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Polly Platt: Career is a Long and Winding Road
by J'Amy Pacheco
(June 2000) |
Search Yahoo.com for information about Polly Platt, and you'll get a pair of credits: one for writing, another for acting.
Spend an afternoon with Polly Platt, and you'll find there's much, much more. You'll find a resume both long and varied, and behind it, you'll find a fascinating woman who seems surprised to find that anyone is interested in her career.
Chances are, you may even come away feeling like you've gone back in time for a spell, to days of heady creativity when people like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich -- and Polly Platt were just getting started.
Speaking to the Scriptwriters Network June 10, Platt recalled "falling in love with American things" through the American films she watched while growing up in post-war Germany.
"It never occurred to me that I would work in film," she said.
But work in film is exactly what Platt has done, in an astonishing variety of roles.
Platt's writing credits include Pretty Baby, the film that made Brooke Shields a household name; Lieberman in Love, and most recently, A Map of the World.
She is also credited as production designer on a number of films, including Witches of Eastwick, Terms of Endearment, Paper Moon, A Star is Born and The Last Picture Show.
Her producing credits include The Evening Star, Say Anything, War of the Roses and Broadcast News.
As if that weren't enough, she has acting credits, and one for costume design. And once, she even did sound for Orson Welles.
She earned an Academy Award nomination for her work as art director on Terms of Endearment. A decade later, Women in Film honored Platt with the organization's Crystal Award.
Platt's voyage into filmmaking began when she came to the United States at the age of 15. Her mother did a season of summer stock in George Bernard Shaw's play, "Arms and the Man," and Platt accompanied her to the theater.
She recalled seeing costumed actors outside the theater taking cigarette breaks, and realizing for the first time that the characters in movies were actually portrayed by real people.
"As a young woman, I guess I thought they were celluloid," she admitted. "I had no idea."
She decided that she wanted to be a part of "this theater thing," and eventually majored in the subject at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
After graduation, she went to New York, where, because of her drawing and sewing skills, she was "immediately pushed" into costume design.
"Little did I know how valuable that would be later in life," she said.
She got a job working off-Broadway, and met a young director by the name of Peter Bogdanovich.
They did a play together, which Platt confessed was a "total flop." But they shared an interest in film, fell in love, and after having some articles published in film magazines, decided to head for Hollywood.
On a "wing and a prayer," Platt and Bogdanovich hit the road in an "ancient Ford convertible with a cracked block."
In what Platt recalled as pure luck, the aspiring filmmakers found themselves sitting in front of Roger Corman in a movie theater. They talked, and Corman, who had given Scorsese his start, ended up going for coffee with the pair.
"We were erudite and knowledgeable," Platt recalled, "and he offered us $5,000 to ghost write a picture called Wild Angels."
They rewrote the movie, which starred Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra, in 21 days.
But the opportunity presented more than a chance to jump-start a writing career. Platt, who didn't know it at the time, began to fill the role of a producer.
She scouted locations, doubled for Sinatra, and with Bogdanovich, filmed a chase sequence. They cut the sequence in the kitchen of their San Fernando Valley home.
"It really was an amazing education," Platt said.
Corman next offered the pair the opportunity to write an original film. Platt described the script they came up with as "very ambitious," and said Bogdanovich is "still trying to get it made."
They wrote another script and made a "wonderful little movie" with Boris Karloff for $128,000. The movie, Targets, was sold to Paramount.
"That put us on the map," Platt recalled. "Our careers took off."
Actor Sal Mineo gave Platt a copy of Larry McMurtry's novel, The Last Picture Show, and Platt realized it would make a "wonderful movie."
Bogdanovich directed, and "became huge." He also left Platt for Cybill Shepherd.
Platt's phone stopped ringing.
Realizing she had little chance of a career otherwise, she agreed to work with Bogdanovich on What's Up Doc and Paper Moon. After the two films, she again started to get offers of work on "lots of really interesting films."
Platt admits that her career has been "crazy," but described herself as fortunate to have been able to work in so many areas of film. Her varied background has taught her to never "look down" on anyone who works in low-budget films, she said.
In fact, when starting out in the industry, Platt advised aspiring filmmakers to "take anything."
Her career took another unusual twist when she was asked to program the movie block for Oxygen, a start-up television network for women.
She learned several lessons; one of which was that there were a startling number of movies she still had not seen.
Another was that it would cost $250,000 for the network to show Pretty Baby -- not a dime of which would ever end up in the writer's pocket.
"It's not good for writers to know that much about the business, unless you're [author John] Grisham," she quipped.
Platt is an author herself, and has a book coming out on director Henry Hathaway. She is also working on her second draft of an adaptation of Kay Redfield Jamison's book, "An Unquiet Mind." While some writers rejected the project as "depressing," Platt said she found it "inspirational."
Writing, she admitted, is difficult, and her current project threatens to "bring me to my knees."
Before taking on a project, Platt said she looks to see if the project "speaks to her." Even while writing a script, her years of production intrude.
Car scenes, for example, are "a nightmare" that she avoids whenever possible. She also looks at children, boats and water as self-imposed production "no-nos."
But she is quick to encourage writers to "forget everything" when writing their own scripts.
"Never worry about money when you write," she said. "hen writing, you can spend all the money, and you should. Never think about budget; you only get that one chance."
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