Moving On

By Paul LeBlanc

Ive been home for eight years. (What a mistake I made. You have no idea.) I have had a stroke sometime ago. But thanks to Louise, my wife (I got married in 2007), I am coming back to myself, writing this book about my experience, and getting better all the time.

I have no inhibitions about writing what has happened. I met a man here, and it was a disaster. His family wont talk to him; his son had a son and refused to let the grandson see him. His ex-wife wont talk to him at all. He took great pleasure in doing things to people. However, I digress. I am going to tell you about all the films that I worked on since that fateful day, when I won an Oscar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483677781

Book preview

Contents

The first film was Places in the Heart.

The next film was with Brooke Adams.

Children of a Lesser God

Angel Heart

Then Came Hostage

Mississippi Burning

It Was Termini Station

Cyrano de Bergerac

Valmont

The Shell Seekers

We’re No Angels

Stella

There was This Boy’s Life

Then came The Cemetery Club

After That Came London. What Fun We Had.

Then Basic Instinct

Then Was Sliver

Then We Made Intersection

9/11

We Did Casino

The Quick and the Dead

Along Came My Own Life

Along Came Jack

Bogus Was the Next One

On a More Serious Note Came Losing Isaiah

I Then Met

Susan Sarandon

Lorenzo’s Oil

Then We Did Earthly Possessions

Most Interesting Was Twilight

Then Two Actresses Came Together and Did Anywhere but Here

Emmys

Stepmom

Along came Dick

Then There Was O Brother, Where Art Thou?

We Started Requiem For a Dream

The Mask of Zorro

Came Anna Karenina

Now I Was Asked to Do The Human Stain

LA, Here I Come

The Banger Sisters

Came Riding High

Harlan County Wars

When Billie Beat Bobby

The Lovely Tina Turner

Then We Went to the Future with Children of Dune

The Man Who Wasn’t There, Alias The Barber

Don’t Say a Word

A Book

The Union and the Academy

The Ladykillers

The Terminal

The Fountain

Moncton

No Country for Old Men

Moncton

Black Swan

Noah

At Last

I’ve been home for eight years. (What a mistake I made. You have no idea.) I have had a stroke sometime ago. But thanks to Louise, my wife (I got married in 2007), I am coming back to myself, writing this book about my experience, and getting better all the time.

I have no inhibitions about writing what has happened. I met a man here, and it was a disaster. His family won’t talk to him; his son had a son and refused to let the grandson see him. His ex-wife won’t talk to him at all. He took great pleasure in doing things to people. However, I digress. I am going to tell you about all the films that I worked on since that fateful day, when I won an Oscar.

The first film was

Places in the Heart.

This is the first film I got after the Oscars, but the Oscar people were still in limbo about it. They didn’t let us know till February—we were just in July.

This movie was to take place in Texas, and the producer was the same producer of Amadeus. When I got to Texas, I was ready to start a new film, but as a Canadian, I would have to go back to Canada, then go back to the States. What a trip. There was another hairdresser working the show, to my surprise. He was just going to be there till another film with Meryl Streep, who was the star. Once he was gone, I was in charge. Sally Field was the lead, with Ed Harris and Amy Madigan as well as Danny Glover and John Malkovich. It was written by a man who became a big NY writer, David Mamet… But Sally was the lead. One day we were sitting in the living room of the set when she announced that she had just bought us a present—the coach, the makeup man, and myself.

It turned out to be a clock from Tiffany’s for me. I was elated. I saw her every Sunday to color her hair. We had a lot of fun there. Needless to say, I still have the clock. Sally won her second Oscar that year (she said in her acceptance speech, You like me, you really, really do), and lo and behold, that was the first time for me.

While onstage, she came to me and said, We made it, Paul. I was so dumbstruck, I don’t remember what I said, but it wasn’t what I should have for sure. We hugged, and then she disappeared. I never saw her again other than what we have seen on the screen. I thought she was great in the Spielberg movie Lincoln. Later I worked with one of her husbands, a producer. But that is all I can tell you about Sally Field. It was stupid of me that I didn’t talk to her at the awards. But I was very nervous that night.

The next film was with Brooke Adams.

When I was prepping for Amadeus , I stayed at

Brooke Adams’s. (I’m probably aging myself.) I knew her from a movie we had done before. It was not a great success. She is married now to Tony Shalhoub. The leading man was Robert Hays, and a lot of Canadians had the hots for him. Robert is a very handsome man. I forget the name of the film.

That weekend, I was to work with Ellen Burstyn. She was hosting Saturday Night Live. I invited them. I had to be there for Ellen. Aretha Franklin was also there. It was a great night, seeing Aretha, having Brooke Adams there as well as Robert Hays. Boy, I sure felt good when Aretha Franklin sang one of her hits that night, Pink Cadillac. She had to fire her band because they didn’t work on Sunday except if they were paid overtime. I guess there was no overtime in show business. So another band came in. After the show, we all went to a restaurant that stayed open for the cast of the show… What great fun we had.

Children of a Lesser God

The stars were Bill Hurt and Marlee Matlin. We shot

it in Saint John, New Brunswick. I had to