Ruthless Criminal
“I wasn’t dealing with a Phi Beta Kappa.”
Danny De Vito--currently directing/starring in “The War of the Roses”--aptly summed up his recent encounter with a thief whose ransom note is now pinned to the wall of De Vito’s trailer (“as a kind of a memento”).
De Vito said with a laugh: “The note reads--I’ll paraphrase--I have news about your (missing) dailies. I can purchase them tonight. I will acquire them. . . . Then, the guy left his beeper number!”
The footage in question was from the first couple days’ filming of “War of the Roses,” a comedy about a feuding couple headed for divorce, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. (De Vito plays Douglas’ divorce lawyer.) After the film was discovered gone, De Vito found the note on the windshield of his rental car in Coupeville, Wash., where principal photography had gotten under way.
“But we still had the negative , so we were OK,” said De Vito, adding, “It was kind of like having your child’s toy truck kidnaped.”
“War of the Roses”--due at Christmas from Fox--is now filming in and around L.A. Meanwhile, the police in Coupeville are on the case.
Deadpanned De Vito: “They’ve got a beeper number to go on.”
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