There are Worst Things I could Have Done

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Farrah was not. She was at the height of her celebrity, but she couldn't act and it didn't matter. She had great teeth and nipples that stood up on cue for the scene where she first meets Burt. You couldn't take your eyes off them...sorry...her.

It rained hard the first week of production. We were doing a scene at the beginning of the movie, working outdoors at night with all the cars lined up to begin the race. Hal called action, and we started for our places. Two of the actors were just feet away from the car they were driving when the huge crane that held a gigantic "moon" light above us sunk into the rain-soaked mud and sliced the car in half. If Hal had spoken a minute sooner, they would have been dead. The car was a classic. A Cobra. The last one off the assembly line before the company stopped making them. The owner was in tears.

We moved from Atlanta to Lancaster, California. The desert. Roger Moore showed up on the set in his all-white suit, playing a knock off James Bond character named Seymour Goldfarb, Jr. He spent the day doing stunts in the dirt, and I swear to God that suit was as white when he finished as when he started. He just looked absolutely perfect.

Author's famous poster, now the cover of her book, outsold all others in the late 1970s, including Farrah's.

Actually that was the only good part of the movie for me. Meeting Roger Moore and Dean Martin. Dean was a sweetheart of a man who never said one line of dialogue the way it was written. Forget getting a cue from him so you could deliver the right line. He simply went his merry way, making stuff up as it came into his head. He was so delightful it didn't matter. Roger, on the other hand, was very professional. He was also breathtakingly handsome and witty and charming. And clean. I was star struck. The air conditioner in his trailer broke, and he came to mine to hang out. I was dumbstruck, too. I couldn't believe I had Roger Moore all to myself, and all I could think to talk about was the poor education in California schools. The Spandex jumpsuit should have helped, but it didn't. He was very gracious and chatty, but for all the interest he paid in me, I could have been wearing sackcloth. 

From Lancaster we went to Las Vegas. Sammy Davis, Jr. had a party in his suite and was afraid no one would come. He invited me four times, and I was happy to attend, but the desperation in his voice didn't give me much option anyway. I didn't want to let him down. Obviously I wasn't the only one with insecurities.

It was in Las Vegas that a second accident took place. This one much grimmer. I wasn't working that day. I was in the hotel when Valerie Perrine found me to tell me what had happened. An Aston-Martin, doubling for the one Roger Moore drove in the race, had been switched from a left-hand drive to a right-hand drive at the last minute, and no one had allowed time to install seat belts. They were "losing the light" and in a hurry to get the shot. For the stunt, the car was going 60 miles an hour and heading straight for a van coming from the opposite direction. The stunt man driving the Aston-Martin was supposed to veer off at the last minute. Instead, the steering column locked and he crashed into the van. He and another stunt man had minor injuries, but Heidi Von Beltz, a beautiful model, actress, and stuntwoman who had just gotten engaged to the stunt co-coordinator, was riding in the passenger seat, doubling the actress playing Roger's girlfriend. Her neck was broken.

We kept on filming. The final scenes were in Redondo Beach. By that time, we knew Heidi was paralyzed from the neck down. Today Heidi is the founder of the Follow Your Heart Foundation for people with severe neuromuscular disorders, and she has written a book about her path to recovery, My Soul Purpose. She can stand unassisted and is learning to walk. But at that time, her doctors told her she would never move again and would die within five years. When people ask if I had a good time making The Cannonball Run, all I think about is that accident.

The movie got terrible reviews:

• "...a crappy movie made by actors who seem to forget they are on camera...it has a complete lack of respect for its viewers."
• "A movie that should have crashed at the starting line."
• "AAA calculates better road trips."

Farrah won a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress of 1982 for her performance. But it made money, and people loved it. Fans still come up to tell me it's their favorite movie of all time. I met a professor who did his master's thesis on it because he loved it so much. And the people who think it's funny are certain I must have had the time of my life filming it.

Well...no... but I did get to meet Roger Moore.