Rebel by Nick Nolte

Author:Nick Nolte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

MIKE MEDAVOY HAD ALREADY BECOME A LEGEND IN THE INTERNATIONAL film community by the time he saved the day and got the final essential images of Under Fire safely out of Mexico, escorted by Joanna and me. I was grateful for his leadership and his friendship—especially after learning once we were back home in California that the Mexican government had indeed confiscated everything of which the production was in possession, and that Spottiswoode and the rest of our American crew had been locked in a Chiapas jail for a couple days before they were given stiff fines and released.

Medavoy’s expertise was enough to ensure that the picture made money—at least once the international box office was tallied—but the critical response was mixed. Roger Ebert wrote that it was “surprisingly, one of the year’s best films.” But Vincent Canby said the film “means well but it is fatally confused.” Personally, although I certainly didn’t like every film in which I acted, I was enormously impressed by Under Fire when I first saw it, and I couldn’t believe that a film that good could have risen out of the ashes of our Mexico shoot.

I seldom find myself siding with producers but I credit Mike Medavoy for ensuring that what might have been a disaster in every way became a film I’ll always be proud of. Mike once famously quipped that the Hollywood film industry “is a business that eats its elders instead of its young.” He was right about that, and although I had turned forty-two, I was still lucky enough to be perceived as a “young” actor. But the truth was that I was beat up. Legs and I had been living large for several years by now, and the intensity with which we partied had taken a real toll. I’d made a lot of movies in only a few years, and after completing each one I needed at least a month—often much longer—to get back to a state of equilibrium. And once I was home and Under Fire was behind me, I was utterly exhausted.

Although Legs and I had settled in Malibu by now, I couldn’t stay home and simply recuperate because, she contended, I had to go to West Virginia to help one of her family members celebrate his birthday, as I’d done in previous years. She would stay home from the boys’ weekend and tend to her own adventures. Our marriage was in a very precarious condition, as she was a young woman committed to a life of hard partying and I was feeling like an old man tiring of the scene rapidly. We were leading separate lives, yet Uncle Bachir, one of Legs’s favorite relatives, was someone I liked to support if I could.

Bachir was a storied gambler—the guy could throw craps like nobody’s business—yet more than once I had to go and buy his house back for him. He wanted me to return to Charleston, where he and his wife, Jenny, hailed from. As he’d done

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.