Hacking the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer, Luana Anders, Robert Towne, Billy Wilder, Walter Matthau

Hacking The Afterlife podcast

I was invited to a screening of Sunset Blvd. A dark comedy made by Billy Wilder in 1950. William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich Von Stroheim - at the last minute I was going to see it by myself, thought twice about it - but something or someone insisted I go.

At the screening, Nancy Olson who starred in the film as the girlfriend of William Holden was there. She had wonderful stories about her experience on the film - her second movie. After the screening I had an urge to go to the Chateau Marmont hotel... I didn't know why, but couldn't talk myself into doing it.

Later, I discovered that Billy Wilder, the director and writer of the film wrote it while he was living in the hotel, and the room that Holden lives in with a Murphy bed was identical to the one that Wilder lived in when he wrote it.

Then for the past few days, I have been hearing, getting messages from Mr. Wilder, about my own career, about films I've written and scripts I haven't yet gotten into production.

So that was the genesis of this conversation. First Carl Weathers, who was an active member of the DGA, my pal whom I wrote a script with (Apollo Creed in Rocky) started the conversation, which then drifted to Luana Anders - where I asked if this Billy fellow wanted to be interviewed.

He did. He said he was greeted by his mother on the flipside - which was poignant because she had not come with him to the US and when he went back to extricate her from Germany, she and her husband and Billy's grandmother were victims of the Nazis.

He expressed sadness at not trying harder to get her to join him in America. I had a million questions to ask him about his writing partner and others - but he spoke about the fast times and laughs (and booze) that he and William Holden shared.

At some point I asked Walter Matthau some questions, since I was his dialog coach on a Charles Grodin film "Movers and Shakers." It was a treat to meet him - part of Hollywood royalty.

Billy talked about the great times they had back then, and how being back home was like "being in a Fred Astaire movie." He noted that he'd made "about 30 movies" (for the record he directed 27 films, including Spirit of St. Louis, the Apartment, Some Like It Hot, etc). He said that in the afterlife, it was like being on a back lot and each sound stage was filled with all the people he'd made a film with - and so each sound stage was another "chapter in his life."

Amazing description. We asked him about Marilyn Monroe and other folks he worked with - and he knew them all.

When I mentioned what a great screenwriter he was, Robert Towne showed up to talk a bit about the process, and how on the flipside, he's still honing his writing skills. He said that he was learning how to be more open to the muse - and agreed that was something for every artist, painter, musician... that we are always honing our skills either onstage or offstage.

And when talking about it, he pointed out that he was in the "before life" zone and not an "after life" arena. Because we can and do return when we want to.

Another mind bending episode.