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New President | I-Contact | Football Coach | Alumni Interview | I Saw it ...

Alumni Interview (continued)— January/February 2005

Screen Saver ...

Hollywood producer C.O. Erickson, left, and his brother, Chuck, embrace at a "Media Studies Presents ..." lecture at the UI College of Media in October.

After some pavement pounding, Erickson's friend used a connection to find a job at the Paramount Pictures studio. "After he was there a bit, he found there was an opening in the budget department," Erickson said. "So he told me about it, got me to come in for an interview, and I was hired. I was at Paramount for the next 15 years.

"That's how it got started. It had nothing to do with school or past education or anything. I just wanted to get a job."

In that job, Erickson compiled budgets of all of the studio's departments and for each film. "I learned that it took 25 to 30 departments to make a movie," he said. "Everybody was important, and you needed this whole gathering of departments and individuals who had to make contributions."

Erickson also found he had an aptitude for number-crunching and a fascination with cinema, fostered since his childhood spent, in part, reading newspaper gossip columns on the floor of his parents' home. At Paramount, he decided he wanted to participate more in the process.

He was moved from the office to the backlot, where he worked with design staff and crew, making sure sets and the like were built according to budget. A year and a half later, he was made head of the department, where he worked until management intervened again, putting him in a production job. "I became like the assistant to the assistant production manager of the studio, which was a great break for me," Erickson said. "I knew by that time that production is where I wanted to go."

A producer's job is rarely easy. He or she acts as the intermediary between the directors with their artistic endeavors and the studio with its business and financial interests. The producer's job is also to convey to everyone — all of those dozens of departments — all of the financial and artistic intricacies of getting each particular film completed. For Erickson, producing was "the physical operation of the making of the film," he said. "You had more responsibilities. You were able to get more closely connected with the making of the film, with the key people involved."

If that's not flashy enough for you, just wait. Grace Kelly's in the next scene.

View From A Rear Window

Three years later, in 1953, Erickson got another big break. He was selected by iconic director Alfred Hitchcock to be production manager of "Rear Window," starring Jimmy Stewart and Kelly. "Everybody was in love with Grace Kelly," Erickson said. "She was a delight to work with."

Relationships with Hitchcock, however, were often more complicated. "He'd be very cold toward people from time to time," Erickson said. Once, when Erickson looked at his watch, "Hitch" walked by and yelled at him, "I know you production types!" thinking that Erickson was subtly telling the director to hurry up.

For the most part, though, working with the legendary director over the course of six years and five movies was an education that continues to resonate with Erickson. "He was so organized in his mind that you could (make the movie) without any complications," Erickson said of the director. If Hitchcock promised a picture would be kept to a certain budget, he delivered.

During his Hitchcock years, Erickson also served as a production manager for other directors on several other films, including "You're Never Too Young," starring Clark Gable. A few years later, Erickson would manage production on Gable's last film, 1961's "The Misfits," directed by John Huston, with whom Erickson had a sometimes tumultuous friendship.

The movie was also Marilyn Monroe's last film, and despite Monroe's repeated tardiness, Erickson remembers the legendary actress with great sadness. "We were dealing with a girl who was falling apart completely," he said. "She was to be pitied, not condemned. ... It was really tragic to watch."

Another legend, Elizabeth Taylor, contributed to another memorable production: "Cleopatra." The budget for the epic film, already high, was ballooning out of proportion (creating what the International Movie Database calls the most expensive film ever) when Erickson was brought in a few months into production. "It was, no doubt, what you'd call an out-of-control film," Erickson said. "It was probably basically underestimating the cost in the beginning, not facing up to reality. And then it just compounded itself until you had, of course, the (Richard) Burton/Taylor romance, which just absolutely destroyed any thoughts of containing it cost-wise.

"I shouldn't say this, but it was a great time, a lot of fun, because there wasn't much we could do, so we just enjoyed working, enjoyed being in Rome and did the best we could," Erickson said. "When it plays on television, it's just gorgeous."

The Man Who's Seen So Much

Over the years, Erickson's resumé began to take the look of a "what to watch" of film studies. In "Chinatown," Erickson worked as an associate producer with director Roman Polanski and producer Robert Evans — and got to share screen space in a cameo with actor Jack Nicholson. Check out the scene where Nicholson gets a shave and is insulted by the older, well-dressed man next to him — that's Erickson.

In "Blade Runner," Erickson helped director Ridley Scott create a futuristic world of robot slaves fighting for their freedom. In "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Erickson produced a cult classic of high school misadventures, directed by one of the first female directors, Amy Heckerling. And don't forget Robert Altman's "Popeye" or "Urban Cowboy" or "Ironweed," to name a few.

"This is a man ... who looks for quality, looks for creativity," Gill said about Erickson's choice of directors and movies. "He's been committed all his life to making quality movies, ... films that have more thought than special effects.

"He's just worked on some of the most important films."

Erickson credits his success to his abilities as a "people person." "I don't want to use the word 'inspiring' people, but giving them confidence, working with them, not being a person to browbeat or push people necessarily but to help them be considerate. Be clear-cut in giving them instructions, be very willing to take responsibility for mistakes that are made," Erickson said.

As a producer, he said, "I've always felt that if somebody makes a mistake, it's my mistake."

The trait didn't go unnoticed. "There's a kind of dignity and professionalism with him that makes people respond in kind," Gill said.

As movies and their making have changed over the course of his decades in the industry, Erickson has rolled with the punches, working throughout the changes from the studio system to independent production, and from personal milestones like his three marriages and divorces. (He has one daughter, of whom he speaks with great pride.)

And up until a few years ago, when he moved to Las Vegas to live near his brother, Chuck, Erickson never stopped producing. "Groundhog Day," "Return to Me" and "Windtalkers," among others, all bear his credit.

He's also never lost that fascination with film-making. "It's still the fun of being connected with an exciting thing," he said. "It's the same, but it's always different. It never changes, but it's always changing.

"It's just constant traction about the excitement of being a part, taking pages of script and finally seeing them on the screen, and that you were a part of it, and you were there when that happened," Erickson said. "You were around directors, and you saw stars and so on.

"It was the film industry, and it was all glamour to me."

L. Brian Stauffer Photos