Tag: David Niven

BILL O’REILLY AND BILL COSBY TO STAR IN DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS REMAKE

HOLLYWOOD – Disgraced Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and disgraced comedian Bill Cosby are teaming up to star in a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Bill O’Reilly and Bill Cosby are to star in a remake of the iconic Frank Oz comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The original, a remake of 1964 David Niven and Marlon Brando comedy Bedtime Story, starred Steve Martin and Michael Caine as a pair of con men working the French Riviera. We spoke to the star of the O’Reilly Factor star as he got into character and asked him if the move to film acting was due to his recent controversies regarding sexual harassment:

No. Absolutely not. I get along with Bill. Have done for many years. So we were kicking around the idea of doing something. This has nothing to do with the claims by women about the other stuff.

But Bill Cosby himself…

He has been maligned but again, this is a separate issue and has nothing to do with the film. We wanted to make a light-hearted comedy anyone can enjoy. We have a great script.

Who wrote the script?

Woody Allen.

Well, there you go again.

What?

Nothing.

Furthermore, we have a wonderful director. Roman…

Polanski.

How did you know?

A wild guess. Is there anyone involved in this movie who hasn’t been accused of some sort of sexual abuse?

Finally, the President himself is on board as an Executive Producer.

Abusive Pieces of Shit will be released in 2019.

Image courtesy of @ThePixelFactor.

 

FELICITY JONES IS THE NEW DEN MOTHER OF THE JOLLY BASTARDS

HOLLYWOOD – Rogue One star Felicity Jones is the new den mother for ex-pat English drinking club The Jolly Bastards.

Felicity Jones takes over from Emilia Clarke as the new den mother of The Jolly Bastards. The Monster Calls and Rogue One star had this to say:

The Jolly Bastards are legendary. I’ve always been a bit starry-eyed, but to actually belong to the group is a dream come true. Emilia did a wonderful job and will be a tough act to follow. As tradition dictates, I killed a swan and used its head as a weapon as we fought on a greased pole with Emilia. It was a tough fight.

Begun in the 1930s as a slapping club for Cary Grant and David Niven, the Jolly Bastards has achieved notoriety for allegations of Swan murder and even human sacrifice. The LAPD for many years tried to bring charges, but were always confounded by the ‘delightful accents’ of the suspects. Emilia Clarke’s mothership of the group has seen an unprecedented shift in the diversity of the Bastards. Once seen as a bastion for male misbehavior the Bastards now features a number of feisty young English women, such as Emily Blunt and Keira Knightley. They can smash up restaurants, inflate cats and ignite policemen as good as Charles Dance.

For more on the Jolly Bastards be so good as to CLICK HERE.

SIR EDWIN FLUFFER REMEMBERS BERT LAHR

HOLLYWOOD – Sir Edwin Fluffer recalls working on a whole array of Classic Hollywood pictures and a friendship with Bret Lahr.

When I first arrived in Hollywood I thought the streets were paved with gold. By ‘first arrived’ I mean ‘woke up one morning on the set of The Wizard of Oz’. It took me a few minutes to work out my situation, but a swift hair of the lion with Bert Lahr and I was more than ready for a day’s work. I did Apache Chaps Say Hail Mary in the morning, two Mr Motos and The Road to Milton Keynes in the afternoon, and I was in the bar by 5pm sharp. You had to get there early or the only seat left would be next to David Niven, and to be honest with you I’d heard them all before.

The contract I’d signed with Sammy Goldwyn demanded a fairly stiff work rate, but that’s what it was like in those days. No sooner had I put pen to paper then Sam let go of my throat, put the gun down, and said ‘get to it Limey!’ I was now obliged to do no less than 17 pictures a week, and if I wanted to finish early on a Friday that meant I had to go some. But like Johnny Gielgud used to say, it was better than rep! The studio promoted me as Edwin Fluffer the Talking Typewriter because I was known for the speed with which I said my lines.

The truth is I had to be pretty nippy as with so many scenes to shoot I just didn’t have the time to say them any slower. Gone With The Wind is a very long film, but I did all my scenes in less than four minutes, including hair and make up. My personal record was twelve seconds on The Big Sleep. I only had time to doff my hat to Lauren Bacall, and that was it, on to the next one!

The problem was that I was meant to be playing a lead character who got up to all sorts of blackmail and shooting people and other nasty business so they had to rewrite the rest of the script and fill in my gaps as they went along. That said the picture is still an absolute masterpiece, probably due in no short measure to me hardly being in it at all. Of course it was all good training for these telly things I do these days where there’s no money and you just have to crack on with it. I’ve just been cast in the new series of Twin Peaks, playing the grandfather of the Lady with the Log.

I’ll be appearing as the Twit with the Twig, but that’s another story… 

For more of Sir Edwin FLUFFER, be a peach and Click Here.

SIR EDWIN FLUFFER REMEMBERS: GRETA GARBO

HOLLYWOOD – In this first extract from his memoirs In Like Niven Sir Edwin Fluffer – actor, raconteur and gentleman – recalls his relationship with Ms. Greta Garbo.

For the life of me I’ll never understand why everyone now thinks of Greta Garbo as a recluse. When I first moved base camp to the Hollywood Hills the self-styled silent Swedish seamstress (she made all her own clothes) was the life and soul of the party, as well as being a dear friend, a good neighbor, and, for a time, my lover. She was my lover for another two times the next morning as well.The first time I saw her she was stood at the end of her drive putting out the rubbish. Jimmy Cagney would put his out the night before which not only attracted vermin but also led me to coin his legendary catchphrase ‘you dirty rat’.

I’ll never forget how on that morning Greta turned and waved to me with those slender but surprisingly strong fingers that had taught a young Elizabeth Taylor how to play the banjolele. Straight away I felt like we’d known each for other years. She was always popping in and out to borrow a cup of sugar or shout at my wife who she suspected of making those prank phone calls that kept her awake at night.  But darling Greta never held a grudge and she was always the first person we’d ask to water the plants when we went away on holiday.

Of course it wasn’t until much later that I discovered the nailbrush in the downstairs bathroom was missing, but that’s another story…

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE IS ACTUALLY 46

NEW YORK – Following the much celebrated 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, it was revealed today that SNL like many in show business was lying about its age.

Although the official biography states that the popular Saturday evening sketch show from New York was first broadcast on October 11, 1975, the Studio Exec can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that the show had in fact been running six years prior to its official broadcast date. TV critic Harold Palstien spoke to Studio Exec:

Of course everyone remembers the 1975 show with John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. What they don’t remember is that originally the show was produced with a different cast and Lorne Michaels was desperately trying to garner favor with an older demographic. In 1969 Saturday Night Live debuted with Trevor Howard, Gregory Peck, David Niven and Roger Moore. They were all fine comedians in their own way, but they just didn’t gel. Later Peck would make the hilarious Omen, but it was obvious he wasn’t read for the sketch show format and didn’t really understand it. Howard was drinking very hard at the time and it was affecting his performance. And David Niven had decided rashly to improvize and refused to learn any of the material.

The New York Times reviewing the show called it ‘By far the worse thing to happen to my eyes, since I was stabbed in one of them by a sharp pencil in 1954. And that at least had the positive side effect that it didn’t have to submit to the indignity of SNL.’ However, others believed that the vintage show was ‘much better than when Dana Carver or Eddie Murphy were in it’, as Mike Myers wrote

Saturday Night Live continues.

5 FACTS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE OSCARS

HOLLYWOOD – Tonight is the 86th Academy Awards and that fact is your last free one. Read the others and become cleverer.

1. Ellen Degeneres is only the second woman to present the Oscars. The first was Bob Hope.

2. The actual Oscars were designed to resemble Yul Bryner. The original statuette included an impressive erection that Yul always nursed but this was changed following complaints from Rex Harrison.

3. Anyone who wins an Oscar is entitled to droit du seigneur over anyone who failed to win the Oscar that year, regardless of category. Although this is largely considered a custom and is hardly ever enforced, David Niven became legendary for doing everyone literally everyone after his win.

4. RIPD will not win an Oscar.  

5. Steven Spielberg is the only person to ever win an Oscar for brushing his teeth. The Oscar was awarded as part of a mix up when instead of taking place at the Dolby theater, the ceremony was booked in the Colgate theater.

For more FACTS on everything from this to that click HERE! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STUDIO EXEC



HOLLYWOOD – It seems like yesterday that a fresh faced young studio executive was first slapped in the face by David Niven’s mustache and my adventure in the Hollywood dream factory began. But times passes and even this new venture – a ‘website’ as I believe they are called – although so new is now actually one year old today. And what a year it has been.  

We went from a small twitter following – a mere one – to now tickling the lower prickly regions of 20,000!  The site that averaged 3 visits a day now clocks in at 2000. It hasn’t all been plain sailing. But here are some of the highs and lows:

  • William Friedkin accused us of ‘bullshit’ when we reported – correctly as it turned out – that he had originally intended to use Henry Mancini’s Pink Panther music instead of Tubular Bells for The Exorcist. 
  • Damon Lindelof responded to our petition to keep him from writing Star Wars Episode 7 by signing it! Revealing a hitherto unsuspected sense of humor.
  • Kevin Smith encouraged others to plagiarize the site when making stuff up about him.  
  • After publishing his criticisms of Lee Daniel’s The Butler, Spike Lee threatened to sue us for slander, until we told him it was libel. Our offer to start a Kickstarter campaign to help with his legal fees didn’t placate him strangely. 

Some have called us ‘The Onion of the movie world’, but others have liked what we do. If you are of the latter please pop a Happy Birthday message in the comments below or blow smoke up our ass via twitter @studioexec1. And don’t worry about lavishing praise and sycophancy on me. As I once said to Marlon Brando, ‘You want to put some butter on that’.

FLUFF AND THE NIVEN

Over the many years I’ve had the pleasure of toiling away in Hollywood it’s been an absolute joy to see so many wonderful actors at work, and Bobby Redford. All the greats have their quirks, Brando for example would never pronounce the letter ‘n’ in ‘botanical’, but maybe the strangest of all was dear old David Niven. 

“Niv” as I never called him could be a rum fish sometimes, and no mistake. Every Wednesday morning, regular as clockwork, he’d recite the alphabet in an Australian accent, drink a large gin and tonic, then change his socks. Don’t ask me why, he just did.
 Every August he’d go the whole month without blinking.
I particularly enjoyed his annual Players v Prancers charity croquet game when the leading lights of Hollywood took on the principal members of the Royal Ballet. One year he livened things up by unleashing a tiger that he borrowed from a nearby zoo. Sadly two of the dancers were mauled quite badly, but one can laugh about it now. That was Niven for you! I still remember that time when his next door neighbour had an appointment to see the optician and while he was out we painted his front door a different colour. Like I said, that was Niven for you!
 
As an actor he displayed an incredible range, playing everything from suave and debonair to debonair and suave, but maybe his finest performances were late at night in a little cocktail bar we used to know, when he’d sit at the piano and play us some of the old songs from before the war. I don’t mind admitting that I get a tear in my eye just thinking about him. If he was here right now I’d know he’d say ‘Neddy! Pull yourself together!’, and we’d  fly to Venice and steal a gondola or something, but we both had our passports seized at customs when we tried to smuggle those sacred artefacts back from Egypt. 
But that’s another story…

SAMUEL BECKETT’S DR NO SCRIPT TO BE PUBLISHED

PARIS – Although he spent ages Waiting for Godot, apparently, Samuel Beckett wasted no time in turning in a script for 007.

When he heard that a film was in the footing, Beckett, a huge fan of the novels, wrote directly to Cubby Broccoli; who he had met at a social engagement hosted by David Niven:

Dear Mr Broccoli, Please find enclosed a speculative screen treatment (a spec if you will). I hope you can use it. Money would be appreciated, not essential. After all, dust will come for us. All. Dust and death. Dusty death. Anyway, Best Regards to the Wife and Kids, Sammy.

The script is based on Dr. No, but does include some fundamental changes. The title for one is Dr. Nothing and there is far less violence than appeared in the final film replaced by staring. A typical scene of dialogue reads so:

Dr Nothing
I have been expecting you Mr Bond.
Bond
(lighting a cigarette)
I’m sorry I kept you waiting.
Dr Nothing
Waiting. Yes. I’ve been waiting.
Bond
(putting out cigarette, then lighting it again)
I won’t talk you know.
Dr Nothing
I don’t expect you to talk Mr Bond. I expect you to die. 
Bond
(lighting the whole packet of cigarettes)
You will also die. I will die. You will die. We are born dying.
Dr Nothing
Yes, Mr Bond. When you put it like that it all seems so pointless.
Cubby Broccoli apparently never read the script and threw it straight in the bin, where it has only just been found. It will be published by Faber and Faber.