In Praise Of Caleb Steel

“I wasn’t the original bad boy of Hollywood, and I won't be the last, but I perfected the role.”

Caleb Steel 

From interview with Dick Cavett November 12, 1968

Caleb Steel (born Wink Davis) was a boxer in his late teens and early twenties, but being KO'd in the first round in four successive bouts led him to switching over to bodybuilding and acting.  At this point the bodybuilding aspect of his career trumped the acting part, as he started to compete in and won Muscleman contests.  His acting was limited to small walk on parts in western and crime themed television shows.  He typically did not have any speaking parts, but he was hired to look big and bad, which he did.  While competing in Europe, he was discovered by Italian producer Aldo Antonini, who was looking for the right man to play Hercules in his new movie, 1960's AMORE PROIBITO DI ERCOLE aka FORBIDDEN LOVE OF HERCULES

PLOT:  Hercules (Caleb Steel) falls in love with Princess Marzia, but as soon as the couple announce their wedding plans, Marzia is kidnapped by a band of rogue gladiators working for Ajak, who was Hercules' sworn enemy and main competition for Marzia's love.  Hercules vows that he will rescue Marzia in time for their planned wedding date.  In the end, it turns out that Ajak was working for the real mastermind of the kidnapping, Marzia's stepfather, who has designs on Marzia's inheritance.

Director Pietro Gigoli also directed PERSIUS' GREATEST ADVENTURE (1961) and COLOSSUS AGAINST THE CYCLOPS (1961).

Marzia was played by the beautiful Italian actress Beatrice Alari.  Alari also starred in Director Gigoli's 1963 adventure film AVENGERS OF THE STOLEN CROWN.

Caleb Steel had originally signed a contract to star in three films for producer Antonini, but when Antonini came home to discover Steel in bed with his liquor cabinet, he tore up the contract and Steel returned to the United States, dejected, but with a hell of a buzz.

Steel was no stranger to controversy during his lifetime.  With multiple messy divorces, paternity suits and arrests that went along with his hard drinking, rough n tumble lifestyle.   It got to a point where he was spending more time pleading in front of a judge than acting in front of a camera. 

One famous story involves Steel and Lawrence Tierney going out one night in Hollywood and literally painting the town red . . .  With the blood of at least ten guys, that they beat up during an alcohol induced binge of mayhem, that practically destroyed a whole city block.   When the law caught up to them, they resisted arrest, assaulted three officers and were finally apprehended when the SWAT team was called in, and the two were promised chocolate pudding at the police station.

Other run ins with the law included.

⦁ Defecating in a manger scene. 

⦁ Attacking a department store Santa with a maple finished Expand-O-Rack 

⦁ Toppling over three of the letters of the Hollywood sign

⦁ Setting fire to an already existing fire

⦁ Attempted strangulation of a Hare Krishna with a “Kiss the Cook” apron

⦁ Selling Christmas trees in July

⦁ Jaywalking on an airport runway

⦁ Impersonating the King of Siam's wife

⦁ Commandeering a window washer’s swinging lift for immoral purposes

Despite all of his problems, he did get a steady stream of acting roles, one of which was to play the lead in THE GENTLEMAN BLOODSUCKER (1966).

PLOT:  Charles Alexander Jamison (Steel) is a member of the upper class.  His wealth is vast, and he lives a jet set lifestyle, but he is also a descendant of Count Dracula, and the old family traits do show up now and again.

Director Noel Kelsey went on to helm DON'T GO NEAR THE LAZY SUSAN (1975) and SCREAM OF THE WITCH (1976).

Director Noel Kelsey:  I knew full well of Steel’s reputation as a bad boy, but upon meeting with him, he was cordial, well-mannered and seemed generally enthused and grateful to play the part, so we hired him.  The first two days on the set went well. . . but that was because his first day of shooting was on the third day. He was fine for most of the day, but was secretly hitting the sauce, and as the shooting day rolled on, he became belligerent to me, my crew and his fellow actors.  Before the day was over, he had accidentally (?) set fire to part of the set, punched my lighting director and made the script girl cry when he called her a “carpet munching dike.”   He showed up the next day, humbled and apologetic.  He offered to pay for the damaged set, gave the lighting director a box of cigars and gave the script girl a vacuum cleaner, and he was a complete professional the rest of the way.

Caleb Steel:  I was a drunk, 24-7 back then and when I drank, I was not a nice person.  Why did I drink?  That’s a good question.  I think I drank to forget, and when I forgot why I was drinking, it made me angry that I couldn’t find the reason that I was drinking, so I drank more.  It was a vicious circle.  I managed to turn things around in the late sixties and was able to curtail my drinking a bit, but I could never give up completely.

THE GENTLEMAN BLOODSUCKER proved to be popular in the United States throughout the sixties and even popping up as late as 1980 at the bottom of a triple horror bill.

CALEB STEEL:  I met with my manager, Irving “Dasher” Marx, one day to discuss any upcoming acting projects.  He told me that things were “dryer than a female leper’s cunt” . . .  I took that as a bad sign.  I liked Irving.  He only took 9% and shared a nickname with one of Santa’s reindeer.  He was a straight shooter and he helped to get me out of many jams. . . including the time where I was smashed on vodka tonics and fell into an industrial sized vat of jam. . . Boysenberry jam, I believe.  

Irving told me that he did receive an offer for me to be the spokesman for a new association that propagated the benefits of natural medicinals.  The fee was extremely generous and the work that I had to do was minimal.  So, I told him to accept post haste.  Little did I know that I’d become the poster boy for drinking piss.

Irving then convinced Steel to star in a pornographic feature, but Steel did not need too much convincing.

CALEB STEEL:  I liked the idea from the start to play a role in a XXX film.  I love pussy.  If I had the choice between breathing air and licking pussy, I’d choose breathing air of course, I’m not stupid.  I’d die without oxygen.  But let's just say that pussy is one of my favorite things.  To my disappointment, it was a non-sex role.  I’d be on the set for two days and make $5,000.

1977's LOW SOCIETY aka. GENTLEMEN PREFER BROADS

PLOT:  Rich society types get together once a year to live out the most depraved sexual scenarios that they can think of over a weekend.  Bradford Davies (Steel) and his wife are a jaded couple who join the society for the first time to explore their sexuality together and with other partners, Steel is turned on by watching his wife with other women, but when another male member of the society comes on to Bradford, he hightails it as far as he can get.

The low point in Steel’s career was not acting in a pornographic movie, or being the spokesperson for the World Urophagia Society, it was starring in a short-lived sit com in 1980 called CALL ME KAMAKAZIE.  

PLOT: In 1960, a failed Kamikaze pilot comes to live in New Jersey.  He rents an apartment from an ex-US Marine.  

The pilot episode was airing when the flood of complaints started to light up the ABC switchboard. Most callers complained about the horrendous stereotypes on display.  Others complained because they wanted to see a plane crash into a destroyer or any type of ship.  Whatever the reason, the complaints and protests were numerous.  The show was yanked, and rumor is that all of the materials and prints associated with the show were destroyed.  

In 1989 Steel penned an autobiography filled with rambling tales of his life and career. 

 

The book featured a forward by Judge Daniel T. Price who presided over a dozen of Steel’s court appearances.  Half of the book is accounts of his drinking escapades and subsequent run ins with the law.  One of the better tales involves a gin binge, a Buzzsaw and a group of Seventh-day Adventists visiting the Paramount lot. 

Caleb Steel passed away on his 71st birthday in 2001.  A prodigious drinker till the end, the alcohol from his breath ignited the candles on his cake as he blew them out, causing them to become an enormous fireball, that caught a couch on fire, that quickly grew into a 3-alarm fire.

In Praise Of Marcello Mannari and Giovanni The Chimp

Marcello Mannari was a likable actor who made a name for himself during the spaghetti western boom.  He played a bank robber with a perpetual itchy trigger finger in 5 GUNMEN FROM CHEYANE (1968), a no-nonsense sheriff caught in between renegade baddies and renegade bounty hunters in UN CAPPIO PER TE, $ 10.000 PER ME (1969) aka A NOOSE FOR YOU…. $10,000 FOR ME and what would turn out to be his best role, in 1970's SETTE SONO VENUTI PER UCCIDERE IL BECCHINO aka SEVEN CAME TO KILL THE UNDERTAKER aka CHI È IL NUOVO BECCHINO?  E PERCHÉ TUTTI VOGLIONO UCCIDERLO? aka WHO IS THE NEW UNDERTAKER?  AND WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT TO KILL HIM? in which he plays the new unassuming undertaker in a border town, that every outlaw, who comes to town wants to kill.

He then switched to comedies with 1972’s WORST OF THE WEST, aka HAVE GUN, WILL UNRAVEL, aka TRINITY KNOWS NO BOUNDS.

In which he played one of four hapless brothers who try to protect their parents ranch from a hostile takeover from an equally hapless town boss.  

In PAISAN IN THE WILD, WILD WEST (1975) aka A WOP OUT WEST aka WILD WEST WOP, he plays a present-day Italian obsessed with watching westerns, so he quits his dead-end job, leaves his shrew of a wife, and travels to the American West where he has all sorts of crazy adventures.

He played multiple roles in LA STORIA DELL'AMORE: LO STILE BOBO, aka LOVE BOBO STYLE (1976) a comedic omnibus take on the great Italian lovers throughout history, each played by Italy’s clown prince, Bobo. 

Mannari’s film acting career came to an end in 1978, but not before starring in the one-two punch of family friendly comedies, ROLLER DISCO: STILE ITALIANO, aka ROLLER DISCO: ITALIAN STYLE (1978) and SCIMPANZÉ FUORI DAL VECCHIO BLOCCO, aka CHIMP OFF THE OLD BLOCK (1978) aka CHIMP OFF THE OL’ BLOCK.

Filmed back-to-back with the same cast, crew and plot . . .  well not exactly the same plot.  One film has a chimp!

In ROLLER DISCO: ITALIAN STYLE, Natale Santori plays Sylvia, a budding photojournalist.  Her sole goal in life is to get a photo into the top selling lifestyle/fashion magazine Lo Stile Di Vita Italiano.  One day while out snapping some shots of the Trevi Fountain, she meets Nico (Marcello Mannari), a charming rascal on skates, who leads a carefree life of roller skating to disco tunes . . . Not good disco, but the European variety.  Nico introduces Sylvia to his friends, and they all become minor celebrities when the story is published.   Silly fun is had by all.

In CHIMP OFF THE OLD BLOCK Mannari plays a loveable loser, also named Nico, who gets a job at the circus, his sole job actually, is to watch over a cigar smoking, roller-skating chimpanzee named Yo-Yo, who has a penchant for thievery and groping lovely bambinas.  Even sillier fun is had by all.  

Mannari’s co-star for both of these films would be actress Natale Santori who was a charming beauty whose first role was in another sex-comedy, ANY VIRGIN WILL DO (1977).  She also graced the screen in IL TIMIDO CERBIATTO È IN REALTÀ UNA TIGRE IMPAZZITA PER IL SESSO aka THE BASHFUL FAWN IS ACTUALLY A SEX CRAZED TIGRESS aka HOW TO SEDUCE A BASHFUL NYMPHOMANIAC (1978), CRAZY WOMEN, CRAZY TIMES (1980) and LA NUOVA PROFESSORESSA E UN’ASTUTA LINGUISTA aka THE NEW FEMALE PROFESSOR IS A CUNNING LINGUIST (1979).

His other co-star, who steals the show in COTOB, is Giovani the chimp.  Giovani was a graduate of PMPSA- The Prestigious Milanese Primate School for Acting.  And you know that it is prestigious because it says so in its name.

Giovanni finished at the top of his class and was a master of the Meisner technique.  He moved over to the US to apply his craft and seek his fame and fortune.  He immediately landed a starring role in a touring version of the Odd Couple co-starring with J. Fred Muggs, which played Dinner Theaters.

Billed as the “Italian Rapscallion” Giovanni’s career was picking up steam after being featured in many shows and magazines of the day including, Entertainment Tonight, Variety and Better Homes and Hermaphrodites.  

After a successful run of shows across the United States, Giovani started to get homesick, returned to Italy and appeared in a slew of other films into the eighties, including THE LAST CHIMP ON EARTH (1982), THE CHIMP WHO WOULD BE KING (1983). RETURN TO THE WORLD OF THE APES (1983) aka THE TIME WHEN CHIMPS RULED THE EARTH, ZANTAR IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1984) and EXECUTIONERS OF THE YEAR 2022 (1985).  

Sadly, Giovani was chimpnapped, sold on the black market and had his brains eaten by a group of Taiwanese monkey brain gourmands in the early nineties.