Sun not setting on drive-ins (July 3, 1987)

"Outtakes" movie column

Last summer I packed up my wife and daughter, dragged them to the Davis Drive-In and left them sitting in the car while I walked around the parking lot asking people why they see movies on outdoor screens. I realize that makes me sound like a neglectful husband and father, but I was there to get a firsthand look at the decline of an American entertainment
tradition, and my family came along for the ride.

I had gone with the preconceived notion that there would be only a handful of people to speak with, as national publications have been trumpeting the death of drive-ins for years. But 'I was wrong. By the time the sun went down the drive-in was packed, I had plenty of good quotes for my story and my mind had been changed.

Jim Varney, May 22, 1987

By DONALD PORTER
Standard· Examiner staff 

SALT LAKE CITY -- As the door to the hotel suite opened, Jim Varney could be seen sitting in a chair across the room, barefoot with one leg pitched over the armrest, and the other sprawled out on the coffee table. He was relaxed and laughing, enjoying a cigarette between interviews.

Such a sight is comforting to an interviewer, because it sends a strong signal that a pleasurable experience is about to follow, instead of an agonizing 30-minute slug-fest with an uptight and defensive celebrity.

As Varney rose from the chair to greet his guest, two gold chains swung out of his sport shirt; open half-way to his navel. But as the talk progressed it became apparent that this show-biz fashion" statement probably owed a lot more to comfort than ego.

Varney, a 37-year-old actor who has become famous playing obnoxious next-door neighbor Ernest P. Worrell in some 6,000 TV commercials over the past several years, was in Utah recently to promote his new film, "Ernest Goes to Camp." Ernest, for the uninitiated, is the lovable bumpkin who's always shouting "Hey, Vern!" and "KnowhutImean?" during TV, commercials designed to sell milk and other consumer goods.

Ray Bradbury, March 18, 1988

Perhaps the greatest single day of fun in my entire journalism career was spending time with Ray Bradbury in Ogden in March 1988. My friend Mike Vause, a Weber State English professor, had invited the great author to speak to the National Undergraduate Literature Conference, and had, in turn, allowed me to interview Bradbury after his convocations lecture, ride along to have his photo taken at the Ott Planetarium, attend his lecture at a conference supper one evening and a reception for Bradbury.

Interviewing and chatting with him was a special thrill for me -- I was still in my twenties -- because reading Bradbury's novels and short stories and plays gave me my love of reading more than any other author. I just loved his work, and still do.

The night of the reception upstairs at WSU's student union building followed the day I had spent time with Bradbury. When I walked into the large room, he was surrounded by several members of the faculty, a local eye surgeon and a few others I didn't recognize. I walked by, about 15 feet away, and the author saw me, smiled, waved and said a loud "Hello!" For a geeked-out fan, it was magical and I'll never forget it. I spoke to him a little later on, too. What a great guy.

I met him again several years later -- I don't remember the year -- when Mike and Janis Vause brought Bradbury back to Ogden, if memory serves, for an Ogden School Foundation fundraiser. The Vauses were kind enough to invite me to a luncheon in Bradbury's honor.

Anyway, here's the result -- a feature story and an "Outtakes" movie column -- about Bradbury's first visit to Ogden in 1988.


By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- Ray Bradbury is always in a hurry. No time to waste. When he walks, he walks fast -- his feet and legs slightly ahead of his shoulders and head.

Since he began writing at the age of 12 -- 55 years ago -- he has never slowed down. Or as he puts it: "I've lived at the top of my lungs since I was very young."

The author of "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles," "The Illustrated Man" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" was in Ogden last week to attend the National

Undergraduate Literature Conference at Weber State College. And true to form, he hopscotched all over the campus, offering tales from his vast experience and advice born of his considerable wisdom.

Woody Strode, July 18, 1987

Sometimes in life, you get to meet people you've admired since you can remember. That's what happened with several actors over the few years of the National Western Film Festival in Ogden. One of those people was Woody Strode. I cornered him at the Hilton Hotel in Ogden, and he was gracious enough to pile into a car with photographer Blair Kooistra and me, and we drove around west Ogden looking for a place to take his photo -- and I peppered him with questions the whole time. Finally we settled on some old wooden gates in the ancient Ogden stockyards. What an afternoon.

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

When Francis Ford Coppola was directing "The Cotton Club" a few years ago, he needed someone to play the small role of the club's doorman. And Coppola, being the persnickety director that he is, would consider only one man for the part -- Woody Strode.

"I can't even see myself in the movie, to tell you the truth," Strode said Thursday as he walked through the Ogden stockyards near the Golden Spike Coliseum. "But you know what I got paid for the itty-bitty part? Sixty-two thousand dollars. Can you believe it?"

To hear Strode tell it, luck like that has followed him all his life.

Mary Steenburgen, Dec. 6, 1985

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

Mary Steenburgen isn't the air­headed wife of a fortune seeker, nor is she a frustrated author. She is, rather, an Oscar-winning actress who wears those roles as comfortably as Santa Claus wears a smile.

Some people might not recognize her name immediately, but if they frequent movie theaters and video shops they have surely seen at least one of Steenburgen's performances in films such as: "Goin' South," "Melvin and Howard" (for which she won an Academy Award as the wife of Melvin Dummar), "Time After Time," "Cross Creek," "Ragtime" and "Romantic Comedy." Currently, she can be seen on cable TV in an adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender Is the Night" and on the big screen with the lead in "One Magic Christmas."

I also wrote features in between the movie reviews and columns

May 10, 1987
By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
If man's best friend is his dog, how might his mother-in-law be described?

Popular stereotypes certainly hold that mothers-in-law are a bane to happy marriages -- an anathema, in fact -- and a nuisance at best, always interfering and dishing out unsolicited advice.

In reality, though, mothers-in-law might be getting a bad rap. At least that's what Betty P. Janiak, an Ogden psychologist who has experience sorting out such problems, says.

"I wouldn't say that (mothers-in-law) are the primary problem" in conflicts between married children and their in-laws, Janiak said. "A lot of the time adult children have trouble separating from their parents emotionally.

The Paramount logo and Mt. Ben Lomond: facts and myths

April 24, 1987
"Outtakes" movie column
Donald Porter
Standard-Examiner

Recently, a local TV show attempted to discover whether the voice of God in "The Ten Commandments" was dubbed by a Utah man. It seems the story has been circulating in the state for years, yet no one has been able to provide any evidence to establish the myth as fact or fiction. The man in question is dead, and all that remains is hearsay.

Well, I love a good story -- especially when it concerns the movies. One I've heard repeatedly since I took over the movie beat at this newspaper concerns Ogden's connection to the Paramount Pictures trademark. People keep telling me that the logo -- a mountain peak circled by stars -- was patterned after Ben Lomond Peak.

These aren't exactly crackpots, mind you. People at the National Western Film Festival love to tell the story, and a lot of folks have traced Paramount's business history (rather inaccurately in most instances) in support of the Ben Lomond connection. Why, even Gedde Watanabe -- the Ogden native who's gone on to act in films -- said he heard the story from a crew member while starring in "Gung Ho" (a Paramount film).