The Bob chaos at work... on the set of Gosford Park.
I was a glorified extra in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. On the final day I was showing this other extra a trick I knew where you could tie a note to a fly, when in came Bob Altman and his director of photography. This fly did a swirl around the room with the note and landed on the DP's zipper. Everyone roared with laughter.
About a month later I was back driving a cab when I got a call from his producer saying Robert Altman wanted to meet me. I said, "Hi, Mr Altman." He said, "Call me Bob." This was for Tanner 88. He said, "If it doesn't work out you can be on the crew. I think you'd have a good time."
I flew to New York four days later and met Bob. "Listen," he said, "I don't know if you can act but that thing you did with the fly was so funny that I've just got to have you around." I was to join the circus, I was running away with the Altman circus.
He had such stamina that even in my 20s I couldn't keep up with him. Fresh out of college you'd think your liver and your ability to smoke a joint would be able to match his. His enthusiasm and his ability to keep going was infectious.
After Tanner 88 I was in New York and Bob and his wife, Kathryn, would have me over for fun, eclectic dinners. We used to get stoned and play Pictionary and try to figure out what everybody was doing.
He always said he loved Tanner 88 the most. He would talk about it for years after. He always said he had the most fun doing that.
More than anything what I'll miss about him is his talent for being a great host on and off the set. He was always very inclusive. He was offended by people who wouldn't join him in viewing the dailies. That differentiates a collaborator from a director.
I remember we were watching the dailies for Cookie's Fortune and he turned to me and said, "Oh, I get it, I see where we're going here." In some odd way he didn't have a preconceived notion. He just loathed plot. But if it was deeply ingrained in the story he could put the Bob chaos around it and it would work.
You just never knew when you were on camera on an Altman set, and you wouldn't know when the scene ended. You would be sort of afraid, like in life, but he was always winking at the incompetence of life.
For the most part there is only corporate film-making now. With Altman, you were on the set and you were there for the run of the film. You weren't paid anything but you were part of the film. You really were making something together, you were collaborating. It was kind of like going to Altman Camp.
Everyone would roll in and say: "What are we doing? I don't know but Bob's got a lot of booze." There was always a cocktail party at the end of the day.
You definitely felt he was the last of the big directors who lived these larger-than-life existences. It was Bob and Kathryn, it was the one-two punch. The two of them made you feel like you were at a great party, where you thought the party was for you.
In Bob's office there's a picture of Bill Clinton and Kathryn, Hillary and Bob at some dinner party. And Bob has taken the hand of Clinton and superimposed it underneath Kathryn so it looks like he's cupping her breast. That to me was always what he was about.
He's an experience that everyone's going to miss. I wish I'd known him longer.
