Someone wrote to me recently to ask why my name, of all names, appeared near the top of a long list of acknowledgements at the end of a new comedy called WAITING. I'm know I'm not the only Tim Lucas in the world -- Google me and you'll find doctors, musicians, priests, real estate agents and even a stand-up comic working under the professional name I've been using since 1971 -- but evidently there is also some parenthetical text onscreen that suggests I am the acknowledged Tim.
The writer-director of WAITING is one Rob McKittrick, whose name rings familiar or familiarly to me. Perhaps we corresponded by e-mail in the past, but I'm unaware of anything I might have done to earn such a prominent place in his acknowledgement scroll. I did work as a busboy in an Italian restaurant once, but only for a week. Anyway, I doubt the film was based on my own experience, as I never speak of those five days I spent in the uppermost circle of Hell to anyone.
I rarely see any movie till it comes to home video anymore, so I'm looking forward to seeing WAITING on DVD. I've spent a fair amount of time and energy trying to get my name up on the screen, but I believe this is only my second motion picture screen credit. My name also scrolls by at the end of Martin Scorsese's MY VOYAGE TO ITALY because I provided some photos, but this is the first time I've received a screen credit just for being me. So I send my thanks to Rob McKittrick for remembering whatever I did to warrant this little taste of immortality.
Speaking of immortality, today is or was the birthday of a remarkable number of those whom I consider immortal: Czech fantasy director/animator Karel Zeman (BARON MUNCHAUSEN), American actors Charles Bronson (who gives my favorite performance in my favorite movie, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) and Robert Quarry (COUNT YORGA - VAMPIRE), Italian writer-director Pupi Avati (THE HOUSE WITH THE LAUGHING WINDOWS), French writer-director Jean Rollin (REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE), British composer John Barry (surely you don't need to be reminded of his achievements!), Italian actress and cinema icon Monica Vitti (L'AVVENTURA and L'ECLISSE), Japanese anime pioneer Osamu Tezuka (ASTRO BOY, METROPOLIS), Taiwanese screen goddess Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia (THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR), British actor and Sherlock Holmes extraordinaire Jeremy Brett, German actress Eva Renzi (THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE), American makeup artist-actor Tom Savini (DAWN OF THE DEAD) -- and perhaps the biggest of them all, Godzilla (KING KONG VS. GODZILLA), who was born on Tokyo cinema screens this day in 1954.
Happy birthday to them all, wherever they are, and long may their screen credits reign.
