WW: Did growing up in Kansas have an impact on your love for Oz?

WW:

PS: Before I learned to read myself, my mother would sit by my bed and read them to me, always stopping to enjoy the beautiful illustrations. She told me these books had been her father’s when he was a little boy. I loved the personal inscriptions from my long-departed relatives that were scrawled inside the front covers: “Merry Christmas, Love Aunt Jo, 1906.” Things like that. Later, the books were given to my mother when she was a young girl. Then they were passed along to me. It was one of the first “legacies” that I recall. It felt very important to me at the time, and it still does. I have them proudly displayed on living room bookshelves today. Most aren’t in great shape. They’ve been poured over and loved by eager fingers and hands for more than a hundred years now. Still, to me, they’re priceless.

WW: Your grandfather worked in Hollywood and your parents did stage work as well. Does your family have any stories of working with the stars?

My mother’s father was a civil engineer in Kansas, and he was the one with the Oz book collection. But my paternal grandfather started out as a Russian immigrant who moved to New York City with his family at the beginning of the twentieth century. From those very humble beginnings growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, he eventually met a group of brothers who were forming a movie studio. They needed an accountant, and my grandfather, who had learned the trade by then, signed on. It was Jack, Harry, Albert, and Sam, and they called their new studio Warner Bros. My grandfather shared a great deal of success with them and was soon a top executive there. Today, you would say he was their CFO. He determined the budgets for all the films as well as the stars’ salaries.

One of my grandmother’s best friends was Joan Crawford. The last movie my grandfather worked on at Warners was the 1954 musical version of A Star Is Born, After production finished on the film, my grandparents sailed to Europe with Judy Garland and Sid Luft, staying at the same hotel with them in London, etc. And my aunt, who was a teenager at the time, kept an eye on Liza for them during the crossing. Unfortunately, this glamorous era happened years before I was born. I wish I had known my grandfather a little better. I was barely eighteen when he passed away, and I had just started asking him specific questions about his life and work. I inherited his gold watch after he died, and I still wear it today. It’s the watch Jack Warner gave him when he retired from the studio. When I was born in New York City, my father was working as a cameraman on The Patty Duke Show. My mother was an actress and had appeared on Broadway in Miss Lonelyhearts with Pat O’Brien, Fritz Weaver, Ruth Warrick, and Anne Meara. She did a second Broadway play with Sal Mineo. And she also worked on live television dramas during the Golden Age with people like Peter Ustinov, Sandra Church, and Robert Preston. After my parents divorced in the mid-’80s, she married her second husband, Brooks Clift. He was the brother of movie star Montgomery Clift. I know this sounds a little crazy coming from a guy who grew up in Kansas. It was probably even more bizarre to the people living around us at the time. I remember once when Jason Robards came to our house for dinner. That’s not so unusual if you live in Hollywood or New York, but it’s a little out of the ordinary for a college town in Kansas.

WW: You and Margaret Hamilton were pen pals for quite awhile. What was the Wicked Witch of the West like underneath the makeup?

PS: I’ve attended Oz events before, but not Oz Club events, so I’m very excited about this upcoming South Winkies gathering in Glendale, CA. I’ve been an on-again-off-again member of the IWOC for many years. I first joined as an eager teenager in the mid-1970s. I still have my Baum Bugles and Oziana magazines. About a dozen years ago, I attended a large celebration of the surviving Munchkins at the Culver Hotel in Culver City. I have autographed photos from that day, framed and hanging on the wall. One of the coolest Oz events I ever attended was as a kid in Kansas, when a horse trainer hired for the MGM Oz film came through our town. I have photos of me riding a pony. It’s one of the two black ponies that pulled Dorothy around the big Munchkinland set in her flower petal carriage. And it’s the same pony Rhett Butler fatefully gave to his daughter Bonnie Blue in Gone With the Wind. It’s funny, though. Looking at this upcoming Oz event in Glendale, and surfing around online through the IWOC website, I’m seeing the names of a few dedicated fans and officers of the club that I recall seeing on the rosters when I first became a member. I hope I get to meet them someday soon. It would be quite a thrill for me.

PS:

PS: After more than eight years in the Home Entertainment industry—producing interactive menus and special content graphics for movies like Star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia, and the Harry Potter films—I’d trade any of those projects in a heartbeat for a chance to work on Oz. Since this would be a total dream job for me, I will keep right on dreaming and assume the budget is no concern. I could easily envision an animated intro of the inside of Dorothy’s farmhouse, POV through her bedroom window during the climax of the tornado sequence, as we see the film’s title whirl by on the screen. It’s a short intro (thankfully) as the house lands quickly with a thump! Then we pan horizontally around (in 3D of course) to the front door and push through into the Technicolor world of Munchkinland. The camera rises up, panning over a faithful recreation of the famous set and locks off right next to the Yellow Brick Road. Viewers could select from several of the tall flowers, or the Munchkins hiding in the bushes, or the small doors and windows on the fronts of the huts, etc., These would activate the submenus for Languages, Special Features, and Scene Selections. Then, for example, if a viewer clicked on a door, it would open up to reveal a parade of trumpeting Munchkin soldiers followed by the mayor himself, who would tip his hat and point to an expanding list of Deleted Scenes. I can tell you now, you don’t want to hear the cost on this one!

WW: Having worked on several film to DVD projects, why do you feel that virtually all film adaptations of Oz other then the MGM film have failed?

PS: Aha! Well, I definitely don’t want to spoil my book by giving you too detailed of an answer here. The premise of my novel is that Oz does, in fact, exist. I take the reader on a mysterious, sometimes frightening, and sometimes rousing journey of discovery. Things start simply enough and then grow more complex and fantastic as the plot develops. Information about the shoes isn’t revealed all at once, but rather in stages—like fitting together the pieces of a puzzle. The characters in the book are trying to figure all of this out as best they can with the limited resources they have. Traditional Oz fans might be surprised by some of the creative twists and turns along the way. But I will say that I do go into the historical background of the shoes, from an outsider’s “realistic” perspective looking in. The reader will increasingly gain knowledge of the origin of the Silver Shoes, their vast history, and their incredible powers with every turn of the page.

PS: I did choose his name carefully. A keen Oz fan will notice the first two letters of his first and last names line up with a familiar little girl’s from Kansas. For others, that might not be so obvious. Either way is fine with me. It was a conscious decision on my part. But does it hold any significance in the story, or is it merely an “unintentional” or subliminal coincidence? You will have to read the book to find out.

WW: Do you have plans to write another Oz book?

PS: I definitely do. I was hoping people would enjoy this first book, but the initial feedback on Silver Shoes has been even better than I anticipated. One of the things people tell me right away is, “I want to know what happens next!” Without spoiling the plot, my novel ends with a huge possibility for a continuation. When I was first working on it, I struggled endlessly to tie up every loose end in a neat little package. I wanted to answer all possible questions that readers and I myself might pose along the way. And when I finished a rough draft of the last two chapters, it felt completely wrong. Everything was planned and symmetrical and dull, and it knocked the excitement right out of the story. I think the ending I have now leaves readers quite satisfied. The main conflict comes to a climactic conclusion, but in a way, you might say this is just the beginning for Donald and the others. Hopefully, readers will want to know what happens next. And more about Oz, of course. And yes, I’m pleased to tell you that I have already begun work on a second book, picking up this story right where the first one leaves off. 

WW: If you were to either meet L. Frank Baum or go to Oz for a day, which would you choose?

PS: Meeting the man himself would be a life-changing experience, but I would definitely choose the latter and go to Oz for a day. I’ve dreamed about it for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest conscious memories are those dreams, in fact. And now I have written my own modern tale about the “actual” existence of Oz. It’s my ultimate tribute to L. Frank Baum and his brilliant imagination. Now I’ve added my own imagination into the mix. And I hope it’s the beginning of a series of exciting new adventures for another generation of fans. ∆