only in the theater but that show had it so when we reply to your question did they ever feel it about television yes would certainly say no swear not but so many other things well I'm gonna turn it over to the audience are there any questions let's go right here in the this aisle right right here wait for the microphone yeah you yeah the microphones coming please speak into the microphone yeah sorry about that my name is Mort Mortimer chambers Norman I had not known this and I'm not even sure I do know it now but the other day in the Los Angeles Times there was an article about you referring to this series that is now beginning and in the article it said that you had suffered in perhaps the 1960s by being associated with what is famously known as the blacklist aren't actors and writers who could not perform in Hollywood because their politics was suspect and I wonder if you could say a bit about this if this is not too unpleasant a part of your career to look back on you certainly surmounted it now but if there was this period when you were persecuted because as the paper said you knew very well many of the liberal people in this community and in fact Hollywood is on the whole a very liberal society so that's my question to you if I understand did you feel at all during the 1950s or 60s any pressure because of the blacklist we did a lot of your friends and people you knew and colleagues have is it did you feel that you had been blacklisted at all I felt it completely not only my friends who were many who were blacklisted but my my associations I mean I was a friend of Chaplin Chaplin was barred from coming back into this country actually Chaplin I was honored by Chaplin to do a story we were going to do which he was going to let me direct and he was going to write and produce it was for his son Sidney that was the annotation if they shoot horses don't they when they bought charlie from coming back when he was in the middle of the ocean he said he'd they said he had to pass a moral turpitude test he said I'll never make another picture in America and he never did and this was multiplied many times with people Lewis milestone with whom I had a very close association and did arch of triumph for them ACTA didn't in walk in the Sun one of the most beautiful pictures I that I've ever known and remarkable picture about the war milestone had to go to Europe Joe Losey had a total view of all these people on you and by association I was guilty of what but there we are so in reply to your question yes I did feel it and it is to his everlasting to my everlasting love for Hitchcock that when he wanted to have me work on his television show the name had to be submitted to the network which was and the word came back and this was told me by Alan the level was the head of television of MCA at the time came back and said to Alan we love the network there's a problem about Norman Lloyd so Alan middle went to Hitchcock and said the network says there's a problem about Norman Lloyd and Hitchcock I can just see him Hitchcock said three words I want him was over it was there any problem anymore you know all that required was for somebody to do that if a lot of if some of the guys had done that you wouldn't have had all these people being you know whatever was going on with so many people who by association were condemned because we know there were tragedies that came out of this Joe another question for me that's right here on the aisle hello I'm just curious if you're watching anything currently and you're enjoying it anything you're watching on TV now or anything you're watching on TV now that you're enjoying is that the question in television it's they say now that now is the the Golden Age of the the new golden age of television where television is the new cinema now whose that shows they say so you'll never improve on the thirty five-millimeter black and white and by the way a lot of directors are saying that now yes not only wha but some very good directors are saying this is the only way to make a picture all this other stuff so I'm subjective about it I I don't go the movies I'm sure there are good pictures there so sure yeah but I start by objecting to the price yes do you know I was raised in Malden raised I was already raised in the depression the Great Depression the thirties during which time motion pictures became the recreation of America and you could go to a movie for a quarter at a certain time a day and even fifty cents you could see at the Paramount thoughtful shell the stage show with Harry James or Lovett Cab Calloway and wonderful performers in addition to the movie and you had wonderful movies but something has happened you just yourselves out there think do you remember the stars of existed in the 30s or are you aware of the stars so I don't have to list them I have to talk to you not only about Gable and Eddie Robinson and Jimmy Cagney and Spencer Tracy and the women Crawford that Betty Davis attracted to are not real stars adult actors they had the quality of being adults you cannot name a star for me today there is no and if I'm to be quoted I will confess that I said it and as for the women and the men and you know even the people who play these leads in these pictures these people there is a quality about the lessons about them I've not been cute about this if you think about the stars I mentioned a moment ago there was something adults about them I mean jobs boy a was an adult when he looked at Betty Davis it was an adult relationship do I have to go on we have a question back here thank you I'd like to ask about the film series at the Coronet Theatre my understanding it was the earliest and most important film series and I wonder if you remember the people who ran the film series at the Coronet I think it was David Bradley and Raymond rohauer so I'm at the film series at the Coronet Theatre that you would help to organize and you were participated in or at least gave a space to can you talk a little bit about the film programming at the Coronet Theatre the film programming at the Coronet it gave away we brought all the pilgrims from the Museum of Modern Art in New York mm-hmm was that the first time in your memoir you described it as the first time that that kind of repertory or classic film programming had happened in lausanne oh yeah yeah it was the first time and and we made this deal with the museum upon not and we read we ran the picture a man who became a director later was the projection is Curtis Harrington Chris Harrison and he assured the whole thing and we ran it during the week and at the hope of getting some subscribers but we delay in yeah yeah I can relate to that we have time for a couple more questions let's go right here bring the mic on down right here yeah mr. Lloyd well I'd like to I'd like to preface this firstly by saying years ago when I had no money I was doing transcriptions of various things for a friend and he was of interviews with people and he had interviewed you about a walk in the Sun because he was trying to get a remake made of the film and I had done this before and transcribing interviews is typically a very grueling thing it's not it's not something I would recommend to anyone because you have people talking to their collars and they've him on bowling and you're your diction was always so wonderful that it was it was such a pleasure to to transcribe your interview as opposed to anybody else's that I was so thankful that you know that I could use but anyway my question is of all the things you've ever done is there some dream project as a producer that you have always wanted to make and just never got to do is there a dream project that you never got to complete that you always wanted to finish stage theater or television was there something that got away that you wish hadn't I was I mentioned earlier that I was going to do a picture with Chaplin as a director I had appeared in limelight for him but I was going to do they shoot horses don't they Chaplin and I owned the property I say and I because he had me buy it in his name so they wouldn't know we owned the property for 16 years at which point he was cut off in the middle of the ocean and said he have anything more to do with American films I did want to do that but I can't really think of anything else that I have really wanted to do so desperately that I would have killable for it no I can't well you've done so much already so it's you've done so much already that's so amazing so your check I've had some luck yes one more question you have time for one more question right down here this is Mike microphone coming to you please hang on okay my name is William link and I worked for you Norman with my Nally partner and collaborator dick Levinson who is link and Levinson he worked he said he worked with dick Leavitt Levinson Levinson my name is Bill link Norman the presence of one of the great men thank you it was great work absolutely Lincoln Levinson they were the history of television they were fantastic mr. link was with great pride told me one day they sold me a story that they didn't know how they were gonna finish that's right what a memory he was very proud of that but my goodness what work they did and Columbo is theirs yeah which is one of the great series that marvelous Erica and Murder She Wrote exactly 14 other on the air series Oh bill it's a record let you hear it's a record oh I wouldn't miss this Norman you know you're a very good director to that come out television on the Hitchcock show you did a couple that were very fine now I wanted to ask you one day I called up your office and the secretary got my name wrong she said mr. wink is on the phone and you said immediately Oh ask him if mr. Levinson is with him that's the only way to deal with writers you know but you you are in the presence of one of the major figures in the history of television this fellow sitting right here with his partner Levinson Richard Levinson a charming lovely guy not to say that you're not but I'm so glad to say hello you thank you so much Lincoln's created this bought them they would that it the tops well if there's one more question we think we have one more let's go for right here right here in the middle good evening mr. Lloyd I wanted to tell you one of my favorite pieces you did for television was the Omnibus Lincoln and you used royal day no and it was so early in Royals career but he's fantastic in it and he really is called upon to carry it which he does and I just like to hear you talk a little about working with him at that time working with royal Dana on the Abraham Lincoln documentary how did you come to cast him and what were the qualities of his performance that you were looking for and just what was it like to work with world they know that early in his career two words two words James Agee Jim Agee wrote the Lincoln pictures and Jim age he was one of our finest writers not only of the liquor pictures but death in the family and he was the leading film critic in the country at the time that he was reviewing film he was absolutely at what she had a kind of genius he was important he he was really he was great and the reason I bring that up in reply to your question when I was he put me on he'd got Desroches want to hire me to direct the piece and I've gotten to know Jim through Chaplin just by way of digression for a moment jim was trying to get Chaplin to do a picture and he wrote a treatment for Charlie to be in it now Charlie at this point was close to 70 they said that he had changed from the absolute he was like a read when he was the I mean he was so thin and pliable and we could do anything skate dance with his body at this point his life Charlie had taken on weight and he wasn't fact because he stayed very active playing a lot of tennis but he had thickened now gym age he wrote this piece and I'll get to your question take your time but at gym AG is responsible for royal they know now Jimmy ng wrote a treatment that he wanted Charlie to do the premise was the atom bomb goes off on the earth and everything is wiped out and then you fasten on rubble and through the rubble comes a cane and with it a derby and Charlie wonderful Jim gave it to Charlie and Charlie said no and if I may say so Charlie gave it to me to read and he said it's very good but I I'm not going to do it because I can no longer play that carrot he's talking about the because he physically had changed he was elderly and thickened and so forth the character he did play when he got older was limelight the old actor so that's how I got to know Jim and we we talked a great deal and he was a wonderful human being terrific guy he put wild anal he cast a know in the Lincoln films and it was a brilliant piece of casting I thought royal was so so good and brought something to it instead of the sort of melancholy holiness he really brought an authenticity to it particularly because it was Lincoln at a certain age very early age and royal conveyed that and so the answer to your question is when I arrived on the scene when they cast me as the director and I was cast by Jim because he's the one who told a roast mom put me on when they when I came to do the picture came east we shot in the East Royal was already cast I had nothing to do with the casting of royal but it was a godsend I mean it was he was wonderful wonderful the picture yeah just quickly that we're showing the first episode from I think was a five-part series of the biography of Abraham Lincoln and that sequence actually the first episode has one of the most amazing sequences in the whole series which is the funeral train sequence after Lincoln's assassination it's really one of the most I think it's just the highlights one of the highlights of the series of series of highlights and that sequence is often sometimes credited to Stanley Kubrick who was a assistant director on the film or working the second unit but really it was a sequence that you had put together sort of you would conceive the funeral train sequence in that he had nothing to do with it right but he sometimes gets credit for it we should set the record straight while he did he did do some still shots in second unit work he wasn't part of that series but it's such a beautiful sequence and mr. Lloyd reads the poem I can't the Walt Whitman poem when last in the dooryard blues right it's an amazing reading it's an amazing sequence oh and that's playing with the last of mrs. Lincoln which was another Hollywood television episode that she put together so it's it's gonna be a good night well that's all we have time for we says we need to move on to corolla but I want to you all so much for coming Thank You mr. Lloyd for your time I appreciate [Applause]