Movie Star.

I had quite a bit of reaction to the last post I wrote about LGBT and Hollywood, apart from the comments, and they were mainly about the building I lived in and the movie star or stars etc.

Well it was a lively building and I loved every minute living there. I couldn't go out of my front door without meeting someone from the business. They might be a screenwriter, a director, producer an extra or whatever. But the one thing in common most of them had was a script – a screenplay. It was somewhere either in their bag or their apartment, but it existed somewhere.

They didn't flaunt it at you but you knew it existed somewhere so it didn't matter who you met, whether it was someone for the first time or an old friend; you would never bring up the script.

To be fair a lot of people who had scripts lurking and were fully fledged members of the writers' guild kept it to themselves.

But the building itself was wonderful.

I am not one of those people who don't like actors – there are lots of actors like that and I'm not one of those; I love them.

I love the stories about old jobs, old experiences and the like but actors who are arseholes you avoid.

The movie star on our floor was an experience; 'there's a movie star living in there' is something you kind of ignore. But this was an actor who had been compared to Brando in his life. He's been in some of the greatest latest movies – The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, The Mask etc.

He was a dangerous actor. 

That label has been used for actors who wouldn't be able to blow the skin off a rice pudding but this guy was the real deal. 

He was in a movie with Ben Stiller where the pair of them would throw themselves into an unbreakable glass window about 20 floors above Century City. He was playing a drug addict, a drug dealer and . . . . that is what he was in real life.

I got on with him very well and one time we were at a party together and he said 'let's go out and party – and I guarantee it won't cost you a dime.'

I kind of suspected that it would be for more than a drink or two so I didn't go. Those days are gone, Joxer!

One night I was woken by a ruckus in the street below. I went out on to our balcony and there he was, arguing with a taxi driver.

'Okay' he said, dancing around like Mike Tyson, 'give me your best shot.'

Apparently the taxi driver had over charged him; he told me they (taxi drivers) took a lot of the air out of their tyres so the clock would show more miles!!!!

Go figure!

Now this was a fella, who received something like half a million dollars for a recent film, was eventually kicked out of the building for non-payment of rent.

When he left he had wrecked the apartment – the bathroom, the kitchen; all smashed.

You see the poor fella was hooked on heroin.

Afterwards he came to the building on a regular basis and I would introduce him to my children in the lift and he was so quietly spoken you wouldn't believe.

Once in a while I would see him in a bar somewhere and he would throw his arms around me like I was his brother.

He went to New York, at one time, to do a TV series and whilst there he was arrested when he tried to buy some drugs – it was in all the papers.

And still he worked.

Our building had CCTV all over the place. One time he came back and instead of coming up to our floor to visit our neighbour – where he collected his mail – he went downstairs to the laundry room.

When he got in there he put a balaclava (ski mask) over his head and went into the parking lot, which was next to the laundry room. There he went up to a new Lexis, removed the number plate then disappeared.

How do we all know this?

CCTV.

All on there as clear as a bell. He stole the plate or plates – I think they're called registration plates over there – to sell them for drug money. He would sell them to someone who would use them in an illicit act; who knows? Robbery, murder, mayhem!!

The Lexis belonged to someone who lived on the floor below and the manager of the building watched it all on the security video and told the guy. 

The guy said he wanted the plates back and if they were returned straight away nothing more would be said.

Somehow our next door neighbour managed to get in touch with our hero and he returned them.

Did you ever hear of TMZ?

It's a TV station or Internet channel which collects gossip on TV and movie stars etc. 

It either stands for Two Mile Zone or Ten Mile Zone, in any case the manager of the building sent the footage to them and our poor old movie star was all over the TV shows and gossip places for the next week or so.

Now!!!!

Did he do it on purpose? He was filmed coming out of some very smart places and being mobbed by paparazzi asking about the plates.

The manager, by the way, stood at about 6'7” and was built like a brick shit house. He had a booming voice but . . . yes there was a but about him which I never quite figured out. 

He told me about his script and I went to see it at a local 99 seat theatre; it wasn't bad.

He was a jazz drummer of Italian extraction and he hired a grip, who lived in the building, called Gonzo to be the handy man. It was a good choice as grips on movie sets are usually the strong guys, handy with their hands and usually with a full tool box.

So Gonzo was hired and he did a good job. However it got too much for the poor fella as he had too much to do and it was getting to him and one day he had a stroke.

Not a big one. I went to see him the next day at the hospital and he was trying to put a few words together and exercising his lips. But he couldn't walk and was in tears.

Then he called me and asked me to come and pick him up. When I got to the hospital he could walk – with quite a limp but he could walk.

He came home and after about a week he was walking and talking fine. 

You could tell he'd had a stroke but he was managing.

That's when the manager decided to sack him.

He sacked him because not only did Gonzo want paying he wanted reimbursing for the money he had laid out on materials. The manager said he hadn't given him permission to spend on the materials which left Gonzo broke.

So the manager gave Gozo an eviction noticen for non-payment of rent.

By the way, the first time I went to Gonzo's apartment I noticed that just inside the door, by the wall, was a baseball bat.

Things didn't go Gonzo's way so the writing was on the wall and he would have to leave.

Before the stroke the manager and Gonzo were up each other's arses; going to the Home Depot Store together etc.

So Gonzo decided, under the circumstances, to kill the manager.

We lived on the 5^th floor facing beautiful Runyon Cannyon but above us there was a penthouse. In the bigger penthouse was someone called Doris who came in one day and saw the Manager and Gonzo struggling on the floor.

Gonzo had tried to rip the manager's eyes out and when Doris got out of her car she saw them and, as she said to me, I thought Gonzo was fucking him!!

They got rid of poor Gonzo and the last I heard the manager had put a restraining order out against Gonzo.

So there we are:

Here is a little taste of The Rare Auld Mountain Dew – just me and my banjo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWs0cxDYDr0