‘American Masters’ celebrates Blake Edwards
There really hasn’t been a filmmaker quite like Blake Edwards. He could go from the silly-billy comedy of his “Pink Panther” comedies starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau to “Days of Wine and Roses,” a devastating drama dealing with alcoholism to the gender-bender musical comedy “Victor/Victoria” starring his wife Julie Andrews to the underrated Western “The Wild Rovers” with William Holden and Ryan O’Neal. Edwards even turned the diminutive British comedian Dudley Moore into a leading man thanks to his 1979 romantic comedy “10.” And let’s not forget the extraordinary collaboration he had with composer Henry Mancini who earned four Oscars including best song “Moon River” from 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and the title tune from 1962’s “Days of Wine and Roses.”
Still, there was no love lost between Edwards and Hollywood.
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In my 2003 Los Angeles Times interview with Edwards, who had personality to spare, said “I have been a critic of the industry all of my adult life.” And he skewered Hollywood in his 1981 satire “S.O.B.,” which made headlines because Andrews bared her breasts. Though he earned other honors, the only Oscar nomination he received during his long career was for his screenplay for 1982’s “Victor/Victoria.” Finally, six years before his death at 88 in 2010, he was the recipient honorary Oscar “in recognition of his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen.”
‘I have to tell you, I never thought I was going to get an Oscar,” he told me on the day he learned he was to receive the honor. “I felt like there were times I should have been nominated. I was very philosophical about it. If it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen. I have had awards, and I have had a hell of a life. I can’t do much better. So, this is gravy. It’s wonderful. “
And it’s wonderful that that PBS’ “American Masters” is celebrating the writer/director August 27tth with the new documentary “Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames.” The film examines his career which also included such classics as 1959’s “Operation Petticoat,” 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” for which Audrey Hepburn received an Oscar nomination as the indelible Holly Golightly, and the stylish 1958-61 detective series “Peter Gunn.”
The doc directed, produced and co-written by Danny Gold explores his life beyond the sound stages presenting a man who was a loving husband and father, as well as a sculptor and painter. Besides Andrews, whom he directed to a best actress Oscar nomination in “Victor/Victoria,” the documentary features interviews with his children Geoffrey and Jennifer as well as Bo Derek, who became an overnight sensation in “10,” and Lesley Ann Warren, an Oscar-nominee for “Victor/Victoria.”
Edwards changed Andrews’ G-rated “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music” image in the seven films they made together. Andrews recently told the L.A. Times’ Mark Olsen she was “glad that there was another side of me that he knew about and could show…. It was just serendipity that brought us together. He was so hugely talented. It was never boring; I can tell you. He was so open to new feelings, new emotions, trying new things.”
In a recent interview, Warren noted that Edwards encouraged her to improvise on “Victor/Victoria.” “He was a great audience for an actor. He would fall off his chair laughing, and you would hear his laugh through the take, and we’d have to do it again.”
Besides his films with Andrews, Edwards was best known for his slapstick “Pink Panther” comedies he made with Sellers from 1964-78, as well as the ill-fated 1982 “The Trail of the Pink Panther,” which featured the late Sellers using outtakes, and body doubles. Edwards also made two non-Sellers “Panther” movies with Ted Wass and Roberto Benigni. Both failed.
Edwards and Sellers also teamed up for the knockabout 1968 politically incorrect “The Party.” Edwards admitted “The Party,” in which Sellers plays a bumbling Indian actor who is accidentally invited to a major Hollywood shindig, was adlibbed. ‘It was designed to be a silent film, in respect to the great comedians of the silent era,” said Edwards. “We found out very quickly that it didn’t work because in order to express fully the character, you had to hear the Indian accent. So, we switched in midstream.”
Though they worked together on and off for 15 years, Edwards noted that Sellers could be very difficult. Working with the brilliant actor was “truly a schizophrenic experience in the truest sense of the word. He could be manic-funny, almost too much. Having a big success, we would do another film, and he would be a monster. I had a horrible day on the set trying to get him to do something, and he called me in the middle of the night like at 2 in the morning and said ‘Blake don’t worry about the scene. We’ll do it tomorrow. I just talked to God. I know how to do it.”
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