Ringo Starr Doubly Sells Self to Actress
By Robert Hilburn
LA Times - Washington Post
April 19, 1981
The Hollywood actress Barbara Bach's dismay was understandable when she learned that Ringo Starr would be her co-star in the film comedy Caveman. Like most screen beauties, Bach considered herself restricted by her sex symbol image. She hoped a key role in a hit comedy would change that.
Bach had high hopes for Up the Academy, the comedy she did a while back with director Robert Downey, but the film was far from a smash, so the actress, best known as James Bond's sexy colleague in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), next turned to Caveman.
She liked the idea of a prehistoric comedy where the characters had to act out their intentions, aided only by a 15-word language. Besides, producers Lawrence Turman and David Foster promised they would sign a major comedy actor to play her leading man.
"I was thinking of someone along the lines of Dudley Moore," Bach said, sitting in the huge den of a rented Beverly Hills home. "It was a real demanding part, because the actor would have to use so much pantomime. When they phoned and said they had signed Ringo Starr, I thought, 'Oh, boy. What have I got myself into?' It sounded to me like we were in trouble."
Bach blushed as she told the story because she was seated next to Starr, the bearded ex-Beatle who was now her fiancé. She added quickly that she only knew Ringo by his image when filming began last year on Caveman, and that he soon demonstrated on the set that he was a "real professional."
Starr smiled. He is used to having people misjudge him. 17 years after "I Want to Hold Your Hand", he is still known as the happy-go-lucky clown.
About his image, he said, "I've had to deal with it for so long, and I had to either try to understand it or go around depressed because it was always being hurled in my face. I've come to accept the fact that people don't turn loose of the first image you give them. They don't realize that a person changes. To millions of people, I'll always be remembered as the dummy. It's the same reason Paul will always be the charming one, and John was known for his rapier wit, and George was the mystic.
"That's why I'm excited about this movie. In the past, I've been guilty of letting people use me for marquee value, and there were scenes in the films you let go because you wanted to get home or whatever, but there's nothing in this film that I'm ashamed of. I'm hoping people will now realize this dummy can also act."
Each of the Beatles has spoken about the difficult adjustment after the breakup of the most spectacularly successful pop group in history, but Starr faced the stiffest career challenge because he was neither a songwriter nor an experienced vocalist. He had little potential as a record maker. "I sat in the garden at home for a year after the split because it was hard for me to get started on my own," Starr said. "The others had something to fall back on, but I was starting from scratch. I didn't know what to do."
He eventually recorded an album of pop standards and a country album, but neither sold well. His fortune changed in 1971 when he had a top 10 single with "It Don't Come Easy." Then came Ringo, an album with producer Richard Perry that went to number one. Star's LP sales dipped after the mid-70s, but he demonstrated he could hold his own when given viable material.
The drummer's film career moved up and down through such movies as Candy, The Magic Christian, and a spaghetti western called Blind Man. Things picked up in 1974 when he landed a small but meaty part in That'll Be the Day, a stark, unsentimental look at a young would-be musician (played by David Essex) in pre-Beatles England. A hit in Britain, the film was a flop commercially in the United States, except with critics, a few of whom suggested that Starr deserved an Oscar nomination for his supporting role.
"That was a real important step for me," Starr said, speaking with the ease that always caused interviewers to describe him as the most affable Beatle. "It gave me the most scope. I had a chance to go from one attitude to another. It also gave me confidence." Despite a vow to be more careful about future roles, Star ended up with novelty bits in two films, Litztomania and Sextett, that he never even bothered to see.
Caveman was by far his biggest challenge. "What attracted me was the fact there were only 15 words in it," he explained. "That meant I'd have a lot of opportunity to use mime. I think I'm better at that than going through 25 pages of dialogue. Also, I like the story. I'm this sort of weak thing at the start of the film, and I end up as the hero. It's sort of brain winning out over brawn."
Besides Bach, Starr is joined in the United Artists release by Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long, Avery Schreiber, and six-foot-eight Oakland Raiders football star John Matuszak.
Was it love at first sight? "Oh, no," Starr shrugged. "Everyone in the cast would go out to dinner and spend time together, but nothing went on. It wasn't until just before we left Mexico that Barbara and I really said 'hello', but we've been together ever since."
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