Arne Olsen hardly looks like he's ready to be put out to pasture. The strapping Canadian director and screenwriter, who stands 6 foot 6, strides into a Kitsilano restaurant, proffers a firm handshake and proceeds to squeeze the life out of a lemon, which he dunks into a glass of iced tea. He's handsome, athletic, only starting to go grey. And for the past 14 years, he's been making a very decent living penning action scripts in Hollywood. Despite all his youthful attributes, Olsen says he relates to the septuagenarian characters withering away in a sterile retirement home in his directorial debut, Here's to Life.
"I'm almost 40," Olsen says with a bitter chuckle. "And if you're past 40, you're a has-been in Hollywood. Seriously. Writers even more than actors. Look at all the movies that are out this summer. They're all teen movies. So [Hollywood producers and agents]only want 24-year-old guys who are really tapped in to the Zeitgeist of youth. What do I know about American Pie?"
Olsen has already been dropped twice by the William Morris Agency and is currently working without any talent representation in the United States. His heartwarming film, which opened in select cities across the country yesterday, probably won't do much to boost his prospects in youth-obsessed Hollywood, even though it features a stellar cast, including Eric McCormack ( Will & Grace) and three legendary actors who first lit up the silver screen during its Golden Age: Kim Hunter ( A Streetcar Named Desire), James Whitmore ( Give 'Em Hell, Harry!) and Ossie Davis ( The Joe Louis Story).
Nor will it matter much, at least not to the powers that be who repeatedly turned down his script, that Here's To Life received eight Gemini nominations in 2001 (and captured one award for production design), after its premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
But like the feisty old folks in the film who hit the road for their last hurrah and find unexpected inner peace, joy and all that jazz by giving up their indulgent worldly desires in order to help their socially inept young chaperone vanquish his inner demons, this was a film that Olsen was somewhat spiritually compelled to make.
"Some of the movies I've done are not putting out great karma," says Olsen. He is referring to the string of profitable, but rather forgettable scripts he has written, such as Red Scorpion, Cop and a Half and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
"People are always surprised when they find out I've done movies like that because I'm kind of a softer, gentler person," he continues, self-consciously toying with his sunglasses. "I wanted to do something that would convey to the world a lot more about what I'm really about."
Olsen was raised in Vancouver, the son of a wealthy businessman, Arne Olsen Sr., who co-founded Imperial Parking. He went to the University of British Columbia for two years, but then hightailed it to Los Angeles 18 years ago, after being rejected by the university's film school.
He took writing courses at UCLA, attended the American Film Institute's producing program, and got his first industry job working as a production assistant through an MGM executive, Greg Foster, a friend of the family who later hired him to write a script.
Olsen admits that his privileged background provided him with certain advantages. "It definitely helped. No question. The first year I was there, my deal with my dad was that I would continue to go to school and he would pay. It allowed me go to school and write, whereas a lot of people I knew went to school and worked."
Despite the initial soft landing, Olsen's time in Hollywood has been a turbulent roller-coaster ride ever since. The big problem, says Olsen, is that agents give writers about six months to make them money, and then call it quits. His first representative at William Morris dropped him like a hot potato in 1988. Two months later, his script for Cop and a Half caused a fierce bidding war, eventually selling for $400,000 (U.S.) to Universal. He signed on with a smaller agency, then left them after seven years. At the time, Olsen thought he wouldn't have any problem finding another agent, but the only person who wanted to represent him was someone back at William Morris. Two years ago, he sold his most lucrative speculative script yet to Warner Bros., taking $250,000 (U.S.) for the big special-effects comedy titled Drake Diamond: Exorcist for Hire -- a payday that could reach $700,000 if the film ever gets made.
Then his agent dropped him a year later, while he was off directing Here's to Life.
"Go figure," says Olsen, going on to vent about the tyranny of agents. "This is good therapy," he says, smiling.
The genesis for Here's to Life came from another therapeutic exercise. After selling the script for Cop and a Half, Olsen began volunteering at a halfway home for teenagers in Los Angeles. "I was 30 years old, and I was getting so much. It was like a dream come true. I guess it was guilt. I felt I was getting too lucky."
About four years later, he switched to the Sheridan Care Centre, a retirement home, where he still volunteers once a week. There is one resident in particular, Nelly Ormont, with whom he has developed a very close relationship. And it was she who inspired the character of a former music teacher, played by Kim Hunter.
"I had been talking to a friend about what to do next," Olsen explains. "People are always talking about stories from the heart. Something really personal. I didn't think I had something that was unique enough to share until my relationship with this one woman," whom he describes as delicate, beautiful and hopelessly romantic.
"Her whole thing is about getting me married," Olsen laughs.
Olsen says it was exhilarating to work with Hunter, who kept up with the hectic pace of a 22-day shoot, even after two nasty falls that required trips to the hospital. And she would regale him and the rest of the crew with stories about her days acting alongside Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston (as Dr. Zira in Planet of the Apes).
It continues to amaze Olsen that there aren't more films being made to take advantage of the aging yet still vibrant talents languishing away in the Hollywood Hills. And it certainly put his own issues into perspective.
"Writers are put out to pasture too, but they can reinvent themselves. All they have to do is write a really clever script and even put another name on it."
But the reality was, nobody was interested in Olsen's story.
Olsen finally found a producer, William Vince, an old friend from high school, who believed in the script and was able to raise a financier, actor/director Charles Martin Smith, and attract funding from Telefilm Canada and BC Film.
On the advice of distributors, the title was changed from Old Hats ("Nobody likes the word 'old,' " says Olsen).
But even with an affirmative new name, Here's to Life could not get a theatrical release in the U.S. The film was purchased by the Hallmark TV network, which will launch it on cable this fall.
"It's no way to make a living," says Olsen, who figures he will never recoup his deferred salary or the $150,000 he invested.
He even has his doubts about whether the critics will like it. "Reviewers are only interested in certain types of films," he says. "This is not Hollywood mainstream, but it's not a gritty, urban independent film either. It's softer. It's not a brainy movie.
"I don't think a lot of intellectuals will like it because it pulls the heartstrings. But I think this type of movie is a lot harder to do than comedy or something that's shocking and provocative because it's real storytelling. To do something more basic is frightening for a lot of people.
"But it's a story I really believe in. It's something I had to do."
Alexandra Gill