Thanks to our good pal Dave Clevinger, who runs the fantastic website 8thman.com, we were able to locate one of our favorite actresses, Catherine Byers. You may know her as Bobbie Byers, who played Lucy, the classy biker chick in K. Gordon Murray's seminal exploitation film, SAVAGES FROM HELL. Ms. Byers changed her name professionally when she went to New York, taking the middle name of Catherine. Byers is her maiden name, and that has never changed. Ms. Byers graciously offered these memories of her work in the fabulous Florida film industry...
The Amazing
KGordonMurray.Com: Can you give us a little background about your career in the 1960’s Florida theatrical scene?
Bobbie Byers: I graduated from college in 1962 and went to Miami with my husband who was from Miami and who had been an "avante guarde" theatre director in New York City. I was a "natural" at film dubbing and very quickly became a regular at Copri International where I dubbed first live action German and Japanese films and then became involved in the cartoons. I was the voice of Prince Planet, Bonnie the Bunny in The Amazing Three, and Johnny Sokko in the live action series by the same name. I gradually eased into theatre as well mainly as part of a sort of "ad hoc" group of regular actors at the Upstage in Cocoanut Grove. K. Gordon Murray hired me to do some radio dramas and also some commercials. He was a great idea man - like the "Great Fights" project.
KGM.COM: How in the world did you find yourself starring in K. Gordon Murray’s SAVAGES FROM HELL?
BB: I had already done The Wild Rebels, starring Steve Alaimo of Where the Action Is TV show when I was offered Savages from Hell. I didn’t want to do it at first because it was another "motor cycle moll" and I considered myself a serious classical actor. Shakespeare was my first love and I was performing Pinter and Peter Nichols and Edward Albee at the Upstage. I was a very "upscale" kind of actor. When I heard Manny San Fernando was going to do it, I agreed as well. Manny was the #2 man at Copri and a really really nice man. Also "upscale", definitely not a migrant worker. Murray was also a very nice man.
KGM.COM: In SAVAGES, you play Lucy, gang leader Hi-Test’s best babe, but you play the role as an over-educated, swanky refugee from a girl’s boarding school. Was this unique characterization your creation, of was it in the script?
BB: The character was totally mine, she was written trashy. As I said, I was a thespian and wasn’t going to do the cliché low class girl.
KGM.COM: Any anecdotes about the production of this most unusual biker film? Did you ever meet producer Murray?
BB: As I said, I new him and TRUSTED him professionally. He was a gentleman and that can’t be said about several other writer-producers that I worked for in Miami. I had permanently relocated to New York when he passed on and I was saddened and stunned to hear the news because he was so young.
KGM.COM: Did you do all of your own riding and stunts in SAVAGES?
BB: Motorcycles terrify me. I think they got me to do one short bit of acceleration in one scene, anything else was with a stunt double.
KGM.COM: You have one very intense scene in SAVAGES, where you feign being raped by Cyril Poitier. How much rehearsal did a scene like this require?
BB: Just blocking rehearsal, NO ACTING REHEARSAL at all and One Take for almost ALL SHOTS. No safeties for us.
KGM.COM: Tell us also about your work in THE WILD REBELS.
BB: It was one of two very traumatic professional experiences. Johnny Vella (the leader of the gang) was a lovely man, and Jeff (the one with no voice) was nice although I didn’t really know him. Willy Pastrano, however, was a prize fighter and he was violent and venal and dangerous and not an actor and the director did not protect me from him. Willy had had a very difficult childhood in Louisiana, I think. As I recall he told me his mother was a prostitute. Anyway the movie was not directed per se. I was in disfavor with the director so he kept my picture off of most lobby cards and promotional stuff. He had actually tried to blackmail me and he said he would keep me from working in Miami again which was one reason I took SAVAGES FROM HELL and the main reason I moved to New York City. I don’t remember the director’s name but I think he was a fireman. Steve Alaimo was nice but distant -- he was a TV star. When we shot the kissing scene we had to wait a half-hour between takes because he had such a heavy beard and I have what I call "Scandinavian skin"; very delicate, and I had terrible whisker burn. Steve waited to shave till minutes before the scene as it was. Funny. Also I wasn’t supposed to have worn the same striped shirt through the movie but the continuity person messed up so I am always in the same two outfits.
KGM.COM: During this time period, you were also doing voice work, dubbing classic TV series such as JOHNNY SOKKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT and PRINCE PLANET. In fact, you ARE Johnny Sokko and Prince Planet, are you not?
BB: Yes! I am Johnny Sokko and Prince Planet! I also directed THE AMAZING THREE and did the lead part of Bonnie the Bunny. We had a really neat stable of dubbers. Mark Harris was fantastic. We had a lot of FUN and still got the job done. I remember Henry Lopez and his cry of "Foco, foco!" Focus, focus. Henry was in the looping booth upstairs.
KGM.COM: Don't you find it extremely cool that you are known both for being a famous screen biker chick and a young boy from outer space?
BB: I do find it extremely cool. I couldn’t have said it better. I’ve had a beautiful, charmed career. I have made my living entirely as an actress for 40 years. I have been in eight Broadway plays, numerous off-Broadway shows as well and , I have won awards for my performance in several arenas. I have recorded over 500 books for the Library of Congress and commercially. I’ve had a wonderful career doing TV voice-overs. I have been married for the past 27 years to former actor, Lee Toombs and I have a 21 year-old boy, Alexander Toombs, who is a musician and has been studying in France for the past two years.
KGM.COM: Any current projects you’d like to tell us about?
BB: I am a partner in a recording business called Worldtainment (weird name - good product), Among other things we record the classics on CD and in MP3 format. I have recorded the King James Bible and Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. Real heavy-duty stuff. It’s on the internet at
www.worldtainment.com.
I still do off-camera voice work for commercials, I still record for Talking Books for the Library of Congress. I am planning to spend several years living in Europe. Probably France, Denmark and Britain. All I need is a classy computer and a quiet room and I can continue recording, til it’s no longer fun. I love what I do.
KGM.COM: Many thanks!
BB: Thank you, this was fun!
(Wow! Prince Planet, Johnny Sokko AND Bonnie the Bunny! Now THAT's a cultural icon for you! But to us, Bobbie Byers will always be "Lucy", the gal who ain't afraid to call a jerk a jerk!)
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Bobbie Byers!
