What's your first memory?
It was my mother listening to a soap opera on the radio called The Helen Trent Story. When I said that to my mother, she said: "You couldn't possibly remember that because you were, like, a baby". But, how else would I remember it?
The reason I ask is, I believe that, when you get to a certain age, you're able to pinpoint the triggers that made you who and what you are.
That's true - and I'm listening to a soap opera. I guess, in a way, that's not so far from what I do.
What do remember about The Helen Trent Story?
I just remember it was melodramatic. My first showbusiness memory is Howdy Doody, a television show my parents took me to New York to see. I walked in the studio and saw the whole bit. There were five Howdy Doody puppets, the stage was tiny and the cameras were blocking it. But I was not disillusioned. I realised this was what I wanted to do forever. I knew I was going to be in showbusiness, always.
How old were you?
Six, or something. I became a puppeteer from my obsession with Howdy Doody. I had a really good career. I'd go through my parents' address book and send out flyers - "Book it today!" - and I gave puppet shows for children's parties. I did that until I was about 12, when I was, like, at the peak of my career. I got $25 a show, which was a lot in the 1950s.
But then I got bored - I became obsessed with William Castle, and I put fake blood in the shows and tried to have gimmicks. I mean, children would just get confused. It was Punch and Judy, but the dragon would kill Punch and Judy, eat 'em, and that was the end. Then I would come beyond the stage - which is really breaking the barrier of what a puppeteer is supposed to do - and say: "Stick out your hands and the dragon will bite your hand for good luck." Three-quarters of the kids did it and they loved it, and the other kids had nervous breakdowns and started crying and screaming. That is what I'm still doing. It's not so far removed.
William Castle had a big influence on you?
Yes. I'd seen House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, 13 Ghosts, and that kind of stuff, so I was obsessed by that. So much so, that I tried to have these glasses, like the ones audience members were given at 13 Ghosts screenings, where you could see the ghost, or not see the ghost. I put wax paper over the front of the puppet show and I gave the children these glasses. But they didn't work. It was just wax paper in front of the puppets, and the children were really confused. And the parents sort of didn't like it. You know, they begrudgingly paid me. That was sort of the end of my puppet career.
And that was up to age 12?
Or even a little older. But then I was embarrassed, because in school it was really uncool to be a puppeteer, so I didn't tell people. Yeah, it sort of ended, 'cos I was, like, too mortified by doing it. And then I started making movies when I was 16, so there wasn't that big a difference in there. So I always had a showbiz career.
Did you have many mates when you were a kid growing up?
Yeah, I had so many friends. I had good birthdays.
You weren't beaten up at school?
No, never really. There were guys who could have beat me up, but my hatred of authority was so strong that they had a begrudging respect for me. I could humiliate the teachers, and they couldn't - they weren't smart enough. They didn't like me, but they didn't beat me up. They thought I was insane, which was a certain protection.
I always hated school. I do lectures at colleges all the time, and in a way it's revenge, to get money from a world I always hated.
I would never go back to my high school reunion, like, y'know, poor Janis Joplin in that documentary, when she went back. Trying to prove so much and it was a fiasco. I couldn't care what those people think.
Surely it's better if they read about you in the papers?
It is, you know. I called up my school and told them to take my name out of the records. They didn't want me then, don't want me now. I was too crazy, and too anti-anybody telling me what to do.
I always knew that I wasn't like everyone else, because everything I was interested in, nobody else was. So I would say: "Oh, isn't this...", and people would just look at me like I was crazy. They would be talking about sports and all that stuff, which totally bewildered me. So I was smart enough to learn early that I wasn't like everybody else and I didn't want to be like everybody else. I got that freedom through the library, through reading Tennessee Williams and Jean Genet when I was 15. That's when I realised there's other people in the world, other cities - freedom.
Wasn't there an incident when you were pitching for the job as director for a film of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces, and lost it when the producer saw a photo of you, in your book Shock Value, visiting Manson Family member Charles 'Tex' Watson - who had killed one of his best friends?
That's a tough one for me to talk about with any humour. I very much worked for one of the Manson women's freedom - Leslie Van Houten. I'm not a Mansonite. I think Charlie should never get out of jail. I'm not interested in any of the ones who still believe in him. I am fascinated by the people who grew up very much like I did in the times that I did, middle-aged people who look back on it with horror.
I believe in rehabilitation. I taught in prison for a long time. I think Leslie Van Houten should be freed. It's a tough one, y'know. Everybody says she should be let out. I don't see Tex any more. Tex probably will never get out. Would he hurt anybody again? I doubt it. But what he did was too severe. He was Manson's best piece of work, because Charlie only knew him for a year and, believe me, Charles 'Tex' Watson was just a kid from Texas. He wasn't some demon in the making.
Was he a weak person when he met Manson?
Sure. They were all looking for a father. The same people that are, like, New Age people today - same thing. They are looking for some kind of spirituality. I think they went in there and they were hippies, peace-and-love hippies. By the time of the crimes, maybe even Manson himself wasn't aware of what madness had come from this incredible psychological mix of people.
It's a tough one. I understand how people think they shouldn't get out. So do they. Y'know, it's a horrible thing that happened. And it's now just so notorious. You have Myra Hindley, we have Manson: it's the same thing. It's the famous boogie-man. I'm certainly not making jokes about it. I try to stay very clear of the Manson collectors, because that only harms, only enrages people. It can't help. It hurts the chances of anybody ever, ever, being forgiven. So I distance myself.
How did you get the kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst involved in your movies?
I met her in Cannes when she was promoting the Paul Schrader movie, Patty Hearst. But I also went to her trial. She didn't know me, she was horrified when I told her. She said, "It's because of people like you I went to jail." She's right, I wanted her to be this thing she wasn't. But now, because of this movie Cecil B DeMented especially, we toured together a lot in America. She really helped promote the movie. She said to me afterwards: "Y'know, I feel so liberated. Nobody can use this against me any more. Who wants to be a famous victim?" So, if you can make fun of it - she doesn't think it's funny what happened to her - but if you can make fun of that image, nobody can use it against you anymore. You do the joke first, you're free. Someone else does, it's negative.
Is there anything you actually still find bizarre?
Bad stuff. I mean, racism is bizarre - people's fear of anyone different. I never wanted to be like everybody else. That's what I think is bizarre: people who want to be like everybody else.
But you mean bizarre in the good, proper, sense of the word. I find men that eroticise being babies bizarre. This seems to be a new trend - I've read a lot of articles about it. I don't get it. I didn't want to know that you can buy a bouncy-chair for a 350lb man. It gives me the creeps. It's one thing I really find astonishing. I just don't get it, ha, ha, ha...
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