This is a 1985 "Starlog #96" interview with David Rappaport by Adam Pirani. This is © of Starlog and is shown here for insight and referance purposes.
David Rapaport
"I'm the Dwarf who Turned Down 'Star Wars'"
The four foot tall leader of the "Time Bandits" steals the spotlight again, befriending a monstrous misfit in the newest retelling of the Frankenstein legend, "The Bride."
By Adam Pirani
Franc Roddam knew he needed a good actor who was 'four feet tall' so they rang up Rappaport," David Rappaport says. The actor (who's actually 3'11") didn't face much competition for the role of Rinaldo the Dwarf in "The Bride," director Roddam's new version of the Frankensein legend. Although little people have achieved a high cinematic profile as costumed Ewoks in "Return of the Jedi" and as the "Time Bandits," few have Rappaport's acting experiance. His theatrical credits-and his role as the "Time Bandit's" leader Randall-paved the way to "The Bride."
"Basically there are two stories," he explains, describing the movie which opens June 21. "Frankenstein makes the famous monster, then he makes the female monster to be his friend. But they don't hit it off, and the monster freaks out and escapes, because he's so heartbroken. Professor Frankenstein treats her like a Pygmalion, and educates her to be a sophisticated lady-that's one story, his relationship with her, between Sting and Jennifer Beals. The other is the story of the monster escaping, meeting up with me-I'm a traveling entertainer-survivor. At first, I'm a bit scared, and then I think, 'Hey, I could use this man.' It's like 'Of Mice and Men': Lenny's simple and George looks after him. Both stories come together in the end."
The film is 'not' a remake of James Whale's 1935 classic "The Bride of Frankenstein," but a new approach to the legend. "It has gone back to the story's original Mary Shelly spirit, which was a huge 'misfit,' not a frightening monster," Rappaport says.
The relationship between monosyllabic giant-Frankstein's creation Viktor, portrayed by Clancy (Buckaroo Banzai) Brown-and talkative dwarf-Rappaport's character Rinaldo-was a strong one both on and off screen. "What was fascinating was, in the story, there's all this stuff about me using his size to get me things, and him using my gift of the gab, so we're a very good team.
We shot it mainly in France, [and] if you can imagine, we're in a little town, Sarlat, and we went to Carcassonne, a wonderful medieval city. When we're not on set, we'r walking through the town: me in my tee-shirt and shorts, and this American, basketball player-type, with a shaved head-because of the makeup-and a gypsy scarf on because he doesn't like the look of his head. So, in real life, there's this big, six-foot-sixer just walking into a French bar, and a little bloke in silk shorts and tee-shirt going, 'Can we have some wine?'-'Pardon?'-'Er, vin, deux verres de in.' They look at me and then they look at him, [and say],'Yes, yes, yes, yes.' And they don't know 'what' to make of us.
"Clancy's a Method actor, so he's in character most of the time. He doesn't say much at the best of times, it's like: 'Good,' he would say. After a while, you get used to it. 'Yeah, good. 'Good' wine.' We were like that on screen and off."
Rappaport didn't work very much with "The Bride's" other stars, Sting (Dune) and Jennifer (Flashdance) Beals. "My film was with the monster-'I' think the film's called 'Rinaldo and Viktor,'" he notes, "because that's all I knew about it. I didn't see any of the other stuff."
Though companioned by Brown, Rappaport had to face some dangers alone: he did his own stunt work. "There are't a lot of three-foot doubles," he laughs. But in a movie where his character has a major circus routine-on a trapeze, doing the stunts was no mean feat. Originally, a same-sized double was found, but, like Rappaport, he had no trapeze training. The double attempted the aerial sequence, but it looked wrong and had to be discarded.
"In the end, I actually did ALL the
trapeze work," notes Rappaport. "Some scenes were with
wires, some without, because the wires showed. The wire
man, Bob Weisiner, was very good. With me, he 'made' the
tapeze act. I couldn't have done it without him."
"Circus Crises"
It was while shooting trapeze scenes, with Rappaport ssended by a safty wire inside an actual circus tent, that the movie suffered a serious setback and the diminutive actor had the most traumatic experiance of his career. "The circus scene was dogged," he explains. "We tried it three times. In France, we did it and had to stop, becase Clancy had trouble with his makeup, some recation to the glue. We stopped then, all returned to England and came back again two weeks later. We tried again, and all my stunts didn't work because the harness hadn't been worked out-this was beforeBo [Weisinger] came on."
Returning to the production's base at London's Shepperton Studios, a circus tent was erected on the studio back lot. "So, the third time we try it," Rappaport relates," we're in a big canvas tent, with black plastic all over it to make it look like night-time. I'm just about to go up on the trapeze. I've got the safety wire on, which is normally safe." It was the afternoon of Wednesday, October 3, 1984. While about 70 crew members and 350 extras watched, Rappaport ascended for his trapeze at. "I'm just going up there, and it's very hot-we have all the lights on, and as you go up, it's like going up in an oven, because the air really gets [hot to breathe], and you get really dizzy. And I looked at the sloping bit of the tent and saw this funny flickering on the canvas. I thought, 'Oh it must be a hole in the black plastic and the sun's coming through,' but then I saw fames creep in. And I thought 'Shit!'
"Then I thought, 'Wait a minute, if I say 'Fire,' there are 400 people who WILL panic. So, in my most calm voice, I said, 'Err, I'm not 'sure,' but I 'think' the tent 'might' be on fire.' Just as if it was nothing. And everybody looked: 'What? What?-AAH!'
"So, all these people got big boards, trying to fan it out, but they couldn't, because the fire had crept between the canvas and the plastic. I looked up, and that was on fire. I looked down and that was on fire. I thought, 'Hell! I'm up here, 40 feet in the air! Get me out!' "And everybody very calmly filtered out. 'Everybody.' Very calmly, no panic. And I said, 'Er, excuse me!' Then, Bob Weisinger saw what was happening, and I was let down at a fast rate of knots. I've got on all these buckles and crotch straps and everything: I said, 'Don't mess around with them, it takes ten minutes, get the wire cutters!' And Bob Weisinger came running in with the cutters and-snap!-and they just carried me out.
"In four minutes, the tent was nothing. All the lights were going pop! pop! pop! Everything was burnt, 'everything.' It was very dry canvas, black plastic on top-the perfect combination for the most spontaneous fire you could wish for; it was an inferno. The funny thing was, at the time, it didn't affect me. It was like, 'Oh damn, we haven't got the scene.' I had all the adrenalin: there was no panic 'at all,' I was just pissed off we couldn't do the scene. But when I went home at night, just drinking tea, suddenly for no reason, I was literally like that...." Rappaport's hand, holding a tea cup, begins to tremble uncontrollably. "It was, "Wah! I could have been a kebab!" The most dangerous place at the time was the 'safety' wire, which is very ironic. I can talk about it now, but then, it was like, 'How near I was'-'really' near."
With their losses due to the accidental fire covered by insurance, tent and props had to be re-created and extras recalled for the production's 'fourth' attempt to shoot the same scene some five weeks later, after completion of the remaining principal photography. "Eventually, it was all planned in detail," explains Rappaport. "The insurance company made sure there was a fire engine waiting, 20 extinguishers inside, no one was allowed to smoke: every precaution. And it was inside a studio, which made it absolutely controllable."
The fire's effect on "The Bride" was not
entirely negative. "The beauty was that the delay meant I
could get the top trapeze trainer from Gerry Cottle's
Circus, Berry Shorts, and he made me so confident that
the act looked 10 times better than it was," the actor
says. "So, in a way, it was lucky that we had the delay
because it was a PERFECT trapeze act. Franc was over the
moon about it-it was going to be a two-minute section of
the film, but he has extended it and cut other things out
because it looks so wonderful."