Some Words on Laurel & Hardy, Love, Partnership, Frienship and
Corruption
Lydie accuses me to be in love with her and having threatened her that I would kill her if she refuses to be "together" with me.
I already mentioned what she says is not true. I have never been in love with Lydie IN THE ROMANTIC SENSE of the word and the last thing I want is to be "togehter" with Lydie. I consider Lydie a very uncanny person, a kind of Jekyll and Hyde character who kisses and hugs you one day and the next day hates you and stabs you in the back. I often told I do not want anymore to be in the same room with her. And I mean it.
First everyone has to keep one important thing in mind: I am a producer and I have worked with Lydie. On a shooting set everyone tells everbody how much you love each other. I always did LOVE, ADORE and ADMIRE Lydie as an actress. She is a very special, gifted and great actress. I always considered her a wonderful actress and one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. My feelings never changed after she decided to fight me and to try to push me out of The Other Woman /A Bouquet for a Kill. This is one thing: I consider what she did was mean, unfair and I will fight her as long as she will not give back my videotapes of the shooting I paid for. But what she did does not make her a bad actress, of course. This fight has nothing to do with that. It is still a matter of fact Lydie is a great actress and if I watch Perfect Alibi or Acapulco H.E.A.T. I still admit she is hilarious.
When Lydie and I signed in 2003 a letter of Intent that we are going to work together and to shoot together I was thrilled and I loved meeting with her in Hollywood and in Paris and later in Berlin to discuss and work on "Bouquet". We met many times at the Clafoutie and Cafe Med in Beverly Hills, at the Fouquet in Paris and her place in Paris where she stayed and in Berlin and it was fun working with her. I earlier wrote I considered her my Stan Laurel and I loved her the way Ollie did love Stan or Dean Martin did love Jerry Lewis or Peter Cuhsing loved Christopher Lee. I was interessted in a partnership with Lydie like I have one in Germany with Katja, setting up projects and at first it worked wonderful. In Berlin Lydie came to my place and we edited what we shot during Berlin Filmfestival having much fun. As far as I was concerened I offered Lydie to go on with the partnership and shooting together more projects. Lydie on the other hand changed her mind while in Germany.
When she worked with Roswitha who was then a big name in Germany, Lydie decided Roswitha is a far better partner for her than I am and from April 2007 Lydie started to push me out of my own project. She fired cast and crew I had hired and hired new people but she had several problems: I am the copyrightowner and I was not willing to sign the project over to her.
Cast and Crew had to make decisions if they support Lydie (director) or me (producer) and Roswitha and some of the people Lydie and Roswitha brought in supported Lydie hoping to get a ticket to Hollywood. One woman who did the make-up is now a friend on Lydie´s facebook site. Anohter actor Roswitha brought in told me he has no conctact anymore with Lydie but considers Roswitha still his friend.
Katja, Jean, Rolf and other cast and crew members refused to support Lydie´s take-over attempt. Lydie wanted to keep Jörg as a DP and Jörg and I discussed it would be the best if he stayed on the set, so I know what is going on the days I am not present. (Lydie and Roswitha had scoutet some locations on her own and refused to let me in or did not tell me where they shot. However Lydie called / smsed me several times a day if she needed props or if problems arose.). Jörg informed me they gave interviews one day when I was not present and told the press "A Bouquet for a Kill" is an US production for a "Women´s Channel". However it was one of Roswitha´s friend,
whom she had reommended as an editor who finally stopped Lydie´s take-over attempt when refusing to give to Lydie the edited material. Without this dvd Lydie had nothing to go to Cannes to show to Avi Lerner. I cannot say how deeply grateful I am that the editor in spite of the fact he was a friend of Roswitha´s did NOT support Lydie´s take over attempt.
It is always a terrible decision if someone whom you consider a friend asks you to do something that is not right or even illegal. And it was painful for me to see how some actors and crew members were willing to support Lydie hoping this will bring them in touch with the big Avi Lerner. I am also very grateful that Avi Lerner - who is certainly not a fan of mine - and who has worked several times with Lydie , stopped talking to her as soon as he realized what she is doing.
So actually it was a friend of Roswitha`s and a friend of Lydie`s who stopped Lydie´s take-over attempt.
So you see, this was all very painful for everyone involved. Lydie and I have a contract and when Lydie tried to break that contract this did damage many professional and personal relationships. And inspite of the fact that I still consider Lydie a great and wonderful actress, I think everyone will understand that I have not anymore a high regard for Lydie as a person.
So it is absolutely ridiculos if she tells Santa Monica court I am in love with her and want to be together with her. I certainly am not in love with her and I certainly do not want to be together with her. All I want from Lydie is my videotapes so I can edit my picture.
I enclose two emails, one is written by me in may 2007 one by Lydie in may 2007, shortly after the may shooting, when Lydie was already back in Paris (with the flight I paid for. I really thought of cancelling her flight, but I did not because I did not want to break the contract I have with her).
As you can see in the enclosd email I still write Lydie how much I adore her (as an actress and director) If you read the mail it is about her acting and directing not about love.
In Lydie´s email she writes she will give my "love poems" to her lawyers. (actually I always write poems in French, German, English even Latin and give those poems to people I work with. I did this already 25 years ago when working at Walt Diseny World in Florida. But decide yourself: If I wrote "love poems" to Lydie and she felt offended, why didn´t she give the love poems immediately to her lawyers or police? Why did she wait with that till we had the fight over "A Bouquet for a Kill" ?
And what kind of woman is this, who - when fighting over a business problem (AND LYDIE ADMITS IN THIS EMAIL THIS IS A BUSINESS ISSUE ) runs to lawyers not with the business files but with "love poems" written earlier.
Actually I am not even sure what Lydie is talking about. I am a big fan of Charles Trenet, the great French singer who also wrote La mer (or if you are younger Beyond The Sea, recently recorded by Robbie Williams) and I wrote some new lyrics to Charles Trenet songs like Revoir Paris. After I had met with Lydie once in Paris I wrote some poem in French to the rhythm of Revoir Paris making it to Revoir Lydie. I wrote that when I drove back with the metro and later when I waited for my plane at the airport and later mailed it to Lydie - she never complained.
And I also remember, after I could not reach her for some weeks when she was filming in Romania I wrote her some lines to the music of Charles Trenet´s "Il pleut dans ma chambre" and wrote lines, something like: To find you I´ll enlist the birds in a tree, Rommel and Montgomery... Yes, Rommel and Montgomery, so this was more funny than kind of love poem and again, Lydie NEVER complained till the take-over fight much later. If she were offenend by those "love poems" why did she sign anew contract with me in 2007 and why did she come to Germany in 2007 to shoot with me?
Bernie Brillstein, the great agent who presented The Muppets, once wrote you should never lie because it is so difficult as you always have to come up with new lies to cover the old ones. And he is right. That´s Lydie´s main problem.
Telling lies you have an advantage for some time but sooner or later everyone - including Judge Gerald Rosenberg - will know the truth. And then Lydie will really be in trouble.
In Lydie´s email she also admits she has worked with me (so I am NOT a stalker but a producer). She even admits she has signed a contract with me as an actress and director. She also says she has not signed a contract as a writer. Exactly. I never wanted her to rewrite the script. But when she brought in script changes I liked I allowed her to use this ideas. Howewer when she finally rewrote more and more scenes which made not much sense I refused to Greenlight this - this is my decision as a writer of the original script and producer. In one and the same email Lydie tells me she thinks I am not allowed to use the project and some lines later she tells me she does not want the 20 minute version anymore (actually when finally edited it is 30 minutes). That´s Lydie, she never knows what she actually wants.
The email I wrote is one of many emails I wrote in the same style. I always told Lydie how much I love her (as an actress) but I made it clear I will fight her till I am 80 if she does not return my tapes.
That´s all I want. Lydie and I signed a contract. I want to edit my movie and Lydie had no right to try to push me out of my project.
Sinerely Yours,
Michael Huck
No comments:
Post a Comment