MODERN MASTER AWARD – BRUCE DERN

When I was 8 years old and it came time for halloween, my father helped me to make a costume.  Like most little girls, I had dreams of being a princess, or fairy, or even an indian.  But my father had his own plans.  Using chicken wire he structured a torso that fit over the top of my head.  He put a white shirt and black jacket over the chicken wire and I became a headless man.  I remember the hours my father spent to remodel a hairdresser’s styrofoam maniquin head. It became a man’s head, complete with eyes, nose, ears, and blood at the neck (obviously chopped from the body).  Next we went to work to create a dismembered hand. I think we used a glove and filled it with plaster and then painted it, complete with red paint at the wrist to look like blood.  Eventually the jacket arm was pinned at the waist and the head fit nicely into the crook of the arm. For halloween I was going to be a headless man.

Pretty gruesome you might think.  But it was all in good fun.  Bruce Dern was my father’s best friend, and Bruce had just finished shooting the movie Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.  In the movie, Bruce had his head chopped off and also his hand. When Bruce came to visit, we did a re-enactment of his beheading, including singing the song. That was many years ago.

It is with tremendous joy that we see Bruce up for an Academy Award Nomination as Best Actor. It was fantastic to go to the Modern Master’s Award and listen to Bruce’s stories. Probably the most touching of all was to hear him talk about my dad, and mention his name, and honor someone who would have been unfathomably happy with Bruce’s success.