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00:22About something like, I would like to jump you.
00:25Think that would work?
00:26Stan's a better chance than wanting to share a meaningful life together.
00:29I would like to jump you.
00:31Go jump yourself.
00:41Well, Karen was my colleague in it.
00:46She was also, she was like, I think, a television news person.
00:54And we were both reporters.
00:57I was investigating a conspiracy and got arrested and thrown into jail.
01:03And Karen's character had to bail me out.
01:06So the film went from me in jail to the car that Karen had picked me up in to drive me home.
01:15You see, I told you.
01:16You tell me about the lonely plight of a dedicated journalist.
01:18I tell you to stuff it.
01:19You tell me about a meaningful relationship.
01:21I tell you to stuff it.
01:22You tell me you're in trouble.
01:24You're out on bail.
01:25You just got fired.
01:26I tell you, I'll be right over.
01:27My head hurts.
01:28You look awful.
01:29Thank you very much.
01:30You're quite welcome.
01:31And we were attached to a camera car and just ready to do that part of the scene.
01:38And Karen said to me, what do you think the dialogue was when you called me on the phone, which wasn't in the film and wasn't in the script?
01:47And I said, I don't know.
01:49We're about ready to shoot, Karen.
01:52And Karen said, no, no, no.
01:54Let's improvise.
01:55Improvise the scene with me.
01:57And I said, no, Karen, I'm not going to improvise.
02:01My hands were full with Peter Himes, who had written this and was directing it, and we're just ready to do the scene.
02:08And Karen said, no, no, no.
02:09Let's improvise on the phone.
02:10I said, no, Karen.
02:12And in a moment, I heard ring, ring, ring.
02:22And I thought, Karen, no, I'm not going to pick the phone up.
02:27Now, as Karen is someone who did not take no easily.
02:38It made her even better to me in relation to how insistent Karen Black was and is, because everything is in the present year, such a wonderful artist and actor and beautiful woman.
02:55I really loved her.
02:57Toward the end, I was able to reach Steven and Karen.
03:04And Karen talked to me on the phone.
03:09I wanted to see her.
03:12And Karen said, you know, I'm sleeping most of the time.
03:17I've just had another course of chemotherapy.
03:21I'm very weak.
03:22I don't want you to be startled as to how much weight I've lost and what I look like.
03:27And when I get my strength back, then we can see one another.
03:34She was so compassionate and considerate and kind and smart and funny.
03:48She was not selfish.
03:51I don't know many people who are not selfish.
03:54Karen is one.
03:57A child said to me once, it doesn't matter how long we live.
04:01So long as we know we're living, right, Dad?
04:04And you're not dead until you're forgotten.
04:07I feel that so long as one of us is living, we're all alive.
04:13And Karen will always be with us.
04:16She was many things, as we all know, a composer, a singer, a writer, a poet, and a very great actress.
04:27I took her to Bill Esper's class when I was in it in our 20s.
04:31This is years after we had first met.
04:34And I said, Karen, maybe you should take some class.
04:36So we went, and Bill, who's now one of my dearest friends, went to class, and she did a scene.
04:42After the scene, Bill and I looked at each other and said, there's nothing to teach her, is there?
04:47She had it by birthright.
04:57And if I'm not mistaken, that's the definition of genius.
05:00I first met Karen in the bar at the Chateau Marmont Hotel to court her to be in a movie I was doing.
05:06And after we had moved to three different sofas so that the lighting would be optimum.
05:13I then started to try and persuade her to do this movie and to do this part that on paper perhaps she would be suited for.
05:26And I could see that her interest was piqued.
05:28But then I said, you know, Karen, if you do this part, you really have to dive off the cliff.
05:34And she looked at me and I said, but you know what I've always admired about you, what I love about you,
05:40is that you have abandon.
05:43And her eyes went really big and she went, yes I do have abandon, don't I?
05:50I always consider Karen my first and only teacher.
05:55From that point on that I felt awareness of maybe having a little gold in my pocket.
06:04And it was because of her and I think she was a seer.
06:09She was just everything that you could ever want to be.
06:13I remember her house, she had those giant pictures of their sort of 70s and just the sexiest glam shots ever of a woman.
06:25And so that was magnificent.
06:27And she was a beautiful combination of, like you all were saying before, of wild and sophistication.
