By CAELUM VATNSDAL (ARP Books; 2018)
Of all the books published in 2018, I say this one was the most unfairly neglected. YOU DON’T KNOW ME, BUT YOU LOVE ME is the first-ever biography of actor/American treasure Dick Miller, and so a vital resource for all film buffs. The name may not immediately resonate, but you’ve doubtless seen Mr. Miller onscreen and, as the title portends, you probably love him.
Dick Miller has been a fixture of the American film scene since the 1950s. His lead roles have been few (though potent: Miller headlined Roger Corman’s legendary anti-classic A BUCKET OF BLOOD), with the majority of his screen appearances confined to walk-on parts in which, with his terrifically gruff, working-class demeanor, he never failed to make an impression. Indeed, Miller’s parts are often the most memorable things about the movies he’s in, while he’s also enhanced quite a few legitimately good films (who can forget his appearance as the ill-fated gun shop owner in THE TERMINATOR).
Canada’s Caelum Vatnsdal, whose previous publications include the Guy Maddin study KINO DELIRIUM and the Canadian horror cinema overview THEY CAME FROM WITHIN, is up to the challenge of rendering Miller’s varied and eventful life story in book form. YOU DON’T KNOW ME, BUT YOU LOVE ME is exhaustively researched, and contains extensive recollections by virtually everyone who’s ever worked with Miller, including Roger Corman, Jack Nicholson and Martin Scorsese. Unbelievably enough, it also contains information on nearly every one of Miller’s 180 film and television appearances, including those (such as PULP FICTION) from which he was cut.
Legend has it that Miller began his acting career by attempting to get Roger Corman to hire him as a writer, only to be told that Corman didn’t need writers but, rather, actors—Miller’s alleged reply: “Okay, I’m an actor!” Yet according to Vatnsdal, Miller’s path to acting glory was far more complex, having come about due to a love of performing instilled during his Bronx upbringing.
Miller’s initial performing career was almost exclusively with Corman, who made sure to find a part for his friend in seemingly every movie he made in the 1950s and ‘60s. This had the effect of preventing Miller from ever attaining any sort of stardom, as he never really bothered to audition for anyone else. Yet he gained a sizeable following as the years went on, becoming a staple of Fangoria magazine and in the films of Joe Dante, a Corman protégé for whom Miller played one of his greatest roles: the loveable redneck Murray Futterman in GREMLINS and its sequel.
Other things we learn about Miller include the fact that he’s a damn nice guy who’s liked by most everyone he’s ever met, and that he leads an extremely active social life (having been a regular at the legendary Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard). We also get the skinny on his sixty year marriage to Lainie Miller, who once attempted to convince Miller to give up the acting trade, and eventually followed him into show business by becoming a semi-prolific script supervisor.
Caelum Vatnsdal makes no secret of his own Miller fanaticism throughout, proclaiming on the final page that “Man, he is in.” This makes, I suppose, for a somewhat one-sided and overly adulatory book, but I’m a Miller fanatic myself, so I won’t complain too much.