Crane (50 page)

BC: John, thanks for, don’t you know, I don’t know how I can tell you not to worry or anything but—

JC: I’m not, it’s just the idea that it’s starting to become frustrating.

BC: Yeah but I suspect that I will be called upon shortly.

JC: Well like I said told him the same thing you and I had discussed, you know the same thing.

BC: Right.

JC: So that’s, that’s, I’m not making in collusion with you, I’m simply just telling you exactly that [
sic
] I told them what my feelings were.

BC: Right, right.

JC: And you and I had already discussed it so I told them that too.

BC: Right.

JC: Okay big daddy.

BC: Okay well I’ll let you know, you know I’ll either call you at your office or home or whatever.

JC: Okay, whatever.

BC: If I hear anything or talk to them or whatever.

JC: Okay.

BC: So—

JC: I think what they’re up to is they want to star gaze now.

BC: Yeah.

JC: You know, is basically what it turns out to be, oh I want to meet a movie star.

BC: It’s so funny this guy Pat O’Brien from KNXT, he called because I asked him if I could get a bunch of tape from that whole period of a couple of days like I missed a lot of it you know like David Shenan (phonetic) [Sheehan] had a report and things like that on video tape.

JC: Uh-huh.

BC: And he says yeah it’s, it’s shaky in terms of when you start seeing these guys [Dean and Borkenhagen] wearing new clothes and wearing
sunglasses and you know having new hairdos, you know, he was half fictitious [facetious] in terms of the Scottsdale Police you know because they’re on camera so much.

JC: Yeah.

BC: He says the problem with them is they talk too much on, on camera.

JC: Yeah well he came up with a routine he says we haven’t given out anything, the information that is all wrong he says has come from other sources and I’m thinking to myself sure.

BC: Yeah, yeah.

JC: But I’m not going to, you know, what the hell. Okay, dad, have a day, I’ve got to get back to work.

BC: Okay talk to you soon, John.

JC: All right, bye.

BC: Bye.

Appendix C

Patti’s smoking and drinking.

Patti smoked constantly, 24/7. The ashes would overflow the ashtrays in her car. Everyday, starting in the afternoon around four or five, the wine would appear. My enduring image of Patti is of her holding court in the kitchen nook at the Tilden Avenue home in Westwood, a glass of wine in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other. This would go on with an audience and afterward, all evening long. I remember seeing her sitting in the same position alone, late at night, more wine, more cigarettes, never ending, whether my dad was home or not.

Debbie Crane being unwilling to talk to Bob Crane.

Around 12 or 13, my sister Debbie started to forgo seeing my dad on weekends during his visitation. Karen would go on her own with dad. This went on periodically for a few years. Debbie was the middle child, strange, angry, getting back at my dad, I suppose, for leaving home. They were communicating and seeing each other in the last few years of my dad’s life, though.

The nature of Bob and Patti’s sexual relationship.

My father told me about, and I saw photographs of a threesome between Patti, my dad and another woman they had picked up at a club in L.A. The sexual encounter was held in their bedroom at the Tilden Avenue home in Westwood.

There are three other occurrences chock full of innuendo: Patti would
occasionally receive massages from a masseur at home in the bedroom at Tilden Avenue which would go on for hours. The bedroom door was locked. My father would occasionally try to enter the room but couldn’t and there would be no reply from inside.

Patti was intrigued with their attorney/business manager Lloyd Vaughn (who it turns out, stole around $100,000 from dad and Patti to help him finance his cocaine habit). They went out a few times to dinner and sporting events. The third episode involves me. Patti and I were sitting in the kitchen nook at Tilden one night. My dad was on the road. Patti and I were talking about a short film idea I had about a truck-stop diner. She would be the waitress. A trucker, who admires her, rips her blouse at one point. Patti, glass of wine in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other, stared at me and said, “I wouldn’t mind if you saw my breasts.” I was 24, uncomfortable, looking down at the floor. I changed the subject. Nothing happened. The film was never made. The trap was laid but I didn’t bite.

Robert D. Crane
4-8-02

Appendix D

The following is a statement from Bob Crane’s son, Robert Crane Jr., about his father and
Auto Focus
.

Like John Belushi in
Wired,
my dad, actor Bob Crane, in
Auto Focus
is a driven, meteoric show business phenomenon whose lack of self respect and naivete lead to an early demise. We read about or watched Belushi because he was an uncontrollable fireball who was hilarious and did things we fantasized about doing. We watched Bob Crane because he was an in control leader who said and did funny things always at the right time. Many
HOGAN’S HEROES
viewers wanted to be him. Belushi and Crane—fueled by the need to make people laugh. Unfortunately, because of time limitations, writer/filmmaker point of view and arc of story, the humor, the driving force behind Belushi and Crane, is left behind. Drugs, sex, and death take center stage. People slow down on the highway to view the accident. Some want blood, some want survivors, everyone must ease up on the gas pedal to take a look.

Sense of timing, razor sharp wit, better than average drummer, handsome, man’s man, take charge, work your ass off, non-stop, do it better next time, are some of the adjectives that come to mind regarding my father. Also, love of jazz (Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Stan Kenton, Glenn Miller), photography, electronics, yes, and women. My dad was the sort of male who probably should never have been married. Yet, my dad, mother Anne, sisters Karen and Debbie and I had a blast. We made 8mm (film striped for sound) movie epics like I
Was a Teenager for the FBI.
My dad and I had the
POOL LEAGUE
, where we played a full schedule of baseball games against each other in our swimming pool in Tarzana, California. My father videotaped my rock power trio with Dave Arnoff and Ron
Heck playing live in 1967, long before MTV videos. Okay, it was in black and white. We went on what we called Fellini Excursions like attending a celebrity bocce ball tournament at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. We got to meet a very crabby Joe DiMaggio. At the end of the evening, my dad and I turned toward each other and said, “What the hell are we doing here?”
Auto Focus
doesn’t pretend to be a biopic. It isn’t interested in showing how much time Bob Crane spent with his kids. My dad was a big kid. He loved to have fun. My mother was the rock, the glue that kept our family together as long as it did. Although my mother only met Paul Schrader and Rita Wilson once, Schrader and Wilson capture her perfectly. She is a small-town, east coast product, who put family and sanity first. She is Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and Donna Reed. Although she has been happily remarried for almost thirty years to Chuck Sloan, she still speaks of my dad with love and affection. We had great times.

Auto Focus
is among Paul Schrader’s best films. My dad and I saw Schrader’s
Taxi Driver
together in Westwood, California, in 1976. I compare
Auto Focus
to Mike Nichols’
Carnal Knowledge
with Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel. If there were double features today,
Auto Focus
would be the darker second half only this time with Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe stepping in. Both films are brilliant and disturbing looks at male sexuality and the sexual revolution. They both capture the time periods in painstaking detail. Kinnear nails the essence of my father, non-stop pleasing of the world at large, the laugh, the beat, the timing, the smalltown thinking in the big bad world of L.A. Dafoe is the too-loyal sidekick, the Tonto to Kinnear’s Lone Ranger. Dafoe captures the eternal hanger-on, the second tier, the pathetic. Rita Wilson is my mother, Anne Crane. Too sweet, too trusting for her own good. Maria Bello is the second wife, Patti. Ron Leibman (my longtime friend Chris Fryer and I have loved Leibman since
Where’s Poppa?
) behaves, speaks and breathes as
THE
Hollywood agent. Kurt Fuller
IS
Werner Klemperer/Col. Klink. It’s a great film but, guys, don’t expect to get laid after you and your female companion see this film. It’s not a date movie. In fact, you’ll probably want to hang out with some of your buds and get drunk. My dad would have seen this film and headed directly to a strip club. If you want the biopic treatment on Bob Crane, read the book or watch
E! True Hollywood Story
or
A&E Biography
. Or, keep supporting Sumner Redstone’s (Viacom) lifestyle by watching
Hogan’s Heroes
via syndication. For you Belushi fans,
Saturday Night Live
is all over basic cable. Keep laughing.

Appendix E

Robert David Crane, Jr. goes online to interview his late father, Bob Crane, celebrating the occasion of the release of
Auto Focus,
the Paul Schrader film that stars Greg Kinnear as his father and Rita (
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
’s producer) Wilson as his mother. The film depicts his father’s tabloid-worthy life.

Stupid:
What did you think of the movie about your life,
Auto Focus
?

Crane:
Outside of
Hogan’s Heroes
and Angel Carter of the Classic Cat, it’s the most important project I’ve ever been affiliated with.

Stupid:
Who’s a better Hogan, you or Greg Kinnear?

Crane:
Me. Kinnear’s too pretty and too small. The Hogan jacket fit me better. Werner (Klemperer, who played Colonel Klink in the hit series) told me, however, that he prefers Kinnear.

Stupid:
I understand Frank Sinatra wore the jacket before you did in his movie
Von Ryan’s Express.

Crane:
The jacket still had the Western Costume label. It was an honor. I recently met Frank and Dean [Martin] up here, incidentally. They don’t live with the rest of us, however. They share a Neutra-designed house on a hill.

Stupid:
Because of your second wife, Sigrid Valdis, and her X-rated web site, you’re now more known as an amateur pornographer than the star of a hit TV series.

Crane:
She needed the money. The
Hogan’s
residual checks apparently ran out. Her acting career stalled after she played Hilda, Klink’s secretary. It doesn’t matter to me because here we’re all naked all the time. I’m staring at Jayne Mansfield right now as we speak.

Stupid:
You’ve been the subject of a book (
Murder of Bob Crane
), television documentaries (
The E! True Hollywood Story,
“Biography”), numerous magazine and newspaper articles and a Paul Schrader film (
Auto Focus
). Your career has more buzz now than when you were living. What’s next?

Crane:
Stanley Kubrick was disappointed that his career ended with a Cruise-Kidman film. He’s here filming another take on sex: Eyes Automatically Focused. I’m doing an unpaid cameo as a strip club drummer.

Stupid:
You were a better-than-average drummer. You appeared on variety shows and even released an album on Epic Records. Do you still play?

Crane:
That was sad how Michael Jackson turned on Tommy Mottola, don’t you think? Of course, I still play. My teacher is Buddy Rich, for God’s sake. Yesterday, I jammed with Lennon, Harrison, Morrison, Entwistle and Keith Moon. I was the oldest one there. That Moon—what a nut.

Stupid:
You were brutally murdered, bludgeoned to death. Who did it?

Crane:
I don’t know. I was asleep. John Carpenter’s here now. He swears he didn’t do it.

Stupid:
Hogan, Klink, Schultz, and your producer, Edward H. Feldman, are together again. Are you thinking of a reunion film?

Crane:
No. We have great crews available but we want to shoot film, not digital. Everything’s digital here. And there’s no SAG contract yet. I’m not going to be a scab.

Stupid:
You were killed in 1978. You loved technology.
Rolling Stone
called you a “cool video sex pioneer.” Yet you missed digital cameras, CDs, DVDs, and PCs.

Crane:
More importantly, I missed Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith and the real Erin Brockovich. Talk about equipment!

Stupid:
Last question. Are you happy with the way you’re being remembered?

Crane:
I don’t mind. It’s not important up here. We’re all equal—except for Sinatra and Dino. I would like to say to my first wife, Anne, Rita Wilson played you magnificently in
Auto Focus.
There’s an Oscar buzz around here.

And, by the way, Anne, Donna Reed says “Hi,” and thinks you did a great job rearing our three children, particularly Robert David, who, up here, is considered a brilliant writer.

And to Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, which syndicates
Hogan’s Heroes:
We shot 168 episodes at $90,000 per. Viacom has grossed $90 million off
Hogan’s
reruns which play internationally.

How about sharing some of the wealth with the surviving members of the cast and writers and directors who’ve made you a billionaire? I’m a volunteer gatekeeper here twice a week. Good luck getting in!

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