The Making of Tombstone by John Farkis

Author:John Farkis [Farkis, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781476635033
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2018-11-30T06:00:00+00:00

The cover of the eight-page prop program used during filming of the Bird Cage sequences (courtesy Jerry Tarantino).

Sam Elliott was perhaps the most easygoing, professional, likable actor on the set, but sometimes even Elliott reached his limit with Cosmatos. On one occasion, the actor was outside a saloon going over his lines when George yelled, “Sam! Where the fuck’s my Sam? Sam? Where the fuck are you?” Enough already! Sam threw the script down, opened the door, stuck his head in and hit George with, “George, I fucking hear you, George!” He then slammed the door and backed out. George was very quiet after that scene, Elliott then admitting, “In all the years that I shot, I never had to deal with this kind of shit.” According to Zeug, Kilmer was not immune to George’s nonsense, either. One day, out in the middle of the street in front of the Grand Hotel, Val was getting prepared to film a scene when suddenly, the first AD got into it with George. They were going back and forth, yelling at each other. As Zeug recalls, “Finally, Val gets fed up with this, takes the script, throws it on the ground and says, ‘Fuck it. I’m out of here.’ With that, everything stopped, they told us, ‘Go on home. We’ll be here tomorrow morning.’” The next day, the AD was gone.9

Donna Cline vividly recalls, “I heard a rumor that someone in the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was stalking George because they had heard that he had a habit of peeing on the set in broad daylight. No bush, no hiding anything and he would just turn around and pee. One [night] we were filming at Mescal, and we were doing close-ups of Kurt. Half of the crew had already gone to lunch as it was one in the morning. George calls ‘Action,’ and the boom operator soon intervened, saying, ‘Wait a minute. Hold on. What’s that sound?’ Apparently, [George] had turned around and was taking a whiz and yelled, ‘Action’ over his shoulder. [The boom mic picked up the sound.] Even Kurt said, ‘George, come on, man.’”10

And it wasn’t just that. The director had a penchant for soft-shelled nuts and subsequently ruined more than one shot by cracking the nuts and eating pistachios. He’d also go to craft services, get cans of Cheez Whiz, and squirt it into this mouth. Then he’d yell, “Action!” or “Cut!” and it would fly everywhere. One day he was eating a sandwich and yelling at script supervisor Faith Conroy, spitting food at her. Finally, she said, “I’ve had enough. I’m gone!”

Donna Cline: “One night I went out to show him some storyboards. I had been up since five in the morning working, almost 24 hours, and I was so tired. George was in a foul mood. They were filming and I saw unit production manager Terry Collis and asked, ‘Do you think maybe I can [show this to] him? I really need this for the editors.’ Collis said, ‘Just stand here for a minute.

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