INT: Okay, we are on a Ferris wheel with Elvis [Elvis Presley]?
JR: So, I'm on this location where we had built a complete carnival. You want to talk about the power of a Director and the thrill? [INT: Go.] It's amazing. 'Cause I said, "We need a carnival," and they took me out to various places. We went out to the Albertson Ranch. At that time--now it's a city, I guess. [INT: Yeah, it is.] But this was a working cattle ranch. And I said, "Well, among the other requirements, we have to have--because it's Elvis Presley and because I don't want to be too close to Ventura Boulevard." I said, "Let's go in a ways." I said to the carnival man that we had hired, I said, "What would you do when you set up a carnival?" He said, "Well, you make a deal with the city, whatever it is, you have an area, and you set up--you drive a stake." It's suddenly a vampire country. [INT: Exactly. Dracula just came in here.] Yeah, exactly. I tipped that one by my association. [INT: Yup.] You drive a stake and that becomes your centerline and then there's a methodical way that you lay out a carnival. [INT: Wow.] I said, "Really? Tell me about it." [INT: Yeah, yeah.] He said, "Well you have--the first thing, is the Ferris wheel. And behind it you have the merry go round. And you have this ride and that ride, and then you have an avenue and then you have concessions on the next avenue, and you have the Wall of Death, which is a motorcycle ride, you know, where you. People look down." And Elvis was a motorcycle rider. [INT: Right, right.] And everything's laid out according to a particular plan. Once you select that stake. I said, "Well, who makes that decision?" He said, "Whoever's the boss." By the way, it gives me a sideline. You ever hear the phrase, "To make your nut." Of course you know. [INT: Yeah. Sure, of course.] You know what it means? [INT: Yeah, yeah.] What? [INT: Well, no. Literally? No. To make your nut was the amount of money that you expected that you wanted to have made.] You had to make a certain amount of money before you could begin to think of profit. [INT: That’s right.] You had to make my nut, in other words. [INT: Mmhmm.] I love the origin of this word. [INT: Why?] It came back from carnival days in the middle ages. People--traveling gypsy carnivals, usually--would come into a town, they make a deal with the townspeople--the town fathers--and they would set up their carnival and they would have the rides, and whatever they did in those days. I don’t know, you know? And they would agree to split the proceeds with the town. But in the middle of the night, these outfits would get up and steal out of town at two in the morning, leaving the town fathers nothing. [INT: Right.] So somebody finally figured this out and they said, "Look. Here's what we have to do. When the carnival comes into town, take the main wheel off of the main wagon and deposit the nut that goes on that wheel into the town safe." [INT: Right. Great, great.] And so to make their nut, they literally couldn't get out of town until they got it back. [INT: Right. Great. That's great.] Isn't that a lovely story? [INT: That’s great. Thank you for that one.] I love it. [INT: Make my nut.]

INT: So, now here you are, about to be the Director who gets to--
JR: Yeah, so I looked at Ventura Boulevard and I said, "I can't be here. I've gotta be at least almost--more than a mile in." And then I said, "We're gonna have to build our own fence." And we’re in a cow pasture. And I said, "And I don't want to see that fence particularly to divide the carnival, so I want to be this much in." And I'm pacing off this much in, that much away, and I said, "You know, we're gonna have to build a road." I said, "It's Paramount [Paramount Pictures Corporation]. We can build a road." You know? And they said, “Yeah we can do that.” I asked the assistant, Danny McCauley. I said, "What about building a road to get our trucks in?" He said, "Yeah, we can do that. We'll scrape a road." I loved that. And we’ll built a fence. [INT: Right.] To have--the whole thing would be fenced, and far enough away from gawkers in the back. I said, "What are we gonna do about extras?" He said, "Well, we have--" what did they call them in those days? You’d have a professional cadre of extras. And then you would go to unemployment and you would hire people, I think, for lunch and five or six dollars a day or something, and they would just enjoy the carnival. You know, hundreds? [INT: Right.] I had huge casts. But they were--only the people that we could trust would be up front. The rest of them take your children and ride the rides. [INT: Right.] That was--it was great because it looked very colorful. But on my schedule it said, "Elvis [Elvis Presley] sings to the girl when riding the Ferris wheel while the carnival's closed." So there's no sense of great color involved. [INT: Right, right.] And it's scheduled for process. Did you know Farciot Edouart? [INT: Sure.] He was the great process man. [INT: Process guy at Paramount?] Paramount. He was very good. [INT: I knew the Universal [Universal Pictures] guys.] Yeah, but process is process, and I always hated it. [INT: Right.] So I said, "Well let me see what--we're gonna photograph the background plate in Vista Vision. Remember that style? [INT: Sure.] So let me see what we’ll see. So, I rode the Ferris wheel looking backwards; and as long as the Ferris wheel was down low, you could see the merry go round, and as you started to rise, some of the other pavilions or games or whatever were visible. And they were fine. But as you got higher, you were out of the carnival completely and you were into California sky and really, essentially Ventura Boulevard in the distance. [INT: Mmhmm.] Really boring. And then I'd ride around again, it's boring, boring, boring, and it became interesting again. [INT: Right, right.] Interesting, interesting, interesting, interesting. Boring, boring, boring, I can't do this. And I'm thinking, "My god, if I spend three days schedule on process--" and you know it's gonna look like crap, you know? [INT: Right.] So I'm thinking about it and I said to Lucien Ballard, "How high could our crane go?" And he said some number of feet. I said, "Do we go high enough on this crane or can we get a crane that's high enough so that if we wanted to photograph live, the Actors-- [INT: On the real wheel. Right] on the Ferris wheel, could we stay with them right to the top?" And he thought about it. And again, he was an adventurous Cinematographer. He said, "It's very tough on the crew because what you have to do is you're gonna have to get a rope and our Key Grip.” --Listening to all of this. He said, "You have to get ahead of the Ferris wheel as it's coming down and so the crane is this way until you're letting the rope down so you don't bump on the bottom. [INT: Right.] You have to get at least six or seven grips to cradle the camera-- [INT: Right.] so you don't get a bump. [INT: And then you can push it back up.] And then you let it go up and then the same thing happens with this rope-- [INT: Sure, you gotta--] when you hit the top, you want to hold it and so it just nudges the top. [INT: Right.] He said, "It's difficult and it's very hard on the knees. You can't do it too many times." I said, "All I want to do is do it once." He said, "You want to do this live. What about playback?" I said, "I have it on tape and it's in sync." Back to tape again. It’s interesting. [INT: Yeah, yeah. Go on.] I said, "I can sync it up." And I said to the carnival operator, I said, "Can you alter the speed of the Ferris wheel?" He said, "Sure." I said, "Can I get one that's in tempo with this music?" [INT: Wow.] “Yeah.” It worked. [INT: Great.] I got one, I said, "Yeah, it's pretty close." We played the song. [INT: Right, right.] And we'd adjust the speed of the Ferris wheel where it wouldn't be too much of a hardship on the camera. It was in sync for the sound department. They thought I was crazy, of course, but nobody--who would shoot this live? By the way, I had shot live with Elvis before that. It was another process where he's riding the motorcycle and in fact, I think, maybe I didn't bring that still picture where I'm on top of the camera car-- [INT: Right.] with two cameras: a wide angle and a close angle because I said to Presley, I said, "Do you ride a motorcycle?" He said, "Yes, sir, Mr. Rich." I said, "Would you like to sing this song live?" "Oh yeah. I'd love to do that." And they thought, "How do you get the tape--" [INT: Really, really. Right.] Oh, not the tape, but “how do you get the-- [INT: The sound!] the disc. [INT: Right, right.] Sound.” I said, "Tape. Can you sync that up?" I said. "Yeah, I think so." I didn’t know. But they found that you could do it. [INT: Right.] So I had a speaker with tape and Elvis Presley riding a motorcycle and singing back to his own playback. And it was wonderful. Close-up and long shot at the same time. Shot, bang, like that. [INT: Right.] So I knew he could do it. I said, "You know, you can't make a mistake on lip sync. You can't do this more than once or twice." In the motorcycle you could but-- [INT: Right, right.] I said, so I said, "In this Ferris wheel shot, you're gonna be singing this romantic song to the girl. And it's a little complex lyric-wise,” I said, “But can you get it so I don't have to worry about lip sync? And the reason is, I think we can do it twice, but maybe that's it. What do you think?" "Oh yes, sir. I like that, Mr. Rich." He was game for these things. [INT: Right.] It was interesting. So I did it. And he was perfect. Lip sync was perfect. The camera, Dick Bachelor was the camera operator. Davey--Davey, gosh. Davey, a good photographer today, Davey Walsh [David Walsh] was the assistant. [INT: Sure. I've worked with him. Yeah.] Also a nice man. [INT: Very.] Right? He was on Lucien Ballard's crew all the time. [INT: Uh-huh] I'll tell you a story about that same picture at Paramount with Davey. So Davey was wrangling the shutter and Bachelor was operating the cameras. A two-inch lens, I remember. And we're doing this thing and it was kind of lovely. You’d get the sweep of the Ferris wheel and the arc of the camera doing this, never losing the operator, never losing the singer, and down. And when it came down, you'd have a foreground of the empty seats going in front of you and you can still see the singer and his girlfriend. A very interesting shot. [INT: Yeah.] Almost a girdle-like effect, you know? And then you'd rise up. And we did it, I think maybe three or four passes, and we'd get the whole song in. [INT: Right.] And Presley was terrific. He said, “Okay.” So in the dailies, Hal Wallace went berserk. He said, "This is wonderful! How'd you do this?" Not only was he berserk about the shot, but it saved four days of shooting. [INT: Right. Sure.] So, you know, money. And he was so thrilled with this; he said, "This is wonderful. My God." He was really very, very in love with my work. At least at that time.

JR: So now okay, we finished the picture. Although there was one other incident in that picture that was interesting. Presley [Elvis Presley] was in a fight, supposedly. The character was in a fight outside of a saloon. A roadhouse. In which we had three college girls and we had, I picked 'em out of a--what I hated-- was a gang line-up of beautiful women. And I said, "They're all, they look--only one girl has a line. The rest of them are just part of the group. Oh God but they're all so lovely to look at. God.” I said, "The blonde, the brunette, the redhead." Okay. Now I'm on the set and the girl that I gave a line to can't say it. She was just beautiful, but she couldn't speak. [INT: Right, right, right.] So I said to one of the other girls, I said, "Can you take that line?" She said, "Yeah." And she read the line. I said, “It’s okay.” And I said to her, "What's your name?" "Raquel Welch." [INT: Wow.] And she said, "I'm gonna be a big star." I said, "Yeah, okay." [Laughter.] Little do you know, right? [INT: Really.] Yeah, so I gave her the line, she read it well. But oh God was she good looking. Ohhh. [INT: Yep.] Anyway, all those girls were terrific. So here's a roadhouse scene and Elvis gets in a fight with the college boys. And he said, "Oh, Mr. Rich. Can I do my own stunt?" I said, "No, no. Come on. What are you talking about?" He said, "Well, I'm a black belt in karate." I said, "So?" He said, "So I know what I'm doing.” He said, “I want to do my own stunt." I said, "You may know what you're doing, but the stuntman that you're working with, he may not know what you're doing. Or what he's doing." He said, "Oh, no no. I guarantee it." I said, "I can't let you do it.” I said, “What happens if you get injured?" He said, "Oh, I’ll take it--my responsibility." You know? He was so pleading. [INT: Right, right.] Against my better wisdom-- [INT: Judgment. Yeah, of course.] I said, "Well, alright." We did the shot, he got kicked in the head, opened up a gash, we had to shut down, send him to the hospital. He was very contrite. And I had to call Hal Wallis [Hal B. Wallis] and say, "Mr. Wallis, [clears throat] small problem." "Jeez! Why you talking? You let him--" I said, "Hold it. I have 500 witnesses that said he insisted. And I wasn't about to go to war with Elvis Presley." I said, "Besides. I have a way out of this." He said, "What? How do you fix this?" I said, "You put a bandage on him because as luck would have it, the script calls for him to be in a motorcycle accident and we haven't shot all of that, so you put a plaster on his head." "Oh, okay." Most of the picture has got-- [INT: Right.] a real Band-Aid [INT: Band-Aid] on there. [INT: Right, right, right.] Finally, it cleared up in the end. Anyway, that was a terrible time. So, now I'm in the editing stage and Warren Low was the Editor. And I would say, "Okay, we're at the Ferris wheel. Just paste the ends together. That's it. One shot." And now it was time for me to look at Hal Wallis's cut. And he said, "You wanna come look at my cut?" I said, "Yeah, sure." We got down to the Ferris wheel shot, which he had adored. And suddenly, there's a cutaway to the Ferris wheel operator. [INT: Mmhmm.] I came bolt upright out of my seat. I said, "What? What is all of this?" He said, "What?" I said, "Stop the picture." He stopped the projection, he said, "What’dya? What's the matter?" I said, "Joel Fluellen." God, why does that name come back? [INT: Please! Because it's a good name.] He was a black Actor who was running the Ferris wheel. I said, "Why do we have to cut to Joel?" He said, "Well, you've gotta know how the thing is running." I said, "No you don't! Who gives a damn how it's running? It's running! He's on the Ferris wheel, he started it maybe himself. I don't know what the hell he did but, you know, or maybe the guy started it and then he left. We don’t--what--I said, “Yeah, I can see him starting the Ferris wheel, good. But you don't have to see him operating it mid-stream. [INT: While the song’s going on.] I said, "Besides, you're showing the world that we had to cut away to--" What we used--remember the--did you ever hear the word the owl shot? [INT: No, I used to call it the Bird Band-Aid, but it's the same idea.] Bird Band-Aid. [INT: Yeah, it’s the same idea. It's the cut to the sea gulls.] Oh, cut to the--oh, okay, 'cause it comes from the Old Republic Pictures. When, you know, he did those haunted shows? [INT: Right.] A B movie where whenever they got into trouble, they would cut to the owl going, "Hoo hoo" in the tree, you know? [INT: Right, right.] They get them in the haunted house. [INT: Mmhmm.] They would cut back and the owl became the girl watching the fight. [INT: Right.] That’s--she was the owl shot. [INT: Right, right, right.] You know, cut away? I said, "Why do you need an owl shot with this guy running the Ferris wheel?" He said, "It's very important." And I fought and fought and I lost the war. Really pissed me off. One of the things I still hate that picture is that we’ve cut-away. I fixed ‘em. The last shot I did, I did where you couldn't cut it. I did one shot on the crane. The finale. He couldn't believe that either 'cause it took a full day of rehearsal and he was going livid. He said, "You haven't got a shot yet." I said, "When you have it, you'll be three days ahead again." Which I was. [INT: Got it.] Anyway, that's another story. [INT: But now it's interesting.] But wait, let me finish the story. [INT: Go, go.] So Wallis won his point. The big Producer. [INT: Right.] And he was a great Producer, by the way. Erratic, but great. And I came to him one day and I said, "You know, I'm really annoyed at what you did in that film because you know you proved I didn't do that shot and you loved it." He said, "Yeah, well we're past that." I said, "But you know, I've decided to name you in my will." "What?" I said, and I had the will. I said, "I have named you in my will." He softened. That's one of the richest men in the world. [INT: Right, right.] He said, "What did you say?" I said, "May I read it to you?" He said, "Yeah." So I opened it and it's a legal document. It really was my will. I'm not kidding. And I wrote the following: "If I should die before Hal Wallis, which is probable because I'm working for the son of a bitch." [Laughter] He looked at me. His eyes fluttered. I said, "I direct to my survivors that my body be cremated and the ashes blown into Hal Wallis's eyes." [Laughter] He said, "You didn't put that in the will." I said, "It's absolutely in there." [INT: Great.] And it was for years. I took it out, finally. He died. [INT: Not with your ashes.] But it made me furious. I mean, my great cutting story.

INT: Now, but here's the issue. Something you said, you like the speed that television offers. Offers. [JR: Yes, yes.] And part of the frustration of the feature experience for you is [JR: Yep.] the fact that it is, in fact, slows your own rhythm [JR: Yep], which is an interesting issue. [JR: Yep.] And I think you've had a choice now, I'm sure it's been in the material, but I suspect that you know sometimes the television would be more appealing to you just because of the--
JR: It became more appealing. When I stopped doing features, that's when I got into ALL IN THE FAMILY. And I said, "Oh, I love the idea of working with an audience that keeps you honest. I don't have a laugh track. That's wonderful! If we lay an egg with a joke, it's our fault. But we'll have to rehearse our way out of it to make sure it doesn't lay an egg in front." That's why that thing was rehearsed to a fare thee well. I mean it was really--it was polished, polished, polished, polished. [INT: And how would you know, though--we were talking about this a second ago--how would you know when to say, "I've gotta save it for the performance." Or would you, in those cases, actually want to see one?] No, I'd have to see it. [INT: It really was alright, all the way through?] All the way through, and by the way, here's the terrifying truth: that group of Actors was so good that they were full-out all the time. [INT: Got it. Now, because, you know, there's some Directors who actually feel that they want to save it 'cause it's like lightning in a bottle.] I know, I know. [INT: And not for you.] Not for me. Not in that kind of rehearsal where every word had to be polished. [INT: Got it.] It had to be so pure. And we would agonize over words. I remember once--did I say this already? Now I'm thinking about early today. [No, no. Go on. I’ll remember.] You'll cut it out-- [INT: Yeah, yeah. I would.] if I repeated myself. [INT: You were saying agonizing over words.] I think I did say it, about Edith menopause? [INT: Yeah, menopause. Yeah, yeah, yeah.] I did say it. But we would spend time on coming up with the right word. But I came up with "groinocologist" for the gynecologist. [INT: Right, right. Exactly. Now the--] Words like that were very important. And individual words were very important to us all the time. We'd say, "Let's not stop until we get this right." That was always--and by the way, you know what I used to do in rehearsal? I would put away the text. I would never look at the script. [INT: As the Director?] As the Director, yeah. I would say, "Okay. Go ahead and play." And they would play and I'd say, "Hey. Why are you saying that?" "Well, that's what's written." "No, no. But it isn't responsive. Let's see if there's a better line around there someplace." And the only way I could free myself was to listen, as an audience. And not be bound to the word-- [INT: Yep.] because even though the word might be very good, or appear very good, and it could be played and sometimes they would play it even if it was difficult for them. Very good Actors could take a bad line and make it work, and that's always something that endears them to me. [INT: Yeah.] They can do this. But sometimes, it really is a clinker. And the Writer, having put it down, has an intention, but it's not the right word. Back to Professor Bredvold [Louis Bredvold], you know, get exact. Don't fool around with the periphery of a meaning. Get the exact meaning. [INT: Mmhmm.] And I would fool around with that until we got it right. And of course, I used to love--I mean we were so lucky to have Richard Nixon in the White House. My god, what a wonderful target. And I knew right from the beginning that he was a crook because he had moved into my neighborhood where I had bought a house for the ungodly sum of $100,000 in those days. Or $111,000 it was. And he moved into a house that cost $400,000. And I said, "The man has never made more than $35,000 a year in his life. 'Cause he's been in public service.” [INT: In public service. Yeah.] “The Vice President of the U.S. [United States] made $35,000.” [INT: Right.] And so did the senator, I think, at that time. I said, "He can't live in a house like this." You know? It's probably Bebe Rebozo [Charles “Bebe” Rebozo] Land or something like that. [INT: Yeah.] So, early on, we put into meathead's mouth everything that I thought about, and Norman, of course, was the same. We're all liberals in that group and we said, "Let's go get him." Richard E. Nixon, you know?

INT: I want to shift here to something, which is the politics of the various times that you've been in, and you were working during the '50s [1950s], when all of that stuff was happening. [INT: Ah huh.] And you were there. Were you at some of those meetings with DeMille [Cecil B. DeMille] and all of the rest? You know those--?
JR: Oh, oh, no. No, no. I came just after that. I came in '53 [1953]. [INT: Got it. And that stuff had already--[referring to the now infamous ‘loyalty oath’ debate at the Directors Guild of America on October 22, 1950] ] That had happened already. [INT: But television still was suffering from it, wasn't it in the time you’d come? Or was it over?] No, it was over-- [INT: Got it.] by that time. They’re still being talked about. That was the Mankiewicz [Tom Mankiewicz] years and I never knew Mankiewicz. [INT: Got it.] No, that had happened, but Ford [John Ford] had won the day. [INT: Yeah, I know.] You know, that was a wonderful story. [INT: Yeah, I know--] John Ford. [INT: I know it well. So that kind of, the blacklisting stuff was over?] Oh, no, no. The blacklist was very much alive, but not--in fact, the Directors Guild [Directors Guild of America], I'm sad to say, had a loyal oath. I was very upset about that. And Joe Youngerman said, "Look. You either sign it or you're not gonna work." I hated it. But that was an outcome of that meeting. [INT: Got it.] And we had that for years. We finally took it away, as you know. [INT: Yeah.] But I'll tell you where I ran into the blacklist. It was during I MARRIED JOAN. I had cast an Actor [Howard Da Silva?] who was a very good radio Actor. I can't remember his name now. But he was--he had been on DUFFY'S TAVERN. You remember that show? [INT: Sure.] And he was very good and we were sitting around the table on the set, reading the script, and a messenger came down and said to this Actor, "Mr. Wolfson [Pincus J. Wolfson] wants to see you in his office." And I didn't know what that meant, but I noticed this Actor picked up all his belongings and went to see Mr. Wolfson. And I thought, "Why is he doing that?" He never came back. He was blacklisted. He knew it. And I said to Wolfson, later, I said, "What was that? Why did we take that nice Actor away?" He said, "We can't talk about it." I said, "What do you mean, you can't talk about it?" And looking over his shoulder, looking around, he said, "It's the list." "What list?" I mean, I was completely naive. [INT: Right, right, right.] I learned that--I mean Jim Backus, even, was very concerned because there was an actress named Alice Backes, B-A-C-K-E-S, who was on the list, and he was concerned that his life would be in danger-- [INT: Wow.] as an Actor. [INT: Wow.] And everybody--I must confess, I feared that somebody named Rich would be stepping off a platform someplace and causing trouble 'cause they would not hire you. It was a dreadful time. [INT: Wow.] I don't even want to think about that time. [INT: What cleaned it up? Time?] Well--what'd you say? [INT: Time? I mean, did it just...] Well, yeah, but brave people. Like Stanley Kramer, I mean, among others. And of course, Writers continued to write. They wrote under pseudonyms. [INT: Right.] In fact, my son is named Robert Rich and Robert Rich won the Academy Award for THE BRAVE BULLS one year and it was not--that was a pseudonym for Dalton Trumbo. [INT: Dalton, yeah.] You know. That award has never been claimed. I told my son, "I named you Robert Rich so someday you can have your own Oscar." [INT: Right.]

INT: You know, you did mention how you started to get active within the Guild [Directors Guild of America]-- [JR: Right.] particularly because you thought that the television Directors needed to be participants. What sort of--what do you think drew to you even becoming such an avid participant in the Guild?
JR: Oh, it was wonderfully exciting. I mean, my God, what I learned was so great. I mean, at the feet of Joe Youngerman. God, what a great mind. [INT: Really?] Oh! Did you know him at all? [INT: I came in just as he was sort of--last couple of years.] Oh, he was--in his speech, he was a "dese" and "dem" guy from Chicago. I don’t think he ever--I know he never went to college, but he had the mind of a genius. He had been an Assistant Director and a prop man for--at Paramount [Paramount Pictures] for the likes of DeMille [Cecil B. Demille] and people like that. So, he was well schooled in the idea of Director worship. [INT: Mmhmm.] I mean, he was always, “anything you want” to Directors. And he was our Executive Secretary and I was in a meeting one day--just casual. We sometimes just sat around his office and shoot the breeze. And he was talking one day, he said, "You know what we had to do this week?" He said, "We just donated or gave $500 to a cemetery in Kentucky for the grave of D.W. Griffith. He died broke." Did you know this story? [INT: Yeah--I knew he died broke, but I didn't know this story.] He died broke and the Directors Guild--the Screen Directors [Screen Directors Guild] at that time--coughed up $500 for a headstone. And he said, "It's one of the tragedies of our industry that Directors don't have decent pensions." He said, "You know what's happening, is Directors are in the industry pension plan." I don't know if you know what that is. An industry pension plan--the IA [IATSE, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees] uses right now--you got credit for hours worked in filming. If you're on a set, in effect, you can get a day's credit for filming. And Joe would point out, significantly of course, Directors would spend a year in preparation. They'd spend a year in cutting. And the time of shooting is, you know, 60 days, 70, or whatever. They can't possibly get the same kind of pension that a Grip can get because they're on the set everyday punching a clock. [INT: Mmhmm.] But we couldn't get anywhere. We, I say we. Again, that's the collective we. We, the Directors, could not get the management to listen if we wanted our own pension plan. And what happened was, in 19--post-1948--I had been told about this. Remember, I came in '53. [INT: Mmhmm.] I had been told this. That in every negotiation, in talking about releasing films to television, they had said the Directors wanted, as did the Actors and Writers, kind of a residual. A modest residual for films that went to television. And the producing company said, with some correctness in their attitude, "We don't know what it's worth." Television was too new in 1948. "So let's not talk about residuals on films to TV yet. Let's put it off." And so the next negotiation, they put it off again, from 1950, '52, whatever it was. And by the time I came in, they had several--[INT: Postponements.] Postponements. And the way they dealt with it was as follows: they said the producing companies would not put on post-1948 films to television without first negotiating with the respective guild. [INT: Mmhmm.] And the remedy was, if they did this, the remedy was that the SAG [Screen Actors Guild], the Writers Guild [Writers Guild of America], and the Directors [Directors Guild of America], could refuse to give services. Strike. So that was the arrangement. They said we'd have this moratorium, so-called. [INT: Right.] And that was okay. In 1958, or the beginning of '59, I think it was, a fellow named Herb Yates [Herbert John Yates], who was the head of Republic Pictures, suddenly said, "I'm releasing my post-'48 [1948] films to television." There was an outcry in the town. All the Guilds said, "Well, we'll strike you." He said, "Go ahead. Strike all you want to. I don't need you anymore. I'm no longer making pictures. [INT: Huh.] I'm gonna be a distribution house." You ever hear this story? [INT: No.] Oh, yeah. Fascinating. "I'm gonna distribute pictures." And he got away with all that money, without dealing with the guilds because as they say, the remedy was only-- [INT: Right.] with old services. Well, consternation. And Joe said, "You know,” the Actors and Writers immediately went on strike. The annual, what I used to call, the annual Writers and Actors strike. They went on strike because they wanted compensation. [INT: Right.] They were afraid. And Joe said, "They're not thinking." Because what's gonna happen is--that became known as the ‘Republic Formula’. And Joe said, "Every major company in town will have to adopt this formula-- [INT: Right.] because if you look at--" example, Twentieth Century Fox [Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation] was selling at $22 a share, I think. In liquidation. 'Cause we're talking about a gross of about $100,000,000 of potential money between ‘48 [1948] and ’60 [1960]. [INT: Mmhmm.] Can you imagine? All this money was tied up in moratorium and they said, "If these companies are able to divest themselves of these pictures--" that is, to sell them-- [INT: Right.] without having to pay anything to the guilds, they've got all this money and their stock is worth triple. [INT: Right.] He said, “So suppose”--now this is where Youngerman's brain was so brilliant. I'm listening in awe, 'cause he said, "Think about somebody holding the stock in New York. Do you think Lehman Brothers [Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc.] gives a damn about making pictures? If they say we've got a $20 stock that's worth $60, let 'em divest. They can reorganize as X, Y, Z Company. [INT: Right.] Another film company. And Joe said, accurately, he said, "These companies will all--will go the Republic route." Writers and Actors didn't believe it. They went on strike. Now that year, we were off third in negotiations. And Joe, one day, I remember again, one of those coffee klatsches sitting around the office, he said, "I got an idea.” He said, “You know what we should do with that money that we're holding up in a lien? We oughta give it back to the studios. Let 'em have their $100,000,000 in exchange for a meaningful pension plan." [INT: Mmhmm.] He said, "That pension plan, they will fund it to start with so that we can have immediate pensions, small, for some of our retirees. And what we should do is get a program that where they will pay 5% of their compensation, Director's compensation-- [INT: Right.] up to $100,000. The Director will put in 2 1/2%. This will be a Robin Hood plan because out of the 5%--" am I going too fast for you? [INT: No, no. I know it.] You know the plan-- [INT: Well go, go, go.] but this came out of Joe's mouth in that office. [INT: This is his head, thinking that.] In his head thinking aloud. He said, "40% of that money will go to the individual Director's account. 60% in the basic plan will go to the general membership to give the Assistant Directors a stake in the operation. And for the high-income earners, their money will be in a supplemental plan where they will be able to take it out later in taxes when they're presumably making less money. In tax payments, that’ll be much lower-- [INT: Right.] than they would be today. See anything wrong with this?" Every lawyer and accountant came along and said, "It's not gonna work." And Joe said, "I think it's gonna work." He kept harping on him. So one day we said, "What the hell. Let's take a try at this." And finally we got a lawyer that said, "You know what? I think it's right. It seems alright." We were worried about the IRS [Internal Revenue Service], we were worried about all these things. But Joe had it. I mean you know that what I’ve just described is the plan that we use. [INT: The plan. Yeah, I know.] It's remarkable. [INT: Wow.] Our chief officers called a meeting of the company presidents. In those days, we never dealt with labor relations people. We dealt with the presidents of the individual corporations. And we met over the drugstore on La Cienega [La Cienega Boulevard]. Rexall? That's where the MPPA [Motion Picture Production Agreement] had its offices then. And here I am, a junior member again-- [INT: Right.] sitting quietly in a corner where we're meeting with Abe Schneider of Columbia [Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.] [INT: Columbia] and Spyros Skouras of Fox [Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation], and Balaban [Barney Balaban] of Paramount [Paramount Pictures Corporation]. You name it. All the presidents. Jack Warner of Warner Bros [Warner Bros Pictures]. And we came together and Joe outlined--George Sidney. Joe never spoke. His brain, but our mouthpiece. George said, "This is the program. We think it's good because we had estimated that those films will be worth, eventually, they will dip in value. The pension plan eventually will have to do this. It's a rising curve against a diminishing curve." Again, Youngerman. And they said, "We will give you the $100,000,00 lien that we've got without any fetters, except give us this pension plan. And it's deductible for you." [INT: Right.] Which it was. [INT: Right, right.] They looked at us in amazement. I remember Skouras almost cried. Vogel [Joseph Vogel] of MGM [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.] was there. Skouras said, "You know, you've saved my job." You know, everybody used to think of these guys as big bozos. Harry Cohn was also from Columbia. [INT: Wow.] He said, "I want to make pictures, but if we had to take the Republic formula, which I assure you Wall Street would make us do, I'm out of a job. Nobody wants to make pictures like we do." And all these guys were picture makers. [INT: Right.] We want to make pictures. And he said, "This is a brilliant idea! Do you think we can present this to the Actors and Writers?" And George Sidney, he said, "Hey. Don't present it as a Directors Guild idea. Come up with it as if it's your idea." They said, "Can we call a lunch meeting right now?" "Hey, we'll wait. We'll stay for lunch." They called in Mike Franklin [Michael Franklin] of the Writers Guild. [INT: Right.] Later became-- [INT: Ours.] my particular bête noire who helped build this building, which is a horror. We'll talk about that later. [Laughs] And I think it was John Dales [John L. Dales] of SAG-- [INT: Right.] showed up. They listened to the company presidents who outlined this plan. They listened respectfully and they said, "No, no. We want money right now. We're staying on strike." We were astounded. [INT: Wow.] The Actors and Writers left the room and they went on strike. And we were up for negotiations--[INT: Next?]--in a couple of weeks. [INT: Right.] We went to negotiation, it was pro forma. We said, "We agree that we get this pension plan." It was over in five minutes. [INT: Right] The Writers and Actors fell right at the line because--to their benefit in the long run. [INT: Of course.] Do you know that we have paid--I've been on that pension plan, by the way, I'm one of the founding members. [INT: I know.] There are two of us left alive. [INT: Who else is on it?] Mike Hayne [J. Michael Hayne]. I don't think anybody's left on the Producer side. Everybody's gone. But Capra [Frank Capra], Stevens [George Stevens], they were the--and I was the junior member. [INT: Right.] And Mike also came from TV at that time. And we have paid out over a billion dollars to members in pension and health benefits. And you know that even in a rotten market, which we've encountered lately, our plan is worth one billion six hundred million dollars right now, as we speak. [INT: Amazing.] Isn't that remarkable? [INT: Yeah, it is.] Well, that was Youngerman. And I was privileged to be in on those meetings. What a brain. And it's never been attacked. IRS said, "Hey, it works. Works for me. [INT: Great.] Worked for them. [INT: Great.] Worked for everybody.” [INT: That’s great.] What was magnificent about it was that pulling in the assistants [Assistant Directors], by giving them a stake in the operation, if we have to go on strike, we’ve got everybody. [INT: They're part of it.] They're part of it. [INT: Yeah, I think it’s--]

INT: Now you've gone through a number of administrations. Do you think the nature of the Guild has changed a lot?
JR: Oh, sure. [INT: In what ways?] Well, in the first place the thing that got me very annoyed was when--during Bob Aldrich's [Robert Aldrich] presidency. Somehow we hired Mike Franklin [Michael Franklin] away from the Writers Guild [Writers Guild of America] and made him our representative. Well, he's a disaster. He always was. He was always--strike. He was WAITING FOR LEFTY. You know? Remember? Strike, strike, strike. The end of the act. --The idea that labor had to fight. [INT: Got it.] And we were always--we, I say. The people that I learned from, they were all rich men. They didn't need this Guild [Directors Guild of America], but they said, "You know what? Keep the industry going." [INT: Got it.] That's what I learned at their knee. [INT: Right.] Keep this industry going. We always kept talking. [INT: But look at the size--I understand that--look at the size--] This Guild has never been on strike except once. 15 minutes. [INT: For--exactly.] Literally. [INT: I remember the days because I was right out there in front of it for those 15 minutes.] Yep. [INT: The size of the Guild has changed enormously from when you first--] Oh boy! [INT: How do you feel about that, in terms of its function?] Well, in a way, it's like the cherry orchard. I mean, it's just, we have nothing but literary allusions here. [INT: This is good.] You know? In fact, I'll tell you a story about that, later. If you put down cherry orchard, the collapse of what we used to call Screen Directors Incorporated, a separate entity. [INT: Got it. Okay.] It's a very good story. [INT: Let's compare this now.] Pardon me? [INT: Compare the sort of now and--] Well, it was a mom and pop store when Joe--Joe Youngerman was out in the parking lot one Sunday, putting tar on the lot, himself. He never spent a nickel for--on this Guild. I mean he was incredible. You don't do that today. Of course, now we have a management. I think it's excellent. Thank god for Jay Roth [Jay D. Roth]. Jay Roth is a 21st century administrator. [INT: Mmhmm.] He's terrific. And he's built this Guild into something so powerful that it's almost frightening, it's so good. I mean, I love what he's done for us. [INT: That’s great.] He's magnificent. But during the Mike Franklin administration, among other things, they built this building, which is a nightmare in my opinion. I had been in Europe and I came back and there was a committee had been formed, architectural, and they said, "Would you like to join the committee?" I said, "Well, I don't know. How far have you gotten?" They said, "We have plans." I said, "Can I look at them?" And I looked at them and I was horrified. I said, "It's a round building!" They said, "Yeah. Isn't that great?" I said, "No! A round building means pie-shaped offices.” I said, “You're gonna wind up with nothing but columns and vacant corridors." I mean, how's that prediction? [INT: Right--] I said, "This is not a good building to build." And then, of course, my dear friend Sheldon Leonard, he was on the committee and he was hollering at me for being negative and Gil Cates [Gilbert Cates], who loved the building. I said, "Gee, fellas. I wouldn't build this building." They said, "Why?" I said, "Well, we're a Guild that should have an international competition of famous architects. I.M. Pei would have done a building for us that would have been--" [INT: Frank Gehry.] Yeah. Well the substance was better, Pei. Look what he's done with CAA on a postage stamp lot. Made that magnificent building with nothing, and we had this lot here. I said, "The building we've designed is trendy. It will be forgotten in a few years." And then I made--this is the mistake that got me banned, practically from-- Well, certainly, Sheldon [Sheldon Leonard] was annoyed with me, and Gil [Gilbert Cates], for some time. I said, "Albert Speer would be proud of this building." [Laughter] Well for those who may be too young to know that, Albert Speer was Hitler's [Adolph Hitler] architect [INT: Yeah.] And they took umbrage in that. But I think I was right, because even now, we're re-building this building.

INT: Do you think the size of the Guild [Directors Guild of America] in terms of membership, has been positive thing or a negative thing? Or indifferent?
JR: It's a thing. I, really, in terms of Director's power, it's a negative thing because we've diluted the population. Clearly. But how can you stop it? Television has become what it is, you know? Movies for television, etcetera, etcetera. But what has happened is, that hand of the feature Director has been stayed somewhat. I mean those guys were giants of the earth, as the Bible would say. They were giants of the earth in those days, and these guys were controlling their destiny. Of course, what happened in those days was that there was the mystery of the camera. Nobody knew what happened. You know? You never saw anything, but now you see video assist so that everybody can look at your work while it's in progress. [INT: Yeah.] And the worst thing in the world to have someone looking over your shoulders. I hear of these dreadful tales about people in California actually coming on a Director at work in New York and they're saying, "Don't do that shot." I mean, it's like walking up to Picasso [Pablo Picasso], I mean, this may be extending the metaphor too much, but he puts a dot on the canvas and you say, "Pablo, why did you put blue up there?” “What?” “You put a blue dot!" "What do you mean, a blue dot. Where?" "That was a blue dot." “I don't know, maybe it was going to turn into something green or yellow. I don't know. Leave me alone!" That's what we needed. We need "leave me alone." [INT: As you said, and your process, at least in the experience of the way that you were running ALL IN THE FAMILY and even in THE DICK VAN DYKE [THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW], too. You had the time.] They let us alone. Great Producers, like Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard, Norman Lear, understood that. And I will say pardonably, when I was doing MACGYVER, I left them alone until the cutting phase. That's where I became more insistent and I had to do a lot of teaching them.