Special to Knowing is Not Enough by CFW Enterprises.
Interview Conducted by John Corcoran
(Taken from “Knowing Is Not Enough”, Spring 2000)
Among the ranks of Hollywood’s most sterling writers, the name Stirling Silliphant stands alone. Over the past 25 years, he has cranked out more copy than the Xerox Corporation. What flows from his bustling pen are big-screen blockbusters like The Tower Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure; Oscar-winning screenplays like In The Heat of the Night; and imaginative concepts like TV’s Longstreet series from the early 1970s.
Martial arts, strangely enough, have courted his distinguished career since the beginning. Starting in the late 1950s, when he oversaw a karate scene in television’s Naked City, Silliphant has passionately employed the martial arts wherever and whenever he could. He’s used the arts in some fifteen projects. The fact stands that nobody in Hollywood has been as prolific in using the martial arts in the visual media as has Silliphant.
Silliphant is perhaps best known for his relationship with Bruce Lee. He, in fact, did more for Bruce’s career than any other figure in Hollywood. Beginning with Marlowe in 1970, Silliphant wrote Bruce into numerous stories including Longstreet, whose first one-hour special many fans consider some of Lee’s unsurpassed work on film.
In addition, Stirling originally collaborated with Lee and actor James Coburn on the ill-fated The Silent Flute, eventually released as Circle of Iron, starring David Carradine. It was a sad disappointed. So was his 1975 effort, The Killer Elite, which suffered from production disputes and inferior editing, neither of which were Silliphant’s fault.
Silliphant, besides having been a three-year private student of Bruce’s, was one of his closest friends directly before and during the period when Lee traded obscurity for greatness. Despite the fact that he knew Lee so intimately, past interviews with Silliphant have been alternately shoddy and superficial, for his part of the story, is like his screenplays, a blockbuster. His reason is startling. “Nobody listened.” So I listened – for some four hours – as Silliphant, a master storyteller, recounted his entire martial arts history. The parts which involve Bruce Lee appear here.
What makes Silliphant’s side of the Bruce Lee story so vivid is his photographic memory for meticulous details, his candid description, and his desire to particularize their relationship at length.
How did you first hear about Bruce Lee?
Stirling Silliphant: I was at one of those instantly-forget-the-the-name-of-the-host Hollywood parties and I heard someone talking abut the fabulous Chinese martial artist named Bruce Lee. The story I heard was that Bruce had been invited to Las Vegas by Vic Damone, the singer. After his performance Damone invited Bruce up to his suite.
Vic had been very interested in Oriental martial arts, but was somewhat skeptical about its effectiveness as a form of combat. Vic expressed his opinion that a lot of the martial arts mystique was exaggerated. A good tough streetfighter, he insisted, could always beat a karateman, especially an Asian, because Asians were smaller, skinnier, and just basically couldn’t stand up to a big, tough American streetbrawler. Now Vic didn’t say this out of prejudice, it’s just that he really believed it. At the time, Vic employed the services of two huge, armed bodyguards, on of whom held contempt for martial artists in general. Bruce studied the situation and arrived at a way of proving the effectiveness of martial arts without getting anyone hurt.
“I’ll tell you what we can do,” Bruce said. “Put one bodyguard in front of the door. When, I come through the door,” he explained to the bodyguard, “stop me if you can.” The other bodyguard Bruce placed about five feet behind the first man, and told him to put a cigarette in his mouth. “Let’s assume that the cigarette represents your holstered gun, “ he continued. “Vic, when I come through the door I want you to begin counting to five. By the count of five I will be past the first bodyguard and will have knocked the cigarette from the mouth of the second bodyguard. The cigarette is equivalent to his gun. When he sees me come through the door, he should try to take it out of his mouth before I kick it out. Now, I’m at a disadvantage because I’m telling you all this in advance. If I succeed, then would you buy it as an acceptable example of what martial arts can do?”
They all said, “Sure … Oh, Boy! Yeah!” Bruce then left the room. Meanwhile, Vic said to his bodyguards, “Look, I don’t want you to hurt him, cause he’s small and he’s Chinese. But I don’t mind if one or both of you knock him on his ass. Give him a good shot and let’s settle this matter once and for all.” So, everyone’s waiting, right? Suddenly, there’s a loud, wrenching explosion; not only does the door fly open but it’s torn completely from the wall! Bruce kicked the son-of-a-bitch right off its hinges! The door slams the first bodyguard so hard he’s knocked violently out of the way with the door jammed in his face. Two seconds later – no more – the cigarette flies past the second bodyguard’s nose. Bruce had kicked it from his mouth while he stood there frozen in place. Bruce turned and looked at Damone, who, eyes wide, was saying, “Holy shit!”
Now, whether that story is true or not I will never know. But that was the story I heard at the Hollywood party; in fact, it was a story that was circulating all over Hollywood at that time. And it was good enough for me. I decided Bruce was going to be my Main Man – the one I wanted to train with.
I’ve never heard that story myself. That’s fabulous. Do you remember who told it?
Silliphant: No. But I know Bruce could have done it. It’s a great Bruce Lee story and I subscribe to it. From that moment on, Bruce’s name just shot through Hollywood. Everyone was telling the story. I was determined to meet him. It took me, from that point, several months to track him down. He was a very private person then and only a few “insiders” knew where to find him.
Where did you begin training with Bruce?
Silliphant: Bruce had a school in the Chinese center of Los Angeles. Very low-profile. No exterior sign. You had to know its location in advance. And you had to be invited. You didn’t just walk in off the street.
At that time Bruce was in the process of developing his Jeet Kune Do style – or “non” style – which he continued to evolve right up to the time he died. His methods changed with every lesson he taught. Never did I feel that I was going through some pre-established syllabus, some textbook course of various rote techniques, whereby I had to proceed from page one to page thirty and learn all the successive movements. Bruce never taught that way. Later, when I took up karate (after Bruce’s death), that’s the way I had to start: at the bottom and work up through different levels of routine. Bruce believed in having you achieve your maximum potential as quickly as possible, and in making you believe in the impossible. But to start, as I was saying earlier, I had to track Bruce down. I called Bill Dozier, producer of The Green Hornet series which, by that time, had already gone off the air. Bruce had played the masked Asian driver and I felt that Bill would still know where the “actor” could be found. Bill put me in touch with someone who gave be Bruce’s phone number. I called Bruce. I said, “My name is Stirling Silliphant. I’ve been looking for you for three months. I want to study with you.” Bruce said, “Well, I don’t really teach. I only have one or two private students.” At the time he was teaching Steve McQueen. Just about this time, too, Joe Hyams was starting to get involved with Bruce so that Joe and I came in at the same time.
Aside from Steve McQueen and maybe one or tow others, Bruce was not really into teaching private lessons. In order to discourage Hollywood dilettantes he charged a great deal of money for each hour of instruction. He wanted to make the cost of each lesson so prohibitive that if anybody took it, he would damn well concentrate on the business at hand. Bruce didn’t charge these prices just for the sake of charging. He charged to place value of his instruction and make himself stand out as someone very, very different. This is an Asian attitude, a way of showing that the lesson offered has worth – the fee is merely the token of this, not the point of it.
Can you describe your first meeting with him?
Silliphant: I remember that moment above all others. He arrived at my office at Columbia Pictures [the studio was then on Gower street] with an air of assurance – like the winds around the outside of a hurricane. At that time I was probably fifty, but none of that flabby stuff. I was in pretty good shape for half a century’s wear-and-tear. But certainly nothing compared to the condition I achieved after three years of training with Bruce. Bruce asked me how old I was. When I told him, he was appalled. “You don’t look that old,” he said. “Thank you,” said I. “I just don’t know,” he continued, “if I want to teach anyone that old. It seems pointless. Not that it doesn’t happen in martial arts. We have people in China who begin studying in their sixties. But it will depend on your speed, your reflexes, and how seriously you care to learn.” Later on, studying with Tak Kubota, I found that Tak accepts students in their sixties and that a lot of martial arts teachers understand that one can study at any age, assuming that he can move at all. They hardly expect you to compete in tournaments. But at this time I didn’t know that. So Bruce said, “Let’s see what you can do.” He took a cushion off the couch and told me to kick it. I did, in the way I thought it should be kicked, which was pitiful – the way a woman would kick a mouse or something. It was probably the worst kick Bruce had ever seen. Then he brought out his catcher’s mitt. He said, “I’m going to hold this out and I want you to hit it as hard as you can.” So I did. I used all my boxing knowledge, torqued my hip, gave it my best shot. Bruce remarked, “Man, that sure wouldn’t hurt anyone, would it?” So I tried again and he still didn’t approve. “I will say that you’ve got speed,” he observed. “And your reflexes are good. But I have to tell you, you could hit someone and he wouldn’t even know it. I can tell we have a lot of work to do with you.”
And so he agreed that he would start to instruct me. But I still don’t think he felt I would benefit very much. I think it was my earnestness that impelled him – certainly not my promise as a martial artist. Now, had I worked out directly with him at first it would have been futile. So this was one of the reasons he put Joe Hyams and me together. He coached us in what he wanted us to learn. It became a very rewarding and beautiful experience and I remember it the way Joe does – with great respect and warm nostalgia. I found Bruce’s training methods fascinating. They were not structured. They were always free, very spontaneous and improvisational. The first thing he did with me was to concentrate on my body movement and particularly on what he called “closing the gap,” the relationship between you and your opponent. I guess the essence of this is what we’d call a time attack executed against your opponent’s preparation. To accomplish this Bruce at first blindfolded me and made me move in conjunction with what I felt might be his movements around me – on all sides. We practiced that for weeks before we began any kind of specific attack and defense techniques. Then we started on hand movements. He wanted to introduce me to some of the historic background on the use of hands, wrists and arms. Bruce always said the leg is the more powerful weapon, but, ultimately, the man who can punch better will be the one who will win. He taught me the “sticky hand” technique from Wing Chun, and we did that blindfolded. As a matter of fact, that was one of the first things he had Joe Hyams and me do when we were working out together. Joe and I found it fascinating that when we were blindfolded and followed Bruce’s instructions we felt the power of this defense. It was almost impossible for anyone to force his way through to the target, into your face or into your body. The more he forced, the more you reached him. It had nothing to do with defense below the waist, but it was certainly good medicine for the upper target areas. I guess the reason I took this so naturally was because of fencing, where my instruction included both upper and lower lines of defense. Many proficient fencers are expert at upper defense, but inadequate in fending off low-line attacks. And because my fencing coach had taught me both, I automatically thought of the body as being dissected into those two areas, each with its own specialized form of defense. That was one of the practical points fencing had taught me; that my tow was every bit as vulnerable as my head. And, therefore, I took instantly to what Bruce was teaching. The sticky hands help a weaker person nullify an attack by a stronger person. If you are really good at it, it’s almost impenetrable – extremely difficult for an opponent to land a blow form the waist up – which, in turn, might force the opponent into having to deliver a low-line attack, for which you’re prepared.
PART TWO OF THIS HISTORICAL INTERVIEW WITH STIRLING SILLIPHANT WILL BE PUBLISHED IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF KNOWING IS NOT ENOUGH. |
