Crane (46 page)

Me: “I respect him career-wise for what he did, where he got to. … He was a good father to my two sisters and me. We had a lot of fun times. … There wasn’t anything perverted at home as far as I know.”

The interview continued for what seemed a very long time, and never got any softer. I needed a long, hot shower. I much preferred asking questions to deflecting them.

We attended the
Auto Focus
premiere at the New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. I joined Schrader, Kinnear, and Dafoe onstage afterward for a Q&A.

Schrader began by saying, “
Auto Focus
is the All-American, heterosexual version of
Prick Up Your Ears.
Bob Crane aspired to be one thing but acted in a counterproductive manner.”

Greg Kinnear, who, more than anyone, was focused on what made my dad tick, added, “Bob was a different person when he first came to Los Angeles. I think he was affected by the show business element. … John Carpenter was a very unfortunate association for Bob to have come across.”

“There’s a husband and wife quality about them,” Willem Dafoe interjected, adding, “They abet each other’s weaknesses. They had this incredible intimacy and dependency on each other.”

“Bob came at you with both headlights bright but he’s a superficial man, clueless man, who didn’t have much of an interior life,” said Schrader, who always looked at the bigger picture. He continued, “I don’t think Hollywood makes good people go bad. I think bad people come to Hollywood in order to be bad. When
Hogan’s Heroes
and Bob’s first marriage went down, his level of hypocrisy went down with it. He allowed himself to become more of the person he always was, but he couldn’t see why his behavior was such a problem for others. He undermined everything he’d accomplished because of a private, personal obsession. Bob Crane made a career out of being likable—the charmer, the glib, funny guy. When someone is that personable, attractive, and semifamous, we tend to let them get away with murder.”

Kinnear summed it up. “The thing that’s interesting about Bob is the contradictory nature of who he appeared to be and who the man really was. This guy was so cool and always heroic and funny. I was a fan.”

I didn’t have much to add. I felt as though I were eavesdropping on a psychiatrist’s group session.

The film generated an enormous amount of press, not all good, not
all bad, and much of it not about the film at all, but about what was rapidly becoming an incendiary exchange between Scotty and me. In his piece “Video Killed the TV Star,” David Edelstein of
Slate
wrote, “The son from one marriage regards his father’s life as a sordid mess; the son from the other thinks his dad was a sexually liberated hero and has uploaded the hard-core films and tapes to a Web site for public consumption (I would report on their quality, but they kept crashing my Internet connection). …
Auto Focus
is a cautionary tale of addiction.”

Susan Wloszczyna of
USA Today
wrote, “Not even Richard Dawson would touch this family feud. … ‘I knew this [
Auto Focus
] wasn’t going to be a titillating piece of garbage’ … says the older brother [Robert]. … Scotty … calls it ‘horrible’ and ‘sensationalistic.’ … It also riles Scotty that Robert often is referred to as Bob Crane Jr. Oddly, both sons are named Robert: Scotty is Robert Scott, Robert is Robert David. … Robert says it goes back to the question his reporter character poses to Kinnear in
Auto Focus
: ‘What is his secret to a long marriage?’ The answer: ‘Don’t make waves.’”

Kate Nolan of the
Arizona Republic,
in her article “Tawdry Tale Sets Crane Sons A-feuding,” wrote, “From the start, Scotty slammed Robert’s involvement, saying the script was a distortion. … ‘You don’t ask Sean Lennon about the Beatles, you ask Julian,’ he [Robert] says, apologizing for striking a parallel between John Lennon and Crane. … Scotty retaliated by telling ‘The Arizona Republic’ recently that Robert could be a likely suspect [in their father’s murder]. Scotty’s theory: Robert became enraged that Dad was reuniting with Patricia and killed him. Robert scoffs at the allegation, saying he had never visited Scottsdale until after his father’s death. The police have never considered Robert a suspect.”

This last salvo from Scotty precipitated a kind of Hatfield and McCoy blood feud fought out in the mud of Tinseltown. I repeated to Lynn Hirshberg, a reporter from the
New York Times
magazine what I had said to the Scottsdale Police and the Maricopa County district attorney: since Patti was the only one to profit from my dad’s death—that’s a fact, not my opinion—and needed it to happen before the divorce was final, she was the only person with any kind of motive, and therefore, I said, her whereabouts and involvement should bear some scrutiny. Jeez, you’d have thought I had publicly accused her of murder. Well, maybe I had, and hell hath no fury like an heiress with a checkbook.

There was, naturally, an immediate backlash. Lee Blackman (Patti and
Scotty’s attorney) went on TV to say, “I will only say that any accusations or insinuations that Patricia Crane had any involvement in the murder of her husband Bob Crane are outrageous, defamatory lies.”

Scotty, too, got in his two seconds’ worth. He said, “His [meaning me] claim is ridiculous. She [Patti] was thoroughly checked out by the Scottsdale Police. There’s no evidence that even suggests [her involvement]. She was 1,500 miles away at the time of the murder. I was with her at the time of my father’s murder.
Hogan’s
hadn’t kicked into syndication yet. His estate wasn’t worth anything. Actually, it was a financial loss to us when he died. He was out on the road making quite a bit of money. When he stopped doing that, the paychecks stopped. He’s [again meaning me] a dangerous person. He’s disturbed. He’ll do anything to promote this movie [
Auto Focus
].”

Patti wrote to the
Times
objecting to “the false statements and insinuations made by ‘Auto Focus’ director Paul Schrader and ‘technical advisor’ Bobby Crane, the son of my husband’s first wife.” She was outraged that “The Times even printed Bobby’s suggestion that I killed my husband. Bobby knows that there is total and absolute proof that I had nothing at all to do with his murder. I loved my husband, and we were reconciled at the time of his death. A respectable journalist would not have, by omitting key facts, so clearly taken one side in this matter. It is shocking to see this brand of tabloid journalism in a publication such as yours.” Patricia Crane, Seattle.

Attorneys were now fully deployed. Maggie Heim, Sony Pictures’ vice president, assistant general counsel, sent me copies of two letters from Patti’s legal advisors. They questioned Sony Pictures over scenes involving Patti’s character, played by Maria Bello. They objected to her portrayal as “a drinker,” “a home wrecker,” “a violent person,” and “greedily and vindictively demanding.” The First Amendment was mentioned, the lawyers arguing that Patti was not attempting to “‘chill … free speech rights’ or force SPE [Sony Pictures Entertainment] to ‘make her look good in every way and to leave out anything that might be conceived as negative.’ Mrs. Crane, however, only complains about the portions of the movie that are both negative and false.” In other words, all of the scenes involving the character of “Patti.”

The missive also addressed Paul Schrader’s “false and derogatory statements about Patricia Crane” to the press, including his telling the
New York Times
that Scotty’s book included “photographs of Patricia
Crane nude and ‘with a woman,’” that Schrader “know[s] she did girl-on-girl stuff,” and that “the movie’s potential damaging effects on Mrs. Crane’s health cannot be laid at his [Schrader’s] doorstep because she is a ‘lifelong … drinker.’” The letter continued, “The Daily News reported that Bobby Crane calls his stepmother a cross between ‘Sante Kimes, Bonnie Lee Bakley and Adolf Hitler.’ … On behalf of Mrs. Crane, I repeat the demand that Robert David Crane immediately cease and desist from making such statements, and that Sony Pictures Entertainment take immediate steps to ensure that such statements are not repeated. … Very truly yours, A. Lee Blackman.”

I was, in fact, guilty as charged, having been enraged by the lies and hypocrisy from the Patti and Scotty camp, and while I thought it was funny at the time, I’m not particularly proud of myself for that little bout of mud wrestling. But, always needing to get in the last blow, Patti still had one more diabolical trick up her sleeve.

The
Globe,
on page 3 of its November 12, 2002, edition, splashed the headline “Bob Crane’s Widow Digs Up His Body—And Hides It!” It happened like this: my sister Karen, the only member of my family to pay respects at my dad’s gravesite at Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth after the actual day of the funeral, visited one afternoon only to discover, as the
Globe
reported, “the headstone missing, freshly dug dirt in the plot—and their dad no longer there!” A quote from me read, “My dad was buried next to his parents. … My sister asked what happened and the cemetery said the body had been relocated. She asked, ‘Where is he? I’m his daughter!’ They said, ‘We can’t tell you.’ … It’s simple human decency to let someone know that their daddy’s body has been moved. My family was devastated. That’s always been Pat’s style—no respect for us. … She hates us, we hate her.” After several hysterical phone calls, “Pat’s lawyer revealed that the TV legend had been reburied alongside stars like Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood at the famed Westwood Cemetery. Her attorney Lee Blackman tells GLOBE Pat moved the body because it was her husband’s wish to be buried at that cemetery. … Says Robert, ‘Pat bought the spot next to him, so now Hogan and Hilda can be together forever.’” What was really missing from the whole story was a quote from Patti to the effect of “Take that, Bobby.”

I wanted to keep this never-ending Fellini Excursion alive, so I pitched a Greg Kinnear “20 Questions” to Rezek at
Playboy.
I knew the piece had to be light and funny to fit in the “20Q slot,” not at all replicating the
heaviness of
Auto Focus
or the fireworks playing out in the media. I wanted to show Kinnear my real day job, and, after pretending to interview him, I wanted to do an authentic version for the record. Rezek gave me a thumbs-up. In the December 2002 issue,
Playboy Playbill
wrote of me, promoting the enclosed piece: “A deft and lively contributor to the magazine—he once turned in an incredible Q. and A. with Koko the Signing Gorilla—Crane returns this month with a singularly astounding entry: a 20Q with Greg Kinnear, who plays Crane’s father in ‘Auto Focus.’ … So the stage was set for a fascinating conversation between Kinnear and Crane—read it.”

Playboy
: “How did you prepare for the explicit scenes in ‘Auto Focus’? Was there a Thighmaster in your trailer?”

Kinnear: “There should have been, because I put on some weight to play Bob [Crane]. … No push-ups before scenes for me. It was basically hit the craft service table about 10 minutes before doing anything questionable.”

Playboy
: “You’re known as being a nice guy in Hollywood. Have you disqualified yourself from playing a really dark character?”

Kinnear: “I’m a prick. … As an actor, there are few places I’m not interested in exploring. … There is just as much charm and inspiration behind a guy with a hatchet as there is in any other character.”

Playboy
: “In ‘Auto Focus’ you wear the jacket that was worn by Frank Sinatra in ‘Von Ryan’s Express’ and by Bob Crane in ‘Hogan’s Heroes.’ If that jacket could talk, would it say, ‘Ring-a-ding-ding’ or ‘Colonel Klink’?”

Kinnear: “After ‘Auto Focus,’ it has a few other things it wants to say—some not fit for print. I have to go with Colonel Klink on that one. As you might understand, I am a little partial to the jacket. It fit like a glove and I’ll be the first to bid on it when it’s put up for auction on eBay. Give me 24 hours’ notice.”

Auto Focus
was released by Sony Pictures Classics during the fall of 2002 in the United States and Canada.* For all the hysterical babble and family feuding, film festivals and talking head commentaries, rave reviews and pans, print and Internet articles and interviews, the picture managed only a pretty anemic gross of about $2 million. It was a disappointment that there wasn’t an audience for a thought-provoking look at the sexual revolution and sexual addiction, or a behind-the-curtain glimpse at an everyman
actor who played an iconic television character but lost his way. Perhaps not enough filmgoers wanted to auto focus after all. Tom Bernard, who ran the show at SPC, insisted that after international release, pay, cable, and DVD,
Auto Focus
would be in the black. I hoped so for all those talented folks’ sake. I would miss the cast and crew, but I was glad it was over. Life is nothing if not about the accumulation of experiences, good, bad, or otherwise.

Shortly after the film’s release I received a telephone message from Scotty asking me to call him in Seattle where he was living. I did call him back but got his machine. I said there were no hard feelings. It was always between his mother and me. I knew he didn’t ask to be placed into the situation he was in. He was born an innocent, though now he was quite a bit less so, defending his mother at all costs, hearing about the history of the family through a one-sided, distorted mouthpiece. There was just too much poison, too many bad memories. We had all traveled too far, and it was way too late to turn around. We were part of a group thrown together by fate, genetics, and my dad’s and Patti’s egos. They were first, we followed, and then they were no more. I wished Scotty good luck and much happiness. I have never heard from him again.

The one voice that was truly missing from the
Auto Focus
Tower of Babel was that of the star of the hour, Bob Crane. I felt the need to share his voice with the public, bring his brightness and fun back from the dead. I knew instinctively that the place to go with my wild idea for an interview with a deceased but much in the news celebrity was the Coachella Valley. My old friend and former
Oui
magazine editor Stewart Weiner, after years of toiling for magazines like
TV Guide
and
Palm Springs Life,
had just created his own general-interest publication called
Hwy 111.
Weiner could be as funny as Rezek, but with a more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants attitude. He loved the idea of an exclusive “interview” with my dad (and the attention it would generate).*