A ‘BIG BRASS RING’ THAT ELUDED WELLES’ GRASP

“The Big Brass Ring” (1982, directed and written by Orson Welles.) Orson Welles’ last film, a passionate examination of the American Dream as revealed through the relationship between an expatriated New Deal liberal (Welles) and his protege (name of superstar) who is about to run for President, is the perfect bookend for a career that began with the 1941 masterpiece “Citizen Kane.”

That paragraph would have made a nice insertion in Steven Scheuer’s annual “Movies on TV” guide. If Welles’ life had been a movie script, his career would have ended with a classic.

The problem is, “The Big Brass Ring” was never made. Welles, who died Thursday at 70, wrote it. Producer Arnan Milchan said he’d put up the $8 million needed to make it. Several studios said they’d distribute it. And Welles, in an evening of sublime optimism five years ago, ordered several magnums of Cristal champagne at Ma Maison and toasted it.

But then, one by one, the seven major American stars Welles approached about playing his protege--a job that would have paid $2 million for eight weeks of work--turned him down.

“We needed one major star to get the movie made,” says Henry Jaglom, 44, Welles’ close friend and partner for the last few years. “It never dawned on us that we couldn’t get one. Everyone had expressed this great hope that they would someday work with Orson. Then they got the chance and said, ‘No.’

“They hurt him very badly,” Jaglom says. “In the 15 years I knew him, that hurt him more than anything.”

Jaglom, who says he tape-recorded every extended conversation he had with Welles during the last six years, won’t name the seven actors, but he says he has careful notes of the reasons each one gave.

--One thought that the homosexual subtext of the story (the mentor, to be played by Welles, was homosexual) would be bad for his image.

--One said he couldn’t work for less than $4 million, his going fee, lest word get around that he had reduced his price.

--One said he would do it only if he could rewrite Welles’ script, produce the film and have final cut.

--One admitted that he had political ambitions of his own and didn’t want to play a part that might connect him with views different from his own.

--One said the script was too left-wing.

--One said he didn’t understand the script.

--And one had his agent respond, with this message: “(The star) is sorry but he’s busy for the next four years doing real movies.”

Jaglom is angrier now than he was three years ago when “The Big Brass Ring” fell through. He says in the days since Welles’ death, he’s seen four of the Not-So-Magnificent Seven mourning Welles on television and attacking Hollywood for turning its back on him.

“They were the ones who turned their backs on him,” says Jaglom. “Orson understood why studios never wanted to finance his movies. He knew his name didn’t guarantee them a profit. But he never understood how people who wanted to be his friend, who talked publicly about how great he is, wouldn’t help him when they had a chance.”

Jaglom says he started taping his lunches and meetings with Welles because no one had ever got on record Welles’ feelings about his films and his career. But Welles finally relented and cooperated on a biography with writer Barbara Leaming, and Jaglom says he now has no plans to do anything with the tapes.

Neither will anyone else be given a chance to direct “The Big Brass Ring,” says Jaglom.

“It’s an Orson Welles film,” he says. “I’m going to have it published. It’s a masterpiece and people should have a chance to read it. But no one else could make it.”

Jaglom says Welles overcame years of insecurity to write the “Brass Ring” script, and was rejuvenated by the process. When Arnan Milchan agreed to finance it, Jaglom says he and Welles went to Ma Maison (where Welles had a table that is still treated like a shrine) and celebrated.

“We were jubilant. There was just no doubt then that he would have his film,” Jaglom says. “I hadn’t seen him that excited before.”

Milchan, who has financed other big-name directors with commercially difficult projects (Martin Scorsese’s “King of Comedy,” Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America,” and Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”), says he was eager to back “The Big Brass Ring.”

“I thought it was a wonderful story,” Milchan says. “I wasn’t aware of any bad-mouthing of Welles (the rap that he made only experimental films). To me, he was just one of the greatest film makers. I wanted to work with him.”

Jaglom says Milchan was not among the parade of producers, studio execs and stars for whom Welles gave what he called his “Dancing Bear act.”

“Everyone wanted to be around him, so they’d ask him for a business meeting without any intention of offering him any business. Orson laughed about it. He’d say, ‘I’m going to do my Dancing Bear Act.’ He’d tell them stories for a while, then say, ‘Let’s talk business.’ They’d get his hopes up and say, ‘We’ll get back to you next week.’

“Orson just sighed one day and said, ‘If you knew how many next weeks there have been in the last 15 years. . . .’ ”

Jaglom is now editing what will be Welles’ last film as an actor. “Is It You?” is Jaglom’s autobiographical companion piece to “Always,” which opened to good reviews in Los Angeles two weeks ago. “Is It You?” is about a film director who invites all of his lonely friends to spend Valentine’s Day with him in an old theater (actually, the Mayfair in Santa Monica).

Once in the theater, each one is asked to explain his or her loneliness while a camera crew films them.

Jaglom plays the film director and Welles, who worked for minimum actor’s scale, plays his mentor--which was their relationship in real life. At the end, Jaglom says, Welles invented a speech that summed up not only this particular film, but his attitude about life in general.

“He said, ‘We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendships can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”

Sadly, says Jaglom, for Welles, the love and friendships he counted on were illusions themselves.

DIFFERENT DRUMMERS: The Screen Actors Guild will take a look at several Pro-Peace TV commercials today and decide how many of the SAG members who appear in the commercials will have to be paid for their services.

Pro-Peace communications director Howard Cushnir says although more than 50 actors were among the pre-march crowd of 1,000 filmed at Woodley Park in Van Nuys on Oct. 5, only about 20 qualify as principal actors by SAG standards. For each of those, Pro-Peace will have to pay $333.25, plus 11% of the total payroll to SAG’s benefits funds.

“We’re getting calls right and left (from SAG particpants) saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll donate the proceeds back to you,’ ” says Cushnir, who organized the commercial and then got caught in an election-eve crossfire between conservative and liberal factions of the guild. (See Labor column by Harry Bernstein in Business, Part IV, Page 1.)

SAG does not grant salary waivers for actors wishing to perform for political candidates or causes, says guild spokesman Stephen Waddell. When it was learned that Pro-Peace had filmed the commercial without a waiver, members of the dissident Actors Working for an Actors Guild forced the issue and the SAG executive committee ultimately rejected a waiver.

But Pro-Peace seems to be getting the last laugh out of the brouhaha. If Pro-Peace has to pay 20 actors and the 20 actors donate their fees to the cause, the SAG squabble will cost Pro-Peace about $730. It’s the publicity bargain of the year.

“A month ago, we couldn’t have bought a fight with SAG,” says Cushnir, “and we could hardly get a mention in Variety (the show-business trade paper). Two days after the commercial, there we are on the front page. This thing had nothing to do with us and everything to do with SAG . . . but one thing is certain. As a result of the controversy in the guild, everyone in Hollywood knows about Pro-Peace.”

Cushnir says Pro-Peace ended up with five different commercials, made with about $25,000 worth of donated professional services (from Panavision cameras to Art’s Deli lunches), and all of them will get a free satellite ride to 650 TV stations across the country next week.

Pro Video News Service, a Los Angeles-based company that feeds news and public service announcements to TV stations via Telstar 301, has donated four minutes of its satellite time to Pro-Peace. With SAG having piqued interest, many news editors may use the spots for news first, then turn them over to their public-service departments.

“We weren’t arguing the issue, or fighting,” says Cushnir, of the Great Waiver Crisis. “We just did whatever SAG told us to do. We aren’t mad at anybody.”

RISING SON: Emilio Estevez, the 23-year-old son of Martin Sheen, has been signed by David Begelman’s Gladden Entertainment to direct and star in “Wisdom,” a contemporary drama from Estevez’s original script.

Estevez, the busiest of Hollywood’s so-called Brat Pack, has appeared in “The Breakfast Club” and “St. Elmo’s Fire” and just completed Stephen King’s “Overdrive.”

“Wisdom” will be Estevez’s first directing job, marking him as one of the youngest triple threats (star, director and writer) ever to make a major Hollywood film. Orson Welles was 24 when he co-wrote, directed and starred in “Citizen Kane.”

Begelman, the former head of both Columbia and MGM studios, has a record of spotting directing talent among writers and actors. Walter Hill, Barry Levinson and Richard Benjamin all directed their first films for him.