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(Sam J. Jones) 'What has life after "Flash" been like for me?'

About 35 years ago, I put on...

I put on some tights and a tank top. (Chuckles)

Thirty-five years later...

Thank God. Thank God I don't have to wear...

Well, actually, I did in "Ted". I wore the tank top and I wore the tights

in"Ted 1" and "Ted 2".

But I would probably be very self-conscious...

Hey, how are we doing today?

- (Man) Fine, thank you. - Good. Where are you in from?

(Man) 'For nearly 50 years, the comic strip "Flash Gordon"

'has gripped the imagination of successive generations of children.

"To translate it to the screen is a challenge that involves

'love, inspiration, hard work and pure movie magic.'

When I first saw "Flash Gordon", it changed my life.

Flash! Ah-ah!

I love everything about "Flash Gordon".

It was such an incredible experience at that time.

We'd take the carpet in the middle of our living room

and pretend that was the floor with spikes,

- and we were just acting it out. - I was blown away.

This reminds me of being a boy again.

Quarterback, New York Jets.

I would've been pretty little the first time I saw "Flash Gordon".

The first time I saw it I was 11 years old. I was in the fifth grade.

- I was in college. - Yeah, "Flash Gordon",

grew up with him as a kid.

I'm a late bloomer. I always get to things late.

I just saw "Star Wars". It's great. Are there sequels?

The special effects were ground breaking.

I think I saw it, like, a dozen times, but I couldn't be sure.

They gave a different look to "Flash Gordon".

I just love the colors, I love the costumes.

I love everything about it.

My wife and I were first dating, this is the first movie we saw together.

Action adventure, love story.

The way the music hit, and the colors hit,

like, that was my entire world.

Hail Ming!

Something happened during the making of that film

between Sam and Dino.

Sam is a man who... struggled.

All the tabloids are coming out, saying "Where has Flash Gordon been?"

Who wants to hire a bitter, angry actor who's blaming everybody else?

It's harder for them to go and explore other characters

because everybody just wants what they love.

Well, I guess I'll be running along now.

Like, really that day, right?

Like, when Sam got the call that he wasn't asked back.

He really stewed in his own juice.

He was around. He did stuff.

You know, I'd see him in a couple of TV series,

you know, in the '80s, and go, "Oh, that was Flash Gordon."

But it just...

I don't know how much of it was that the film didn't do as well as everyone thought it might

or how much was whatever went on behind the scenes with him.

(Rich) "Yeah, I wonder if he regrets what he did.'

(Woman) Well, who doesn't remember this, of course?

A football player and his friends travel to the planet Mongo

and find themselves fighting the tyranny of Ming the Merciless to save Earth.

Well, guess what, Flash Gordon Sam Jones is right here

in our studios here this morning,

and he is part of this weekend's STCE's Comic Con at TAMIU.

(Chuckles) Good morning.

I carry my own bread because, uh, it's flourless.

I was getting pretty heavy there at one point

and I eliminated all flour.

And within 30 days, I dropped 30 pounds.

A pound a day just from eliminating...

I knew I couldn't give up my primary staple of bread,

so I substituted it for this Ezekiel bread.

We have a lot of print, a lot of radio, some TV,

lot of interviews back to back.

It's gonna be exciting.

If we leave it there, maybe we should do this, you know.

That way you're clear, I'm clear.

So, this is good like this? You're testing?

If he does the same thing?

(♪ Radio station jingle)

- So, "Alien". - Yes.

Well, I guess you can call me Flash, you know.

We're gonna get up and probably pose together, OK?

You know, I'm sorry. Do we have any high chairs, like bar chairs?

You just do a mark,

maybe just write, just a "1" or something.

You know, just a mark. And then, that way I don't have to be bothered.

I don't have a whole lot of those, do I?

So, at the end of the day, doesn't matter if you have $10 or $20,000 in that till.

It doesn't matter. The marks on my sheet and the marks on your sheet

is what matters. Is that cool?

Yes.

And they should come to you first, right? In line?

OK. So that way, Melody and I are here. Boom, boom, boom.

OK.

There has to be some form of organization, which it is, you know.

And this is a more intimate venue, which is good.

Just thank the Lord for a great day, a blessed day.

That sign should be corrected. It should be straight.

The Holy Spirit just guides me in everything,

that I'm patient with people, that I'm not too...

As my wife says, I'm abrasively encouraging.

Well, I want to get rid of that abrasiveness.

I want to get rid of that abrasiveness today and just be encouraging.

And Your joy upon me. In Jesus mighty name. Amen.

(Man) 'Join us for the fantastic adventures of Flash Gordon.

'Having been taken prisoner by an ally of Ming the Merciless,

'Flash escapes, only to face the gauntlet of the swamp.'

Leave him!

(Man) 'Is this the end? Will Flash survive?'

'Find out now at a theater near you.'

I remember when I first saw "Flash Gordon", me and my younger brother

we'd been seeing the trailers for it on TV.

And the TV spots were great. They were, uh...

I've never seen them anywhere.

I can't even find them on YouTube. There would be little cliffhangers.

They would show each little adventure.

Like, when he's fighting the creature in the swamp,

and it would show him going to attack, and it would say, "Will Flash survive?"

I was a "Flash Gordon" fan before "Flash Gordon" opened in theaters.

I used to watch the Buster Crabbe "Flash Gordon" serials.

My problem was I saw "Flesh Gordon" first.

♪ Flash, ah-ah! ♪ Yeah, um, I dug it.

It had Brian Blessed, it had Timothy Dalton.

I remember every single bit about that film.

My favorite bit in the movie, I think, is the football fight.

I think it probably is everyone's. As a little boy,

um, that was the scene we acted out most.

What I really remember is being a kid.

It was that scene with Timothy Dalton,

being terrified by that thing that they had to stick their hand in.

That frightened me as a kid.

You can see why George Lucas wanted to make the "Flash Gordon" movie.

'He wanted to get the rights to "Flash Gordon", couldn't get it,

'so he wrote his own movie called "Star Wars".

"But originally he was inspired to do it because of "Flash Gordon".'

(Millar) You can see "Flash Gordon's" fingerprints all over "Star Wars",

so it really is the daddy of that genre.

"Flash Gordon" was a really exciting movie for me, as a kid, to see.

And seeing somebody like Sam ♪. Jones play Flash Gordon,

it definitely had an impact on me as an actor.

There is something so absurd about him in the film,

because he's guileless. He has this innocent approach to everything.

Are you all right?

He doesn't really evolve or grow throughout the whole movie,

but that's partly what I love about it.

He shows up, and he's perfect.

- My name is Flash. - (Gore) 'He's kind of naive.

'We've got to stop Ming or he'll destroy the Earth.'

Like, it doesn't... You know, he's just a guy.

Right? Who says that?

He's just one of those guys who you root for, you know, no matter what.

Well, "Flash Gordon" was created at a really interesting time,

where it seemed to be characters who we would identify with

being put in an environment that was alien to them.

He didn't have, like, superpowers

so he's not, like, a superhero, but he's just a normal guy

who got put into a very difficult situation.

Uh, a stressful situation. And he was able to conquer and save the Earth.

It's an interesting question. Is Flash Gordon a superhero?

Yeah, he doesn't have any superpowers,

just his natural athletic abilities,

just his natural abilities, in general.

You have to care for the character because of who he is

and not just for his superpower.

In other words, in private life if he's interesting

and you want to know more about him,

that, to me, is what makes a good character.

Then, if he has a superpower on top of that, so much the better.

But you can't be a superhero without a superpower.

Sorry, I don't want to step on Stan.

Stan said... Stan the man said

that if you'd have to have a superpower to be a superhero?

Cause Batman would not be a superhero.

A good superhero, I think, is somebody who against all the odds wins.

I think, ultimately, that's what every superhero story is.

A guy you don't expect to win, a guy who is out of his depth

suddenly winning at the end.

Honestly, in terms of the history of superheroes,

there are no superheroes without Flash Gordon.

Uh, if that character hadn't come out when it did in the '30s,

um, you wouldn't have had all the various characters and costume designs

that came from people ripping off Alex Raymond and his comic strip.

The fact that Flash Gordon can take on Ming's entire army, win and save the planet,

to me, that makes him a superhero.

Effectively the father of all superheroes, in many ways, is Flash Gordon.

The everyman for the best in all of us

who could rise up and take on virtually everything.

In the context of the film, that's taken to maybe a slightly more,

uh, humorous degree, attaching him instead of what he was created to be

in the '30s. He was a polo player.

Now, he's a football player in the modern age.

I grew up in athletics, anyway, as a footballer,

and basketball and baseball and track and field.

And it's helped me a great... I mean, it's obviously helped.

(Man) 'Newcomer Sam Jones plays Flash Gordon.'

It had a lot to do with me getting the part, I'm sure.

Other than taking my clothes off,

I think that had a lot to do with it, you know. (Chuckles)

Dino De Laurentiis, you know, he gave me an opportunity.

He, uh... He cast me in the part of this iconic,

this legend Flash Gordon.

It was, like, the most coveted part. Everybody wanted to play that part.

It is, um... You know, it's iconic.

The audition process for Flash Gordon, yeah, it was complicated.

It wasn't easy, because we look around for one years,

no star, really, can play Flash Gordon.

I think I met with Dino De Laurentiis in his Beverly Hills office.

It was all about sizing you up.

He flew me to London. They dyed my hair blonde.

He wanted to change my eye color, uh, blue,

so I had these hard contact lenses.

And finally after 30 days he basically said,

"Hey, you" He didn't say it to me, he said it to another man in the office.

He said, "Hey, Sam Jones, he's our new Flash Gordon."

(Man) 'Melody Anderson as the delectable Dale Arden

'doesn't find her Mongo trip much of a rest cure either.'

I'm in New York and I get this call.

There's this voice at the other end of the line,

"Melody, it's Dino." And I think it's a friend

making, like, a joke. Going, "Right, Dino De Laurentiis is calling me."

It is Dino De Laurentiis, and he says to me,

"I want you... (Imitates) I want you to come to London tonight.

"We want you to do the movie."

The only comic book I saw was at Dino's house.

It was in Italian so I had no idea. Buongiorno.

I didn't even have a rest. They picked me up from the airport,

took me to the studio, dyed my hair.

Shaved the front of it because they wanted to make it look like a wig,

but, of course, nobody thought about using a wig.

And, um... And put me on screen with the wardrobe,

and I started working the next day. It was that crazy.

Everything was overwhelming.

I was really discombobulated for the first couple of weeks.

Sort of like I was a deer in the headlights, going, "Where do you want me now?"

I think I remember being quite nervous about it

cause it was a big film, and it was exciting as well.

We had no time to enjoy. If I'm rehearsing this scene,

a fight scene, OK, we go to the next set,

we shoot that scene that we just rehearsed an hour ago,

then, I go off with the bull whip artist.

He has to teach me how to use a bull whip,

and it just did not stop.

I'm playing Vultan, the king of the Hawkmen.

(Man) 'Brian Blessed.' - And his kingdom is the Sky City.

"Flash Gordon" had more effect on us as schoolchildren

than anything else in cinema.

Brian Blessed was a great guy to work with.

Oh! Gordon's alive!

At the end of an episode, the railway embankment was outside,

we've got these great steam trains coming through.

And we'd run down the embankment.

Jumping, doing ghastly, what men dare.

And you pretend to be... And I was pretending to be Vultan.

And I never dreamt that eventually I'd actually play Vultan

in the film, but I enacted him as a child.

(Man) "You'd think for a long time in the film

'that he's really a big baddie.

"But he's really got a great heart,

'and at the end he comes good and becomes a great hero.'

I based my part on the comic strip part.

Zoom, bang, wallop, wham!

What a great voice he has. What a presence.

Never have I known such artistic happiness and freedom.

For me, it was a...

picnic.

There was a marvelous sequence

in the opening conversation when Zarkov says,

"Come on! You can get together.

"You can all get together and you can fight Ming."

And I'm going, "What, fight Ming? Against the Imperial Fleet?"

And as I'm passing Melody, I goosed her straight up the arse.

- (Exclaims) - Woo!

And she screamed, "Ahh!", as I put my hand up her arse.

And she never expected it on the film.

(Trevor Butterfield) Before we had to put all the wings on

and all the costumes, we had to stand there in our underwear...

and have all this makeup painted all over us.

I couldn't sit in a chair because you've got these solid wings...

It was difficult walking down staircases.

And so, they built me a perch.

He was left more or less all day wearing these damned wings.

They would go, "Pretty polly, pretty polly." Bugger off!

You walk in the studio and everybody goes..." (Bird whistles)

Making all the bird noises!

We had about 12 wiremen or riggers,

all pulling up and down.

We had another 12 pulling them along on pulleys.

It was outrageous.

Getting people up on wires. And Brian going,

"Get me out of these wires, Michael." Brian.

And then, you get them on the wires,

and, of course, you've got to really be ready

because once they're on there and they're hovering,

you've got to really start rolling the camera.

(Anderson) 'it was a very physical film.'

A lot of the shooting was happening in the winter,

and there was no heat, and so, we had these straps

that held us up... I remember scenes with Topol,

when we're supposedly on this machine.

And we'd be hanging in these stirrups,

like, 40 feet off the ground.

'And they'd have the fan going. It was already cold.'

They would often just sit there and go,

"OK, it's tea time, everybody," and they'd go off.

And we'd, kind of, say, "Hey, what about us?"

We were hanging, I don't know, I think, a whole week.

(Man) 'Zarkov is played by Topol.

"As a child in Israel, he only learnt of "Flash Gordon" by word of mouth.'

Well, the cinema was in the north, I lived in the south

of Tel Aviv, and it was too far for me to go.

It was quite a... (Laughs)

A different, uh...

A different sort of acting.

I mean...

We couldn't decide whether to have Topol or Warren Oates.

I remember we went to the theater one day before the shooting,

myself, Bernie, and we were talking about who we should have.

And we all had our own ideas who would be better.

Mike wanted Topol. Dino said, "Listen. Who's got a coin?

"I make some of my best decisions like this."

And someone gave him a coin and he said, "Heads it's Topol, tails it's Warren Oates."

He slung the coin up and it came down as Topol.

And that's how Topol got the part.

(Topol) 'He was a professor, and he was very serious.'

Thirty-five years.

There's this tiny minutiae.

But remember when Zarkov, they're sucking the memory out of his brain,

it's supposed to be backwards, but they show them meeting

and then her dying, when it's supposed to all be backwards.

That would've made a huge difference, I think, in the film.

In the marketing, in the box office.

- No, no. I know. - That needed to be said.

We all want to see stuff like that.

Like, you know, in "Die Hard 2" they use

a Pac Bell phone on the East Coast.

Like, little things like that.

It was a bit hard going, the film.

You know, there was lots of changes in minds.

"Like Arboria, the forest. For some reason, they thought it'd be way out,

'and they made it pink, and the cameraman, Gill Taylor,

'he came on the set, he said, "I can't film this.

'People will never talk to me again. How can you have a pink tree?"

'And he made them change the whole thing.'

Thank goodness he did because it looked ridiculous.

(Man) 'Neither of their two London studios was big enough

'for all the extensive sets,

'so they also commandeered a massive aircraft hangar.

'Six million cubic feet under one roof.

"Three times the size of any existing film stage.

"Triple Oscar winner Danilo Donati was appointed production designer

'to give the movie its overall visual flavor.'

(Martha De Laurentiis) So, the challenge of making a spectacle

with "Flash Gordon" was the genius of Danilo Donati.

(Roy) 'The sets were elaborate, bigger.'

You know, it was one of the biggest movies at that time.

It was a little overwhelming.

"Also, when I saw the quality of the work on the sets...

'Danilo Donati who did the production design worked for Fellini,

'so he continued that same kind of exotic lyricness

'in the designs that he did.'

(Ross) 'One of the beautiful things about the film

"and one of the absurd things, too, is how much it embraced color.

'Nothing was practical about the fashions and costumes

'made for the "Flash Gordon" movie.'

It was all meant to be just this splendid literary landscape

of brilliant color and sequins,

and things taken to a degree that

nobody would think before or since

to do in a science-fiction film.

There was a work room with these little Italian women

sticking these things, these beads on,

each bead on at a time by hand.

'My wedding dress with the black bugle beads, weighed 30 pounds.'

How did I feel about it?

'All these fancy schmancy dresses and eyelashes.'

Another day at the office.

♪ Put back the mask, Put back the mask

♪ That's all I ask you to do! ♪

- You see, I warned you. - Peter Wyngarde was Jason King.

'He was around forever in the '60s. Did loads of stuff.

"But he was Jason King in "Department S".

'And then, he had his own show, "Jason King".

And he was a sex symbol. Women went nuts for this guy.

His life story in general, about him being an actor

and him being involved in the gay community,

and him, kind of, like, not getting blacklisted

but, kind of, getting shoved aside because of his alleged homosexuality,

um, just made his character in "Flash Gordon" even more interesting.

My costume was so heavy that I couldn't stand.

I couldn't walk, I had to prop myself up

in this ridiculous ironing board.

It used to take my poor dresser an hour to put the costume on.

Also, a jock strap.

Because the nuns that made this silk,

this raw silk, so fine,

that things kept popping out,

so we had to put on the jock strap.

So if anybody wants to look closely,

I can tell them it's all well covered.

We're coming up to the point where Prince Barin and Flash Gordon

kill Klytus, and throw him on the spikes, and kill him.

And at that particular point Peter Wyngarde wouldn't die.

'Suddenly he stopped the whole filming.'

"I think that Klytus is such an important character.

"There's going to be sequels.

"I think it'd be a big mistake to kill Klytus off.

"I don't think I should die." At which point I said,

"Well, I'm not gonna bloody die."

'Mike said, "No, no. It's written in the scripts. You die now.'

"Klytus is part of the whole thing."

"Well, I still..." "You die! You bloody die!

"You come on, they get hold of you, and they throw you on the spikes,

"and you die!"

- (Man) 'Director Mike Hodges.' - It Is a comic strip

and therefore they are pretty one dimensional.

And by having good actors, I think, it sort of just adds flesh and blood to it.

You sort of feel that they've all got a past and they've all got a future.

I thought the best thing was he should go to another planet.

That was my weak little suggestion

so that I could come back in some way for another film, of course.

But, no, he wanted me squashed up in little pieces.

We had a different director. We had Nicolas Roeg

for a year plus who did all the developments

and the pre-production.

So, Dino meets Nic Roeg.

And Nic did a lot of research and also did his own, you know, pitch to Dino,

and also, enough time with storyboards and illustrations

to, um, have somewhat of an idea of what the picture would cost,

uh, if it were going to be in his, kind of, highly stylized intellectual take.

And I guess Dino thought, "Too expensive. This isn't going to work."

"They tried to make it work, and Nic actually parted ways with Dino.'

(Man) 'Movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis.'

I start to read the Flash Gordon character when I was a kid,

around 13, 14.

The cartoon come up in the United States in 1931.

1930s was the first time.

After the big economic depression of the United States.

The American people were looking for a hero.

And Flash Gordon was the first great American hero,

who tried to save the world.

So, to describe Dino as a producer,

is also describing Dino as a man,

where he's about a quality of life

and he's also, um...

Was also just full of love

and an immense wave of will to make something happen.

You always knew when Dino was there, you know.

Everything, sort of, seemed to change.

Dino loved to fire people.

A couple of times, I think, I got to tears.

You know, just being frustrated because he was so specific

and demanding about how he wanted his film to look like.

Mike, you know, disagreed with everything Dino wanted.

So, it was almost an argument.

"You know, Mike was going to bloody leave the film.'

There were problems, and I remember one day hearing Mike,

um, order Dino off the set,

which I thought was exceptionally brave,

for anybody to do that to your producer.

When Dino came on the set, people got so scared no work got done.

He used to come on with three or four of his henchmen,

you know, carrying money in their pockets and things.

Bags. In black outfits. And Dino would come...

People were terrified when Dino was around.

He got on like a house on fire, you know.

And I'm busy doing something. I said, "Dino, go on. We won't get anything done."

Am I allowed to say F?

So I said, "Dino, you must fuck off!

"Dino, you must fuck off. We can't get anything...

"Everyone's terrified of you. We can get bugger all done."

With all these costumes... (Laughs)

(Mimics) "No one tells me to fuck off."

There was a lot of conflict on set

because Dino didn't get...

It was supposed to be funny and camp.

That's the way Lorenzo had written the script.

You've got Dino wanting it to be an epic film,

and the distributors wanted...

another, sort of, John Wayne Flash Gordon.

And then, you've got the cast

and... Mike Hodges...

sending it up.

High camp, as it was called.

Why, I can't think.

He was a perfectionist. He came to me one day, and he went,

"Your face is so round."

I said, "While that's true, it's not gonna change."

And I was certainly a lot skinnier then than I am now.

And, um, and...

You're very right about the perfectionist.

He had an image in his mind and he would not bend it.

When he died, I, kind of, read his...

the retrospect on his life.

And he did it several times with "Flash" and other big films,

where, you know, he put lots of money in and made something that was iconic.

Dino would talk about, you know, obviously, working with actors,

working with, um...

You know, not that Sam was a diva,

but in a certain way he was a young, novice actor.

He was a beautiful All-American boy that fit the part visually.

'Not a lot of experience.

"But there were some things that once he showed up in London,

'some behavior patterns that Dino saw happening.

'And so right before they started shooting, Dino calls him into his office.'

He's sitting there and Dino's behind this big desk.

He says, "Sam, you come, you do this...

"This is a big movie. A lot at stake.

"Take care about what happens now.

"What will happen later, you become a star.

"You are not a star now.

"You must be sincere, and go quietly."

'I guess that fell on deaf ears.

'Because, I think before they started shooting

'Sam ended up in an altercation,

"where he ended up in the hospital

"because he had a big gash on his forehead.

'It would have been disastrous, though.'

If Sam were not to do this job right before shooting,

we'd have to find another Flash Gordon.

"Yet, Sam didn't listen to that advice even after that.

'He continued to have altercations.'

He was very emotionally young, Sam,

and, um, a little out.

Felt... I think he felt a little unloved.

He's a prima donna. You know, making life difficult for everyone.

Give me this, give me that. I don't want to do this, you know.

Come on the set late. Hey.

We're nearly getting to the end of the film, only got a couple of weeks to go.

I wasn't getting paid as a weekly actor.

'I'd listen to my representation, who evidently wanted a piece of Dino.'

They said, "No, we're gonna just hold up.

"And you're not gonna work anymore."

My advice, I spoke to Sam a little bit about it,

was not to get involved in a confrontation with Dino

over, be it money or whatever,

because I'd seen it happen before, particularly with George Lazenby.

(Jones) 'I didn't work for a couple of days. It was a big deal.'

And I guess you'd say I held up production, and then, I got paid.

So, apparently, at Christmas time, they broke.

Gave a couple of weeks off. The crew goes home,

Sam goes back to America, and he doesn't come back.

They sacked Sam. Got rid of him.

(Martha) 'Dino says, "The pope die, you get a new pope."

'We put the stand-in. We finished the movie without him.'

I was sad for Sam cause I liked him a lot.

Whoever his agents or advisors were, were completely wrong,

but, you know, so often they are.

The stakes were large for Dino on this.

'Dino's collateral were his personal assets.

"And when something like this happens,

'you just have to make a decision and go.'

Dino wasn't vindictive. He had to always cover his ass.

Because if not, they'd take his ass.

He didn't go back and loop his dialogue.

He must have really been upset.

That was the bone of contention.

You know, I mean, my leading man is to be dubbed.

You know, fuck you.

As an actor, uh, you know, I'm sure there's a frustration with that.

He was disgusted with it.

He wanted it to be his voice, he wanted it to work out.

He wanted to get paid. He wanted things the right way.

I know it hurt him that his voice was, uh...

You know, cause Sam has a great voice,

and the voice that they used was, kind of, pedestrian.

I don't know who it was, but that's definitely a British actor doing American,

- trying to do American. - I think it's Bill Cosby.

He's a Canadian actor.

I do know his name. I can't remember it.

Not because for any reason,

but I just simply can't remember his name.

He did, sort of, things like "Thunderbird."

One of those "Thunderbird" characters.

His performance has not gotten its due.

I think the movie hasn't, but his performance as well.

- Really? - He's wonderful in the movie.

I think he's really, really great.

It's hard to pull off the heroic thing

and not look, you know, ridiculous doing it.

He does it very, very well.

But in certain instances,

that voice doesn't quite do justice to what he's doing on screen.

I just think that it was so wrong that Sam was treated badly,

with the dubbing.

Uh, because it was wrong. It was very wrong.

We made our protest. It's all we could do.

Made another time, he would have cracked it.

- He could have made it. - Universal was ready to do a sequel.

Like, they were gonna do, like, a trilogy.

At that time you had a contract for a sequel.

You know, sequel rights and blah-blah-blah.

So there was a contract for doing the film, doing film two and three.

Sam sues for not having done two and three.

But two and three were never made.

These guys are very powerful in Hollywood.

I mean, they're not the sort of people

you want to be changing a deal with or your situation with,

because it'll come back to haunt you.

You've got to be very careful who you upset.

(Man) 'Join us for the fantastic adventures of Flash Gordon.

'Will Flash's strategy prove successful?

'Will he survive?

'Find out now in a theater near you.'

So, at the time that the original "Flash Gordon" came out,

there was so little merchandise.

There was, really, nothing to buy as a nerd.

But I bought the "Flash Gordon" movie novelization,

which I read as a kid.

And let me just tell you,

the stuff that you learn in this "Flash Gordon" movie novelization

shocked me as a teenager.

'Flash Gordon's mother died during childbirth.

'Flash Gordon's father became, kind of, an alcoholic.

(Jones) Childhood was unpredictable, unbalanced,

dysfunctional, yeah.

"Dad was on the road a lot. He was former military.

'So a lot of my growing up was, you know, hard knocks.

'Sam Jones, my grandfather, who I was named after,

'told my dad, "Son, it's time for you to go get a job

"and explore the world." My father left

'and went to the Wyoming coal mines.

'He probably arrived at the ripe old age of 14,

'and, obviously, started drinking,

'which led to 50 years of drinking.'

My dad was a great guy, but he was a chronic alcoholic.

I know you hear all those, but he was a good drunk.

'But he was a good drunk. I mean, he would drink,

'would not break you down, he'd actually build you up.

'But my mother couldn't stand him drinking.

'My father would say to Mom, "Anne, why don't you stop your nagging?"

'And her reply was, "Joe, I'd stop my nagging if you stop your drinking."

"Well, I'll stop my drinking if you stop your nagging."

'And just back and forth.

"And they both split, and at 15-and-a-half,

'I ended up getting my own apartment with friends.

'I don't know how that happened, but it happened.'

Nobody humbled themselves. They had to stick to me, my way.

So, that was my family.

A lot of actors come from a place of loss.

And Sam experienced loss as a teenager in a horrific way.

(Jones) 'Well, my older brother, the only brother I ever had,

"we were 14 months apart.'

Joe Jones. He was so great as an athlete

that they nicknamed him Jumping Joe Jones.

And he was a local hero.

'We were going from Florida to Sacramento.

'We thought it was a vacation,

'but little did we know that our dad was running from bill collectors.'

It was a deceptive move, it caused a lot of contention and strife

between my brother and my dad.

And, uh, he was never the same from then.

'He got into a bad car wreck, but he was physically so strong that he survived.

'And he was 21 at this point.

'Because he was of age, he told the doctors not to tell the family

'that he only had six months to live

'because his organs were deteriorating inside.

"And, you know, he acquired a gun and he got pulled over by a cop,

'and he got shot and killed by a police officer,

'who was protecting himself, obviously.'

And, uh... I mean, that in itself is devastating.

- (Woman) Take your time. - Yeah.

But, uh... Yeah.

As you can see, I haven't talked about this much.

But, uh...

"It wasn't just so difficult that he left this world early,

'but the cop that took his life happened to be good friends with my mother.

'So, my mother's good friend shot and killed her oldest son.'

The weapon that he acquired, my dad bought for him.

(Hill) A lot of times actors find a way in their characters

and their roles to overcome that,

but at the same time channel that passion, that energy, that caring

into their characters.

It's a way of dealing with something that you just can't otherwise deal with.

But, Sam, through that loss found a way

to entertain, to connect with other actors and actresses

and directors on the set that was rather unique.

"But this was something that was an undercurrent

'to who Sam was as a young man and then certainly as an actor.

I think it's probably what drove him to be an actor.

"It was a way for him to escape something that he might not

'otherwise have been able to deal with.'

I guess when I went to Hollywood, I probably got a little bit full of me.

He was very wild, and so was I.

And we drank, we did drugs.

I was born and raised in Hollywood.

You know, a lot of our friends and family were famous.

It wasn't until I stepped out of my little bubble

that I realized going to parties with the LA Lakers

and hanging out with famous football players wasn't normal.

We made millions of dollars and spent it all.

'We came to that place where we were very unhappy inside.

'And I was looking for something, and so was Sam.'

(Esprit) 'We were young and, you know, he was married at the time.'

You know, a lot of infidelity.

"And the reputation that Sam would get because of that.'

Because, I mean, Sam was an extremely handsome guy.

I mean, he still is. But, I mean, back then, when he was young,

I mean, you know...

He had women falling all over him.

And he took advantage of that.

My first marriage to Lynn... Lynn's a great lady.

We have two great children, Matthew and Kaylin.

Lynn was a great wife and a great mother.

And I was just a horrible husband.

I was a habitual adulterer, you know.

Um, no fault of anybody but myself.

Um, you sit there yelling, "Oh, blame it on Hollywood. Yeah."

Just blame it on Hollywood, what?

It's just the matter of a man making wise decisions.

You see all the time in Hollywood, families being broken apart non-stop.

'And husband cheating on wife, wife cheating on husband.

'It's a crazy life. Hollywood is not for the normal person.'

People think they want it.

(Esprit) 'I think it's just something he had to go through.

'| think it's something that he had to go through, a divorce.'

He had to go through a relationship with a woman that he met

when he was doing a film in Mauritius.

"To the degree to where it brought him to a point

'of wanting to kill himself.'

(Jones) 'In between my two marriages, I was with a French model.'

I was madly in love with this, uh... with this lady.

And, uh, I probably treated her like a god.

I'm sure that was my downfall. And she left me for another man.

And I was devastated.

'So I'm looking at two things on how to get her back.'

I'm looking at... I'm looking at a handgun.

Yeah, you know, a handgun. Well, that's, you know...

I'm looking at a little bottle of Sominex.

Little pills you buy across the counter to make you go to sleep.

He took a bunch of sleeping pills, and then his wife at the time

who he had married from over there,

called me on the phone and said, "You're Sam's good friend.

"I think you should come up here. He's not right."

'So, I went up to the house,

"and the ambulance came, and they pumped his stomach.

I went down to the psych ward that they had in there

because he was probably a little nutty, and I go in, and "whoosh".

These doors, you know. And you go in there,

and, um, I see him and he's like,

"Oh, brother. Brother." He's, like, half laughing and half crying.

'| just grabbed him by his shirt.'

And I just got up in his face and I said, "Stop it.

"Stop it! Or you're never getting out of here."

'It was a sad time. It was a hard time as a friend

'to watch, whether it's family, or somebody you really care about

'and even respect to have to go through something like that.

' Just think sometimes you just gotta hit the bottom.

"And sometimes the bottom for some people is a hard hit.'

(♪ Busker plays fiddle)

♪ No, I've not seen him all this long day The boy don't want to write this way

♪ If he did, I have no doubt... ♪

Well, enjoy Spain.

Are you going to Madrid? Where are you going?

(& Busker continues singing)

(Jones) "You have to find something good in everything.

'I mean, you do, you know.'

Sometimes promoters didn't quite do their due diligence,

and they didn't have the type of numbers that they wanted,

but you have to find the good out of everything because...

I mean, if you look hard enough, you can find...

You could find the negative out of everything, huh?

- (Jones) 'Very good.' - (Busker) 'Thank you.'

(Jones) 'It's funny, yeah? It's a bit much, you know.'

I mean, unless you change the world, right?

'Like, Winston Churchill and people like that

'had a huge impact on the world.

'| guess on my tombstone,

'if they said, you know, "He was a good husband and a good father," you know.

"And made people laugh."

Good morning, good morning. How is everybody?

Good morning. How are we doing today? Good?

This should not be there.

My table here, Melody's table here.

All right, the banner goes right there.

Alex Ross has a brand new poster that he designed.

T2.You got a T2?

- Yeah. - Yes.

Martin, I need a couple of volunteers, please. Martin.

Just like that, we can...

This really shows how practical we are.

- That's beautiful, man! - I did it the wrong way. Take it off.

Ah, set it up. Pull it down. Nice.

- Yeah. - (Jones) Where are you, Peter?

If you'd be anywhere, you'd be in here with this group, right?

You should've been in here, right?

There's space. I think space around here would be good.

How are you? Hello.

- Come down to Dale Con. - I think, "No, I'll never get starstruck."

And then, I see him there, I'm like, "It's Flash Gordon!"

We thanked him for saving every one of us.

He laughed. I don't think it's the first time he's heard it.

I was among the men with Melody. I was Arborian.

You see me just there. Looking very innocent.

I wasn't actually in the film, but prior to them actually making it,

they had to do all these experiments and tests with the Hawkmen,

who figure largely, as you know.

And so, I was down in Shepperton Studios for quite a few weeks

being, um, fitted up into the costumes and the wings,

being flown up in the air, being carved out of polystyrene.

You know, Queen did the music for the film.

In the ceremony, they actually played Pink Floyd, "Crazy Diamond".

They played that music, and it created atmosphere.

So they actually used a musical track to set the atmosphere.

This is the actual stump monster from the film 35 years ago.

It's first public appearance since it killed me in 1979.

And I was asking Quentin how he got into writing,

because he started as an actor,

he said he would re-write... He would take scenes from movies that he liked

and do those in acting class, and add to them.

'He would act the scene with a partner,

"where you put your hands in the tree stump.'

And I say in the show, my interview show,

I said, "That's a great scene, but it's not that long.

"Did you expand it?" He goes, "Yeah, I would expand the scenes,"

and that's where he learned to write.

It's seriously dilapidated because it's, um...

All its workings. Cause it was a mechanical object,

so that tail used to come up.

You'd see in the film, it used to come up and, kind of, glowed and pulsated.

But that's 35 years of deterioration, I'm afraid.

I took the leaves from my own back garden just to give it a bit of...

It's one I made earlier, yeah.

(Bob Lindenmayer) One day it dawned on me,

if I didn't buy a month's worth of action figures,

I could take that money and actually buy something real from the film.

Flash Gordon's tank top. There's not a lot you can say about that,

other than just... enjoy.

Well, my name is Rolf Skrinde.

I've been collecting "Flash Gordon" props for 20 years.

This is a tunic worn by Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin.

It's beautifully made. You can see it even has little blood stains on it

from the battle on the revolving disc in Hawkmen City.

And even in the back, it has some Timothy Dalton sweat stains.

In the '80s, most props and costumes were, like, pushed outside

into this massive burn pile.

This is a Hawkmen blaster.

So, especially, with the older movies, it's super challenging.

They would fire, the light would go off.

The animators, they were making animated rays for the film,

would know when exactly they're firing it.

(Imitates gunshots)

I ran down the wing. (Imitates gunshots)

And they said, "Cut! Cut! Cut!

"Brian, we put in the special effects."”

Original Hawkmen puppet. There were three sizes of these.

This is the smallest size.

And, essentially, it was just to pepper out the entire screen.

My first thing I got was my "Flash Gordon" sword.

When I got it, it was just like, "Oh, my God. It's so crappy."

Like, now I embrace that.

It has a history to it that you can actually see.

This is the notorious eyeball gun used when Flash first crash lands on Mongo.

There's a ray that shoots out of it, and on the end of the ray is this metal glove

that strangles Flash to the ground. So you can imagine.

Being throttled to the ground with this.

Original Hawkman helmet, which is interesting,

because 90% of them, the entire top has been snapped off.

This is another Imperial blaster. And Timothy Dalton uses this.

He flings it over his shoulder at the end of the film. Kind of awesome.

One of the original Klytus masks.

I couldn't breathe when we first got it.

I couldn't speak any lines.

This is the only one in the world

that has been in the hands of Peter Wyngarde

in the last 35 years, which is super exciting.

I had to consider relinquishing the part.

I suddenly thought of something.

It was a ventriloquist's doll,

with all the instructions on how to throw your voice out.

And you found a way of making the voice come from your diaphragm,

and come through, eventually, through this mask.

And it worked. Eureka!

How can I express my gratitude?

Ming royal guard mask.

This is another good piece, Prince Vultan's club.

(Blessed) So, I met Dino at Shepperton. "I want you to be like a Viking,

"and I think you should have a sword."

I said, "What? A sword?"

"I mean, a sword? No, no!"

I said, "This guy is the most powerful man, physically, in the film.

If you want to carry ray guns, that makes you weak.

But, if I just move among monsters and hit them.

"Oof! Bash! Thump!"

Like the comic strip, he just flattens them without a weapon.

(Imitates) "OK, kid, OK.

"Maybe you have... You'll have a club."

So this, is an Arborian pipe, played by the great Richard O'Brien.

It's a pig guard who we call Creepy Red Guy.

He's the one that got shot in the face, and the smoke went off,

and, essentially, like, filled up his helmet,

and made him sick, and he threw up.

Melody Anderson told me that story.

Without the story, it might as well be an action figure,

and, I think, that's probably the difference.

'And mine also has burn marks in it,

'for the bang flash that was there."

Now, you're living... You're living in "Flash Gordon".

I think "Flash Gordon" has the most movie posters ever made.

The amount of original art, uh, that was generated

before, after, during the film

is unprecedented, and is super lovely to collect.

It's important in the center, here.

In the center, here.

The line here is perfect.

(Man) 'Today, special effects have to be more special

'and more effective than ever before,

"and thoroughly tested out, often at some personal risk.'

I spent a lot of my time with the special effects people.

They were showing me how they made the skies,

cause that was very interesting.

Dino De Laurentiis had a thing about clouds.

He used to love to see clouds.

They had a big tank of water. Huge tank of water.

And they dropped those different colors in,

and the different colors had different weights in the water.

And what they didn't realize that two days later

the water was still going round.

Very, very slowly, but it was still moving around.

And as it moved around, the colors bled into the water.

And there was this wonderful effect.

It's the first time you saw colored skies.

So, in that scene where Flash is going to be executed,

the sky is green and purple and vermilion.

It's beautiful.

The combat disc was challenging.

"You saw what happened when Sam went off the edge,

'uh, and that was not out of an improvised situation.

'If we improvised, we'd probably kill ourselves.'

We had to think of a good way to make the spikes look menacing

without being dangerous.

'My colleague came in one morning on his bike,

"Why don't we make the spikes like bicycle pumps?

'And then, we can blow it up with air.

'And if somebody falls on it, it will just go down again.™

- And that's what we did. - Knives up, please.

- (Man) Knives up. - (Jones) All knives.

Get all knives in there.

There's no art without craft, in my opinion.

(Duncan) 'It was probably the last of the pre, sort of,

'before we got hi-tech digital stuff coming in.

"And yet, it was still done well with props.

'And, of course, we'd had "2001",

'so you could still pretend very well with models and things,

'and make it look good.'

But now, everything is so hi-tech

that we've almost lost that romance.

I really think that how well "Flash Gordon" turned out

for what it aspired to be, I think, is a testament to that script.

- It was fun. - Tell me more about this man Houdini.

We were very good at being so serious.

I love this line: "Tears, they are a sign of weakness."

It's fucking true, though.

- It is. - Have you seen us cry in this interview?

No. And we're strong.

The nice thing is, the comedy becomes enriched

because they are not playing it for comedy, because they are playing it seriously.

So it was never going to be like a "Star Wars", it was never going to be...

It was always going to be camp.

I don't see it as camp, it's comic strip.

When we did it, we had no idea that it was...

In the sense, it was a bit tongue in cheek.

I think I seem to remember it was a serious science-fiction film,

even though everybody was dressed in, sort of, lycra,

and it all seemed a bit... You know, a little bit over the top.

Timothy Dalton was very naive.

I mean, very young.

He took it all very seriously.

- Timothy Dalton is giving it everything. - He's good.

- He's taking it very seriously. - He loves it.

I think everyone is.

Timothy would say things like "Well, uh...

"I'm gonna play it like Errol Flynn. Yeah, yeah. With that panache."”

Prepare a feast!

One interesting thing was that Ming the Merciless was Max von Sydow.

I'm not sure that I'm Killed.

I think I have, somewhere, a secret trick

which might give me a chance to return.

He sat with me, and he said,

(Imitates) "I don't know how to play this part, Ming."

"Max, you amaze me. A great actor like you..."

(Imitates) "I know, I know, I know.

"I've got to make my entrance in about 20 minutes' time.

"I don't know what to do with my first entrance."

I said, "Well, Ming's a magician, and he is very sexy."

I said, "Ming uses his hands." It freed him.

So, I show up for my close up.

And here's Max von Sydow coming back to set two hours later.

He's wearing the full costume, which weighed 60 pounds.

'I said, "Max, what are you doing, man? You're off camera.

"You don't need to be here. You don't really need to wear that.™

And he looked at me and he said, "Sam..."

He said, "I'm going to give you my off-camera lines

"the way I best see it, and you had better do the same for me."

I went to his dressing room, and there's girls in the bath, naked.

"What are you doing, love?" "I think he's gorgeous!"

"Darling, get out of the bath! Dry off, love. He's happily married, he's got a terrible ulcer,

"he's not well, and he can't shag anybody! Out the bath!"

I think a week I was on and off set,

catching occasional glimpses of Ornella Muti

across the set floor, really.

Being a young man then, I was rather enchanted.

I was her pet. I said, "What a nice owner to be a pet with."

Princess Aura is looking at Prince Barin,

and they're whipping some guy, and she goes, "I love initiations."

- That's one of my favorites. - Right.

A particular thing which I'd hoped Mike would do something more with...

Which I regret he didn't.

"'The execution, Klytus takes out a handkerchief

'and puts it under his nose.'

It was her handkerchief, Princess Aura's handkerchief.

That was what I was trying to do. He wanted to take Ming's place.

And he thought the best thing to do is fuck the daughter.

(Man) 'Klytus, I'm bored.'

(Ross) Just the very opening of the film is something

that would get my heartbeat up.

The very first frame, I think, is Ming talking about Earth

and wanting to destroy it.

And he does the buttons for, you know, earthquake.

Hurricane, tornado and hot hail.

What the hell is hot hail?

It's hail that's hot, and when it lands, it burns.

But why hot hail?

- Why not, like, hail? - What's cold hail going to do?

And then, the first lines of "Klytus, I'm bored", and

"What plaything can you offer me today?"

You know, all that stuff is so invigorating

because you know there is this drumbeat that's coming around the corner

very soon. Putting a rock soundtrack to a modern sci-fi film

was something novel that hadn't really been tried before

and, really, hasn't been done much since.

In terms of music and film, obviously music plays an incredible part.

Music is such an emotional component of filmmaking

that when you hear that music in there,

and you actually listen to it now, and you go,

"Oh, wait a minute. What was Queen in the '80s?

"Oh, my God. They were, like, musical gods."

Just before "Flash Gordon" came out,

Queen's biggest album was "The Game" in America.

And "Another One Bites the Dust" was this massive, massive single everywhere.

- Uh, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." - "Ha-ha!"

That's my best part, when they go, "Ha-ha!"

"We Will Rock You", I mean, they had hit after hit after hit.

So, I think that movie, that score, that soundtrack,

yeah, was an important part more for the movie than for Queen.

Because anytime that song comes up, and it's...

- (Humming) - (Humming) ♪ Flash

- ♪ Flash! Ah-ah! - (All vocalizing)

Music has always been very important in my movies.

I started just doing my own music because of that.

I started my own band because of that.

Having the band score a movie.

I've been doing it since "Desperado”, probably because of that.

When I was a kid, I bought... I was at a flea market,

and I bought the soundtrack to "Flash Gordon".

It was this bright yellow album

with the "Flash Gordon" logo on it.

You had this, kind of, heartbeat to the movie

that was built by this incredible rock star band.

Still inspires me to this day with my own music.

I think, really, for its time,

it was just the zeitgeist of music for a film.

Without them? (Chuckles)

Queen's music is sensational.

The romantic music when Flash and Dale are together in that rocket.

I thought that that was the best thing in the film.

Queen, I think that's essential to the movie.

I think the movie would have been fine on its own.

You know, it would have been an amazing thing as it is, but...

It takes you over the top. It's like this, and then, it goes...

- Yeah. - Here, Queen.

What happened with the score was that it produced a very, very unusual... synthesis

between orchestral music and pop music or rock music,

whichever Brian might want to call it.

♪ He's for every one of us

♪ Stands for every one of us

♪ He saves with a mighty hand every man, every woman every child

- ♪ It's the mighty Flash - (Blake)'There was another composer.'

They thought he was going to write it, and he didn't write it.

He wrote enough for one minute.

And here, Dale, I give a hint of "The Love Theme",

that... (Hums)

I had, effectively, ten days to write this colossal score.

When we began, they were already quite far on with the filming.

And they were able to show us the rushes

of the things which they wanted music for.

I went away, and I already had this thing in my head.

It was sort of... (Hums)

And it became the underscore of the film, something I was really pleased about.

And I could hear it all in my head.

I could hear all the harmonies go, Flash!

"Ah-ah!"

It's all about... thunder and lightning.

You know, "Flash!" And then the thunder comes.

So it goes, um... I wonder if I can still play it.

(♪ "Flash's Theme")

(♪ Low, loud note)

That kind of stuff.

And what everybody loves is the... (Low, loud note)

On a multi-million dollar piano.

Funnily enough, you won't see it in the video.

Mike made the video incredibly rushed.

So you see me going, "blam", but you never see me do this

because he always cuts to Roger going "pssh”

on the cymbal, which happens at the same time, obviously.

So, nobody's seen that till now.

♪ Flash! Ah-ah!

♪ Savior of the Universe ♪

When we saw these first rushes, we all picked on a piece.

I worked on, well, a couple of things.

I guess the battle sequence and, um, the title.

I wanted to make the title theme.

And Freddie...

It was hard to keep Freddie in the studio at that point, I've got to say.

He was like, "Yes, darlings, I'll do a little bit,

"and then I have to go." But he did, like, this...

great, kind of, ethereal...

a little vocal piece for... Princess Aura.

Freddie Mercury, he said, "I've written a tune."

I remember Brian saying sometimes,

"When Freddie comes in, he knows exactly what he wants

"and what he's going to do, and we don't have to work too hard."

I said, "How's it go?" He said, "Well, I'd have to sing it to you."

I said, "Well, go on. Sing it to me."

So he went... (High-pitched vocalizing)

Freddie was a, kind of, musical genius,

because he wasn't the musician that Brian May is

or the others, but up here he was.

The, sort of, weight of emotion in it

is all, really, very much

due to the way the music is written.

So you also have to be not only a composer

but a bit of a psychiatrist.

(May) 'Once you have your themes and you've demoed them roughly,

'you then go in and embroider and try to make them into finished tracks.'

And, of course, you know, Freddie has to do the singing

so we try and write out all the words for Freddie to sing

and, um, show him what we want.

And Freddie says, "No, darlings, I'll do it this way."

And, um, he does his own thing.

He hated me making him sing the end titles,

which were incredibly high, you know, "The Hero".

And it was done pretty late on, and he's like,

"You always give me these fucking things

"that make my beautiful throat bleed!"

He hated it and loved it because he loved the challenge.

Forever!

♪ Put your feet on the ground Put your hand on your heart ♪

The idea of us doing the underscore was, kind of, revolutionary at the time.

Nobody had done a rock underscore at that time.

Nobody at all, as far as I know.

I did a little demo, and Dino sat there very impassive,

and listened, and listened, and listened, with a slight frown,

and said nothing.

And then, we play "Flash", the theme which I had come up with,

which was supposed to be the theme for the whole movie, I was hoping.

I played that to him, and he went...

His frown, kind of, deepened, and he went,

"This is very good, but this is not the music for my film."

And it wasn't until the premiere of the film itself,

which happened in London,

when Dino finally said, "Thank you. It's magnificent."

Or something like this, you know. I don't know exactly what he said.

But he came over especially to say thank you to us

for making his film, uh, come alive.

I thought, "It's amazing. I've finished it."

"The next thing I knew, my wife was shaking me.

'She said, "Do you know what day it is?"

'I said, "It's Thursday.™

She said, "It's Saturday." They couldn't wake me up.

'And they had to shoot me with Benzedrine to wake me up.'

Acute bronchitis and pneumonia in both lungs

due to absolute, total exhaustion.

"And he said, "Actually, you would never have woken up."

And I remember saying, "I feel fine."

You're ready?

(Humming)

Look at that, huh?

(Ramona Jones) I met Sam in church twenty-three years ago

in Indonesia, he was doing a film there.

He saw Ramona, and he said,

"OK, that's her. That's my wife."

Something in me just clicked. You know, I had butterflies in my stomach.

And I said, "Oh, my gosh. This is the man. I'm gonna marry him."

'It was rough. Sam was very much an actor back then.'

He was so caught up in what he thought he had to be

and what he thought the world expected him to be.

"You think you've got to be this famous actor.

'You've got to have, like, millions of dollars in your account.

'And that's how the world treats you. That's how they measure success.'

(Jones) 'You're raised on a pedestal.'

Once it's over, you go, "Wait a minute, guys. Time out. Don't you remember?

"I just starred in that movie, and I just did this series."

At one point, he was at the top,

and he was making millions upon millions of dollars.

And I'm sure my brother would tell you about this.

And then, he's been at the lowest of low points where he had nothing.

I saw all of his successes and all of his failures.

And, I guess, as a kid, you don't really understand why,

uh, someone can be super successful one moment,

and then, all of a sudden, we're sleeping on my grandmother's floor.

If the phone's not ringing and nobody is calling you to, uh...

you know, to contract you to act in a movie,

(Chuckles) you start...

you know, then you start believing that.

Well, you know, maybe I'm not in demand anymore, maybe I'm not needed.

We were just at that place where I had been teaching for many years,

and we had little kids, and I said, "You've got to do something else.”

After "Flash Gordon", he had a lull and a dip even before I met him.

So when I met him, he was on the upswing again.

So, he was on a comeback even at that young of age.

And then, when it dipped again in the early '90s,

I think he just thought he was gonna bounce again like he did.

And all of a sudden he saw he wasn't bouncing.

I watched a lot of suffering.

I watched... I watched the wilderness for Sam and Ramona.

She suffered, OK? Sam suffered.

And his kids, especially Matthew and his daughter suffered, OK?

So, I'm not gonna make light of that.

He lost his family, he lost his place in Hollywood.

I don't know any other woman that would've done that decade

that she had to endure with him. I wouldn't have.

Now, he's remarried, he's broken.

I think that she had gotten to that point,

and, basically, had given him an ultimatum.

If you're not going to change the way you do things,

then maybe I'm not supposed to be walking this path with you.

(Esprit) 'She went to Indonesia with the kids for a couple of weeks, and he sat there.'

(Ramona) 'What do I have? What's another thing I can do besides acting?'

And then he realized, "Well, I guess my military background,

"and I have these certain skill sets that I can use

"to help bring provision into my home."

He had gotten himself in a position to be a bodyguard

and to work as a high-end security details.

He really wanted to keep living that superhero life in real life.

He would get a job that he still has now down in San Diego,

and they would have to move.

'If you ever want to talk about divine intervention

"or a move that you really need to do

'and there is a real purpose for it, that was for them.'

You got to do things with a spirit of excellence, otherwise,

as my dad would say, "If you can't do the job right, then don't do it at all.”

I'd always say, "Well, Dad, I don't want to do it at all."

And he started laughing and walked away.

Average day is, I get up at 3:30am.

Cross border security operations 101.

We'll be under the radar today. Low profile.

We're crossing the border at any designated time

between 5:00 and whatever it is.

5:00am on.

You will not see our weapons. Our weapons are usually concealed.

We're not in a combat zone.

High risk, but not combat zone.

We would transport our VIP principal to a secure place.

Are there any imminent threats on their life?

Any... Any, uh, former threats?

It just compounds it for us.

During the day, we have a command post, an office.

And we're doing our intel reports, we're doing our admin work.

We're out running advances.

When we go into a restaurant to eat,

we pay immediately, we don't wait around for the check.

"They have recognized me as an actor.

"Wait, wait, wait. I've got an actor protecting me?"

"No, no. This doesn't feel right, OK?"

But, uh, thank God they didn't recognize me

until three or four months afterwards,

where I had already proven myself as a security professional.

- Ooh! Who is this, Pablo? - (Man) Where?

Right here on the left. This is President Abraham Lincoln,

believe it or not.

And why is the statue of Abraham Lincoln

on the Boulevard of Heroes in Tijuana?

Yeah, he probably liked tacos, but he was a he is a hero

to the country of Mexico.

The average salary here in Mexico is approximately $10 to $20 a day.

Before, the drug cartels started committing all their crimes,

and chased away a lot of the tourists.

It's the lower level criminals that you have to be concerned about.

Wherever we drive, no matter what we do,

you always want to leave a way out.

If you don't have a way out, then you've made a big mistake.

Video.

(Hill I think for Sam, a great family man,

he's got five kids who he adores,

he'd have wanted to continue to take care of his family.

And he was in the military, had a strong sense of authority.

And, uh, the whole security business appealed to him,

that this is something I can do.

And I'll commit to that the same way I committed to acting

or anything else, and I just think

that it was Sam answering the call as a father.

And that, you know, there's...

Being a good father is the most important thing a man can be.

Sam had to be a man that stood.

And stood.

And sacrificed.

And then, going from being Flash Gordon

to getting a job as a security person and going to Mexico and...

Well, I dare anybody to try that.

I'm a Marine, you know. I was a former Marine before I was an actor.

And my family and friends say,

"No, you're always a Marine. Once a Marine, you're always a Marine."

But it's just... It's just... That's me every day.

We had a small group of four, five couples.

We'd met maybe weekly for about two months,

and we're just getting to know each other.

Sam and his wife come late one night.

I remember my wife and I were arguing one day at the airport,

and it was all about me, you know.

- We're talking about opening up our lives. - And she said there's a great book.

And finally Sam stands up, bigger than life, and says,

"I need to tell the truth here. My life is a mess.

"We were arguing in the car that's why we're late."”

It's called "Purpose Driven Life".

I said, "I don't want to read it. I know my purpose in life.

"I know my purpose in life, woman."

"We need help, and we need this group!”

She said, "Well, just read the first paragraph.”

You know, Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life".

I read the first sentence, and the first four words,

"It's not about you."

And when he did that, because it was so real,

it changed the entire chemistry of that group forever.

(Esprit) "There's a breaking that happens,

'and there's a realization that you have to face.'

You've got to be willing to face it.

If you're not, then your weakness is never going to be turned into a strength.

There was a confidence that was being built in him

that was different than being the confidence

that because I was in a hit movie, cause I was in a hit TV show, gives you.

And people love me, so I feel so confident.

It's a different confidence than that.

And that's what happened with him in those years of obscurity.

'It was a suffering, but there's a joy attached to it,

'because you know that you're becoming the person

'that you were always meant to be.'

(Ramona) 'He had to find out that that was not everything in the world,

'that family was important, his faith was important.'

And I think Sam realized that, and it just set him free.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm really proud of him.

He was made for Hollywood. It's his inner being.

And he's often said, "I was made for this, Daina.

"I know in my innermost being that God made me to be an actor."

And I get emotional over it,

because you feel that you have this talent

and that God wants you to utilize it, but you have to rein it in.

'When Sam was lost for a while,

'he thought that who he was as a man

'was defined by his acting.'

That's not who he is.

I just said, "Sam, I don't believe that God is done with you

"in this business, I think you need to do this. You do this for your family and everything."

And I said, "But I just don't think... I don't think he's done with you here.

"I don't know how, when, where,

"but I believe you're gonna come back into this business in some kind of...

"in some kind of way. I just don't know why I'm saying that.

"I just feel that." And then, 10 years, eleven years later,

he'd get the call from Seth MacFarlane for "Ted".

'I said, "Hey, Sam, what's going on?"

He goes, "Brother, I'm driving up to LA right now.

"Uh, do you know this guy Seth MacFarlane?"

'And he goes, "Well, this guy is writing a script.'

"Mark Wahlberg has, you know, this teddy bear since he was a kid

"and they have a relationship together." I immediately went, "What?"

Seth MacFarlane is, obviously, a genius on so many levels.

- (Man) How are you feeling? - Oh, I feel good.

How does it feel to be walking down the red carpet?

You know, number one, it's a blessing to work.

(Wyngarde) 'I loved it. I liked it because I saw Sam in it, too.'

But I thought the little bugger was awful.

Horrible little thing.

Ghastly little... Only America can make a film like that.

(Ross) 'Seth, obviously, was coming from the exact same generation as me.'

This film was in his head the same way,

and he had a way to put that into his own creation.

My memory of that movie was with such reverence,

and I think Sam's character, kind of, embodies that.

You know, they have this incredible reverence for this guy

who turns out to be just a party boy like them.

When Seth first called me couple of years back, he said,

"Sam, when I was nine years old, I saw you in "Flash Gordon".

"You changed my life." And he said, "I want to bring you on board,

"and you're gonna play yourself." I said, "Myself?"

"It'll be a little bit of a parody and a spoof.'

But this is not... The way you've written it, this is not me.

I mean, I did a few things like that, but...

Uh, if we're being honest right now, I thought it was horrible.

Uh, I didn't like it.

'I understand that there's a lot of fans of my dad

'that want to go see it because of him.

"They need to know it's not what he stands for.'

He wanted to be as clean as possible in a role that it's really tough to be,

because of what was asked of him.

Sam at my bachelor party was Sam in the first movie.

I know that Sam.

He actually did change a lot of the lines than what it should have been, so

Even though it's not the cleanest film out there. (Laughs)

It brought "Flash Gordon" back into the public eye,

and I think it really did a great job

of energizing old fans that had...

very limited options about how to celebrate "Flash".

They asked me to come on to the set for a reshoot they were doing.

It was right over here in Coppola's old studios.

We got there, and he knew everyone,

from the security guard to the guy making the food.

To the guy that's just, like, holding cords.

It was the same with Mark Wahlberg, and Sam, and the bear,

but they had a C stand with a tennis ball for the eye line.

But Seth was off camera by the monitors, doing the voice of the bear.

So I'm sitting behind him.

And so, Wahlberg says the dialogue,

Sam says something, and then Seth does the bear dialogue,

and it was so funny, I had to put my hand over my mouth

to keep from laughing, and when they got done with the scene,

Sam came over to me, I said, "Sam, this movie is gonna be a hit."

It was cool being on... getting to walk the red carpet,

and seeing, like, Mark and Seth, and, like, Morgan Freeman.

Sam was one of the great spirits and characters of the business,

and it was nice to be able to honor that.

Not only the history of "Flash Gordon",

but, you know, to have fun and poke fun

at his great success with that on "Ted".

I went on the set of "Ted 2". We went during the Comic Con scene.

(Lenzi) 'We've been to Comic Cons together.'

- Yeah, we went together. - We went together.

- In separate cars. - In separate cars.

- We had separate rooms. - But equal cars.

Just friends. But we've been to Comic Con together.

We have not slept together.

I think science fiction cultivates fandom

because when you become passionate towards this thing,

when it's become part of your life, you want to immerse yourself in it.

- Things have been... - Like Comic Con.

- There was a few drinks involved. - We don't remember it.

It's not just escapism, it's recognizing the positive things in life.

I owe it to the fans to spend time with them

at an event, at a personal appearance.

"They're paying the money to come to that event,

'they're paying the money at the theater, at the box office.

'We owe it as actors and celebrities

'to give them their due.

"There's some actors and stuff, they have a problem with it.'

Stay home. Stay home.

(Man) Sam.

Come on. Fantastic. Where are you in from?

- We live right here in San Antonio. - Good.

- I'll see you at my table then. - We'll be there.

All right, get some pictures, all right. Come on.

"The times are scheduled. Say, Sam Jones is at his table

10:00am to 12:00. I know that works for a lot of people,

"but I actually like to stay at my table the whole time.

'Cause I usually ask people "Where did you come in from?"

"And they tell me that they drove 300 miles,

'and they just happened to walk by,

'I'm in the green room smoking on a Cuban cigar,

"and having a glass of Courvoisier.'

I don't think it's fair to them.

'Did I want to step away from the image of being Flash Gordon?

A lot of representatives over the years said,

"Yeah, you gotta walk away from that. "We have to show you in a different light."

They became those characters. They were iconic to the world.

It was very hard for...

In the relationship I was involved in,

for Christopher to break away from being Superman.

If you create a character and people, you know, see you

as the kind of, the definition of that character,

it's really hard to break out of that.

'So it's a curse and a blessing at the same time, I think.

"You know, actors discover the character that people love them as.

'And then, it's harder for them to go and explore other characters

'because everybody just wants what they love.'

And the question really becomes, you know, how do they grow?

You know, the negatives towards an actor being somehow only characterized

as one thing seemed to reach their fever pitch

when people talked about Adam West in the '70s

because the idea then he couldn't get any other work.

'And that that plagued him for a long time.'

So I think that the positives for somebody like Sam and others

who were recognized for something they did years ago,

you're lucky to have any kind of connection with people that you can find.

People ask me all the time, is it a positive or a negative to be, like, typecast?

'Dude, positive.'

Otherwise they've forgotten you.

It's much better to be typecast than to be miscast.

I can do ten "Gone with the Wind",

but everybody will still say, "I love you as the Hulk."

I think in 30 years if I'm still coming around to a convention

and people are excited about "The Walking Dead", I think that's awesome.

There were a lot of times over the years, in the past,

where I was put into a position to make a difference

in somebody else's life, even if it was just eye contact and a handshake.

The rare quality my dad has is,

there can be 100 people wanting his autograph,

and he will stay to the end of the show,

till the end of the dinner, until he's looked every single person in the eye

and asked them about their personal life.

(Jones) 'It's crazy how, especially, Americans,

'how they look at each other and go, "How you doing?"

'Most people lie. "I'm doing good." No, you're not.'

So I reached a point in my age, even now,

if somebody says, "How you doing?"

And I'll say, "I'm not doing so good."

And it... it changed the whole mindset

of even that question with people.

'When I ask somebody, "How you doing?"

'And I look at them, and they say, "OK.™

Even now, with the fans. How you doing?

I said, "You know what? What do you need? Talk to me."

'That's where I feel I am now.'

This can't be my daughter.

This is my 14-year-old daughter here? Are you kidding?

(Ramona) On the weekends when he is home,

he makes it a point that he's always at our children's baseball games,

or dance or whatever they're involved in.

Sam does this every morning. He types up a letter to his family.

It's on his kitchen table every single morning.

He does not miss a day.

"And he has, you know, when the sun rises.'

I don't know all the details, but he has all these specific things.

He always has a scripture, and a prayer at the end for his family.

(Grunting)

I'll come back to this.

He originally wanted me to do taekwondo

because he wanted me to be able to protect myself

cause he's really over protective.

I want to go to college and play baseball, and hopefully, make it pro.

He made me play every sport: baseball, basketball, soccer.

"There were times when he was, like, my coach.

Just being on his hands and knees at half court,

just yelling at the refs and yelling at us.

But we're fourth graders, and my dad's just screaming.

- Whoa! - (Man) Touch it! Touch it!

Whoa!

Boo-yah! That's how we roll. Sixty-one. All right.

This is Naomi, my two-year-old granddaughter.

There's a little Flash doll that she has, and she calls him Papa.

She's Miss Soccer right now, or football.

I know in the UK, it's...

She's a football player, OK? She is.

- And she's serious. - (Matthew) 'Hollywood is such a...

What have you done for me lately? Your 15 minutes of fame...

and all the tabloids are coming out and saying, "Where has Flash Gordon been?"

I'm thinking he's just been a good family man

providing for everybody, just because he's not...

on the movie screen, he hasn't fallen off the face of the earth.

I will never forget. I was probably nine years old at a gymnastics camp.

And he didn't have a car at the time.

I mean, I knew, even being nine years old

that, financially, my dad was struggling.

'And he rode his bike, which took him about three, four hours,

'and stopped and got me a McDonald's sundae.'

People sometimes don't even drive, and he biked in 100-degree weather

with a melted ice cream sundae

to be at his daughter's gymnastics camp to support her.

It's a memory that you don't ever forget.

If you look at his kids and how they're starting to turn out

as they're becoming adults,

you'll see a godly man with a godly influence,

and his children are like he is.

And he's a blessed man. He really is a blessed man.

My father and Sam became very close

in the last three or four years of my dad's life.

'My father came down with congestive heart failure.

'I was leaving to go do a play outside of Chicago.

'My father had had a stroke. I should stay. He goes, "No, no, no. Go, go."

And I said my goodbyes to him because I knew

that I probably was not gonna see him again.

'When my dad had the stroke, they put him in a convalescent home,

'but they weren't taking care of him.

'So, Sam was always over there, every day.

'He said to my mom, he said, "Anne, they're not taking care of him here."

'And so, my mother said, "Sam, we got to get him out of there."

'And Sam said, "Don't worry, Anne. I'll get him out.™

And so, he, you know...

bolstered up my father, got him dressed,

and got him, snuck him out of that place,

stuck him in the car and drove him back to my sister's house,

where my dad, eventually, about three weeks later, would pass away.

But Sam was always... Sam was there.

It's really funny because my father had five sons,

and the one... (Sighs)

that was with him...

at the end was Sam, you know?

And it was right. It was right.

As the years went on, I called Dino.

"All that stuff that happened between us,

"I just wanted to let you know, you know, I'm sorry,

"and I probably should have gone with my gut instinct,

"but I was a bit naive, and I listened to my "representation”.

And I said, "I just want to ask for your forgiveness

"because I want a clean slate."

And he said, "Oh, no problem, Sam. No problem.

"It's good, it's all good." I said, "Thank you."

'Let's just say I continued being high and mighty,

'well, maybe I wouldn't have been the father

'that I should've been to my children.

"Usually men can say that they are much better fathers than they are husbands.

"And I think the relationship between my wife

'is a great example of what a wife should be.'

In my rebellion, she had every right to nag, she had every right to leave,

but she decided to do something more important.

She decided to pray for me,

and instantaneously things started to happen, yeah.

Life is really easy: get over yourself,

knock off the baby talk,

stop thinking of yourself first,

stop pointing your finger at other people.

It's not their fault.

"Yeah, life is tough. Life is tough for all of us.'

At the age of 50, I changed vocations

because I listened to my wife, somebody I trusted,

and God opened up those doors a short time later.

Not only am I providing steady provision, but...

the phone is ringing again, I'm in demand again

for the movie business, and the entertainment business

because I got over me and humbled myself.

'I've had to be a role model.

'A lot of people say, "Oh, you've got to separate your personal life

"from your movie life. I don't know how you do that.

Sam, when he walks into a room, feels like a superhero.

Not just his physical stature, but the energy that he brings into a space.

It's literally like hanging out with Flash Gordon.

Flash Gordon is Sam. He is a superhero.

He's a guy who wants to bring justice, and he wants to help people

and save the world. Honestly, I think,

maybe the movie changed him, he is the persona of Flash Gordon

in his everyday life, and everybody loves him for that.

Sam is the definitive Flash Gordon. No one can play it better.

We should all be so lucky to get that sort of an iconic role

in that sort of an iconic film.

We're all really lucky to be a part of something that fans love.

It's really cool.

I have my favorites, and I have the films that I grew up on,

and to be one of those is a great blessing and honor.

To have any part of us left with people

that they remember us in whatever form, I think is wonderful.

It's one of those iconic roles that won't...

They stand the test of time.

Perhaps the fact that it was just one self-contained movie

and it wasn't a franchise, does make it kind of special.

BBC put it in as one of the top 100 films of the 20th century,

which is kind of neat.

We must never do it again.

We got it. You get some things right.

Branagh's "Henry V" is right, "Gone with the Wind" is right.

"Flash Gordon" is right.

We owe everything to Flash.

(All) Hail Flash!

When it came to the last scene, Ming is dead,

and that weird sphere comes forward.

'Mike didn't know what to do to end it.

'And so, Sam said, "I know. Run the camera.™

Look out, Flash! And it's coming towards him.

Hail Flash Gordon. You have saved your Earth.

And Sam just jumped up into the camera and went, "Yeah!"

There was something so simple.

There was the id that was released watching that scene

and him yelling that, and there's something about the reverb,

and, of course, immediately, the Queen chorus comes right in after that.

You know, he'll save every one of us, all that.

It was such a perfect connection of elements.

'Euphoria is what it gave me as a kid.'

- (Jones) 'What is life after "Flash"... - (Man) 'Long live Flash.'

- '...been like for me?' - (Man) 'You've saved your Earth.'

(Jones) 'At my age right now, it's incredible.'

Yeah!

I did three movies last year in between comic conventions.

Personal appearances, I love it.

Speaking of the movie "Axcellerator”...

"I was brought into this incredible part.

"Brink, who's the nemesis, the villain, the hitman.'

This is one I did in Spain.

When I was still doing pretty well, I decided to leave the business.

I had a Bachelor's in journalism and psychology.

This, of course, is the headless, armless and legless Venus.

I specialize in working with families affected by addiction,

trauma, loss, relational difficulties.

Well, my life after "Flash Gordon" has just grown and grown and grown

because I'm 50% actor and 50% explorer.

I've done a bit of Shakespeare.

And I certainly am very proud of all my travel documentaries.

I want to rap.

I'm a fully trained cosmonaut.

I do remember meeting Timothy Dalton in a lighting shop in the King's Road once.

I did go up to him and said, "Hello, Timothy.

"You killed me in "Flash Gordon"." He gave me a withering look and wandered off.

Next.

You know, at the end of the film, the hand is Klytus's hand.

Lorenzo had already written a sequel

in which Klytus had founded

a new famous Atlantic under the sea kingdom.

And I never heard another word about it

because... Dino died.

I quit doing big Hollywood films.

That was for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".

This one is for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".

When they said, "We've this little thing, "The Showman"."

I was at Buckingham Palace for a Christmas show.

And the Queen came forward, and I'm narrating the show.

"Good day, Mr. Blessed. We watch "Flash Gordon" all the time,

"me and the children, it's our favorite movie.

"Would you mind saying 'Gordon's alive"?"

So I said, "Gordon's alive!" "Thank you so much."

(Topol) 'Six years ago, we opened it.'

'It's not just a summer camp. I mean, we work all year around.

"This is something that makes the children forget about their illnesses.'

They can be Arab, Muslims, Jewish,

and not one penny is asked from them.

'For my heart, it's the most important thing that I did in my life.'

Flash. A-ha! Have you seen the pinball machine?

People dying on their deathbeds, "Please say 'Gordon's alive'."

Gordon's alive!

Gordon's alive!

- Melody Anderson, everybody. - (Audience cheering)

- And Sam Jones. - (Audience cheering)

Oh, God, you're here! I can't believe you came.

We need to get you a ♪-shirt that says, "I survived "Flash Gordon"."

I'd met Dino, and for some inexplicable reason

he was determined to get me to do it,

so eventually I agreed, but incredibly reluctantly,

because I was a totally inappropriate director for the film, I really was.

So, in the middle of the shooting, we're now comfortably on our way,

and I turned to Dino and said, "Dino, why did you choose me?"

He just said, "Mike, I like your face."

(Laughter)

- (Anderson) That is so Dino. - Well, the film was improvised.

- The football scene. - (Jones) Amazing.

Well, it was. We just made it up as we went along.

And I went straight into Gabby Hayes on one of the takes.

- "That must be one hell of a planet..." - (All laugh)

Gone off his fucking head.

"We caught this director. He has continuity errors all the way through it.

"There's red blood and there's green blood!"

They really thought we'd fucked up there.

I wouldn't know what you'd be giving me, or what you would not be giving me.

It would be stupid of me to do it, so he said, "You're calling me stupid?"

"If you don't give me this part, I'll break your neck up, your back up!

- "I'll tear your cock off, everything!" - (Laughter)

He really believed it. "Flash Gordon! He save the world!"

And he believed it. He was like a child, I'm the cynic.

I want to thank Mike.

And the wonderful guys, and everybody in this cast we had.

'We were very blessed.'