South Bay-based director Bill Riead,
seated left, is flanked by cast and crew members from his full-length feature
film, "Broken Vows." Seated to his right is editor Olaf Kallstom.
Standing from left to right: executive producer Corky Barton, actress Olivia
Hussey, actor Ed Asner, producer Jack Green, and Riead's wife and prducer,
Lisa Riead.
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When discussing writer, producer
and director Bill Riead's latest film, you might as well hold on tight
because the man's galeforce imagination, insight and energy come on like
a tornado. Since graduating from college in 1969, the Rolling Hills Estates
resident's quest to become a filmmaker has taken him from the front of
the camera as a TV news reporter to a behind-the-scenes video director
for Columbia Pictures. Now Riead is putting the final touches on his first
full-length feature, "Broken Vows, filmed in the South Bay and on Catalina
Island. He recently assembled lead actors Ed Asner and Olivia Hussey and
other coworkers in his newly constructed edit bay in Malaga Cove to view
the final cuts. The first public screenings are planned for midsummer.
"You have to see this before Olivia gets here," Riead said as he shoved
a videotape into a player in his octagon-shaped office last week. "Olivia
Hussey is a gifted actress who can cry on cue. I asked her to give me a
tear, and she said in her crisp British accent, 'A tear? Which eye?' "Without
hesitation, the president and CEO of Riead Productions Corp. gives his
cast and crew, along with the South Bay scenery, credit for the successful
venture. The city of Palos Verdes Estates in particular bent over backward
for him, he said. |
South Bay
has its fingerprints all over this movie," said the first-time director,
who also filmed in Torrance, Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills Estates, Palos
Verdes Estates and San Pedro. "This is our sanctuary. We are not Hollywood
people. I love the art form of filmmaking Out Hollywood, no. His crew
is composed of local talent, including his producer wife, Lisa; co-producer
Jack Green and executive producer (and his friend since age 12) Corky Barton,
both of Redondo Beach; composer David Benoit of Palos Verdes Estates; actor
Peter Brown, who lives in Hermosa Beach; and Swedish film editor Olaf Kallstrom
from Culver City
Riead's screenplay attracted such Hollywood notables as Asner, Hussey,
Tony Denison, Don Murray and Jerry Hardin all of whom jumped at the chance
to appear in the film. The full-length suspense-thriller was made in about
four weeks because he delegated jobs he knew would be carried out correctly
and hired the kind of actors and producers who don't have to do 100 takes,
he said.
"Jack Green is a top, top director of photography who shot 'Twister,' the
1992 Academy Award [winning] 'Unforgiven' and almost all of Clint Eastwood's
films for the last 30 years," Riead said as Green, a soft-spoken, unob-trusive-type',
blushed at the enthusiastic compliments. "We are making a top-quality motion
picture, sparing nothing, with a price the Hollywood studios would drool
over and we all love the South Bay."
Dressed in wire-rim glasses, a green-suede jacket, brown oxford-type wingtips
and sporting a beard for his next movie, Asner traded brusque but affectionate
quips and puns with Riead. Asner called Riead "an efficient machine," an
enormously gratifying trait for performers who are used to keeping pace
when production sometimes becomes "constipated," he said. "We were all
prepared for this movie even Bill and he lead well, issuing edicts
and commands all the time," Asner said. "It was his way of getting the
job done you take it in stride because thats what makes him efficient,"
Hussey, a mother of three, has been on a self-imposed hiatus raising her
youngest daughter with husband David Eisley. The star of Franco Zef-firelli's
famed "Romeo and Juliet" said helping Riead carry out his vision made coming
back to work easy. If making "Vows" hadn't been so fun, she would have
quit filmmaking completely, she said. "I trust Bill so completely that
I would say yes to his next film without having read it," Hussey said.
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