Actor George Stove just sent over a photo of him with me and John Waters that evoked some old memories of the making of "Polyester."
The photo — with John (middle), me as line producer (front) and George — was taken in the basement of the Heavitree Hill home in suburban Baltimore that was Divine’s “home” in the movie.
The basement served as the low-budget film’s green room, make-up station, break room, conference room and production office.
Notice the coffee maker and church-supper sized cans of cheap coffee share the line-producer’s desk.
Also note the old white Canon calculator on the desk, which appears to be the focus of our attention.
I still have the black notebook that my elbow is resting on, which has about 2 inches of lined paper filled with scribbled to-do lists, phone numbers, schedules, budgets and all the other stuff that occupies line producers. A true artifact that I actually use fairly regularly.
Waters, wearing an uncharacteristic blue cable-knit Baltimore-preppy sweater, appears ready to spring out of the chair but has a fairly calm look on his face. George watches intently over John's shoulder.
Since these were pre-computer days, we were probably looking at the five-panel production scheduling board figuring out how to deal with a change due to bad weather, need to re-shoot a scene or an actor being unavailable.
Thanks, George, bringing back a bit of the old days.
