A BIT OF A DISASTER

Margot Kidder was a guest of a film convention in Heerlen, The Netherlands, in October 2005, when Phil van Tongeren and Roel Haanen got a chance to interview her. No subject was taboo: the famous beach house where she and her friend Jennifer Salt entertained all of Hollywood, her thoughts on the SUPERMAN producers (“crooks!”), the Bush administration (“crooks!”) and her nervous breakdown.

You wanted to become an actress after seeing OLD YELLER, right?

Actually, it was after somebody had shown me a movie magazine that I decided I wanted to become a movie star. Not an actress, a star! It was more exciting than living in a Canadian mining town. Much later I decided to be an actress.

It didn’t take you long though to catch a break though.

No, one week! After I went to America, at age 18, I got a big part in a movie in just one week.

How did it happen?

Well, I think I was very lucky, but I was too young to realize it. I had written an American agent whom I knew had handled some Canadians. He wrote me back saying: I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are and you don’t live here. I took that as an invitation to go to Los Angeles. So I borrowed some money, bought a ticket and then he and I met. Immediately he introduced me to Norman Jewison who was casting a movie called GAILY GAILY and I got the part. I was very lucky.

Most people who go to Hollywood to be in the movies wind up being waitresses for five years.

Or prostitutes.

Did Norman Jewison tell you why he cast you?

I don’t know. Maybe because I had worked more than most 18 year olds. I learned my craft at the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation], which you don’t get to do in the States because it’s all commercial. In Canada you got to go down to the CBC or the National Film Board and do a part and make a lot of mistakes without the people of Ivory Soap or something going: Oh no, get her off! That’s one point for socialized art.

How much experience did you have when you came to Los Angeles?

Well, I started at fifteen, first at the Film Board and then the CBC. But when I came to Los Angeles I didn’t like it there so I came back to Canada. I made the first movie and I found it all to be horrible.

What was so horrible about it?

It’s very tacky! Have you ever been to Los Angeles? It’s tasteless. So I went to Toronto and at twenty I got another movie in Ireland called QUACKSER FORTUNE HAS A COUSIN IN THE BRONX with Gene Wilder. And I turned 21 in Ireland on that movie. Then I quit acting because I thought I wasn’t very good at it. I wanted to be a film editor. So I was an apprentice editor for about a year and then I ran out of money and went back to California.

Did you work on actual movies as an editor?

Yeah, Robert Altman’s BREWSTER MCCLOUD for example. But I was an apprentice.

Did Robert Altman know you were an actress?

Yes, he actually offered me a part in the movie and I turned him down saying I’d rather be an apprentice editor. So he let me do that. This was in Vancouver. In the morning I’d go to the CBC to learn the technical part of the work and in the afternoon I’d go to the editing room. Altman was filming MCCABE AND MRS MILLER in Vancouver and editing BREWSTER MCCLOUD at the same time.

Did you ever regret not taking the acting part?

No. You know who actually got that part? Jennifer Salt.

Were you already friends at that point?

No, we actually met screen testing for a movie called FAT CITY, which John Huston directed. Candy Clarke got that part. It was Jennifer and me and Candy Clarke. And Jennifer had gone out with a friend of mine and I went up to her and said: Hi, I’m Margie. I’m friends with Chiam, you broke his heart. And we became friends right away.

And then you shared the beach house.

Yes, the famous beach house.

Could you tell us a little bit about this period, because in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls…

Yes, but you know what he got wrong in that book? He made it seem so tacky. It was such an innocent time in the sixties. And you guys are obviously… probably your parents were hippies like us. But he made it seem like it was sordid. It was drugs and sex, yes, but it was sweet. We were very, very innocent and we really thought we could change the world. We thought we could end the war in Vietnam. Maybe you kids should be doing some of that for this war. Terrible mess we’re in. It was the last generation that got to be innocent, that got to live without cynicism. It was a magical time. Really magical. And I don’t think he got that in that book. He missed that. He made it sensational. And it wasn’t! We were really young and we were really sweet.

And hardly anyone in that beach house was a big name at the time.

No, we were just a bunch of kids who had no money and wanted to change the world. We really loved each other and were very supportive of each other. We really believed when we said: Make love, not war. It was a nice time. I think the world could use a little of that right now.

We all talked to Peter [Biskind] before he wrote the book, so everyone was really mad at him. Because it was the best of all of our lives and he writes a cheesy book about it.

There’s one thing in the book that I find interesting. In the book you say you were friends with all these directors who became very famous later on, and you wonder why you never worked with any of them except Brian De Palma. How come you never-

I don’t know. You would have to ask them. How come Marty never asked me to be in a movie? I don’t know. It doesn’t work the way people think. You don’t get a part because you’re friends with the director. You get a part because you’re right for it. Obviously I wasn’t right for them.

So how did it happen with Brian De Palma?

He was friends with Jennifer Salt and Jill Clayburgh. They all went to university together. And he made a small independent movie called HI, MOM! And he had Jennifer and Jill in it. He came to visit Jennifer at the beach house and we fell in love. And then he wrote SISTERS for me. And after I read it I said: Brian, that’s not very nice. As soon as they’ve made love, she castrates the man! [Laughs].

Did you have any real problem with it?

With castrating the man? No! [Laughs]

No, I mean with the part.

Well, she was supposed to be Swedish and I couldn’t do the accent. But I could do French-Canadian. I lived in Quebec. So we did it like that.

So SISTERS was your first horror movie.

Was it? You guys probably know better than I do. Didn’t I do THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD  before this?

No, that was 1975.

My daughter was born in 1975. I didn’t do much that year.

But you were working with your lover and your best friend on a movie. How was that?

Well, nobody had any money and it was the only way Brian could get two actors to work for him. Brian had this old friend from college who financed his college movies. His name was Ed Pressman and Ed got the money from his mother who ran a toy company. It was Ed’s mother’s money, so he had to keep running back to Mommy to ask for more. I told Jennifer Salt, who I’m still absolute best friends with, that I would make the deal ‘cause I was a lot pushier than she was. So I said to Ed: You gotta give us a percentage of the movie. And he wouldn’t do it. So I said: Well, then Jennifer and I aren’t going to be in it. That would be a problem, ‘cause Brian wrote it for me. I was living with him. Anyway, Jennifer and I ended up with three percent of the movie each. And now he’s making all this money off of the DVD, so we’re going: Ed! Pay up!

What was the atmosphere like on set, working with a circle of friends?

Oh, it was really wonderful.

If you know each other so well, it could also be problematic.

Yeah, but Brian was a very strong director. He understood actors. Understood what they do. A lot of young directors just learn the technical aspects. They make everything very slick, but they don’t learn about acting so much.

Still, it was the only time you worked with De Palma…

Well, I don’t think De Palma likes to cast the same leading lady twice. You mean: did he hate working with me? I don’t think so. I think he thought it was fun.

You did a couple of more horror movies, like BLACK CHRISTMAS and AMITYVILLE HORROR. Are you attracted to the genre?

Basically at that stage you took the jobs you were offered and took the money. But they’re fun to make. They make me laugh. When we did AMITYVILLE the producers told us we should say all these terrible things happened on the set. It was all bullshit. Nothing happened, but it was funny.

You didn’t buy into the true story aspect of it?

Of course it wasn’t true. It was nonsense.

You thing George Lutz made it all up?

I think he probably was - how can I say this diplomatically – highly suggestible. And then the writer embellished it further and made a lot of money.

Do you think on some level you need to believe the story to act the part?

No. If I had to believe everything I acted I’d be in big trouble. I’m not very big on ghosts and spirits and God – it’s all the same thing to me. But Stuart [Rosenberg], the director, who was wonderful, he tried to make me believe. He tried to scare me all the time. In one scene a pig was supposed to come at the window. And he had the prop department make a pig. It was a bright orange pig, like a stuffed animal with plastic eyes. And he would put it up at the window to scare me, but every time I saw it I just laughed.

Now, Rod Steiger believed it. He was really into it. He was really serious about it and every time he talked to me about it I couldn’t help but laugh.

Did you meet the real Lutz’s?

Yes, I did.

And what was your impression?

You know, there’s a certain type of overly religious American. They’re not rocket scientists, let’s put it that way. Not the sort of person I would normally spend a lot of time with. I don’t understand them. I don’t understand that reality or that point of view. I didn’t then and I don’t now. It’s like listening to supporters of George Bush explaining the end of the world is coming and the war in Iraq is good because Jesus is going to come back. Don’t laugh! That’s what they believe. That’s American foreign policy. So, the reality of meeting people like the Lutz’s is that my response is to go: Oh, darling. You’re very misguided.

Did you use anything from your meeting with them for your role?

Yes, I guess a kind of willingness to believe…well, anything.

So, Rod Steiger was into it. What about James Brolin?

It’s hard to read James Brolin. We didn’t get very close. And he’s very diplomatic, unlike me. I guess if you’d ask him he would say he believed it. He did go along with the studio and say that all these terrible things happened, but it wasn’t true.

He’s left wing too, right?

Not as much a me. Just a little bit. In America being left wing is being to the left of Chiang Kai-Shek. Did you watch Scooter Libby get indicted last night?

I read about it in the newspaper.

That’s the first one. We got Karl Rove to go and Dick Cheney.

Do you do any work for the Democratic Party?

We have a an organization in Montana called Montana Women For. It started out as Bushes against Bush. Get it? That’s how we started out. We were just in Washington, I think on the 24th, there was a big march. And I’ve done work over the years for different candidates who supported the peace movement. Because I’ve been very active in that. The focus now is just to get these guys out, because it’s getting embarrassing. It’s really bad. So that’s what I do for about fifty percent of my time: Montana Women For.

Is it hard to be so politically outspoken in the States?

Not now. Fifty percent of Americans hate Bush worse than you do, trust me. They’re horrified and upset about what’s going on. Most Americans don’t like this man at this point. So no, it’s not hard. He just barely got elected last time, just barely and even that was… you know, a lot of people thought there was cheating going on. It would probably be hard if I had to travel with those right wing Christians, but I have a bumper sticker on my car that says: So many right wing Christians, so few lions. Get it? Well, nobody’s taken a shot at me yet! Being outspoken is not unusual in America, being active is. And we just can’t get the kids to participate. In the sixties we had a big peace movement because young boys were being drafted to go to war. Now kids just feel like it all somehow does not affect them.

A few years ago it was different, wasn’t it? Country singers getting booed for speaking out on stage. 

Yes, it was. Because the propaganda machine of these bunch of crooks is so extreme that they ruled by fear. If you spoke up you were finished. The media was terrible. They rolled over and played dead with this idiot. It wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina that the media actually started paying attention and holding Bush accountable. People were drowning and he’s playing his guitar or something. True story! Two days into Katrina this kiss-my-American-ass-country singer presents him with a guitar and he starts playing it!

So fifty percent for your political activism, the other fifty percent is for the movies?

No, my grandchildren. I still act a little bit. I did a small part on SMALLVILLE, that sort of stuff. But you know, I’m 57 years old. I’ve gone crazy in public and I live in Montana. So, it’s not exactly like there’s a lot of roles being offered to me. When something comes along I do it.

Is it mostly TV that’s offered to you?

Yes, mostly. But I just did a horror movie called DEATH 4TOLD. They’re just selling it now. I got some award for it. I don’t know. I play a Tarot Card reader who gets her throat slit. You’ll like it. It was some wonderful kids in Ohio who made it. They raised the money. It kind of felt like when we did SISTERS. It was nice.

They chose you because of your horror background?

I guess so. I’m probably at an age where the old stuff is coming around again. People are watching it again. BLACK CHRISTMAS just came out on DVD. You know they’re remaking that? They’re also remaking SISTERS. They’ve remade AMITYVILLE HORROR and they’ve remade SUPERMAN. So I’m queen of the remakes. Except that nobody offers me parts in them.

How do you feel about all these remakes?

You know, my life now is so far away from movies that I think it’s fine. It’s a quarter of a century later. I remember how Brian used to feel about Hitchcock movies. And he was always feeling he was remaking Hitchcock. It’s flattering.

Did you see the AMITYVILLE remake?

No, but I heard it’s not very good.

George Lutz wasn’t too thrilled about it either. He denounced it.

Why?

Because he wanted to be an advisor on the movie and they didn’t ask him.

You think he believed it?

Either he believes it or he’s a fraud.

Do you believe it?

No. But it’s a pretty effective book nonetheless.

Yes, exactly. I don’t think you need to believe it to enjoy it. I remember THE EXORCIST being great fun. But you didn’t have to believe it. Producers are a little insulting that way. They think audiences need to believe it’s a true story in order to have a good time.

Could you tell us how you got involved with BLACK CHRISTMAS?

They called me. I was living in LA. I guess at the famous house. It was filmed in Toronto. That was the time when the Canadian government started to go: Wait a minute! We can make money off movies.  So, they gave tax incentives to film companies. They had a complicated system of points in those days. You had to have a certain number of Canadians in the movie in order to qualify. It’s how I got a lot of parts, because I was beginning to become well known and I was basically a tax deduction. They could claim Canadian content.

[At this point in the conversation the name of Pierre Spengler came up. Spengler was one of the producers of Richard Donner’s SUPERMAN. Interviewer Phil van Tongeren once had a meeting at Spengler’s house for a horror project he was working on with Brian Yuzna. Ms. Kidder wanted to know if Spengler lived in a big expensive house, which he did not. Then she told us Spengler’s role in the production of SUPERMAN.]

He was the Salkind’s flunky! There was Alexander and his son Ilya. And Pierre had the job of finding people to launder their money. Somebody should go out and find the real story of the making of SUPERMAN, because it was supposed to be truth, justice and the American way. Well, it was crooks! When we did the second movie Pierre brought me my contract and it just said: A Panamanian Corporation. Now in those days a lot of money got laundered through Panama. A lot of drug money and who knows what else. And they got some of the money from a fellow named Robert Vestco who had been indicted in the Nixon administration for embezzling a lot of money from the American government. Here was Warner Brothers trying to play on the up-and-up and they got these wild guys – Spengler and the Salkinds – and it was a battle.

There was also a lot of friction between the Salkinds and Richard Donner.

Yes, because they were crooks! They were terrible. He was trying to make a really good movie and they just wanted to make it cheaply. That’s the simple explanation. We were supposed to film SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II at the same time. They filmed almost all of it, except for maybe three or four scenes. And then the first one came out and it made a ton of money. And the Salkinds didn’t want to pay Richard Donner the percentage that they owed him. And they only had to pay him if he finished SUPERMAN II. So they fired him. And it broke his heart. Then they hired Richard Lester. Now, the reason they hired him is because they had produced THE THREE MUSKETEERS and they still owed him a lot of money also. They never paid him. So they said to him: We’ll put a million into your account and we’ll pay you what we owe you if you finish SUPERMAN II for us. He needed the money so he went along with it. But then the Director’s Guild said: No, no, no. The director has to have filmed at least half the movie before he can get the credit. So they rewrote and reshot all the scenes with Christopher and me. Terribly I might add. And they buried the original. No one has ever seen it!

And now the reason I’m barely seen in SUPERMAN III is that Time Out Magazine in London interviewed  me and I said: These producers are beneath contempt. And they put it on the front page. [Laughs] So the producers didn’t want to work with me anymore. That’s why I only had about twelve lines in SUPERMAN III. They had to put me in the movie, because I had a contract, but they only gave me twelve lines. And one was: Oh, Clark!

You also made an appearance in part 4.

Yes, but then there was a new producer, Menahem Golan. He put me back in.

Oh, you know Jack O’Halloran? He was the big guy who played one of the bad guys in SUPERMAN II?

Yes, the giant.

Exactly. Well, one day Pierre Spengler handed out checks to pay everybody. But the checks bounced. So the next day this giant picks up Pierre and pins him against the wall. [Imitates a low, gruff voice] Either my check comes through or you’re a dead man! And he dropped him on the floor. This was in the hall outside our dressing rooms.

You saw this?

No, I came in later, but everybody was talking about it. Oh, this is going to get me in trouble.

The work itself on the movie, was that fun?

It was wonderful, because Richard Donner is impossible not to have fun around. He’s so fantastic and full of life and love. It was a great cast, good people, and nobody paid any attention to the Salkinds if they could avoid it. And we had a – I know this sounds corny and people always say it, and most of the time it’s not true – but we really did become like a family. We were all away from home, we were all in England and it was very hard when it was over to readjust. It was great experience.

It took a long time to make, about a year and a half?

Yes, we were a year over schedule.

Did you believe Christopher Reeve made a good Superman?

Not at the screen test, no. He was really thin at the time. He was thin and dorky. And then he went to the gym and worked like a son of a gun and became Superman. It was his first movie.

You had a different work style than your co-stars Reeve and James Brolin, right? You would improvise more.

There’s a misconception about improvising. People think you get to make up a scene. Well, no. Everything has to be nailed down or the plot won’t make sense. So when I say improvise it’s very small things you get to change. But often I wouldn’t do the line to the letter, that’s true. Or say we’re sitting here doing a dialogue scene, talking about president Bush or something, and if the Coca-Cola happens to knock over, I would bring that into the scene and keep rolling. Christopher or Brolin would probably yell: Cut! So, improvising is that way. Unless the director lets you improvise in rehearsal. And when something good happens, you keep it. Scorsese works that way, and Donner was a bit like that. For example when I say: How big are you? I mean: how tall are you. That was me. That was improvised in rehearsal. And there were some other lines like that.

Did it ever cause any friction between you and your co-stars?

Oh, sometimes, a little bit. Christopher’s pretty straight. We would have these little things, but it wasn’t too bad.

Was it physically hard, being on the wires?

Uh-huh. It hurt. The flying was very painful. Especially when it was just Chris and me and we were doing this scene where we fly around the world. After eight hours hanging from the ceiling you hurt.

Lynn Stalmaster said that you were the perfect choice for Lois Lane because not only were you beautiful and talented, you also had an offbeat quality.

I don’t think of myself as offbeat. To me I’m normal, I’m just myself. I suppose I wasn’t a bland little dolly bird, which I desperately wanted to be at the time.

You were a big star in the seventies. How did that affect you?

I wasn’t very good at being a movie star. Having come of age in the sixties and then to have all this Margot-the-Movie-Star stuff happening to me in the late seventies… I wasn’t prepared for that. I was supposed to have an image and I didn’t, except for being kind of wild. Uhm, so much of it seemed like bullshit to me and I didn’t know how to do all of it smoothly. So I was a bit of a disaster.

Did it have anything to do with your roots, as a small town Canadian girl?

No, I don’t think so. I just think I wasn’t very smart as a business person. These days, you have these kids getting – I don’t know – ten million dollars on their third movie. They’re really savvy about how to work this system and amass huge fortunes. We didn’t see it that way. When we started in the early seventies, when it was our gang of kids at Nicholas Beach, we thought it was somehow not done to worry about money too much or to try to worry about image. Of course Steven [Spielberg] ended up being Steven and Marty was the only one who stayed true to that. I ended up being Lois Lane. We became about as mainstream as we could become, but the ethics stayed with a lot of us and it made it difficult, for me at least, to play Hollywood’s game. I don’t think any of us… Well, Steven’s really good at it. He’s just the sweetest guy in the world.

Do you like his films?

You know, I don’t watch that many movies. I live in a small town of five thousand people. We have one theater. And if the movie comes there I try to see it. I just saw one called IN HER SHOES. That was great. That girl, Cameron Diaz, she is wonderful!

Do you ever get together with the people from that beach house?

I get together with my grand children, my dogs and my political friends. And I see Jennifer. I haven’t seen Brian for years. I think he lives in France. I see Marty from time to time. And Jill Clayburgh.

But there are never plans to work together?

We’re getting old, darling. Nobody’s going to give money to a bunch of old ladies. We had our wonderful time. Now it’s a different life. My life has pretty much nothing to do with movies. Unless I can get a little job and get some extra money. When you get older your priorities change.

Do you think what happened in your private life affected your career?

You mean that I went crazy? Of course.

Do you think something good came out of it as well?

On a personal level what came out of it was that I learned how to get better. I got well. I learned how to get well without taking psychiatric medication. I stopped going to psychiatrists and stopped taking medication and I got better. I used something called orthomolecular medicine, which is balancing your system naturally without screwing it up more with drugs. But because it’s against the law to patent a natural substance the pharmaceutical companies can’t make money from it so they pooh-pooh it.

How did it affect your career?

When you are either very depressed or very manic you’re not very nice to be around. It’s horrible. So my behavior was often appalling, obnoxious. People don’t generally hire you twice when you behave badly on the set. And then I made bad choices. I had more opportunities that I blew than anybody I know. I had the world at my feet at one point and I screwed it up. Now, at this point my personal life is – much to my surprise – exactly what I would want it to be. It’s kind of perfect. A great life with a lot of friends. I do a lot of work, politically but also as a spokesperson for mental health. I’m a grandmother. I have a great life and it worked out really well. But it did not work out according to the script for a movie star. It worked out another way. A lot better, I think.

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This interview first appeared in a shorter version in the Dutch fanzine Schokkend Nieuws. Above is the full version of this talk, edited only for clarity.