Guest Post by Anne M. Strick on How Movies are Made

Guest Post by Anne M. Strick on How Movies are Made

THE REBEL PRINCESS

THE REBEL PRINCESS is not only the inside scoop on how movies are really made.  It’s also – to a degree – about some of the real people I’ve known - the actors, directors and producers I’ve worked with in my over-twenty years behind the screen in the film business. And its steam - which I’m told sometimes rivals that of SHDES OF GRAY - is the real thing.  With a touch of dramatic license.

   

Can you guess who some of the book’s characters are? The actress Lisa Greaves? Parker Howe?  Bill Landsbergis, the director?  I confess I modeled Davrena, the book’s protagonist, after the producer whose enthusiastic blurb is on THE REBEL PRINCESS’ back cover. I made six movies with her.

    

The accompanying photos are from four of them: TAI-PAN,  DRAGON - THE BFUCE LEE STORY, CONAN THE DESTROYER  and DUNE.  TAI-PAN was done in China; DRAGON in Hong Kong and Macau; and CONAN and DUNE, both in Mexico. That’s me, in costume on TAI-PAN, commandeered as an extra.  And that’s me, barely discernible on the camera platform, filming DRAGON.  The gag shot with Arnold and Wilt was made on CONAN.  And with Sting, on DUN.E

The Arnold and Sting gag photos were the whim of Time magazine’s renowned Dirck Halstad, with whom I’d become buddies on the movie GREYSTOKE.  It amused him to play a little at the end of a work day.  I felt just as silly in the Sting shot, as I look - with the costumed villains (Kenneth McMillan and Paul Smith also) in perfect character  -and I not knowing what to do!