Back in the day, when I was an aspiring actor, I scored a gig at the Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY. Lena’s had become a hot spot for folk singers like Bob Dylan, Arlo (Alice’s Restaurant) Guthrie, and a Jewish lad from Brooklyn who had taken on the moniker “Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.”
I didn’t cross paths with Jack in Saratoga, but a couple of years later, while working in a theater in San Francisco, I bumped into Will Geer (Grandpa in The Waltons). I asked Will if he would act in a film I was fixing to make. He said he had other obligations, but he suggested that I call a friend of his named “Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.”
I called Jack and struggled to explain my half-assed, modern-day cowboy adventure. “I’ll be there,” he said matter-of-factly without hesitation. And true to his word, he promptly showed up the next day in his humble camper with no expectations of the star treatment he deserved. The setting for the movie we were about to make was a few acres of land in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains with a burnt-out ranch house and a couple of welcoming swimming holes. Also, thirty to forty music-loving hippies with their sleeping bags volunteered to come along on the adventure. Turns out Jack was the glue that held the whole project together. Night after summer night, in front of a blazing campfire, Jack strummed his guitar and regaled his captive listeners with tales of a wandering minstrel.
Even more helpful, Jack and several of his now acolytes recognized I was struggling with writer’s block, and they began tossing me ideas. One night, after a fitful sleep under a starry sky, I awoke to find that these well-wishers had constructed a big cannon out of rusty pieces of farm junk. It became the MacGuffin or the cornerstone of the eclectic plot.
Not only did Jack help build the cannon but he sang what ultimately became the theme song of the movie “GOLD”—”All That Glitters Is Not...”
Thank you, Jack.
You are a friend of mine.
Sincerely, Bob Levis/homunculus.us
