Actor-Director Tony Bill Sails Through Holywood .. .
& Guides Dudley Moore & Mary Tyler Moore In 'Six Weeks'
HOWARD ROSENBERG
BY ERIC ESTRIN
ony Bill stands at the helm of his
65-foot sailboat, Olinka, tanned and
grinning. The balmy breeze ruffling
his hair is also powering his craft gently up
the southern California coast. It is late sum-
mer, the hottest, smoggiest day of the year in
Los Angeles. But here on the water it is cool
and clear, and Bill, decked out in white slacks
and red shirt, looks as if his only concern in
the world is keeping his sails full and enjoying
the afternoon sunshine.
A Hollywood Renaissance man, Bill, now
42, achieved film success first as an actor
(Shampoo, Washington Behind Closed Doors), next
as a producer (The Sting, Taxi Driver), and most
recently as director of the critically acclaimed
My Bodyguard. He has just finished shooting
Six Weeks, his second directorial effort (star-
ring Dudley Moore and Mary Tyler Moore).
Despite all his activity in the film industry,
Bill makes it abundantly clear that this is
where he feels most comfortable. "I go to
work so I can afford the boat - let's put it that
way," he says, in a voice flat and calm as to-
day's sea. "Sailing is my only habit."
If Bill sounds a little different from the typ-
ical, "show-business-is-my-life" movie pro-
ducer, it's because 20 years after breaking into
the business playing Frank Sinatra's little
brother in Come Blow Your Horn, he is still, in a
sense, the new kid on the block, a Hollywood
maverick struggling to do good work outside
the competitive confines of the corporate
film-making machinery.
"My feeling is, you spend so much time not
making movies, that that's what you should pay
attention to in your life," he explains. Accord-
ingly, Bill surrounds himself with good
friends and good art, and spends as much
time as possible on the water, enjoying an av-
erage of two or three long sailboat races each
year to places like Honolulu and Puerto Val-
larta.
It's a schedule that allows him barely
enough time to make movies, and certainly
not enough to concern himself with the cap-
rices of the business, which he considers a
dying industry. "I'm totally ignorant about the
movie business," he says. "I try not to pay at-
tention to anything I have no control over. I
just kind of don't go anywhere I can't walk."
The lifestyle suits him well. In a business
where connections are said to be everything,
Bill has gone outside the system to establish a
network of his own and based it in Venice
Beach, miles away from the Hollywood hustle.
He has staffed it with neophytes in need of a
break, and risen to the challenge by turning
out an unusual ration of successful, quality
films.
What's more, he's managed to become well
liked by the Hollywood establishment while
doing so, an unachievable accomplishment for
12
other independent-minded filmmakers who
can't seem to get their work distributed to the
public.
For that, Bill owes something to his boyish
charm and even-tempered personality - a
combination that makes him a talented deal-
maker without causing him to sacrifice his
personal vision. But Bill, or TB, as his friends
call him, maintains that if he makes it look
easy, it's only a little Hollywood sleight-of-
hand.
When it comes to directing, he insists, any
appearance of sophistication on his part stems
not from knowledge or skill, but from his ex-
pectation of eventual failure. "I feel like I'm
condemned for the rest of my life to go to
work knowing that I don't know what I'm do-
ing," he admits. "I do not have the confidence
of the kind of director who says, 'I know just
where to put the camera; we don't need to
film the rest of that sequence; we're gonna cut
over there, and then we're gonna come back
over here."
Bill had been looking around for a film to
direct since My Bodyguard in 1980. There were
things about directing he clearly enjoyed - the
opportunity to use a synthesis of his outside
knowledge, for instance, and his knack for
functioning as an inspirational team captain.
The script he decided on (by David Seltzer)
is the story of a congressional candidate who's
drawn to the head of a cosmetics empire after
he flips for her young daughter.
Bill was attracted to Six Weeks for several
reasons, including the chance to work with
Dudley Moore in his first dramatic role. Ac-
cording to Bill, Moore was everything he ex-
pected. "It was as good as it gets," he says.
"You show up in the morning, and laugh your
ass off all day long while doing good work."
And Moore, in turn, praises Bill for creat-
ing "an atmosphere where everyone can con-
tribute. Tony is very relaxed and he's very
willing for actors to do what they want, what
they feel comfortable doing. The fact that he
doesn't consider himself a strong director is
actually much more of a help than a hindr-
ance because it allows me to deliver what I can
instead of aiming for somebody's image of
what I can do."
After Bill came aboard, Mary Tyler Moore
was signed to play the female lead, adding an-
other light-hearted touch to what is essentially
a bittersweet family drama.
T H E M O V I E M A G A Z I N E