The scene is as follows: they are Bob rafelson -Dimer of The Postman calls twice and Five Easy Pieces who made Jack Nicholson– And the fearsome producer with «owl face» Lew Wasserman in the office of the latter. The year ’62 is run.
Rafelson was a boy who tried to earn his place in Hollywood. He had moved not so much to California with his wife, who had given birth to a daughter, and wanted to make a career as a filmmaker.
One of his first opportunities as director was given it, responsible for RCA and, consequent Peter Biskind In the mythical and indispensable book for cinephiles «Quiet bikers, wild bulls: the generation that changed Hollywood»-, recently reissued by Anagrama.
Wasserman had given him the opportunity to direct the series Channingthat goes on the life of a group of university students in a fictitious institution of the same name as the program.
Rafelson asked for playwright Edward Albee and Jack Richardson and a special actor to make Peter Fonda enemy in an episode: Michael Parks.
We return to the principle scene. Director and producer, face to face.
With the eyes «circling behind the lenses», Wasserman «Brama»: «I never want to see again those stories of degenerates, much less an actor who has grains in the back of the back. What the hell does all that have to do with something real?»
Wasserman referred to Michael Parks.
Michael Parks in his youth. Over time it would become a cult actor.Then Rafelson, locked, observes the desk full of awards of the producer, takes a statuette and asks: «And this is real?», And throws it through the air. «Are you telling me not to hire an actor with grains? I shit in everything, Wasserman!»
The producer adopts a «paternal gesture,» takes Rafelson from his shoulder and accompanies him to the study.
When crossing the door, Rafelson «realized that his brilliant career could have finished. He looked for a bathroom and vomited,» Biskind details in his book.
In the ’63, Parks would end up appearing in two episodes of Channing such as Dante Donati.
The cult actor
Acne or smallpox marks accompanied Parks all their lives. But that was not an impediment to become one of the most admired actors of the new Hollywood. «Parks’ skin was far from perfect,» confirms Biskind in case there was any doubt.
Michael Parks en Then Came Bronson.After testing a series of work of the most unusual and crossing several family tragedies, Parks forged a career in his early youth and adulthood that would be claimed by Hollywood referents of two generations after his. Time would give him the nickname of cult actor.
He shone above a red Harley-Davidson in Then Came Bronson In 1969, a series of 26 episodes in which he plays a motorcycle who tries to find answers after the suicide of a friend. For his fight with the producers of that program, Parks believed he was in the infamous blacklist of Hollywood to which all the suspects of supporting communism during the postwar man were going to support.
Parks appears in countless episodes of American series of the sixties, seventy and eighty, included Perry Mason, The Colbys y Twin Peaksand worked with great directors of the time, such as John Huston o Don Siegel.
In turn, he developed a career as a singer, with more than three studio albums released in different decades.
Michael Parks como Earl en Kill Bill.When the old age already touched, young filmmakers in the nineties and two thousand, such as Quentin TarantinoRobert Rodríguez and Kevin Smiththey welcomed him, giving him some of his most recognized, always secondary roles.
That they speak.
The man who could be Brando
Josh Roushhis cast partner in Tusk, by Kevin Smith, wrote about Parks when he learned of his death on May 9, 2017.
«If I had cooperated with the study system, it could have been the biggest actor in history, but then I would have lost everything that made it Michael Parks,» he said.
He highlighted from him that he managed to overcome his name to the death of a brother for drowning and to live for years in floating houses after being excluded from the industry.
Parks in 2014. Adult worked with several referents of the new generations. Photo: APTarantino defined him as one of his usual favorite actors. «At The Came Bronson, Michael offered Brando style performances, the most natural interpretation I have seen on a television series,» the director told Variety. With him he acted in Kill Bill, Grindhouse and Django: without chains.
Smith recognized the joy he gave Tarantino to see Parks in a movie. This said about a screening of his film Red State: “Sitting drugged to watch the movie with Parks and Tarantino, Smith described the joy of the director of Pulp Fiction, saying: ‘It was fantastic that he was so involved in that movie because when you see it you can see its influence everywhere, number one, and number two, it is a tour of Michael Parks to force the performance, and Quentin was a great fan of Michael Parks’ ”.
None of them cared their grains.
