This blog is a collection of excerpts from the Foreword to CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FILM INDUSTRY, 2^nd edition, which I co-wrote with my husband, Fred Yager, a screenwriter and a former entertainment writer and film critic for the Associated Press, published in 2009 by Facts on File, Inc. (http://www.factsonfile.com). These excerpts are reprinted with permission of the publisher.

 

David Carradine was gracious enough to share his thoughts about his development as an actor as well as his views on the future of the film industry. Sadly, he passed away recently and Fred and I mourn his passing because we had the privilege of being his friend for more than twenty years.

 

I want to share these excerpts from David’s Foreword to our careers in film book so visitors to my blog will hopefully get to know David a little more through his own words as they remember him for his contributions to TV and film, including his Kung Fu series, movies Kill Bill: Volumes I & II and Bound for Glory, the 100+ other movies and television shows he starred or appeared in, as well as literature through his own books, including Spirit of Shaolin and his autobiography, Endless Highway.

 

Excerpts from

Foreword By David Carradine

From Career Opportunities in the Film Industry, 2^nd edition, Facts on File, Inc. 2009. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

 

Did I always want to be an actor? No. But I always had the itch to perform. My first gig that I remember was at about eight years old at summer camp. At the campfire show, I sang “Red River Valley” a cappella and recited “Casey at the Bat.”

 

At 10 or so, I wanted to be a cowboy. But my first real ambition was to be a sculptor. Then I realized that would mean living in a garret, working alone in a room with a cold north light with a big piece of rock and maybe a pretty model, and never making any money. So I switched my plan to studying music composition and theory, the idea being to write operas. There was hardly such a thing then as a popular American opera, excerpt for Porgy and Bess—an open field, I thought. And I’d be surrounded by singers, dancers, art directors, and musicians. There’d be tuxedos and champagne, and I’d get to meet Leonard Bernstein. So I enrolled at San Francisco State College as music major. The music department and the drama department were in the same building, and while drafting down the hall, someone asked me to be in a play. The rest, I guess, is history. The main reason for the shift, thought, was that my girlfriend was really excited by me as an actor. So I guess you could say the reason I went into acting was to get girls. I think that’s why most of us got into it.

 

After I got out of the army, I went to New York to make it on Broadway….

 

 

Here are some highlights from these other issues that David Carradine continues to share, in his own words, in the Foreword:

 

Being part of a Family of actors and an Acting Heritage

There are at least two sides to that. The first is that that’s how I grew up. I have no knowledge of what it’s like not to have an actor for a father…

 

Some Career Highlights

It used to be, of course, the Kung Fu series, Bound For Glory

Then there are my own projects….and the stuff I’m doing right now in China: television miniseries that are epic in scale. The rtuth is, though, I don’t feel as though I’ve even scratched the surface yet. I’m still, at the age of 70, just getting rolling.

 

Advice for Someone Starting Out Today

Keep trying. You can’t have a failed career unless you give up…

 

Changes in the Film Industry

The film industry has changed a lot, but in many ways, it’s still the same…That things will change is about all I know. It was Jean Cocteau who said that movies will never be an art form until the materials are as accessible as pencils and paper. That has actually happened. Anyone with a camcorder can make a movie and might even get it released…

 

The Importance of Talent Doing Publicity

Well, sure, it’s important. Movies are not like painting. To be a painter, all you need is a bare canvas and some paint. And your brother can store your paintings in the back room until you’re dead and become famous. Or to be a writer, all you need is a typewriter. But a movie takes a couple of hundred people and millions of dollars. You can’t support all that without a paying audience. You won’t get the chance to publicize yourself until you become sort of successful. And then, when the studio says to do this talk show or take this tour, you’d better set things aside and do it. Not for the fame or the fortune, but to make sure that someone sees the work you did—you and those 199 other people it took to make the movie.

 

* Excerpts from Foreword By David Carradine

From Career Opportunities in the Film Industry, 2^nd edition, Facts on File, Inc. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

 

For the entire Foreword, please read our book, available in trade paperback or hardcover, at local libraries or from your favorite local or online bookstores, such as www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, or www.powells.com, as well as directly from our publisher, www.factsonfile.com