Now you just hush, it won't hurt none. Why, ol' Grandpa's the best killer that ever was. Why, it never took more than one lick they say. Why, he did 60 in five minutes once! Say he coulda done more, if the hook-and-pull gang could have gotten the beeves out of the way faster. . ."
It's hard to believe 15 years have passed since the Cook first delivered those lines to helpless victim Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the film that has arguably become the most hailed exploitation independent chiller in cinema history. Over the years, throughout numerous rereleases, probing interviews have appeared with the likes of the Hitchhiker (Ed Neal) and Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), but little has been heard from the man who put the spice into Chainsaw Chili, Jim Siedow.
Acting has been the most consistent element in Siedow's colorful life; all of us have come to love this guy as the Cook, but who would imagine that, in addiction to churning out tasty barbecue, Siedow played his part for Uncle Sam in World War II and the Korean War, directed and starred in a variety of stage productions, and even acted in a film alongside Tobe Hooper before Texas Chainsaw?
Siedow meets your correspondent at a restaurant in Houston, Texas (of course!), where he has lived the majority of his life. Dressed in a rather unique polyester outfit with a brown Western-style blazer, Siedow melts into his chair with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His distinctive facial expressions, gestures, and prominent voice leave no doubt (or disappointment) that there's a lot of ol' Jim himself in his best known character. Actually a native of Cheyenne, Wyoming, he left his rural surroundings at age 18 to begin his acting career on the New York stage. "I did all kinds of different shows," Siedow recalls. "I spent a year touring shows for the W.P.A. theater, which was sponsored by the government. Then World War II came, and off I went."
After the war years, Siedow went to Chicago and pursued his acting career. There he got into radio soap operas. "That's where I met my wife, who was also doing radio soaps," he grins. "After we got married, we bounced around doing road shows and eventually ended up here, in Houston. She was pregnant, so we decided to settle down and do something that made money." Once situated in the Republic of Texas, Siedow established a commercial carpet cleaning business. This earned him the stable income he needed for his family, and also enabled him to come and go as he pleased, due to the luxury of being his own boss. Thus, Siedow plunged back into acting, performing in numerous plays in the Houston area, as well as dinner theater tours.
Having established his position as a recognized, well-respected stage actor, Siedow began directing plays. In the course of an extensive stage career, he appeared in such productions as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Lion in Winter, while his directing credits include Visit to a Small Planet, Critic's Choice (which he also acted in) and Murder Among Friends.
This barrage of work ultimately led to feature films and his association with director Tobe Hooper. Siedow got his first role as a rock star's father in a movie titled The Windsplitter. "That was done a year before Chainsaw," he recollects. "It was filmed in Columbus, Texas. The plot centers around this hippie, longhair, motorcycle type who gets run out of town. So he goes out to Hollywood, where he manages to become a film and rock star, and then comes back to his hometown. When the boy returns, there are these three tough guys always giving him a rough time, beating him up. Tobe played one of those fellas. That's where I first met him. He was talking about doing Chainsaw at that time, and soon after, he called me and asked me to be in it."
A new challenge awaited Siedow. Cookin' up folks isn't exactly the sort of thing one usually encounters in stage plays. "I spent hours trying to figure out what I was going to do," the actor shakes his head. "How was I going to play this crazed cook? I didn't know what kind of director Tobe Hooper was. Fortunately, he was a very fine director -- he knows what he wants, and he gets it out of you. I wouldn't played it altogether differently if he hadn't told me what he wanted, and it wouldn't have been as good."
Like Neal and Hansen, Siedow developed a natural feel for his character. In fact, sources indicated that such memorable lines as, "Look what your brother did to the door! Don't you have no respect for your home?" (screamed at the Hitchhiker) were ad-libbed. Times often grew rough during the grueling shoot, compounded by the scorching heat of a Texan summer, but everyone pushed on. "Jim became an inspiration to us," raves Ed Neal. "Jim was incredible fun to work with, the sweetest, most gentle person that you'd ever want to be around. He had a great intuitiveness as an actor. The scenes shot with him were extremely easy to play, because he made it just a real joy."
On the other hand, Siedow marvels about a time when Marilyn Burns' last word to decribe him would have been "joy." "In the night scene where I beat her up in the barbecue shop, at first they tried using these soft rubber clubs, but they didn't work," he grimaces. "They looked too fake. So they said, 'We'll use a real club.' It took me a long, long time to try and fake it with this real club. I just couldn't hit her, and it didn't look right, 'cause I couldn't follow through with my swing. Finally, someone yelled out, 'Hit her!' Marilyn responded, 'Hit me, I don't care, let's get this done.' Once I started hitting her and gettin' into how to do it, it took eight takes before they said, 'That's a print,' and she just fainted dead away. She was bruised. Oh, I laid it on her. I had to."
When asked about the film's most memorable shooting experience, Siedow hesitates. "It's hard for me to remember now," he decides. "There were so many things that happened. I'll never forget our 27-hour shoot on the last day. That was the dinner table scene. We shot that straight through for 27 continuous hours, since I had to leave to do a show in Houston. They were running out of money, and they just had to get this thing over with. Whew! We had all the heat in the house. Man, was it hot! The lightbulbs and movie lamps started cooking the skeletons, and the meat started going bad, and everybody started getting sick. Oh God, it was terrible. But we kept going!"
After Chainsaw wrapped, Jim Siedow returned to the stage and his cleaning business. Strangely, Hot Wire, Red Alert and a couple of Houston cable programs were Siedow's only other celluloid attributes, until Cannon took on the 1986 production of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
For years, fans desperately awaited a sequel. During the hiatus, rumors -- especially in the Texas area -- spread like wildfire. For instance, it was once announced that Hooper was writing a sequel with Marilyn Burns in which her character, Sally Hardesty, would be released from an insane asylum. From there, she travels Texas roads, again with friends, in search of the chainsaw clan. The group eventually stumbles into a small backwoods town completely controlled by the clan. The Hitchhiker was going to be alive, but half-crushed; the family has him tied up to a tree, where he becomes permanently attached! This whole ingenious affair was allegedly titled Beyond the Valley of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Instead, after a 12-year wait, many fans felt that all they got was another "horror comedy." Only three veterans surfaced from the original: soundman Wayne Bell, former cameraman Lou Perry, who returned as an actor in the role of L.G. McPeters, and Jim Siedow, the only cast member rehired. But after all that time, Siedow came back better than ever as the Cook, known now as Drayton Sawyer. Equipped, as always, with his expressive eyebrows, spry movements and unmistakable voice, Siedow stood alone in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and, to many, remains the most enjoyable aspect of the sequel.
For Siedow, making Chainsaw 2 was a more pleasurable experience. "On the first one, we were just a bunch of people knocking our brains out to do something for almost nothing," he points out. "The equipment -- ah, well, you know, it was shot on a 16mm camera with only one soundtrack. The Chainsaw 2 guys were all West Coast professionals. Like in that truck scene, in the first one, when I get Sally in the bag and drive off? Well, the truck didn't move; there were guys inside jiggling it up and down and running by with tree branches!"
"In Part 2, when I was in the catering truck, things were a little different," Siedow continues. "That was all done with a tow truck driving through town and a police escort, with lights and five cameras on the back of the truck. It was beautiful! Chainsaw 2 had all the amenities. I hear things about how bad Cannon is, but as far as I'm concerned, there couldn't have been a better outfit to work for. All these things I heard and read in the newspaper about being paid less than scale were just not true. It was above scale."
Siedow hadn't really seen much of Hooper in the 12-year interim between the two pictures. For Hooper, this time was spent directing several unmemorable films, including Lifeforce and Invaders From Mars. Had the glitter of Hollywood transformed him over the decades from the young, charismatic filmmaker Siedow once knew? Not a chance, according to the actor. "To me, Tobe hadn't changed at all. He was the same guy, a very, very nice fella."
Whereas the original Chainsaw landed in the can for under $100,000, the sequel had $4.6 million to play with. Along with the dramatic budget increase came Hollywood crews, better working conditions, 40 back-up chainsaws and screen great Dennis Hopper as Texas Ranger "Lefty" Enright. When asked how he got along with the legendary Hopper, Siedow simply notes, "Fine. During the whole thing, Dennis was a withdrawn fellow. He wasn't outgoing or anything, just a nice quiet guy."
Although working conditions were much better for Siedow on the second Chainsaw, production sometimes became very intense. "At times, things got to be rushed," Siedow frowns. "The script wasn't finished when we started. Kit Carson, the writer, is a great guy. He just kept writing. But that was the thing, more and more things kept being thrown at me just two hours before filming started, and boy, that was rough."
Siedow was a real trouper during Chainsaw 2's two and a half months of principal photography. He was present from the first day of shooting to the last scene on July 4, 1986. Siedow even got his chance to shed a little blood for the cause on one of the more demanding days. "After the scene when Enright hits me in the rear with the chainsaw, that's the stunt double," he specifies. "I turn around and he starts the saw, I offer him the money, then he touches me with that thing. They told Dennis to just touch me on the hip with the chainsaw running, then they'd take over with the stunt doubles and stuff. I said, 'You mean he's gonna touch me while that thing's running?!' 'Don't worry,' they said, 'there's no teeth in it.' 'Yeah, but the steel band's going,' I told them. They said, 'Don't worry, there's nothing to worry about.' I even asked one of the stunt doubles if I needed a pad or something, and he said, 'No, don't worry about it.' So we started going, and he touched me for a second with that damned running band, and the next thing I know, my coveralls are covered with blood! It only got me a little bit. It could have been really tragic!"
The sequel's new offerings included an all-new, dynamic homestead for the boys, set in the bowels of a long-abandoned roadside amusement park. The interior featured a blitzkrieg of skeletal structures set in and around Christmas lights, with the remains of past victims lining every square inch. In spite of the colossal number of additions to the cannibal abode, Siedow walked in and noticed the absence of one significant item. "I told Tobe the set looked just great, but what it was missing was that chicken," he recounts. "So Tobe got two of 'em in there, but they had to be cut out when we remembered how bad the first Chainsaw got harrassed from animal societies who thought the chickens were really getting tortured. They also cut out scenes where we cut up a bunch of Yuppies. I swear, I just couldn't figure why they took that out."
Siedow really liked new family member ChopTop, but compared to Edwin Neal's Hitchhiker, he just didn't stack up. "Bill Moseley was good, but he acted more like a cartoon character," Siedow allows. "Ed Neal, on the other hand, played his part with evil, much more evil." Asked to compare Marilyn Burns with Saw 2 heroine Caroline Williams, Siedow reaches the same consensus: "Caroline was good, but she didn't come close to Burns. However, she really didn't have the role Marilyn had, either. That role Burns had was a tough one. Caroline was a little 'laid back.' She didn't show enough fright at times. There she is, cornered by a chainsaw-wielding maniac, and she says, 'This isn't gonna work.'"
Shortly after Chainsaw 2, Siedow packed his bags and headed west to work with director Tobe Hooper once again on the Amazing Stories episode "Miss Stardust." "In that, I wasn't this horrible guy," he enthuses. "I wore a tuxedo and the whole works. We were shooting this in LA when Chainsaw 2 was just coming out. I got a big kick out of those huge billboards all over the place with our pictures on them."
Jim Siedow has immensely enjoyed working with Tobe Hooper over the years. His work on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films has been a great pleasure and experience for him. Siedow casually adds that he looks forward to Chainsaw 3 -- which, he reveals, is in production, though Siedow probably won't be involved. "I spoke with Tobe not too long ago on the phone, when a third Chainsaw was first mentioned to me. I exclaimed, 'But you killed us all off!' Tobe pointed out that he didn't show it, so I said, 'But what about Leatherface?' Tobe replied, 'It's gonna take a lot more than running a chainsaw through him to kill off that big lug.'"
~Gorezone, Issue #9, September 1989~ |