Remembering Friends: Charles Napier
One of the things I never want to do as an old man was be one of those guys that always said “I remember when”… I do not want to live in the past but continue to do things now… But, the one exception to this is remembering friends… I have been very lucky to have met many great people and been able to call them my friends… So, I will just talk a little about them in hopes to keep their memories alive…
I would like to talk about my friend Charles Napier… You may not know his name but you have seen him in many, many films and TV shows…. “Blues Brothers”, “Silence of the Lambs”, “Austin Powers”, one of the “Rambo’s” just to mention a few…
How I met Charles was I made a very forgettable movie called “Run for the Border” and Charles was one of the actors… Well, we shot it in Texas and my job as the executive producer was to hang out with Charles…. It was a lot of fun for me…. He was very funny and had so many stories there was never a dull moment….
He did a scene where he had a very long speech as the Sheriff… he read the script for a few minutes then delivered the speech like he was the guy… completely natural and the take was great the first time….
One of my favorite things he told me in bar in Texas was how his ex-wife had taken him for everything and he was living in a trailer house in Bakersfield… I truly felt sorry for the guy…. Now, let’s fast forward.. The movie was done and he invited me to visit him in Bakersfield… He gave me directions to his place in Kern County… Well, I had never been in Kern County so I did not know anything about it… I thought it was Bakersfield…
I followed the directions and I had to turn off before I got to Bakersfield… I continued to his place…. Now, to my surprise… he had not lied to me .. It was a trailer house… But, it was 2 double wide trailer houses, on several ackers of land, with a small pond and a giant barbeque pit… He had a very nice wife and 2 great kids and it was a long way from the trailer and sad story he told me in Texas…. I had a very nice visit and really enjoyed his family…
After that when he would come to LA to do voice overs or on business we would hang out for lunch and great conversations…. Again, I was very lucky to be able to call him my friend and I enjoyed every minute we spent together…
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