Word: wolper
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Even the flamboyant David Wolper (Roots, The Thorn Birds), producer of the more than $6 million extravaganza, ran afoul of an overweening zeal on the part of an employee well down the ladder of power. There were 300 placard bearers on the field trying to rehearse, and at the oddest moments an automatic sprinkler system would click on and reduce their practice to drippy disarray. At last the producer located a workman whose raiment included an enormous ring of jangling keys. The key holder was intractable at the start: "Watering that field is just as important...
...tone of the opening cere monies is going to be majesty, in spiration and emotion," Producer Wolper had said. "But the key is going to be emotion." To that end, as all but the Sherpas know by now, thousands of church bells were rung throughout the city for the first four minutes, followed by those trumpeters, that orchestra, choir and those pianos, all while the word WELCOME was being written across the sky. That, you saw. This...
...Wolper had wanted 50 convertible automobiles, their tops up, positioned about the Coliseum. The band was to strike up a dazzling dance number, the tops were to come down, and scores of gorgeous show, uh, women were to come popping out. The number got the hook, not for any concern for dignity but because it took too long to get the cars off the field. A journalist who had been watching remarked, "Maybe there...
...Hollywood in Wolper prevailed on other counts, however. Anyone consider, during the parade of athletes, the 300 beautiful young women carrying placards bearing the names of nations? "We got a lot of steam from the committee on this," Wolper said. "They said, 'You can't pick girls just on the way they look.' I'm in show business, folks. I don't give a damn about the rules. This is a show. I'm putting on a running event. You look good, you can't be an Olympic ard bearer." As it happened...
...business problems and family problems." His very home, he went on, was bought because pigeons did not defy local zoning laws and because, once he saw the grounds, "I thought this was the place to pursue pigeon excellence." This year that excellence found a place in the Olympics. Producer Wolper, unintentionally alluding to yet another bird, had promised "a 20-goose-bump performance." Maybe it was more...