No sequel.
January 13, 2019 • Hollywood
John Henderson. I don't know when he was born but I do know when he died. Stubborn old fool. His foot was rotting away and he refused to believe it would kill him. Well, it proved him wrong. Now he hasn’t got a leg to… anyway. Ben was working with him until the end. He said, “His foot is a gangrenous, black, mummified horror to look at. There’s no saving it.” That was 27th March. He died on 15th September.
I met John through Ben. I think he was a family friend of his. While studying media at university Ben worked for John as a cameraman1 for a number of interviews. No, wait, I need to establish the background. John was an arrogant man. Self-important and pompous. He called his company ‘Henderson’s Film Industries’. Industries? It was him and a couple of uni students, whom he did not pay, I might add. Once upon a time John’s family owned Pinewood Studios. His house had scattered pictures of him as a child, playing on set, smiling with Clark Kent or James Bond. John had retained the family’s industry contacts and had been building an archive of interviews with Hollywood names of the 70’s and 80’s. Enter Ben. He filled a vacant spot for a cameraman and when the opportunity arose to travel to Hollywood to conduct further interviews Ben was not available. But Ray was. It was November 2002 and I went to Hollywood instead of my graduation.
“Hollywood, but I haven’t met her yet!” That was the subject line of one of my group emails, updating my friends of my exploits. I really believed I was funny. I sent that from an internet cafe in Hollywood. It had about ten computer screens, all square-faced boxes, in a space that would have otherwise been a barbershop or nail salon. There were laminated A4 how-to guides taped to surfaces and a chaos of cables in the background. I was so excited to write that email. However the trip wasn’t all excitement; I found John painful to be around.
Our hotel was The Hollywood Roosevelt, opposite Mann’s Chinese Theatre, as it was known then. One evening we ate at a restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard. John and I sat at a round table opposite the entrance, looking out across the dining area. I ordered a pie and, as you would expect, the portion size was monstrous. John spoke like an unlikeable version of Stephen Fry, fat from good food and not walking and always steered the conversation to his own (non) achievements. I distinctly remember discomfort, my internal response set to, “Oh FFS.” I would glance around desperately, avoiding eye contact, in search of a change of subject.
The pie was delicious. At least a third of it remained on my plate with fries to match. A homeless man, who had snuck in the nearby door, approached our table. He was short with a scraggly beard and was wearing an old baggy jacket with the street worn into it. He asked me, quietly, “Excuse me sir, if you are not going to eat that would you mind if I took it?” I replied, shrugging, “Yeah, cool man,” and nudged my plate towards him. He deftly scooped the fries and pie into a napkin. “Thank you sir, I ‘preciate it.” It was a nothing moment. Then I saw the oh shit! look on the head waiter’s face. He rushed over and scolded the street sleeper as he ushered him outside, then scurried back to us and began to apologise.
“I have never been so terrified in all my life!” John shouted, slamming his serviette down on the table. I jumped, startled. Suddenly the entire restaurant was silent. I felt the spotlight of a hundred eyes and shrank in my seat, needing to disappear under the table. “I cannot believe you let such people in here!” John went on and on, I just wanted it to be over. The waiter repeated his apology and went to speak to the manager. Shortly after, as the background noise slowly rose to normal volume, he returned and said our meal had been comped. John was beaming. He was so proud of himself. “You see? That’s how you behave. That’s how you get ahead in life.” I don't think John actually said those words but that is how I remember him, condescending and pretentious; not willing to pay.
I avoided nights out with him. We were there for a month. At the end of each day we would get back to the hotel and John would ask if I wanted to get food or watch a movie. Mostly I said I wanted to explore and go for long walks, which I knew he would not want to do as these were the early days of his foot problems. There was a time we interviewed Ernest Borgnine. I say we, I pointed the camera and pressed record, I didn’t really speak as these were the early days of my ‘being shy’ problems. Ernest was chilled guy, friendly and welcoming. He showed me around his Beverly Hills house. I marvelled at his Oscar and other shiny awards and he modestly downplayed their importance. We were setting up in the living area when Ernest spoke of his knee replacement operation and how happy he was with it. I stopped what I was doing, shocked; he was an actual cyborg, I had no idea that was possible. Ernest saw my face. “Oh, you didn’t know they could do that? They sure can! Look,” and he rolled up his trouser leg to reveal a long straight scar from the thigh, over the knee and a little way down his shin. He explained the incision, how they pull your flesh open then cut your bone here and here...
John literally guffawed, “Pah! That's nothing, I’ve had an operation on a varicose vein!” and showed us the tiniest scar, it was barely visible. The following exchange took place between Ernest and I, silent, in facial expressions alone:
“Haha! …. Oh wait, is he serious?”
“Yyyyyep.”
“Ohhhhh, shit.”
“Yyyyyep.”
“Oh wait - you gotta deal with this guy every day?”
“Yyyyyep.”
“Man, I feel for you, buddy.”
“Yyyyyep.”
Another night, John asked if I’d like to join him at a ‘friends house’. By this time there was no umming and erring, it was a natural, free-flowing, polite refusal, as I already had plans to do whatever, wherever. Later I was back in our suite watching TV. It was past midnight when John walked in. He asked how my night was and I told him whatever, wherever was however. He replied:
“Oh, we watched a movie, but I was just so tired, I couldn’t watch another movie. I mean, Quentin, he wanted to watch another movie, but I couldn’t, I just needed to sleep. I had to tell Quentin that I needed to go. So I said, ‘bye Quentin.’ Did I say his name was Quentin?”
I know I was lucky to be there. There were some great moments. Charlton Heston had an intercom system at the large, iron gates to his long, hillside driveway. We interviewed in a room that overlooked his tennis courts and there was a Ben Hur poster on the wall, amongst others. With the interview over I saw John shake Charlton’s hand and I turned to pack the camera away in the case. You had to arrange the cables and plugs in there just right, plus there were spare tapes and batteries; it was tetris, and each time I played I bettered my score. With the case closed I turned back around. Charlton had been standing, waiting for me to shake his hand: I had left Charlton Heston hanging. I apologised and we shook hands. He smiled, walked out onto his balcony and started wailing maniacally, shooting off round after round indiscriminately over the horizon, bullet casings twinkling down in slow motion over the bannister.2
One day we drove to Malibu. John rented a metallic green convertible Chrysler and we had the top down, cruising up the coast under the californian sunshine. I couldn’t hide my smile. Neither could John. Mark Hamill greeted us at his front door and showed us inside. His house was full of nick-nacks. Every surface was covered with ornaments, the shelves, the bookcases, they were even on the ground where the walls met the floorboards, creeping in from the corners - and none of it was Star Wars. Mark had been voicing cartoons. I was wearing baggy Fat Albert jeans with characters sewn into the back of one leg. He noticed, had a close look and said, “But how am I to know the good side from the bad?” Or did he? I may be blurring memories. We interviewed outside on his patio and when we finished I asked him for a photo to which he obliged. I handed John my camera and stood next to Mark and asked him to make a ‘W’ sign with his free hand. “Wait, you’re not getting me to do gang signs are you?” he joked and went to push me away. “No, you know, cos we’re on the west coast!” I said, half apologising. He got it, smiled and we posed; I was throwing up dubs with Mark Hamill.3
“While I’m in Hollywood I’d like to go and see, what I call, a movie premiere.” Yes John, that’s what everyone calls them. ‘What I call’ was one of John’s crutch phrases I always noticed and wanted to kick out from under him. We went to see Eight Mile, and this was my first experience of America at the cinema. There were boo’s, cheers, popcorn thrown and a genuine round of applause at the end. John and I very Britishly followed everyone's lead, standing and clapping with them, awkwardly, looking at each other realising, “Oh, this is how you show gratitude.”
John was, what I call, a decent guy. Yes, arrogant in ways, but when he asked you a question, he was genuinely interested in your answer, even if it was a simple, “How are you?” I wish he had a crutch under him now. Ben said John always asked of me, how I was, what I was doing. It saddens me to think he was laid in bed all that time, plotting his comeback, his sequel. “I’ll show them, just you wait.”
1Camera Operator. I mean, we said Cameraman then but we didn’t know any different.
2Charlton Heston, President of the National Rifle Association and staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, may not have done this.
3My west-coast Mark Hamill photo was taken on a camera with a roll of film. I had it developed on my return to the UK. It came out as a blurry close up of Johns fat fucking fingers.