Weekend at Diamonds Are Forever House

One of my favorite Bond locations is Willard Whyte’s home in Diamonds Are Forever; the place where he’s held prisoner, and Bond battles Bambi and Thumper. The real home is in Palm Springs and is every bit as magnificent as depicted.

Well, you can win a chance to spend a weekend in that home; the gorgeous “Elrod House,” for $250 a ticket, with proceeds going to Help the Homeless Help Themselves.

Mike Gilroy, who owns Elrod House, made it available to HHHT for the funder.
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Set on 21 acres overlooking Palm Springs, the 7,388-square-foot circular structure, boasts five bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths and a spectacular indoor/outdoor pool. “The house was commissioned by Arthur Elrod, who was the quintessential designer for the Hollywood stars of that time,” Landon said.
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“Lautner’s design embodies the spirit of optimism of the 1950s and ’60s,” said Landon. “It was a time when Americans were ready for adventure, to go to the moon. The more I read about Lautner and his design, I think about this home as an architectural sculpture,” she added.
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Next year, the home will be featured in photographic exhibits of significant West Coast architecture held at the Getty Center and the Hammer Museum.
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Capping the holiday campaign will be a champagne-and-dessert reception for purchasers of the first 60 tickets. It will be held in the home of Palos Verdes philanthropists Richard and Melanie Lundquist. That is also where the winning ticket will be drawn early next year. Invitations to the reception will be issued according to earliest postmarks.
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All proceeds from HHHT’s holiday fund-raising will be dedicated to preventing South Bay families from becoming homeless.
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Tickets are available for a donation of $250. Acknowledgment of contributions will be mailed to donors.
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To purchase tickets for this funder or to receive additional information, call (310) 377-5347.

Honeymoon

Here’s another story from the Hofstra event. This comes from the live, in-person interview with Robert Davi, who played the drug lord Sanchez in Licence to Kill.

Davi was funny. When asked for stories about the filming of LTK, he said, “Look, it was Mexico City, me, Timothy [Dalton], and Benicio [del Toro] going out every night. Tequila was involved. I could tell tales.”

Davi, Dalton, and del Toro are all Method actors, and they bonded (no pun intended) over the acting. At one point, Davi was asked (by Lee Pfeiffer, who conducted the interview), how it was being directed by John Glen. He said they were given a lot of leeway to explore the roles. For example, he said, the way that del Toro said “Honeymoooon.”

“That was an unusual line reading,” he said, “And Benicio got a lot of support to explore that.”

Now, when Benicio del Toro says “We gave her a nice honeymoooon” in LTK, it’s creepy and disturbing and odd. And it sticks in my head. Everyone’s head, I guess, because the audience totally recognized what he was talking about. But what’s interesting to me is the actor’s process. That everyone on-set was aware of how weird that line reading was, and how daring, and paid attention to it (Sanchez wasn’t even in the scene).

Goldfinger at the Lafayette Theater

First of all, let’s hear it for the Lafayette! An old-fashioned (1924) theater with a big (46 foot) screen, one thousand seats, a balcony, and a live Wurlitzer player! That’s the environment in which to see classic films.

Second, the movie itself. I’m committed to grabbing every opportunity to see Bond on the big screen. Seeing it brought back memories of the first (and only other) time I saw it in a theater; in 1970! Despite having seen Goldfinger many times since then, many of the sensations I experienced as a child have not recurred from watching it on DVD or television broadcast. The chill of fear when the soldiers of Fort Knox fall, seemingly to their deaths, the terror and fascination of Odd Job, seemingly unbeatable, both human and superhuman, and the suave sex appeal of Sean Connery; all of these flooded back like sense memories.

The Writer’s Panel at Hofstra

Here’s a picture of the Writing Bond panel at the Hofstra Symposium.

From left to right: Lois Gresh, me, Lee Pfeiffer, Raymond Benson, John Griswold

Goldfinger in Suffern, New York

I got a question about timing for the local Bond showing.

Here’s what a mailing from the theater says:

Showtime for GOLDFINGER is Saturday, November 24 at 11:30 am – tickets are $6.00. Doors open at 11am, come early and hear pre-show music by Jeff Barker on the Lafayette Theatre’s Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ.

Hofstra Writes Up Hofstra

The Hofstra Chronicle has a write-up of the Bond symposium. Once again, alas, I am not mentioned.

Local Bond Showing

My local revival theater, the Lafayette in Suffern, NY, will be showing Goldfinger on November 24. All showings are on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m.

I posted about this some time back but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it, and now I will. Yay!

Hofstra Event Report in Newsday

Nice write-up here on the Hofstra Bond event. Tragically, I am not mentioned.

Event Report: Bond Symposium at Hofstra University

Did you know Robert Davi is an almnus of Hofstra? So is Christopher Walken! Only one of these illustrious Bond villains appeared at the Bond Symposium I attended yesterday.

Hempstead, Long Island is less than an hour and a half from home, and I was within two miles of the place when I got lost. Really hopelessly lost. Lost like, 45 minutes late. And I wasn’t the only one either. Another attendee took a cab from about the spot that I got lost to the conference two miles away, and it took 25 minutes. Long Island is some kind of black hole.

Anyway, I only attended four of the many wonderful symposium events.

First, Lee Pfeiffer interviewed Robert Davi. It was a sit-down on a theater stage, very much a chat with microphones, and very informative. Davi pointed out that he, Benicio del Toro, and Timothy Dalton were in Mexico City during the making of Licence to Kill with nothing to do with their evenings that didn’t involve tequilla, but he refrained from telling the juicier stories. He talked about how important it was to find sympathy in his character, and you can tell, as he speaks, that he still sympathizes with Sanchez. ‘None of the killings were my fault,’ he says, ‘My character was provoked every time.’ And again, ‘He could have whipped Lupe sadistically, as a fetish, but I did it in a ‘hurts me more than it hurts you’ way, as if I was sad to do it.’ He also explained the casting of Talisa Soto: “It wasn’t about the acting,” he said, “Which was what it was. It was about choosing the girl that Sanchez would risk his life to get back.” And Davi and Cubby Broccoli agreed that only Soto could be that to Sanchez.

The next event was the panel, “Writing Bond.” Participating were

• John Griswold (author of Ian Fleming’s James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies)
• Raymond Benson (author of The James Bond Bedside Companion, six original James Bond novels, and novelizations of James Bond movies)
• Lee Pfeiffer (author The Incredible World of 007, co-author of The Essential James Bond, and producer of “The Making of Goldfinger” and “The Making of Thunderball” DVD documentaries)
• me (author of The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book)
• Lois Gresh (co-author of The Science of James Bond)

I definitely had the “little ol’ me” feeling, being with such illustrious co-panelists, and I had a blast! We discussed a lot of different things, from what was hard and easy and confusing about writing Bond, to the advantages and disadvantages of being authorized (Pfeiffer and Benson) or unauthorized (the rest of us). Benson talked about the unique task of creating Bond fiction, and Pfeiffer shared his unusual relationship with the late Cubby Broccoli. I think the panel was fun, informative, and diverse. I know, I was on it so I’m biased, but I learned a lot and enjoyed myself, and I hope I also contributed.

Next up, Lee Pfeiffer interviewed the amazing Tom Mankiewicz via videophone conference. Way high-tech, and what a great interview it was! Mankiewicz is a real raconteur, and he could have filled the whole time with just one question, because he had so many wonderful stories to tell. From confronting racism in a Louisiana parish during the making of Live and Let Die, to secretly polishing Christopher Wood’s script for The Spy Who Loved Me (and getting totally caught by Roger Moore) to meeting John Wayne on his very first job, everything he recounted was fun, funny, and fascinating.

After that was a dinner banquet. Again, so much fun. So many wonderful people to meet, so many interesting stories to here. Pfeiffer and Benson did a presentation during dessert of “Myths of Bond” (like, no one ever died of being painted gold), and then Benson did a wonderful piano medley of James Bond music.

And, big surprise! Representatives of Aston Martin of Long Island were there with a car, a beautiful silver coupe (lower right picture in the link). Not only did I get photographed sitting in it (ohmigodz ohmigodz), I sent the gentlemen home with a copy of my book, so I photographed it sitting in the trunk. Photos to follow.

I was sorry to have to leave.

Author appearance in Long Island!

Hofstra University’s Cultural Center will be hosting Bond, James Bond: The World of 007. The event takes place November 6–8 at Hofstra. I will be appearing on a panel called "Writing Bond" from 2:30–4:30 on November 8, and will be signing books afterwards.

I hope to see you there!