The director who made Bob Dylan uncomfortable: “I don’t really do that”
It’s hard to have too much sympathy for celebrities, especially in Hollywood and other creative industries.
Living the dream looks so inviting; no money worries, constant parties, free drinks, no spreadsheets or stagnant office smell or humbling supermarket trips. But being famous comes with its own set of trials and tribulations, including the toxic whirlwind of parasocial relationships, unrealistic expectations, and awkward encounters, and no one knew this better than Bob Dylan.
It was a hot day in Mexico when Dylan met the director Sam Peckinpah, and their meeting wasn’t unexpected, given that Dylan had agreed to write music for the director and play a minor role in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, thanks to the insistence of screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer, and like a scene from Boogie Nights, when Dylan arrived, Peckinpah was naked in a tub, a clear indication of the encounter to come.
The film’s editor was there to witness the two figures meet firsthand. Picture Roger Spottiswoode off to the side, an uneasy grimace plastered across his face, watching the whole thing unfold beneath the round, hot orb of the sun. Cut to Katy Jurado, an actor who was dishing out the drinks at the event. Peckinpah felt it was up to him to give her orders, too. As Spottiswoode recalled for The Hollywood Reporter: “Sam’s going, ‘Bring Bobby Dylin a drink. Bobby Dylin needs a drink.'” No, that’s not a typo… He was really pronouncing the musician’s name wrong.
For the elusive, acerbic Dylan, this was a sure way to piss him off. Putting it plainly, Spottiswoode shared, “It seemed to me that Dylan didn’t like to be in company he didn’t know, or didn’t like.”
Things were spiralling, but the director wouldn’t allow the moment out of the grips of his hot, puckered fingers. What’s worse than getting the famous man’s name wrong? Answer: Asking him to play a song, right there, like he was a circus monkey.
Peckinpah started the request off casually, asking Dylan whether he could play guitar, which is like asking someone if the world is round, or if the sun is hot, and an obvious answer tittered from Dylan’s mouth, so Peckinpah pushed on: “And you write songs and things?” He pressed in a nonchalant way, managing to undermine Dylan’s career as he went.
He pulled out the big stops then, insisting that Dylan should play him a song. The maestro was quick to resist the request, stating simply, “I don’t really do that, Sam.” The director was baffled at the word no, and still pressed on: “You don’t do that? You don’t have a guitar?… Katy, Katy, get him a guitar! There’s a mariachi band [playing] out there, the man needs a fucking guitar.’”
The guitar ended up in Dylan’s arm, and a gaggle of onlookers stared squarely at the pair, wondering who would win the tug of war for power, and mind you, the whole time, out of the corner of Dylan’s eye, Peckinpah’s limp dick was floating in the boiled hot-tub water, like a raisin fallen out of the backpack of a child on their way to school.
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