Text by Joy Kuhn

(except 'Mel Brooks' by Maxim Jakubowski)

Photographs by Frank Connor

Book Designed by Martyn Atkins

Co-ordination by David Martin

Virgin Books

THE ELEPHANT MAN

One

In Victorian England 'freak-peeping' was an accepted form of entertainment: for twopence you could have a good look at a heavy-headed dwarf, a bearded lady, or a pair of Siamese twins.
In 1884, Dr. (later Sir) Frederick Treves, Surgeon and Lecturer in Anatomy at the London Hospital, paid a full shilling for a private view of what a gaudily-painted poster outside a vacant greengrocer´s shop in the Mile End Road claimed to be a frightful creature called The Elephant Man. Confronted with a limping, maldorous wreck whose distorted grotesque face was incapable of expression, and on whose body hung bags of spongy, pendulous tissue, even the compassionate doctor did not realise that he was in the presence of a highly intelligent and sensitive human being.
For the purpose of a lecture, Treves arranged for the Elephant Man - 21 year old John Merrick of Leicester - to visit the Medical College attached to the hospital. Clutching the card which the doctor had given him, Merrick arrived - clad in a disguise almost as startling as the man himself. A long black croak reached to the ground. On his head - which was the circumference of a man´s waist - he wore a peaked cap with a grey flannel curtain into which a wide horizontal slit had been cut.
Treves wondered if the man was an imbecile. His speech was almost unitelligible, and his attitude, reported the doctor later, was "that of one whose mind was void of all emotions and concerns".
In fact, Treves hoped that Merrick was imbecilic. Shunned like a leper, housed like a wild beast, his only view of the world from a peephole in a showman´s cart, it seemed unthinkable that he could also appreciate his condition.
But Merrick did. Treves was to discover that "he possessed an acute sensibility and - worse than all - a romantic imagination". The disease from which he suffered, multiple neurofibromatosis, had not attacked his brain; he had a normal wish to love and be loved.
After Merrick´s visit to the college, the surgeon and the Elephant Man lost contact. The English authorities considered the exhibiton degrading. Merrick´s deformities, maintained the police, 'transgressed the limits of decency'. The show closed and the showman feld with his charge to the Continent. Two years passed before police in Brussels agreed with their English counterparts: there, too, the exhbition - 'brutal, indecent and immoral' - was banned.
No longer a source of profitable entertainment, Merrick was now seen as a burde. The showman sold his charge to an impresario on the Continent. The impresario robbed him of his savings. Mysteriously, Merrick managed to make his way back to London, harried constantly by onlookers who lifted the hem of his cloak to look at his obscene body.
Whe he finally collapsed at Liverpool Street Station, he was found to have in his possession the card given to him two years before by Frederick Treves.
Relieved, the police sent for the surgeon. It was the beginning of a new life for a man who, although continually in pain, was soon to reveal a passion for literature, theatre and music - and to show his own artistic talent.
But, first, the surgeon faced a problem. Compassion impelled him to drive Merrick directly to the hospital, and to place him in an isolation ward. But the hospital was neither a refuge nor a home for incurables. Senior as his position was, Treves had been guilty of an irregularity and he was frightened that, without the approval of the hospital committee, Merrick might be turned out into the world.
What to do with him? The Royal Hospital for Incurables refused to take him in - even if sufficient funds were available to pay for his care. Mr Carr Gomm, Chairman of the London Hospital Committee, was as sympathetic as Treves. Over 76,000 patients a year passed through the doors of the hospital. He had never before invited public attention to a particular case. This time, it was different. Mr Carr Gomm wrote to The Times ...
As Merrick had known the cruelty of the public, so he now became familiar with its generosity. In short time enough money was raised to maintain him for the rest of his life. There were two empty rooms at the back of the hospital overlooking a large courtyard called Bedstead Square. Today, these rooms are used as storerooms. In 1886 the hospital committee decided that they could be Merrick´s lifetime home.
Soon, his intelligence had manifested itself. The nurse who at first fled from him in panic was deeply touched to see that Merrick, with his one almost normal hand, was making cardboard models which he sent as presents to those who showed him kindness.
He was, Carr Gomm said, "superior in intelligence; he can read and write, is quiet, gentle, not to say refined in his mind. And through all the miserable vicissitudes of his life he has carried about a painting of his mother to show that she was a decent and presentable person".
But who was John Merrick´s mother - and why did his relatives abandon him to a life of degradation?
Merrick constantly stressed her beauty, and rationalised his own appearance by explaining that she was "knocked down by an elephant in a circus" during her pregnancy.
Jane Merrick was a Baptist school teacher, a loving mother who died when her deformed son was 12. The boy´s father, an engine driver, is believed to have abandoned her, forcing her to place the boy in a workhouse from where he shuttled to and from hospital to be treated for secondary hip diseased.
In hospital, Treves surmised, Merrick was taught to read and write and to acquire such skills as model-building.
After Jane Merrick´s death, the boy´s father, who had married his landlady, decided to take him home. But his stepmother and her children treated him harshly. At 13, he was taken out of school and sent to work in a factory. Desperate, he ran away and finally fell into the hands of the impresario.
At best, the London Hospital, Merrick hoped for a temporary refuge away from curious, mocking eyes. When he was forced to leave, he asked - taking the leaving for granted - was there any possibility he could be sent to a hospital for the blind, a place where his deformities would not be obvious?
Frederick Treves had a more ambitious plan. Merrick would not only stay where he was, but he would regain his dignity as a human being through the kindness of intelligent friends who would be more interested in his mind than om the horror of his body.
Treves asked a young and pretty widow to meet him, her task simply to smile, to wish Merrick good morning, and to shake his hand.
The effect was not quite what Treves had anticipated. In his words "as he let go her hand he bent his head on his knees and sobbed until I thought he would never cease... From this day the transformation of Merrick commenced and he began to change, little by little, from a hunted thing into a man".
His case attracted attention in the papers and visitors came to the hospital - the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), the actor William Kendal, duchess and countess, who brought him presents, made his room bright with ornaments and pictures and - best of all - supplied him with books.
Queen Alexandra - then Princess of Wales - was particularly interested in his case. She met him at the hospital, sent him Christmas cards in her own handwriting, and gave him a signed photograph of herself.
Lady Dorothy Neville offered him a cottage on her estate so that he could have a holiday in the country. The Duke of Cambridge gave him a silver watch. So that, in theory at least, he could be 'like every other man', Frederick Treves gave him a dressing case.
Perhaps the most caring of all was the brilliant actress Mrs Kendal. When her husband told her "I have seen the most frightfull sight of my life" she involved herself in the campaign to raise money on Merrick´s behalf. At her own expense he obtained the services of a teacher to instruct the deformed man in basketmaking - at which he soon excelled - and arranged for him to fulfil his life´s ambition: to visit the theatre. "My husband and I always considered it a great privilege to be allowed to soothe his suffering", she said.
UInspoilt and immeasurably grateful, Merrick responded by attempting to conform. In the end, it was an effort that led to his premature death.
Because of his deformities and the increasing weight of his head - which he found difficult to hold upright - Merrick was forced to sleep in a seated position. His frequently expressed wish that he might lie down 'like other people' is thought to have impelled him to do so.
In April 1890 he was found dead in his bed. There were no signs of violence and it was believed that he had suffocated in his sleep.
A distressed Treves added his words to the post-mortem: "As a specimen of humanity, Merrick was ignoble and repulsive; but the spirit of Merrick, if it could be seen in the form of the living, would assume the figure of an upstanding and heroic man, smooth browed and clean of limb, with eyes that flashed undaunted courage".

THE DISEASE

Two

As do one in every 3000 people today, John Merrick suffered from multiple neurofibromatosis. His was a particularly bad case - both his bones and his skin were affected.
Although the disease had, in fact, been made the subject of a monograph by a German physician called Friedrich von Recklinghausen only two years before, Frederick Treves had no more idea of the cause of the disorder than had any other of his contemporary colleagues. His inability to cure it may have deeply affected him: shortly after Merrick´s death, when stll comparatively young, he retired from medicine.
Neurofibromatosis occurs in many different ethnic groups and in both sexes. Still incurable, it is accompanied by varying degrees of deformity. The neurofibromatosis - skin tumours which resemble brown cauliflower - may form anywhere on the body, and may develop internally, attaching to the brain´s acoustic or optic nerve or other tissues. Another manifestation is 'elephant skin', large hanging folds of epidermis. In 94 per cent of cases there is either a loss and/or increase of pigmentation with café au lait spots, most commonly on the trunk. Mental deficiency occurs in about 10 per cent of the cases, and seizures in about 12. But in most cases, the bones are not affected.
Although there is no evidence of similar deformities among John Merrick´s other relatives, in fact, neurofibromatosis often has an hereditary basis, and is generally transmitted from a parent.
Today, plastic surgery is used to remove tumors, but they grow alarmingly quickly. Dr Timothy Miller of UCLA is reported to have removed 68 lbs of growth recently from a quite young girl.
Merrick´s case was even more horrific. In Sir Frederick Treves´ words:
"From the intensified painting in the street I had imagined the Elephant Man to be of gigantic size. This, however, was a little man, below the average height and made to look shorter by the bowing of his back. The most striking feature about him was his enormous and misshaped head. From the brow there projected a huge bony mass like a loaf, while from the back of his head hung a bag of spongy, fungus-looking skin he surface of which was comparable to brown cauliflower. On the top of the skull were a few long lank hairs. The osseous growth on the forehead almost occluded one eye. The circumference of the head was no less than that of the man´s waist. From the upper jaw there projected another mass of bone. It protruded from the mouth like a pink stumo, turning the upper lid out and making of the mouth a mere slobbering aperture. This growth from the jaw had been so exaggerated in the painting as to appear to be a rudimentary trunk or tusk. The nose was merely a lump of flesh, only recognizable as a nose from its position. The face was no more capable of expression than a block of gnarled wood. The back was horrible, because from it hung, as far down as the middle of the thigh, huge, sacklike masses of flesh covered by the same loathsome cauliflower skin.
"The right arm was of enormous size and shapeless. It suggested a limb of the subject of elephantiasis. It was overgrown also with pendent masses of the same cauliflower like skin. The hand was large and clumsy, a fin or paddle rather than a hand. There was no distinction between the palm and the back. The thumb had the appearance of a radish, while the fingers might have been thick, tuberous roots. As a limb it was almost useless.
"The other arm was remarkable by contrast. It was not only normal but was moreover, a delicately shaped limb covered with fine skin and provided with a beautiful hand which any woman might have envied. From the chest hang a bag of the same repulsive flesh. It was like a dewlap suspended from the neck of a lizard. The lower limbs had the characters of the deformed arm. They were unwieldly, dropsical looking and grossly misshapen. To add a further burden to his trouble the wretched man, when a boy, developed hip disease, which had left him permanently lame, so that he could only walk with a stick.
"One other feature must be mentioned to emphasise his isolation from his kind. Although he was already repellent enough, there arose from the fungus skin growth with which he was almost covered a very sickening stench which was hard to tolerate."
Treves was incorrect in saying that Merrick´s left arm was normal. It was not: it was smaller and the hand weaker than average, and it is remarkable that he could actually work with it so effectively.
The odour which Treves mentions as emanating from Merrick´s skin, says Ashley Montagu, was undoubtedly derived from the secretions of the innumerable disordered sebaceous and sweat glands disseminated throughout the tumors. With the limited opportunities for bathing Merrick enjoyed before living at the hospital, the accumulated bacterial decomposition of the secretions would have given him a nauseating odour.
This, too, must have added to his misery. But the regular baths he was able to take following his arrival at the London Hospital completely eliminated the smell. In that way, at least, he was normal.

DIGNIFYING THE GROTESQUE

Three

Every year in Nottingham, in an event dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth 1, the Goose Fair features The Freak Show. Twenty pence will allow you to see Tiny Tim (The World´s Smallest Man), The Snake Woman (1,000 If Not Alive!), and Samantha The Iguana Girl (It Has a Thousand Eyes!)
Today´s fair-goers don´t expect to see the mutants pictured in the scene outside - which is just as well because Samantha, for one, turns out on further acquaintance to be an ordinary, chubby, pleasant-faced young woman, her only peculiarity, an ability to relate to a boa constrictor, a few chameleons and a couple of iguanas!
As scriptwriters Christopher De Vore and Eric Bergren discovered when they researched this gathering of England´s small travelling carnival, in a show like this the object isn´t as important as the promise and expectation - the visitor doesn´t really expect to see anything truly frightening.
The public of 90 years ago were intrigued and a little scared when they paid to see John Merrick. But confronted with the incomprehensible they fled in terror, and demanded that he be seen no more.
The writers point out: "As a scientist, Treves felt obliged to examine Merrick´s body, and then, as a man, compelled to explore his soul. Though John Merrick, Treves learnt that the form bears no more relation to the spirit than the carnival poster to the form. He learnt that the truth is always hidden, and it is only our willingness to be surprised that allows us the surprise of its discovery".
"The Elephant Man", then, is about the dignity of the spirit. "You´ve got to look beyond the surface aspect of things", says Producer Jonathan Sanger, "Merrick was hideous and deformed, but only to look at.
"The freaks in this movie are the people who have really pure motives. Treves´ motive in befriending Merrick could, if you like, be queried: he just could have had a desire to make a name for himself by showing off something noone else had ever seen. The motives of the circus people shown in this film are never suspect."
In the film, John Merrick is shown escaping from the clutches of the sadistic impresario through the efforts of the circus people: The Plumed Dwarf, midget Kenny Baker, the actor-musician who played Artoo Detoo in 'Star Wars'; pantomime veterans Marcus Powel and Gilda Cohen, and 'the tallest man in England' - 7ft 9ins tall accountant Chris Greener, who plays the movie´s giant.
Jonathan Sanger says: "When news got around that we were casting for 'The Elephant Man' a report was published saying that human freaks were being recruited to appear with top British stars in a prestige film. At first, I felt annoyed that I should be maligned as an exploiter of freaks. But, of course, there´s no way that anyone could know what was in our minds. We knew we would deal with the subject with taste and integrity, but there was no way, until the movie was made, that we could prove that".
Because of the medical advances, real freaks - the bearded lady, the Lion-Faced Man, covered in Fur, who reputedly lived in Merrick´s day, no longer exist. For the purpose of the movie they had to be created - and then only barely touched on by the camera: in this production, the bearded lady and Lion-Faced Man are scarcely visible.
From the beginning, director, producer and writers were aware that they were making a film that had grotesque elements to it. It had to be handled with restraint. To make it in black and white was a conscious choice to underplay the horrific.
The initial shots of John Merrick were played in shadow so that the attraction of the man´s personality would grow upon the audience before he made a real appearance. By that time, it was felt, he would be admired and even loved.

MEL BROOKS .  BROOKSFILMS

Four

Following the worldwide acclaim received by his films 'The Producers', 1967; 'The Twelve Chairs', 1970; 'Blazing Saddles', 1974; 'Young Frankenstein', 1974; 'Silent Movie', 1976; and 'High Anxiety', 1977, Mel Brooks has often been instrumental in inspiring his actors and colleagues towards a directorial career of their own (Gene Wilder with 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother', 1975, and 'The World´s Greatest Lover', 1977; Marty Feldman with 'The Last Remake of Beau Geste', 1977; Dom de Luise with 'Hot Stuff', 1979). Beginning with his early career as a comedian and scriptwriter, Mel Brooks has always had a unique capacity for putting people at ease and inspiring confidence, and this is witnessed time and time again by his close-knit group of almost repertory actors (Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman as mentioned above, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman). As French critic Robert Benayoun once said "It´s almost the case of  a Mel Brooks University".
Mel Brooks´ production involvement with 'The Elephant Man' comes at an important time in his film career, following his last movie 'High Anxiety' (on which Jonathan Sanger acted as assistant director), dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock, directed, produced and starring Mel Brooks as well as featuring a song written and sung by him in the style of Frank Sinatra and preceding his long-awaited 'History of the World'.
During the making of 'The Elephan Man' Mel Brooks was conspiciously absent from the set throughout most of the filming and is even now somewhat reluctant to have his name too closely associated with the project as he feels his sterling reputation from comedy might give the public at large the wrong idea about the film.
Nevertheless, Brook spent many long hours guiding the script and suggesting structural development with the writers. Even though very busy writing 'History of the World', he gave freely of his time and energy to be available for editing conferences and rough cut screenings with Sanger and Lynch.
His own high regard for the team formed on 'Elephant Man' may be measured by the fact that he is presently planning two more films with the Producer, Jonathan Sanger, and one film each with Director David Lynch and Writers Christopher De Vore and Eric Bergren. It´s very much to his credit that he has provided David Lynch, still an unknown quantity in the mainstream of Hollywood films, with such a golden opportunity and now feels that the film should stand on its own.

DAVID LYNCH .  DIRECTOR

Five

When David Lynch was signed up as Director of "The Elephant Man", "Eraserhead", which he had written, directed and produced, was already the number one cult film in the United States. In the movie business he was referred to as "the greatest unknown director in the world".
Born in Montana, he had attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and the Boston Museum School before going on the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. There, an idependent film-maker´s grant from the American Film Institute enabled him to make a 16 mm film called "The Grandmother". In 1970 he was accepted into the Centre for Advanced Film Studies in Los Angeles.
He moved from painting into film-making because he became more interested in moving pictures than in single images. Creativity is more important to him than money-making: he will tell you, "film-making has to go beyond the surface of things - otherwise it´s no fun to do."
It was that attitude that spurred him on during the making of "Eraserhead". Partly financed by the American Film Institue, he started shooting on May 29, 1972. The 35 mm film - made in black and white - took five years to complete - mainly due to lack of money. Determined to get what he wanted into the movie regardless of expense, he worked until the Institute´s allocation ran out - and then spent nearly three years raising what he needed himself.
In 1976 the film was shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival. An initial slow-starter, it gathered momentum at the box office until the big studios became seriously interested in the potential of David Lynch.
Out of his art background, he speaks of his particular interest in the work of Francis Bacon and Edward Hopper "whom I really love".

"But I don´t feel I´ve been so much influenced by people´s work as by where I´ve been. "Eraserhead" is a product of Philadelphia. I love the factory area of town - that I´m crazy about. Train yards, diners and factories have influenced me more than painters."
Filming "The Elephant Man" was a considerable departure from "Eraserhead". For one thing, "The Elephant Man" was a more conventional film - very different from following the misfortunes of Henry Spencer, and his experiences with his monstrous inhuman 'baby'.
But there were similiarities between making the two films, he says, and amongst them was the chance to build a mood that was totally different from The Now. John Merrick - "strange, wonderful, innocent guy" seemed to him the right hero; the movie itself the right film to follow on "Eraserhead".
At first, he will tell you, it was a slight strain to work to a 12-week schedule: "so expensive - so many people involved". But because there were so many people involved, he realised, so much more could be done in the time. On "Eraserhead" there were normally only five people around - and that included the actors.
David Lynch has a reputation for affability and good--humour and the people who work with him appreciate him for it - and for his talent.
"I´m real interested in mood and sound combinations. I think sound is coming into it´s own now. I don´t think it´s gone that far yet. An image with the right sound and what it can do is what cinema is all about.
"It seems to me that sound was used for dialogue and that for a while film was theatre moved into cinema. But people are thinking a lot more about sound now and it really is the new area. It all goes back to mood. You have to get the sound to fit a particular film. Certain lightning can create feeling - sound can alter mood even more. I really like the idea of sound effects being used as music.
"I´ve been working with my friend Alan Splet - he won an Academy Award for sound on "The Black Stallion". He´s a great engineer, a fantastic person to work with, and someone who has real feeling for sound. We´re both really keen on develoing sound.
"And when you talk about mood, you have to talk about Freddie Francis and the beautiful work he did on the film. One of the great stars on the is picture is Freddie´s lightning. Lighting black and white, like it or not, is much more difficult than lighting colour. You have to light what you want to see and just the amount you want to see it, and keep light off everywhere else. You don´t have the benefits of colours separating themselves from each other. Things can look pretty boring in black and white if you, for instance, flat light something all over, whereas it might pass all right in colour.
"Freddie knows his way around black and white very well. He turned out to be a very good friend and ally and he helped me out a great deal. We had a superb crew on 'The Elephant Man' and I feel that everyone put in 100%.'
And the futue? "I hope my project 'Ronny Rocket' is in the future. I want to make films that take you into a different world, a place you could never get to unless you saw the movie.
"Ronny Rocket" will go into some rather strange ideas. I have a few other ideas hopping around as well; I´ll have to wait and see.
"Although black and white is extremely beautiful, I would like to make the next film in colour. I love the way Jacques Tati uses colour, and some of the old three-strip technicolor movies are so beautiful. I think it will take some time experimenting to find a good look for the next picture."

Meanwhile, he says, as far as directing "The Elephant Man" was concerned, "the dream sequences were particular fun.
"Where I was pushed further was in working  with such fantastic actors; it was a great experience. I really am indebted to Mel Brooks and to Jonathan Sanger. Mel went out on a limb to pick me for this project, and it´s been fantastic.
"And yes, in the end, I feel good about this movie. It´s like this: something feels right and when it´s right you know".

FREDDIE FRANCIS . DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Six

Freddie Francis is in Jonathan Sanger´s words one of the acknowledged masters of black and white cinematography.
Freddie had won an Oscar for his camerawork on "Sons and Lovers" and during the British cinema´s first essays into realism he had worked on "Room at the Top", "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", and later on "The Innocents", the cinema version of Henry James´ "The Turn of the Screw".
Says Jonathan Sanger: "Early on we decided with David Lynch that the film of "The Elephant Man" should be in black and white to hold back some of the more horrible aspects of the deformity John Merrick suffered from and to give a more authentic look to London in the late 19th century.
"I feel the best black and white film I´ve ever seen is 'Sons and Lovers'. During interviews with other cameramen, David and I would mention its style. When we heard that Freddie was looking for the right film to photograph, we sent him the script and he said he wanted to do it".

Born in London in 1917, and educated there, Freddie had spent most of his last year at school writing a thesis on the future of films. After school he went straight to Gaumont British Studios and became apprenticed to a stills photographer.
He moved from clapper boy to camera assistant, and during World War II, while based at Aldershot as part of a one-man film unit, he says he learnt more about his craft than about soldiering.
Then he began to direct, making his directorial debut with "Two and Two Make Six".
Because he loved making films, he directed horror movies - and found himself a cult figure among horror films.
"I didn´t want that. I decided that I would stop directing films I didn´t want and that I would rather do camera work again until I could effectively work on some ideas of my own".
Back in the world of black and white for "The Elephant Man" he discovered a strange irony: "Going back to an old-fashioned medium was actually presenting a new one to modern day people! And no-one knew anything about black and white. We promptly ran into difficulties. Very littlt black and white stock is being made anymore - at one stage there was no usable stock available to us anywhere in the world! We just had to wait for fresh stuff to be made.
"And the laboratories which did such wonderful work for us - well, they had problems, too, because their black and white machinery hadn´t been used at pressure for a number of years. And it was difficult to get electricicans who were used to working on black and white photography. We had a lot of drama.
"But we were all determined to switch on to David´s wavelength - one has to do that with any quality film. Sometimes in films you work with bread and butter directors - and then there´s no challenge. This time, there was a great one - and we decided that we´d surmount the problems, come what may".
Because, he says, "I´m a film-maker and I´d rather do the camera-work on the exciting films that come along until I can direct ones that interest me." Freddie Francis followed "The Elephant Man" by working once again as lighting cameraman on "The French Lieutenant´s Woman".
But he continues with his own ideas for films, "I´m not going to work in any particular direction. Like most film-makers I want to make the films most people want to see. But I do think it´s time for a lavish romantic film, in which today´s affluent society is permitted to exist".
No more horror movies .- that´s definite.

JONATHAN SANGER . PRODUCER

Seven

He has always been interested in the concept of the outsider; in the attempts of people who try to achieve dignity from a life of humiliation. So, two years ago, when Producer Jonathan Sanger read the original script of "The Elephant Man" "I knew I wanted to be instrumental in making the film - and to be involved in all the decisions about it".
Christopher de Vore and Eric Bergren had come across the journals of Sir Frederick Treves, which told the story of John Merrrick. Moved by his sufferings, they decided to turns the journals into a screenplay.
Then Jonathan Sanger saw their work. "When I saw what it was called I thought it was going to be a horror movie. It didn´t take long to dispel that idea. I optioned the script - but I just didn´t have the time to go the rounds and make sales pitches to the studios"
One weekend he left the script behind in Mel Brooks´ office, where he was working. Brooks read it and called him: "He said he loved the story and wanted to see the picture made."
Through Mel Brooks´ production company, Brooksfilms, financing was arranged. The planning stages of the film were a collaborative effort, with Mel Brooks, his associate Stuart Cornfeld, Christopher De Vore, Eric Bergren, David Lynch and Jonathan Sanger meeting to discuss the script and casting. When the project was moved to England, Jonathan Sanger was left completely in charge.
Many producers start off either as agents or as businessmen. But Jonathan Sanger has spent his adult life in filmmaking - and he knew the business from the ground up.
He received a Master of Arts from The Annenberg School in 1967 and then lived and worked as a documentary film producer and director for four years. Moving back to the U.S., he was selected for the Directors Guild of America training programme, where he worked through the ranks of assistant director and production manager. Most recently, he served as Associative Producer on "A Force of One" (American Cinema Productions) and on "Fatso" for Twentieth Century Fox.
"My first decision on "The Elephant Man" was to make sure the work would have the right director. Stuart Cornfeld introduced us to David Lynch. Mel and I had seen David´s movie "Eraserhead"; we commissioned him to write a second draft of the screenplay with Christopher De Vore and Eric Bergren. We reviewed every draft of the script and gave our input until everyone was satisfied.
"The we worked together on the casting. We had to find the best people - actors, crew - in a country we hadn´t worked in - the best locations and studios; had to supervise the publicity and advertising campaigns, the contracts for all artists and technicians - arrange all the deals.
"I saw my job as protecting David Lynch´s vision. As a producer I feel that once you´ve hired a directed you let him do what he wants to do. I knew what the budget was and if his decision was artistically valid in terms of the money involved I fought for it. If I felt it was costing too much I told him so.
"I don´t know what would have happened if we´d disagreed, but we managed to understand each other perfectly. We had a very solid relationship - which doesn´t always happen between director and producer - and it worked in terms of getting the best out of everyone".
Which includes the best of David Lynch, he says.
"The lion´s share of credit for the effects in "The Elephant Man" is David Lynch´s. I loved his work prior to this - "Eraserhead" and "Grandmother" - both pure exercises of imagination. The dream quality that is now in this movie - depicting Merrick´s inner life - these images came out of David Lynch."
The story of "The Elephant Man" had attracted Jonathan Sanger and Mel Brooks because, as Brooks has put it "We never really lose our child.-like need to believe in goodness and innocence".
But the practicality of Sanger was to have its effect. Mel Brooks and he had agreed that the film of "The Elephant Man" would deal "straight and hard with the facts." It would be "an eloquent telling of a powerful, true story"
It was also a story that was to attract a particularly distinguished cast: apart from John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins, Sir John Gielgud, Anne Bancroft, Dame Wendy Hiller, Freddie Jones, Michael Elphick, Hannah Gordon, Lesley Dunlop and Helen Ryan play important roles.
All were Jonathan Sanger´s and David Lynch´s first choices.
"We sent them the script and they felt the way we did about it. It´s just the best possible set of circumstances, being involved in a film that you absolutely love".

JOHN HURT AS 'THE ELEPHANT MAN'

Eight

That make-up job?
John Hurt grimaces ruefully:
"It´s one thing sitting in a make-up chair for seven hours watching oneself getting prettier and prettier. But I was getting uglier and uglier! I was uncomfortable. I couldn´t eat once the make-up was on. I started at 5 a.m. with my head shaven, and by midday we had the head and the face done. Then it was time to do the body. It was evening before we began to shoot. It was such a performance that we could only do it all every second day..
"Without the crew and cast, becoming John Merrick would have been real hell! In fact, it was a kind of joy. From David Lynch down to the electricians, they were fantastatic people to work with."
All the same, he says, there was a moment, at the end of the first make-up session, when he thought: "They´ve finally managed to take the joy out of film-making! I´d seen the cast of John Merrick´s head at the London Hospital and I had an idea of what I was in for. And I said to myself, this is my job.... But I had to teach myself to get my mind into a gear which didn´t frustrate me.
"People ask me what I thought of, all the time, sitting there. But it actually wasn´t a question of random thoughts - one couldn´t actually think of anything but the make-up. Wally Schneidermann, the make-up artist, and his assistant - Beryl Lerman, who´s also his daughter - and I were all so constantly involved. And it wasn´t the kind of make-up job that enabled me to go to sleep..."
"Very early on", says Jonathan Sanger, "Mel Brooks, David Lynch, the writers Chris De Vore and Eric Bergren and I all agreed that we wanted John Hurt to play this part - if he was available and was interested. We´d seen him as the self-confessed homosexual Quentin Crisp in 'The Naked Civil Servant', which was a huge TV success everywhere, and as Caligula in 'I Claudius'. Almost at the same time came the film 'Midnight Express' for which John received an Oscar nomination. We knew he was an extraordinary actor and we felt that he looked different in every part he played. We knew there was going to be an extraordinary make-up job involved in making him into John Merrick and we felt that with any actor whose face you really recognize you´d be looking under the make-up to see where the actor ended and the make-up began. And with John Hurt we really didn´t feel that would be a problem. We felt that John always becomes the character he portrays".
Having decided on their man, the five found that he was on the spot "there, in Los Angeles."
"They invited me to Mel Brooks´ office and Mel told me the story of "The Elephant Man", John explains, "By the time he had finished, I was hooked. I knew I could do it and I had to do it".
John Hurt is the son of a Church of England clergyman who is also a brilliant mathematician. His mother is a qualified engineer, his brother a Roman Catholic priest, his sister a teacher.
At 16 John told his family: "I want to act". In fact, like David Lynch, he went to art school.
He tells it this way:
"I´d always wanted to be in the theatre. But my parents felt that one should have some kind of security and as I didn´t have any particular academic interests, I didn´t want to go to university, or follow in my brother´s footsteps. They wondered what on earth I could do! Then they thought my other interest, painting, would be a good idea".
Once graduated from art school, he promptly applied for a scholarship to RADA! He was hellbent on theatre, and he worked as a stagehand while waiting on the results of his audition. But there was no turning back from then on - RADA said yes.
In 1962 he moved into films, kicking off in the British-made "The Wild and the Willing". Numerous TV drama parts followed - then theatre. He wast voted Most Promising Newcomer by leading theatre critics who saw him in Harold Pinter´s "The Dwarfs", then Fred Zinneman cast him as Richard Rich in Robert Bolt´s "A Man for All Seasons";
Following that there were roles in "Sinful Davey", "Before Winter Comes", "In Search of Gregory", with Julie Christie, and "Forbush and the Penguins", before playing Timothy Evans opposite Richard Attenborough´s Christie in "10 Rillington Place".
Don Boyd´s "East of Elephant Rock", "Disappearance", "Spectre", "Pied Piper of Hamelin", "The Ghoul", "Little Malcolm" and "The Shout" followed, along with much theatre and TV. More recently, he has starred in BBC - Time-Life´s production of "Crime and Punishment", in the hugely successful film "Alien", and - shortly before "The Elephant Man" - in Michael Cimino´s follow-up to "The Deer Hunter", "Heaven´s Gate". And his voice has been heard in "Watership Down" and "Lord of the Rings" ...
For many actors research into the character they are about to play is of paramount importance. Only by acquainting themselves with a character´s dress, gait, speech and taste can they give a rounded portrayal of the person they are about to play. Or perhaps it´s an historical figure, and an immense amount of homework is required, in a quest for authenticity of role.
John Hurt takes a different view of his profession.
"I prepare for a role, obviously", he says. "But I don´t do any research. When I was about to play Richard Rich, for instance, Fred Zinneman sent me a number of books about Sir Thomas More. But I didn´t read any of them, nor did I read Robert Bolt´s playscript. I read only the screenplay - what else can I play than that?
"It´s just the way I work. I know some people do endless research and are tremendously successful with it. But I find that if the script doesn´t tell you enough then I think there´s something wrong with the script. I prefer to work imaginatively than totally out of observation. Of course one observes. But imagination to me is what heightens things. I think perhaps there are two major categories into which performers can be put. One performer will go to the character. Another takes the character to himself. I´m of the former really. I prefer to take whatever gifts I have to the character, so it doesn´t really matter whether it looks like me or somebody else. It´s the character I´m playing - I hope! - rather than the other way round.
"With John Merrick I was playing a role I wanted from the moment I first heard of it in Mel Brooks´ office.
"Merrick was obviously an amazing man. He was in constant pain, suffering from a disease that, to this day, is still incurable, and he was destined for a very short life, dying at the age of 27. But with the help of Frederick Treves and others, his enormous courage and quiet dignity enabled him to find some enjoyment in his last few years.
"The Elephant Man" is not a horror film, as some might think from the subject. The script is beautifully written, very human and moving. It´s really a story of the tenderness of the unknown against the cruelty of the crowd and that appeals to me. People are always frightened of things they don´t understand and real ugliness is something that not many people know about.
"It´s a love story and on several levels. First between The Elephant Man and Treves, who runs into considerable professional opposition to his plans to help what, to so many of his colleagues, is just a circus freak. Then there´s the curious relationship with Bytes, the man who 'owns' him and puts him on the public display. Outwardly they dislike each other, but they depend on each other for their livelihood.
"It´s an extraordinary story..."
But to get back to the matter of make-up, Wally Schneiderman says:
"Well, it´s been one of the most exhausting pieces of work I´ve ever done - and the most satisfying in terms of the results."
Wally´s 34-year old span in films has included 'Sarah', 'Isadora', 'The Guns of Navarone', 'Rollerball', 'Fiddler on the Roof', 'The Last Valley', 'Agatha', 'Yanks', 'Betrayed', 'The Dirty Dozen' - and 'Tales of Hoffmann' - "a fascinating make-up picture.
But making up "The Elephant Man" is something that doesn´t come up every day!" he says, "It was a highly technical make-up and one that didn´t leave room for any error whatsoever. If you´re one-eigth of an inch out you just have to start all over again.
"One day, an eyepiece over the lid flipped back after application. It´s a tiny fine thing about an inch long and I eased it onto the tweezers. Then Beryl spent half an hour ironing out the tangles! Without it, we´de have been held up for a day´s shooting. Afterwards, we made sure we had duplicates of everything in stock".
John Hurt, he says, was wonderful - "He´s a great guy. When the film was over I was really washed out and what it was like for him I can´t imagine. I used to watch him going without food, sipping through a straw and in between feeling genuine pity for the person John Merrick was, I felt sorry for John Hurt.
"Let´s put it this way - he´s a real Trojan".

ANTHONY HOPKINS AS FREDERICK TREVES

Nine

"I like Treves very much", said Anthony Hopkins contemplatively "He´s a nice, quiet man and I´m very fond of him..."
Like his co-stars, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud and Wendy Hiller, Anthony Hopkins was attracted to the project of filming "The Elephant Man" as soon as he began to read the script.
He´s wildly enthusiastic about the finished product.
"The lovely thing about the story is that it´s about care. Treves was a remarkable man who stuck his professional neck out for John Merrick. He was genuinely concerned about him and felt a real love for this other human being who was in a terrible predicament. I think that makes Treves a very full and rich man. Like all dedicated men, he was a bit of a fanatic. A bit eccentric. Perhaps a bit blinkered even. But a lovely man".
And Hopkins, like Treves, now acts on his own counsel.
"I listen to myself more than other people now, not because I know all the answers, but because I feel more confident than I´ve ever done. Also, I say what I mean now and I try to be straight with people, although I never find it that easy being concerned with not wanting to offend people. That´s a waste of time, though, so I try and defuse the situation.
"When I´m working, for instance, if the director wants me to do something which I know instinctively and intuitively is not going to work, I say so, whereas before I would have kept quiet. I have confidence in my own judgment now - I know what makes a good scene. I know enough about acting to know whether something is good or bad, whether it feels right".
With "The Elephant Man" and its director, it simply 'felt right'.
Anthony Hopkins´ recent successes in such films as "A Bridge Too Far", "Audrey Rose" and "Magic" has tended to keep him away from the theatre, and people keep telling him this is a bad thing.
"I used to believe them, too", he says, "But then I always used to go by the last person I had listened to. Now, I listen to my own counsel. I went to the National Theatre the other night and afterwards I thought about what people have been telling m - that I must get back to the theatre, that I´m selling out by working in films. But it´s all nonsense, really".
Anthony Hopkins was born in South Wales in 1937. At 17 he went to the Cardiff College of Music and Drama before joining the Royal Artillery for his then obligatory two years National Service.
In 1960 he became a stage manager - and was promptly fired! Said a friend: "Go back to school". Anthony did. He auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, was accepted and stayed there for two years.
At the Nationale Theatre from 1965 to 1967 he had two major parts.
"I understudied Sir Laurence Olivier in 'Dance of Death' and went on for him in four performances. Then Andrei in Chekov´s "Three Sisters"..."
"And then into films: first in "The Lion in Winter", with Katherine Hepburn and Peter O´Toole: afterwards in Alastair McLean´s "When Eight Bells Toll". Back to the National before spending a year in the BBC-production of "War and Peace": as Pierre. Then I played David Llyod George in "The Edwardians", and did 'The Doll´s House' with Claire Bloom and Ralph Richardson, and Leon Uris´ "QBVII".
It was in 1974 that he went to New York and created the role of the psychiatrist in the Broadway production of "Equus".
He starred in the play again when it went to California. Anthony Hopkins was moving rapidly; there was a remake of "Dark Victory", with Elizabeth Montgomery, then he played Bruno Richard Hauptman in a film about the Lindberg kidnapping case. By ´76, there were star roles in "A Bridge Too Far", "Audrey Rose" and "All Creatures Great and Small".
He won enormous acclaim for his performance as Corky, the bedevilled ventriloquist in "Magic", and, more recently, has played Prospero in a Los Angeles production of "The Tempest" and has starred in a TV film, "The Voyage of the Mayflower".
For "The Elephant Man", he confined his research to reading Sir Frederick Treves´ book.
"Once I´ve learned the lines I like to find out what the action in the scene is, and make sure it´s going to work. I get a bit bad-tempered when actors talk about a character´s feelings all the time because I think acting is very simple - it´s just about what you´re doing in the scene; what Stanislavski called "The Action". That´s the important thing, the spine of the scene. It´s like a magnet with iron filings - they are the emotions and once you put the magnet there they form into a pattern in the magnetic field. Once you have the action in a scene, everything magnetises to it; it´s literally the simple action of "What am I doing?" Get those simple actions worked out and the rest is common sense and logic.
"What I love now is finding that special thing that makes it real, to sketch it out in the rehearsal - what am I doing and where am I going? What really delights me is trying it and finding that it all fits in. It´s a lovely feeling - like a headache disappearing".
It intrigues him to recount that Frederick Treves - great-nephew of the man he so vividly portrays, took a cameo role in "The Elephant Man": one morning in the film´s daily call-sheet was somewhat bewildering. On call for make-up at 8.30 a.m. was - Anthony Hopkins, playing Frederick Treves. Also on call that day - for 8 a.m. make-up - was Frederick Treves, playing an Alderman.
As former National Theatre player, Treves, explains: "The producers actually had the courtesy to ask me to lunch and to talk about their film before it went into production. It wasn´t a question of their having to get any family permission to make the film - my great-uncle´s book "The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences" is now out of copright. But they offered me a role and I was delighted to be a part of it - after all, "The Elephant Man" has a brilliant cast".
In the same way, the crew wanted to involve those at the London Hospital, who were acquainted with the story of John Merrick - foremost amongst them, Mr. Percy Nunn, Curator of the museum at the Medical School there, who has helped us enormously with research and was one of the first guests at a private showing of the film at Shepperton.
Making this film was like that, Anthony Hopkins will tell you: it was a real involvement.
"You can´t avoid using superlatives about "The Elephant Man" he maintains, "It really was - is - marvellous."

STUART CRAIG     PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Ten

When Production Designer Stuart Craig heard that "The Elephant Man" was to be shot in black and white he was excited: "It was a great challenge - I had never designed a black and white film before.
"And this one was unusual too on that it was a Panavision production - the big wide screen is usually thought of as being ideally suited to Westerns. To take it into a small Victorian interior is unusual, to say the least".
Stuart is a graduate of the Royal College of Art - where he designed theatre scenery - and his first job was as a junior draughtsman on "Casino Royale". After that he worked consistently in movies. He was Art Director on "A Bridge Too Far", and "Superman" before his first production design job on "Saturn Three".
"The ratio of the film you´re working on - it´s height, proportion - affect your thinking. Colours suggest that it can be emotive - but being faced with black and white you have to think of things in terms of texture.
"In "The Elephant Man" I was faced with the problem - for instance - of how to make the pantomime, 'Puss ´n Boots`, magical when it was by its very nature begging to be shot in colour and obviously couldn´t be. It shouldn´t look cheao and tinsely - but in a theatrical context tinsel is synonymous with magic. Since we started, of course, David has done a lot of optical work on this scene - slow motion stuff. It´s a sequence that has really grown, that grew in rehearsals, in shooting, and in the cutting room. But there was a lot to work out at the beginning.
"The other challenging thing was to take London as it is today - and we know it really, really well - and to try to recreate the East End as it was in Merrick´s time. Since then we´ve seen locations pulled down, Dickensian streets vanish - site developed. Of necessity, because the limited budget we worked on demanded that we found a lot of exterior locations, we had to for them - and for a hospital!
"That walk through the streets at the beginning of the film - finding what we wanted in a tiny area behind Southwark Cathedral. There was almost only one position in which you could place the camera. Ten yards in the wrong direction and you´d have modern windows. What we had wasn´t much - but it worked just as well as if we´d had unlimited space".
Bedstead Square, where the London Hospital beds were once painted white, and where mattresses were aired, probably isn´t very different from when John Merrick´s time. The bars of the windows of the room he slept in - designed, not to imprison him, but to keep intruders out - are still in place.
But a statue of Queen Alexandra now stands in the garden where he used to walk. Although great original sections of the hospital remain, there are many modern annexes: there was no question of filming on the spot.
Instead, explains Stuart Craig, "we found the Eastern Hospital in Hackney which has parts which have been disused for years and which were splended - it was a gift, a treasure to find. We had to do some work, of course, fix up the glazed tiles in the kitchen. But the ovens were all there - and there were marvellous cast iron fireplaces".
That was more than enough to clinch the main location.  But certain areas still required design work and there were still locations to find.
"For example, we worried about that corridor where Carr Gomm had his offices, since there were no offices in the hospital that worked for us. And then at the Liberal Club in London we found an interior to use as his office.
"In the end, we blended the two locations together. It was a wonderful challenge to take these two vastly different locations and make it appear as if they were one and the same place".

PERCY G.NUNN  ASST. CURATOR, LONDON HOSPITAL

Eleven

Percy George Nunn, Assistant Curator to the Professor of Pathology at the Medical College attached to the London Hospital, has been with his department for thirty three years. When he heard that David Lynch and Jonathan Sanger were planning to make a film about John Merrick´s life, in his own words: "Frankly, I was hostile. This is an emotive profession. Sir Frederick was a humanitarian and he felt that he should take the Elephant Man away from the public gaze and give him sanctuary here. For the short period that he lived here he was given peace of mind. I felt very strongly that this should be followed up, where Merrick´s skeleton and cast were concerned.
"So when David and Jonathan first came to me, saying that they needed pictures of the skeleton and cast, I wasn´t at all sympathetic. I felt that it was an invasion of the privacy of the museum - and of poor Merrick´s memory.
"And then, slowly, I began to change my mind. I began to realize, after talking to the two of them, that this was to be a serious study of Merrick´s story. I began to feel at home with the two of them..."
As time went by, the friendship between the director, producer and assistant curator grew stronger - Percy Nunn´s initial suspicions changed to admiration. In turn, David and Jonathan felt that he was giving them invaluable help. As filming began, they invited him to Shepperton.
"And there I was confronted with John Hurt in full make-up. He was quite simply, the epitome of the Elephant Man. It was as if John Merrick had come to life. It wasn´t only that I was pleasantly surprised by I all I saw and heard - I realised that the film was doing its best to depict Merrick´s awful life. The way it was being handled was in absolute accordance with my thinking about thim".
Merrick´s is not only the twisted and abnormal skeleton in the museum - although it is perhaps the most horrific. But Percy Nunn speaks only with compassion of the tiny dwarfs and virtual giants whose remains can be seen there:
"These chaps suffered from cartilage disease, and this one - he was well over seven feet tall - had pituitary problems. And this old lady - I remember her well. She had osteitis deformans and she was completely bent over. She came here frequently for treatment and she´d have to wait until she could sit and manoeuvre herself into a position from which she could see you - and then she´d say 'Good morning'. How she got about I´ll never know.
"But Merrick - how he must have suffered. You can´t be familiar with his cast without thinking about that. The only way to help him was to keep him away from the public view - as Treves did.
"I believe that once Merrick died Treves concluded that he had had enough of medicine. He must have had real feeling for the Elephant Man and been traumatised by his condition and discouraged that, after all, he couldn´t help him enough..."

THE FILM

Twelve

John Hurt as The Elephant Man

Anthony Hopkins as Frederick Treves

Anne Bancroft as Mrs Kendal

John Gielgud as Mr Carr Gomm

Wendy Hiller as Mrs Mothershead

Freddie Jones as Bytes

Hannah Gordon as Mrs Treves

CHRIS TUCKER . GENETIC MAKE-UP

Thirteen

Behind a jar of aluminium sulphate a hand pops out of a cardboard box; the faces in the room are familiar - Lord Olivier, David Niven, Janet Suzman, Brenda Bruce..
The room they´re in is part of Chris Tucker´s studio off London´s Old Kent Road, and the heads are plaster casts.
Chris Tucker is one of the world´s top genetic make-up experts - many say, the best. He´s the man film and television companies call up when they require a very specialised make-up job - the man who designed the make-up for such feature films as "Star Wars"; "Julius Caesar"; "Vampire"; "The Go-Between"; "Bequest to the Nation"; "The Romantic Englishwoman" - and innumerable television productions.
And when Gregory Peck had to look as if he had been savaged by a pack of dogs in "The Boys from Brazil", he promptly sent for Chris.
He actually trained as a musician, attending the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and seemed set for a career in opera.
"But I became interested in make-up when I played character parts and after a while I was asked to do some work for theatrical costumiers.
Before I knew where I was, I was in rapid demand, in fact, swamped".
To do his kind of work, he says, you need to be a chemist, a physicist, an engineer, a sculptor and "an artist of some sort". At college, though, he had studied science, chemistry and physics, and "it proved invaluable, of course. All the same, in the early days - ten years or so ago - I always seemed to be in trouble with technical problems. It took me a long time to teach myself".
He will tell you that he cannot count the number of times he has "stayed up with a raging cold trying to make something work the next day for a mult-million dollar production. This kind of work is so precise that I do get irritable - furniture flies and life becomes traumatic".
People who know him agree that he´s volatile but, in Jonathan Sanger´s words, "brilliant. He´s done an absolutely extraordinary job for us on 'The Elephant Man'. I don´t think I´ve ever seen a make-up job quite like it":
To achieve his amazing effects, Chris Tucker visited the London Hospital so that he could work directly from the cast of John Merrick and from his cruelly twisted skeleton.
 Audiences seeing "The Elephant Man" might be puzzled: why is it that they are not appalled by Merrick´s hideous deformities - and why is his face sympathetic and sad, rather than horrific?
But Chris Tucker designed it that way, and, to do so, he worked incredibly long hours: "The longest session without a break was 49 hours". It was eight weeks before he was satisfied.
John Hurt was first asked to shave his head, so that Chris could take a cast from it. The he modelled the head in clay, adding the necessary lumps, section by section. That way, he could work out how to assemble the head into its various component parts: 15, from the neck upwards.
Afterwards, the head had to be assembled on the new cast, and the face and features had to be modelled. Then, the sections were split up and the moulds duplicated.
Made from super-soft foam latex, to Chris´ own formula, the head sections had to be duplicated 25 times.
"Each time the make-up was applied it had to be renewed, you see - and there was still the body to do".
The result - in Jonathan Sanger´s words: "When John Hurt came on the set we were all stunned. I´ve been on a lot of movie sets but this was the quietest. And then Anthony Hopkins came over to me and shook my hand. "It´s going to work - we´ve got a great movie', he said - and at that time I knew it, too".

The following pages illustrate Wally Schneiderman applying the Genetic Make-up to John Hurt.