The Plain Speech of Jay Lind

Jay, in his own words, describes how he got started in the business: "Well, I started off as an actor, and I still occasionally get work in other peoples projects, as well as my own. That's me as Dr. Heller in To Dance with Death. I based him on Joe Heller (author of the classic novel "Catch 22") whom I met in Long Island. Anyway, I studied acting and film and theatre in college, got out and couldn't get a gig, so I joined the Army as an Intelligence Agent. After that, making movies was a whole lot less pressure. I got out of the service and hung around Europe for a while and drifted back into Theatre and Film. The maturity I gained in military service helped me realize that I could put my own projects together and not rely on another person. Not have to sell my soul to someone else to work. So I took a couple of hundred bucks and made my first film, Sangre Songes ("Dreams of Blood"starring Maria Pechukas, Debbie Rochon and Amy Lynn Baxter), and experienced my first unabashed failure. It's always good to fail early on, get it out of the way and go on. It was a good movie, just a little too weird for the audience at the time. I still enjoy it, not much on story, but it's beautiful to look at...sort of a visual stream of consciousness thing."

The short film, Sangre Songes, was actually intended to be the feature film, Valerie, a psychological horror film which was to tell the story of a young girl who believes she is becoming a vampire. Things didn't quite work out the way they were intended. "You want nightmares?" asks Lind (rhetorically, I assume). "I've been trying to get Valerie made since 1990... I'm working on a deal now to shoot it in Spain in 2002. I had written the script in '90, and even cast it and shoot footage which was eventually incorporated into Sangre Songes. I had Maria and Debbie and Austin Pendleton [What's Up Doc?]. Then the problems started. First The Screen Actor's Guild with it's stupid, stupid rules and insane demands for script changes. So, there we go: it's a non-union film which is fine by me. SAG exists solely to further it's own existence and they could really care less about the average working actor who just needs a gig and to pay some bills, maybe eat. You know, Actors who don't get 20 million per... So I send some production info to Fango and they give me some coverage and hook me up with Bill George who's starting up this mag Femme Fatales for Fred Clark (isn't it amazing how many dead people I know?) who I have a great deal of respect for. Anyway, it turns out that Bill's a freak. (laughs) He cons me into putting Valerie off, with the promise of giving it "Full Big Studio" coverage when I do shoot it, if I'll do a little Sexy Cannibal Movie for him based on Roman Polanski's Aimez-Vous Les Femmes? [Do You Like Women? Directed by Jean Leon and starring Sophie Daumier]... Hell, Big Studio Coverage... Kiss me before I change my mind! Oh, by the way, would I mind taking a bunch of nude shots of Debbie Rochon for his "Overseas" issues? Hey, why not, she is gorgeous... (The Pics, for the most part ended up in Bill's "private" collection).

"Anyway, I put aside my reasonne D'arte and knocked out Do You Like Women?, which, I think is a very funny, sexy little comedy... Then, in post, all sorts of weirdness happened... The Do You Like Women? article in Femmes hit, with Bill claiming that I had decided not to do Valerie because I knew it wouldn't make any money. I threatened to kill him...several times...I still do every time I see him, but decided that it was too far to drive from Long Island, where I was living, to his Mom's house in Baltimore, where he was living, just to thrash the shit out of [long string of insults - let's just say "Bill"]. Besides, I didn't have enough gas. So, on top of that, the producer, Jon Faber and I clashed over the edit. Eventually, since I had never been paid, and I never relinquished the copyright, I shut the project down. Years later I found out from friends in Germany, that Do You Like Women? was available there in a really crappy edit. I found that suing someone in Europe for infringing on a US copyright is, though not impossible, prohibitively expensive. So, with the help of Hugh Gallagher at DRACULINA, a prince among men, I decided to release my version of Do You Like Women? which I did in '98. [Which is] still selling steady while the bootleg has disappeared."

[Jay pauses for breath (even though he typed this in an e-mail for me).]

"Valerie, on the other hand, remains in the air. I'm in some very delicate negotiations to produce my films in Spain starting in 2002 and Valerie would be the first. I'm really looking forward to getting it out, and I know my fans, both of them, will be happy and everyone can stop asking me where it is. Actually, Valerie has been started a number of times, but there's something about the script -- the sexuality, the incest angle, the violence -- that causes the producers to get scared. They insist on changes to make it more mainstream. I refuse and the deal falls apart. If I wanted to make mainstream movies I'd join the Directors Guild and move to LA. I believe that artists who refuse to join the mainstream and go it on their own are vital to keeping movies fresh and original."

Brrr. See what I mean by chilling? Tell that story at your next filmmaking campfire jamboree (only put the accent on "while the bootleg has disappeared!!" And watch those pansies jump!)

All kidding aside, such stories are not uncommon. It's the following successes that are the rarities. Lind not only never let the setbacks bring him down, but he kept moving forward. Life continued to throw obstacles in his path, however. One that nearly stopped him completely was the death of his wife, actress Maria Pechukas, who struggled with anorexia and clinical depression for most of her adult life. Their relationship was emotionally and exhausting for them both. Towards the end, it was clear that Maria was not progressing, and spent the last few months of her life in a hospital. "She was very sad," Lind says of Maria. "She was one of the most beautifu,l talented people I'd ever met, but she was like a bruised peach. She never recovered from the bruise. I'm very - I feel very guilty. I promised her I would always be there for her and I wasn't. I didn't find out that she had died until about a week had passed."

One of the strangest aspects of Lind's life - at least to the outside observer - is his friendship with veteran actor Austin Pendleton, who is widely respected within both the film and theater communities. This is no knock on Jay, but it hardly would seem that the two men would travel in the same circles. "Austin is one of my best friends, in or out of the business," Jay explains. "He was very good friends with my Acting/Directing Teacher in College, LeLand Starnes who died a while back, a wonderful, brilliant man... an early hero and mentor. He and Austin were at Yale together in the Mesozoic Era and after Lee Starne's passing we hooked up because I had a script (Valerie) that I wanted him to play a role in. And we became friends. He's a immensely talented actor and writer and a brilliant, brilliant director. His play, "Booth", is one of the greatest achievements in American Theatre... Ever. We plan to work together on Valerie, again, where he'll play Jack, an expatriate American Painter who becomes involved with the title character."

A few months ago, Lind's latest film, To Dance with Death was released to home video through Sub Rosa Studios. Starring Lauren Westen and Brinke Stevens, To Dance with Death tells the story of a young woman who attempts suicide and, months later, finds herself haunted by strange visions and surrounded by friends and loved ones who act as if the last few months had never happened. "I've always been fascinated with the relationship between sex and death," says Lind. "To me they are so interconnected. You are never closer to someone than you are when you are killing or fucking, and so it only seemed natural to explore these two subjects as one. I don't want to oversimplify it, because both subjects are so complex, and even more when you bang them up together, but that's what fascinates me." He pauses, then resumes. "After Maria's death the whole thing took on a more melancholy meaning."

To Dance with Death is a moody piece, one that is well-shot and surprisingly thoughtful. While so many other films under the "erotic horror" banner are nothing more than excuses for extended low-budget groin-fests, To Dance with Death focuses more on the characters and the situation. It almost seems old fashioned at times. At one instance, the main character has an encounter with a lesbian lover. While this would be the centerpiece for most films, Lind decides instead to dissolve away, picking up after the act has finished. It's a surprising move, and in these days, a brave one. And yet it gives the scene that much more impact and sensuality, as we are left to viewing it in our imagination. Lind denies that there is any line to draw, however.

"Whatever works for the scene, propels the story, achieves the desired effect or reaction is acceptable. Art should be provocative [and] if it's not, then it's just killing time.The reason I rely so much on story and character is that these are the two elements which make everything else possible. They are the reasons for the film, for the telling of the story, and everything else after that, the nudity, the sex, the violence, the effects, the jokes, whatever, are just there to push these two original elements along."

Lind then goes on to destroy my illusion of old fashioned sentimentality: "There was one scene that I didn't get in To Dance with Death which I felt was necessary. When Becca and Jennifer make love I had wanted to show that, tastefully of course. But Lauren Westen (Jennifer) balked at anything which she felt would imply that she was actually a lesbian. I think a lot of that had to do with her boyfriend being on set. Something I was generally against, but he was there. I had hired him to operate the camera and as an editor. He failed at both tasks and he made his girlfriend uncomfortable. Take it from me: Boyfriends on the set... Bad. Fire Gooood. He actually ended up being responsible for a little less then 10% of the footage we used and I had to throw his edit out and start over alone. It all worked out though, we ended up with a good movie."

[Yeah, and that scene works anyway, Jay, so there!]

After so much time floundering, banging his head against various unnecessary walls, Lind seems to be on a roll. With To Dance with Death garnering critical success, he scarcely gave himself time to enjoy it, as he already has another film in pre-production. There is already a positive buzz surrounding this film because it is set to star Brinke Stevens and Debbie Rochon - marking the first time these two powerful ladies of genre films would share the screen (Jon Keeyes eagerly-awaited American Nightmare doesn't quite count as the two ladies are never seen together - sorry, Jon.) "It's called Dark Night of the Wolf and it's about a serial killer who may be a werewolf, who is targeting migrant farm workers. Brinke Stevens plays Tatiana Romanova, a gypsy hired by the migrants to protect them. Debbie Rochon plays Molly, the girl who runs the local church's charity organization. They both become sexually involved with Dr. Alec Ryan, a psychologist brought in by the police to help catch the killer. As I've worked with both of these wonderful ladies before, and the chance to work with both of them again, on the same project, is great. I wouldn't miss it for the World. I love both of them, they're both very talented and dedicated and beautiful... What's not to love?"

Those interested in checking out more of Jay Lind's work should stop by www.handsoftime.com/JLIND, "which runs a lot of clips from my movies, including To Dance with Death. To Dance with Death is available from Sub Rosa Studios at www.B-Movie.com/movies/ex136.

Jay adds: "A bunch of my nude photography is on the net at the 21st Century Sexy Vampire Gallery www.hotad.com/vampiregallery which is pretty cool... They'll be putting up a Maria Tribute page soon that I'm looking forward to seeing. There's more, I'm sure... I find my stuff all over the Web... I don't know if I'm actually getting paid for any of it, but, the important thing is that it's out there and people can see it and react to it..."

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