Paul Koslo

Interview by Justin Humphreys

(you are on page 3)

page 1 / page 2 / page 3 / page 4 /
page 5 / page 6 / page 7 / page 8

"We had people cook, these Filipinos who live in the jungle, (in) these small villages and stuff. And they used all the natural stuff for cooking, parts of the natural habitat that were edible, fruits and coconuts they got off the trees. It's something you'd never think of now because we're so automated and we've become so technologically advanced. They'd have wild game that they'd cook up and raised chickens and hogs and things. They'd just slaughter them and cook 'em up. It sounds kind of primitive, but it was really romantic. It's so nice to go to another country and you don't understand them and they act so helpful and nice. I fell in love with the Filipino people, I really did. They were so nice. I mean, in any big city, you're gonna get some idiots. But everyone, to a fault, was just perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better experience. Other than that we didn't get paid for the first three weeks. And then, later, when we got back home, we had so much overtime, we hit him (producer Joe Soloman) up for that, too.

"My next picture was THE OMEGA MAN (71) and Charlton Heston was then president of the Screen Actors' Guild. I said, 'Hey, by the way, I just got back from the Philippines and this guy owes me about forty-two hundred bucks in overtime.' And he made some calls to the legal department and they got this guy and I had my check within about two weeks. So that worked out really well. I had a lot trouble with (THE OMEGA MAN). I'm just starting out, remember, and I have about three or four movies under my belt and I don't want to step on anybody's toes. I want to be a consummate professional and Rosalind Cash took me under her wing. Because what happened was that Heston was so busy, being president of the Screen Actor's Guild and Reagan was an old buddy of his, because he used to be president of SAG, and, at that time, he was governor, I think (Note: Yes, he served two terms). Heston would be busy all the time; he'd have limos standing by. So all the stuff that I did with Heston, which was quite a bit of work, when it came to my close-ups, I did them (acting) with a mop. They had a mop and they set the wooden part of it down on the floor and the mop part was where Heston's head was. They had this mop handle, say about six foot-three, and I would do all my acting, all my close-ups with the mop and the script girl held the script and would say the lines and the mop would be in front of her head. So I got very disconcerted, I got very insecure. That was just his thing when he thought it wasn't important for him to be there. He never did that with Rosalind Cash of course- of course you wouldn't do that: they had a plotline relationship. So Roz kind of took me under her wing and she explained to me that I was doing a great job and for me to keep it up and for me not to lose faith in myself. Because it was a big movie for me. There was basically Lincoln Kilpatrick, Anthony Zerbe, Roz, and him and myself were basically it as far as (the leads). I thought, 'This will be great. Hopefully I can do a good job.' And, then, when it came to my close-ups, he wasn't there. I wasn't getting anything (reaction). It was very disconcerting. It was strange. And some of the people said something about it. Boris Sagal, the director, was really gracious. As a matter of fact, one time he invited me and Roz over for dinner and that's when he apologized for Heston's behavior. He said, 'He doesn't mean to be that way.' And sure enough, before the movie came out, Heston invited me over to his house and out for dinner at Chasen's one night. He was really gracious. He didn't actually say, 'Hey, listen: I'm sorry I wasn't there for the close-ups.' But in his own way, in a roundabout kind of way, he apologized.

"VANISHING POINT (71) was sort of the first road picture, where people (making the film) went on the road and they drove. The whole crew and all the equipment and all the trucks would drive from town to town. It was like on the LOSERS when we lived in the jungle. And now, when the company moves, the actors just fly. It was like a caravan. That was really a great experience, too. VANISHING POINT is a cult classic. I read for the director (Richard C. Sarafian) and what happened was, on the way to Fox, I was on my motorcycle and I was wearing an American flag shirt. In the 70's, it wasn't done because people were burning the flag because of Vietnam being so unpopular. Man, I got a ticket on the way over to the studio by this cop for wearing an American flag shirt! For desecrating the flag! I couldn't believe it, man! So I was pissed. It kinda made me late, and in those days you didn't have cell phones and I didn't have the studio number. I was about twenty minutes late. So I started to recall to the director what had happened to me. And I was so pissed, so full of emotion, he said, 'You know what? You're gonna play that cop. I don't even have to have you read for me. And that's how I want you to play him, just like you are right now, the emotion you're feeling. Because you want to get this guy (Kowalski, a Nam vet) and you're gonna be feeling that emphatic about trying to get this son of a bitch.' He cast me in that. We started it in Denver, Colorado. VANISHING POINT had an incredible cast. And Kowalski was Barry Newman. He (Kowalski) didn't say much. He was more like a Charles Bronson-type character. Newman was a really nice guy. He always had a good thing to say about everything. Cheerful. It's funny, because he wasn't like (his character) at all. He was like a nice Jewish boy (laughs)."

In one scene Koslo's character clubs the blind disc jockey (Cleavon Little). "He was a nice guy. You know, I did ROOTS II (79), working with African Americans. And I've never had any personal problems with racial prejudice myself ever. And, yet, when I did ROOTS, I played this guy that started the Ku Klux Klan, Earl Crowther was his name. I took my work home because I thought I needed to. The character went from his mid-20's up to about seventy-seven years old. I had about four hours of makeup every morning. So everybody hated me, but they were gracious enough to know that that (character) wasn't like me, but that I was preparing all the time. When you put pressure on people like that and it's about the racial situation to begin with - the point I'm trying to make about Cleavon, is that he said, C'mon, man. Do whatever you want. In a general scale, we have a racial issue, but, one-on-one: that's how we can make a difference.' And that just opened everything up for me (for that scene), you know what I mean? Again, he was a really talented, gifted guy. When he smiled, the whole world lit up. You can see that in BLAZING SADDLES. Great eyes, just so black and white. And he was good in VANISHING POINT, too."

Richard Compton's WELCOME HOME, SOLDIER BOYS (72) was a violent tale of four returning Green Beret Nam vets who kill, rape and destroy the town of Hope, NM. Joe Don Baker, Alan Vint and Koslo starred. JOE KIDD was also in 1972. "That was a western, and it was big for me because I'd never actually been on a horse. They were behind (schedule) at Paramount, so I was driven straight from there all the way up to Lone Pine. And when I got up there, Clint and the guys were so gracious- they knew I couldn't ride that well. So they let me ride all the time that I wasn't working. And they showed me how to holster a gun, how to quick-draw, how to do some spinning with the .45, slide back down in the holster like all the showboat guys do, which I thought was really nice of them. Of course, I was working with guys like Don Stroud, John Saxon, and, of course, Bobby Duvall. We were a mess, us guys (laughs). Bobby is so incorrigible. There's a scene of just Clint riding and we're in the Alabama Hills, way up there in the Sierra Nevadas. And the wind is just blowing like crazy and everybody's got their hats tied down. The whole crew is standing there and we're all watching Clint do this ride through the sagebrush, and the wind was howling and it was really loud. Then, all of a sudden- it was right after lunch- Bobby let out this hellacious fart- you could hear it through the whole valley! I mean, it was louder than the wind! And at the same instant, this wrangler's hat blew off his head right in front of us. We were all cracking up, and then Bobby says, 'I blew his brains out!' And Clint was about twenty feet away, riding, and he heard the fart! I've never heard such a loud fart. I'll never forget that as long as I live. This cowboy's hat just blew off his head right in front of him and it was gone. He tried to get it, but it went like four hundred feet through the air, like it was propelled out of a rocket ship. And that's kind of how everybody treated each other. Base humor. Boy's locker room stuff.

"And then we moved to Tucson, the whole company moved there. There was this Indian on the show. His name was Running Deer. He was with us when we were up there in Mammoth. We were there for, I don't know, three-and-a-half, four weeks. And when we got to Tucson, Running Deer never showed up. He just disappeared. About ten days later, after starting back up in Tucson, everybody forgot about him. We'd been back shooting for about ten days, shooting in Old Tucson, when we hear this (whispering), 'Hey! Hey, guys! Over here!' We look, and there's old Running Deer and he's got this squaw pulled behind him and this old brown paper bag. He said, 'Hey, man, I've been down in Santa Cruz and I got married. C'mon and have a bowl with us!' He opened his brown paper bag and it was just full of buds. Everybody just went, 'WOW! Running Deer, you're the greatest!' He was like a stunt guy and everybody loved him because he was so beautiful. We thought he'd gotten killed or something! Clint just welcomed him back with open arms because he was sort of like a mascot. Running Deer would invite us into his hotel room and he's got this Hibachi on the carpet. It burned a big hole in the middle of the living room. He didn't like using stoves or anything. Things like that. Just really funny."

LOLLY MADONNA XXX (73), directed by Richard Sarafian, was about a modern day moonshine war. Koslo played Robert Ryan's son. "He was great. You know, I've done- what?- a hundred and thirty movies and television shows, and I've got to say that he was probably the best out of everybody I've worked with. I really mean that. We went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to make that movie. We played a family and the first thing he did was to invite us to his room and he made dinner for us. And the lady who was playing his wife, an actress from New York (Tresa Hughes), just fell right in and within a half-hour, we were a real family. It was just such a beautiful gesture that everything just fell right into place. He was like a father and a confessor. He was like a sage and everything to us. He was really, really sweet - genuine. I'll tell you, man, he was really incredible. He still makes that impression on me when I think about him. And he was a hell of an actor, too. He never became a gigantic star, but he was a big star in his day. You didn't have the Arnold Schwarzeneggers then."