#88 Billy Van Zandt Celebrates the 40th Anniversary of TAPS

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:17

Alright, Ronnie, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. As always, I am your host Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for another amazing episode. Today we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the movie TAPS, TAPS was released on December 20 1981. So exactly 40 years today if you're listening to this episode on the day was released. TAPS starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton made its way to theaters the movie was based on a book called Father sky by Devery Freeman. It was the story of military cadets taking extreme measures when they learn their Academy is sold to a local condo developer then the young cadet sees the campus guns in all and confront the military as they take a stand to protect their home start Dorsey Scott and Timothy Hutton and also start Ronnie Cox and new commerce newcomers mind you Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, Evan handler, GianCarlo Esposito and my guest today who playedBug in TAPS for into the show Billy Van Zandt returns for behind the scenes oral history of taps is the movie that launched Sean Penn and Tom Cruise's superstardom and Billy Van Zandt was there the whole time. He's got stories to tell as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the movie TAPS and that interview is coming up in just a few minutes after this episode if you need more Billy in your life, head over to Episode 73 where we did a similar deep dive but of the movie Jaws 2 that Billy Van Zandt starred in and if that isn't enough, Billy was also in Episode 28 where we discussed his book Getting the car Jane Adventures in the TV wasteland. Billy Van Zandt has a million stories to tell and we've captured a lot of them. Here at live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show became great stories got lots of amazing feedback on episode 86 with Dee Wallace, star of ET, Cujo, the howling and the author of the book Born hope you enjoyed that episode.

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I am excited. The new Spider-Man movies out no spoilers here. I did see it. It was amazing. And you know what else was amazing? My conversation with Nicholas Hammond episode 84 If you want to look it up, that's right. 1977's amazing. Spider Man. The original Peter parker slash Spider Man combo was on live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show shared so many incredible stories, definitely check out that episode as well. So much for you to do I envy you.

And now it's time for the social media tip. All right. This is the part of the show where I share a little bit of my social media knowledge with you a little 411 I picked up on the street. I've been pretty heavy in the social media world for a long, long time. And like a rising tide. I'd like all of our social games to improve together. Today's tip I kind of alluded to for a second, I got two quick things for you. One don't post spoilers on social media. Spider Man is a good example. There's some huge things that happened in that movie that if you know it kind of dampers it a bit. Nobody's interested in you breaking the news of something. Let everyone enjoy everything how it's meant to be enjoyed. All it will do is bring anger and frustration upon you from everyone on Twitter or whatever social platform you happen to ruin someone's experience on. So just don't do it. On a more positive note. Those of you who pose video, there's good news on Twitter, Twitter, moving forward with anything posted will auto caption everything that's on there, which is great news. That way you can look at the video sound off which is something that you weren't able to do before unless you added your own captions, but now they've made it even easier by auto captioning everything for you You so that's really cool and convenient and super helpful for everyone who needs to be able to enjoy it, but those in your back pocket and rest assured that's the social media tip.

I do want to do a quick shout out to my friend Christine Blackburn hosts of the podcast story worthy she was guest on episode 75 of live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show. It's an awesome episode. If you happen to miss it, definitely go check it out. And if you can't get enough Jeff and Christine banter I am guesting on her podcast story worthy as you hear this, so head over to story where they if you can't get enough Jeff Dwoskin I share some cool stories that don't really talk about on this podcast that I talked about with her. So I hope you enjoy that.

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All right, well, that sounds like a really great deal and also sounds like the perfect time to segue over to my interview with Billy Van Zandt as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of taps. Enjoy. Alright everyone, I am so excited to reintroduce you to my next guest, Billy Van Zandt three times on the show. That's a record Billy I'm a regular now your regular on the show. Those of you who previously love Billy and Episode 28, where we talked about his book, get in the car Jain adventures in the TV wasteland plenty of stories there for you to check out Martin Newhart, and so many other TV shows. And then episode 73. We went deep into jaws to belly start and jaws to an entire oral history of that movie. So cool. So without What else can we do? What else could we do? Billy, you are a bug in taps.

Billy Van Zandt 7:31

I was 40 years ago, hard to believe hard to believe it was 40 years ago.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:36

I know. And no, it's it's crazy. Taps came out December 20 1981 starts so many young actors who are now like really big names and became big names. And we'll talk about all those I'm sure. But what's taps your final film role movie role?

Billy Van Zandt 7:56

No, in about 10 years ago, Jane Milmore and I wrote co wrote a movie called awaken providence that did all the film festivals. And we were in that we wrote that. And that was fun. Basically, I after after taps, I ended up in television writing. And I've spent 100 years doing that 40 years, I guess doing that and doing my plays. Yeah, I was supposed to do. I'll get into this later. But I was supposed to do a movie called at close range, which I think was 1983 84. And that sort of went away. But I'll tell you a story about that later on.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:31

Excellent. Excellent. So Jaws 2 first movie, we don't have to go into that because we did that we talked deep talks about that. Everyone can check out episode 73 For an enjoyable episode on Jaws two and then Star Trek The Motion Picture, which we talked a little bit about in the first time we talked and then taps How did you land the role taps what did it how did that come to be the

Billy Van Zandt 8:55

same casting director who did jaws to Shirley rich and she brought me in for taps. I was living in New Jersey and commuting up to New York for all bunch of auditions for Broadway and all that sort of thing. And it was just another audition. I met with Harold Becker, the director who had also done the last detail and Cinderella Liberty nope, excuse me. That's the that's the author of The Thing. Harold Becker did sea of love with ALPA Chino and

Jeff Dwoskin 9:20

blanking on every other malice City Hall vision quest.

Billy Van Zandt 9:24

There you go. Thank you. You're welcome. He was great guy really liked them. The second I met him and surely rich as a casting director made it very easy for all actors. She made you so confident and so calm. I've worked with casting directors that do the opposite. They try and sort of keep you on your toes. Because if you can get through this, you can get through anything. She didn't work that way. She says my job to make to showcase you and she did her best and do that as you walk into the elevator after each audition and talk about how you did and I think I went back twice for that. And then they get I got cast and off to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to the Valley Forge Military Academy. We renamed Bunker Hill Academy in our movie. And we did four weeks of rehearsal, which is very uncommon now. But we did four weeks of during the day, all of us cadets in the in the movie, it's about people don't know it's military, military cadets taking over their Academy by force when a local condo association wants to buy the property and shut them down. And it's sort of a Lord of the Flies thing. It's basically a movie about humanity really. So it's based on a book called Father sky. This is where this is where the last detail and Cinderella Liberty come in the there will ponics And who wrote the movie wrote those two movies as well. And I will say the script was fantastic to the point where nothing was changed during the shoot, read, everything you saw on screen was on the page. There weren't any big improvs or any of that it was all scripted. And it was quite a quite a good script. But for four weeks, we spent at the Academy learning to be cadets, they took us through marching all the all the rifle drills to the shooting range, we had to learn to march for the parade every Sunday that the school did for all the parents and the neighbors and all that stuff. We had to blend in. We were just other cadet, and it was a lot of work. And the cadets hated us. Because that that night, we would go back to wherever it was a Holiday Inn or whatever it was. And they had these very uncomfortable dorms that they had to sleep and and we attempted to do that. They put us in the dorms one night, and I think it was Tom Cruise no couldn't have been him must have been Tim Hutton, who said I'm not doing this. Let me back to the hotel. The idea was we were going to spend four weeks in the dorms and nobody wanted to do it. So we went back to the hotel, which became our hotel, I don't care who else was staying in that place. It was our hotel and we sort of Ruin ruin the place for everybody else. There are a lot of pranks going on tying people's doorknobs across the hall to each other so they can get out of their room, that kind of stuff. They're all everybody was in their early 20s, I guess. And we all acted pretty stupid. But the rehearsal process, you would train during the day until about, I would say three o'clock. And then we would rehearse the scenes from the script. What happened over the course of those four weeks is the director and the producers started looking at a couple of the actors and when we got to make some changes here. So the original the role that Brendan Ward played, Charlie, the other really young kid was originally Anthony Michael Hall, really, he was great in rehearsal, vacation still one of my favorite movies. But anyway, they replaced him. Nobody knew why. Because, as far as we were concerned, he didn't do anything wrong. But I think Brandon Ward had a much more of an innocence to him. And Anthony Michael Hall had a bit of an edge, and you needed the kid to be really, really innocent. So they replaced him. And then about I would say only maybe four or five days before we started shooting. Tom Cruise had a very small part. He was the assistant basically to Donald Kimmel. And there was just something not working there. Very good actor Don Campbell, Louisville, and all this neat things to have some really good credits, they decided to swap the roles. And God loved Donald Kim only took the smaller role and was a champ about it. And Tom was elevated up to the role of Shawn that he ended up playing in the film. And prior to our movie, he had only done one scene in Endless Love, which was a Brooke Shields movie. So he really didn't have a lot of experience. I know he was in Guys and Dolls in high school or something like that. I remember that. So they swapped roles, and it was a very good, which is when you watch Tom work, you saw he was headed places. And I remember when he filmed that final big scene, I was up where we were but a couple of us were hidden up on top of the set somewhere so we could look down and watch this thing. And once you saw that scene live, you knew Tom Cruise's name you're gonna hear what we had fun. And we had a we had it was fun. And we think we shot for four months, something like that.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:52

Well, I had read that it was actually Tom Cruise that opted out of staying at the dorms to move back to the hotel.

Billy Van Zandt 13:58

I don't think that would be true. He would. He was too one known and he didn't have any cloud. Okay, so maybe Timothy Hutton, Shawn would have wanted to stay in Sean Penn was very, very method and it was catered to by everybody except me. Basically. He would insist everybody get together in the hotel at night and and do improv scenes that weren't in the script. I was like I said, same command. I'm not doing this. I said is not the way I work. I learned my lines. I show up and do the thing. I'm not good at improv at night for no reason. Once I said no to him, we instantly got along fine. Tim Hutton, the was the star,

Jeff Dwoskin 14:34

the mismatch on pads. So this was Sean Penn's very first movie. Yes. And so he immediately then had the reputation of the method approach rifle Yakko

Billy Van Zandt 14:46

Yeah, he was he had done I can't remember which play it was he had just done a Broadway and off Broadway show. And then he got cast in this and he'd been in around show business his father, very famous director Leo pan, but the second time around out there. I mean, Shawn got there, everybody sort of like, you know, leave him alone. He's in character. I kind of think what was funny to me is Tom was so innocent that he ended up working the way Sean wanted to, because he had no choice and didn't know enough to say yes or no, they were supposed to hate each other in the film, and Shawn would go out of his way to antagonize the crap out of Tom in scenes that, that Shawn wasn't even in, he would show up on the set and stand behind the camera and give him the finger while the Tom's trying to do something emotional, you know, just to piss him off so that when they finally had their scene together, Tom would really be pissed off. And it was funny to me because he went out of his way to do that. And even in one of my scenes, Sean stood behind the camera to feed me my lines and didn't do the scripted lines. He asked me about my family and how I miss them and all this stuff. So I would supposedly I guess, get emotional or something. And I ended up answering the question, she was asking that the lines in the script and it made no sense. So we had to shoot it again. It was really fun watching the different styles, really. Tim Hutton saved everything for his close up. That was where he did his real acting, Shawn was in character 24 hours a day. And Tom was sort of wandering around trying to find his way. We also had really good actors and Evan handler who everybody knows from Sex in the City, and not Yeah, Sex in the City and California occasion and Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:23

I was rewatching the movie, and I'm like, you know, it's it's obviously it's been 40 years, right? And I'm watching the movie. And I'm like, is that Jean Carlo Esposito. I'm like, it looks like him a lot. I went and looked it up like holy cow. It was him. Yeah, it was that was one of his first roles too. And then yeah,

Billy Van Zandt 16:42

almost all of us it was either our first or second film, John Carlo had won an Obie Award. While we were while we were still filming for a performance you'd given the year before off Broadway, really, really good, good actors. And it was fun working with all of them, I will say. And then there was George Scott who has a whole other whole other league. So I'll talk about him in a minute. But Sean and Tom and Tim and I, we sort of the four of us hung around together. We bonded all during that film. And when the movie was over, I moved back to California. Sean was already living out here and Tom came out and the three of us piled around a little bit for a couple years.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:20

Do you still hang out or talk or if you bumped into each other? Would it be like old times type thing or probably

Billy Van Zandt 17:25

that was closer to Shawn and his girlfriend at the time is Pam Springsteen. So we get a connection there. I knew Pam before that. Tom was very career motivated. He didn't hang out with us that much. I remember when we came back to California, he just got an A to A to picture deal. And I remember the numbers $150,000 for two movies. You know, it's that's what they pay him for lunch these days. Right? And I ended up I went with Tom was just the two of us going to see his movie called losing it. It was called to on something or other when he filmed it, but it was lose losing it with the knoji losing it was Shelley Duvall, Shelley Long young guys going down to Tijuana to lose their virginity. And basically it was the movie, Tom and I went to see it in Westwood. We were the only people in the theater besides maybe five people. It didn't have a premier in it open. We went to see the first show during the day. And it was what it was, you know, but it was it was a film. I remember he had just gotten paid for his development deal. And he bought himself a it was either a Bentley or a Rolls Royce. I can't remember and it was used in a Bentley brand but it was still a Rolls Royce Bentley. We can't I but I drove you know, I was also out of work actor. I drove here in my Toyota Corolla to go to see the movie. So we go see the movie, we come back out. We're heading towards the car and some fan from the movie came out to follow and you know, love the film. You know, Tom, thank you. And then we started getting my Corolla is your car Tom. And I've never forget this because I wanted to hit him. He just sarcastically left like, yeah, right and got in the car. I was like, Well, he was the best I could do right now. But I got Well, I'll tell the story. Now, when Sean Penn got married to Madonna, we all went to that wedding. Prior to that when he was he was living out in LA, someone had sent me a script to a movie called at close range. And I read it and they and they sent it to me specifically so I could get it to Bruce Springsteen. So he could, okay having his music used for it. And I don't do that. We don't take advantage of friends and our family. So I didn't you know, but I read the script. And it was a fantastic script. I said the Shawn, you have to option this. This is you have to play this role. And he read it. He flipped over it. And he said, You know what, I will option it. I'll option it. You play this role. I can't remember the name of it. You played this role, and I'll do the lead and be great. And I said fantastic. So time goes by and I think shouldn't this movie be starting? I call him and he said the director thinks you're too old. The role, oh, well, things happen. Okay. He said, I'll we'll get you in something else. I said, I find I go to Sean's wedding. And I'm talking to Tom Cruise and Harold Becker from the pet taps who directed tabs and his old guy walks up to us, not old guy, but older than me, comes up and introduces himself don't remember who it was. And he says, and I say, how do you know Sean? He said, I just filmed a movie with him. I said, Oh, really? What role did you play? And he mentioned my role, and Tom started laughing at me, because I got screwed out of the role for being too old, but this guy looked older than me and Haha, Billy, you get screwed. But that was basically that. So it was like real funny. Later in the night, Tom comes up to me and says, Billy, will you do me a favor? I couldn't park here because the paparazzi follow me all over the place. I parked a couple miles away and I took a cab here. Can you drive me to my car? Because no one's gonna follow you. Okay. Okay. I said, Here's what I'll do. I'll get the car from the valet, and I'll signal you and then you come out, jump in the car and we'll we'll take you to your car. Nobody will bother you. He said, Okay, great. I get my car from the valet. I signal the time he runs out. As he reaches for the door handle. I took off and I left them there surrounded by all the photographers snapping away at them. It freaked him out to the point where he jumped in the very next card and he said I don't care whose it was and he jumped in. Apparently Andy Warhols limo night was also at the wedding. And he called me up later on. And you know, he yelled at me. He was laughing but he yelled at me for leaving them there. And then I said, Andy Warhol, and he said, Yeah, he said, it was very weird. No one in the entire limo talk to me. Not one word. They just stared at me like I was a painting until they dropped me off my car. And then they drove away and never said a word to me. So I got even with him for laughing me, basically.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:45

That's hilarious. That is so funny. So Harold Becker, also directed to a Madonna's videos, because she didn't use it for vision quest. He directed crazy for you and gambler.

Billy Van Zandt 21:56

I did not know that he was a good director, really good director. He really worked with every actor in their own individual way. He knew he certainly knew what he was doing. He also yelled at me when they have the first only and last time I was ever late on a set, they had a guy called a cadet coordinator. And he was in charge of all the little robots, the teenagers, whatever we were, and I was told I had the day off. So I had my car with me. And I drove two hours to go visit my family. And the next morning, I was not supposed to be until, I don't know, seven o'clock at night. So I'm having dinner with my family. And I check the messages at the hotel and it says your call time is five minutes from now. And I'm two hours away. So I jumped in the car, and I made it there in an hour somewhere. I didn't kill anybody. And I ran onto the set. And everybody's just sitting there waiting for me. And they've been sitting there for an hour. And Harold Becker just give me like, oh, shit, and he screamed at me. It was my own fault, ultimately. But I was told I had the day off. So I didn't know he said he was looking at all these people you've wasted all their time. And like, Okay, thank you. Two seconds later, we shot a scene where I'm watching TV and Star Trek comes on. So if you watch that again, that's right after I got yelled at by Harold and he had every right to yell at me too.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:14

And then you would go on to star and Star Trek The Motion Picture. I had done Star Trek earlier. Oh, that's right. Tap. So it's like that's our taps is your third movie, right

Billy Van Zandt 23:22

but the other the other thing that scared me as as whenever you're an actor, you want to be on film enough where they can fire you basically, you know, it's that's not your ultimate goal. But that's what you're doing your mindset is I go, I can't fire me. I shot three scenes already. You know, the very first scene I was going to shoot was a very complicated scene out on the on the quad there with trucks and cadets running and all this other stuff going on. And they announced to me the day before that I would be driving a two and a half ton army truck into the scene. I didn't drive a stick shift. I didn't had no clue what I was would have I didn't know how to do it. Thank before they took me out on the suburban windy roads of Valley Forge Pennsylvania in a two and a half ton army truck and that's where I learned to drive a stick shift. The next morning I show up on the set and I was like, oh my God Is it is it gonna be awful? They're gonna fire me if I screw up this whole big scene. And they said oh, by the way, you're not driving a two and a half ton army truck yourself. Thank God take you're driving a jeep. Like I didn't learn to drive in a jeep. I only learned driving a big truck. They put me in the jeep and they're Harold's pointing around. You know, you're driving from here and they stop here. And then the cadets will be running in here. And then the big truck will come in this way. And I'm looking around all the different cameras that are set up thinking I'm gonna screw this up and they're gonna fire me it's my first day, right before they shot and I'm sweating it looking at the thing go here. You move the thing this way and I step on this and they go you know what? I don't want the noise of the Jeep over your dialogue. So put a rope on this. We'll drag it in. Like I think that was my first day of shooting that movie.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:54

That's hilarious. Has it been like kind of weird, surreal to like watch like Sean pan and Tom Cruise. Those who are literally I mean, when you first work with them on taps, they were just, I mean, I don't wanna say nobodies but like, you know, this is their first foray, you know, anybody could have gone nowhere. They became biggest names in show business. The

Billy Van Zandt 25:12

funny thing for me is it was a movie that starred Timothy Hutton and George Scott when I filmed it. Now, it's a movie The star of Sean Penn and Tom Cruise. It's like Tim Hortons star, guys. I can see the talent, that's for sure. Did I know it was gonna get this big? No, there's no no way to know that. A very surreal moment for me was watching Jimmy Kimmel one night President Obama was on and the opening person on was Sean Penn. So he comes out and he sits down and Jimmy, and I have no idea this is coming. And it's It was so bizarre. Jimmy says, Is it true that you picked up Tom Cruise from the airport and took them on a tour of the stars homes when he first came out to LA? And Sean went into a huge story about me that I had his fixation on Lucille Ball because I Love Lucy is what got me started in show business. And it was true, but I didn't expect to hear it. That night. The President is on TV and Sean told the story about how I shot and I picked him up at the airport and then drove him straight to Lucille Ball's house because that was the one block in Beverly Hills. I said Jimmy Stewart lives there. Jack Benny lives there, you know, and Lucille Ball is there and the question was, why did you do that? And the answer was because anytime somebody came in from out of town, I always took them to that one block the only one I know and I was obsessed with Lucille Ball and I wanted to meet her and I figured if this is called stalking now back then I was just being a fan. I figured if I drove to her house, one of these days she walked out of the house and I could meet her. Well, she didn't walk out of the house ever. I think her garage was inside. But anyway, Sean thought it was hilariously funny because it was so bizarre and Tom didn't know what the hell we were doing. But there was a there was a good half hour period where Sean Penn Tom Cruise and I were stalking Lucille Ball sitting out at the curb of her house waiting for her to come out. And Shawn told the story of Jimmy Kimmel, and I got a lot of crap for it too. Because like Billy, you say like a psychopath. Well, I was I guess

Jeff Dwoskin 27:06

that's funny. But you love Lucy. So I know it makes sense to me. I mean, yeah, so Tapps has two Oscar winners and Timothy Hutton had just won the Oscar for Nike. I

Billy Van Zandt 27:18

remember him getting it in the middle of the shoot or middle of the rehearsals. I think it was the middle of the rehearsals. I remember he flew out to LA for it. And he came back and he was an Oscar winner, the youngest

Jeff Dwoskin 27:28

win ever person to win an Oscar or at least that the Oscar category that he won at the time at least.

Billy Van Zandt 27:35

And that was for ordinary people. Yes, I would say he's of all the people on a shoot. He's probably the most normal, normal guy who happened to act for a living but it was funny to see. Remember Tom, Shawn and Tim and I went out to it was either McDonald's and Burger King or one of those things when they was a girl by and everybody's fawning over Tim Hutton. He just won the Oscar. The one girl behind the counter ICBC somebody you know, she's like, Who's that? Somebody whispers to her. And she she made a face like so what? And Shawn looked at me and he went, wait, just wait. I said, Okay, we got our stuff. We went home. The next morning. That girl came at Tim's dressing at his hotel. So blonde who could have cared less about She's She's the lady.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:16

That's so funny. That's so did winning the asker sort of in packed him his psyche. I just being on the SAT in terms of or did it not faze him? Was he normal? I

Billy Van Zandt 28:29

don't think so. I think he was he was pretty normal about it. Yeah, he was pretty normal about it. It had to be during rehearsals. But I remember Anthony Michael Hall was still in the cast at that point. Bizarre memory thought right there. But he was intimidated by George see Scott, as was everybody. But he had to act with them. We didn't that I know. It was very intimidating to him. We didn't know who was playing that role of the general until probably two days before they shot. And I just can't remember who else they had mentioned somebody else. And it was a good actor too. But sort of it was George Scott was like, well, perfect. It's patent. He's coming back here as patent. Scott was intimidating. Just to just to stand next to the guy you you didn't know where to look, you know, he was down the hall from us. He had the Presidential Suite, or that Trish Vanderveer. His wife came with them. Very pretty lady and another guy came with them too. And this guy's job was to play chess with Georgia. See Scott? Between takes that was the guy's job. And I guess he took him on every on every set that he was on. So nobody really got to talk to George see Scott, because if he wasn't acting, he was moving moving pieces around a chessboard with this guy. And he was only with us for probably a couple days, maybe a week, shot what he did and then left.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:42

He's only in like the first third of the movie. He does the parade scenes

Billy Van Zandt 29:45

with us and he has a scene with Tim and I'm sorry I can't remember the guys name

Jeff Dwoskin 29:51

right well, yeah, the the previous cadet? Yeah. And then He bestows Timothy the cadet major and then he's in this session. scene where the dance

Billy Van Zandt 30:01

gets shot. Yeah, I remember I shared an elevator with him one day coming home from the set. And I couldn't. He didn't say anything to me. I didn't say anything to him. I just sort of Rose until we got to the floor. We both got out. He said, Good night. Good night. That was it.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:15

That's too bad. Because this is sort of like when I say the middle of his career, I'm going by basically IMDb or taps falls in the list is long list of achievements. He's had a long list, so he would know what it would mean to be working with and be with George See, Scott, you know what I mean? Like he could have chosen to give you guys a different experience, I suppose in the short time you had together.

Billy Van Zandt 30:37

Yeah. Unless it very well could have been. It could have been a way he he worked as an actor to he's the general. And he's maybe he wanted to keep that. That way off camera too, because it worked.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:53

Circling back to Timothy Hutton for a second. I was nominated for Best Actor or taps, Golden Globe. I think I was at a golf club. He started once again with Sean Penn and Falcon and snowman. Mm hmm. And this one, this was a piece of trivia that I found which I found amazing is that he directed the music video drive by the cars, which is one of my favorite songs and videos did not know that. I know it so I'm coming to the table Billy with a lot of extra trivia.

Billy Van Zandt 31:21

I know that he was a like me. He was a Frank Sinatra fan. Because he drove his car cross country to come do the show. And all he had in it was Sinatra blaring Sinatra.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:34

For champagne, you mentioned you were at Madonna's wedding. Did you make it to the Robin Wright wedding?

Billy Van Zandt 31:39

I did not. You know, life goes on you go different ways. But I certainly spent we did that movie, what at one, probably six years. He was always on going off to do films and stuff. I know when he broke up with Madonna. He called me I'm the friend people call when you know, instead of talking to a priest, they call me you know, so he called up and he had just been in the news. You know, I don't even know what he had done, tied her to a chair or something and left the house. I don't remember. He called me up and said, Can you have dinner with me tonight? I really want you know, just just happened and you don't want to talk? He said, Yeah, sure. So I remember meeting him at the Antanas restaurant, thinking that he wanted to unburden all this stuff. And then suddenly, Dennis Hopper comes in. Seymour cosell comes in at 15 guys come in, just turned into a bachelor party is what it was like, I guess he doesn't want to talk about this stuff. Okay, fine. So I didn't have to hit him back like a preset like.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:35

So oh, you know his name we haven't mentioned yet. Ronnie Cox,

Billy Van Zandt 32:39

the nicest guy in the world. I love this guy. And he went out of his way. And this meant so much to me. Because you know, everybody was by the time the movie open, great actor, if only from deliverance great actor. But in this movie, I thought it was great to he went out of his way the night of the premiere to seek me out to tell me how great a performance he thought I gave. And that meant so much to me. Because honestly, by the time that film open, Tim, Shawn, Tom, that was all people were talking about, but he went out of his way to make me feel, you know, really good about what I'd done. And it was it was really nice and seen him a couple of times at Harold Becker's office after that, but man he was. He is a great, great guy. I

Jeff Dwoskin 33:20

really think he's got a lot of music now. I was alright, so it's nice to know that he's so nice, because, you know, you watch him in Robocop and everybody I like Total Recall. He's got an add to his character. Yeah. It's nice to hear that he's so nice. It's funny when I was watching rewatching the movie, and I remember watching it a lot. I'd seen it a lot when it came out in cable when cable was new and movies would replay 1000 times. I remember always feeling a little disturbed by the movie, and I may just well because it was mostly Tom Cruise's characters. Yeah, I'm surprised like Tom Cruise was a psycho in that movie. He was rewatching it I'm thinking to myself it's funny because as Sean Penn and Tom Cruise are fighting I'm like, oh, Sean Penn would have been a great psycho like Sean Penn you could say but I mean based on you know hindsight, of course, but like right right right right. John pan could have easily just snapped in that movie but he was the same one he was the most sane one of the entire group besides like you and Evan handler but you know, and Evan handlers character eventually left. I love Evan handler. And it was it was funny seeing him with hair. I've never seen out there. Yeah,

Billy Van Zandt 34:31

yeah. That's right. That's right. We almost forget what they made him do in the script. At one point and I didn't know this when I took the role. All the power gets cut off in the in the academy from the people on the outside to try and get us to to leave. And it said, you know, a cadet is doing this because doing as a cadet is in the shower, the water goes off. And then one that morning, Carol Becker the director says to me, oh, Billy, you'll be taking the shot. I said, I will not be taking a shower. What are you talking about? He said, Well, you know, we need you'll, you'll take a shower and the water will go out and I'm thinking I'm not getting undressed and beyond filler. I said, I'll brush my teeth, but I'm not taking a shower. And he said, you know, it takes more of an actor to brush his teeth than it does to take a shower. So yes, you do that it made no sense. Giancarlo Esposito got stuck taking the shower, and I brush my teeth.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:26

Well, you don't just brush your teeth. It's like a five minute scene where you're right I mean, they could use that scene and and dentist office. Five Second is that like once I get brush brush?

Billy Van Zandt 35:38

It's really funny.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:40

Yeah, John Carlo is Speedo does not fare well, after you guys trying to put the power back on.

Billy Van Zandt 35:47

Well, interesting thing there. And I guess this was done for effect. And it worked. They told us you know, they had the stun quarter and the stunt man, we turn on the furnace and he goes on fire. What they told us was that his arm was going to go and fire. That's all they said. And we go and shoot the scene. And his entire body goes up in flames. And we thought the stunt man was killed. So they got it. They got a real reaction. And I could tell that they started did it on purpose. Just you know. I think it was just me and Brendan wore a nasty little trick to play on me but it was good.

Jeff Dwoskin 36:19

It's adulting scene. I mean when he cuz he just goes up in flames. I mean, his entire body is in flames and then he's out on the stretcher. I assume he lives they don't like but But yeah, that's. That's a rough rough scene. Yeah. It's a rough scene when the boy runs for the young boy runs for the for the gate for the gate. I'm trying to remember saying he was he didn't do much acting after it but he was in. He was in vacation. He was the cousin. Me. John navan. John P. David

Billy Van Zandt 36:52

navan. Yeah, really nice kid really nice kid. He was funny. He was funny kid too. Yeah, he and Brandon Ward were the two young guys and they were good together. They were really good together.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:01

Yeah, Brendan did a great job rest in peace. I mean in the movie. Alright, so let me let me think. Let me see if I have what else I have here because I have so many like notes. Alright, so George see Scott was just good for Okay, so here the screenplay I have was written by Robert Mark came in. I

Billy Van Zandt 37:22

think he may have either done an early draft or did a rewrite. It was basically Darryl ponics And

Jeff Dwoskin 37:28

okay, well according to IMDb.

Billy Van Zandt 37:32

Well, that could be right. I

Jeff Dwoskin 37:34

do remember here it is. Yeah.

Billy Van Zandt 37:37

I got said aeroponics. You know,

Jeff Dwoskin 37:39

they both are listed on IMDb as screenwriters. Okay, I must have just grabbed this guy's name. Because the interesting thing about Robert Mark came in, is that the he created the Karate Kid for a franchise. It's basically based on his life. Yeah. So. Oh, wow. Wow. And you're taken franchise and the taken. So you have to do anything to do with Cobra Kai. Wow. You know, interesting. I thought you might ask so I look that up to he gets a character is created by which I assume is I assume there's money and characters created by you would know You bet there is. I bet he's just cashing checks. If he owns a winery, I guess now he used some of his early money to to make wine so he's probably just what we call living the good life. Mm hmm. I was thinking now like all these actors, these famous movie actors that you worked with that went on to movie Fame while you focused on TV, I was thinking with the turn of TV these days. They're all going to be crawling back to you.

Billy Van Zandt 38:40

That was my plan. Guy. I

Jeff Dwoskin 38:42

feel like one day Shawn's gonna Sean and Tom are gonna be like I need one of those shows. I need a show. Yeah,

Billy Van Zandt 38:49

I'm still waiting I'm still gonna be showing again to make it up from that movie that he screwed me up. But

Jeff Dwoskin 38:55

I feel like that would that would be the thing where like, you know Tom comes here and he's I need I need a shout Glenn Close. Didn't everyone all the big names are doing it we got so they're all gonna come back to you. It's all gonna come first. Full Circle. Yeah, so I know we talked earlier about the movie father sky that this is based on that guy turned that move that book around pretty quick. I mean, I think it was bought and turned into a movie within years of him publishing it. I don't even think it was out yet. What I read about the book was it It delves a little deeper into the psychology which creates the loyalty for which people were willing to kill or die, which is, is basically what the movie is about, but I've never read it. I should. I never I think you can weird. Yeah, you can just Google father sky. Yeah, go from there. Do you have any other hotel shenanigans stories? Because I found from talking to you, and when we talked about Jaws too and then even like candy Clark when we I talked to her once about American Graffiti. Some of the best stories happen at the hotel that everyone stays?

Billy Van Zandt 39:56

It's true. What happened in our hotel it will every Sunday Tom's mother would bring a basket of chicken or pie or whatever it was with the sisters and they'd come visit. So we all we always had good food on Sundays. We really we took over the hotel prior to us being there. I remember Glen, the hotel staffs and Glen Campbell and Tanya Tucker had destroyed the Presidential Suite. That's that I remember. And now George Scott was in there, there was an awful lot of like baseball in the hallway. Shawn Tim's room became Party Central. Every local girl in town was in that room, I think. I don't just mean to sleeping with me doesn't mean it was a party. I can't remember who it was. But somebody, it was a lot of drinking on the weekends. And I remember somebody had to, you know, turn somebody on their sides, and then choke to death kind of thing. But I don't remember who that was. John Carlos stayed away from everybody. He was too mature to deal with this, you know, the silliness. When I was right. I was dating the casting girl. That's right. That's right. Very lovely lady. I did a cruel thing to her though. Somebody, it was somebody we hadn't actually been dating yet. And we were just flirting with each other. And I remember somebody saying it was their birthday, and she gave him a big kiss. So the next day, I told her that my birthday was Thursday or something. And what she then did, I was just expecting to get a kiss on my birthday. Instead, they had a big cake for me on the set. And it was like a big deal. And I felt like such a schmuck. So the next day i i sent, I must have sent like five dozen roses to her to her office. And we started dating right after that. So I guess I don't work, though.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:36

There you go. That works out. Yeah. As you look back on 40 years. Hmm, I'll find memories. Yeah, you know,

Billy Van Zandt 41:43

there's maybe one or two scenes I'd like to redo because you sort of know more as you go. And it's a very intimidating thing to go from the theater into film, because it's so easy to overact you know, if you still think you're performing for balconies and stuff, so my tendency in even in Jos two was to pull back and which is a smart thing to do. But I think it pulled back a little too much. Sometimes. I didn't change one thing they were gonna do. They've seen where Sean comes in and finds me ends at towards the end of the movie finds me in front of the the radio and he doesn't know where anybody is, and all this sort of thing. It was in the script. I was supposed to destroy the entire room. And I said to Harold Becker comes out of left field and feels weird. I don't want to do it. And he said he thought about anyway, you're right. Take it really let him was like Okay, good. And I like the way the same turned out can I think if I had suddenly been trashing things, people in the audience don't. Why is that guy doing that? Who else was in there that I like Wayne tippet as much as Tim's father was quite good. I ran into him in LA years later, it still looked exactly the same. I went Jeff Rockland, I can't remember what character's name was a heavy guy with

Jeff Dwoskin 42:52

glasses. Jeff Franklin was shovel

Billy Van Zandt 42:54

shovel. That's it. Really nice kid. That was definitely his first movie too, because of Facebook, where we keep in touch every once in a while. So it's been it's been fun. Facebook's been a pretty good thing in terms of reacquainting yourself with people you performed with 100 years ago, you know,

Jeff Dwoskin 43:09

and then what eventually happened to Donald camo who gave his role to Tom Cruise.

Billy Van Zandt 43:14

He went back to the theater mostly where he had been from and still still performing, I believe. And he had a very nice career. It just didn't happen to have it on film.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:24

Do you think he's got like an anti shrine to Tom Cruise and swears it Tom Cruise in his basement in a secret room.

Billy Van Zandt 43:34

He doesn't watch Mission Impossible the same way the rest of us do.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:40

Come on. Cast me Yeah. Oh. Yeah. It's so funny.

Billy Van Zandt 43:46

He came in to audition for me. For one of my off Broadway shows. You must remember that. It was silent laughter I did a silent movie silent slapstick comedy live on stage and he was when he came in to audition for that I forgot about

Jeff Dwoskin 43:58

them. So no sequels. Now I'm just getting taps two more taps. I encourage everyone to go rewatch it and rediscover the movie I rewatched it recently and the movie holds up you know not all movies hold on this will be definitely holds up it feels right. It feels good that all the acting is incredible. You know when you think about all the names they were all bringing it you and all the crew were bringing it even back then even new new everybody was it's just such an amazing cast such a great movie. So what's going on with you now? Le Van Zandt, why don't What are you up to?

Billy Van Zandt 44:34

Well, the personnel that the pandemic is ending get back to what we were doing. We were touring around with my musical review called the boomer boys musical, which is for middle aged guys, joking about the changes that men go through when you hit a certain age. And we did that for about two years before the pandemic hit. And we're starting up again in February in Palm Springs and then we go off to Connecticut and New York, New Jersey. Texas and that's all I can remember right now. So that's been good. And I wrote another book.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:04

When's the new book come out, still playing with that? I'm

Billy Van Zandt 45:07

not sure. It's called the cracker jack man. And it's a novel based on a true story from baseball history that nobody has ever heard of, that I discovered. And when this is fantastic, this story is fantastic. So I'm just finishing that up now. And what else am I doing? I must be doing something else. I always do 12 things at once starting another book along the lines of this one, except I'm going to talk about all the all the plays, the breakdown of how they put together and backstage stories and all that stuff. And that's enough, and I just got married. So that's keeping me busy too. And we're looking to move so I'm looking for houses and stuff like that.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:43

Congratulations on your marriage.

Billy Van Zandt 45:45

Thank you. My pleasure.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:46

My final thought is with the cracker jack. Man. You call Sean Penn. Say I got a great role for you. And then I'll recast it a second and then you never talk to him again.

Billy Van Zandt 46:01

That's really good. That's really good.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:03

I can't thank you enough for hanging with me a third time. It means a lot. It really does.

Billy Van Zandt 46:07

My pleasure. Good seeing you.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:09

Thank you so much. All right. How awesome was Billy Van Zandt? Raise your hand if you haven't seen the movie taps in a while? I see you. Your homework is to go watch taps. Wait a minute, Jeff. I thought the Thursday bonus episodes of the episodes read tell us stuff to watch or the Wednesday live show crossing the streams normally Yes. But this is a special episode of live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show. And since we focused on the movie tabs, I'm going to suggest you go and watch it amazing performances from everyone George C Scott, Timothy Hutton. Billy van Zandt, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise. Everyone we mentioned so many great stories can't thank Billy enough and doing yet another movie retro sprak on the podcast with me.

Well, as we near the end of the show, you know that can only mean one thing. That's right. It's time for another trending hashtag find the world of hashtag or Roundup download your very own hashtag roundup app at the Google or Apple PlayStore play along and one day one of your tweets may show up on a future episode of live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show fame and fortune awaits you. This week's hashtag Keeping with the theme of the show we went with #EnlistAMovieOrShowInTheMilitary from wag your tags Oh weekly show on hashtag round up #EnlistAMovieOrShowInTheMilitary is the ultimate military mash up with a TV show or movie title? That's right. You take a movie title and give it a military spin. And that's how you end up with #EnlistAMovieOrShowInTheMilitary. It'll be just like you were in the movie taps. Alright, let's read some of these hashtag unlist a movie or show in the military mashup tweets shaved by the bow. King of the drill sergeant These are awesome mash up #EnlistAMovieOrShowInTheMilitary tweets. How I court martialed your mother the Fantastic Mr. foxhole kids in the mess hall, Captain American Pie, take you for smoking about face off air force of nature. The Sandra Bullock Ben Affleck classic glory of the flyboys, Uncle Buck private, Three Men and a little Navy Lieutenant grant. You can see Lieutenant grant on a previous episode of live from Detroit. Good luck Alpha Charlie. These are awesome hashtag enlist a movie or show in the military tweets. Bad Boys have company see bad boys starring Sean Penn who was also in taps, Full Metal Jacket, to corporals a lieutenant and a pizza place and our final hashtag unless a movie or show in the military tweet at easy writer. Aha. Those are great. Tweet one of your very own #EnlistAMovieOrShowInTheMilitary tweets. Tag us at Jeff Dwoskin show. I'll retweet it. I'll like it. I'll do something. In the meantime, all these tweets I just read or retweeted at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter. Definitely check them out, retweet them and show them some love.

Well with the hashtag reading over it could only mean one thing. Episode 88 has come to a close. How do these go by so fast? I do want to thank my special guest Billy Van Zandt for spending time with me and digging into the memory banks and helping us celebrate the 40th anniversary of the movie TAPS. And of course I want to thank all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

Announcer 50:04

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Now go repeat everything you've heard and sound like a genius. Catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai