I’ve always loved parties and used to throw a lot of them. In 1985, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Godzilla movie, I threw a party in the “Big G’s” honor. The “Godzilla 30th Anniversary Party” was a spectacular event, complete with “Geisha Girl” hostesses, Japanese food, appropriate music, a Japanese sword to cut Godzilla’s anniversary cake (candles lit and extinguished with a Godzilla cigarette lighter and Godzilla water pistol) and so forth. Best of all, my friend Tom Scherman, a movie prop builder, created a huge Godzilla mock-up for my roof, which I enhanced by a continuous recording of the monster roaring. As I live on a hill and the figure was well lit, I could be seen from below, prompting a visit from a hovering police helicopter! Friend director John Milius lent me a real Japanese soldier’s sword (from World War II), with which I’d intended to cut the cake — but then chose not to, fearing I might offend some of my Japanese guests.
The Godzilla party’s success gave me the idea to host more theme parties, the most obvious being a “Prehistoric Party.” My house already had the ambience for such a bash and the theme suggested that guests “dress prehistoric.” The “Prehistoric Parties” – with punch served from a smoking volcano (another Tommy Scherman creation), “molten lava chili, appropriate music (including, of course, Dinosaur Tracks, a “hot” performing cavegirl fire-eater (actress Debra Lamb), a costume contest (judged by actor Richard Moll) and, on my TV screen, a constantly running montage of clips from old dinosaur movies.
Almost as much fun (and work) as putting on these events was preparing the invitations. Knowing a lot of attractive actresses and models, I got some of them to pose as cavegirls with some of the prehistoric items in my collection. The photos I took of them were then incorporated into the invitations.
I hosted these “Prehistoric Parties” from 1988 to 1994, the last one coinciding with the completion of shooting my movie Dinosaur Valley Girls.
Don’t forget to RSVP!