Rick McCallum - Lucas Aide
George's producing pal on working with Nic Roeg, Dennis Potter and Oliver Reed.
"I was once molested by Oliver Reed." It's not the sort of revelation you expect to hear from a top movie exec. But then Rick McCallum isn't your average producer. The man who made the Star Wars prequels possible, McCallum might be most famous for working with George Lucas ("George doesn't like writing," he explains to the surprise of absolutely no one) but during his 30 years in film and television the military brat has also collaborated with Nicolas Roeg (Track 29, Castaway), Dennis Potter (Dreamchild, 'Black Eyes') and the self-proclaimed 'Mr England' Oliver Reed.
"Nic Roeg taught me one of the most important lessons in cinema," enthuses the refreshingly candid McCallum. "We were filming Track 29 in North Carolina and we started chatting about whether the movie would be successful. I said that with a cast like we had - Gary Oldman, Christopher Lloyd, Theresa Russell - we might have a hit on our hands. 'Ah, dear boy,' whispered Nic, 'you can never know such a thing. Sometimes with a film, you have to lock it away for a few years like a wine, and hope that it matures. And sometimes, you have to lock away a film and make sure it never escapes.' I think there's real wisdom there.”
Directed by one dark British genius, Track 29 was scripted by another, regular McCallum cohort Dennis Potter. "Working with Dennis was one of the great thrills of my life," says the exec who first encountered The Singing Detective writer on the 1981 movie adaptation of Pennies From Heaven. If there was many an upside to collaborating with Potter, McCallum found himself in a world of hurt when the controversial 'Black Eyes' reached British TV screens.
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