THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 15, 1994 TAG: 9411150055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
``I came home after the first day of shooting and told my wife, `This has got to be the worst film of all times.' I literally said that. Unfortunately, I was prophetic.''
Gregory Walcott
IT WAS A FAVOR for a friend, and Gregory Walcott, being a decent guy, obliged. He wound up starring in ``Plan 9 From Outer Space.''
That friend, J. Edward Reynolds, had raised $30,000 and wanted to produce a movie. He asked Walcott - both attended First Baptist Church, Beverly Hills - to be leading man. Reynolds had no background in films, but Ed Wood, who was living in an apartment Reynolds was managing, did.
Sort of.
``Reynolds said I would co-star with Bela Lugosi,'' said Walcott, 66, a respected character actor who grew up in Wilson, N.C. ``I said, `Bela's dead.' He said, `We have some wonderful footage around him which this wonderful director will write scenes around.' ''
Wood's claims to fame were dubious. Among them, ``Jail Bait'' ``Bride of the Monster'' and his first film, ``Glen or Glenda,'' which has played at various times as ``He or She,'' ``I Changed My Sex,'' ``I Led Two Lives'' and ``The Transvestite.''
His 1956 project was ``Plan 9 From Outer Space.'' Walcott remembers the script. ``The most inane piece of writing I'd ever seen - abysmal. A kid could've done better.'' Still, he let Reynolds arrange a meeting with Wood, the subject of a recent movie by Tim Burton.
``He was a charming man,'' Walcott said from his home in Canoga Park, Calif. ``He talked about the great special effects. I accepted the role as a favor to Reynolds.''
As a favor to Walcott and Reynolds, Wood and several cast members were baptized. ``On the set, Wood was arrow-straight,'' Walcott said. ``I didn't even know he was a cross-dresser till 20 years later.''
In ``Plan 9,'' Walcott was dressed in pilot's garb, seated in a cockpit craftily separated from the rest of the plane by a shower curtain. After the first of the four days it took to make the movie, ``I realized I made a mistake,'' said Walcott, who was paid $200 a day. ``The corny-looking set looked like a sixth-grade attempt at a play - cardboard gravestones, hubcaps for flying saucers.''
Lugosi's scenes occupied only a few minutes. After his death, Wood hired his own chiropractor to finish his scenes, his face hidden by a cape. Between takes, the unbilled chiropractor went around the set ``offering to adjust peoples necks,'' said Walcott.
The screening was something of a pain in the neck, too, he recalled.
``I slunk down in my seat and hid when it was over. It was so bad, it was funny. About 20 years later, it became a cult film around the world. I see it's not going away so I'm having fun with it. It got so I laugh about it.''
Walcott, who recently talked about ``Plan 9'' with a British film crew, had worked with directors John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, and such stars as Alan Ladd and Gary Cooper. He was in ``Battle Cry'' and ``Mr. Roberts''; he co-starred with Claudette Colbert in ``Texas Lady'' and with Jayne Mansfield in her first screen test. His finest role was as the hard-nosed drill instructor in ``The Outsider,'' which starred Tony Curtis as Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian who helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima.
After ``Plan Nine,'' he wound up in B-movies but eventually hit it big on TV in ``Bat Masterson,'' ``Laramie'' and ``Wagon Train,'' his biggest break coming when he was cast as Detective Havilland in ``87th Precinct,'' one of television's finest police dramas.
Walcott later appeared in spaghetti Westerns and as the leading man in some zany Italian comedies. He appearance in the black comedy ``Prime Cut,'' with Gene Hackman, impressed Steven Spielberg, who hired him for ``Sugarland Express.''
That led to membership in Clint Eastwood's production company and bad-guy roles in ``Joe Kidd,'' ``The Eiger Sanction'' and ``Every Which Way But Loose.''
In 50 movies and more than 300 television shows, Walcott, married, father of three and grandfather of four, was never typecast. ``I played overly protective fathers, irascible old codgers, psychopathic mercenaries and mean dudes.''
He came out of retirement at Burton's request for a cameo as a reluctant investor in ``Ed Wood.''
``The movie took a lot of license with the truth, but it was meant to be funny and it is,'' Walcott said. ``It's well done, beautifully photographed. If Martin Landau doesn't get an Academy Award for his portrayal of Lugosi, there's no justice.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Wilson, N.C., native Gregory Walcott, second from right, starred in
``Plan 9 From Outer Space,'' calling it ``the most inane piece of
writing I'd ever seen - abysmal.''
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