From the Boardwalk
In the wee hours of a very hot and sticky Fathers Day back in 2011, I gratefully boarded a bus and made my way with sundry other never-made-it to bed background peeps to a BOARDWALK EMPIRE promo shoot for Season Two of the Series. I had already collected several days of lucrative work on the HBO series and felt honored to have been picked for the short teaser that would be used to play up Season Two. I also felt a bit of trepidation about the too-hot-for-June temperature we’d all be challenged with during the day ahead. It was a 2:30 a.m. pickup for something like a 4 a.m. report to set. Luckily, I happened to be apartment-sitting for friends and only a stone’s throw from our pickup spot on 33rd and 3rd. We were, all of us, ear budded and catching our zzzz’s right up to our landing in Brooklyn. We disembarked, wolfed down a quick breakfast and stumbled our way into wardrobe, hair and makeup, beginning the application process of latex, facial hair and layers of wool (for the men at least) as production was shooting for a start at sunrise. We were told that our day would consist of promenading along the replica of the Atlantic City Boardwalk so meticulously designed and constructed by HBO’s production department.
Slowly throughout the day, a conscious kind of fever dreaming was taking root from the soles of my too-tight shoes through my tweeds and up to the crown beneath my slowly soaking bowler hat. We were watered periodically, but breaks were few as we were instructed through what felt like endless configurations of back and forth’ing as we gradually tightened our wide circle around the always patient, friendly and talented Steve Buscemi. The circle tightened ominously as pivotal supporting character were pointed out here and there. it's a great trailer that I'm pretty sure can still be seen. At last, background was wrapped at just under a fourteen hour day. That’s considered an excellent, if exhausting, day’s work—as after twelve and a half hours it’s the equivalent of a two day gig. Itchy tweed and bent back toes aside, it was a day worth celebrating. And for my lack of sleep, an almost hallucinogenic night lay before me. I’d pick up some takeout and turn on the old tube just as soon as I returned to my temporary home away from home—a home, by the way, that had Alan Bates as a resident during his Tony Award winning stint in Fortune’s Fool.
So, I enjoyed a freedom dance inside of my cushioned bus seat as I peeled back my tee shirt on occasion in order to feel the rush of too highly conditioned air that was being pumped through the bus’s ventilation system.When you work a period piece, you’re free from having to lug wardrobe back and forth from set to location. So, I was basking in sweet delight all the way back to the city. Not the healthiest thing for me to be doing, certainly. But, what the hell. I earned the right to be negligent this day! My barbecuing brain had made the sweat dripping from forehead taste sweet by now and I’d no thought of what ills might come from too much cold after so much heat. I remember dragging myself up the very long staircase inside of my friend’s brownstone, entering their upstairs studio, and immediately switching their tube to TCM. For all I know, I was running a slight temperature—the day was that exhausting. Addled as I was, I locked onto what was playing.
I’d come in too late to have any idea what it was. The fact that I didn’t recognize it made it all the more hallucinatory. Eleanor Parker, Janet Leigh were together in a movie I’d never heard of. A movie that was taking itself quite seriously and at the same time was wrapped in exploitative and lurid poetry. And so began the first of many experiences watching William Conrad’s film adaptation of Norman Mailer’s serialized novel, An American Dream. And the inspiration that’s led to CHAR-LEN’s next production project--
But I DIgress...temporarily at least.
