"In the '60s and '70s they broke a lot of rules," Kent said. "That's why I admire them."
Kent should know. He's had his hand in more than 110 films as an award-winning stunt man, screenwriter, stunt double for Jack Nicholson, special effects wizard, actor and director. He is at work on a book
titled "Shadows and Light: An Outlaw Remembers Hollywood."
Of so-called independent filmmakers today, Kent said, "I don't think they're pushing the envelope like it was in the '60s. They're not setting any precedents. They're just doing work. Even (Austin filmmaker Richard) Linklater--other than "Slacker"--is making more or less company store pictures."
Don't take those harsh remarks for jealousy. Kent has the credentials to back them up. He starred as a good-guy Vietnam vet in Al Adamson's cult biker flick "Satan's Sadists"; directed fight scenes and devised
cut-rate special effects for Richard Rush's "Psych Out," a tale of San Francisco's Haight-Ashberry drug culture featuring a ponytailed Nicholson; acted opposite gangster Mickey Cohen's girlfriend, Liz Renay, in Ray Dennis Steckler's "The Thrill Killers"; and recruited Dallas street-corner prostitutes as extras for Brian De Palma's "Phantom of the Paradise."
Many '60s independent films seem tame by today's standards, Kent said, but in their time they broke through barriers set by the film industry's self-imposed Hays Code to frankly deal with previously ignored issues such as drug use, homosexuality and gun control. Admittedly, filmmakers also set new standards for use of profanity and violence that might make even Quentin Tarantino blush.
"There was a time when no matter how good it was, there were some things you just didn't do," Kent said.The independents that followed were "politically all over the place. They helped lead the anti-war protest. They got in your face about a lot of things--not necessarily with taste or a lot of style, but at least they did it."
One film that has more than its share of style is "Targets," a 1968 production that started Peter Bogdanovich's directing career and marked the end of Boris Karloff's acting legacy. Considered by many to be a masterpiece, "Targets," intertwines the story of an aging horror film actor with that of a Charles Whitman-esque sniper who takes aim through a drive-in movie theater screen at the audience. Kent is credited only for his small role as one of many victims, but he also orchestrated the first-rate shooting scenes.
Ironically, drive-in theaters get a lot of credit for creating the '60s independent film boom, Kent said.
"The drive-ins suddenly needed product because people were staying home and watching TV," he said. "Suddenly there was a market for people to get a few bucks together and do something creative."
Kent had the most fun making "Psych Out," a 1968 movie produced by music mogul Dick Clark and shot in 18 days. The film thoroughly tested Kent's ability to create special effects such as simulating a woman's
experiences on LSD in the days before computer animation. One surreal flashback scene required black venom to spurt from a girl's mouth. Kent used ropes of black licorice for straight-on shots and a grease gun for side-angle views.
"I love all of the problem solving that's required," he said.
"Satan's Sadists" director Adamson, a mild-mannered pro when off the set, made the headlines a few years ago when he was found murdered and buried under his own jacuzzi. He directed "down and dirty without
rehearsal," Kent said, with actors doing their own scene blocking. Many of Adamson's low-budget films were shot on a small western set that was cared for by a group of hippies led by the soon-to-be-infamous
Charles Manson.
"Every time we'd shot out there, Charlie and his gang of girls were begging us for food," Kent said. "Charlie Manson was a little guy. You'd have never been afraid of him. We paid him $70 to fix a dune buggy. The next day the dune buggy wasn't fixed. He spent it all on beer or something."
It was but another offbeat moment in a film career that began in the late '50s with a job in Allied Artists' production office running a mimeograph machine. Kent had trekked to Hollywood after doing stock
theater in Houston, and soon found he could use his skills on horseback to get work as a stunt man.
"I thought, rather than stand in line for cattle calls, it's better to work in the film," he said.
In recent years he has concentrated his efforts behind the camera. He speaks with pride of "Rainy Day Friends," an unlikely tale of a cancer-ward friendship between a businessman and a street gang member
(Esai Morales) that he wrote and directed, with his wife Tomi Barrett producing. The 1985 film, retitled "L.A. Bad" for video, was an award winner at San Antonio's Cinefest and has been sold for distribution in
42 countries.
"My wife and I sitting here in Austin did it from the get-go," he said. "One reviewer said we had the courage to talk about cancer as a disease. It's tough to take a major disease and make a feel-good film out of it."
Kent has had five of his screenplays produced. Another, "Where's Bassett's Body?," based on a true murder mystery his prison-matron grandmother helped solve in the '20s, took first place in the 1996 Lone
Star Screenplay Competition in Dallas. He hopes to one day direct it for the big screen.
But perhaps the most telling moment of his long, raucous career took place while doing stunt work on the 1994 film "Color of Night." Kent was in a helicopter flying over the heart of Hollywood's creative community.
Bruce Willis and a crowd watched from below as Kent and other members of the stunt crew hung out of the chopper and began to sing and dance. Then the lone female aboard dropped her drawers.
"We're right over Highland and Wilshire, hovering over this set and the whole city I've loved all my life, and she's mooning Bruce Willis!" Kent said with a grin.