Carrera photos from Tomás López Rocha

These photos and note were sent to me by Tomás López Rocha who has run in the modern La Carrera Panamericana and whose father Salvador López Chavez raced in the original five Carreras from 1950-54.

Stephen,

My father with his Hudson, Porsche 550 and Porsche 356. Another shows my father and my sister with his Porsche 356.

Best regards,
Tomás

Thank you, Tomás. These are wonderful documents of the Carrera history!

Ferrari Breadvan trivia

Here' a bit of history I'd forgotten all about: For a time when the Ferrari Breadvan belonged to Matthew, it was registered in my name. It is a long story with a happy ending but it almost caused a cataclysm of sorts in a courtroom one day.

Dino 206 photos from Serge

I received these delightful Dino photos from Serge Dermanian who maintained the cars in the Ralph Lauren collection for many years along with the following note:

Stephen,

I noticed you had a picture of a Dino 206. Let me tell you that I adored this little car. I would like to make a point concerning this model, I owned the original prototype Dino 206 serial number 206. Many stories have been written, with a question mark leaving blank this serial number.

In 1970, while I owned HPC in Waltham, MA, an Italian businessman had left this car as a consignment sale. I kept this little gem in my MG showroom and someone who later drove by from Connecticut purchased the car from me. The car was red with an alloy body, leather seats with red cloth inserts, wood steering wheel and knock-off hubs. The Dino had only a few thousand miles and the warranty booklet showed that it was sold new to a young Italian lady in Rome in the summer of 1968.

Later I imported another Dino 206, yellow with an alloy body (serial number 362), black vinyl seats and knock-off hubs. I kept this car for years, until I sold it to a Connecticut physician.

There are lots of details concerning these cars, perhaps if you like it I could write some more about them.

Regards, my friend, where ever you are.

Serge Dermanian

I would like that very much, Serge!

Renedezvous Redux? Reflections on Claude Lelouch

By Stephen Mitchell
Artwork by Chad Glass
French Translation follows English text

When Stephen Mitchell was recently introduced to Veloce Today by Wallace Wyss...

Read the article at: Veloce Today

Woman on the Beach

I was shooting a dinner party scene for my movie Woman on the Beach one evening in a house in the Malibu hills overlooking the ocean. The scene showed a well-known artist played by Margareta Sjödin (who happens to be a well-known artist in real life) introducing her new romantic interest--a football player--to a circle of her cosmopolitan friends comprised of an art critic, a gallery owner, an art publisher and a publicist (played by Kathi Carey). The conversation was erudite and intentionally focused on the inner workings of the art world. It was a moment in the story where the new boyfriend is being tested to see if he could hold his own in their court.

More important than what was being said by the characters was the way it was being received--the unspoken undercurrent of opinion, pride and prejudice should be palpable and would predetermine the future of the relationship in question. After shooting all the dialogue, I had the impression that the scene was incomplete and hadn't captured the dynamic of judgment that I wanted. It was already late in the evening and I was loath to rewrite the scene. After some reflection, I came up with a solution.

I put the camera on one of the actors at the dinner table--first in a medium shot, then in close-up--and filmed a variety of reactions by asking him to smile, look to another actor for his/her reaction, show me you don't like what you heard, show me you just got stung by a remark, look surprised, etc. I then filmed each of the actors in turn getting an abundance of reactions not knowing which I would use but feeling I had more than I needed to make the scene perform its function.

I never had as much fun editing a scene as I did cutting together that dinner party. The interaction was excruciatingly revealing in a way and to an extent that dialogue could never have accomplished. That night, the Action/ReAction technique I created and refined for actors was born. Audiences became so involved with the characters in that scene that I knew the technique had to be incorporated not only in the way I would shoot movies in the future, but also in the way the actors delivered their performances to me and other directors with whom they would work.

I didn't realize it at the time but these reactions along with the other elements of the technique would be indispensable in branding actors and helping to create a demand for them not just from audiences but from those who hire actors to do the work.

7500 rpm in fifth gear

A friend once asked me what was the fastest I'd ever driven a car. My answer was 7500 rpm in fifth gear. Race cars don't have speedometers and the car in question was my Ferrari GTO. I was on the way to Las Vegas and my father was riding next to me in the passenger seat. In those days, there were no posted speed limits on Nevada's highways and we were having the time of our lives.

My father and I shared a lot of great times. We spent a month together in Italy once. As I was growing up, he would take me with him into some of the hottest jazz clubs in Los Angeles years before I was of legal age to enter such places. More often than not, we were the only white faces in the crowd but the band members were all on a first-name basis with him. He showed me where to buy the best hot link sausages & sweet potato pies in Los Angeles. We went to Rams games and later Raiders games. Together, we bought and sold cars--he had his and I had mine, but we aided and abetted each other in the enterprise. Sidney was a cool guy. At a cocktail party, he asked a pre-politics Ronald Reagan what he did for a living. How cool is that?

My GTO had a tall final drive. Entering a favorite freeway on-ramp, I would be passing the fastest traffic by the time I shifted out of first gear and second put me into the flashing red lights and siren zone. I suppose someone could do the math to figure out how fast 7500 rpm in fifth might have been on the occasion, but it never occurred to me to bother. What mattered was that my father and I were enjoying an experience that would never be forgotten and that we were both extremely lucky to do so. Another of our shared experiences was that we survived a head-on collision on the Ventura freeway--a rare occurrence by anyone's standards.

Manuel Taboada of the Ferrari Em Portugal blog asked me to sum up in a few words the sensations of driving the GTO. My answer was: Every moment in the GTO was like the first lap at Le Mans. Were I asked to sum up my father, I would have to say that no one who met Sidney is ever likely to forget him.

Yesterday was his birthday and we have been without him for too long. Perhaps that is why these thoughts are with me.

[Thank you to Chad Glass for the sketch of GTO 3987 on the road to 'Vegas]

Lee Marvin

If one were to ask me why I cannot get excited about Mark Wahlberg or Matt Damon as leads in films, my answer would be Lee Marvin. Lee made an indelible impression in the early days on television appearing in M Squad and The Twilight Zone and in films like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, The Professionals, The Dirty Dozen, Point Blank and The Big Red One. He was a man doing a man's job. I'll never forget the way he delivered his final line of dialogue in Don Siegel's 1964 remake of The Killers with Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes and, yes, Ronald Reagan: Lady, I haven't got the time.

I did time on the set of Paint Your Wagon directed by Joshua Logan starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood at Producers Studios (now Raleigh Studios) on Melrose Avenue. We filmed a barroom scene for about a week on a stage filled with movie smoke from pots of burning beeswax to create the saloon atmosphere. Everyone had to learn the words to the song Gold Fever and sing it--for a week. Though Jean Seberg was in the movie, I had no idea at the time who she was and I don't know if she was even on the set. I do remember Clint Eastwood as being quiet and keeping to himself taking occasional strolls to get out of his trailer when he wasn't shooting.

What I remember best is Lee Marvin. Whether he thought of Paint Your Wagon as much more than a pay day or sensed that it would come to be seen by some as one of the worst musicals ever made, we may never know. It did get him a hit song--Wand'rin' Star--which he sang in the film. Paint Your Wagon was the sixth largest success for Paramount at the time but failed to recoup its cost. In any case, Lee was not happy during the shoot and spent most of his time across the street in a dive called The Playboy. Whenever he was needed to shoot a scene, the assistant director would run across Melrose Avenue and, eventually, return with Lee Marvin in tow who would then turn in a great, effortless performance and retire, once again, to The Playboy.

On the last day of shooting, we were on golden time and near the very end of it, Josh Logan had had his fill and left the set to join Lee at The Playboy. The final shots were handled by the assistant director. After that, the production moved on to Oregon. I stayed in Los Angeles.

All I can say is that Lee Marvin made a bigger impact just walking across Melrose Avenue than many of today's actors do in their performances on the big screen. I'll leave you with this quote from Lee that I cleaned up a bit:

"You spend the first forty years of your life trying to get in this business, and the next forty years trying to get out."

Ferrari 275 GTB/C

Serge Dermanian sent me these photos and note in response to the Ferrari 275 GTB post. The GTB/C would be a very exciting car to own and drive. I’m sure that Serge made good use of it!

"Stephen,

I always loved the GTB's new look and this one unique, serial #6021! Yes, the original GTB/C prototype! Alloy body, yes!

I was the lucky fellow, who owned this superb Ferrari. It came with the "used cars stock" when I purchased High ¨Performance Cars of Waltham, Mass. in 1969. I had sold it to a fellow who ripped the drive shaft splines while drag racing on the streets of Boston!

The drive shaft was a simple steel rod with only a bearing holding the center support that I shimmed to line it up & prevent vibrations! That nutty owner had been jailed! He abandoned the car and the new owner asked me to restore the car. I took the engine & gear box out and the body to the body shop across the street who had to make a new nose from stock aluminum stock.

Look at the engine on my shop ready for assembly & completed before fitting back in the car. People always complained of Ferraris smoking engines. I made the factory recommended modification of replacing the soft copper bronze valve guides by shaving the guide pedestals flush to the cylinder heads (I had the bulletin from Chinetti). I also modified the clutch release bearing holder as required, installed the new style valve guides with the Teflon stem seals.

This car was what we call safely the "GTB/C prototype". I remember the floorboard was made of fiberglass. Look at the brake cooling louvers on the rear fenders. The seats were made of leather with black tweed cloth inserts. The front parking lamps had a rectangular Plexiglas covers.

My slides are dated march 1976. Hope you like this mail!

Serge Dermanian"

Serge, I enjoyed it very much!

Ferrari 275 GTB

Darren Costello previously contributed to this blog in a post titled Letter to the Editor. Recently, Darren sent me some photos of a Ferrari 275 GTB--a model I've always liked--that he took at Bloomington. I thought I would share them with you here.

Hey, Stephen.

I'm quite lucky to live in an area that caters to a car guy’s needs. There are lots of opportunities to attend some rather nice car events, all relatively nearby. One in particular was the Bloomington Gold Corvette show. A few years ago they added a class for Survivor cars (all makes/models). Having grown sick of cookie cutter restorations where the cars lose all their personality and character. This is a real treat for me.

I stumbled onto this and thought of you. I couldn't find the owner to talk to but assumed this was a very original car. Still a lot to learn. I'm hoping to find more events that feature Ferrari nearby. I've been fortunate to find out about a local Ferrari dealer open house that I've been attending for the last few years so that's a start.

Hope this email finds you well,

Darren

Angie Dickinson

Back in the day, I used to get weekly massages from Louise Long who was known as the masseuse to the stars in Hollywood. Visiting her ranch style home situated on a property in the north Valley was like entering a private enclave where the most beautiful women in film at the time could be seen wrapped in towels going into or coming out of their sessions with Louise or one of her capable assistants. I think I may have been her only male client and that was fine with me.

One day I arrived early for an appointment and was sitting outside in my Berlinetta Lusso reading a James Bond novel when this unusual, silver Alfa Romeo pulls up and parks next to me. I'd never seen one like it. After checking out the car, I noticed the driver. It was Angie Dickinson in all her glory. We exchanged smiles and I said, "Great car!" and she replied with a few words about how she loved the Alfa. That was the first time I saw that Alfa but it wasn't the last as it seemed Angie and I often booked the same time slots for our massages.

One day, as I was coming out of my session, I heard someone playing piano in Louise's living room. Whoever was playing was so good that I thought at first that the music was coming from the stereo. When I came around the corner into the living room, I saw that it was Burt Bacharach playing one of his latest hits. He was waiting for Angie who was still in a massage room.

A lifetime later, I received a phone call one afternoon from Tita Cahn, the wife--now widow--of the legendary Sammy Cahn. Tita had been watching an episode of one of my (Interview) shows on cable and called to tell me how much she enjoyed watching the series. She said that she and her friend Angie Dickinson would call each other to say that (Interview) was airing and to turn on the television. Those are dedicated fans and it was very gracious of Tita to go out of her way to call and relate this to me. It was also interesting to hear that, so many years later, Angie Dickinson and I were still on the same wavelength.