Just a little update. I just heard two director-producers talking about the most difficulty actors to work with in their career. It was Charles Band and John Carpenter having the conversation. Their answers?
Charles Band - He said Klaus Kinski, who was in a non-Herzog movie that Band produced. And yes, Kinski grabbed a knife and threatened to kill the director(not Band, a guy named David Schmoeller)
John Carpenter - Who did Carpenter say? You got it. Chevy Chase. I didn’t know this, but Carpenter directed that Invisible Man movie Chase is in and Chase was atrocious.
Charles Kuralt, the rotund, jolly host of CBS Sunday Morning and the “On the Road” features was discovered after his death to have a second family in Montana, while leaving his wife alone in New York. Even before then he had gained a reputation at CBS as being difficult to work with. While this was implied by several CBS people in their memoirs, former president of the News Division Ed Joyce really exposed a lot of the backstage dissension, even naming other CBS news personalities who refused to work with Kuralt. Supposedly the entire News division celebrated Kuralt’s On the Road and Sunday Morning assignments because they kept him out of the office during the regular Monday-Friday shifts.
I once had a boss who might well have been the female pharmaceutical equivalent of Mr. Kinski.
If you’re wondering if this is the same person I’ve mentioned before who was in a near-fatal car accident several years after I worked with her, and she had a TV station and the newspaper do big stories about it, which was followed by the reporters’ e-mail boxes crashing because of the response they got from people telling them what she was really like, yes, it was.
“For that is what brought me to the road in the first place, so many years ago: the promise of sex with a string of anonymous partners across this great land.”
Another little anecdote about Chevy Chase being a jerk to someone. Chris Columbus, director of Home Alone and Harry Potter had an encounter around 1988.
Columbus was actually hired to direct Christmas Vacation. He really needed to do the movie at that point in his career. He went to lunch with Chase and talked for awhile about the movie and how he wanted it to be. Chase? Silent.
Finally, while Columbus is talking, Chase says, “Wait a minute…you’re the director?”
Columbus said, “Yes…I’m directing…the movie.”
Chase said: “Oh, I thought you were a drummer.”
Columbus has never figured out what the heck Chase was talking about. They met once more with a producer, but Chase ignored him the entire time. Columbus called John Hughes and others and said he had to pull out.
John Hughes felt bad and reached out to him not long after with a new script.
Certainly celebrity status went to his head, but Chevy is known for having a strange sense of humor- which if you dont understand it- can come across as being a jerk. Mind you, he isnt always as funny as he thinks he is.
Nearly every celebrity has had a few jerk moments.
That was hilarious. When I was a kid, I used to go around saying “I’m Charles Kuralt” in my most Charles Kuralt-y voice.
But - yikes - didn’t know how much of a ratbastard he’d been, though.
Vince Gallo can be a bit of a handful.
Jerkish (and stupid) of John Belushi to have repeatedly let SNL’s women cast members know that women aren’t funny.
Someone who worked on a Mike Myers movie said he would regularly show up late to set, so everyone would be standing around waiting for him. It was also forbidden to look at him when the camera wasn’t rolling. There are many such stories about him.
My sons went to high school with Nikki Glaser’s younger sister. Nikki was two years older than them. She seems to have polished her humor stylings on underclassmen. My sons make it a point to avoid every opportunity to see or hear her club act, TV appearances, interviews, etc.
I rode a ski lift in Aspen with William H. Macy. He was utterly charming and friendly. He appreciated that I knew of some of his “lesser” roles. Really nice guy. My one real celeb encounter 'in the wild" so to speak.
Ask anybody in the world of bluegrass and they’ll tell you there have been very few assholes in that scene, with the notable exception of Dr. Ralph Stanley. He’s been gone for a few years now, but people who worked bluegrass shows when he was around still exchange eye rolls when his name comes up. Unquestionable legend, but generally unpleasant.
I met John Oates and saw him do some interviews a few years ago and he got hilariously pissy when anyone would bring up Daryl Hall, just appalled that no one could address him on his own merits. Mind you, he had done a show with Daryl two nights before.
