 Welcome to the web show, 18 seconds, make sure you stay past 18 seconds, if you do you will be better than 40% of people who watch the show. We are going to get straight into the interview. We don't want to hold things up, we've only got 18 seconds. Best of week. Melody Anderson, how could we not have Melody on the show, she's the one of the most beautiful, wonderful lady. Lovely, lovely lady, she was nothing but helpful to us through the whole flash process. She's one of those people you meet who's just a really beautiful soul, a really shining light and we were very lucky to spend some time with her. Yes, I absolutely adore her. We wanted to break up the flash interviews a little bit, so if you saw Sam's interview, this is a nice complimentary to do that. Card above for Sam's, but why not let's get straight into the... We only got 18 seconds to grab you people's attention, so let's do it. Melody Anderson everybody. So the lovely Melody Anderson, one of the most wonderful, beautiful people we met on the life after flash journey. Thank you for joining me on the web show. How are you? Well, I'm terrific in these crazy times of COVID and it's so great to see you again and continue the wonderful thoughts and memories of Flash Gordon. Yes, so Flash Gordon, of course, we have to talk about. How are you feeling with, you know, 40th anniversary this year? We've got the re-releases coming out. You had all these world tours planned with Sam. Where are they at at the moment? Unfortunately, with COVID, everything's on hold because it has to all be on hold. Just because of travel restrictions and safety, and I am over the age of 23, so I... You're done looking. I'm vulnerable. So we've had to put them on hold. Sam has talked to some of the promoters about coming out next year to Europe. And by God willing, by then we have a vaccine. So it's everything's on hold like it is for everybody. I mean, this is the one thing that's unifying the world. You know, we are all in danger with this thing, till they have a vaccine. So nothing happening this year and we'll see how next year goes and if it is going, we'll make it a makeup year. You have probably done hundreds, if not thousands of interviews and talked about Flash Gordon. Is there anything that you've never been asked before about the film or a story that you have never told? Sort of with the story of the movie, the wildness and how I got the job. It was out of the blue. They already had somebody else. I was called the last minute and I had to leave that Friday afternoon to go to London. Totally unprepared. That's a common thing that people do know that it was quite last minute, but I'm not sure that many people would know that there was actually someone cast for the role. And so you really were stepping into someone else's shoes. I had auditioned for the role and I didn't get it. I was just beginning my career, so I was always on to what's the next thing. And a wonderful friend of mine, beautiful model named Dale Hadden, I initially had been cast and due to whatever factors, you know, it's always those secrets and any kind of set. It didn't work and they needed to shoot, start shooting in a couple of days. And it was that fast that they needed to get someone over there. I guess I was number two, kind of like the cavalry coming up from behind. And I immediately got there. They called me in New York. I flew out that night and it was, I think it was like August, September, so I didn't have any winter clothes with me. Everything was back in LA and I flew in there. They there was no rest for the wicked. They took me right to Shepperton Studios, dyed my hair brown, shaved the front of my head, put on costumes at a screen test. And I started working the next day. So it was, you know, I hadn't really studied the scripts since I'd auditioned months and months before. Brian Gilles had told a brilliant story about Dino when we interviewed him for Life After Flash that he really was like arriving on set with suitcases of money and he had a tension with him. Was he really that intimidating when he was on set with you? He didn't intimidate me at all, even when they shaved in front of my head. And I was, you know, all this was happening at the same time. And I was there by myself and very overwhelming. I think it was only like 22, 23 when it happened, you know, he said, man, you shouldn't cry. You shouldn't cry. I just think you're not. So I felt comfortable expressing my feelings around him. But, you know, he was a man who had a vision and he stuck to it. And even his vision for Flash Gordon was not that it was supposed to be the wonderful comic book piece. It was supposed to be much, much more dark like Star Wars because it's Star Wars have been such a success. And I think that's one of the things that makes us so long lasting. I've always said that Flash Gordon is like the, the Wizard of Oz of our generation because it just keeps being passed on to generation to generation. And the colors and the sets and the magic and the goofiness and the double entendres, it's much more complex in a way than Star Wars was. And of course, we had such wonderful performances from everybody. It bit over the top, but played straight because that's the only way comedy ever works, you know. Sadly, we lost Max von Sydow earlier this year. And I was very, you know, I really would have loved to have met him and interviewed him. And he was such an incredible actor. And how will you remember him? Just remember his graciousness and his steadiness. You know, he was so unbelievably talented that I didn't have to work too hard to act with him. I mean, he really played a malevolent person and did it so beautifully. So it was just to be able to act with Max von Sydow. He was one of my my heroes. I love Bergman and he was one of my acting heroes. And to be in the same space as this this honored actor and extremely talented actor. And he was gracious. And Sam talks about this, too, that, you know, the camera is on you when you're talking. And then it turns around to the other actor so they can make edits. Usually when you're finished, a lot of people will put on their street clothes or something. Max would be standing there right across from me in these heavy, intense costumes. So this is real for me to help me give a real authentic performance as well. I mean, that that kind of graciousness is hard to find these days. Flash Gordon is a film, as we know, as you know, from talking to so many fans, they it's people connect to the film with their childhood, you know, it's a nostalgic film for a lot of people. What were some of the films that you grew up with that's your Flash Gordon? Well, ironically, one of them certainly was The Wizard of Oz. I loved I love the magic. I love the technicolors. You know, I was never a Bambi fan because of the fire and everybody dying. Like, I wasn't a Snow White fan, but I love the happy ones. Like, they had wonderful outcomes for everybody and everybody was good at the end. And there was not a lot of suffering. As long as Toto didn't get hurt, I was into that movie. Did you ever have a teenage crush? Even in adulthood, I am attracted to men who may not be exactly the George Clooney's of this world. But there's something about their energy, there's an intelligence. And I will say I had a big crush. I don't know if you ever remember, there was a TV series called Mission Impossible. Marty Landau was so smart and such a wonderful, you know, emotional actor. And I had a big crush on him and I got to meet him many, many, many years later. But I would have to say as a young girl. And to this day, God rest his soul, I have always been in love and wanted to date Robert Mitchum. He was the love of my life. More than any, more than Bogart, more than any of Robert Mitchum. And there weren't really many in those Teen Beach movies. All the guys in kind of puny and I had no interest in that. But Robert Mitchum. Was there anyone that you always wanted to work with but never had the chance? Well, first of all, I wanted to work with Fellini. I mean, I that was one of my other big crushes was Machello Mastriani and all those wonderful Fellini movies. And ironically, the set designer and the costume designer, Danilo Donati, had worked for Fellini. And I think that's one of the things that also added to the magic of Flash Gordon was that he was just he had this wild vision and he'd be floating around in these amazing costumes, which in fact, if anybody is interested, you look at the sets on Dune, another one that Dino produced. And they're exactly the same interior as was Ming's palace when he walked in all those red walls and things and some of the costumes repeated themselves. Just a touch when you were talking about Danilo Donati, did you know that they that Danilo was working on Flash when you audition for the role or you hadn't you didn't know anything about the film? I have no idea. And and one of there were so many exciting things doing the movie. And in the back room, the costume room, there were like, I don't know, thirty five little Italian women's sewing beads on one at a time. It was a magical room. And he just would flip it and he'd say he'd look and he'd speak to the people of Italian and because he didn't speak English. And it was just it was like you're with a wonderful magician. That's what I'm going to call him. He was a wonderful magician. He would just take a piece of fabric and create something so brilliant out of it. Did you spend a lot of your downtime still being on set, watching them film, exploring the costume department or the props department? Or did you tend to keep to yourself and maybe rehearse and and prepare? Yeah, because I sort of came in without a lot of prep time. I did a lot of rehearsing and I did a lot of sleeping because we were working six day weeks, about 12 hours a day. Sam, of course, was in almost every scene. So he was really exhausted. But I was to they were long, long, long days. So I would just rest and rehearse, try to get some exercise. And it was a pretty relentless schedule. Yeah, I can imagine. What was the total shoot time? We started shooting, I think, in middle end of August. And then we took a week off for Christmas and then started again from January until the end of February. And of course, you know, you know, being in England in an airplane hangar, it was cold and damp and we had these very skimpy little costumes. And maybe my scenes of total would be sort of hanging up there on these things for the for the cycle and they'd all break for tea while these fans were going. It was it was cold. It was really cold. So it was physically and time wise, a very long, pretty hard, steady shoot. Yeah. Would you say of all the the projects that you worked on, was that the most challenging then? I think that one of the most challenging things about it was just coming in at the last minute with no prep time, because fortunately, almost everything else, I had time to prep and maybe work with a coach and do my own work and and and be more aware of, you know, a character that I was creating. Fortunately, you know, had given me some of the comic books in the comic book. Steele Arden was always just going, Oh, no. You know, and I thought, well, you know, and this is remember in the 70s, we shot in 79, you know, women's lives pretty popular. So again, God bless my colleges. He was pretty open to me coming up with things that would have me participate in fights where I might not have before. And responding like a woman who was a travel agent, I could just take care of herself wherever she went. I love that because you do so many movies. You know, it's the woman needs saving. But you you give it your all and you you hold your own. I like it even with me. You know, when he says he would marry me and I say, I do not. And that wasn't in the original line. So yeah, I wanted to keep some of her some of her feistiness and her individuality alive throughout the show. So aside from Flash Gordon, what would you say you're most proud of with with your work? I'm most proud of the movie I did with Jeff Goldblum about a wonderful American in comic called Ernie Kovacs. And it was called Between the Laughter and I played his second wife, Edie Adams. Fortunately, I got to meet Edie. In fact, I wore one of her dresses in the movie of the week. It was a time in Ernie Kovacs life when his wife, who was very mentally ill, had taken away his two children and he couldn't find them. So it's Edie and and Ernie's courtship coming together, but also going through this very, very difficult time with the abduction of his two children. And of course, Justin is a superb actor and we had a wonderful director, Lamont Johnson, and the story itself was pretty powerful. So I would say that would be the second one. Absolutely. You also played quite an iconic Marilyn, I was going to say Marilyn Manson, not Marilyn Manson. No, I don't have the same skin color. How do you prepare for such an iconic role? I'm glad you brought that up because I got a place that, you know, it's 2A and 2B between both of them, which are my favorites, because I really got to play someone who I adored and grew up watching films with. And so I watched a lot of films on her. I listened a lot to her recordings and then I would use my own tape recorder to get the voice as similar as I could get it to Maryland's and again, wonderful costume, wonderful director and actors. She was such a tragic woman. Part of her mother was very mentally ill, probably a little schizophrenic. And she was sort of knew the way to get herself around with sexually. But she's also a very bright woman, you know, self taught. I think she used guys. I think they used her. And so there really wasn't anyone looking out for Marilyn throughout her life. And I liked it because it left questionable. Is this woman who has all these things going on quite right? Someone who actually and she certainly had attempted to the side, but die the way she did because there's a lot of things that don't make sense. I like that mystery because we really don't will never know the truth about her. Did you feel a pressure when you knew that you were going to portray such an iconic figure? Yes, a piece of cake. I was worried. Are you kidding me? Oh, my God, because I knew the critics would be ruthless, absolutely ruthless. And on top of it, the American critics would be absolutely ruthless because it was kind of a darker side of the Kennedy family. And they certainly are one of the great families of America, but a lot of darkness in there. I knew it would be a hard time. I knew it would be a really, really hard time just because of that. Fortunately, my reviews of the work I did in playing Marilyn were pretty complimentary. But then they got into this thing about why are we talking about Robert Kennedy having this honorable man, having sex with Marilyn Roll as a movie? And I will never forget I was at Universal. These huge press conferences in a big auditorium and they'd have all the press come and they have them come and ask the talent and the directors. About whatever project they were trying to promote. And so I'm sitting there and I'm listening to some guys say, how could you do a movie like this? And I said, and I just started to see the tenor of the of the press turning against us because they were all defending, you know, why would we do this to the Kennedys, right? And I said, doesn't anybody want to know like how I got like my boobs so big and what it was like to dye my hair? Can we can we go back to really what this is about? Which is Marilyn Monroe and the portrayal of that and her her tragic, really, really tragic life. And she was operating with some pretty high level people across the board, including the mafia, you know, as they say, who knows what happened? It was tough. I was supposed to actually be on a very famous American morning talk show about it. And one of the female co-hosts was through marriage related to the family. And she she nixed me. Yeah. And after that, it was interesting because when that came to an end, I mean, I worked so hard and I think I did a pretty good job. I worked so hard and I thought, you know, what is this business? You work so hard. You have to keep starting over and over again all the time after your project, no matter how good it is, the critics can make or break your movie or the studio as in the flash born, it wasn't that promoted in America. Like, what am I doing this for? And I was getting older and I decided that I wanted to make a change in my life because it wasn't it wasn't rewarding anymore. It really wasn't. And and so I made a few few minor changes. But changes that you still work as in your life today, though. Yeah, I went back and got my master's at NYU and got my master's in social work and continue to do family studies and trauma studies, had a practice in New York and worked at Hazeldon. My specialty is trauma and families affected by addiction and people who are troubled by addiction and I I love it to this day. I continue doing it. I have a private practice and also work at a fabulous place called Friendly House, which is not for profit for women only. And it is so rewarding. And I see magic happen in front of my eyes. You know, it's not the Danila Donati magic, but it's the magic of watching the human soul find peace. And that's a pretty amazing way, you know, if this covid thing got me tomorrow, I do feel like I've had a good life. Amazingly rewarding career and life you've had knowing that you help people on a daily basis. Absolutely. And really, you know, we don't we're therapists, you know, we don't know what knows the human soul, not even the person who's caring it. And finding these fascinating stories of how people survive such horrendous circumstances and become productive and helping them on that journey. It's kind of like, at least I feel as a therapist. I'm here to remove the obstacles so you can find your path of ease and peace as much as you can for your own own success in life. In a way, it's like being a priest because it's a real sacred honor to watch somebody get to that aha and find belief to some of their earlier stories they've had to live throughout their life. And you know that you can help people realize that there's always a way to make a change. Even when there is a minor change, it still recognizes something positive they weren't doing before. And the other thing about this career because you know, show business is sort of youth based is I can get really gray and old and be in a wheelchair and put on 20 pounds. And people think the older I get, the smarter I am. So it actually rewards aging where show business doesn't do that. If you could go back to your former self and give yourself one piece of advice, what would you say? Well, I say this to many actors and people want to know in the business. Thank God you got your bachelor's degree because once I had that, if and when the work would come to an end, I could go on and do more graduate degrees and create a new life for myself. And, you know, also because it's in our form of artistic expression, especially for actors, they're not acting all the time. Sometimes you go, you know, six, eight months a year without working. So you better find for yourself another form of art, whether it's music, painting, sculpting, whatever, raising puppies that feeds you because there'll be a lot of times that you're not going to have that world feeding you, which is a little bit unreal because, you know, they put your clothes on, they do your makeup, just sit there and show up. That they, you know, can we get you coffee? How about dinner? Then you come back to your home and you vacuuming and making your own meals. The glamour is gone and it doesn't stick around. So at the end, I started to paint, which has been one of my great pleasures. And that really filled up those lulls in the career and things got quiet. And you're an incredible painter. I was just blown away by your work. Thank you very much. Yes, I love it. I love it a lot. I hope as I get older, I have more time to do it. Well, it's been such a delight to talk to you, as always. And thank you so much for giving me your time. And I can't wait to come back to the state so we can have that dinner that I've been promising you. Well, thank you so much, Lisa. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Now, we did feature a longer form piece on this, but it seems a real shame to not show it here. Bob's B Cave a few weeks ago, he showed this incredible bit where he actually bought the original headdress that Melody wore in Plash Gorge. So we crashed this down to the shortest possible thing and go. This Melody Anderson, AKA Dale Arden's Slave Girl headdress. When I got it, it was really distorted from age. It's made out of some sort of leather composite material. And over the years, this headdress, like slowly started to shrink and turn into kind of like a claw. I slowly over a couple of days decided that I was going to try to get it back into shape. Essentially, I carefully hit it with a heat gun a couple of times, just on low to see if it would flatten out and slowly massaging it because it's super fragile over days and days. I was able to get it to lay flat just like in the film. Even during filming, the studio lights were so hot that like all her TRs would start to melt and warp. This is a very interesting scene because this headpiece, they were all made of leather and some plaster that glued things on. At the beginning of this movie, you'll see how upright it is. And you can watch as we get further along because the leather starts to slowly bend forward and you can actually see. Now, that's not me. I mean, you think it's me, but I didn't have those roles. Then I have them now. I don't have them then. Look at how tilted that head piece is. I told you, you can see the timing of the movie. Oh, look at that. That is me. That is not a stunt double. Look at how brave I am. But my headpiece keeps melting over my head. Obviously, the first thing that shows up here is just the insane amount of beadwork, I don't know how many hours this would have taken. So I'm guessing anything with this amount of labor involved was just the hero single prop. Another really cool piece of this detail that you would never see in the film is this little bracket that actually attached to Melody Anderson's head that has fake daylardon hair wrapped all around it. I think it just goes on like this. Wow, it's big. It's like and it's a little heavy. Yeah, so there you go. So that's it. That is the episode. Pretty good. It's speeded through that one, didn't we? Record time. So last week, if you missed Mark Miller's interview card, but if you did catch it, you would have seen that we had a competition for you to win a side life after Flash DVD. And to win, you had to answer the following. That question was what would your superhero name be and what would that superhero power be? We had some really funny ones here, but the one that won was an absolute belter. Yeah. You just we just knew straight away as we started reading, we thought this is the winner. So I thought I'd give it. It's quite, you know, it's not too long, but I thought I'd give it a bit of dramatic reading. So competition winner, Paul Trundle, DVD man, that's the superhero, a once desirable and in demand superhero who's fallen on hard times due to the emergence of another hero on the scene, the Blu-ray. DVD man forgotten, literally left on the shelf and with his life in a permanent pause mode until one fateful day, Blu-ray goes missing. The world is thrown into disarray by a new order called the 18 second arseholes coaxed out of his case like shell by his close friend Captain VHS. DVD man is told it's time to play again. After an epic battle where DVD man uses its powers to control time going backwards and forwards, we will skip to the final chapter when the 18 are defeated. They learn to like and even subscribe to the finer things in life. Life after returns to normal. Blu-ray is back in 4k glory and an upgrade break. DVD man is once again a thing of the past, spotted occasionally in charity shops and walking amongst the public unrecognised. And also in my garden where I hang them up to stop birds coming. However, there remains a memento of the glorious past in the form of the signatures of another hero who once saved the universe and a director who is helping to keep the dream alive. The ball. It's a great answer, brilliantly written. You really do deserve this prize, Paul. So well done. Yes. And if you heard that and don't understand a single thing about it, watch last week's episode and it all makes sense. Yeah. So congratulations, Paul. Don't have a copy to show you, but if you were to last week's, you'll see a signed copy of life after flash. It is a DVD. Hope you have a DVD player. If you need to scare birds from your garden, I found that hanging them on a bit of string on a stick as they turn, the glint stops them landing so or you could put in and enjoy the film in glorious, I think 1024 by 576. I think it's 725 by 576. No, no, no, it's no. It's pretty 890. 640. 640. It is 640. Anyway, thanks again for watching. Hope you're part of that 2 percent and watch to the very end. And we will be the 2 percent heroes we call them. And we will be back, I guess, next week. Have a good week.