Prior to writing and directing Hollywood blockbusters, the filmmaker zipped around Germany and Austria as a reporter, and his colorful early writings are now available in book form
"Life at the Bell House was sweet. Sweet, too, was seeing Bobby all dolled up on a Sunday afternoon in a sort of 1950s fashion, waiting for a gentleman caller. ”
Just a few weeks ago we drove past the old place on Radcliffe Street where we started our life together, and I asked my wife, “Wonder how Bobby’s doing?”
That would be Bobby Getz. She was our downstairs neighbor in the Bell House, a Victorian overlooking the Delaware River in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Twenty-five years ago we had a third floor spot overlooking the water and Burlington Island. Bobby had a first floor, river side. It’s beautiful place. Once you move in, it’s hard to part. When we moved in, Bobby had been there almost 50 years.
We got to know each other in our chats in the foyer, with its grand staircase and glittering stained glass window.
Brew the coffee, strike out the amphetamines and the matchsticks for the eyes, discard the cilice (watch the spikes don’t blind the dog) – it’s the night of exquisite and prolonged torture for dedicated film-worshippers throughout the world. It’s the Oscars, topped and tailed by hours of ersatz fawning by people who, behind the smiles and designer masks, hate the talent and wish they had the wherewithal to be them. This one is going to be different, of course. It’s been “pandemicised” although the organisers aren’t coughing (Covid nudge, nudge) about the details of how it will unfold. Although, for sure, it will be at length.