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‘Father of the Bride,’ the Pandemic and Me
Sep 25, 2020
The short “Father of the Bride Part 3 (ish)” was set to be posted Friday on YouTube as a fund-raiser for World Central Kitchen . LOS ANGELES — I thought I was retired. After 40 years of making movies, I felt done. I was planning to travel more, start reading more. I wanted to buy a hammock. You know, all the regular stuff retired people want to do. Then Covid-19 came to America. When I heard it had reached Seattle, I feared life was about to change. That’s when I started buying medical supplies, cans of beans, boxes of pasta and jars of almond butter. It was on March 8 that I thought I had better get that pneumonia shot my doctor had been telling me to get for the past five years. I asked the pharmacist if she’d meet me in the parking lot so I didn’t have to go inside and potentially be near sick people. She kindly came out with the shot on a tray. She wasn’t wearing a mask. But I was. Two of them. I held my breath, got the shot and drove home. I haven’t ventured out much since.
My children say I’m a person who needs a project. Unable to see friends and staying socially distant from my kids and grandkids, I made my home my project. I became a dedicated house cleaner. In May, after two months of mopping, wiping, washing, disinfecting and endlessly buying new cleaning tools on Amazon, I knew I couldn’t go on like this. I needed an escape. I needed to go back to work. I recognized how lucky I was to be able to stay home while others couldn’t. On the news, there were families waiting in line for food in 2020 America. It was heartbreaking. What could I do? What can I do? I wondered. That’s when I emailed Steve Martin and asked him if he had time to chat. He wrote back, “I have nothing but time.” I told Steve I had an idea to write a short Part 3 to “Father of the Bride,” a movie my former partner, Charles Shyer, and I had made with Steve nearly 30 years ago (followed by a sequel, “Father of the Bride Part II”). Steve played the title role of a father who resisted letting go of his daughter and misplaced all of those difficult emotions into fighting the cost and hullabaloo that goes into making a wedding. At least, that’s how I always saw it. I told Steve I thought his character, George Banks, a self-admitted overreactor, was ripe to revisit during the pandemic. I explained I’d like to make the film as a fund-raiser for World Central Kitchen to help those who were struggling. I said all the actors would shoot from home, and I would direct from my computer and we’d get it online somehow. At the time, I wasn’t sure how to do any of that, but I asked Steve if I could figure it out, would he do it? Without hesitation he said yes. So did Martin Short, Diane Keaton and the rest of the cast. I hadn’t written the “Father of the Bride” characters in decades. I was a little nervous. I watched both movies, made some notes and got that excited feeling in my stomach that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
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