I had only acted on camera in a couple of TV shows and commercials, so all of this-the process of making movies-was totally new and absolutely fascinating. JACK ANGEL, son of a Greek immigrant, reinvented himself many times-from a poor student to a college graduate; from enlisted man to officer in the army during the Korean War, attending Army Ranger School; and from an eighteen-year career in radio as one of the nation's top disc jockeys to a career as a Hollywood actor concentrating on voice-overs. Going to Hollywood allowed him to really hit his stride, and he found himself working on animation projects for the Walt Disney Co. Pixar Studios, Marvel, Hanna/Barbera, Fox, and several others. In this memoir, Angel recalls his adventures in this informative, funny, and insightful view of Hollywood and the entertainment business. A few highlights include his interactions with director Steven Spielberg and John Lasseter, the creative head of Pixar Studios. He also spent three years as a promo announcer with The Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson. He pays homage to his father, who came to America in the early twentieth century, became famous as the Bean King in Central California, and survived the Great Depression while raising three sons. Jack Angel's life story is not only a tale of personal reinvention, but also an uplift ing American Dream story that spans a hundred years.
The Book of Jack
By Jack AngelAbbott Press
Copyright © 2012 Jack Angel
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4582-0389-2Chapter One
It was the turn of the century. The year 2000! Y2K. The whole world was excited about the new century—a new beginning. Things were going to be different. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to the changes. I was as well, even when some would-be techno-wizards hypothesized that all the computers in the world would stop working precisely at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1999. That would have been a change worth experiencing. The devilish little imp who resides in the dark behind my eyes was disappointed when it didn't happen.
I would turn seventy soon, and seventy is a multiple of seven. Ever since I read Passages by Gail Sheehy, I knew I was in for some major shifts in my life and career. Sheehy was dead-on about things happening in seven-year cycles. I went into the army at twenty-one; I was married at twenty-eight and broke into radio as a disc jockey that same year. Got divorced at forty-nine, and my radio career changed for the better in roughly seven-year increments. So I was ready for the next one. And sure enough, I was cast as the voice of Teddy in Steven Spielberg's movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
I had worked for Steven doing voice-overs on several previous occasions but had never met him. I performed a few incidental voices on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a full-length animated feature film. I did three voices on his animated TV show Family Dog, which was the first animated episode of his TV series Amazing Stories. When his British company produced Balto, I played the part of Nikki, an animated sled dog that was one of three dogs who provided comic relief. For that, he flew my wife, Arlene, and me, and a couple of actors named Danny Mann and Robbie Rist, to London—not once but twice. Somebody apparently didn't get it right the first time. And in the production of Hook, during the fight scenes between the pirates and the Lost Boys, it turned out there were no audible grunts, oofs, and ouches as one might expect—particularly if you had grown up watching American cartoons. So a group of British actors and I went onto a soundstage at Todd-AO Studios and did what can only be described as oof-overs.
I even did a job for Steven's DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg when The Prince of Egypt was being animated. The animators generally take a few years to finish a feature-length film, and sometimes the investors putting up the money get a little antsy. The backers needed to see something of what the show was going to look like, so a few other voice actors and I went onto a big soundstage and voiced a short segment.
But Teddy was different. Teddy was to be a major character in a huge Spielberg-directed feature film that had been given to Steven by Stanley Kubrick's wife after Kubrick unexpectedly died. I felt this one could wind up being another monster hit like E.T.
Teddy was a robot toy—a two-foot-two-inch-tall teddy bear. Steven's wife, Kate Capshaw, told me they had listened to over one hundred audition tapes before they heard mine, and as soon as they heard my voice they knew I was the one.
I drove through the main gate at Warner Bros. Studio on Barham Boulevard in Burbank, and suddenly I developed a case of nerves. Butterflies! How ridiculous, I told myself. It was just another job, and I had done hundreds over the years since reinventing myself after eighteen years as a disc jockey. But it wasn't really just another job. In this one, I would actually meet Steven Spielberg face to face for the first time and work directly with him on the set—truly every actor's dream.
I had a drive-on. That is, I had a pass so I could drive onto the lot, and a parking spot next to my trailer. I had a trailer. Damn! I parked my Mercedes SL500 in the assigned spot and enjoyed the moment with a smile.
I walked onto a huge soundstage at Warner Bros. and was escorted into a room where sat Steven Spielberg; child actor Haley Joel Osment; Haley's father, Eugene; Jeffrey Katzenberg; and the two producers of A.I.: Kathleen Kennedy and Bonnie Curtis.
"Steven, this is Jack Angel," someone said.
Steven's face lit up as he extended his hand and said it was nice to meet me. It was as if he had clicked on the high beams, as his eyes sparkled with unusual intensity. That was just a precursor of coming events over the next three months.
I said, "Well, if that's you, and I'm standing here, this must all be real."
Everyone laughed. I suppose at some point in their own lives they had all had that same feeling when meeting show-business royalty.
Steven then introduced me to Haley and Eugene.
When Haley's movie The Sixth Sense was in theaters, my neighbors, along with several other people, insisted that I see the movie. They said, "The kid looks just like you!"
So now I said, "Haley, everyone says we look alike. Now personally, I think you're a gorgeous kid, but if what they say is true, you're gonna wind up looking like this," I said as I pointed to my face. Everyone laughed.
Steven jumped in quickly and said, "Well, let's see. Jack, say, `I see dead people.'"
Again, everyone laughed.
After a bit more small talk, I was escorted to the Warner Bros. postproduction soundstage to record my lines. Since Teddy was a talking computer toy, all his lines would be fed into him through a computer, and I had to record all of his lines wild—out of context. Steven said, "Just do what you did in your audition. That was great." The specs given on the audition copy were for a deep voice, much like the voice of Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, but Teddy was not to sound dumb.
There were about two pages of Teddy dialogue, and we added grunts, yawns, snores, and other assorted noises that we thought the bear might make in the course of the movie. The whole session lasted no more than an hour.
In the script, if anyone referred to him as a "super toy," Teddy insisted rather emphatically, "I am not a toy." So when I snored, and then as Teddy awoke, I made him say, as if he were waking up from a bad dream, "I am not a toy."
Everyone seemed delighted with the ad-lib. When Steven heard it, he thought it was so funny that he actually made a scene of Teddy waking up and saying the line. Unfortunately, as happened to so many scenes that were shot, it only made it as far as the cutting-room floor.
Since all the lines were recorded without direction, I was really just flying blind as to how to deliver them. Steven said he wanted me on the set every day so that when any particular scene was scheduled to be shot, I'd be there in case a line had to be rerecorded in the proper context. And I was happy to be there. Did I say happy? Let's face it: I was thrilled. I ended up being on the set every day for three months, whether on the Warner Bros. lot or on location. I had my own trailer and pretty much nothing to do except watch the show. That is, watch the master moviemaker at work.
Chapter Two
There is much more to the story of Steven and me, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Book of Jack actually has its genesis about a hundred years earlier. Steven Spielberg in some ways reminded me of my father. Steven was younger than I, of course, but grayer and wiser, as if he had lived much longer. (The director on a movie set is the father figure, and many of them regard themselves as gods.)
During that great mass exodus of Europeans from their various homelands to...
