HUMOR
Hollywood Unearthed: Strange Shit from the Set of “Rebel Without a Cause”
Celebrities, they’re not like us!
This installment comes from the unearthed memoir of character actor Jim Backus, titled “Shit I Probably Shouldn’t be Saying!”
Backus is best known as Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island, and for voicing Mr. Magoo, but in 1955 he was cast as James Dean’s father in Rebel Without a Cause. Since Backus (and those he dished about) have long since passed away, his estate decided it’s finally time to publish. Here are some saucy excerpts:
James Dean, Improv Monster
“Coming out of The Actors Studio, Jimmy wanted to improvise every line. He burned each day’s pages so they couldn’t be used, and it took an average of seventy-three takes to get every shot.
Director Nick Ray allowed it, he found it to be ‘authentic’. Hell, if the words ‘cut, print’ were uttered before he was satisfied, Dean would throw bricks at Ray! Stagehands would give the kid bricks, I swear to Christ. Dean would also bust into the screenings of dailies and piss on footage he didn’t like.
I learned to bring a cot and take naps while this shit went down, but there are a few improvs I recall, like before Jimmy finally came up with the famous line ‘You’re tearing me apart!’:
‘Stop it with all of the tearing, already!’
‘You’re splitting me into something that’s split!’
‘Okay, let’s do an exercise to illustrate my current emotional state. Each of you will now take hold of opposite sides of this piece of paper. Yes, that’s right. Now keep a firm grip on the paper as you pull in opposite directions. There, you see what happened? That’s me. I’m the paper.’
‘UGH! Tearing! I’m Apart! You Me! GAH!’”
Natalie Wood, Fast Learner
“Natty would nail her scenes in one take, and she filled her frequent downtime by learning new skills from everyone on set. She quickly became an expert in everything from glassblowing to chainsaw juggling. One grip even taught her some world-class profanity.
I’m no slouch in chess, so I showed her how to play. Within minutes Wood was wiping the board with me, saying things like ‘Your middlegame sucks donkey nuts, Pops,’ and ‘Is that the best you got, Back-puss?’
Eventually she refused to leave her trailer each day until she’d beaten at least five chess Grandmasters simultaneously, so Jack Warner brought them in by the dozens, and they usually left crying. One of them, a young Stanley Kubrick, was so taken with her strategic mind that he later asked Wood to be the fight coordinator on Spartacus. She told Kubrick to ‘Fuck the fucking fuck off, fucko,” then climbed into a ring and boxed Rocky Marciano to a draw.
Sal Mineo, Tiny Cowboy
“Sally was an absolute sweetheart to be around, but he had one peccadillo. Mineo would walk up to any cast or crew member taller than five-foot-seven and say ‘Horsey!,’ then climb on their back and slap their asses until they gave him a horsey-ride.
I used to look forward to our rides together, they were a nice distraction from dodging bricks and chainsaws.
I would gallop around the Warners backlot, whinnying as Mineo dug his heels into my sides and yelled ‘Faster, baby, faster! This desperado loves his trusty steed!’ It was the best exercise, and afterward Sally would brush my hair and feed me a shiny apple.
Man, I miss that little guy.”
Well, that’s it for now, but keep an eye out for our next installment: “Strange Shit from the Set of Easy Rider.”
You’ll learn how Jim Backus ghost-wrote the screenplay for that picture during his breaks from Gilligan’s Island, inspired by his hallucinogenic trips through Tijuana with Ginger and Mary Ann.
That’s next time in Hollywood Unearthed!
