Free Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life by Cindy Williams Page A

whispering that he thought it was fine. Take after take we’d work until the words became a jumble of consonants and vowels. Finally he called it a day and I was released to go home. I was shaking and that night I was comforted to hear my friend from upstairs click, click, clicking .
    When I got back to the States a few weeks later, I learned that the street I’d been living on was called Dr. Fleming because it was in the notorious Red Light District of Madrid and Dr. Fleming was the physician who treated the prostitutes for venereal disease. The street was named for him.
    Click! Click! Click!

Five
    Some Enchanted Evening
    American Graffiti was George Lucas’s first studio film. Written by Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck, and George Lucas, the story mirrored, in many ways, his high school experiences. The movie was set as a “coming of age” story at a beautiful time of our country’s innocence; before the Vietnam War, before the assassination of President Kennedy, and before technology ruled our daily lives. The film was shot in twenty-eight nights and one morning. The budget was $775,000, most of that used to acquire the rights to the iconic music that would run throughout the film. The movie had a young cast of basically unknowns and a young director, no makeup budget, and no dressing rooms. However, one Winnebago was parked in whatever empty spot or vacant lot Gary Kurtz, the film’s coproducer, could find at the time. The Winnebago housed the costumes and the hairdresser, who only styled the wigs. A station wagon was the only means of transportation to and from the set. It also carried props and was driven by a kid who was (for some reason) very territorial and protective of the rides he parsed out to the cast. If you were finished for the night and the station wagon wasn’t available, you could wait an hour, or it could be until dawn before you’d get that ride back to the Holiday Inn. On these occasions I would sit and wait on the couch in the Winnebago, under the costumes that hung on the rack overhead.
    Because the movie took place in one night, we shot from sundown to sunup, 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. And I know no one will believe this, but you know that old Hollywood saying, “pull the plug”? A guy, who was sent by Universal, would sit by the generator and at precisely 6:00 in the morning, on the dot, he would pull the generator plug, halting production to make sure the film would come in on time and on budget, no matter what.
    My personal adventure with American Graffiti began when I returned from Spain after Travels with My Aunt . I was still reeling from the experience as well as suffering from extreme jet lag. I had no sooner landed in L.A. and crawled into bed when the phone rang. Calling was my friend, Fred Roos. He was casting a movie and wanted to send over a script; and needed me to read it as soon as possible. The script was titled American Graffiti .
    “ American what?” I asked.
    “Graffiti,” Fred said. I asked him what that meant.
    “Just read it as soon as it gets there! It’s great! The director is a young guy out of USC. He’s excellent. You’re gonna want to be in this movie. Look over the role of Laurie.”
    I tried to protest, citing my jet lag, but he wouldn’t let me. So when the script arrived, bleary-eyed, I read it. And I loved it. There was only one problem, I told Fred when I called him. I didn’t want to play the part of Laurie Henderson, the ingénue. I wanted to play Debbie, the fast girl. He told me that Candy Clark had already been cast in that part.
    I said, “Okay, then how about Carol?”
    “Carol is supposed to be twelve,” Fred said.
    “I’ll put braces on my teeth.”
    He told me that as silly as it seemed, he had to cast an actual twelve-year-old to play that part! (The part went to Mackenzie Phillips.) I told him of course, I was joking, but I really didn’t want to play Laurie because all she does is sulk and cry throughout the entire movie.
    “It’s a