Some Tricks of Desperation: A Publicist at Work on Movies by Tom Canford & Jonathan May

Author:Tom Canford & Jonathan May [Canford, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Hollow Square Press
Published: 2015-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

9

THE HAPPY HOOKER

Not a great success, but not the stinker that the previous year’s Three Tough Guys had been (in spite of its Chicago location and stars Isaac Hayes, Fred Williamson, and Lino Ventura and the Isaac Hayes score. Tom went, did his job, enjoyed the people, and came home). The Happy Hooker (1975) was the brainchild of Lynn Redgrave’s then husband and agent/manager, John Clark. It was based on a memoir by Xaviera Hollander, a professional lady who just may be more interesting than the movie makes her (look her up if you don’t know her).

This may be a good time to make a yet another comment or so about Tom’s own professionalism. He always started work on a movie well before his paycheck started. He believed that anything he knew (or had recently refreshed himself on) would serve him in good stead once he got to the set.

A good (and amusing) example from The Happy Hooker: French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont was brought to New York to play one the Hooker’s clients. He and Tom got along like gangbusters, in part because Tom had done his homework and had mastered every aspect of Aumont’s career before he ever met him.

During an interview in which Aumont was asked a number of questions about his career, he would often look to Tom for facts and chronology. (“Yes, Jean-Pierre, that was in 1971 right after you had done . . .”) Toward the close of the interview, the reporter, who no doubt considered himself liberated, asked, “How long have you two been together?” He had assumed they were lovers. Tom and Aumont looked at each other and burst out laughing. Tom and Aumont always got along wonderfully.

With Lynn Redgrave it was a different story. Tom considered Ms. Redgrave to be totally a professional. Not cuddly, in spite of some of the photographs taken with Tom. But Tom respected professionalism and he respected Redgrave.

Her husband, agent, and manager at the time, John Clark, had a tendency to inject himself into every aspect of the movie that involved his wife. Including, of course, publicity. Tom quickly learned that Redgrave would side with her husband in any matter in which there was a difference of opinion. He coped. His modus operandi: try to persuade with calm reason, give in gracefully when necessary, and always cover your ass with a memorandum.

Clark wanted a lot of publicity: interviews, column items, pictures in the media, all of that stuff that Tom thought relatively meaningless to the eventual success of a film. To please Clark, Tom provided all that. When the movie did not do great business on its release, Clark sued Cannon Films for not doing enough to publicize the film. The company lawyers got a copy of Tom’s press book and presented it to the judge, who glanced through it and threw out the case. Subsequently Tom received a most complimentary letter from the producers.

Tom became good friends with co-writer William Richert, who later received some note for writing and directing cult favorites Winter Kills (1979) and American Success Story (1980).

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