Kubrick - The Downside of Reclusiveness
My love of incredible cons collides with my admiration for Stanley Kubrick here. John Malkovich has assayed the role of Alan Conway, a man who spent the last years of his life conning people into believing that he was Stanley Kubrick. This despite Conway looking nothing like Kubrick, knowing little about his work, and being from Whitechapel, England instead of the Bronx.
Conway, a chronic alcoholic, managed to separate a number of people from a decent amount of money, including several industry people. Kubrick himself didn’t like to go out in public, spending most of his time in his mansion in Hertfordshire; thus creating a celebrity void which Conway easily filled.
Kubrick, who died in 1999, became aware of Conway in the mid-ninties during the run-up to EYES WIDE SHUT, when he started to get angry letters and phone calls from people accusing him of stealing their money and ruining their lives. He assigned a personal assistant, Tony Fruin, to find Conway. Years later Fruin decided the story would make a good basis for a movie.
Malkovich, who had his own identity problems in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, loved the idea. “When I saw a TV programme about (Conway), he mentioned his extraordinarily exact American accent - but it didn’t resemble anyone I’d ever heard,” Malkovich said. “That gave me the idea of having the accent a little bit Yiddish, a little bit Croydon, a little bit Copenhagen, and a little bit Seoul.”
The producers cite a number of actors on the production who had met Conway, and had believed they had met Kubrick, until now. The movie about Conway, called COLOUR ME KUBRICK, has been released in a number of countries but not the UK or the US, the only places where Kubrick ever lived.
Another illustration that showbiz jobs are defined solely by the holder of the job and whomever the holder can convince to go along. You don’t believe me, ask any producer.