Paul Koslo Interview by Justin Humphreys
Paul Koslo was born Manfred Koslowski (pronounced Kos-lov-ski) on June 27, 1944 in Germany, the son of a Prussian soldier. “When I was a kid, when I was living in Germany, when I was about four years old, I was cognizant of the fact that these big Sherman tanks of the GIs, the American troops, would go rumbling down the street. You couldn’t miss it because the earth would shake for miles around. And we’d be out there in awe, me and my other friends in the neighborhood. We and other people would be standing there watching. And the GIs would be throwing out Wrigley’s chewing gum and Hershey’s chocolate bars and kids would be there in droves fighting for them. The country was pretty devastated after losing the war and the Americans had taken over. All the citizens would meet, mostly, in the beer gardens and would talk amongst themselves about what was going to happen to their country, I guess. So a lot of us kids were left on our own for long periods of time. So what I did was I started to daydream and I found out about cowboys and Indians from the Americans. So we used to play cowboys and Indians. It was a natural progression from the Americans, since nobody else had cowboys and Indians and we were really intrigued by that.
My dad came (to America) in the fifties and we came shortly after. We moved to Regina, Saskatchewan in Canada, which, at that time, was like Podunk (laughs). In the fifties, things were first beginning to get technologized across the country, so you can imagine what it was like there. I spoke German. I’m of Polish and Russian grandparents- obviously with the name Koslowski. My native tongue was German and it was really tough trying to adjust. But when you’re a kid, you can learn another language really easily. It took I’d say a couple of years to adjust. My mother was a homemaker until later when she used to run a deli in a big Safeway supermarket up in Canada. And my dad did a bunch of different things. When we first moved to Regina, he worked for a German newspaper, he swept floors in Simpson’s (a Canadian version of Sears), and he was a private detective and built his own home, all at the same time. So he was definitely doing twenty-four hour days for the first couple of years. I think that’s probably what eventually killed him, because he died when he was about fifty-seven of emphysema. He was a smoker, so it was probably all the pressure. He got asthma and it turned to emphysema. He actually died in the hospital bed with a lit cigarette burning in his fingers. And if the nurse hadn’t walked by the room and noticed that the cigarette was burning- she smelled something- she smelled the skin. She just happened to look. She said if she hadn’t done that, then the whole hospital could have burned. It’s amazing what cigarettes can do.
When we were in Canada, in Regina, I saw my first film about a year after we arrived. It was five cents to get in and the popcorn was free. It wasn’t till later that they charged for popcorn. The first movie I ever saw was (a Tarzan movie) starring Gordon Scott. When I saw a picture, like another world on a wall, y’know, I couldn’t fathom that but I related to it instantly because it was like inside my mind when I imagined things, playing cowboys and Indians. And then I knew, right then and there, that I wanted to be an actor, from then on. I guess I was about eight years old. I couldn’t relate to people, although I knew I was a person, because I could talk like they could. But usually, we (kids) were just pushed out of the way. Because our parents were busy trying to build a new life. And they didn’t know what was going to be happening to themselves in Germany, either, and I think that’s when my dad made the choice to emigrate to Canada. And it was natural from when I saw that (movie) for me to want to go into that or want to act. Actually, we moved from Regina to West Vancouver, British Columbia, probably in ’57 or ’58. I went to school in Horseshoe Bay Elementary School and then I went to junior- and high school at West Vancouver High. But I was always the guy that was sort of a little bit in trouble, I was like one of the two percent-ers (laughs). We’d do all kinds of silly stuff, like when the principal would be about to start the hundred-yard dash- he’d always be the one to fire the starter’s gun- we’d throw a dead, plucked chicken onto the track. Or if I was running on the track team, if they were doing the mile race or something- one side of the track was on the slope of a hill, so I would get to the outside lane and, after a couple of rounds, I would just duck down on the side of the hill on the far side of the track and, then, when it came to the last lap, I would pop back up [laughs] and be like a hundred yards ahead of everybody. Of course, I got reprimanded pretty badly. There was sort of like a gang of us. Other stuff we would do was , when they’d check all the combination locks, they’d all be off of the lockers, so we’d sneak around and take all the combination locks and lock them up together. You can imagine: they’d have to go and get the files in the principal’s office and go through all the numbers. Stuff like that. Really weird stuff. But we had a lot of fun, too. We’d have “best leg” contests, boys against the girls. We’d wear panty hose, we’d shave our legs. It was a hoot.
“Of course my dad and I never got along, unfortunately. We had a lot of problems. I guess, right from their soul, kids rebel a lot. It’s been like that since the beginning of time, father rebelling against son. Just look at REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. It’s inherent in all countries, especially this one. It’s gotten big because of the media and the movie industry. We didn’t see eye-to-eye and there were a lot of different reasons for it. In his upbringing, he never got along with his dad, so he didn’t know how to act with me. So I left home when I was really, really young, when I was about twelve. I wound up working for my brother-in-law to-be. He married my sister a couple of years later and he was from Germany, too. He was building apartment kitchens in a big shop. I went to Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island and I worked for him for about a year. Then, that next summer, I went back to the mainland and I was traveling a little bit, just to see the country, and I got commandeered by the Mounties to fight a big forest fire and I did that for four months, all summer long. They paid me seventy-five cents an hour, twenty-four hours a day. I think I amassed about thirty-two hundred dollars, which was a fortune at that time. I took that money and I hitchhiked across North America twice. That was until I was about fifteen. I did that for over a year. Then I finished high school. As a matter of fact, I went back to West Vancouver High. They had what was called The Great Thirteen, which was like a first year junior college, but I’d been out in the world too much and just couldn’t get back into the regimentation of it. I’d heard about this great acting school in Montreal, so I decided to audition. My parents didn’t know where I was. My dad and I never got along. He never encouraged me at all. He kind of laughed at me when I told him I wanted to be an actor. I didn’t have any support whatsoever, so there was a lot of negative feelings about that.
“After I did high school, I decided to go back east to Montreal to go to the National Theater School there, which was a sister school to the National Theater in London. I’d been doing a few little acting jobs on television, small parts, a couple of lines here and there. I did it just to see if I liked it. I LOVED IT. It drove me to keep on going, but I realized that I needed training. I auditioned for the National Theater School and I got in. And I got a Ford Foundation Scholarship. I studied in Montreal for a year. I was doing waiter jobs, working in gas stations in Vancouver and stuff in the interim. I was a year late in graduating from high school, so I was already nineteen instead of eighteen. I did a year at the Theater School and then I got kicked out. The first year there, you learn the technique of acting, you learn diction, interpretation, improvisation, voice, dance, music, broadswords, fencing with foils, rhythm, everything. And the third year, you study plays and put them on for the public. My thing was, again, I was sort of the two percent-er type. I was asking too many questions. I was saying, Well, it could be like this, couldn’t it? I mean it doesn’t have to be.
“We were in Stratford, Ontario, which is about five hundred miles from Montreal, where we’d go during the summer to put on plays. And that first summer after we had been at Stratford, the artistic director called me in and said, ‘You may be really talented, but I don’t want you back next year. You’re outta here.’ It was like a mule had kicked me in the head. I just turned around on my heel and I never said anything to him. I just walked out. Then the assistant artistic director called me and said, ‘This is probably the best thing that could’ve happened to you, Paul, because you’ve got a lot of talent and you’ll be out there learning what it’s all about. Take your talent and go out there and get jobs. Get work and learn in the business. You don’t have to do plays for two years.’ I got out and about a month later, I was walking across the parking lot of CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Four guys, business-types, were walking across the parking lot the other way. As we passed each other, a guy says, ‘HEY! You look Russian- can you act?’ I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I just finished at Stratford this year.’ He said, ‘Oh, good, man. Come on up to my office. Here’s my card. I’m casting the lead in this Festival Series, which is like a Kraft Playhouse for Canada.’ I said, ‘What is it about? Is it a good part?’ He says, ‘It’s the LEAD, man. It’s the part of Raskolnikov in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.’ FUCK!
So I went there about three months later. I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t have enough time to get any information so I could be prepared somehow. But I didn’t need to because they had everything there. Actually, Michael Sarrazin, Rudolf Nureyev, and all these other guys were up for the same part. (Note: the co-star was Genevieve Bujold). I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was made-for-TV. It played on PBS on the east coast outlet, because New York’s not far from Montreal. Somebody from William Morris in New York saw it and they asked me if I wanted to be represented. I met the guy from the William Morris office and they signed me. By that time, after I did that show, I got another show out of that, about Dylan Thomas. I was living in Toronto and now I had the William Morris Agency behind me and they said, ‘Listen, Paul, we want you to meet the guys on the west coast, too.’ So I went there and I met them and I came back to Toronto. Then I decided to move to Hollywood in 1966.”
Some Koslo filmographies include the Euro western DJANGO. “In ’66, there was a Spanish film crew that came and did an interview on me and I was supposed to go do a spaghetti western. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it.” Koslo spent much of 1967 back east in NYC on stage in Hair. His feature film debut was playing a psycho in a movie known as FLUX, MANIAC, or THE ZODIAC KILLERS. It was made by Jack Starrett and Richard Compton, but was never released. “The first movie I did here, Jack Starrett directed, he did THE DION BROTHERS, CLEOPATRA JONES. He was an actor. He was Gabby Johnson in BLAZING SADDLES. He was a hell of a director. He was actually a really good director, but he was a real renegade. He didn’t like the big studio system and he bucked them and they didn’t like him for it. So he never really made it to be a big, major director.” THE LOSERS (70) is a fun if ridiculous Nam biker cult film, later featured in PULP FICTION. “I had the chance, of course, to leave the country and go to Manila, to see part of the world I’d never been to. And that was really interesting for me. Jack cast me because I’d done the lead for him in THE ZODIAC KILLERS. And I realized that Jack had a lot of talent, because, man, this guy would shoot beautiful stuff! He was really a talented guy. William Smith and myself were sort of the leads. William Smith is the king of the biker movies. Actually I just saw him a while ago. He’s a little crazy, but he’s a good guy.” Smith had already starred in Starrett’s RUN, ANGEL, RUN (69).
” We got there (Manila). It was a long flight. I was about twenty-five. I’m feelin’ pretty good- I love this part I’m playing, this guy Limpy. And, here we are, we’re like five reprobates from California out in the middle of the jungle. And it’s a ludicrous scenario of five Hell’s Angels taking on the whole Red Chinese army, trying to rescue a CIA agent (laughs). We had a guy there, Gary McClarty, who’s like the whiz of bike stunts and things. He’s the best in the business. I rode the three-wheeler (bike), the others were like Yamahas. We converted them. Some of the movie plot was us reworking our bikes with machine guns on the handlebars… I reworked this three-wheeler, which was actually a Harley frame with a Volkswagon rear end and a roll cage. We had a big rocket launcher on top of the roll cage, then fifty-caliber machine guns on either side of that. And they actually worked. All I had to do was press a button and blanks would come out of there. So did the rocket launcher, it shot dummy rockets. All that stuff was really exciting to me. That was the first time I’d ever had to learn to ride a motorcycle. This guy, Gary McClarty, who’s a legend in the business, taught me to ride. So I’ve got a lot of memories there. And, of course, the women were hot and heavy and the drinks were cold and strong, and we were stayin’ there in the jungle. It was a six-week shoot and after the first three weeks, we found out that the producer of this show wasn’t paying us back in Hollywood, so we went on strike. We made some calls from where we were staying, the Manila Hilton, and the agency got some money over there for everybody for the first three weeks (work). Bill (Smith) instigated that. He said, pardon my French, ‘If that motherfucker comes around, I’ll throttle his fucking neck! How dare he not fucking pay us!’ But Bill is a very genteel guy, he really is. Did you know that he speaks seven languages fluently? He was an interpreter in part of the diplomatic corps in the Korean War. He’s always been a dear friend and I’ll always support him. He’s got nineteen-and-a-half inch arms. A regular person’s neck is only about fifteen-and-a-quarter or so. He’s really lean, but he’s all muscle.
“We had people cook, these Filipinos who live in the jungle, (in) these small villages and stuff. And they used all the natural stuff for cooking, parts of the natural habitat that were edible, fruits and coconuts they got off the trees. It’s something you’d never think of now because we’re so automated and we’ve become so technologically advanced. They’d have wild game that they’d cook up and raised chickens and hogs and things. They’d just slaughter them and cook ‘em up. It sounds kind of primitive, but it was really romantic. It’s so nice to go to another country and you don’t understand them and they act so helpful and nice. I fell in love with the Filipino people, I really did. They were so nice. I mean, in any big city, you’re gonna get some idiots. But everyone, to a fault, was just perfect. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Other than that we didn’t get paid for the first three weeks. And then, later, when we got back home, we had so much overtime, we hit him (producer Joe Soloman) up for that, too.
“My next picture was THE OMEGA MAN (71) and Charlton Heston was then president of the Screen Actors’ Guild. I said, ‘Hey, by the way, I just got back from the Philippines and this guy owes me about forty-two hundred bucks in overtime.’ And he made some calls to the legal department and they got this guy and I had my check within about two weeks. So that worked out really well. I had a lot trouble with (THE OMEGA MAN). I’m just starting out, remember, and I have about three or four movies under my belt and I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes. I want to be a consummate professional and Rosalind Cash took me under her wing. Because what happened was that Heston was so busy, being president of the Screen Actor’s Guild and Reagan was an old buddy of his, because he used to be president of SAG, and, at that time, he was governor, I think (Note: Yes, he served two terms). Heston would be busy all the time; he’d have limos standing by. So all the stuff that I did with Heston, which was quite a bit of work, when it came to my close-ups, I did them (acting) with a mop. They had a mop and they set the wooden part of it down on the floor and the mop part was where Heston’s head was. They had this mop handle, say about six foot-three, and I would do all my acting, all my close-ups with the mop and the script girl held the script and would say the lines and the mop would be in front of her head. So I got very disconcerted, I got very insecure. That was just his thing when he thought it wasn’t important for him to be there. He never did that with Rosalind Cash of course- of course you wouldn’t do that: they had a plotline relationship. So Roz kind of took me under her wing and she explained to me that I was doing a great job and for me to keep it up and for me not to lose faith in myself. Because it was a big movie for me. There was basically Lincoln Kilpatrick, Anthony Zerbe, Roz, and him and myself were basically it as far as (the leads). I thought, ‘This will be great. Hopefully I can do a good job.’ And, then, when it came to my close-ups, he wasn’t there. I wasn’t getting anything (reaction). It was very disconcerting. It was strange. And some of the people said something about it. Boris Sagal, the director, was really gracious. As a matter of fact, one time he invited me and Roz over for dinner and that’s when he apologized for Heston’s behavior. He said, ‘He doesn’t mean to be that way.’ And sure enough, before the movie came out, Heston invited me over to his house and out for dinner at Chasen’s one night. He was really gracious. He didn’t actually say, ‘Hey, listen: I’m sorry I wasn’t there for the close-ups.’ But in his own way, in a roundabout kind of way, he apologized.
“VANISHING POINT (71) was sort of the first road picture, where people (making the film) went on the road and they drove. The whole crew and all the equipment and all the trucks would drive from town to town. It was like on the LOSERS when we lived in the jungle. And now, when the company moves, the actors just fly. It was like a caravan. That was really a great experience, too. VANISHING POINT is a cult classic. I read for the director (Richard C. Sarafian) and what happened was, on the way to Fox, I was on my motorcycle and I was wearing an American flag shirt. In the 70′s, it wasn’t done because people were burning the flag because of Vietnam being so unpopular. Man, I got a ticket on the way over to the studio by this cop for wearing an American flag shirt! For desecrating the flag! I couldn’t believe it, man! So I was pissed. It kinda made me late, and in those days you didn’t have cell phones and I didn’t have the studio number. I was about twenty minutes late. So I started to recall to the director what had happened to me. And I was so pissed, so full of emotion, he said, ‘You know what? You’re gonna play that cop. I don’t even have to have you read for me. And that’s how I want you to play him, just like you are right now, the emotion you’re feeling. Because you want to get this guy (Kowalski, a Nam vet) and you’re gonna be feeling that emphatic about trying to get this son of a bitch.’ He cast me in that. We started it in Denver, Colorado. VANISHING POINT had an incredible cast. And Kowalski was Barry Newman. He (Kowalski) didn’t say much. He was more like a Charles Bronson-type character. Newman was a really nice guy. He always had a good thing to say about everything. Cheerful. It’s funny, because he wasn’t like (his character) at all. He was like a nice Jewish boy (laughs).”
In one scene Koslo’s character clubs the blind disc jockey (Cleavon Little). “He was a nice guy. You know, I did ROOTS II (79), working with African Americans. And I’ve never had any personal problems with racial prejudice myself ever. And, yet, when I did ROOTS, I played this guy that started the Ku Klux Klan, Earl Crowther was his name. I took my work home because I thought I needed to. The character went from his mid-20′s up to about seventy-seven years old. I had about four hours of makeup every morning. So everybody hated me, but they were gracious enough to know that that (character) wasn’t like me, but that I was preparing all the time. When you put pressure on people like that and it’s about the racial situation to begin with – the point I’m trying to make about Cleavon, is that he said, C’mon, man. Do whatever you want. In a general scale, we have a racial issue, but, one-on-one: that’s how we can make a difference.’ And that just opened everything up for me (for that scene), you know what I mean? Again, he was a really talented, gifted guy. When he smiled, the whole world lit up. You can see that in BLAZING SADDLES. Great eyes, just so black and white. And he was good in VANISHING POINT, too.”
Richard Compton’s WELCOME HOME, SOLDIER BOYS (72) was a violent tale of four returning Green Beret Nam vets who kill, rape and destroy the town of Hope, NM. Joe Don Baker, Alan Vint and Koslo starred. JOE KIDD was also in 1972. “That was a western, and it was big for me because I’d never actually been on a horse. They were behind (schedule) at Paramount, so I was driven straight from there all the way up to Lone Pine. And when I got up there, Clint and the guys were so gracious- they knew I couldn’t ride that well. So they let me ride all the time that I wasn’t working. And they showed me how to holster a gun, how to quick-draw, how to do some spinning with the .45, slide back down in the holster like all the showboat guys do, which I thought was really nice of them. Of course, I was working with guys like Don Stroud, John Saxon, and, of course, Bobby Duvall. We were a mess, us guys (laughs). Bobby is so incorrigible. There’s a scene of just Clint riding and we’re in the Alabama Hills, way up there in the Sierra Nevadas. And the wind is just blowing like crazy and everybody’s got their hats tied down. The whole crew is standing there and we’re all watching Clint do this ride through the sagebrush, and the wind was howling and it was really loud. Then, all of a sudden- it was right after lunch- Bobby let out this hellacious fart- you could hear it through the whole valley! I mean, it was louder than the wind! And at the same instant, this wrangler’s hat blew off his head right in front of us. We were all cracking up, and then Bobby says, ‘I blew his brains out!’ And Clint was about twenty feet away, riding, and he heard the fart! I’ve never heard such a loud fart. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. This cowboy’s hat just blew off his head right in front of him and it was gone. He tried to get it, but it went like four hundred feet through the air, like it was propelled out of a rocket ship. And that’s kind of how everybody treated each other. Base humor. Boy’s locker room stuff.
“And then we moved to Tucson, the whole company moved there. There was this Indian on the show. His name was Running Deer. He was with us when we were up there in Mammoth. We were there for, I don’t know, three-and-a-half, four weeks. And when we got to Tucson, Running Deer never showed up. He just disappeared. About ten days later, after starting back up in Tucson, everybody forgot about him. We’d been back shooting for about ten days, shooting in Old Tucson, when we hear this (whispering), ‘Hey! Hey, guys! Over here!’ We look, and there’s old Running Deer and he’s got this squaw pulled behind him and this old brown paper bag. He said, ‘Hey, man, I’ve been down in Santa Cruz and I got married. C’mon and have a bowl with us!’ He opened his brown paper bag and it was just full of buds. Everybody just went, ‘WOW! Running Deer, you’re the greatest!’ He was like a stunt guy and everybody loved him because he was so beautiful. We thought he’d gotten killed or something! Clint just welcomed him back with open arms because he was sort of like a mascot. Running Deer would invite us into his hotel room and he’s got this Hibachi on the carpet. It burned a big hole in the middle of the living room. He didn’t like using stoves or anything. Things like that. Just really funny.”
LOLLY MADONNA XXX (73), directed by Richard Sarafian, was about a modern day moonshine war. Koslo played Robert Ryan’s son. “He was great. You know, I’ve done- what?- a hundred and thirty movies and television shows, and I’ve got to say that he was probably the best out of everybody I’ve worked with. I really mean that. We went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to make that movie. We played a family and the first thing he did was to invite us to his room and he made dinner for us. And the lady who was playing his wife, an actress from New York (Tresa Hughes), just fell right in and within a half-hour, we were a real family. It was just such a beautiful gesture that everything just fell right into place. He was like a father and a confessor. He was like a sage and everything to us. He was really, really sweet – genuine. I’ll tell you, man, he was really incredible. He still makes that impression on me when I think about him. And he was a hell of an actor, too. He never became a gigantic star, but he was a big star in his day. You didn’t have the Arnold Schwarzeneggers then.”
CLEOPATRA JONES (73) was also directed by Jack Starrett. Koslo was one of the featured hoods working for “Mommy” (Shelley Winters). “I remember Shelley Winters being a pain in the ass. She was really jealous of me, for some reason. Finally, Jack had to put the clamps on her. She’d say things like, ‘What’s this guy doing behind my back?’ because she was so insecure. Jack would say, ‘Hey, you just take care of your stuff and don’t worry about anybody else. Just do what you’ve got to do.’ Finally, she threw a fit and he lit into her. He said, ‘Don’t you ever, EVER do that on my set again!’ Rosalind Cash used to come visit because she was friends with the girl that played Cleopatra Jones, Tamara Dobson. And she died a little later, Roz did. (Note: His OMEGA MAN co-star died in ’95). It was really sad. It was the last time I saw her.” Antonio Fargas (PV #15) played Doodlebug. “Yeah, man, he was a fun guy. He’s a good actor, too. Really an interesting guy because he looks so weird, you know? He has that strange look: the nose, the eyes. But he was really a sweet guy, really a nice guy, really talented, really respected. We’d go out and party and stuff. But, for me, going through the 60′s and 70′s, with peace, love, and flower power and all that stuff-tune in, turn on, and drop out- I did my share of partying. But I was always serious about wanting to be somebody. It was more a social thing, really, because I’d see friends later and drugs had really gotten to them. I just feel fortunate that I have the longevity, the sense not to destroy everything. You can’t lose your humanity. Life is tough enough, we’ve all got skeletons in the closet and we’ve all got hopes and dreams. This business is so tough and the business of the business. It can really fuck you up, the insecurity. I coined this phrase years and years ago, and I’ve heard other people use it that know me: ‘Hollywood makes you forget about everything but yourself.’ And that’s not the most important thing. It’s not more important than family and friends. And if you’re so blessed that you get paid to do something you love, and you get to do it- I feel really fortunate to have done that.”
THE STONE KILLER (73) starred Charles Bronson (born Buchinsky, then a major international star) as a police lieutenant. “I remember that wasn’t a pleasant experience. I always try to make my work experience pleasant. I try to have fun. I try to be a professional. I get there early and I leave late. I love to mingle with the crew. I even like to help out, to pull a cable or give a hand. I have that attitude for film and television. It was just (a clash of) personalities again. Michael Winner was the director of that movie. I sat down in somebody’s chair, and it was his chair and he kicked me out of it. Not that it’s a big deal, but it’s the WAY he acted. I saw something that Bronson did that I thought was really despicable. Bronson doesn’t like people, yet he sits in the middle of downtown intersections in his chair for everybody to see. And then people come and bother him and he tells them to fuck off. Apparently there had been an elderly lady that was driving by and she wanted to know what all the hubbub was about, because they had traffic controlled. And they said, ‘Oh, it’s a Charles Bronson movie.’ So she went home to change and get her autograph book because he was her favorite actor. She brought her camera with her, too. He told her to fuck off when she asked for his autograph. She was so shocked that she just took a picture of him, right there, while he was there when she was leaving. He had the cops take the camera from her, take the film out, and give her the camera back. That wasn’t nice. I’m just concerned about when the camera’s rolling, but these things affect you when you’ve seen these guys all your life that you work with, like I’ve seen Bronson. And I’ve always respected his work. So you go on and say, Hey, you respect the guy’s talent, but that doesn’t mean you necessarily have to like him.”
MR. MAJESTYK (74), also starring Charles Bronson, was (like JOE KIDD) scripted by Elmore Leonard. It was directed by Richard Fleischer. “Oh, he was the greatest. He and Robert Ryan are kind of in the same vein as far as taking you under their wing and going out of their way to make you feel comfortable in these movies and doing things for you. Like Fleischer let me live at the end of the movie, because I was supposed to die. He said, ‘There’s so many guys getting blown away, this is ludicrous. Let’s see if we can work out the ending, because I want you to live.’ At the end of the movie, we’re in this hunting lodge. He said, ‘Charley, you know what? Everybody’s dying here and I think Koslo’s character is so funny, maybe we can build on this and we’ll let him live. Let’s see if we can work the end of this out now. He’s not going to be dying.’ And Bronson says, (does excellent Bronson imitation) ‘What, are you crazy? I’m not here to make a star out of Paul Koslo. I’ll be in my dressing room.’ And Richard says, ‘Charley, I need you to work this out. He’s going to be in the scene with you.’ He says, ‘YOU work it out. When you’re finished, you call me.’ Richard came right over and said, ‘Paul, I apologize for Charley. I’m sorry he’s put you in the middle of this.’ I said, ‘No, it’s all right. I feel really, really honored that you’re doing this, because it’s really great for me.’ It was a wonderful compliment. (Fleischer) was a big-time guy. But he was a tiny little guy. He was probably about 5-foot-3 or 4 and he weighed like ninety pounds. He was so fragile, but he was so wonderful and intelligent and wise and witty and so gracious. I was on his side, obviously.
“So then we worked this thing out and the AD (assistant director) got Charley back out. Richard said, ‘Charley, this is the way we’ve worked it out…’ Bronson cut in ‘I don’t care. Let him do whatever he wants. I’ll take care of him,’ just like that. When he said ‘I’ll take care of him,’ I thought, ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ He says, ‘What are you gonna be doin’? You gonna be comin’ runnin’ through that door?’ ‘Yeah, I’m gonna be coming. Al Lettieri’s inside and the scene now is he’s gonna tell me to get out under gunpoint so that he can draw you out, trying to get me.’ I said that to Charley. He says, ‘Okay, you come out and I’ll take care of you. Just do what would come naturally.’ Al Lettieri gives me the sign and says, ‘Get out! Get out or I’ll blow your brains out!’ or whatever his line is. I come through that screen door and I’m GONE! I’m like two hundred yards into the forest! (laughs) Charley didn’t have time to react or do anything. There was a horse hitch rail in front of the lodge, which was like three feet high, so I just jumped over it and kept running. Charley says, ‘Hey, you think that’s funny?’ I said, ‘You told me to do what comes natural. Sorry.’ ‘You come SLOW next time and do what comes natural.’ So he’s hiding behind the door, he’s got this shotgun and I come out slow this time and the shotgun was just staring me in the face, so I just grabbed it out of his hands and got the drop on Charley. He said, ‘You do that again, you’ll be sorry you ever saw me.’ I thought, ‘Wow, man.’
“At the end, when we were moving to the next city, to Canyon City, Colorado, we were all paying our bills. We were in that lobby area and it had stairs going back upstairs. So some people were sitting on the stairs, waiting to pay their bills. There was Charley, right there on the stairs. People had to go around him. He just sat there, big as life. I go to pay my bill and he says, ‘Hey, you.’ I turn around and it’s Charley sitting there. ‘C’mere.’ He pushed somebody aside and said, ‘Siddown.’ And I felt like an idiot because everybody’s watching us because everybody hates his guts! He says, ‘My wife thinks I should apologize to you. I don’t apologize to nobody. Next to me, you’re the best actor in this movie.’ I said, ‘Don’t count on it, Charley,’ and I just got up and walked away. Then he asked me for his next movie after that! That was really a weird relationship.
“Al Lettieri was the real Mr. Majestyk on MR. MAJESTYK. He was great. This is a true story. We were outside of- I think it was Canyon City. It could have been another city we were at. We were in this cornfield. There was nothing but corn for miles around and this gravel road. Lettieri was like seven days late because he was doing a film in London. So they were shooting around him. We’d just had lunch. It was just some of the crew and some of the actors standing around and stuff. Charley’s off by himself, pouting somewhere down the road. We look down the road and see this cloud coming towards us. And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until it’s just a few feet away and we realize it’s a big super stretch limo. And it pulls up, the driver gets out, he opens the back door, and two young, little chicks come out, you know, like twenty, twenty-two years old. And out comes Al Lettieri, this warthog of a guy. This guy’s from Sicily, you know: the original GODFATHER-type guy. He says, ‘Hey, where’s the honey wagons?’ (NOTE: A “honey wagon” is a long trailer with bathrooms for the cast and crew and cubicles for the actors. It’s called a honey wagon because it’s always surrounded by flies!) Somebody pointed them out. ‘The actors- they’re around?’ Somebody said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘All right, girls, do the honey wagons first!’ He’d brought these two girls to blow everybody in the honey wagons! (laughs) We thought this was great. He says, ‘Hey, is that Charley over there?’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ You know MR. MAJESTYK is about a melon grower. This is unbelievable. If I had a picture of this, I would have made a billion dollars. Here, this little warthog of a guy, short guy- not any taller than Bronson, but twice as wide- Lettieri, says, ‘That’s him over there?’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ He walks up to Bronson, right next to him, and he puts his arm around him, his shoulder, and grabs him by his right arm. And he SQUEEZES him to his right side, and he lifts him right off the ground! He turns around and he’s walking past us, singing (to the tune of Melancholy Baby) ‘Won’t you be my MELON-CHARLEY baaaaaaby!’ He carries him like this- Bronson’s feet are off the ground- and Bronson didn’t know what to do because he had this death grip on him- it was like a vice. And he walked him down this road, past the limo, about two blocks, carrying him like this. To this day, nobody knows what they talked about. There were lots of stories on that one, about Bronson being belligerent to the hosts of this big dude ranch they were staying at. The food was incredible and Bronson would send his driver off for some bologna and white bread and say, ‘It’s because me and my wife can’t eat this shit,’ the food which they were serving, which was incredible food. Stuff like that. But the guy was a gigantic star. What are you gonna do? Just chalk it off to oddity, to personality, I don’t know. You just do the best you can. Richard Fleischer made it all worthwhile.”
Other 1974 roles were in Stuart Rosenberg’s THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN starring Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern as cops and Richard Rush’s FREEBIE AND THE BEAN starring James Caan and Alan Arkin as cops. Both were filmed in San Francisco, and both featured Koslo being interrogated by the leads. Charles B. Pierce’s Arkansas drive-in movie BOOTLEGGERS starred Koslo and featured Jaclyn Smith and Slim Pickens. ROOSTER COGBURN (75), the sequel to TRUE GRIT (69), featured Koslo in another villain role. “Ah, the Duke. Yeah (laughs). Again, that was one of the highlights, when I think about some of my movies, I think about him and Katharine Hepburn. He had some sort of a lunch that he set up for everybody, for the crew and for the actors to all get acquainted and to get acquainted with him and Katharine Hepburn. And he says to me (does John Wayne imitation) ‘What part ‘ya playin’, kid?’ My character’s name was Luke, so I said, ‘I’m playing Luke the Duke.’ And he says, ‘No, you’re not- you’re playin’ Luke the Puke. There’s only one Duke around here!’ I said (groveling) ‘Yes, sir! Yes, sir! You’re absolutely right!’ That night, back at the hotel, some of his grandkids were playing guitar and I had my guitar. He came over and said, ‘Anybody my grandkids like can’t be all bad,’ and he shook my hand and sort of made me feel at ease. He was a great man. He WAS bigger than life. He was a living legend, more so than Clint Eastwood. I mean, I was impressed by Clint because he was a big star, but he wasn’t a legend. When you were in the Duke’s presence, you couldn’t take your eyes off of him. I don’t know how to compare anybody to him as far as formidable legends go. If you were screwing up, like if you hadn’t done your homework, he’d come down on you hard, real hard. But if he saw that you were working, that you were lending a hand, then he wanted to have a beer with you- he was like a regular guy. He was always making jokes and stuff. That’s one of the highlights of my career, working with that guy and Katharine Hepburn. She’s another one- she’s the flipside of that legend. For all the macho things he’d do, she’d do macho female things. Like she’d ride on the tailgate of a pickup truck, bouncing around, messing with the kids, whatever, Of course, (producer) Hal Wallis was having a heart attack (Note: It was his last credit). There was a running competition between the two of them (Wayne and Hepburn). It was really just great. You felt really secure being part of that. I felt like I was blessed, like I was chosen or something. I felt really comfortable being in it. We had Anthony Zerbe in that movie, and Richard Jordan. All the outlaws were a bunch of reprobates from Hollywood. There wasn’t a class distinction or anything like that, working with these big stars, these legends. We were not as close as the Robert Ryan thing, but it was a pleasant and pleasurable experience and you felt like you were one of the team instead of just another actor on the job.”
THE DROWNING POOL (76), a sequel to HARPER (66) was directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starred Paul Newman. (laughs) “Paul Newman. He and I- man, it looked like we were gonna go into fisticuffs right at the beginning. We were in Louisiana and we were in a swamp hovercraft going through the swamp. They had a pilot that steers and runs it, and then behind him was this little seat that would barely fit two guys in it. So (Newman) always kept pushing me off of it, he kept crowding me. I didn’t know why, but it got to be really old pretty quick. On the third day, the hovercraft was next to the wharf. We’re on the water. Then, all of a sudden, he goes to push me in the water. And at the last second, I grabbed the seat on the hovercraft and I grabbed him. And I go to push him, and he’s gonna go in, but at the last minute, I just pulled him back inside and he saw that I wasn’t going to take any shit from him, that I’d prevented him and myself from going into the drink. After that, I could do no wrong with him. He used to drink these little cans of Coors, they were only about eight ounces or maybe six, and he had those specially made for him. The Coors Company made those especially for him. He would give me a couple of six packs every few days of his special brew. He’d let me use his phone, his little cell phone. In those days, they were like batteries, where the phone was clipped on top.” Andrew Robinson (PV #23) was also in the cast. “Yeah. I loved Andy. He’s great. I’ve known Andy since then. He does a lot of theater, all the time. He’s a very dynamic actor- very gifted. (He’s) like a lot of good actors, they start in the theater and that’s where they go back to. You’ve got to build your craft. It’s a whole different animal, acting in front of a camera or in front of a live audience.”
VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED (76) was a major serious British production, set in 1939, when Jewish refugees were turned away in Cuba. “Like I said, I feel very, very privileged to have worked with these people in some of these movies because they’ll never make movies like that anymore. The only thing, maybe, I wish I could have been part of were some of these big (movie) experiences, of the STAR WARS trilogy, for instance. But I feel this way about some of these movies that I’ve done, and certainly VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED is one of those movies. First of all, we got to travel a lot in Europe. We actually shot this thing on a big, pop-rivet, old 1933 ocean liner. I don’t know how you could get another cast like that. You were with giants. Royalty. I was on that movie for about three months. It was another experience like HEAVEN’S GATE: big, big cast, incredible talent. And it’s an experience, a part of your life that you’ll never forget. And it’s not a thing that you think about consciously, but, once in a while, you’ll cross its path somewhere. I still know people from those movies. I keep in touch with them- there were a couple of people that didn’t have big parts that you’d probably remember: Georgina Hale- she’s an English actress- and Jonathan Pryce. We played brothers in that movie. It was great. We really got along great. Since we were both (playing) Jews with the shaved heads, you know, we got really close. Faye Dunaway was not my type of person. She’s just too much. The only other guy who was like that on that film was Oskar Werner, who was always my hero. JULES AND JIM is one of my favorite movies. Werner was a fucking drunk. He was so drunk, he couldn’t work. They would have to try and dry him out to sober him up. It took like six or seven hours, so he could only work at like the end of the day because he was too fucked-up. And then he had a nasty streak when he drank, and he always drank, so I never knew what he was like any other way. And I did spend time with him to try and get inside his head and see why he was like that. We went to a concert, a classical violin concert at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. But he had a mean streak in him. When I heard he was in that movie, it just made my whole year. And when I met him, it was just frightening. But, that having been said, working with those people was (like) working with royalty. They’re the old guard and they’re legends. The great (acting) royalty for me were James Mason and Max Von Sydow. And Dame Wendy Hiller, who really WAS royalty. And Julie Harris and Luther Adler. They were all great, great pillars of inspiration.”
Orson Welles was another name in VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED “We never got that close to him because he was in a different location of the film. We shot in Barcelona and we shot on different locations, although we were in the same city and stayed at the same hotel. We did kind of chum with him a couple of times. One was he was going to go out to eat and he wanted us to join him. We were going to go out sight-seeing, Jonathan Pryce and some of the younger members of the cast and stuff. When we ran into him, he had this cake, the size of a birthday cake: I swear it was about four or five inches high and about a foot across. So we thought, ‘Oh, good: we’re gonna have some cake with him.’ And he says, ‘Are you going to order anything?’ He was totally serious. He had two valets with him because he was so big he had to have help sitting up off a chair, to put his shoes on, to sit down on a chair. Of course, we were like in the presence of the Pope or something. And he made you feel that way. He had that power. Then we decided to go sight-seeing. We said we’d be back and eat with him. We came back about an hour-and-a-half later and he was still sitting there with those two guys. And he had one piece of cake left and he was working on that! We didn’t have the guts to go back in (laughs), because we knew we wouldn’t be getting any of his cake. We ate something, anyway, when we were gone. But he’d give me a cigar every once in awhile. I did four films with Stuart Rosenberg. (Note: LOVE AND BULLETS starring Charles Bronson was the 4′th). He was a big cigar fan, too. Because Stuart gave me some, Orson kind of took me under his wing when it came time for a cigar. It was really a great experience, although it was hard for me because Jonathan Pryce, although I was skinny and lanky, he was a little skinnier than me. I had made a plan to go on fasts, which I did. By the time I got to Barcelona, I had already been fasting eight days. And I went on a sixteen-day fast, believe it or not. And then, because it was such a long shoot, I would fast five, six seven, eight days, depending. We were shooting for almost four months, so I was down from like 160 to about 137 pounds. I kind of hurt myself, kind of overdid it. I would actually astral project out of my body and see the silver cord. I was seeing my spirit leaving my body through a silver cord and I’d be looking down at the Earth. It probably sounds crazy to you, but it happened to me about three, four times.”
Peter Collinson’s TOMORROW NEVER COMES (77) was made in Montreal and featured Oliver Reed, Donald Pleasence, Raymond Burr and John Ireland, all now deceased. Richard Compton’s RANSOM (also 77) also featured Reed and Ireland, but was made in Arizona. New World retitled it MANIAC!, so Koslo acted in two unrelated Compton movies that were aka MANIAC. HEAVEN’S GATE (80) was the expensive historical epic that pretty much killed the career of Michael Cimino. “That was another one of those things where we had, I think, like seventy-some principal actors. Big actors. That was a great experience, except that the director was a little weird. After like the first nine days of work, he had twelve hundred extras everyday for six months. Twelve hundred extras a day being made up? Can you imagine? Then it got to the point, after the first week-and-a-half (that) the twelve hundred extras would say (in mocking sing-song) ‘Good morning, Mr. Cimino!’ Towards the end of the movie, the stand-in for Kris Kristofferson punched Cimino in the nose, punched him out, and broke his nose. I did a scene with Kristofferson where they had eight cameras rolling at once for fifty-eight takes, every camera, every time. They shot over a million-and-a-half feet of film on that movie. You could make, literally, fifty films from just the footage that got shot. That’s unbelievable. I know that England loved that movie for some reason. It was a big hit in England. It’s still playing in first-run art-houses there. I played the mayor of the German town. I wore this big raccoon coat all the time. I had a little daughter and a wife. One of the other women immigrants, who was having problems in her family life, finally blew my brains out towards the end of the movie. There were so many parts in that movie, so many principal actors in it. I’ve never seen HEAVEN’S GATE. That’s another thing: I don’t, other than some stuff I’ve seen lately because my wife’s got it- I would say I haven’t seen eighty percent of my work.”
Peter Collinson’s TOMORROW NEVER COMES (77) was made in Montreal and featured Oliver Reed, Donald Pleasence, Raymond Burr and John Ireland, all now deceased. Richard Compton’s RANSOM (also 77) also featured Reed and Ireland, but was made in Arizona. New World retitled it MANIAC!, so Koslo acted in two unrelated Compton movies that were aka MANIAC. HEAVEN’S GATE (80) was the expensive historical epic that pretty much killed the career of Michael Cimino. “That was another one of those things where we had, I think, like seventy-some principal actors. Big actors. That was a great experience, except that the director was a little weird. After like the first nine days of work, he had twelve hundred extras everyday for six months. Twelve hundred extras a day being made up? Can you imagine? Then it got to the point, after the first week-and-a-half (that) the twelve hundred extras would say (in mocking sing-song) ‘Good morning, Mr. Cimino!’ Towards the end of the movie, the stand-in for Kris Kristofferson punched Cimino in the nose, punched him out, and broke his nose. I did a scene with Kristofferson where they had eight cameras rolling at once for fifty-eight takes, every camera, every time. They shot over a million-and-a-half feet of film on that movie. You could make, literally, fifty films from just the footage that got shot. That’s unbelievable. I know that England loved that movie for some reason. It was a big hit in England. It’s still playing in first-run art-houses there. I played the mayor of the German town. I wore this big raccoon coat all the time. I had a little daughter and a wife. One of the other women immigrants, who was having problems in her family life, finally blew my brains out towards the end of the movie. There were so many parts in that movie, so many principal actors in it. I’ve never seen HEAVEN’S GATE. That’s another thing: I don’t, other than some stuff I’ve seen lately because my wife’s got it- I would say I haven’t seen eighty percent of my work.”
Stuart Gordon directed ROBOTJOX (PV #10). “We did that in Rome. With Anne-Marie Johnson. That was a good experience because I hadn’t done too much sci-fi, and I have since then. He (Gordon) is a very, very gifted guy, very nice guy. He’s the co-author of Bleacher Bums, which is a play that’s played in Chicago for almost thirty years now. He’s a very good writer and a very talented director. You know, a lot of directors, they’ve got their minds made up about what they want. But Stuart allows the actors a lot of time. He’ll give you a lot of leeway to bring something to the table. That’s rare in directors. Starrett would let you do that, Stuart Rosenberg, too. Not all directors will let you do that; maybe two out of ten. And that’s good because you could see his roots from the theater. He has more of a theatrical process, where you rehearse a lot more before you actually shoot. We actually rehearsed for about a week before we shot. We would go to the sets and they would have it taped out where the things would be and would have different props for us, and we’d know where we were going and what we were doing. We’d actually build up some relationships between the characters, which is so rare nowadays, which you hardly ever hear of. That’s really great.”
SOLAR CRISIS (PV #16) was a Japanese production shot in the Nevada desert. Director Richard C. Sarafian had his name removed. It did well in Japan but eventually went direct to video here. Charlton Heston was top billed. ” I did another movie with Heston in ’91. So we rekindled whatever relationship we had before then. You know I’m Canadian, right? And I had a marijuana arrest in 1968, for possession of marijuana- it was like a long roach, about half a joint. And that came back to haunt me four years ago, can you imagine? They tried to deport me. So Charlton wrote a letter. I’ve paid millions of dollars to the American government and I’ve got every tax return since 1967. They treated me with carte blanche. When that immigration thing happened, he wrote a great letter for me to the government. As it turned out, a lot of people stepped up to bat for me, people that I’ve worked with in the industry, people that are really high profile. But I didn’t need it: they let me go on my own merits. It was like a computer (error) thing. I’d been coming and going back and forth hundreds of times. They must have checked on me all the way back to Washington- I couldn’t believe it. All over a roach. That just goes to show you the power of the government and where your name might be, you know what I mean? It was a horrifying experience. We got through it, though. It’s just too bad that everybody sorta had to suffer.”
Koslo wears a “middle finger” jacket in the movie. “You know what, I had that jacket lying around in a box in the barn. And I gave it to the guy that’s been working for me for about fifteen years- his name is Lee Harper. He’s like a Gary Cooper kind of guy: he never says much, you know? And animals flock to him! And he found the jacket in the barn and said, ‘Oh, wow, man!’ I gave it to him and he wears it sometimes (laughs). I went to Western Costume one time and they had a sale where you could buy different costumes. And they had Gary Cooper’s boots and I bought ‘em for about twenty bucks. This was years and years ago. It was funny- they were just a little bit tight and I’d wear them and get cramps in my feet. They’d fall asleep and stuff (laughs). Some other early 90′s roles were in the Canadian XTRO II and PROJECT SHADOWCHASER (both PV #14), JUDGE AND JURY (PV #25) and CHAINED HEAT II (PV #16) which was filmed in Czechoslovakia.
The recent DESERT HEAT (aka COYOTE MOON) starred Jean Claude Van Damme. “I’d heard all these things about him: that he was difficult, that he threw tantrums. I didn’t have any problem with him, he was really nice to me. Really nice to everybody, actually. I really got respect for the guy on this job that I did with him because he was really concerned about his product. Even thought it’s hard to understand him sometimes- he speaks with an accent- he really went out of his way to try and be clear and lucid, because he was one of the producers. He took his time so that different gags with the stunt guys would work or so that pieces of comedy would work well. That was really nice to see. A lot of guys will let the stunt guys work things out with actors, they’ll use their double. But he did it himself which was really nice. Most of the time, guys will shoot the back of somebody’s head, and it (obviously) looks like someone else. I think it’s the best job he’s ever done acting. DESERT HEAT has been the number nine most-rented video these last six months. I can tell, too, because they sent me two healthy checks. Which is weird, because I’ve done so many other movies, recent movies that I’ve done, that I’ve gotten a piece of the action of, like on video sales, and I’ve never gotten the kind of money that I’ve gotten off of this. So it’s gotta be doing good.”
Like his late father, Koslo has asthma, which forced him to stop recreational running. “I got asthma in my early 40′s. Just in the last year or so I’ve been able to control it more through a new supplement called MFM. James Coburn had arthritis really bad and he was taking this stuff and he did all these testimonials for it. I had been feeling a little bit of arthritis in my spine and stuff, so I decided to take it. It hasn’t done anything for my arthritis, but it’s really helped my asthma. It’s almost completely disappeared. I quit running when I got asthma, although I’m busy doing stuff all the time. I had a farm; I had horses for years and years, just got rid of the horses- too much work. I stay pretty active. Directing (which Koslo was in the middle of when this interview was done) is a very strenuous thing. You have to keep your mind and body sharp. It’s like 24/7, you wake up thinkin’ about it, then you think about it all day, then when you’re drivin’ home- I live about ninety miles out of LA- you spend a great deal of time thinkin’ about it.
I had a poster for THE LOSERS. I don’t know what happened to it. It’s probably down in the barn, all rotted away, probably full of peacock dung. I had one to THE OMEGA MAN, too (the artwork features Koslo). But you know what my problem was? Until I got married, I never did have an eight-by-ten of me, all these years. Until the last two or three years, when my wife diligently and lovingly got my stuff together. She didn’t know who I was. She’s an actress, she’s done two hundred plays, but she’d never heard of me. Then we met at the theater and I produced her show and stuff and she started to find out. I didn’t tell her I was an actor or anything and she started finding out more and more about me. Curiosity got the best of her and she started doing research. Now, I guess she’s got about half of my films (on video).”
The industry has changed a lot since Koslo started acting in films over thirty years ago. “I don’t know, man. For me, it’s gotten to be looking across at the other side to a bunch of business people. I’m still doing a few good independents. I’ll do like a couple or three films a year and a couple of television shows, although I’m not pushing my career and I’m really entrenched in directing and producing in the theater. My love is still acting and directing- they run hand-in-hand. But as far as the (movie) business, the business has really gotten shitty now. It’s gotten terrible. Our union is terrible. It’s all money, man, IT’S ALL MONEY. There’s no representation, nobody really stands up for the actors. The producers are making all the money. The creative process has gone to accountants and lawyers and agents. It’s all about marketing: where the market is and what they can do with it. And the guys like me, the character actors, who were there in the past, like in the 70′s and 80′s, are still around in the 90′s and working, we’re not making the money we used to make. Because they’re going to the Jim Carreys. And the guys like Ed Harris, who’s been my theater partner for five years, they’re making money, but they’re not making the money they used to make, either. The money that’s there basically goes to the star and that’s it. No matter where you are, unless you’re a Carrey or a gigantic superstar, like a Gibson or a Schwarzenegger, you’re not going to get any money. And it’s a youth-oriented market, so people that are getting older now, that are in their forties and fifties, nevermind sixties and seventies: that window closes drastically, especially for actresses. And I hear it from everybody: people are making nothing. We’re doing better with independents that are still paying us what we were getting from the majors, because they think we’ve got some kind of cash value, as far as recognizability and stuff. So if you were getting twenty to fifty grand a week from the majors, you can still get that in an independent. But you won’t be getting that in a Schwarzenegger movie. You’ll be getting ten or fifteen. There are twenty thousand guys in that same demographic that’ll do it for the same price. That’s why so many people are doing their own movies.” Thanks to Gene Freese (Cult Characters magazine). In my million viewings of Mr. Koslo’s THE OMEGA MAN as a kid, I always wished there was a soundtrack album to go with it. Finally, FILM SCORE MONTHLY has done just that by releasing Ron Grainer’s fine score to THE OMEGA MAN in a limited edition of 3,000 copies. This stunning period piece makes you wish Grainger had been more prolific. FSM is also offering the excellent, complete score to BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES on CD, including the nutty “APES rock” cuts from the odd original soundtrack LP. Address inquiries to: FILM SCORE MONTHLY, 8503 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232. Their website is at www.filmscoremonthly.com
(Justin Humphreys)
Paul Koslo FILMOGRAPHY
YEAR APPEARANCE
67 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Can. TV)
70 FLUX/MANIAC/THE ZODIAC KILLERS (n/r)
THE LOSERS (Academy)
71 SCANDALOUS JOHN
(ESCAPE OF) THE BIRDMEN (ABC)
VANISHING POINT (Fox)
THE OMEGA MAN (WB)
on LONGSTREET, BEARCATS!
72 WELCOME HOME, SOLDIER BOYS
JOE KIDD (MCA)
THE DAUGHTERS OF JOSHUA CABE (ABC)
on MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, IRONSIDE
73 THE LOLLY MADONNA WAR (LOLLY MADONNA XXX)
CLEOPATRA JONES (WB)
THE STONE KILLER (RCA)
74 THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN (Fox)
FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (WB)
BOOTLEGGERS
MR. MAJESTYK (MGM)
on CANNON, GUNSMOKE, THE MANHUNTER
75 ROOSTER COGBURN (MGM)
on POLICE WOMAN, SWITCH, THE ROOKIES, THE ROCKFORD FILES, PETROCELLI
76 THE DROWNING POOL (WB)
VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED (Col.)
SCOTT FREE (NBC) on HAWAII 5-0, POLICE STORY, MOST WANTED
77 RANSOM (Vestron)
(MANIAC!, ASSAULT ON PARADISE, TOMORROW NEVER COMES (Can)
on BARNABY JONES
78 LOVE AND BULLETS (Fox) DOWN HOME (TV pilot) on DALLAS, DAVID CASSIDY, MAN UNDERCOVER
79 ROOTS II: THE NEXT GENERATION (ABC mini)
THE SACKETTS (NBC mini)
on CHIPS, HAWAII 5-0, THE ROCKFORD FILES, HOW THE WEST WAS WON
80 HEAVEN’S GATE (MGM)
RAPE AND MARRIAGE, THE RIDEOUT CASE (CBS)
on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, BUCK ROGERS, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, ENOS, PARIS
81 INMATES, A LOVE STORY (ABC)
on THE INCREDIBLE HULK, QUINCY, TODAYS FBI, NERO WOLFE, THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, HART TO HART
82 on BRET MAVERICK, TRAPPER JOHN M.D., STRIKE FORCE, CASSIE AND COMPANY
83 THE GAMBLER PT II- THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES (CBS)
on THE A-TEAM, THE PAPER CHASE
84 HAMBONE AND HILLIE (HBOs)
THE GLITTER DOME (HBO)
on KNIGHT RIDER, DUKES OF HAZZARD, T.J. HOOKER, MATT HOUSTON, BLUE THUNDER, YOU ARE THE JURY, JESSE, LEGMEN
85 THE ANNIHILATORS (New World)
on THE HITCHHIKER, MISFITS OF SCIENCE, THE A TEAM, ME AND MOM, THE INSIDERS, WILDSIDE, CRAZY LIKE A FOX
86 on HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
87 ROBOTJOX (RCA/Col)
CARIBE on HUNTER
88 A NIGHT IN THE LIFE OF JIMMIE REARDON (Fox)
on HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, FALCON CREST, O’HARA, MacGYVER, THE HIGHWAYMAN, KINFOLK
89 on HUNTER
90 LOOSE CANNONS (RCA)
SOLAR CRISIS (Vidmark) (Japan)
XTRO II (New Line) (Can)
THE PEACE OFFICER
THE OUTSIDERS – regular
on THE FLASH, LIFE GOES ON
91 CONAGHE R (Turner)
92 PROJECT SHADOWCHASER (Prism) (Can.)
DRIVE LIKE LIGHTNING (TV)
93 CHAINED HEAT II (New Line) (Czech)
96 DOWNDRAFT
97 JUDGE AND JURY (APix)
99 DESERT HEAT (Col.)
on WALKER, TEXAS RANGER