Hollywood Stories Speaking Engagements are great entertainment!!
"On behalf of the
Rotary Club of Alhambra I would like to thank you for speaking to our
club; the stories and anecdotes you shared were very entertaining." --
Mark R. Paulson, Program Chair
Make your next
event a fun one with Stephen Schochet, "Hollywood's Ultimate
Storyteller". He is available to travel throughout the USA and can
tailor his vast material to suit your needs. Here are some samples of
the thousands of stories Stephen has collected over the
years:
The Universal
Maniac
In 1999, an Australian gentleman told me about an interesting
experience he and his family had at Universal Studios. They were on
the backlot tour passing one of the theme park’s main attractions,
the Bates Motel used in the 1960 horror classic Psycho, about a
murderous young man named Norman Bates who loved his mother a little too
much. As the guide gave out information about how director Alfred
Hitchcock shot the picture, a tall man, dressed in drag and carrying a
large knife, emerged from behind the old set and charged toward the
tram. The narrator seemed to know nothing about the Norman Bates
look-alike and clammed up completely. The make-believe killer wore such
a convincing maniacal expression that some of the paying customers
were frightened and screamed when he raised his weapon. Then the
“fiend” pulled off his wig and he turned out to be comic Jim
Carrey; the thirty-seven-year-old star was clowning around during a
work break. After his laughing “victims” calmed down, Jim was
happy to pose for pictures and sign autographs.
The Image-Conscious Terminator
Arnold Schwarzenegger was unsure if playing the title role in
the 1984 science fiction thriller The Terminator would be good for
his image. The future California governor was well aware that one of
his idols, former actor turned President Ronald Reagan, usually had
taken nice-guy roles. Did Arnold really want to risk his standing with
the public to portray a murderous robot with very little dialogue?
Schwarzenegger had a meeting with Mike Medavoy, the head of Orion
Pictures. “Listen Arnold, you should play a bad guy once. When I
was a kid I saw Richard Widmark as a killer in a movie called Kiss of
Death. He pushed an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs and
laughed like a maniac. I’m telling you people never forgot it. Be a
villain once, make an impact and then you can switch to heroic parts.”
Arnold agreed to sign onto the movie that would make him a
superstar. Medavoy never mentioned that in 1948, after Widmark did his
evil turn, some elderly ladies stopped the actor in the street and
slapped his face.
The Wildest
Guest
Longtime staff at the old Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles had
many candidates for the most outrageously behaved celebrity guest.
There were the hammy Barrymore brothers who always tried to outdo one
another; after the drunken John earned many stares for bringing his
pet monkey in the hotel’s famed Moroccan-style club, the Coconut
Grove, Lionel arrived there with seven chimps. Chaos erupted when the
well-dressed guests chased the animals as they swung through the paper
Mache trees. Then there was famed movie theater owner Sid Grauman who
told Charlie Chaplin that he found a dead body in his hotel bed. The
tramp fled in terror when Sid pulled back the blankets, not realizing
he was looking at a wax dummy covered in ketchup. But it was hard to
top the antics of actress Tallulah Bankhead who once called for room
service, answered the door in the buff and told the bell boy no
tip; she had nothing on her.
Marlene’s Wartime Regret
Marlene Dietrich found her true calling entertaining the Allied
troops in 1943. The forty-two-year-old actress, who never enjoyed
making movies, got a crash course in how to talk to audiences. Nothing
could be tougher or more fulfilling than performing in front of young
men who might die in battle the next day. The Berlin-born American
citizen overcame suspicions that she was actually an Axis spy, and was
proud of spurning Hitler’s request to return to Germany. After World
War II ended, she enjoyed being a lusty cabaret singer for many years
and tried never to take herself too seriously. Marlene, whose long
list of romances ranged from John Wayne to General Patton, once
mentioned to her husband that she should have married Hitler back in
the thirties, and then there would have been no war. She laughed when
he agreed and stated that the Fuhrer would have killed himself much
sooner.
We Don’t Want a
Hit
Executives at United Artists Studio were unimpressed viewing the
initial footage of Sean Connery playing James Bond in the 1962 spy
thriller Dr. No. The thirty-two-year-old Scottish actor, whose
receding hairline was carefully hidden by a toupee, seemed to change
his accent in almost every scene. Sure, the former Mr. Universe
runner-up was a formidable presence, but did Connery have the
sophistication to play the suave super spy 007, a role originally
meant for Cary Grant? The studio kept the completed film on the shelf
for many months before releasing it in England where it was a smash.
Well, it had to be a fluke; Bond was English, after all. Six months
later, they released it in the USA where it did great again. Dr.
No led to a hugely successful James Bond franchise and made Sean
Connery an international star. It failed only in Japan, where
movie-theater owners translated Dr. No to read, “We don’t want a
doctor!”
Walt Disney’s
Daughters
Walt Disney’s two daughters, Sharon and Diane, grew up
sheltered from the limelight. The children had no images of Mickey
Mouse around their home. Their father didn’t go to many parties,
preferring to stay in after a long day of work. Sometimes he would
playfully chase the youngsters upstairs, cackling like the evil
peddler woman in Snow White. When they behaved badly, Walt would
admonish them with a raised eyebrow; his stern demeanor inspired the
character of the wise old owl, in the 1942 animated feature Bambi. As
toddlers, the brainy Diane and beautiful Sharon stayed blissfully
unaware that their parents worried about them being kidnapped and
allowed no pictures of the sisters to be publicly circulated. Once in
1939, a curious classmate questioned six-year-old Diane about her
family. She went home and said, “Daddy, you never told me you were
that Walt Disney,” and asked him for an autograph.
Fees vary depending on the event and
travel time. Please check out the Hollywood Stories' YouTube channel for more samples of
Stephen's storytelling.
"Probably one of the most entertaining
and knowledgeable guests in regards to the movies."
Joe Mazza, King Of Late Night Radio, the
Genesis Radio Network
"The best storyteller about Hollywood
we've ever heard!"
Tim Sika, Celluoid Dreams, KSJS Radio San Jose, CA
|
