Category: Eye on Hollywood by Bobbie Cimo

Man vs. Dog

During one of my Canadian vacations, I accidentally came upon a film crew shooting in the streets of Old Montreal. The movie was called  Heavenly Dog. The star of the flick was comedian Chevy Chase (known for the Caddyshacks and National Lampoon’s vacation movies) and co-starring with him was a cute little scruffy dog named Benji. The plot of the movie is about a detective who is slain in the middle of a murder investigation and is given the opportunity to come back to earth—not as himself, but as a dog, so he could solve, along with the original murder, who was behind his own demise. I think it’s pretty obvious who played which part.

With hardly any effort at all, I somehow managed to get some one-on-one time with Chevy Chase. We talked about Montreal, the entertainment business and the movie he was working on. Widely known for his comedic behavior, I was surprised how serious he was when it came to conversing in small chitchat. I guess we all have this image of how we expect someone we see on film to act when we meet them in person.

Because I was on vacation, I happen to have my camera with me. But truthfully, there’s a reason why my friends and family used to affectionately refer to me as the Kodak Kid. If there was ever an opportunity for a photo, I’d be there with my handy dandy Instamatic. ‘Cause nothing says it better than a Kodak Moment (or to help you remember those things that age has a way of making you forget).

As we were posing together, I could tell Chevy was either making funny faces or doing some kind of gesture behind my back. I told him several times to stop, because I wanted to have a nice picture of us together. Every time I told him, he would humbly agree to stop. And like a fool I believed him. I didn’t realize until after I had my pictures developed, that he had put rabbit ears over my head. At first I was annoyed, but I guess Chevy being Chevy, he couldn’t resist. And now when I look at the picture, it just makes me laugh.

Several yeas after the release of  Heavenly Dog I was at a CBS afternoon Affiliates party when I met Benji’s trainer, Frank Inn. Frank, a world renown animal trainer, got his start as an assistant trainer to Skippy, the dog who played Asta in all of those famed Thin Man movies.

Besides Benji (whose real name was Higgins), Frank trained Orangey the cat, who played Cat in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and  Arnold the pig who was best known for his fictional character as Arnold Ziffel on TV’s Green Acres. Frank was so fond of these animals that when he died, all three of their ashes were buried with him.

When Higgins, the original Benji retired, he was replaced by his daughter, Benjean. She was smaller than the original Benji , but fluffier, and the tips of her ears had to be dyed to match her father’s. The older she got, her own ears turned as dark as her dad’s, and dyeing them was no longer necessary. I’m sure she was thrilled. And Benjean forever became known as Benji and went on to star in the most popular of the Benji movies, including  Heavenly Dog, and then on to the popular TV shows.

Not only was Frank kind enough to have Benji perform several tricks when we met, but he allowed me to take a picture with the adorable moppet-like star.

After posing with both Chevy and Benji—man and canine, it’s hands down for me who of the two followed directions better.

Bobbie Cimo has worked in Hollywood for years. She has ALL the best stories.

The People’s Choice Awards by Bobbie Cimo

Not so long ago I received an E-mail from the Nokia Theatre, advertising for the People’s Choice Awards. The ad said they were on sale at a 50% discount. The $40.00 tickets were going for $20.00 and the $200.00 orchestra seats were now $100.00.
Surprised by the ad, I blurted out loud in the office, “They’re charging for them now?” It never dawned on me that they were probably always charging for these tickets, only I didn’t know it. For one reason, I think in the back of my mind, I always thought the attendees were invited guests of the celebrities who were receiving the awards. However, I did know who the people in the cheap seats were–the ones in the balcony. They were people like me, who got their tickets for free.
Every year at the end of November a flyer would come around the building at CBS, announcing the possibility of free tickets to the “People’s Choice Awards”. It stated very clearly that the dispensing of tickets depended solely on the availability of the production company. Which meant we wouldn’t know for sure if we had tickets, until somewhere between Christmas and the end of the year. That was cutting it close, considering at that time the event took place on the Sunday following the holiday. We were instructed to limit our request to four tickets per employee and asked to dress as though we were attending a party.

There was one more stipulation. If after making your request, you pulled a no-show, you’d be banned for life from requesting tickets again. Okay, maybe “for life” is a little strong…but the word “forever” was implied when signing the dotted line.

I have to tell you what sometimes seemed like a perfectly wonderful idea at the end of November, doesn’t necessarily seem so terrific by the following January. Especially after you had devoured every fattening type of food imaginable, in the past thirty or so days. So your first obstacle is finding something to wear that isn’t going to be showing every lump and bump you’ve just developed in the last month. And then there’s the shoes. Besides being dressy, they’ll have to be comfortable–keep in mind, you’ll be standing in line for approximately three hours. Did I mention, when you gain weight, your feet get fat, too?

Now if you’re lucky, it’ll be a cool January day, which means you’ll get to cover up your holiday sins with a lovely dress coat. Mine was velvet. Hopefully the day will be dry and you won’t have to worry about lugging around an umbrella or dripping water on anyone around you–or worse, ending up having a really bad hair day. And occasionally, like me, your friends at home will see you on TV. And thanks to the rain, you‘ll be easy to recognize, as you’ll be the one with the frizzy hair.

Anxiety grows as you stand in line, wondering if you’re going to get a good seat or if those annoying teenagers with the high shrieking voices ahead of you will be seated next to you. But as time goes on, you make friends with those around you. Your feet stop hurting, and you bless the person who invented the elastic waistband on your pantsuit.

Then miraculously, once you’re inside you find there are no bad seats. And the excitement of the audience, especially coming from the cheap seats, fills the air as everyone points out to each other the celebrities they’ve spotted below.

When the show was held at the Pasadena Auditorium, after the ceremony, you could actually stand on the proverbially red carpet and mingle with the stars as they waited for their cars. Some, if asked nicely, would even pose for a picture. The superstars like Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, would usually slip out a side exit into a limo. But even then, you could still manage to get up-close and personal and snap a picture or two.

Now, if you had asked me earlier this year if I was sorry that we still don‘t get free tickets to this event, I would have said no, that I had my fill. But that would have been before I knew that Johnny Depp and Hugh Jackman were both attending this year’s ceremony. Trust me, if I had, there’s not a doubt in my mind that I would have found an outfit and happily poured myself into it just for the occasion.

HOLY STRIKE DUTY, BATMAN by Bobbie Cimo

Today, most of the original stages at CBS-TV City are either being used for game shows or soap operas. But back in the day, along with soap operas and game shows, they were also used for sitcoms and weekly variety shows. Television City was so busy, it was practically going 24/7. In order to be able to get ready for the next day’s tapings , we would have to schedule a “turn around crew” consisting of stagehands, to come in during the middle of the night, to strike one set and set up a new one.

Almost every job dealing with production is attached to a union, whether it be a make-up artist, hairdresser, lighting director, stagehand, cameraman, or truck driver–all the way up to the director, actor, and even to the actor’s stand-in. Without any of these people, production would come to a virtual standstill or at the very least, making it difficult to complete. And when there’s no production, there’s no revenue for anyone.

Negotiations of contracts usually start months in advance between union leaders and Management–both wanting to get the best and fairest deal for their side. But no matter how hard each team tries, sometimes a mutual agreement can’t be reached. When this happens, a strike is called and all union personnel are ordered to walk off their jobs immediately, which leaves only management as their replacements, until a settlement can be reached.

When I say “management”, that means all employees who aren’t part of a union. And just like the union members have to abide by their leaders who ask them to leave their jobs, management is expected to fill in for them. It’s called working strike duty. Training doesn’t usually start until we learn that negotiations are going poorly. And then we start cramming, like college students for a test. We’re taught either by professional strike training teams or management, who use to be union people themselves.

Have you ever heard someone say, anybody can write a book? Oh, yeah, just let them try it.

The first union job I trained for was as a boom operator. For all of you who aren’t familiar with the term, a boom operator is the person who follows the actors around the studio with a microphone on a pole high above the talent’s head. Today, outside of the soap operas, booms aren’t used very often. They’ve been replaced with microphones hidden in the actors’ clothes. Being a boom operator sounds easy, right? Wrong!

After hoisting yourself up on a three foot high platform, the first thing you’re taught is how to put the microphone together on a long rod, that is swung over the actor’s head. Putting the thing together isn’t all that easy, and neither is operating the boom itself. You can swing it in different directions and use a reel to move it in and out, sort of like an upside down fishing rod. Not only is it heavy, but it’s hard on your arms, shoulders and neck. Your main goal is to have the mic just the right place above the actor’s head to pick up his voice, but out of camera shot. This would be simple if the actors just stood in one spot. Unfortunately they don’t. One moment they can be sitting, the next they’re standing or walking around the set. My greatest fear was I was going to hit someone in the head. More than a few times, my greatest fear almost came true…especially when I would relax for a moment and the boom would come crashing forward.

Besides worrying about your mic not showing on camera–picking up a balanced sound and concentrating on not conking anyone on the head, you have to be careful not to cast any shadows that can be seen in the shot. While I’m doing my balancing act in the air, below me is someone pushing and pulling me around on my Ivory Tower, making sure I get to where I need to be. Can anyone say, Dramanine, please?

They once relieved me from my boom duties and gave me a shot at being a camera person. When they did, I thought I’d found my niche. But I was wrong.

During taping of a show, they used what was called the multi-camera technique (something that started as far back as the “I Love Lucy” days). This is when they have multi cameras on the floor and the director calls the shots from the booth into a little earpiece inside the cameraman‘s ear. “And close up from camera three”. We did have rehearsals, but besides practicing your moves, and learning how to operate the side handles for those zooming in and wide shots, you had to know how to run backwards and from side to side–all while pushing your camera around, and avoid colliding with someone else’s. This is all done while looking through a lens. The pressure was enormous and I was glad to give up my post. Actually, I don’t think they ever asked me to come back to it.

Usually, professional stand-ins were hired for us to practice our skills on, but then there were those few times when they would ask us to pick up a script and read the lines for our co-workers to practice on. I, personally couldn’t act my way out of paper bag, so I found the whole thing rather embarrassing. The good thing was no “Soap” actress ever felt threatened about losing her job because of newly discovered talent.

A few years later, once again, I was called in for training. This time, I was placed in the audio booth to do sound effects. I liked this job a lot better, and my timing for ringing the doorbell, slamming a door and tooting a car’s horn were ingenious. Unfortunately, there was more to the job than just doing live sound effects. They also wanted me to perform the sweetening, which is adding sounds after the show had been taped. The audio board had hundreds of gadgets on it…rotary knobs, faders, power mixers and switches. So it wasn’t just a matter of pushing levers or turning knobs. Once the sound effects were used the first time around, you had to learn to cue it up by looping it on the machine so it could be repeated again for the next time. Everything was in the timing. This is not a job for a technically challenged person as myself. But I did get good reviews. But personally I wasn’t comfortable in doing it and was thrilled when there was no strike called for that year, either.

Years later, when another threat of a strike came up, I was assigned as a video tape operator. This called for late night training. I think of all the jobs this was the easiest, but by far the most boring.

The tape went from camera into film can and then transferred onto a video tape machine, where it could be shown over the network and into the viewers’ homes. Threading a video machine is like threading a sewing machine. The most important part of the process is remembering which thingamajig the tape is suppose to go around. But once that’s completed, the rest is simple. You just have to babysit the tape machine to make sure everything runs smoothly–and make sure you don’t nod off while doing it. We were also given lessons on how to edit the tape, by cutting and splicing it together.

Because I’m a night person, I was excited to find out that my training would be starting at 11PM. But the novelty soon wore off after a few days. Working all day and then returning again at night was not my thing. I realized my best night work was at home working on my book and in pajamas.

As luck would have it, (as much for me, as for “Production”) I never had to work strike duty for real. And I never lost any of my union friends over it. They knew, like them, I was following orders.

And the next time you look at somebody’s job and think you can do it just as good as they can, I would say to you, “Not so fast, my “Cape Crusader” friend, it’s probably harder than you think it is….POW!, WHAM! & BLAM!