“I was in the business for 57 years,” Bob Relyea says, “and I never saw anything happen like that.” From its opening weekend in Seattle, The Stunt Man was an overwhelming success. And whether it was thanks to Finley and Dowd’s guerrilla marketing blitz or the unconventional story that resonated with local moviegoers who wanted to embrace adventurous filmmaking, one showing after another sold out. And they kept selling out, well into the next year. Hayler, who still books movies at the Seven Gables Theatre in the U District, won’t say how much money the movie made at the Guild 45th, but Finley and Rush claim that it was close to $1 million—and that was in 1980, when tickets were $4 apiece. “I remember this neighbor of mine who went to it based on what I told him about it,” former P-I film critic William Arnold says. “He was profoundly moved by it. It told him something about life that nothing else ever had. He ended up going back five or six times.”
A little over two months into The Stunt Man’s test run in Seattle, Twentieth Century-Fox picked up the movie and agreed to distribute it. It earned just north of $7 million nationwide—a box office failure that Rush blames on Fox’s refusal to order more than 300 prints—but in February 1981 it was nominated for three Oscars: best adapted screenplay, best actor (Peter O’Toole), and best director. “Seattle audiences really saved that movie,” Arnold says. “I’m trying to think of another instance in which another city had that kind of impact, and I can’t.”
Arnold never lost touch with Rush after their first meeting in Bel Air, and true to his word, he kept lobbying on behalf of the movie right until it premiered. And the director, whom Arnold calls an “amazingly generous, smart, good guy,” showed his gratitude for the critic’s work by inviting Arnold and his wife, Kathie, to join him at the Academy Awards that spring. “I had better seats than Robert De Niro,” Arnold says, sounding a little amazed 30 years later at the string of events that started in Rush’s pool house. The Stunt Man was shut out at the ceremony, but Rush went home with the moral victory of having seen his picture outlast everyone’s expectations but his own. And Arnold? He took home a more tangible trophy, a signed poster that still hangs in his home office: “To Bill and Kathie—Two great gladiators, my best comrades in arms in the battle against tyranny and windmills. Love, Richard Rush.”
Published: December 2009
Add a Comment
We retain the right to remove comments containing personal attacks or excessive profanity, and comments unrelated to the editorial content.