Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Page 49

INTERVIEW

life

when, after the headhunting profession
had set them up pretty comfortably his
business partner’s friend wanted to make
a film for the British Film Institute, Bill, as
well as part funding the venture, ended
up acting in the film, The Swan, and
producing it. “I’d done a bit of acting
at school,” he says. Among the contacts
made through The Swan was a man
who’d written a book about space. So
Bill and his partner decided to go to Los
Angeles, to try to make the book into a
film.
For most of us even making the mental
connection between recruiting for the
City and making films is unlikely – and
Bill, looking back, laughs delightedly at
his young self’s arrogance: “There was I, a
berk with a screenplay and a rough idea!”
Despite – or maybe because of – his berk
status, Bill managed to get audiences with
the likes of Verna Fields, head of Universal
Pictures. “She was 68 and was tough!
But she gave us loads of time, as did John
Goldhammer, who took us out in his twin
propeller plane!” He thinks that, for the
giant heads of studios, the attraction was
the sheer amusement factor. “Here were
two people who had never been in film
thinking you just had come over, make
a booking and then you could make a
film!”
But naïve cheek can only get you so
far, and after working (for nothing) as

Street life: Filming on location

production assistant on one or two films,
Bill went to study film at LACC. While
there, he acted as the stunt double for
the Dutch actor and director Rutger
Hauer in the sinister movie The Hitcher
(1986), and a close friendship formed.
The diminutive actor Danny de Vito was
directing his first movie, The Ratings
Game, and Bill did his set production.
At the LACC Bill had been set a project
to make a documentary, and his subject
was homelessness. Now he revisited the
topic, directing his own film, Who Are
They?. “I found this homeless guy – well
he found me really, he was begging for
money - I thought he’d be a brilliant
character – black, gay, epileptic, with one

leg.”

The music was written by Robbie

film was nominated for awards at Seattle

Krieger, the lead guitarist of The Doors.

and Los Angeles Film Festivals. It also

“This was a great highlight of my life as I

marked the start of a valuable relationship

spent about five days with Robbie at his

for Bill and the actress. “Although her

house in his own recording studio. I’d

success never really fazed her she did get

been a big fan since school.”

shy when she was bothered by people. I

Although the resulting film was possibly

think that’s why she liked going out with

“a bit too poetic for LA at the time,

me: she was left alone because she was

maybe!” – the subject chimed with a

with somebody who was nobody!”

project called Hands Across America,

Goldberg was intrigued by the fact

championed by no less a figure than

upper-middle class Englishman Bill was

Whoopi Goldberg. Goldberg and Hauer

interested in homelessness in LA. “Most

went on to be Executive Producers on

Americans just say ‘hey, you’re English I

Bill’s film.

love your accent’,” Bill smiles. “Whoopi’s

With the input of so many eminent
people maybe it wasn’t a surprise that the

mother was homeless so it was a big issue
for her. She’s a very insightful person
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