Here is a sneak peak at one of my chapters about making action pictures in Southeast Asia.

Men This Way!

Roger Corman exploited all of the young people who worked for him, but he really gave you responsibility

and opportunity. So, it was kind of a fair deal. – Francis Ford Coppola

“Men, this way!” That was my line at the end of my first film with Roger Corman, Wheels of Fire, where I lead a real Filipino army into battle! (Sometimes I’ll yell out, “Men, this way!” in a restaurant just to get service, then sit down and apologize. You really must try it.) In Wheels, I went from being an extra in STII to having a starring role. This action-adventure movie was filmed in the Philippines[2] and it had me literally running for my life, from exploding cars and burning bridges. I was sucked into the ground by a meandering tribe of albino dwarves. (C’mon, who can say that?) They used me as an actress and a crash-test dummy. I was not a stuntwoman. I don’t like catching on fire. (I don’t know why Tom Cruise likes it – must be the rush.) Most importantly, I was not getting paid any extra money to risk my life! Forget that!

I jumped out of a real armored personnel carrier with a hundred men running behind me, firing off all their guns loaded with real ammunition! I later found out later over lunch, that the little general had told his men to shoot off their guns so he could order new bullets! There were guns firing all around me as I was pressed against the wall of a rock quarry, having run out of room to run. Guns, very loud guns - firing off, for a very long time. It was a genuine Filipino army. The director was hiding behind a rock about a quarter mile away getting the shot. I had shell shock for days. I would not leave my hotel room at the Manila Intercontinental Hotel. I would sit on the edge of my bed, just trembling and weeping. I was pissed.

In another take, I’m hiding behind an abandoned-looking car, and it suddenly explodes as I awkwardly dash away in my thigh-high boots—with heels, thank you very much—in 103-degree Filipino heat. I look back. My car is on fire. WTF? I recalled what the director had told me to do—get up and run! But first I had to remember to rip the grenade off my belt and throw it as far as I could. We needed multiple takes, so they had to keep lighting the car on fire and I had to keep falling, eating sand, then getting up and throwing a grenade again. (Go watch the film and you will see for yourself how stunned I am in the moment. Sometimes survival looks like acting. I am often simply trying not to die.) And if you did go back and watch the film, I apologize. It is a horrible film I survived, but it makes for a good story. I wish my first film had been Sophie’s Choice, but I didn’t go to Yale like Meryl Streep. (Cough. Clearing out the bitterness in my throat.)

Being filmed while your life is in danger is the premise of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Stunt Man, with Peter O’ Toole (1980). The plot? It is a story of a criminal on the lamb who gets rescued by a film crew that hides him inside the production. The price for his freedom was to almost get killed repeatedly as a stuntman. That is what Wheels of Fire and my work as the lead character “Stinger” felt like to me. I was not running from the law – maybe from my boring life and reality. But I had a contract to shoot the movie and to show up every day often thinking that I might not survive the day. (I guess I should have read the script a little more closely.) The ground exploded beneath my feet. I breathed air from burning rubber tires daily. It was awful and fabulous all at once. But mostly awful because I was halfway around the world and in a lot of danger.

This was not my childhood fantasy of movie making. It was a nightmare, but the leading man was cute and that made up for a lot of it. I didn’t like him, but I liked the idea of him, my leading man. He was fun to flirt with on the set every day, when I wasn’t running from things on fire. (I talk about Gary Watkins later and his relationship with John Belushi.)

They did write me in a death scene, which is what all actors want. I died well; in fact, I’ve died three times in three different films. I have been blown up in a spaceship, eaten by a monster and thrown off a cliff. I’m a cinematic cat with nine more celluloid lives to go.

The day before I had flown seventeen hours to get to Manila from New York City. I got the role in Los Angeles. Very confusing. Please keep up. I was hip enough to be bi-coastal [A1] for a few years. In Los Angeles, I had gone through wardrobe and was fitted into my leather polyester jumpsuit for my character, Stinger, a bounty hunter in a post-apocalyptic world. (The pants were split up the side to expose flesh, all the way up to my thighs. I did love this outfit.) My first few moments on set, I was sprayed down with fire repellant (a regular thing I do in movies). Then they chopped off my hair to make me look like David Bowie from his Spiders from Mars, very industrial punk. I was rubbed with dirt all over my face and body. What was this? This was pretty bad, but I was making a movie. I had entered that celluloid world. That was all that mattered. I knew it had to get better than this.

Ah, the life of a B-film actress. I always thought coming home from work to my West L.A. apartment after a day on set as an action-adventure heroine, was a funny concept for a screenplay: SCENE NOTES: “You see Laura climbing the stairs to her small apartment, covered in sludge and smelling of gasoline, sitting on the couch, and watching Entertainment Tonight with Mary Hart. After some time of being immobile on the couch, she peels off her headband, kicks of the boots, and squirm out of her skin-tight[A2]  pants.  

I have starred in three low-budget action pictures—action adventure, action horror and action comedy. They were entitled Wheels of Fire, Demon of Paradise and Retreads. Apparently, I do not make any movies without the word action in them. I got these leading roles after STII, another category, Sci-fi action, I guess.

I was indeed discovered by the famous moviemaker [A3] Roger Corman, who also gave Sandra Bullock her first break[3]. Roger also discovered William Shatner, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Charles Bronson, Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, James Cameron, James Horner, Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante and David Carradine[4]. How come they are all more successful than me? I don’t know. There are a lot of men listed here. There are certainly more opportunities for men in Hollywood. (Gina Davis is on a rant about that now. Thank you, Gina.) Maybe they were all more talented, disciplined or attractive than me. That’s not a stretch.  There, I said it.

In my podcast, Your Hidden Power, on the Radio America Network, I interviewed William Shatner and we spoke of his early years with Roger Corman, too. I asked him in our half hour together on air why he was much more successful than me. His answer? “I’m more talented than you.” Such humility. Thanks, Bill.

Sure, it helps to be exceptionally beautiful and talented to be a true success in Hollywood. But to become an action heroine in a low-budget film is a requires different talents. You simply must be tall, athletic, photogenic (enough), and capable of managing abject terror and complete humiliation while a film crew gets their giggles watching you run for your life. To get these kinds of parts, you must know somebody, sleep with somebody or be discovered as an extra. I did number three. I didn’t know a soul and may have been a blonde (blonde joke), but still knew better than to think that sex for trade would get me more than a six pack of beer. Was that my first mistake? Did I screw up enjoying myself with people who had absolutely no contacts or interest in helping me with my career? Nope. I am okay. Today I can still love, be loved, and fall in love because I protected my heart this way, while exposing it to heartache with others. But, you see, heartache was okay – that taught me how to love. I don’t trust men who have never been in love. This is tricky stuff. I should have a twitch or something by now. I do walk with a bit of a limp.