{"id":292,"date":"2017-11-28T08:03:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T22:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/?page_id=292"},"modified":"2017-11-28T08:05:43","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T22:05:43","slug":"hollywood","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/national-film-and-sound-archive\/hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme by John Fife.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My name is John Fife (JF<\/strong>) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

: \u00a0\u00a0You obviously would have seen a lot of these personalities coming through Melbourne.\u00a0 I think you actually worked overseas didn\u2019t you as well?\u00a0 Desi Arnez?<\/p>\n

*MP:\u00a0 Yes, we went to America to do program for channel 10 Sydney with Hazel Phillips? and Judy *Pietrich?\u00a0 And on the way we were supposed to work for about three weeks in Los Angeles, and then go off to the Mexico Olympics.\u00a0 And by the time we\u2019d finished in LA we were absolutely stuffed so we came back home.\u00a0 And the other reason we came back home was that Phil Gibbs, the sporting editor who was supposed to come with us to Mexico, decided that he wasn\u2019t going to come.\u00a0 But that\u2019s alright.<\/p>\n

*What we did in LA, we were driving around interviewing people like Desi Arnaz, Charlton Heston, a stripper\u2026 \u2018let me entertain you\u2019 (he sings)\u2026 what\u2019s her name?\u00a0 A well known stripper.\u00a0 We had an appointment to meet her in Beverly Hills.\u00a0 So we arrive there and are let in by a butler, and come into a small ballroom that had a tree growing right along one side up to the balcony.\u00a0 There was a balcony that was supposed to be- you know how you have an orchestra balcony for playing for dances \u2013 leading up to there that tree\u2019s growing right through that building, and we are square bang in the middle of this ballroom there.<\/p>\n

And her entrance on the balcony was like (with a flourish) \u2019Hello darlings!!\u2019\u00a0 Very theatrical.\u00a0 (Laughs).\u00a0 What\u2019s her name?\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Her name will come while we\u2019re chatting.\u00a0 You were saying \u2013 Arnaz, he was into film in a big way wasn\u2019t he.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Actually what Desi Arnaz was doing\u2026 the \u2018I Love Lucy\u2019 show was produced live in front of an audience, and filmed on film at the same time.\u00a0 He had 6 cameras in there and I was very interested.\u00a0 I thought crumbs, he\u2019s going through a lot of bloody film!\u00a0 This was during black and white time.\u00a0 And I was talking to him later and I said \u2018why 6 film cameras?\u2019\u00a0 and he said \u2018Well, film\u2019s been here for a hundred years and it\u2019s gonna stay for another hundred years.\u2019\u00a0 And that was it.<\/p>\n

But Desi was very good to us.\u00a0 He invited us up to his private place at Malibu.\u00a0 He actually cooked eggs for us and fed us breakfast.\u00a0 He actually had split with Lucy, and really he was trying hard for us to talk her into talking to us.\u00a0 But Lucy wasn\u2019t going to be in it.\u00a0 So we missed out on Lucy but we had Charlton Heston, and we had Sharon Tate before she got carved up with one of the interviews.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 You\u2019re shooting this for more of a doco\u2026<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 No no, we\u2019re shooting just interviews.\u00a0 Picking up people, banging them in front of the camera wherever we can and just interviewing for a girlie show that they had in Sydney, which was fronted by Hazel Phillips.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 What I was trying to work out \u2013 so you\u2019ve moved a little out of shooting something for news, to shooting something for a channel 10 program.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh yes, well this particular one was going to be handy.\u00a0 We\u2019re on our way to Olympics so you can have a couple of weeks, couple of shots.\u00a0 So we finished up interviewing about 40 people.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Personalities always easy to work with?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Some of them are, some of them no.\u00a0 But \u2026. I didn\u2019t have any problems.\u00a0 What we did have problems with was the union.\u00a0 I had to hire a guy to come with me and stand by me while I\u2019m filming at Disneyland.\u00a0 And laughing was a big thing in America at that stage.\u00a0 So to interview people laughing, we had to sneak in through a hole in the bloody fence behind the studio, and getting round behind the bushes (laughs) to interview them.\u00a0\u00a0 Otherwise union was going to black ban us and what have you.\u00a0 But oh no, we work very hard.\u00a0 Absolutely hard.<\/p>\n

By the time we finish, I don\u2019t think we could have gone to Mexico anyway.\u00a0 Because John \u2013 chief cameraman from Sydney – \u00a0he already had the tail end of a cold when we were leaving and he wasn\u2019t very well.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t fit to do anything else, we just do what we were doing.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Just thinking about that news coverage as well.\u00a0 Its\u2019 a young man\u2019s business, it\u2019s a fit man\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh yeah.\u00a0 Fit man\u2019s business, yeah.\u00a0 Before I go any further \u2013 we shot some 40 interviews with *various personalities, I\u2019m sitting in the car.\u00a0 We had an interview with Eve Ardern?, you know, one of the girls who usually play school marm, mama, you know.\u00a0 She said to Judy \u2026 \u2018Oh yeah, a couple of wigs I\u2019ve had done up at the Hollywood studios, could you bring them to us?\u2019\u00a0 So I\u2019m sitting there with two *heads in my hands\u2026 The looks from people driving next to us!!\u00a0 John\u2019s driving, John Gibbs, – it looked as if I had two women that I\u2019m cuddling!\u00a0 So I took them to her \u2013 she lived just in Orange County.\u00a0 Yeah, but basically they\u2019re alright you know, they were just normal people.\u00a0 And they didn\u2019t have to put on a big bloody act because we\u2019re in the same business anyway.\u00a0 Eighty percent act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme by John Fife. My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP). : \u00a0\u00a0You obviously would have seen a lot of these personalities coming through Melbourne.\u00a0 I think you actually worked overseas didn\u2019t … <\/p>\n

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