By Danny Bloom
CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Hollywood is a long way from Taiwan, but I like to keep in touch with the place via the Internet, and American movies are on Taiwanese TV movie channels all the time. But recently I came across a movie maven in California who knows more about Hollywood than perhaps anybody else Earth. Meet Stephen Schochet (pronounced ”show-het”).
Stephen is on a veritable roll and when you read his new book you’ll be rolling on the floor laughing at some of the stories he tells. He’s that good, and he’s that funny. Schochet is in a long line of Jewish storytellers, and he has worked for over 10 years as a tour guide in Los Angeles, collecting hundreds of Hollywood stoires and anecdotes — and jokes — to tell to tourists from home and abroad.
The book idea started when Stephen bagged a website with the domain name of ”hollywoodstories.com” and word began to spread. Now he’s out with a book titled, of course, “Hollywood Stories”, so I asked him if I could get a short interview with him by email and he graciously said yes.
When asked when he first fell in love with Hollywood legend and lore, Stephen told the San Diego Jewish World: “My earliest memory of being interested in behind the scenes lore was at the age of six, reading a National Geographic story about Walt Disney. The article mentioned him giving a tour of a the studio to a little girl; he described in great detail what his each of his employees did but seemed flustered when the girl asked him what his own specific duties were. That was the first time the creative process took on a mystery and curiosity for me.”
Did he himself ever want to be an actor or a director or a scriptwriter, I asked?
“The reason I became a tour guide was that I wanted to be a writer and got a job as a limo driver so I could write while I was waiting for the customers,” Stephen told us. “I wrote all sorts of things, but mainly short stories. Then I was asked to give tours, did a little research and just found it fascinating. Rather than just drive by and point at something I tried to share a little anecdote that I had picked up and it a got a great response. I decided to become a fulltime tour guide and my attitude was to make the tour as interesting as possible, so for a while the writing went on the back burner and the research took over.”
“When I first started I had a study buddy named Ivan,” Stephen told me, adding: “During our breaks we would research information about old Hollywood and share it with each other. I remember one time we met on Hollywood Boulevard and said to me in a low, conspiratorial tone,” Steve, man, you what I found out today? That Thomas Edison owned the rights to the movie camera and the early moguls like Mayer, Warner, and Zukor they had to pay him tributes. They why they left the East Coast and came west — they were outlaws, baby!” The more information we found out, the more fun it was to give the tour. And I’ve got a good memory for stories so having different material kept it fresh, I think for the customers as well. Anyway, eventually I had the idea that these very short anecdotes could be told anywhere and that’s what led, after a few other projects, to the idea for the book. Whatever thoughts I had about screenwriting were fleeting; I really kind of stayed in my niche.
So who are Stephen’s favorite movie stars of all time? When asked to name just a few, he told me: “George Burns, Sammy Davis Jr. and Spencer Tracy. The first two I met, so I am biased. While working for a limousine company, I once had the privilege of driving Sammy Davis Jr. who was totally warm and friendly to me. This was shortly before Davis’ death in 1990 at age 64, due to throat cancer. Just before Sammy came out of his Beverly Hills house, his security guard had told me this anecdote: He previously worked as a freelancer and protected several celebrity clients before breaking his leg. After
six weeks, the disabled employee got out of the hospital and approached his mailbox, dreading the prospect of unpaid bills. To his surprise, Sammy. and only Sammy. had never stopped sending him paychecks. He now worked for Davis exclusively, and his boss had never mentioned the very generous act. I noticed there was a plaque by Sammy’s front door that read: ‘This house welcomes anyone with peace, love and brotherhood in their hearts.’ The security man told me that if anyone came over the singer’s fence without those traits, he would shoot them dead.”
Favorite film directors? Stephen dished.
“Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra and then a lot of different people, it changes all the time. I like early Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, George Cukor. I’m not a big fan of Orson Welles movies but I love stories about him: In 1985, the last year of his life, 70-year-old Orson Welles was approached by a young man who wanted to ask him yet another question about ‘Citizen Kane’. The Wisconsin-born writer and director, who was often annoyed by repeating the same answers about his classic 1941 film, decided to be gracious. Sure Welles had spent most of his Hollywood career hustling and had never become rich doing so, but it was gratifying to be recognized for creating a masterpiece. His admirer surprised Orson with a query about the film’s famous opening scene. When Charles Foster Kane uttered the phrase ‘Rosebud,’ he was alone in his bedroom. A few moments later, his nurse came in and discovered him dead; how did the other characters in the movie know it was the newspaperman’s final word? Welles hesitated then pulled the fan close and whispered, ‘Promise you’ll never repeat what you just said to another living soul.’
Stephen also offered me a few anecdotes during our email interview.
“Before he signed his first contract with Warner Bros., tough-guy actor John Garfield battled with his potential boss Jack Warner not to have his name changed. The son of Abraham Warner wanted all his stars to have all-American personas. The actor was informed that his current name, Jules Garfinkle, was not acceptable. It was way too ethnic-sounding to make cinemagoers feel comfortable. Undiplomatically, Warner told his new prospective employee that if he wanted to work there from now on he would be called James Garfield. The 26-year-old street kid, from the Lower East Side in Manhattan, reacted fiercely. Did Mr. Warner realize that James Garfield was the name of a former president? It was ridiculous; people would laugh at him. Why not just rename him Abraham Lincoln? He was astonished when Warner told him. quite seriously. that the name ‘Abraham’ [in then name Abraham Lincoln] sounded way too Jewish, and the studio would never allow it.”
Before our online chat ended, Stephen told me one more anedcote.
“One time Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra were asked to perform at the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas with Leo the famous lion who roared at the beginning of movies,” he recalled. “They were assured it would be safe; the very old, very tame animal would be handled by a trainer with a choke chain. In the middle of the number, the lion looked at Sammy and licked its lips. The ‘King of the Beasts’ hunched back like it was going to leap for Sammy, and the 110-pound scared-to-death entertainer made the sign of the cross. The trainer yanked the chain and nothing happened. After the show, the two shaken singers went into the casino and had drinks and cigarettes at the blackjack table. Sinatra couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. He wondered why Davis, who years before had converted to Judaism, had made the Catholic religious gesture on stage. ‘Well babe, when that cat came at me, I didn’t think I’d have time to make the Star of David!’