JR: Off-camera, I was reminding you I want to talk about Hal Mohr [INT: Right.] and James Wong Howe, and cinematography in general. [INT: But you were about to say something--] And then I said something about the Florence Chadwick Channel swim which was a remote--. I said, "I was there." And the association was, I had gone to an event at the Friars Club where Sid Caesar received yet another plaque and Red Buttons [born Aaron Chwatt], who was one of the most wonderful comic minds, still, went into one of his runs and he said--and he had a run of bizarre places where Sid would receive rewards. He said, "Sid Caesar is getting another award today." He said, "And a midnight minion of Hasidic Jewish pickpockets, Sid was there getting an award." I mean, he used those words. "A midnight minion of Hasidic pickpockets." [INT: Great.] I mean, what a commentary. Sid was there. He said, "At a protest meeting of handball players who wanted The Berlin Wall put back up, Sid was there getting an award." It was that kind of a run. [INT: Right.] It was the "I was there" routine. [INT: Right.] I mean, one scream after the other. Anyway. [INT: Yeah, he's amazing.]

INT: You're sent out to California to train other Stage Managers.
JR: Yes. Well, I think it was to get rid of me because I was a troublemaker, but not really, I mean, 'cause they also knew that Arthur Penn and I were single, and also Bud Yorkin was sent out and he was, I think, he had either been a Camera Operator or a budding something Assistant Director. I'm not sure what he was. But he was not Stage Manager. He was a cut above us. But the three of us were sent out. It was Bud Yorkin, Arthur Penn, and myself [John Rich]. The idea was to train Stage Managers because--this is antediluvian history--but in those days, the network only went east-to-west. There was no co-axial cable that went the other way. They were about to open the west-to-east cable to have broadcast originations from the coast. So they needed Stage Managers. They only had local people who worked at KTLA and KTTV, that sort of thing. So we went out and I was assigned, I think it was the COLGATE COMEDY HOUR, or it was going to be. Yeah. But we had to train people while we were actually performing functions. We met at a masonic temple. That's where the rehearsals were. [INT: On Wilshire?] Masonic temple on Hollywood Boulevard in those days. [INT: Okay.] Next to the Roosevelt Hotel. But we recorded--we did the show from the El Capitan Theater. Not the one that's on Hollywood Boulevard. There was another El Cap on Vine Street [INT: Right, I didn't know that] and it had been turned into a TV studio and we had the sweetest head carpenter--that man: Earl--I can't think of his last name. But he was so kind of us as opposed to the head carpenters we were used to working with, aside from Tommy Nolan and I was friendly with. Most of the IA [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or I.A.T.S.E.] guys in New York were dreadful to the Stage Managers. They were hard guys, and the NABET [National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA)] crews were terrible. They were, you know, they were insistent on doing things exactly by the book and "you don't touch my camera" and if you were an IA [I.A.T.S.E] Stage Hand, you didn't touch my prop. It was that kind of nonsense where people had to wait for a half hour to get a particular prop man to move a vase. They were really stupid. And when the NABET guys did not like the particular Director, if he would say, "Dolly in," they would dolly into the wall and not--until he said, "Stop." That sort of thing was going on. [INT: Whoa.] I mean really awkward. California...it was new to them. They were so happy to be working and getting the chance to be part of the new network that was going out. Wow! And so, we started to find young people like--the first guy we found was Jack Smite. Remember Jack? [INT: Of course.] He became a very nice Director. [INT: Yeah.] He's retired now, apparently. I think I saw something in the paper about him recently. Jack got me started smoking cigars. Can you imagine? I went through a whole war without touching a cigarette. And I was 26 years old when Jack's son Timothy [Timothy Smite] was born and he said, "Here. Have a cigar." I said, "I don't smoke." He said, "Come on. It's for my son." So I put one in and it was like a child discovering chocolate. [INT: [laughs]] Wow. It was like Sid Caesar when he did the sketch of the Director became an alcoholic. He never drank, never drank. And then he took, somebody offered him, they pushed it, and he said “Well,” and he took a sip, and he had that look. And I talked to Sid about this. It was about--I said, "The image was of a baby, wasn't it?" He said, "Yeah." The taste was a baby making a new discovery and he did the--and then looking around to find out where it came from, [INT: [laughs]] and it was that. And he drank it down [flicks tongue like licking the inside of a glass] licking the glass [laughs]. [INT: Great, great, great.] …All the absurdity of an alcoholic. Wonderful. He became a bum. Okay, so back to, Jack Smite was a selection. Very bright, a young Actor. And we taught him how to work as a Stage Manager. And Arthur and I did the early COLGATE COMEDY HOURs [THE COLGATE COMEDY HOUR]. And Bud [Bud Yorkin] was an Assistant to Norman Lear. [INT: Wow.] Norman was one of the Writers, and Ed Simmons was one of the Writers; dead now. And it was Martin [Dean Martin] and Lewis [Jerry Lewis], COLGATE COMEDY HOUR, Eddie Canter, Donald O'Connor. We did all those guys.

INT: Now being this close to these guys, were you now beginning to--besides obviously befriending some of them, were you also learning something that you--if you--?
JR: Befriending is a big word. No, no. You don't befriend these comics. You were in awe. I actually worked with--well, I worked with Ben [Ben Blue], too. That was one thing. He was great. But the greatest of them all--no, that was New York, he did a sketch. It was, come on. Buster Keaton actually worked on THE JACK CARTER SHOW on a sketch. Can you imagine? So anyway, I worked with Ed Wynn, I worked with--oh, Jimmy Durante. Well Durante was back in New York. We'll talk about that later. I'm backing and filling, I'm sorry. [INT: But I'm still interested in what you're learning from these guys.] Oh my god. Timing! You could learn how these guys controlled an audience. You knew how every nuance was--oh, I'll tell you one of the great learning. Cliff Arquette. You remember Cliff? He played Charlie Weaver. You know the character? [INT: Yes, I do.] Well Cliff was a young man who played this old, bucolic character who was so slow in his delivery and his mind was like razorblades. And he used to cut these people up. I mean, he was so fast, he's such a great, extraordinary thinker. And we did a show, I was assigned as the Associate Director. One of my first jobs after having trained Stage Managers for the big shows back west to east. I was assigned in the middle of the week as an AD [Associate Director] on the Willock [Dave Willock] and Arquette [Cliff Arquette] show [DAVE AND CHARLEY]. It was a 15 minute morning show that was designed for broadcast in New York at 10 o'clock, something like that, 11 o'clock. We were very early in the morning. And our day was finished when we finished the show, but the show was entirely ad lib. [INT: Entirely?] They had--Cliff played Charlie Weaver, this old guy who lived in Mount Idy in Ohio, I guess it was. this mythical town. And they lived by the side of the tracks and a train came by an shook everything, you know, which was stolen in a big film. A LETTER TO FOUR WIVES, was it? They stole that bit from Cliff. Anyway. Dave [Dave Willock] was the straight man, Cliff was the comic, and the only thing he said was, they wanted a one-minute signal to say when they were coming to the end of the program because they had a set punch line and they were going to the feed, an they would do the--. Well I learned more from having breakfast with Cliff, I think, than I have with almost any other comic. [INT: Because?] Well, his sharpness--we're used to--did you know Johnny Bradford? [INT: Yeah.] Johnny was the Stage Manager and we would gather in the make-up room in the morning at about 6:30, some ungodly hour, while Cliff was making up into the old man get-up and we would read things out of the newspaper to Cliff and he would comment and it was always, I mean, well he would later on HOLLYWOOD SQUARES, but he was one of the great. And those were his ad libs for the most part. He was very quick. I remember one day Johnny said to him, "Cliff, it says here that when frogs copulate, they do it for 28 days straight." And without hesitation he said, "Oh yeah, no wonder their eyes bulge so." [INT: [laughs]] But with that kind of country delivery. [INT: Right.] Wonderful. I mean, one day we finished the show, we were walking down Vine Street to get our coffee on Sunset Boulevard, at Hollywood Boulevard. And there was a medical building on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and getting out of the car--this was the straight line. This is what I meant by the speed of picking up on something funny and being able to manufacture the comedic observation, almost at will. A man got out of a car, being helped out of a car, and he was a cartoon figure of somebody who was covered with every kind of bandage you could think of. And he had splotches and bumps and an arm in a sling, leg in a cast. I mean, he was being helped and he had everything--and the face was absolutely bruised, incredibly. And that was the straight line and Cliff said, "There's a man who's been driving golf balls in his bathroom." How do you get to an image like that? I mean, you know, we could all tell jokes. That's one thing. But Cliff saw the humor in everything that--I mean one day he was playing a priest on DRAGNET. As the young Actor he really was. I mean he was not in the get-up at that time. He was a priest. And he was in an elevator and during a lunch break, still in the costume. And a beautiful woman got off the elevator and Cliff said--I guess he had some kind of ventriloquist capability, but he said, "Did you see the ass on that broad?" And everybody was shocked. And then Cliff looked around as if in--how could anybody speak like that in front of a clergyman? And as he got off the elevator, a fight broke off. "Who said that? Who said that in front of the father?" But, mischief. You know. [INT: Real mischief.] Oh yeah. Delicious.

INT: Let's go into your process. You did say the tale about where you said you could direct and you did. I'm talking about taking over the show with Ezio Pinza that particular moment. How long were you out here before? Or how many years did you sort of get in training before you actually got the first directing responsibility--?
JR: I was Stage Manager in 1951, I was directing in '52 [1952]. [INT: So it was really only a year?] Well it was quick because--[INT: They needed people.] It was great. It's like I said about being an aviation cadet. In those days, there were many causalities ahead of me [laughing]. And so we got moved up pretty quick. [INT: Got it.] Yeah, but it did take its toll, you know. Working live was really without a net, you know. [INT: But now that's all you knew, though. I mean it's interesting. You say to somebody, "What was it like to work live?" Well that's what it was, as distinguished from somebody working film now and then suddenly going to that experience.] Oh, you had to learn--you learned a new language and you learned how to do it with cold blood. It was like learning how to fly an airplane again. It was the same thing. You know, I was in the service, I had never directed, I had never announced a basketball game, I did it. I never seen a western, I did it. That was later. [INT: Now let's talk about this for a second. This is--do you think--] I'll tell you about the Directors Guild [Directors Guild of America, DGA]. [INT: Hold on. Because you're talking about something about your own personality. And if I were to say you are, let's say, you're willing to take chances, or if I were to say you're perseverant, or if I were to say you're a risk-taker, would you say--?] Oh yeah, absolutely. I would say I took risks with the inner knowledge that I could do it. Somehow, I must drop enough knowledge or capability to bring it on. I never thought I could fail. I mean it was always "Hey, I could do this." It's like when I said I could announce that basketball game, I had never seen a game. It's when my agent called me, I had now been on staff at NBC [National Broadcasting Corporation] as a Director. Three hundred a week. Wow. Big rise from 85 dollars or whatever that, 80 dollars, Stage Manager, and even as an AD [Associate Director] I think I made 90 or 95 dollars. Something like that. 300 a week! And the idea was it was 52 weeks, of course, that was an illusion because there were no contracts. The network could fire you at any time, and did. There were guys falling by the wayside all the time. They'd be called Directors, they'd be laid off the minute there was no need. So that was a snare in a delusion.

INT: But it's interesting 'cause you're saying you didn't have any sense that you would fail.
JR: No. [INT: Now here's a business and an art form that is filled with, in fact, failure.] I didn't know it at the time. [INT: Got it! Did you learn it? Did you suddenly, I mean, one of the things that people who watch many of these Actors, desperate for approval. You?] Oh yeah. There was always a sense. It was like going into an exam. I'd go back to my college experience. If I prepared enough, if I thought about it enough, I could lick this exam, somehow. Even if I misidentified Jonathan Swift and called him Alexander Pope, I could write my way out of it, which I did. I had watched basketball games as a sports reporter in high school. [INT: So, preparation.] Yeah, I was prepared for that. I went to the--I didn't just take it for granted. I went to a rehearsal and I went to a practice session. I watched a lot of that. I went to the bookstore, I read the book, I was prepared with facts and figures. I knew I could talk. I could keep going. It's a narrative I'll get going. As far as Walter McGraw was concerned, it was a meal ticket. I had no idea I could do this. I watched him. He was very good at it. I said, "I'll use his technique." Later, when I said I could step in and be the Director, I knew I could because I was the AD [Associate Director] and I was a good AD [Associate Director] . So it was not a big step to move over one chair. People were astounded because it wasn't that easy in those days, apparently, but I fell into it. What was the other thing? Oh. So when my agent called one day and said, "Listen, I want you to meet Joan Davis," I said, "For what?" That scared me. They said, "Well, she has a film series." I said, "Yeah, it's a film series. I don't do film." He said, "Well it's multiple cameras. Not that different from live in a sense that... and the audience. You have a second chance. You correct things." But I said, "See, I don't know. I've never even seen a film being made. How do you do it?" He said, "Go and meet her anyway." Well that made me nervous, I must say. I remember shopping carefully. I went to Sy Devore's shop on Vine Street, and bought what was, for me, an expensive shirt so I could look California. It was a warm day. Short sleeved shirt. "Where does she live?" "Bel Air." "Holy God, Bel Air." I had driven by the Bel Air gates many times, but it's not a place you went into, unless you were welcome. I always thought it was guarded. It's interesting. The gate itself was so formidable. You didn't break that portal. I now had an address. Deep breath. I'm prepared. I said, "I'll look cool, I'll be okay." I'm doing Sid Caesar. I drove into the gates and followed Bellagio Road, my god. These homes! I can't believe it. I went by the Bel Air Country Club. Holy mackerel. Incredible space. Drove up to this house that she inhabited. It was ten acres. It seemed like forever. Huge house. And I went in and asked to meet her. Some servant, maid, butler, invited me to go to the back patio and I sat down with Joan Davis, whom I had seen on television, of course. Great comedienne. Didn't know that she was crazy or that she drank. And she was good. And Pinky Wolfson, P.J. Wolfson, was the Producer. And they interviewed me. And I told the truth. I said, "You know, I've never done a film before." She looked like, "What the hell?" Well it was a Morris [William Morris Agency] office package. I didn't know that at the time because when I had become a Director at NBC TV so the Morris office will take a chance on a young Director, maybe we could fill a slot and get our package. It was--she owned the show, the Joan Davis show. I MARRIED JOAN was the name of it. And she said, "Have you seen my show?" I said, "Yeah, I've seen the show." "Do you like it?" "Yeah, sometimes. It's funny." "Well is there anything you don't like about it?" I said something inane like, "I don't like the couch." "What's the matter with the couch?" I said, "Well, it's very stripy." I said, "It's all you can see in the whole set. It takes my eye. I see nothing but striped couch. For me, it's much too bold. It's bold in color, and it's distracting." And she said, "So all I gotta do is change the couch and I'll make a better show?" I said, "No, I didn't say quite that, you know." Then there was a pause. I don't know where this came from. I said, "Look. If you want me to say I can help your show, I think I can help your show." I said, "I don't know for sure. We may not get along, but I think we'll be alright." And that was the interview. And I thought, "I've blown this. There's no way I can get this job." I got a call saying, "You've got the job." Two weeks. $750 an episode. Holy mackerel! Screen Directors Guild. So I had to call the Guild. I said, "I've gotta be a member." Joe Youngerman. What a dear man. I loved him. Joe Youngerman, the executive secretary. "There's an initiation fee." "What is it?" "$1,500." I said, "That's what I'm making!" $1,500. A bargain. I said, "Gee, I don't have the money to pay for it all at once." He said, "We can work out a plan." And he allowed me a plan. Okay. And so I was now a member of the Screen Directors Guild and I was invited to a meeting that happened that the annual meeting was being held that week or the following week. Something like that. So I came to a meeting in the Guild. It was a rented hall someplace. We didn't have a building at that time. And I walked into the--now in those days, I can't tell you what it was like to sit in a room that was populated by George Stevens, Frank Capra, William Wyler, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, go down the list of great Directors, Rouben Mammoulian, Josef Von Sternberg, Cecil B. DeMille, believe it or not, was there. Even though he hated the union. But this was a meeting that everybody attended. It was once a year and that's when they voted for the board which I knew nothing about. George Sidney was the president. So he opened up, he said, "The first order of business is, we will vote for the new board. And the reason that's first is it takes awhile to hand count the ballots. And then we will conduct other business." So nominations are in order. And there was a big blackboard in the front and names were put on the board. Well, the names such as Howard Hawks, I mean geez. You name the patly of Directors at 1953, and they were all there. And I was in awe. I mean, imagine. And they put the names up, 24 names, and you had to select, even as today, you write out a secret ballot, select 18 names, and they are the board. Okay. Having done that, Sidney went onto other business. Treasures report, routine this and that. Then he said, "It's time to introduce new members." Read our names, there were five or six of us. Polite applause, we sat down. Then we had--

INT: How many members do you think there were, about?
JR: Oh, very few. A couple of hundred. 300 maybe. I don't know. First of all, I was too busy taking in the likes of Stanley Kramer and Vincente Minnelli. I mean, it never stopped. These were all names that you conjure with. You say, my god, how do you sit in a group like this and call yourself a Director in this group? That gave me great pause, I must say. How do I fit in here? I don't. These are filmmakers. I'm gonna be doing a television show. But by some fluke, I'm being introduced into the same union, group, guild. Have to say guild, it was never a union in those days. Okay, so then George Sidney said, "Any comments?" And people are standing up and then Sidney, George Sidney said, "Anybody else?" They're still counting ballots. "Anybody else? Anybody wanna say anything? Somebody? Would anybody like to say--" You know, here's an emcee in a momentary, mild desperation. I have been trained in radio and television never to allow dead air. Here it comes again. You wanna know where I come from? Kind of--I don't know whether it's arrogance or just stupidity or some kind of risk-taking, I guess. I raised my hand. I was recognized. I said, "You know, I'm a new member and I'm incredibly pleased to be in this society of--amazing, the pantheon of directing." I said, "I'm honored to be sitting here." I said, "But I was thinking that I had read an article in Variety [Variety (magazine)] this week that said we were approaching--50% of all the work in Hollywood is now being done by all the crafts. Writers, Actors, and Directors, in television." I said, "But I see the names up there, the 24 names of the most illustrious Directors that ever lived." I said, "I don't think anybody has ever been on television in that group." Well there's a gasp in the room. "Who the hell is this kid? [INT: Great.] What?!" I mean, am I attacking--"What?" There was a dead silence. Clearing of throats and George Sidney said, "We'll look into it, and yes, okay." And he thanked me, in quotation marks, for my observation. The next day I got a call from Joe Youngerman. "You're an alternate on the Board of Directors. We need somebody from television." Can you imagine? Now here I am, sitting not just in the pantheon of an auditorium, but the board of all these guys. And I'm sitting with the cream, except I've got a voice, and I'm shutting up now. And here's where I began to learn a whole lot about directing, a whole lot. [INT: Go.] Because these guys, they all spoke softly, but with authority. And but I'd heard stories about them. They're all terrors in their own way, many of them on a set. I said, "That doesn't square. These people are genteel. They're nice." They all smoke, by the way, and I didn't smoke until Jack Smite came along. [INT: With a cigar.] Everybody smoked cigars or pipes. [INT: Right.] And I remember--oh John Ford was on the board. Can you imagine? [INT: Wow.] And I used to watch--I never said a word for the first couple of meetings. Ford used to have these wonderful Havana cigars and he would take out a Havana and then he'd take out his pen knife and he would carefully, surgically cut the cigar in half and then he would shove the half into his mouth and it was not because he wanted to cut down, but he wanted to chew it. And he liked it though 'cause it was messier. [INT: Right.] And he was so messy that with his drooling cigar and handkerchief that he kept biting on, plus the eye patch, he was the very symbol of raffishness. I mean, but when he spoke, everybody got quiet and you listened. And he had kind of a gruff voice. He never said too much, but I remember one day, it was so interesting 'cause you know Delmer Daves, you know him? [INT: No [inaudible].] Sweetheart of a man; talk about mild Directors. He had directed BROKEN ARROW. Remember the original film? [INT: Yes, I do.] And he came in one day and Delmer--I mean, he sat down and Jack Ford looked up and he said, "Delmer," he said, "I saw your picture on television last night." He said, "They cut out so much there wasn't one fucking Indian left in it." The whole thing was about Indians. So I remember, god, what a wonderful comment. But it told me something about camaraderie, it told me something about conception. He was making a wonderful comment about the evils of TV editing. And he did it in a gruff, rude, wonderfully comic--talk about comedy--hit the mark. Timing. But he made a point. And it was something we used to talk about all the time. How do we stop this?

INT: Now you said you learned about directing from watching these other Directors in this room.
JR: Well, a lot of it was the way they conducted themselves in argument. And I could see how brilliantly they would form sentences. I mean, they were great communicators. They were never at a loss as I would have been. In fact, I frequently still am. I am not as--I'm loquacious to be sure, but I'm not as correct. The way George Stevens used to phrase things. The way Capra [Frank Capra] used to say things. I mean they would go right to the heart of the matter with an economy of words that I could say, "That translates to how do you talk to an Actor." They would get through. But also, there was always the feeling that behind that--for example, Willy Wyler [William Wyler] once said, and he was the mildest. He was a board member. And Wyler once said, talking about directing, he said, "You must avoid all temptation to be a good fellow." That says something about the craft. Don't be trying to win a popularity contest. Do the work. I mean it resonates with me to this day. You don't want to be a good fellow. You know, you don't have to be completely harsh. Some of them were harsh. Henry Hathaway. Later, I found--we shared a wonderful cinematographer. Lucien Ballard. Oh god, I loved him. I did four pictures with Lucien, and I know he did pictures with Hathaway. And Hathaway was gruff, but also in that community, he was polite because, you know, you talk politely to your peers. But Lucien told me a story once about doing a film in Mexico, a western, with Hathaway. And the Best Boy would be communicating with the electricians by saying, "Por favor." And then he would indicate a little bit left, a little bit up, whatever, with the lamps. And Hathaway took this for as long as he could and one day, it was taking too much time. He yelled, "Cut out that por favor shit and move the goddamn lamp!" You never saw that guy at the boardroom, but you knew that it was there. Richard Brooks once said, "We live in a democracy till you walk out on my set." There was that quiet understanding that we are the power and don't fool with us because--and then, of course, I went from there to becoming in the real inner circle of negotiations. And I would watch--I remember one year, we met with Ben Kahane, the head of the MPPAA [Motion Picture Association of America]. Now Kahane was a Columbia [Columbia Pictures] legal mind. Great. Very urbane lawyer. Very bright. Affecting a faulty memory, he once said, "Did I hear the name Samuel Gompers?" Well he hadn't, of course. Making a point. He said, "Samuel Gompers. Wasn't he the man who once said, 'Anybody who makes over a 100 dollars a week has no right belonging to a union?'" George Stevens, without looking up from his doodlings said, "No, it was Jefferson Davis." Well, think about that line. How he snatched the moment away from Kahane, leveled the field, made a joke, made a telling joke. By the way, the quote was accurate, but it was made in 1887. But he took the moment. It was like, the year that we put the two guilds together [Screen Directors Guild and Rado and Television Directors Guild] and became the Directors Guild of America [DGA], I was on the committee, again, always the junior member, in New York with Frank Capra in the chair and George Stevens, Sidney [George Sidney], Youngerman [Joe Youngerman], people like that. You know, my eyes are beginning to mist a little bit. I wonder what's going on? [INT: You had emotional relationships with these--] No, I think I'm getting tired. [INT: You're also getting tired. Listen, you're getting tired, we'll stop.] No, no. Let's not stop until the next break. But in that meeting where we met for the first time, we had now amalgamated into our Screen Directors Guild and Radio and Television Directors Guild which had become a little more powerful, but still very weak. I was responsible, I dare say, for putting the things together because when I was back in New York--now I'm doing tangents upon tangents. [INT: We'll come around.] But I had been asked to go to New York to do a pilot with Walter Slezak. Remember him? [INT: Sure, of course.] And, oh, who's that other wonderful Actor? Come on, come on. [INT: Go on, it'll come to you.] Norman? God. I can't think of his name. [INT: The memory of names that you've already shown this last number of hours is so astounding to me. I couldn't begin to do--] He was on--[INT: But alright, forget. You know, I will bring it back. 'Cause I want to deal with some of these guys whose works you knew. You had seen their movies, now here are these guys. Here's Jack Ford [John Ford], here's George Stevens.] Alright. Let me get to Walter Slazack. [INT: But he's not those guys!] No, he's not those guys but it has to do with the union. Because the RTDG [Radio and Television Directors Guild] man now came on my set in New York and said, "You owe us eight years of back dues." I said, "For what? I'm on honorable withdrawal." He said, "Well you're in New York." I said, "You have no jurisdiction. I'm in New York on the hospices of the Screen Directors Guild. This is a film." Well, a lot of muttering. But when I came back, I said, "You know, we really should think about taking these guys in because they have contracts with the networks and we don't. We have contracts only with the studios. And there's a thing called tape." I made myself a pest about tape, I know, but George Sidney used to say, "Oh, here he is again. John Tape Rich." And I would turn and say, "Look. I've been to the Ampex. I've had some experience with audio, and now I see videotape. And boy, now it's coming. So I would like to propose that we don't have Directors with a particular kind of camera. We want to have Directors and Actors not a Mitchell camera or not an electronic camera." I said, "We're gonna be going down a very slippery slope if we don't take these boys in." [INT: Which is a very smart idea.] Well, by the way, it's come back again with DVD. [INT: It's happening right now. Now here's a question.] I mean HDTV.

INT: Did you get to visit any of these guys' sets?
JR: No, never; not once. Although, we became very friendly, Stevens [George Stevens], particularly. He became a great friend. And Capra [Frank Capra], because I was on committees with them and we'd dine in New York. We'd go to plays together. [INT: Now since it's--obviously you were talking about Guild [Directors Guild of America, DGA] matters, but would you--?] Oh, but they talked. Stevens once said, you know, I had said, "You know, it's a very lonely thing sometimes to be a Director." And he said, "Oh yeah, I know that feeling well." George Stevens said this. I said, "What?" He said, "Yeah, you walk onto that dark stage someday and everybody looks at you and you've gotta put the camera someplace and you don't have a clue." George Stevens didn't have a clue? I said, "You're kidding." He said, "No." I said, "What do you do?" He said, "You just say, 'Put the camera here and get them moving.' You may want to change your mind later, but get them moving in the morning." So that stuck with me. [INT: Yeah, yeah.] I never forget that because I thought, first of all, he was one of the Directors I was always in awe of. When I saw SHANE, and saw some of the cinematography, of course he had been a great Cinematographer, and I saw some of those pictures, I wept. I said, "I could never equal this kind of production value. How does this man do it?" And then of course he did A PLACE IN THE SUN and years later when I was--[INT: GIANT?] And GIANT, oh my god, but A PLACE IN THE SUN, on the Dreiser [Theodore Dresier] book, which I used to love as an American tragedy. But particularly when I was directing my first feature and I had the dreaded Shelley Winters in my cast, and I say that advisibly. [INT: You're remembering her from A PLACE IN THE SUN?] So I went--she was dreadful. She was awful in every which way. And I said to George one day, "You've used her at least twice that I know of." I said, "You had her in [INT: ANNE FRANK, yeah.] DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. Why do you cast her?" I said, "Did you find her a good Actor?" He said, "No! She was terrible." I said, "Why do you cast her?" He said, "Well, there's a certain quality I get out of her, but she's crazy. She drinks, and she's a masochist." He said, "You have to be very rude to her and then she'll listen to you." I said, "So what do you do? When she's..." I said, "She's being very obstreperous," I said, "I have been on this company. I have Van Johnson and Janet Leigh in the leads. And Ray Walton is one of the sub-leads." Wonderful people. And they were just doing tremend--I was a day ahead of schedule. Shelley showed up and I was a day behind by the end of her first day, I said "'Cause she kept asking for--" I realized later, she wasn't prepared. She used to come in there and wing it. And she would go 15, 16 takes. And she once said to me proudly, "You know, my first film I went 94 takes." I said, "Who did that?" She said, "George Cukor." I said, "Why would he have been--" I talked to him, I said "Why did you do that?" To Cukor. He said, "It's something I'll never live down. Every Director in the world who has worked with her has come to me and complained." And then it was Guy Green. I said, "You directed Shelley Winters in A PATCH OF BLUE." And the silverware dropped. And his hands started to shake. He said, "Please. Not while I'm eating." Now she did this to me and I begged Hal Wallis, my Producer, after the first day, I said, "Fire her." He said, "What do you mean? Fire her? She's won Academy Awards [Oscars]." I said, "She's gonna wreck this company. Or if she doesn't, she'll put us seriously overtime." I said, "Why did you hire her? Let me ask you. Do you think she's a good Actor?" He said, "I got her very cheap. Everybody gets her very cheap. "I said, "Oh, that's an argument." And of course, I realized later on, when I was in the cutting room, that what she does to you is she has so many takes, that she becomes probably the best thing in the picture. You have so much to create and you make a performance. And I remember one day she came to dailies, which I did not like. I didn't know she was there. But as the lights came up, she said, "Hey! I'm good in this thing! John, I have a hunch you and I are gonna do a lot of pictures together." And I said, "Bullshit, Shelley. This is it." And it was it. A nightmare to work with.