More adventures in the film industry.
I was very lucky in my two years with the Burt Reynolds TV series “B.L. Stryker” to have both my brothers working with me as my team under the renowned art director Carol Winstead Wood. We were a well oiled machine, and she knew we would always come through for her.
During one period we had been working even more intensely for several weeks. Long hours going at full speed catching up with the shooting schedule. Pedal to the metal. We were tired and beat up, but we finally had a couple of days where we could kick back and relax… a little.
Carol drops by the sign shop one day to see if we were still alive. She was relieved that we were.
She says to us, “Hey guys. You want to spend a day doing something interesting?”
That “something” was being actors in the next episode which was about to start principal shooting in a couple of days. Or at least that’s how she sold it. I personally think it was a prank. Carol has a hell of a sense of humor. It can be twisted at times.
We all jumped at the chance to get away from the daily grind and be big shot actors too. She had already made the arrangements and done all the paperwork to turn us from “Joe Lunchbucket” to “Tom Cruise.” Or so we thought.
All we had to do was show up at about 6:30 a.m. at location. Just dress normally.
She faxed over the location. Turns out to be the most well known strip club in Palm Beach County: The Mermaid on Southern Boulevard.
Now, there are strip clubs… then there are strip clubs. They are not all the same.
There are high end kind of places that are the destination of bachelor parties for Palm Beach “trust babies” and the very wealthy. The future groom and his group drive up in Porsches and Mercedes. The bar tabs are on par with many states’ budgets. The “dancers” look like models or Las Vegas showgirls.
Then there are the gritty greasy “clubs” where the bachelor and his loose group of cronies walk in wearing dingy baseball hats and their equally dirty work clothes.
They are driving old noisy pickup trucks or motorcycles. Often used also for the perennial “Joe Just Got Out of Jail” parties. The dancers are grandmas with lots of tattoos, many of which are kinda faded. They support the biker boyfriends with their income, and they are usually there to watch over their investment.
You can guess which type the Mermaid was.
We were assigned our acting roles as “customers.” (Where’s my copy of the script?) Sitting at tables with mugs of fake beer, we were really just living props.
The regular dancers were not there. Girls who looked like international models were limmoed in for their parts.
Our first disappointment was the breakfast we got before things got going. The extras – which included us – were herded into a back area out of sight. We were brought some foam cup coffee and what looked (and tasted) like a 7/11 pastry.
It wasn’t the cooked-to-order full breakfast we were used to in the crew catering area.
Turns out that extras are treated like Hungarian refugees in a camp, or cattle at best. Feed ‘em and herd ‘em in.
As I was deposited to my table in the bar, I looked to my left and Jim Reynolds (Burt’s adopted brother) had stationed himself leaning against the wall talking to one of the “strippers.” Yeah, he had gotten himself a day’s work as an extra.
We were told this from the beginning. As each take begins, continue doing the same thing. If you were “drinking” the fake beer, you keep doing it. If you were scratching your head, keep scratching it. It makes it easier to splice in different angles to create the scene.
My big mistake was to be smoking a cigarette when the first “action” was called.
How great! As a smoker at the time, get paid to kick back and have a smoke!
How many takes could this simple scene run anyway?
Reality bites. It took all of a 12 hour day and God knows how many takes.
I burnt through two full packs of cigarettes, and by the end of the day my ability to breathe was almost gone. Hacked for days.
Now Jim Reynolds was a whole other story. Having spent much of his life trailing behind his brother on movie sets, he knew the system. He positioned with his arm around one of the bikini clad girls. Where she had to stay all day… in place.
Yeah, there weren’t no “Me Too” movement back then.
We were glad to be back in the shop the next day and swore not to ever do that again. Tom Cruise’s job was safe.
Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
