DuFoeNet Interview With William Asher.... INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM ASHER CONDUCTED BY TERRY, TIFFANY, & BECKY DUFOE with MEREDITH ASHER. TERRY: I am very happy to be in the Palm Springs area with the king of the beach party. Samuel Z. Arkoff always spoke well of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. You directed them in 5 films for American International Pictures. What did you really think of them as actors? BILL: Talented. Both of them, very talented kids. I used 5 years of their talent for the beach pictures and after that they were so identified that neither one of them could cook up a career. TERRY: Typecast. BILL: Yeah. Frankie of course had his club work. I guess you talked to him about it, but he does his road shows which are tremendously popular. People love him and Annette too, but the puzzling thing about it all is the motion picture industry didn't seem to want to make movies with them. They did one which I didn't necessarily approve of which is "Back To The Beach." I wish I had stayed with them as people and done something with them because it shouldn't have ended with the beach pictures and it seemed to. TERRY: How was Frankie and Annette cast for the beach party films? BILL: They were not cast by me. Sam did that. When I was brought in for "Beach Party" the picture was cast in so far as Frankie and Annette. It was a peculiar thing. They had a script when I came in, but it was the same old mothers and fathers and teachers and school and they opened with a day in school and closed with them at home. I told Sam kids got wild, but I want to make this a picture about kids who aren't in trouble. Who don't get in trouble. I don't want to see any parents, I don't want to see any schools. I want to see them at the moment when freedom arrives and I want to see them have a good time. I don't want to see them doing anything but having a good time without any supervision and that's pretty much what they were. TERRY: Tell us the story about how your involvement with the film was partially due to tragedy. BILL: They had a script that unfortunately was written by a person who either was the uncle or brother in law to Sam. A very nice guy. The script in my eyes needed a different concept. Which is what another guy and I did and we didn't tell Sam's friend and he never saw the re-write, because he died before we started the picture. He had brain cancer. It was a shame, but until he died he thought it was his picture. TERRY: Was the beach films based on any experiences you had as a youth? BILL: Yes, because I'm a surfer. That was something that I wanted to change. Surfers were considered to be pretty wild people in trouble and all this. Defined that way, and I surfed all the time with young people. I didn't see anybody in trouble for the most part, and I told Sam, "You never see a film about that. About kids not being in trouble." and he said, "What would it be about if they weren't in trouble?". I said, "It would be about them having a good time." and he was pretty shaky on it. I know he has no trouble now claiming it was his idea from the beginning. TERRY: Before A.I.P. many times teenage roles were played by adult actors. BILL: Yeah, right. I didn't use Central Casting for anything. I cast the pictures right off the beach and with Central Casting from a Union stand point your not allowed to do that. We broke the rules because we were supposed to use Union actors. I refused to do it! I said, "I don't want anyone in this picture to play something that they don't know anything about.". The idea of people saying, "I can surf.", that was ridiculous! TERRY: So, your saying that for the most part they were not professional actors or members of the Union. BILL: No, what we finally had to do, and it was quite expensive, is make them actors because it wasn't worth going through what we had to go through with the Screen Actors Guild. We were determined we weren't going to do it, but we finally went through S.A.G. That is what we did, we made all of them actors. Paid the fees, well we might not have paid them. We might have done it on the bases of the act that was passed in legislation that allowed you to hire someone once without paying their dues that you had to pay. We could get away with that because it was legal. The law was one that dealt with a logic that a director has the right to hire anybody he wants. You can't just pin it down to what the Extras Guild sends out to you. As part of the picture the director can have interviews and all that with Union actors, but still the right person for the role might not be there and the director has the right to cast anybody he wants. So, thats the way it went. TERRY: Did the kids that you approached on the beach believe that you were legitimate when you asked them to appear in your movie? BILL: It was so embarrassing because I knew all these kids somewhat you know, a little bit, and I had to start going around to the girls and the guys and asking them if they wanted to be in this picture! It sounded like some shabby thing when some guy comes up to a girl and says, "Do you want to be in a picture?". So, I stopped doing that and I got one of my better friends who knew everybody better then I did and he rounded them up for me, the people who wanted to do it. I interviewed and had readings with all of them and we got them all from up at County Line which is a big surfing spot. I kept going down the line to the hot spots down there, into Manhatten, and another beach down there which is south. I forget the name of it right now. I picked the people from there, I went as far as San Diego I think, and that was it. TERRY: Sam Arkoff assured me that American International Pictures had no casting couch and either you or Sam never used your positions at A.I.P. to get the female actors in the sack. Is this true? BILL: No, there wasn't a casting couch and that was partly because of me because there weren't any people that knew what that was. They were not professionals who had been exposed to such a thing. They were hired on the bases of their looks and their surfing because they were surfers. There was no hanky panky. TERRY: While the majority of the cast were surfers, what about the main characters like Frankie and Annette? BILL: None of the main performers were really surfers, so I had a little difficulty with that, especially with Frankie. In 1963, we made the first movie which was "Beach Party" there were no wet suits and we were surfing with nine foot boards! The boards were heavy, made of redwood, and a nine foot board that was fairly thick was very very heavy. It was all poor Frankie could do to lift one, let alone run and snatch it off the A frame where the boards were stacked up! He would snatch it off the A frame and run down the beach and he couldn't do it. He said, "I can't do that!" and I said, "Sure, you can do it.". You had to be pretty strong to do that. Of course most surfers are pretty strong, you have to be. For this action, Frankie was playing forget it with Annette. TERRY: Did you have problems with Annette? BILL: We did everything we could to get Annette in the water through trickery. TERRY: Annette didn't like the water? BILL: No, it was cold. It was cold as hell! When you first go in the water it is shocking and ice cold. TERRY: I take it that the scenes with Annette surfing were done by the blue screen effect? BILL: Yeah. TERRY: What kind of trickery did you use to get Annette into the water? BILL: Oh, just cuts and shots of her running down to the water and then we used a stunt double with somebody else diving into the water. She would go as far as the edge of the water and that would be it, she would get her toesies wet. TERRY: What did you think of someone from the "Mickey Mouse Club" playing your lead character? BILL: Well, what happened is the only way to get her was on loan out from Disney and he gave me a real talking to when he found out who was directing this film. Not that he suspected that I would necessarily endanger her purity, but he had to be sure. (Editor's Note: Samuel Z. Arkoff commented that Bill Asher might be flattering himself with this statement.) Disney had me in to see him, and the only time I was ever in that studio oddly enough was when I was making these youthful pictures. Should we move the recorder closer? I've been accused of talking to softly. TERRY: No, your fine. You were talking about your meeting with Disney. BILL: He said, "The one thing that I insist upon, and if it's violated I'll take her right out of the picture, she can't wear a bikini. She can't show her naval.". So, that wasn't easy to try and make a bikini picture without showing naval! Of course she's quite large busted, so you can't go for any string effect up here. (Points to chest.) If you notice, most all surfers that I know are very small breasted and she is not that, so you needed a big top and a big bottom and she was like dressed to go to the library! She was certainly not dressed for surfing. That was the only interference he gave us. TERRY: Did you and Sam Arkoff have any private conversations about Walt Disney's interference? BILL: Yeah. We couldn't do anything that would spoil her image in anyway. She was pure. We didn't do any drinking. Surfers didn't drink, maybe beer, didn't smoke. The bike guys did the drinking and the smoking, in the movie and in real life. TERRY: I appreciate you allowing me to browse through several leather bound books which is a treasure trove of stills taken on the sets of your movies and television shows. I find that quite unusual because most directors or actors I have interviewed never keep career memorabilia. BILL: Yeah, I kept them. I kept the scripts and I kept all the films. Now, some of the films were lost over the years, lost or stolen. TERRY: You said some of the films were lost. Which ones were lost? BILL: My personal films. TERRY: Oh, you took home movies on the set. BILL: No, I took a copy of the picture. After we were through I would get a copy of the picture and I'd have it for myself. TERRY: My favorite character in your movies was Eric Von Zipper played by Harvey Lembeck. What kind of a guy was he? BILL: A very good guy and a very good actor, and a very serious actor. Toward the end, after Von Zipper was really well established I'd set the scene for him, and then go away, and do other things. When I came back he would have refined it. Really all that I had to do was shoot what he had done because he had finished it. He saved me that whole big step of breaking down the shots! He was a very bright guy as a matter of fact his son now is considered a very good director. As a director he is doing very well. TERRY: Harvey Lembeck's son Michael was also in "The Kroft Supershow" in "Captain Kool and the Kongs". BILL: Harvey also had a very successful acting school. TERRY: Did he open the acting school after the end of the beach party series? BILL: Yeah, he was doing that, of course he was still acting, but he had the school for security. No actor should be just an actor. I mean you just can't count on it. One day your doing great, the next day the phone doesn't ring. TERRY: While we know that Frankie and Annette could not surf. How was Harvey Lembeck at riding motorcycles? BILL: He was great! He was a real rider and I got his motorcycle gang right out of The Hell's Angels bike club. TERRY: I am surprised to hear that Harvey could ride a motorcycle in real life and the Rat Pack were made up of real life members of The Hell's Angels? BILL: Oh, yeah. Of course I had to go to them and say, "Look, you should tell me now if your willing to do this because we're going to make asses of you guys. You'll be the comedy relief in these films. We'll make real dunces out of you for comedy sake.". A lot of them didn't like it. TERRY: Your movies seemed to center a lot on sporting events such as surfing and motorcycles. You also included sky diving in your 1965 film "Beach Blanket Bingo" which first introduced "Dynasty's" Linda Evans to the silver screen. BILL: These films are not about surfing, they're not about sky diving, but sky diving was used as a background as sort of the glue fly paper for the movie to land on. It was background and you'd build a story around it. I was out here some place in the desert where people sky dive and I ran into a guy named Animal, remember him? TERRY: Yes, Animal was one of the Rat Pack. What happened? BILL: I walked out of this tented area where the sky divers would gather to pack their gear and suddenly I felt myself being bumped into in the crowd and I realize I'm being kind of bumped away from the guy I was talking to, and it's Animal. He got me over where I was pretty well isolated there in the bushes and he said, "You know who I am?". I said, "Sure." and he said, "I know who you are.". I said, "Well, so we know each other, what's this all about?" and he said, "We don't like the way you treated us in the beach pictures.". I said, "I did a great thing for you guys. I made you popular, I made you fun, I made a good image of you.". He said, "You made us stupid." and I didn't say it but I wanted to say, "You are stupid." but I said, "No, that's a part you play and in the play you guys play the role of stupid guys, but nobody questioned your real power.". It was just a part that these guys played and he said, "Well, you better not do another one!". I said, "I am doing another one." and he said, "Well, we'll be in to see you next time you do it!". I said, "Is that a threat?", he said, "Take it anyway you want, but your going to see us, a lot of us, if you try to do another one! You especially!". I said, "Okay." and he walked away and I walked back to my friend. TERRY: Wow! Did this shake you up at all? BILL: He scared me because those guys are rough and they are not above putting you some place where nobody would find you! I don't think they would have caused any serious trouble on the set, but they had a reputation of being able to do some really naughty things to you. TERRY: I think you and Roger Corman share that honor of being threatened as a director by their own actors. So tell me, did any of the Rat Pack or shall I say The Hell's Angels finally come after you in real life? BILL: No, they never did, they didn't show up. I think maybe he convinced the guys that they were actors and not playing real life. TERRY: You of course were married to Elizabeth Montgomery during the making of the beach pictures. Did she ever hang around the sets and was she ever concerned about you working so closely with all those bikini girls? BILL: Believe me, she stayed down there and watched me pretty close when I was working with all those beauties. She didn't worry, I was pretty good. TERRY: Not even about Candy Johnson? BILL: Yeah. (Laughs) Well, you know, I never fooled around. I've never had that kind of thing in mind. TERRY: You told the story earlier about how Samuel Z. Arkoff and his partner James Nicholson brought you into the picture to re-write "Beach Party" when the writer was dieing with brain cancer. How did Sam know of your work? Was the beach party series the first thing you did for A.I.P.? BILL: Yeah, and I was doing a television series then, "Bewitched", and he mentioned he wanted me to do it. He knew of my work from the series. TERRY: Was it your idea to star your own wife Elizabeth Montgomery in the series "Bewitched"? BILL: I had to talk to Liz (Elizabeth Montgomery) and as I say, we lived on the beach. I talked to her about maybe doing a television series with her. She was not working at that time and I made a movie with her earlier. That was about her whole career and she also worked for her dad actor Robert Montgomery in New York. She was a very good actress and was kind of taking care of the kids and was retired. I felt that she was to good not to do anything, so I said, "Will you do a television series?". She said, "All right, I'll do it. I'd like to do that.". I told her we would do it together and she said, "I'd like to do a television series with you.". TERRY: "Bewitched" was certainly a classic and it was a lot like the beach party films in the fact that it was clean cut entertainment. I guess you could say that you had at least that in common with a Disney film. BILL: The thing about the beach pictures is that there were no consumation of love on a careless bases. There wasn't any love making or that kind of thing that was serious. No easy kind of sex. Another thing from the beach pictures that was interestingis that no one had a last name. TERRY: As the films seemed to be a series we were wondering from film to film why the character names would be different. BILL: Oh, that was a mistake. That was me being careless. What they did was take their names and they would give them nick names,and we sometimes got careless. We never mentioned parents and we had co-educational sleeping. We had a house and the boys would sleep on the first floor and the girls on the upper floor without any co-mingling. That was a stretch! TERRY: No, I don't think they would have kept their hands off of each other after the lights went out in real life, but in the movies Annette wouldn't dare do anything to mess her hair up. BILL: (Laughs) Yeah, that's true! TERRY: Who do you think was more in favor of the beach pictures? BILL: Jim Nicholson. I don't know if you've talked much about Jim Nicholson. Jim was really in favor of the beach pictures and probably he was the part of the team of Arkoff and Nicholson that wanted me to do it. I met Jim first and had my early meetings with him. TERRY: You make it sound like Sam was a little more hesitant than Jim to create this genre film. BILL: Well, it was so unlike anything he had ever done. Sam couldn't figure out how this film could be made in his image for the distributors that he made the films for because he had an entirely different image. TERRY: Considering that you were shooting "Bewitched" at the same time as the beach pictures, was there ever talk that Elizabeth Montgomery would become one of the beach party gang? BILL: No, she was in one movie. I don't remember which one it was, I think it was "Beach Blanket Bingo", but she was in it and she had more than a cameo. Buster Keaton was a witch doctor who was helping Frankie. I don't remember the entire plot, but anyway, Liz was the witch doctor's assistant and it wasn't revealed until the end who that assistant was. All you saw were feet shots and you know, body shots of all kinds, but you didn't see her face.She used some witchcraft to do something and then you saw it was Elizabeth. She was never a regular though. TERRY: Your films were famous for their surprise endings because they always had a cameo by a famous face like Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, or Peter Lorre. BILL: Yeah, that was fun. TERRY: Did you enjoy working with the old timers like Buster Keaton? BILL: Oh yeah! I loved Buster Keaton! I had worked with Buster before the beach party films. We did a series of Sunday musicals called "The Colegate Comedy Hour" and somebody told me that Buster Keaton was in real trouble financially. You know, I just loved Buster Keaton so, I had Buster come in and do five episodes. The last five episodes. The moment I got my hands on him I wouldn't let him go and he'd do many bits in the context of the show and most of them were created by him. TERRY: Considering that he was up in age, I find it amazing to hear that he still did many of his own stunts. BILL: Oh yeah, he was in great shape. He'd do stuff on the beach. He was great! TERRY: Was Buster a ladies man on the set? BILL: Well, not anymore. As a matter of fact, I think he was married to a nurse and she was very nice. I didn't get to know her very well, but she was very sweet. He just did great bits. Whether you would find him fishing or something, and he'd catch something and reel it in, and it would be the top of a bikini. TERRY: Were your younger cast members aware of the fact that Buster Keaton was one of the greats of the silent film era? BILL: Yeah, most of them had heard of him. I had to explain it to them because I didn't want anybody not giving him the respect that was due him. So, it worked out pretty good. TERRY: Was he a pretty proud man? BILL: Oh yeah, and he was a very wealthy man at one time and I don't know if even you know how popular he was. He did all of his own films and wrote them and directed them. He had his own studio. He was like Charlie Chaplin. He made a fortune, a man's sized fortune and he drank it away. TERRY: We always loved Don Rickles, who would always play a character like Big Drop or Big Drag. What was he like to work with? BILL: Great, they were all great. Every picture had somebody that was familiar with the audience. We had Bob Cummings, they were all likable people and they would come up against the surfers for whatever reason. TERRY: Don Rickles was always known as Mr. Insult. When the cameras were turned off, was he as sharp tongued in real life? BILL: Oh yeah, he is! He was that same guy, not as much, but it's there. TERRY: You also introduced many other soon to be famous legends in the beach pictures. BILL: We had the first performance of Stevie Wonder, he was a good kid. He was just a kid and was bewildered by all that was happening and he had his entourage around him, but he was a great kid. TERRY: Where did you meet Elizabeth Montgomery at? BILL: It was on the set of the picture that we made together. That was a matter of casting and meeting her through the film. It wasn't long after the picture that we got married. TERRY: Am I right in knowing that you ended up having three children with her? BILL: Yeah, we had three children together. TERRY: Did any of those children ever get into acting? BILL: No, but one of my kids from another marriage did, which is John. He was adopted by me. He unfortunately was involved with a dad who was not quite right. TERRY: We are talking about the John from the USA Network show "Weird Science" right? BILL: Yeah, yeah. So, I did bring him up. I tried to discourage him, he wanted to be an actor. You know, acting is rough, and it can be a very disappointing business. So, I said, "I'll let you do anything you want and I'll help you." and I did. I gave him several parts in things that I did. He was in "Return to Green Acres" and a couple of others I did. He was in two events that I did for charity that had stories in them and you know, he was good! TERRY: John seems to be quite proud of you. BILL: He's a great kid. We have a funny relationship. He's so proud of being on his own and not counting on me and looking to me for solutions. He likes to show it off too by not coming down here for our interview and messing up on this thing. That's not very professional, but he does that! That's why I told you that I was very doubtful that he was going to meet you at all. TERRY: I think it was a serious mistake that they didn't have you direct "Weird Science" for the USA Network. BILL: Well, I don't think they wanted me and I think that it would not have been a good idea for him. (John) I mean they might as well have had me, they're doing all my scripts. TERRY: "Weird Science" is a kind of a copy of "Bewitched" isn't it? BILL: Oh yeah, they've used a lot of our stuff! TERRY: Do you mind that? BILL: Nah. TERRY: Does John get a kick out of that? BILL: Yeah. We have a funny, but good relationship, but he keeps his distance. When I was making a movie I had him on the set a lot and tried to give him tips on directing, and all the mechanical elements, and all the creative elements, and gave him some of my equipment like my finder and things like that to work with, to practice, and think as a director. He's directed one or maybe two films. Very very inexpensive films that have gone their way into the market of video tape and the European market. One of them is doing very well in Europe, a gangster film of some kind. TERRY: Your current wife Meredith has been a great help to us during this interview session. Everytime I mention that your lucky to have her she tells me she feels that she is the lucky one to have you. Where did you both meet? BILL: We met down here at...(At this point Meredith Asher interrupts) MEREDITH: Let's see if he tells you the real story! BILL: (Laughs) Yes, I will tell the real story. Meredith was the hostess of a restaurant down here that I used to go... MEREDITH: That you didn't used to go to or you would've met me three years ago. BILL: I should've went to three years ago, that I didn't get around to then, unhappily. Then I went one night with my former wife who is John's mother Joyce and she knew by coincidence somebody that was a friend of Meredith's. When we were leaving Meredith noticed Joyce's voice and Joyce is famous for her voice. She said, "Are you Joyce Boulifant?" and she said, "Yeah.". I had stopped to talk to somebody and then I came up and we were leaving and Joyce said, "This is my husband, Bill Asher.". So, we talked for a couple of minutes and I really liked her and I called her up the next day and that's how it went. TERRY: How long have you been married? BILL: A little over a year now. TERRY: Ahh, newlyweds. BILL: That's why you see all the attention. TERRY: Are you still friends with Joyce? BILL: Yeah, I seem to be friends with my former wives. I was a great friend of Elizabeth's right up until the moment she died and I did a lot of work for her in the closet writing stuff on the shows she did. She had a lot of problems with her self confidence and she would give me a call and I'd say, "What's wrong?" and I could maybe fix it and I did. Even the last two films she did were mine. They were my efforts. I don't know if you know the subject matter of the last two films that Disney made for T.V. with her. TERRY: She also did a film on Lizzie Borden didn't she? BILL: Yeah, but in this one she played a journalist. A newspaper writer that was on the cop beat. I thought that would be good for her so I made that happen and that was the last thing she did. ("Deadline for Murder") (1995) We were close right at the end. TERRY: Did you have any clue that Elizabeth was going to pass away when she did? BILL: No, because everything was just going along normally. There wasn't any warning she was sick, it happened like that. TERRY: It was a real sad day for her fans. BILL: Oh boy. TERRY: There was no show like "Bewitched". BILL: We had fun doing it. TERRY: Do you think the series "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" is a copy of "Bewitched"? BILL: Well, yeah it is, and we may do something about it! I don't know. I kind of don't like to do anything about it, people should have the freedom of doing what they want, but it's getting pretty obvious what they're doing! TERRY: I heard that they are trying to do a "Bewitched" movie. Do you have anything to do with that? BILL: No, not at all. I wouldn't do it! I didn't and I won't do anything with it. I don't want to, I was asked, but in memory of Elizabeth I wouldn't do it. She didn't want to do it, and I wouldn't do it. TERRY: Did they ask her to be involved? BILL: No, because she was to old then. It was thirty years and she can't play a young witch. TERRY: I understand that you thought of the idea of Samantha's nose twitch every time she cast a spell. BILL: That's right. It was a mannerism of hers & she wasn't even aware of it so I used it for the show. TERRY: One of the great moments for fans of "Bewitched" that gave them a chuckle was when Dick Sargent took over the role of Darrin Stephens from Dick York without any explanation what so ever! BILL: Dick York was sick and we would not be able to have him as Darrin anymore. So, we started looking and I said, "Wait a minute.What are we looking for? Why don't we just examine the number two because Dick Sargent was always our second choice.". We decided to use him and then we got to how we were going to write it in. There are a dozen ways of writing Dick York out and writing Dick Sargent in, but I didn't like everything we came up with. I felt it was all chinsey. Witchcraft I suppose was the obvious! Endora gives him a whack and he disappears and they can't find him through the maze of things. I kept thinking, "Well, that's murder!". No matter how you touch it, he's gone. TERRY: Yeah, that would be a mess because they'd have to call in the sitcom cops and everything. BILL: You know, we'd have the opportunity to bring him back and all that, but it didn't appeal to me. I said, "Let's just go right along. People are sophisticated, they know this is a play and they know these are actors and now we have a different actor portraying Darrin, so lets just go on as if nothing happened.". TERRY: Did you get a lot of mail when you changed Darrins? BILL: Yeah. TERRY: What did the mail say? BILL: A lot of people liked that. A lot of mail, good mail about it. Very very positive mail. Hardly any mail about what happened. The mail asked what happened, but nobody was upset that it happened. Some mail said they didn't like Dick Sargent as much. We got a lot of that, but that was going to come no matter what. TERRY: Was there ever any thought about bringing back Dick York for a surprise guest shot after Dick Sargent had taken over the role? BILL: No, because we felt that if you ever bring him back it would be a serious thing because she loved him and now what do you do? Also, I just felt that it would confuse the audience because there was no Dick York as far as we were concerned. This was an actor that was playing this part. People are sophisticated enough to know that this is the guy that is now playing Darrin who is Dick Sargent. Dick York would have to come back if we did the story about the old Darrin coming back, but how could that happen because there is only one Darrin. Darrin was one character and not two different people. It gets complicated both ways. TERRY: There was two Mrs. Kravitz' too. BILL: Yes, there were two Mrs. Kravitz'. We were just beaten up with bad news on that show! Alice Pearce died and Marion Lorne died. I guess that was it while we were on the air, but then they just started dropping. Later on, Maurice Evans died and Agnes Moorehead died. TERRY: What did a dignified actor like Maurice Evans think of doing a series like "Bewitched"? BILL: He loved it. Marion Lorne was also a big shot dramatic actress in London at one time. Her husband was a big Shakespearean director and she was a very very serious actress. Agnes Moorehead was certainly very important. She had never done comedy before. TERRY: What was Agnes Moorehead like to work with? BILL: Oh great. She was wonderful. Really good. TERRY: Who was the real practical joker on the set? BILL: The only one that had any real mischief going was Elizabeth. She would do little tricks of which I can't recall at the moment. She wasn't a real rascal like some shows have their so called fun person, but she was the only one that really did anything like that. TERRY: I had heard that Elvis Presley envied your marriage to Elizabeth. Is this true? BILL: No, I didn't know him, I had a thing with him though. We were supposed to have him in one of my movies. I missed on two occasions. I forget in what order they happen. They happened in the order they were first discovered, I guess it was Elvis first. I was doing a picture and I had Elvis in it, he was playing the lead. It was a pretty good story and he had agreed to do it, everything was all set. Between the time that he was set and we were ready to shoot he did "The Ed Sullivan Show" and his advisors just came in and said, "We think that it would be wrong for him to play a heavy at this point.". In the picture he was a rotten kid. A good acting role, John Barrymore Jr. finally played it. The movie was called "Shadow on the Window". TERRY: What was that movie about? BILL: It was about a couple of kids who were hanging out and they had heard that there was a lady in a small house in an isolated area who had a lot of money that she kept at home. She was afraid of banks and they raided this home. They started arguing with each other, and the woman wouldn't give them the money, and everything seemed to be going wrong. There was sort of accidental gun fire, and the old lady was killed. There was a witness to it, she was a woman who was a once of week keeper to the house, and they took her as a hostage. The character I talked about was the leader of the group and he was finally killed. Elvis was going to play that part, but his agents, when they hit that night on "The Ed Sullivan Show", they pulled him from my movie and I was so disappointed! I didn't meet him, but I went to see him at a gig he did after that. TERRY: Was there others? BILL: Suddenly The Beatles came to London and Jim Nicholson got in touch with me and he said, "There's a group called The Beatles.". Nobody had heard of them, and he said, "I want to get them in this next picture we're doing, this next beach picture." ("Bikini Beach") and I said, "Great!". I went over there to meet and he had some film on them. He showed it and I said, "Oh, yeah! These guys are great!". So, I wrote the script for them for "Bikini Beach"and they came over here and the same damn thing happened on "The Ed Sullivan Show"! They knocked everybody dead on that Sullivan show and it was the same thing. The agents said, "Oh, no. We can't give them away for what you want to pay for them!". So, I had to take all of the stuff that I had written and throw it out because it had been written about four guys. I had to re-write the script to make it about one guy rather then four. TERRY: Do you remember what you had The Beatles doing in the script? BILL: Yeah. They were from England and they wanted to see what it was like living on the beach in California. They had their traveling bus and they stopped off in Malibu sometime late in the night and when our kids woke up, this whole set up was there. The Beatles bus and a lot of equipment, tents, you know, and a big project there. They wondered who it was and they got to know them and there was a love story between Annette and one of the Beatles. TERRY: When The Beatles couldn't do the script of course Frankie Avalon played a duel role in "Bikini Beach" and became a British singer who's popularity was much like The Beatles. BILL: Yeah, Frankie played an English singer and we called him Potato Bug. We tried to use as much as the material as I could because we were about ready to shoot. TERRY: Of course you now live in the Palm Spings area and you mentioned earlier that you lived on the beach. Did you live near where your beach party movies were filmed? BILL: Yeah, I lived on Malibu Beach. TERRY: Is there anything that you miss about your old days as a director and writer in comparison to your life today? BILL: Yeah, I'd loved to have been able to have a few years of my career with Meredith, but it worked out we didn't. My career is just writing now, and that's not experiencing all the hustle and bustle of making movies. TERRY: Meredith, let me ask you a question. Are you a movie fan? MEREDITH: Oh, yeah. I know stuff and Bill always says, "How does she know that?". BILL: Yeah, she gets me every time! MEREDITH: Bill told me, "You know, I was going to do a movie with Joan Rivers. She called me years ago to tell me she was producing a film." and I said, "Oh, yeah. It was "Rabbit Test." and Bill said, "Yeah! How did you know that?". BILL: I couldn't remember the name of it! TERRY: Meredith, did you used to go to the Drive-In to see Bill's movies? BILL: No, I don't think so... MEREDITH: W-e-l-l... TERRY: Sam Arkoff's wife has been quoted as saying she hates his movies. MEREDITH: Well, you know, I can't really say that I went to see them, but I've seen them all. You see them just because they are his. TERRY: You are an Emmy winner for "Bewitched". That had to be your most proudest moment. BILL: Oh, yeah. It was both my proudest and my most angry. After you come up on the stage and receive your Emmy or your Oscar, they hustle you right back where you have interviews and the media is all there and you meet with them and you do all that. Then you can go back in the audience. TERRY: You made a reunion movie of the classic series "Green Acres" called "Return to Green Acres". I heard that after he signed on to do the film you had to threaten to sue Eddie Albert in order to get him to complete the movie. BILL: Yeah, yeah that is true. He tried to get out of it because he hated the whole idea. He didn't want to do it. So, naturally he was difficult on almost everything. One night he was shooting some night stuff and he refused to do it. He said, "I don't want to." and he wouldn't give you a reason. I said, "Look, I'll change it. That's what I do, I'm a director who writes.". I didn't write this particular script, but I'm a writer, I'll fix it. I said, "I'll use any of your ideas. Why don't you want to come out and do it?" and he said, "No, no. I just don't want to do it.". So, I talked to the producer and I said, "This is out of my range, as a director and also I'm not good at it.". TERRY: Negotiations. BILL: Yeah, and I'm liable to get pissed off and then it hurts them. So, I went to the producer and I said, "You've got to come in here. Eddie is in his dressing room and he is just being difficult for no reason and I can't tell you if he just wants me to re-write it into something else or if he has a problem with dialogue or what." He says "Everything is fine, I just don't want to do it.". So it seems that the whole sense of not wantingto do it and being made to do it, because he had signed a contract, kind of got all together in his mind at this particular time and he was going to stand behind it. The producer went in and in ten minutes came out with him and he went on and did it. TERRY: Was Eddie happy with it after he did it? BILL: No, but he did it. TERRY: Was Eddie's performance what you hoped it would be or did he hold back because he was angry? BILL: No, when he did it, he was good about that. When he did it, he did it. It was tough to get him into it, but when he did it, he did it. Here I am directing somebody else' work and somebody else' story and I didn't even want to do it. I got talked into it, but I'm glad I did because I had fun doing it. TERRY: I imagine that problems with actors is one of the down falls of being a director. BILL: I had this happen to me in the first beach party picture. Robert Cummings was giving me trouble. I liked Robert, he was good, but he got to the point where every scene he'd say, "Well, now wait a minute. Let's talk this scene through and I want to have certain dialogue changed.", which is all right, you know, I understand how a writer or an actor feels uncomfortable with stuff. I can change it, it can be different, nothing is perfect. So, I went along with it. In this particular scene there was no reason to change it and I was getting tired of it, and we were eating up time, and falling behind on shooting schedule. I finally said, "Bob, I've had it! We can't do this anymore! My problem is schedule, and frankly it's getting irritating! The other players don't get the time and they're getting irritated and there are other people in this picture! By the time I get to their scenes I have to rush through them because I'm giving you all the time.". He said, "Well, I still have to have mine." and I said, "No, not anymore! Either we do it now or we don't do it! I'll re-fashion this set-up to another shot and then you and I will have to talk about it later and see what we're going to do.". He said, "All right." and went running off to his dressing room and I shot around him the rest of the day. I got down there around three or four in the afternoon, and I thought,"Jesus, I've got to go in there and face him.". He was in there pouting and I said, "Bob, I know what our problem is.". He said, "What's that?" and I said, "What's wrong here is that you'd likeWillie Wyler as your director and I'd like Carey Grant as my actor, but I have you and you have me and lets just stop this fooling around and go make a movie.". He said, "Okay, Uncle Bill!". TERRY: He called you Uncle Bill? BILL: He called me Uncle Bill from that time on and I knew him many years before he disappeared and I don't know where the hell he is now and nobody does. After all the trouble he caused me, after I finished my set-up and expected trouble from him, he said, "Okay, I'm coming Uncle Bill!" and I was shocked by his comment and his sudden change of attitude. TERRY: Does it bother you that they don't make family movies and T.V.shows anymore like the ones that you did? BILL: Yeah, I don't particularly like what they are doing now. Some of them I do, but most of them I don't. I don't know, everything looks alike, like automobiles. Nothing has an identity anymore. The gang in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" that works together in an office, they have ten of those! Anything that will stick to the wall, they throw it up there! Another favorite plot line for a successful show is a local gang of kids and young people growing up in New York. I mean, there is so many of those! MEREDITH: It's usually we're in a T.V. show, we're in a newspaper. You know, we're scriptwriters, we're this and that. You know, it's always a gang and it's something always creative, but it's what Bill was saying, it's all the same. They even have characters that look alike. There is a girl on "Ellen" that looks just like the girl that is on "Suddenly Susan". They look like twins. BILL: I can't watch that stuff! TERRY: You made a reunion movie despite your difficulties with Eddie Albert of "Green Acres". Now, instead of reunion movies with the original cast, which used to play on T.V., we now have a Hollywood trend of T.V. series from your era being made into big budget theatrical releases with new young actors playing the roles. Can you comment on this? BILL: Right, they have done some that have not worked, but I've got a feeling that, that kind of is going away. I don't know if they're ever going to do a remake of my beach pictures, I mean I stay out of it. It's none of my business except for money. MEREDITH: I don't think the public would except them now. Even when Bill was making the movies they were a little tame and sugary for back in the 60's when things were starting to explode. Bill's movies were kind of the last message of sweetness, but I don't know if they would go to those types of films today. BILL: Well, if I remade my beach films today, I'd make it that sameway as I did in the 60's. There was a tremendous amount of innocence about those shows. That's what I liked. They were fun, and they were innocent, and nobody killed anybody, nobody was pregnant, or had a problem with that. TERRY: Have you ever considered making a 90's film today the way you would've done it thirty years ago by putting up your own money and funding it yourself? BILL: No, I think anyone who puts up there own money to make a movieis absolutely crazy. It costs a fortune, especially now. If we're talking about putting up fifty thousand dollars or something to make a student film, that's okay. This is what the ambitious young film maker does, and it probably never gets released, but it shows what he can do. I wouldn't fund a feature, that's a tough thing. TERRY: Have you ever thought of writing a book? BILL: Yeah. MEREDITH: We're working on it. We're making notes and stuff. BILL: Meredith has helped me. It's happening in a sequenced way. TERRY: I can't get over the fact that you don't mind Bill talking about his past wives. MEREDITH: I'm just so happy to be the current one. We had this big surprise birthday party for him last year and there were three wives there and we all got along great! The point is that everybody loves Bill, maybe they didn't stay married to him, but they all loved him. Elizabeth Montgomery might have come to the party too, if she hadn't passed on. BILL: Oh, she would've come! MEREDITH: At the party his first wife Danni and John's mother Joyce did this whole routine singing happy birthday to Bill like Marilyn Monroe did to John F. Kennedy. It was really funny Bill had no idea what was going on, he knew nothing, and he was real upset too when he found out! The other wives arrived early and were helping out and the great thing about it is that it was a beach party! It was all lit up and we had all these neat decorations outside. BILL: They had a little bar that I went to and that's where they would find me when they couldn't find me. (Laughs) It had a little sign and it was named "The Cottage". TERRY: I told my wife on the way down that I thought it was unusual that Mr. Beach Party is living in the middle of the desert. MEREDITH: He lived at the beach for a long time. BILL: Well, it's sand! (Laughs) TERRY: Yeah, it's sand, but there is no water here in Palm Springs. BILL: Yeah, it's gone, but it probably won't be there where I used to live one of these days either! TERRY: I find it amazing how much your current wife Meredith looks like Elizabeth Montgomery. MEREDITH: Well, you know, it's funny. Just before Bill and I met someone walked by me in the restaurant and they said, "Did anyone ever tell you you look like Elizabeth Montgomery?" and I said, "No, I've never gotten that, but I'll take it as a compliment!". They said, "I meant it as a compliment!". Before that I've been told I look like a lot of people, but she was never one. I guess there is a similarity, but that's Bill's type. See, that's why he was attracted to me. He likes blondes, and he likes a certain size, and I kind of fit the pattern! TERRY: What is this thing I heard about you and Curveo Gold Liquor? BILL: I did a spoof and a promotional film. Curveo Gold Tequila bought an island in the Virgin Islands and they made their own nation and they have all the elements necessary to make a nation and they even have an ambassador to the United States. It is close to the movie "The Mouse that Roared". They wanted to be recognized by the United Nations and they created quite a stir over it and got a lot of coverage because the United Nations wouldn't recognize them. They wouldn't give them a chair at the United Nations. In the Super Bowl at half time, they put on a big protest against the citizens of America, or maybe I should call it a plea, to leave the United States and live at the Republic of Curveo Gold. Their national anthem is "Margaritaville". My function was in their promo film called "Beach of a Nation". It's a take off on the title of the first film ever made called "Birth if a Nation". I had made all these beach pictures and we were protesting against The Academy Awards for not including this film in their competition. I played the Minister of Culture who believes in life, liberty, and the pursuit of margaritas. TERRY: Was there anyone else from the beach party movies asked to be in this film? BILL: Well, I was the only one. As a matter of fact they found me by going through some process that isolates all beach pictures. I represent that and that's pretty much what I talk about. TERRY: Who will see this, and where will it be shown? BILL: Well it's used for the media and I doubt that there will be any formal screenings of it. There might be, but mainly it's done for the media to carry the story. We carry the story on television and then we come to the basic reason for this because the FCC won't allow broadcast of liquor commercials on television. They show commercials for beer, but not for hard liquor and this is their protest, because of this they're on television all the time because it's now become a news item. They have gotten a lot of free time on television and that's what they're after. TERRY: You told me that you now write from your office here at home. Do you consider yourself retired or semi-retired? BILL: Well, I'm not doing anymore movies. I have been here in Palm Springs for four years now and I haven't done a picture in five years. TERRY: Would you ever consider moving back to L.A.? BILL: I don't surf anymore. I'll surf in Hawaii where the water is warm and I'll surf in Boca, my son lives in Boca. It's a small island on the west side of Florida. You know, I'll surf down there because the water's warm, but I've kind of had it with L.A. Palm Springs gives you the same peaceful hunk of nature without the madness. As far as doing a picture or something I did have one thing I've thought about doing, but I talked myself out of it. TERRY: You said earlier that you wouldn't do remakes. BILL: You can't remake "I Love Lucy" because Lucille Ball is gone. "Bewitched" you could do. I don't want to do it. Elizabeth didn't want to do it anytime with or without her. She just felt we should leave it alone. It had a nice life and why screw with it anymore. TERRY: Do you still own the rights to "Bewitched"? BILL: In our ownership we are a partner, but as a partner we can't keep our other partner from making money. Where as if they want to go ahead and make a remake, they can, all they have to do is pay me. TERRY: In other words, you can't tell them no. BILL: I can't tell them no anymore then if we wanted to make it and they didn't want to. We could make it because we're partners, and they couldn't legally keep me from making a living. You know there's something about doing these things over again. You've done them and they're successful and I just didn't want to do them anymore. TERRY: "Back To The Beach" was a fun film because it brought back Frankie, Annette, and Dick Dale and it was sort of a remake. I thought that you might have been involved with that. BILL: I didn't want to do it. I started to write my own remake or sequel, but I thought "nah", I'd rather leave it alone. TERRY: Are you still in contact with Frankie or Annette? BILL: I don't see much of them now. I haven't seen Frankie in several years. During that time when I was deciding if I would be involved with "Back To The Beach" I spent some time with them. I haven't lately however. I mean I like them, I don't know why that is. I like them very much. Like I said before I wish I had tried to help them early on because the beach pictures kept following them around and wouldn't let them do anything else. TERRY: It would have been a blast if your son John Mallory Asher would have done a Frankie and Annette beach party spoof on "Weird Science". BILL: You know I'm disappointed that I didn't get to talk about John's developement more. I think it's important that you know more about his back ground growing up and compare it to where he is today. TERRY: By all means, what would you like to say about John? BILL: In the early years John was very bad Dyslexic. I don't know if you know anything about this or not. It was real sad because he just couldn't get it, and would be blamed for being dumb. We must have had him into twenty five different kinds of therapists to try and figure out why this bright kid couldn't master any of his class work. Yet at Christmas, he was the only one that could put together the camera! He is brilliant at mechanical stuff! It was frustrating! We knew that there was this real bright kid under there because he kept showing it! He would be sent home from school, and we couldn't even get him into certain schools and we tried to put him into some handicap schools and they were a terrible, terrible shock to his ego and his thoughts about himself. Finally we went to this place. It had a teacher that had everything labeled with a room full of definitions. Everything was labeled table, chair, and so on. John walks in and he stopped and looked around and an expression came on his face and he walked over to the sign on the wall that read wall and he said,"w-a-l-l", (pronouncing wall as if he were mentally retarded) "w-i-n-d-o-w", "c-o-u-c-h", "t-a-b-l-e". I said, "John what are you doing? Knock it off." He was a very articulate kid for eleven years old and he's putting on this act. I said, "Cut it out John!" and in that phony retarded voice he repeats,"C-u-t- i-t- o-u-t J-o-h-n." This woman is studying him and I'm telling her "He's putting this on!". She says, "I know, I know. I know how you feel. You're embarrassed. Just let him go on.". I said, "No, he's a very articulate young man and he's putting this on here!" She touched my hand and she said, "Don't worry I can handle this." assuming I'm in denial, the bitch! So I finally said, "We should leave. That's what he's telling us.". I wanted to tell this woman she's nuts so I asked John to leave the room and he walks right into the wall next to the door. The woman is shaking her head as he walks out the door and suddenly we hear this "BANG! BANG!". We go into the next room and he's beating his head against the wall! TERRY: What did you do then? BILL: I said, "We have to go, I'm sorry." and we just left. I turned to John and said, "What the hell are you doing?" and in his normal voice he said, "I'm sick of these places!". While we were driving home he said, "You have to get me out of these places! They treat me like an imbecile!". We came to the conclusion that there's a lot of research on Dyslexia, but contrary to what that says, even though he had Dyslexia he was very capable. TERRY: So how did you finally help him out of his learning disability? BILL: We started giving him parts in movies. He couldn't cold read. He had to take material home and study it. I answered all his questions and got him to listen on how we pronounce things. He didn't know what they meant, but I'd tell him and set it up and he'd go on these interviews and he began getting parts. He's never been to school. He was into a little bit of school, but only to be kicked out and he since has directed a picture or two and has acted in several T.V. things along with "Weird Science". He still has the same problem and he manages to get the script each week and he struggles through it. TERRY: So Dyslexia is something you never out grow? BILL: No, unfortunately you never out grow Dyslexia and seeing the letters backwards is only a small part of it. The key is concentration. If you're doing something that you're not really interested in then you can't do it. You can't fake it. He has a love for what he's doing now and that's why the disability does not hold him back. I don't have to help him anymore. He's very open about it and as a matter of fact he likes to talk about it because it's telling other people who are dyslexic that they can make. TERRY: So he's not embarrassed by it? BILL: No, he'd like to help other people. TERRY: Did he ask you before he accepted the role in "Weird Science?" BILL: No, he was totally independent of it. He is thrilled, I'm sure, to be doing everything on his own, which he should indeed be doing. I worked for three years with a company called Cushner Locke. I don't know if you know them or not, but they are film makers. I did a lot of writing for them and did a couple of pilots that didn't sell. After three years I couldn't take it anymore as an executive and it's not really my business to set behind a desk so I made up my mind I was going to leave L.A. and move to Palm Springs. I still have a very good relationship with those guys. They made a film over there called "The Gun" and they called me and said, "I just looked at the dailies and the director told me to be sure and see them because there's a kid in it that's fabulous." The actor turned out to be John. He asked me if I had talked to John about this and I told him that this was the first time I had heard about it. He went over there knowing I'd been partners with these guys for three years and got that job and he was that good without even telling me. He wants so much to do it that way on his own. I had nothing to do with it. TERRY: Meredith told us a story earlier that one of your old girl friends tossed one of your Emmys down a garbage dumpster. How did you feel about that? BILL: We don't want to get into that! (Laughs.) MEREDITH: Well, he had four, but two of them had met untimely deaths! Lets put it that way! BILL: Well it was... (pause) Well...(laughs) TERRY: Changing the subject... Do you like watching your old T.V. shows? BILL: No! MEREDITH: He's got two back to back shows on Nickelodeon that we love to watch. Well, I love to watch! He watches them with me. "I Love Lucy" and "Bewithed" right during "Biography" from nine to ten at night. BILL: We happen to like "Biography." I think it's wonderful that she loves them and watches them. She feels a part of them and she should. TERRY: Gee that would come in handy for her because she could do all the trivia or crossword puzzles in T.V. Guide about your shows and you could give her all the answers. BILL: Probably not! (Laughs) MEREDITH: I would be doing both of those! (Laughs) TERRY: Was Joyce ever involved in any of your old T.V. shows like Elizabeth Montgomery was? BILL: She was in several things I did. She was in "Alice". I don't know if you know that show. TERRY: I didn't know you were involved with the show "Alice". BILL: I did one season of it. They had canceled it and then decided not to cancel it and brought me in to fix it. I did, oh about, thirty shows and sort of rejuvenated it. TERRY: You were one of the original directors for "I Love Lucy". BILL: No, I didn't do the first season, but I did the episodes after and directed more than anybody else. I'd do maybe fifty and then get time off and go make a movie. TERRY: Everyone said Lucy was hard to work with. Was this true? BILL: No. Maybe she was after Desi left. She was just scared. TERRY: She was always a perfectionist though. BILL: Yeah! Yeah, absolutely, but she wasn't difficult. Maybe she got difficult, but she didn't start out difficult. I think her reputation about being difficult started in the next part of her Lucy life. It was first Lucy Ricardo and then it went on to Lucy and other shows. There was "Here's Lucy" and others. MEREDITH: Then they had "The Lucy, Desi Comedy Hour" right after Bill left which nobody wanted to do except for Lucy. It wasn't a very good show. They had a couple of good ones, but it wasn't very good. BILL: Yeah, but I think her reputation of being difficult happened on those shows. It didn't happen on mine. TERRY: You also directed "Gidget". BILL: Yeah, I did "Gidget". I did the pilot and the television series with Sally Field. I did the first ten or something episodes. I was the first director she ever had. When she came to me she had never appeared in front of a camera before. Her father was a very famous actor and stunt man. She was sort of a little kid when she did the first "Gidget", but in that pilot I introduced her to a technique of crying you don't see much in T.V. anymore. Maybe it's because the people don't have the kind of class that she did. I told her, "When it comes to crying, it's up to you. I'm going to put it right on your lap because your the one that's going to do it. I'll start this scene whenever you want me to." She said, "Start it when I cry." and I said, "What I'm going to do is let you think and I'll roll the camera and I'll keep everybody quiet on the set and you take whatever memory or possibility in your life that would really make you cry and have that out with yourself until it makes you cry in certain scenes.". She was hiding behind the dresser there and I rolled the camera and put the slate at the end and it was very quiet like nobody was on the set. In twenty or thirty seconds she came up and burst into tears. It was very effective. Unlike where I worked a lot with Patty Duke. In "The Patty Duke Show" Patty would cry, but it was very mechanical with Patty. She could turn it on and off. She was very good at, but it's just another way of doing it. It was effective, but not like Sally Field could do it. I lived with a lot of Patty Duke's emotional troubles on the set. Sadly, a lot of it showed up on the set. She had a very unfortunate childhood, but sadly enough, real life can not always be as happy as one of my T.V. sitcoms. -END-