JAMES FOLEY (1953-2025)

[M.10rda]

James Foley passed away earlier this month. Although he directed GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, the film that is the best version of one of my favorite plays, I couldn't claim that Foley had the same influence on my life or my work as (the also recently departed) David Lynch. But unlike Lynch, I actually met Foley and spent a significant amount of time with him over the course of two days in Fall 2002. Although I didn't know him well enough to call him a friend, I probably got more, uh, frank insight into him than a lot of journalists or casual admirers. Maybe I'm wrong and others could offer the same vignettes I'm about to disclose, or maybe not and these are stories about "Foley" (which is how he usually referred to himself) that no one else has heard. If that's the case, I offer them now to the community and the universe.

Foley's complete filmography is here:
https://letterboxd.com/director/james-foley/
But it fails to include a whole lot of Spacey-era episodes of "House of Cards" as well as one episode of TWIN PEAKS.
I primarily knew Foley as the director of GLENGARRY, which was an extraordinary influence on me as a teen and young adult, and of AT CLOSE RANGE, the outstanding psychological thriller starring Christopher Walken and Sean Penn.
When my producing partner and I learned that Foley was appearing during a series of seminars at the University of Buffalo, we freaked out a bit.
He'd produced and directed David Mamet's (optimal) screenplay version of GLENGARRY when he was in college (which used to be strictly forbidden, and still is most of the time) and GLENGARRY had also strongly inspired a (bad) film that we had made together in 2000.
Neither of us had been alumni of UB at that time, but we pulled some strings w/ people we knew and got registered for Foley's two-session seminar.
The specific details of the next 24-ish hours would be much less interesting than Foley's own tall tales. The short version is that we somehow ended up giving Foley an early ride back to his hotel from a dead reception at a local pub, then ushered the amiable but nervous, possibly exhausted or possibly chemically altered director into his hotel room, where he invited us to enjoy his large tray of complimentary cookies from the college. We hung out with him until dawn and offered to take him to lunch the next day. Hours later, a clear-headed Foley remembered and honored his lunch obligation and we got to spend another three hours chatting with him.

James Foley was as generous with his time as almost any famous person I've ever met, and I've met a bunch. But the stories are what I will remember, and I will post a bunch of them below, separately (in case the backstory above was TLDR). I hope history remembers Foley and his work, and when they do, maybe some of the following lore will somehow enter the annals...

[M.10rda]

I'll go chronologically as best as possible. All stories and quotes are second-hand to the best of my recollection... but we've been re-telling these stories to friends and colleagues for years, so they still seem fresh in my mind.

Keep in mind Foley talked very much like Christopher Walken -which was both very funny and will be relevant to a couple of the stories - yet had a supremely jittery, edgy energy like Dennis Hopper in APOCALYPSE NOW. Perhaps that will help you paint the mental picture of a man who most likely let two strangers hang out with him all night because he was profoundly unnerved by the ongoing rampage of the Washington sniper(s). "F****n' sniper, man... who is this sniper?! Are you the sniper???" He drew the curtains in his room and anxiously devoured one cookie after another, occasionally peering out through the curtains... and he told us these stories.

* Foley credited Hal Ashby for getting him his first feature gig directing RECKLESS, starring Darryl Hannah and Aidan Quinn. Foley talked about it fondly as a puzzle to be solved - how could he make as stylish and engaging film as possible from a very weak screenplay that apparently he had no power to change? I was embarrassed to say I hadn't seen RECKLESS ('84) when I met Foley, and still hadn't watched it until last week. I'll review it elsewhere, but automatically upon starting to watch it I knew what Foley was talking about. Chris Columbus wrote the screenplay. 

* Foley became very close friends with Sean Penn while making AT CLOSE RANGE and would hang out in Penn's house smoking pot. He says they were laying on Penn's couch and floor one morning, staring at MTV, when they saw an on-location news story about Madonna shooting her newest music video in LA that day. Penn told Foley he had a huge crush on Madonna from her videos though he'd never met her. As her current shoot was near Penn's house, Foley urged Penn at length to go meet her. Penn resisted but at last Foley got him off the couch and they visited the set. The rest is 1980s tabloid mega-history, and - if the story was true - Foley was directly responsible for this nightmare celeb couple.  His next feature was WHO'S THAT GIRL? starring Mr. & Mrs. Penn and Foley later directed a bunch of Madonna's videos, so I have no reason to doubt his account.

* For us, the main event was GLENGARRY. We asked every question you could imagine. I'll just relate the highest lights below. For Foley, the biggest highlight was working with Jack Lemmon. "Lemmon, man... I loved Jack Lemmon. I can't believe Jack Lemmon is dead, man... why'd Jack Lemmon have to die?" Foley was literally in tears about Jack Lemmon - more than once that evening.  We loved Jack Lemmon, too, so we spent a lot of time remembering great Jack Lemmon performances.     

* Lemmon came as a package deal with his protege Kevin Spacey, who revered Lemmon and was (according to Foley) a total professional and great guy. It must've been mutual admiration as Foley was a regular director on the first several seasons of "House of Cards". Just goes to demonstrate the myth of the single narrative - whatever switch flipped in Spacey's head somewhere along the line, Foley had no issues w/ the guy....... and he sure had issues with other guys.

* Alec Baldwin. Someday the Oscar "In Memorium" montage will remember Alec Baldwin and it will almost certainly be a clip from his legendary scene in GLENGARRY. "How is it Jack Lemmon is dead," Foley asked us rhetorically "but Alec Baldwin's still alive?" Baldwin didn't want to do the movie until he heard Pacino was doing it, then only agreed so he could meet and hang out with Pacino. Pacino hated Baldwin and would avoid and/or ignore him on-set. (They don't appear together in the film, thus Baldwin must've kept showing up and hanging around on the set just to geek on Pacino.) "The thing about Alec Baldwin," Foley confided in us, "is that... he's a fat, fat man... and he'll never work again..." A year later Baldwin got a long-overdue Oscar nomination for THE CLOSER and continued to enjoy a long and high-profile career until finally getting in some trouble.    Editorial note/disclosure: I've spent more time with Baldwin than I spent w/ Foley. Baldwin is also a generous and essentially kind man, I think. But Foley was way more fun to hang out with.

* Foley loved working with Pacino and they reunited for TWO BITS, which Foley called his favorite of his own films. Foley also loved Alan Arkin and liked Jonathan Pryce and Ed Harris.

* But what about Mamet? He never came to the set and (I may be recalling this incorrectly) it's possible Foley never met him in person. "Did you ever talk to him about the screenplay or ask questions?" we asked. "Did he revise things during production?" Nope - Mamet's screenplay arrived complete, chiseled in concrete, and though Foley and his cast rehearsed extensively, nothing was changed during production. Mamet spent the entirety of production in his cabin in Vermont. Foley called him once from rehearsal because of confusion over a single line that didn't make sense to him and the actors. Foley couldn't recall the line, though. "Was it Nothing No Me?" I asked. Foley jumped out of his chair. "Yeah, that was it! How'd you know???" That typo appeared in every published edition of the play for years. Foley asked Mamet what it meant and Mamet checked the script, then said "Nothing, it's a typo, I meant "on" instead of "no"." Okay, this is deep inside baseball - I just felt proud that I could pick the sole typo out of a Pulitzer Prize-winning script.

The rest of the stories came from lunch the next day... Foley, rested and definitely sober, was no less frank!

[M.10rda]

Next day over lunch, no booze. Foley might not have even knew or remembered our names - usually he called us "You guys!". But we were thrilled to have time with him.

* Foley didn't want to direct FEAR, didn't like the screenplay, and wasn't excited to be stuck with pre-BOOGIE NIGHTS "Marky Mark". Nevertheless he felt like he did his best directing the material and was especially pleased with the sexy parts. Above all else he was happy to take credit for Wahlberg's reasonably decent notices for his work in the film - Foley said he put a lot of work into Wahlberg's performance. FEAR is now his second most-popular film according to Letterboxd, so, good job, Foley.

* Wahlberg was so happy w/ FEAR and Foley that he demanded that Foley direct THE CORRUPTOR, another project Foley was ambivalent about. He suggested - okay, he stated in no uncertain terms - that Wahlberg was clingy; in need of constant supervision, reassurance, and micromanagement; and was just plain irritating. (Perhaps this also explains Wahlberg's long working relationships with Peter Berg and David O. Russell - they tolerate him!) Foley admitted hanging out with Wahlberg off-set (as both enjoyed marijuana) and remaining friendly with him, but having a short fuse for the guy. "He's always callin' me, 'Ehhh, James, waaaahhh... boo hoo...' this'n'that... an' I'm like... shut the f**k up, Marky Mark!" And really, who among us hasn't wanted to tell Mark Wahlberg to shut the F up once or repeatedly?

* We asked Foley if he was married iirc and he got very serious again. He talked about a long relationship ending a few years ago and he was still trying to get over it. The relationship was with... Diane Keaton.  Or, as Foley called her "my lover Diane Keaton". Pacino introduced them and apparently they had a passionate affair for years...        Foley got choked up about Diane Keaton like he did about Lemmon. No alcohol in sight, he started crying again.  Clearly he was a guy with deep emotions who still had a lot of stuff to work out. Plus, getting emotional about Diane Keaton made him start talking about Lemmon again. More tears. 

* But, on the bright side, Keaton was contracted to direct an episode of TWIN PEAKS, and gave David Lynch a copy of Foley's film AFTER DARK, MY SWEET, which then got Foley his own episode of TWIN PEAKS. I wanted to hear all about that, too, but Foley had little to say. "What was David Lynch like???" "...Weird... he's a weird, weird dude." "But how was he weird? What did he do?" "I dunno, man, he's just a weird weird dude..." 

* At this point, having enjoyed Foley's Walkenesque delivery of uproarious proclamations for many hours, I doubled back to ask directly about Walken, who he'd said little about when recalling AT CLOSE RANGE. "Well what about Walken?" I asked. "What about him?" "You said David Lynch is a weird guy... was Walken weird?" "...Weird...? Nah..." "Well what was he like?" "...Walken...? He's..." [Long Pause.] "...Just a guy..." Just a guy?!?!?! I asked if he was friends with Walken - not really. Finally, I asked if anyone had ever told him he sounded like Walken. He looked puzzled. "Nah... he's from NooYawk... I'm from NooYawk... ev'rybody talks this way."  I dunno, man. I didn't buy it. There's only three people who talk like that: Walken, people impersonating Walken... and Foley.

* Finally we asked what he was working on. He told us, and beyond that, he opened his briefcase and handed us a bound screenplay... for CONFIDENCE (2004).  Of course we gave him a copy of our terrible film - on VHS.  And we got his email. He was nice enough to say he'd see us and talk to us again. Which did happen.

One more post-script to the story, coming soon...

[zombie no.one]

some nice tales from the underwurlde there 

not super familiar with his work. seen GLENGARRY and FEAR only within the last couple of years... being a hapless rap fan I have the soundtrack to THE CORRUPTOR but never seen the movie, will have to check it out.

"He's always callin' me, 'Ehhh, James, waaaahhh... boo hoo...' this'n'that... an' I'm like... shut the f**k up, Marky Mark!"

hah, I really hope he referred to him as 'Marky Mark' at all times to his face 

just seen he directed those FIFTY SHADES movies. yeah think I'll give those a miss :)

[Trevor]

I'll always remember Alec Baldwin for the fact that he killed someone and, like John Landis before him, got away with it. 😡😡

[M.10rda]

Yeah, Baldwin messed up catastrophically. On one hand, the gun being improperly prepared wasn't directly or technically his fault. On the other hand, he was the star and executive producer, so it was absolutely his responsibility. I haven't seen him in person or talked to him since maybe 2012 or thereabouts, but I am told he was sincerely grief-stricken and also certainly terrified about going to jail.  It's definitely taken a toll on his career. He's doing Reality TV now. Then again, I dunno, maybe that's a reward, not a punishment... it worked well enough for the Kardashians et al. 

[Rev. Powell]

Great stories! 

[M.10rda]

Thank you, friends!

One more post-script...
Foley came back in 2004 for... some reason! ...To screen a rough cut of CONFIDENCE for an audience of Buffalonians. Again, really generous of the guy, I'm sure he had other stuff he could've been doing. There was a little reception afterwards. My producing partner and I approached him and he lit up right away. "The guys!!!" he exclaimed. I told him I liked his new movie and he said something nice about the VHS tape we gave him, which was probably untrue and therefore, again, super nice of him. In my experience, when you hand famous filmmaker people your work, they usually say thanks and then pitch it in the trash as soon as they walk away. It's a legal thing that protects them from intellectual property lawsuits, I believe. So I don't know if Foley ever watched any of it or not. God bless his heart for being polite, though!

CONFIDENCE... oy! The script isn't great, which I think Foley knew, but like Takashi Miike, he didn't expect to get a GLENGARRY every time at bat and was more interested in what he could make of the material, be it good or bad. The cast could've been magic - Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti, Rachel Weisz, and Donal Logue....... and/but... Edward Burns........ in the lead role. Disastrous. Hoffman is good in his role, and if Foley could've had Garcia play Burns' role, Giamatti play Garcia's role, Logue play Giamatti's (totally silly) role, and Burns play... possibly a stop sign in the deep distance of a single wide shot....... maybe CONFIDENCE would be a great movie! I guess Foley figured it was another Marky Mark type gambit... but Ed Burns isn't even Mark Wahlberg. 

I emailed Foley once after that but I don't think we heard back from him. It's okay. I was never that motivated to chase industry connections like a sane person attempting to be a professional artist would be.

3 years later I wrote a comedy for my theatre company about a Foley-like figure who comes to Buffalo in a rough emotional state, has an anxiety attack about a rampaging sniper, then decides to produce the terrible low-budget feature film of a couple of dopes who befriend him. It's probably my worst full-length play.  But there was this wiry white-haired Walkenesque/Hopperesque actor/director named David Oliver who just moved back to Buffalo from NYC. He walked in our theater to see another play, I spent 15 seconds selling him a ticket, and then cast him as James Foley on the spot. David still lives in Buffalo and has worked w/ us for 18 years and is a dear friend. I go over to his house every once in a while and he smokes a bowl and we watch a weird art flick, and I always bring him cookies.

[claws]

RIP

Looking up his résumé, I was a bit surprised I've seen more of his films than I thought:

Reckless (1984)
At Close Range (1986)
Who's That Girl (1987)
After Dark, My Sweet (1990)
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
The Corruptor (1999) (own on DVD)

I wasn't really fully aware he did two Fifty Shades movies.

Thanks for the stories. Made for an interesting read.