COMPANY TOWN : Scott Rushes In : ‘Crimson Tide’ Director Fears Just One Thing: Failure

Tony Scott is a wild man. A daredevil. Someone who likes to live on the edge and is attracted to danger.

At age 50, the cigar-chomping adventurer still drives fast cars and motorcycles and is an expert rock climber. He has scaled the giant North Walls of the Alps. This weekend, after his latest movie, “Crimson Tide,” opens Friday, he plans to tackle the 3,000-foot wall of El Capitan in Yosemite.

Ahh, but that’s nothin’ to Scott, who will spend three nights and two days clinging to the side of the granite mountain.

There’s only one thing in life he really fears: failure.

“The biggest edge I live on is directing. That’s the most scary, dangerous thing you can do in your life,” says the self-effacing Brit known for such testosterone-laden hit American movies as “Top Gun” and “Beverly Hills Cop 2.”

“The scariest thing in my life is the first morning of production on all my movies. You stand on the set and there’s 150 faces looking at you and thinking, ‘What a jerk, how come he’s doing that and I’m not?’ ” says Scott, who readily admits, “It’s the fear of failing, the loss of face and a sense of guilt that everybody puts their faith in you and not coming through.”

Drawing an analogy between his two favorite passions, Scott says: “The true strength of rock climbing is in the head, not the body. . . . It’s controlling the fear as I do while I’m directing.”

Scott--whose older, equally famous brother, Ridley Scott, has directed such classics as “Bladerunner,” “Alien” and “Thelma & Louise”--still feels the sting of the negative reception of his less successful movies, including his first, “The Hunger,” a 1983 vampire film starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon.

“Hollywood hated ‘The Hunger,’ ” Scott says unabashedly. “They said it was arty and indulgent, which it was. After that, I couldn’t get arrested. . . . It took me two years to get another movie.”

That movie was his American debut, “Top Gun,” which producing partners Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer offered Scott after seeing his TV commercial reel.

The 1986 blockbuster, starring Tom Cruise, instantly established Scott as one of Hollywood’s hottest action directors. He reteamed with “my boys” (as he calls Simpson and Bruckheimer) on “Beverly Hills Cop 2,” another smash. After he bombed out with “Revenge,” starring Kevin Costner, Scott reunited with his boys on “Days of Thunder,” a troubled, costly production that was deemed a box office disappointment domestically, although it grossed more than $80 million.

After veering from the big-action genre with “The Last Boy Scout” and “True Romance,” neither of which was well received, Scott returned to his signature high-octane fare with Hollywood Pictures’ $55-million “Crimson Tide.” Marking his fourth collaboration with Simpson and Bruckheimer, the thriller set aboard a nuclear submarine stars Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.

Given his attraction to “people who live in danger or in dark places,” Scott was captivated by the characters of “Crimson Tide,” the men who choose to spend months under water. “People who do what they do are weird and extraordinary, and that’s what I was reaching for in the characters,” says the director.

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The movie centers around the personal conflict between a captain (Hackman) and his top officer (Washington) over whether or not to launch nuclear missiles at Russia. Because the story involves a mutiny aboard the submarine Alabama, the Navy refused to cooperate with the filmmakers.

This did not deter Scott.

“Tony won’t take no for an answer,” says Bruckheimer. When the producers learned that a U.S. submarine was to leave Hawaii within 48 hours, Scott hopped the next plane.

“He bribed a helicopter pilot and a boat and chased the submarine as it went down,” recalls Bruckheimer. By pure luck, it turned out to be the Alabama.

On the set, Scott’s colleagues say the director is just as relentless.

“He’s a benign version of Gen. Rommel,” says Simpson, “a gifted commander of men. A guy born to be in the field commanding an entire movie.” At the same time, he says, Scott “has got the biggest heart and the deepest soul.”

Born one of three sons to working-class parents in northern England, Scott was a painter before becoming a filmmaker. After postgraduate work at Leeds College of Art, where he made a half-hour film financed by the British Film Institute, he attended the Royal College of Arts and directed a one-hour movie called “Loving Memory,” financed by Albert Finney.

In 1973, he and Ridley formed the commercial production company RSA, a successful business in which they are both active today, as they are in their movie production outfit Scott Free (formerly Percy Main Prods.).

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The brothers recently embarked on another business venture, purchasing the historic Shepperton Studios outside London in a deal valued at $18 million and underwritten by Candover Investments.

With the bank as partner, the Scotts are committing millions of dollars to upgrade the facilities, particularly in the post-production area. The first phase of the face lift, which includes adding a sound dubbing stage, is already under way at an initial cost of $750,000.

Scott has shot many commercials (as well as “The Hunger”) there and says he and Ridley hope to tap their Hollywood contacts to build the studios into a world-class filmmaking center.

The legendary Shepperton, founded in the 1930s, is already successful, recently hosting such productions as “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” Kenneth Branagh’s “Frankenstein” and “Judge Dredd,” starring Sylvester Stallone and due out this summer.

“The business was doing extremely well when we bought it,” says Scott, estimating that net profit in 1994 was about 20% above the previous year.

In addition to helping revitalize local production, Scott says, “we’d also love to take American movies back into England.” The favorable exchange rate makes it 25% to 30% cheaper to make movies in England, he estimates.

Scott still loves directing commercials, which he has done for more than 20 years. Not only are they extremely lucrative, he says, but “they’re a great art form. I equate the director to being like an athlete, a runner, and films are marathons and commercials are sprints, and it’s great to be able to change pace.”

He just directed an erotic TV spot with Sharon Stone for Brazilian television called “Basic Ice Cream,” a takeoff on the star’s 1991 box office hit, “Basic Instinct.” Scott said it was the wildest commercial he’s done.

Advertising Brazil’s most popular ice cream, Stone ties her boyfriend up to a bed with her pantyhose, blindfolds him and cruises around the room in a sexually seductive manner. She finally sits down in front of him, crosses her legs, and sucks on her ice cream cone.

“It was fun,” Scott says with a devilish smile.

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Great Scott

Tony Scott, who along with brother Ridley Scott is one of the most successful British directors working in Hollywood today, is well known for his highly successful action films “Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop 2” and “Days of Thunder.” The three films together have grossed more than $750 million worldwide.

Release date Film Worldwide gross (in millions) 1993 True Romance $37.3 1991 The Last Boy Scout 124.5 1990 Days of Thunder 165.9 1990 Revenge 15.6* 1987 Beverly Hills Cop 2 267.6 1986 Top Gun 344.8 1983 The Hunger 4.8*

* Figures reflect domestic box office only, international figures weren’t available.

Sources: Bumble Ward & Associates, Entertainment Data Inc., studio representatives

Researched by JENNIFER OLDHAM / Los Angeles Times