AM: What do you
remember about working on ‘Fort Dobbs’ with Clint Walker?
MD: I didn’t have
much to do with my casting in Fort Dobbs. I went to the casting office, and I
said I had just co-starred in a picture and now you are giving me a small part
in this movie with Clint Walker, who I wanted to work with. But this is a small
part, so am I going backwards? I’d rather move forward with my career. There
was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t have script approval, so I had to do
it or go on suspension without pay. I did three or four shows with Clint. We
got to be very good friends later on in our careers. I spoke with him several
times before he passed away. He was such a patriot and red blooded American. We
had some serious talks about the direction the country was going in. He was a
very sensitive man. America lost a wonderful actor and patriot and my wife, and
I lost a dear friend.
AM: What was it like working
with Mamie Van Doren in ‘Born Reckless’?
MD: That was another
small part that I couldn’t do anything about, but it was with Mamie Van Doren. I
met Mamie on set, and we hit it off right away. She had a great sense of humor
and we had so much fun dancing. That was the beginning of a great friendship. My
wife and I met Mamie and her husband, Thomas in Newport Beach. We had lunch a
couple of times and we reminisced about our time together during that movie. She’s
a great gal and beautiful with a great figure. We haven’t seen her in a while,
but we wish her well.
AM: You did some TV shows with Warner Brothers too, right?
MD: I was with the
William Morris Agency and I got a call from my agent. He told me to go to
Warner Brothers and talk to producer Victor M. Orsatti to talk about being cast
in Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse production of ‘The Killer Instinct starring
Rory Calhoun and Janice Rule. Rory was one of my favorite actors to work with.
He and Robert Taylor were two of the most unselfish actors I ever worked with.
AM: I love that. You don’t
hear that often enough.
MD: Rory and I did
all the fight sequences ourselves. We became great friends. He was an underrated
highly professional actor. We always had a wonderful time and of course Janis
Rule was a beautiful actress and ballerina. The show aired on a Sunday night
and less than 24 hours after that I was offered 2 major contracts. One contract
was to do ‘The Untouchables’ and the other was a 5-picture deal with 20th
Century Fox beginning with ‘Seven Thieves’ with Edward G. Robinson and Rod Stieger,
Eli Wallach and Joan Collins. It was a wonderful British cast.
AM: I’m glad you made
the movie.
MD: I wanted to do
features. Back then TV was a little suspect about doing a series if it wasn’t
successful. I love the time it takes to develop a character like you can do
when filming a feature. With television it’s a little different. You have a tight
time schedule and budget. There was some unfortunate news in that we finished
filming it in 1959 and then in 1960 we went on strike for 6 months. All
contracts were null and void. Fox was having big financial problems too. That
put the movie on the back burner.
AM: I’d love to know
your thoughts on working with Sam Jaffe.
MD: He was so
wonderful. He was in ‘Gunga Din’. I played his baseball playing son in ‘Cains
Hundred’, which was so good since I was an ex-ballplayer. I really loved working
with Sam. He treated me like a son. I was in awe of his work in ‘Gunga Din’. He
was a soft-spoken, humble gentleman. He reminded me a great deal of my own
father.
AM: What do you
remember about filming ‘Harlow’ and ‘Operation Bikini’?
MD: ‘Operation Bikini’
was not a great story, by any means, but it was cast brilliantly. It’s filled
with young, wonderful actors. Scott Brady and I worked well together. Frankie
Avalon and Tab Hunter were both starring in it. We had a lot of laughs while working
in the film. Everybody worked well together when we made that low budget film
with a high budget cast. Now ‘Harlow’ was filmed in electronovision.
AM: That’s what gives
the film such a specific look.
MD: It was like doing
a play on live television. Again, we had a wonderful cast. Carol Lynley looked
just like Jean Harlow. Judy Garland had been cast as her mother in the
beginning. At our very first reading, Judy came in and read her part cold and
she was wonderful, but she was nervous and high strung. Unfortunately, the next
day her PR Agent came in and told us he had sad news. Judy was not physically
able to do the role, so she sent her apologies. The next day, they cast Ginger Rogers,
and she was also wonderful. I loved my role in it, and I thought I did a really
good job.
AM: You had a TV show
titled, ‘Custer’ for a few weeks. What was that like?
MD: I really didn’t
want to do a series. I didn’t want to be typecast. David Weisbart was the
producer. I had worked with him on ‘Kid Galahad’, the movie I made with Elvis
Presley. After we finished filming that movie, he came to me and said he had
some projects down the line for me since he really liked my work. So, a few
weeks later, he called me at home and told me he couldn’t think of any actor he
would rather have play the role of Crazy Horse. You have the leadership quality
and dignity that I have seen in your other work. I don’t want anyone else but
you. Please think about it. I decided to do the series, but unfortunately after
we started, he had a heart attack and died. We only did 17 shows and also
politically, Custer became a bad name, so that was the end of the series. I
enjoyed doing the show because Crazy Horse got me the role in ‘Winterhawk’.
AM: What quality do
you have that gave you the edge in portraying Native Americans?
MD: I had the
cheekbones, the dignity, the stature and the look in general. The producer of ‘Winterhawk’
saw me on ‘Custer’ and cast me as the title character in this classic film. I
had been making a film in New York about the music business called ‘That’s The
Way Of The World’ when my agent told me they wanted to cast me in the Western, ‘Winterhawk’.
My creative juices went right to work, and I knew what I could do with that character.
As soon as I finished filming in New York, I went to Montana where they would be
filming the movie. It was one of the easiest jobs I’ve ever done. I walked into
the lodge where the production office was set up and the director, Charles Pierce
said to me, “You’re Winterhawk.”
AM: How incredible is
that?
MD: It wasn’t written
in the script that he would be a spiritual man. I made him that way in the
sense that every decision he made he related to the elements like the sky, the
moon, the wildlife and the wind. He believes in a greater force than man’s ego.
The more you see the picture the more you can see what I am doing in relating
to the elements. The cast was so good and included Woody Strode.
AM: I want to know your
impressions of Woody Strode. He is a bit of a mystery.
MD: He was a great
athlete who played professional football in the Canadian league for 2 or 3
years. He did a lot of work with John Ford, and they were very close. Woody became
a very good actor. He did a great job. I’m saddened to know that I am the only
one still alive, except the boy actor. He was Charles Pierce’s son. It was a
wonderful role for me and it’s a classic. It will be around for a long time.
AM: You made a couple
films with Fred Williamson and one of them had the jazz singer, Nancy Wilson in
it. Tell me about that.
MD: Nancy Wilson was
a lovely lady. Fred was a character who wrote, directed and produced by getting
financing for his films. He was one of the first African Americans to do all
that. He got good actors and hired them for a short period of time. I did 2
films with him, and it only took a couple of weeks to do both parts. He’s a
great listener and I had great respect for what he had to offer. We’re good
friends to this day.
AM: The ‘Naked Kiss’
is an intense film, and your role must have been controversial.
MD: I play the very
first pedophile in the history of our business. My agent and I talked about it.
He told me he couldn’t think of any actor in the world who could play that part
better than me. I didn’t want to do it at the beginning because I didn’t want
to be unpopular. I was talked into it by the director who told me that in 30 or
40 years I would be appreciated for my versatility and talent. He convinced me
and told me it would be filmed in great taste, so we did it and I’m so glad.
AM: You have written
6 books and one of them is the sequel to “Winterhawk’. It’s amazing how much
creative energy you have.
MD: Thank you, I
consider my life and my work an artform and I have lived it in that way. I was able to invent and create in other
areas because it’s all related. People were always telling me I should write a
book. Start with your biography, so I did that, and it went from there. I
invented a way to write. My novellas read like a screenplay and a book. I have
written key scenes and characters to appeal to readers and filmmakers alike.
Generally, these scenes are taken from three to four-hundred-page novels and
adapted into motion picture screenplays. I have creatively chosen and written
the major scenes in my novellas. Those scenes in the story/screenplay are all
in eighty to one hundred pages. It makes for an easy and quick read.
To learn more about Michael Dante and to order his books visit his web site https://michaeldanteway.com/