On Golden Pond . . .

By Rick Farris

This is one of the best movies I ever worked on. One of the best ever. It was the last for both Henry Fonda amd Kate Hepburn.
Jane Fonda starred, and she was the one that forced the movie to be made. The young studio execs told Fonda nobody wanted to watch a movie about old people.
Jane Fonda proved them wrong. It won best picture honors at the Oscars that year, and many more.

I was called a few days before the crew left for Lake Winnipesakee, New Hampshire. I had only been in town a week, having returned from a Texas location on another film. I would replace a crew member who had taken ill. The cinematographer was Lazlo Kovacs, an Oscar winner. Lazlo and his lighting director, Rich Aguilar had been together since the late 60's, when they worked with another Fonda, Peter, on Easy Rider. Back in those days they were renegade filmakers, but at the time they had settled into filming some of Hollywood's finest films. I was glad to be on this film, and I would learn a lot.

We filmed at the lake, where we all had cabins and small motor boats docked outside.
In the morning I'd wake, get ready, and then cruise across the lake in the little boat with one of the grips, who was in the cabin next door. At the end of the day, we'd crusie back to our cabins.

The lake house used in the film was built by the studio, and it was built for filming, complete with wild walls as would be used if built on stage.
We could film in one direction, then turn around and film the other direction by removing one of the walls to make room for the camera crew, etc.

I would hang tight to the camera. As they would rehearse, I'd quietly sit under the lens, near Kovacs as he set up the shot.
The director was in over his head with such great talent, andhe let them do as they wished. You didn't mess with Hollywood Royalty.
In on scene, Henry Fonda ad libs in a scene he is playing with Dabney Coleman, and it's in the film.
In the scene, it's obvious that Coleman's charactor is afraid of bears, and his line to Fonda is . . . "Do you ever see any bears around here?"
Henry Fonda, playing Norman Thayer responds in his own words . . . "Yeah, had a grizzly come around just last week. He ate an old lesbian."
The crew held their laughter until after the cut. The sht was used in the film.

Thirty years ago it's been. Fonda and Hepburn are long gone, so is Lazlo Kovacs. The movie was on Showtime today, and I started to watch it, I remembered what it was like, I was 29 at the time. I waited for the scene where Fonda adlibbed his line, and remembered how we enjoyed it. I then turned off the TV.