A client's Don Cornelius story: Manor Downs Racetrack outside of Austin 1980:
Posted by
CrankYanker
Feb 2 '12, 05:46
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Director Alan Rudolph is filming his utterly execrable film "Roadie" with Meatloaf. A call went out for 4,000 extras from Austin to be in the crowd scene to watch BLONDIE(!) perform "Ring Of Fire"(!). The pay? All the beer you can drink. BIG MISTAKE. This being Austin many folks brought their own beer (in cans) to supplement the free stuff...
Don Cornelius is playing promoter Mohammed Johnson and is strutting around the stage between takes wearing a black suit and an absurdly big black 10-gallon hat. It's REAL hot and there are many loooong waits between shots and the crowd is getting more drunk and more restless by the minute. Don is standing stage left while Blondie are playing and right in the middle of a take someone in the crowd knocks Don's hat off with a perfectly-pegged half-full can of beer. CUT! They set the shot up again and yep - halfway through it someone knocks his hat off AGAIN with another well-aimed can of Lone Star. CUT! Cornelius is furious. He storms up to Debbie Harry's mic and yells, "The next motherf**ker that does that is going to get his ass kicked!"
At that, 3,000 perfectly-aimed cans of beer came sailing out of the crowd, knocking him backward ass-over-teakettle... and there he lay on the stage, barely visible beneath an avalanche of empties until the medics came...
Yeah, it was a hoot. : )
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