Thursday, March 15, 2007

Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll

Director Taylor Hackford talking about the documentary he made (with Keith Richards) about Chuck Berry. The process of making this movie about drove Keef around the bend. Horse didn't do what Chuck almost did. (He was prickly and uncooperative)

This bit is unreal.

And then, finally, the thing that I thought was incredibly fascinating was the tour that he did of England in 1973, and the fact that he insisted on being paid in pounds. In the end he had something like £250,000, which disappeared, and then inevitably the American tax service caught him, and instead of just coming clean - I mean, the man had the money - and paying the fine, he went to jail. And took an accounting class.

In the process of making this film, my wife, who is English [she is Dame Helen Mirren] was along with us. One time, Chuck asked her: "If you have a lot of pounds, and you want to get them back to the US, how would you do that?" She said: "Well, Chuck, I think what I would do is buy Victorian antiques and bring them in and then sell them because there's a big market for that". And he said: "Oh, very interesting." I need say no more.

2 comments:

Timothy Carter said...

Now that is weird. I'm curious, though, because I like Taylor Hackford's work (Proof of Life, Dolores Claiborne, etc). Any idea when this doc will come out?

CyFlorist said...

The doc was made at some point during the 1980's, I'm thinking '86. It's just now being released on DVD.