By John King Tarpinian: My daily walk around town today consisted of visiting my local framing store, Frame Of Mind Pictures in Glendale, CA. They specialize in movie posters and artwork, doing a lot of entertainment industry work. They have decorated their main room in honor of the works of Stanley Kubrick, on occasion of the 50th Anniversary of A Clockwork Orange. Framed original works from posters and stills are on display and for sale. That Space Odyssey movie of his is also featured and is The Shining.
My Stanley Kubrick story goes back to 1971. I was working at the Los Angeles Zoo, with the annual fundraiser being Zoobilee. This was a time before paparazzi so many famous people could attend without fear of being harassed. Ed McMahon would be the master of ceremonies. The event would kick off with Jimmy Stewart coming in riding on an elephant to the music of Animal Walk. The likes of Henry Fonda and Betty White would join in the festivities, plus many more.
But I digress. Stanley Kubrick was in town, and he was also in attendance. The event was held in the Theme Building, in the middle of the zoo with the administration offices being at the entrance. SK gets an emergency phone call from England. I had the honor of taking one of the electric golf carts and driving him down to the office so he could take the call. They were filming A Clockwork Orange and the still film photographer had run out of film and he was seeking permission to go to the local drugstore to purchase a few rolls of film. As SK put it to the man on the other end of the phone, that phone call cost more than a dozen rolls of film. I guess the photographer wanted to make sure he would be reimbursed for a couple rolls of film.
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Having worked for producers who could somehow ‘forget’ that the lowly employee needed to be reimbursed for expenses which represented a much larger part of their coffers than did the gigantic expenditures of the company’s publicity parties, I can understand the phone call. The phone call was probably on the company account, whereas the film was going to be out of pocket.
I also remember the publisher who quibbled over paying $3,000 for a novel, but who took the entire staff (two floors of a skyscraper in New York) to Florida each year for two weeks, so that they could have a general meeting in a more relaxed atmosphere.