I’d Like to Thank the Academy…

Before I was in Manalive (a film which cinema historians from the 25th Century fully expect to be released within their lifetimes), I was in one other film called “The Changeling”. It was a challenging role. The UW Theatre department issued a cattle call for a few hundred warm bodies to show up in a lecture hall on campus. I was among the not so few with a pulse who responded. We sat in the lecture hall and George C. Scott entertained us for four hours, mugging for the camera, and shooting a brief scene near the beginning of the film in which he enters, looks surprised at the size of the class, says something amusing, and then sits down to play the piano. The scene lasts maybe 20 seconds in the film, but it took us all afternoon to shoot. That was in January 1979.

Why do I mention it? Because it turn out that “The Changeling” (which is basically about a young man in a college classroom who sees George C. Scott’s character crack wise and play the piano, as well as some other stuff I forget) is one of Martin Scorcese’s favorite horror flicks.

If you rent it you *might* be able to pick out a young skinny me way over on the left-hand side of the screen. Failing that, them that know me might be able to pick my laugh out of the soundtrack.