Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life (7 page)

Richard Dreyfuss played my brother, Curt. I met Richard when I was nineteen. He and my friend, Lynne Stewart, had gone from grade school through high school together, and they had been neighbors. Lynne introduced us one afternoon when we were at her parents’ house. Lynne called him Ricky and that’s how she introduced him to me. And to this day when I see him, I have to make an effort to refer to him as Richard. As fate would have it, Lynne was cast in
American Graffiti
as Bobbie Tucker and she and Richard have a wonderful scene together.

I had a day off and was spending it in my hotel room going over my lines when someone knocked on my door. I opened it to find Richard standing there sporting a black eye!

“Cindy, do you have any makeup?” he asked.

“I have some concealer,” I said.

“Can I use it? I’m shooting tonight and I need to cover
this
up.”

I had him step in and I applied the cover-up. It worked pretty well. I asked him what happened. He explained it this way, “It involved some beer, rowdy behavior, and the shallow end of the hotel pool.”

Halfway through production George assembled twenty minutes of the film, put to music, and invited the cast to see it. Up until this point everyone pretty much thought they were doing a low-budget car movie. But holy smokes, after seeing what George had put together with the score we were all rendered speechless. Except for someone who shouted out, “This is unbelievably
great
!” And it was! If anyone had expectations, this exceeded them. It was a thing of beauty.

George was under tremendous pressure to finish the film. Ron, Paul Le Mat, Charlie Martin Smith, Harrison Ford, and I were on Paradise Road shooting the start of the drag race scene between Falfa and his black ’55 Chevy and Milner in his yellow Deuce Coupe. The script called for Laurie to ride along with Falfa, defying Milner’s protest. Toad starts the race with the signal of the flag. Onlookers watch as the cars fight each other with attitude and speed, barreling toward the finish line. Suddenly the ’55 loses control and careens off the shoulder of the road, rolling into a field and catching fire, Laurie and Falfa’s fate unknown. George shot the first part of the scene cutting just before the ’55 careens. Ron and I were dismissed and walked back to the Winnebago. We had no sooner started to change out of our costumes when the first assistant director came running up to the Winnebago door shouting for us to stop.

“George wants to shoot the end of the scene right now! He has to get it before the sun gets too high.” We protested, arguing with him while we put our costumes back on. “You’ll have to talk to George about it, all I know is we need you to hurry!”

Ron and I were in a panic. We’d been caught off-guard. This part of the scene was not scheduled to be shot today. We made a mad dash for the field where George was standing with Haskell and the crew. Harrison, Charlie, and Paul were gathered around. The sun was coming up!

Ron and I spoke over each other at the same time, “George, we weren’t scheduled to shoot this scene today. We’re not ready, we haven’t rehearsed!”

George said, “I have to shoot it now while I have the cars in position. If it doesn’t work, we’ll come back and re-shoot it.”

At this point we all knew that was a fairy tale. There were simply no more sunrises available on the schedule to shoot the end of this complex scene. And then there was
that
guy
sitting by the generator looking at his watch. George continued (and I paraphrase):
Look, we have to make it work, because at the end of the credits there won’t be a line that reads: “This movie was shot in twenty-eight nights for no money under extremely difficult conditions.”

In other words, we had no excuses. It was do-or-die. The sun was rising and we needed to improvise, and improvise well. They had the ’55 in place and flipped over with a crew member standing by ready to make it look like it was on fire. George explained the shot was basically going to be an all-in-one. I’d be up the hill with Harrison. Ron and Paul would run up the hill toward the car. Ron would get me and walk me down the hill to safety. Haskell would follow us with the steady-cam as we played our dialogue out.

Harrison and I ran to our beginning marks; the car was already on fire.

I said, “I’m going to take swings at you with my purse, is that okay, Harrison?”

And just as Harrison says
,
“Sounds good!” we heard George yell, “Action!”

I grabbed Harrison’s shirt and started striking at him with my purse. Harrison held me at arm’s length. Ron, Paul, and Charlie ran up and separated us. Ron grabbed me and we started down the hill as Haskell and the sound people followed us. It turned out to be one of my favorite scenes.

After the movie wrapped, Francis Coppola and his wife, Ellie, invited the cast for an evening cruise on the San Francisco Bay. Everyone went, even George! It was a beautiful evening on the water. I believe there was a full moon. When we docked at the Embarcadero, George did not have the seventy-five cents to pay for the ferry ride back to Marin County. I loaned it to him. Well, we all know the upshot to
this
Cinderella story. Not too many years would pass before George would end up with enough money to buy the ferry boat
and
Marin County if he wanted to!

When all was said and done, Universal held onto the film and did not give it a proper release until word of mouth by Universal employees who had seen a screening started to sing its praises. After the film’s eventual release it was an overnight hit with lines around the block and sold-out performances at movie theaters. It was dubbed the first “Summer Blockbuster.”

I called Richard Dreyfuss who was on location in Canada shooting
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
. I told him about the phenomena going on. He didn’t believe me. I assured him it was true. He would understand soon enough because aside from its enormous critical acclaim and financial super success, the honors would include his own Golden Globe nomination for Best
Motion Picture Actor—Musical/Comedy. George was nominated for Best Director—Motion Picture,
Paul Le Mat won for Most Promising Newcomer—Male, and the film won Best Motion Picture—Musical/Comedy
.

Although nominated,
American Graffiti
did not win the Academy Award for Best Picture. However, there were several more nods. George along with Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz were nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay,
Candy Clark was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and Verna Fields and Marcia Lucas were nominated for Best Film Editing
.

I had underestimated the power of the Laurie Henderson role because, lo and behold, I was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), their sole nomination for the film. An honor I still can’t believe to this day!

But of all the accolades this little low-budget film garnered, to me the most formidable and dazzling would be this:

In 1995
American Graffiti
was deemed culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant by The United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Ain’t that neat?