Cinema Canada (Jan-Feb 1981)

Lawrence Productions where he became an assistant producer/director on ‘the television show Far Away Places with John Trent and Allan Cullenmore. “I was all of twenty at the time and I said, this is it; I want to go into the big time now,” he recalls. ‘ So, off he went with an aspiring actor friend of his and bought a one-way ticket to Rome where all the big productions were being made at that time. They landed in Naples aboard the Leonardo da Vinci and immediately got jobs as extras in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor. On to Sicily next and Viscontis The Leopard, followed by more work in Spain in Nicholas Ray’s 55 Days at Peking. At the end of a year’s work in Portugal on a Walt Disney movie, Young found himself with $10,000 worth of travellers’ cheques and a new wardrobe. At that moment he decided to be an actor — and packed his bags for Hollywood. A pit stop in Las Wegas cost him $9,000 which meant he had to make some money — fast. Six months in Hollywood yielded one job, a spot on the last episode of The Untouchables. Out of money, Young returned home to Toronto “C.O.D.” Calls came through for work in Spain and England before he returned to Toronto again where he played in the soap opera Moment of Truth. At the time, the producer, John Trent, was also casting the lead for Seaway, a Canadian adventure series. Young got the part. Seaway gave him national exposure and after the series ended, the offers started to roll in. Young decided on Judd for the Defence, an American courtroom drama series in which he co-starred with the late Carl Betz. “And that’s the way it all came about,” Young offers with wide-eyed wonder, which nevertheless seems clouded by a sense of disappointment; for the business has changed since he first started out. “It’s very much down to the dollars and cents now, which it was in the past too, but there was more showbusiness then.” And, to make a living as an actor, he’s had to compromise. He finds episodic television “too mundane and structured...it caters to the lowest common denominator.” Young's attitude about it all has been less torturous to him sirice he went through what he calls “male menopause” when he turned thirty. After both good and bad years there was a point when he wanted to give it all up. He found himself doing things that didn’t interest him anymore and the whole film business seemed “very silly’ to him. “In a lot of ways it still does but it doesn’t effect me anymore. | understand the business now and it doesn’t bother me. The animosity is gone; everything is in perspective.” As for the future of the Canadian film industry, he believes it is in the hands of people like producers Garth Drabinsky and Henry Less. “They are exciting, fresh blood in an industry that has never had any. They're the ones who are going to make this country go, who have made it go in the film business, and that’s what we need. These people are winners; they're aggressive. They are tuned into the fact that to create an industry here, we have to make a product that is going to be viewed by the rest of the world and not just by people in a certain area of town. We're starting to do this now. This year we had several films picked up by distributors in the United States, for example — Meatballs, The Changeling and The Silent Partner. “In terms of. the percentage of what we're getting, we are still a small entity out « there in the world market. Although we've done very well in the last year, it’s going to bea big problem maintaining our successful movie-making; we don’t have the necessary studios and we have to keep tax shelters to protect the qualified producers and projects by keeping them funded. “But everything goes through -rowing pains. We have finally broken i.irough and we are going to have an industry here Erratum. In the last issue of Cinema Canada two errors were made in the In Progress report on Threshold: Jon Slan should have shared the producer's credit with Michael Burns; and, the director's name is correctly spelled Richard Pearce as it appeared in the credits, not “Pierce” as it ran in the article. Our apologies. even when film production isn’t running as heavily as it has been this past year. We've learned a hell of alot — what it is to package a film properly, the elements needed for distribution and how far our crafts people and talent can stretch. Now! think our television industry is going to _ improve next.” Youngs opfimistic comments are genuine, but he warns against the illeffects that too many smug complaints by ACTRA and other unions, against the use of foreign talent in Canada, may have on the film business here. “We are still growing, a point I hope we don't lose sight of. We still need expertise from other areas of the world such as Hollywood and Europe to develop our potential. We can’t cut that off, or we’d be cutting off our nose to spite our face. It always comes down to the fact that a million-dollar-plus budget depending on pre-sales needs justifying with big names. Investors ask, who is the exposed talent? Canadian names alone won't make it fly for the rest of the world.” What lies in the future for Stephen Young? He has just completed a pilot for a children’s game show at the CFTO studios in Agincourt, and movie audiences will see him star in the low-budget, Canadian, “anti-horror’ horror film Deadline (working title: Anatomy of a Horror) still to be released. After successfully co-producing (with Joel B. Michaels and Garth Drabinsky) The Silent Partner, which won an Etrog for best picture in 1979, Youngis currently developing two new projects which he hopes to produce in Canada. One is a remake of an old Hollywood comedy; the other is an original idea dealing with business, particularly, the sales-oriented pitch man. Another of Young's main interests these days lies in broadcasting, either in news or sports reporting, or in hosting a talk show. He’s had a taste of the latter, when occasionally guesthosting the Alan Hamel Show. He wouldn’t even mind doing another television series if it allowed him to travel across the country like Seaway did. Despite his statement that “the kind of work available for 95% of the actors out there is crap,” Young is quick to emphasize that there are also big pluses to being an actor. he. mentions only one — no mandatory retirement age — before go _ing on to say that, to have any longevity as an actor, one must try to make the acting secondary in life and get on with the process of living. In part, it is this philosophy that has enabled Young to come to terms with the business he has been devoted to for twenty years. Connie Filletti Cinema Canada/39