Harry Lorayne and me sitting in Carl and Estelle’s living room in the south of France. For some reason, I liked sitting in the fireplace (but only when there was no fire).
At night, in our rented French sedan, Anne and I together with Harry and Renée would drive up to Castellaras to meet Carl and Estelle for dinner. Their house was a stone’s throw from the famous Moulin de Mougins restaurant, whose founding chef was the world-famous Roger Vergé. It was expensive, but well worth it. But we actually had more fun finding little out-of-the-way outdoor cafés and restaurants nestled in the surrounding villages. It was a good life, to say the least.
After spending a glorious two weeks in the south of France with Carl and Estelle, we all got into our car early one morning and drove a little past Monte Carlo to the French border town of Menton. The French customs agents scrupulously studied our faces against our passports and finally relented and let us drive on to Italy. A half hour later we were greeted by the Italian customs officials in Ventimiglia. It was completely opposite the French. The stern looks we’d received from the French customs officials were replaced with huge smiles and happy, singsong buongiornos! from the welcoming, good-natured Italians.
Me, Anne, Estelle, and Carl (and a lot of pigeons) in our beloved Venice.
Then began our six-hour wonderful drive through Italy on our way to Venice. We stopped for lunch in Bologna for, of course, their world-famous spaghetti bolognese. We were toasted with an Italian dessert wine called limoncello. It was kind of a lemon liqueur. We only had a small glass because we still had a ways to drive.
We arrived in Venice just before sunset. We drove our car onto the ferry that would take us to the Lido, an island a few miles outside of Venice on the Adriatic Sea. As the ferry passed the Doge’s Palace at Piazza San Marco we were greeted with an incredible and moving view of the sun setting over the famous Venetian Grand Canal. We finally arrived at our hotel on the Lido, the Excelsior. We checked in and had dinner on their beautiful dining terrace overlooking the sea. Even though we were tired, it was heavenly.
The next morning, we went to our rented cabana #14 on the sparkling Lido beach. We met our neighbors at #15, Edward Lee and his wife, Agnes. He was English, she was French, and they both lived in London. We fell in love with them, they fell in love with us, and we often had lunch with them at the beach dining room.
After reading, talking, singing, sunbathing, swimming, and napping all day we would shower, dress, and board the Ciga boat to Venice for dinner. Ciga was the name of the hotel chain that ran the Excelsior. Their boat was a big beautiful motorboat seating about a dozen people. The sun was setting as our boat swept along the waters to its dock at the Hotel Danieli in Venice. We then grabbed a water bus, or vaporetto, to take us to our restaurant, usually some splendid outdoor terrace overlooking the Grand Canal. One of our favorite places was the Gritti Palace. The food and wine were always wonderful and the view was spectacular. After dinner we would wander through the narrow streets of Venice, crossing many bridges, and often finding a little out-of-the-way place for dessert and coffee. Then we’d grab the late Ciga boat back to the Excelsior. We returned many times, and when the time came to leave Venice, I often booked us for another few days because it was so hard to tear myself away from that magical place.
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At this point, with your kind permission, let me indulge in a small anecdotal aside: Many years later in 2017, my musical version of Young Frankenstein was leaving our very successful out-of-town tryout in the city of Newcastle, England, on its way to the Garrick Theatre in London’s West End. It was going to be about ten days before the load in of scenery and rehearsals was ready for the London opening.
I called my dear British BBC pal Alan Yentob and said, “Alan, I’ve got a week on my hands before Young Frankenstein opens at the Garrick. Why don’t we go to Venice?”
He happily agreed and the next day we were on our way. Of course, I had us booked at that great hotel on the Lido, the Excelsior, where I had such fond memories of staying so long ago. When we checked in, they graciously gave me a grand suite with a large sitting room overlooking the water, and a smaller room for Alan.
After enjoying the view of the Adriatic from the grand suite’s balcony I said, “Alan, let’s take a look at your room.”
We walked down a flight of stairs, went to the end of the hall, and opened Alan’s door. As I entered the room I broke into tears. Alan asked me what was wrong, and I explained.
“Could we switch rooms? Because this is the very same room that Anne and I stayed in so many years ago.”
Alan said, “Okay. I guess I’ll have to rough it up in the grand suite.”
Chapter 20
Brooksfilms, Part III
So sometime in 1984 or early 1985, Stuart Cornfeld came to me with an idea. He said, “I’ve just read a great script. There’s a movie that Fox owns that we should remake…it’s called The Fly.”
I remembered that movie. It was about tele-transportation and the scientist who’s in the teleporter doesn’t realize there’s a fly in the chamber with him. He ends up becoming a grotesque hybrid of human and fly.
“As I remember, there was nothing special about it. Why are you suggesting it?”
Stuart replied, “This script I read by a writer called Charles Pogue has a different take on it that I think would turn it into a really good horror movie. You see in the original, the event turning the scientist into the fly happens so quickly that it’s not horrific. It’s almost funny. But why not take our time with the process? Actually have the scientist very slowly become the fly.”
“Go on…” I said.
He said, “Well, in this version he thinks the experiment is a failure. He doesn’t realize that he has absorbed the genes of the fly and is slowly but surely becoming this horrible creature.”
“Ahh! Like a metamorphosis!”
“Right!” he said. “For instance, he’s putting six or seven teaspoons of sugar in his coffee and he doesn’t notice it. So like in every good horror movie, the audience knows what’s happening but not the leading character.”
“Okay! Sounds good. Let’s get the rights from Fox.”
We did, and Stuart began developing the film. His choice for director was the super talented Canadian David Cronenberg, who had made a reputation for himself as a top horror film director. I had seen some of his movies, including Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), and The Dead Zone (1983), and thought they were terrific. I agreed with Stuart that he was the guy.
David read Charles Pogue’s screenplay and liked it very much but would only sign on to direct if he got carte blanche on rewriting the script.