A Winters tale #3

From the West Coast to South East Asia

In the autumn of 2024, we published the opening salv in an epic three-parter, in which our regular contributor ANTONIO PINEDA began the story of David Winters, a figure who inhabited the tangled creative labyrinth of Greenwich Village, Broadway and Hollywood, uptown and downtown, and took rooms on several floors.

Over six decades, the subject of this profile was performer and dancer, choreographer and producer, a cast member of the movie West Side Story, operating in that high-octane milieu where hip actors and hot hoofers, inspired filmmakers, groundbreaking musicians and radical writers, regularly rubbed shoulders.

In February, we showcased the second chapter in the sequence. Now we pick up on the third and final chapter in Pineda’s mesmerising mile-a-minute account as the Sunshine State and Thailand provide the contrasting backdrops…

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A Winters tale in three acts

By Antonio Pineda

PART THREE: Michael McClure & Peter Fonda, Lenore Kandel & Paul Newman

A COOL BREEZE rustled through the palm trees as the savage sun climbed in the sky. Feral cats sought shade on the grounds of David Winters’ apartment complex. He put down his phone. ‘Armand Assante and his pal Ciro will be visiting soon. Book a reservation at that cool Italian restaurant you fancy Tony.’

David’s recollections continued. ‘I would have cast Armand as Sal Paradise – Kerouac’s character in On the Road. Sal and Dean Moriarty in their pomp were splendid hunks of testosterone.’

‘Who though would you have cast as Neal Cassady, David?’ I enquired.

‘Peter Fonda, he talked the talk and walked the walk. It’s all fantasy football now. I would have directed the film in an ideal time frame, the rise of the New Hollywood, when the principals of Easy Rider and The Mambo Kings were fresh faced youths and hot young actors.’

Fonda and Beat writer Michael McClure were friends. Peter directed the Western movie The Hired Hand and cast McClure in the film. Oliver Stone also cast McClure as a featured background player in The Doors 1991 biopic, aware that McClure was a friend and literary influence on Morrison, man who championed the Lizard King as the most talented poet of his generation.

Pictured above: Beat poet Michael McClure

I myself was a background player in The Doors shoots at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco and the Las Pulgas shoots that recreated the iconic performance at the Greek Theater in Berkeley.

I reflected with David. ‘With the exception of the poet Allen Ginsberg, the Beats didn’t make it to South East Asia. In 1963 Ginsberg wrote the eponymous poem about the ancient temple complex Angkor Wat situated in Siam Reap, on a trip to Cambodia. Then the country was rough and undeveloped for tourism, unlike today.’

Flashback: In an internalised conversation with my dear friend, the underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger, influencer of many directors of the New Hollywood. He shot scenes from Invocation to my Demon Brother at the Straight Theater, the venue where my colleagues and I hosted his underground screenings at our cine-club, the Straight Ashbury Viewing Society. The poet Lenore Kandel, in a dreamlike state, is immortalized by Anger in the film as she smokes marijuana out of a human skull.

As night fell, the underground came to life, more I visited Lenore when she and her boyfriend Hells Angel Sweet William, who were residing at the legendary Grateful Dead House on Ashbury Street.

Kerouac penned her as the character Romana Swartz in his 1962 novel Big Sur. McClure was also portrayed in the same Kerouac novel, appearing as the character Pat McLear. In her own right, Kandel’s erotic poetry in The Love Book made her a seminal figure in the male-centric Beat culture of the day.

Pictured above: Actor and director Peter Fonda

Lenore was also an anarchistic member of the Diggers. Film actor-author Peter Coyote: ‘Lenore was physically beautiful and commanding. She was working as a belly dancer. We would sit around talk about philosophy and art and smoke dope. She was an enlightened person.’ A plume of grey-blue smoke cast shadows over the twin pillars of bohemia and destiny, as I gazed at the posters on David Winters’ walls featuring cinema directors and Hollywood stars.

Action International Pictures was David’s production company. Within this enterprise he mostly produced for other directors though he directed the teen romance skateboard film Thrashing. Winters said of the film: ‘I proposed the young Johnny Depp for the shoot. The studio wouldn’t have it. I resubmitted Johnny Depp. James Brolin, an excellent actor was cast. The film did well. Funny how they were so dead set against Johnny Depp.’

From then on David specialized in action films. Recurring actors in his oeuvre were Cameron Mitchell, Robert Ginty, Oliver Reed and David Carradine. David averred, ‘Oliver Reed was reputed to be perpetually drunk on locations. I found him punctual, prepared and a consummate professional.’

He added: ‘David Carradine was a gentleman and swell company. We went to lunch at a Hollywood restaurant to talk about a film shoot. David and I tossed up an agreement on a restaurant napkin and signed it. His word was his bond. You don’t have that in Hollywood anymore. It’s sharks swimming in polluted waters.’

From 2000 to 2019, David remained a committed element in the film industry. After shooting Welcome to Ibiza, starring Gary Busey, in Spain, David relocated to Thailand. He acted in Blackbeard, a TV miniseries with Angus Mcfadyen and Jessica Chastain. It was directed by Kevin Conner for the Hallmark Channel and starred Rachel Ward, Stacey Keach, and Richard Chamberlain.

Flash-forward. Luncheon with Armand Assante and Ciro. David receives them at his headquarters. Ciro is the proprietor of Pomedoro, a popular restaurant frequented by the Hollywood film colony. A former boxer he is congenial and gracious and reveals: ‘David, Tony Curtis came to Pomodoro for dinner. He looks fabulous, is so gracious and cool, a dear friend.’

I interjected: ‘I saw his performance of Harry Houdini when I was a kid at the American Theater in San Francisco. His death scene made me cry.’

Pictured above: Poet Lenore Kandel

Assante, of Irish-Italian ancestry, is ruggedly handsome, and would have indeed in his youth been quite capable of portraying Kerouac, although he is taller. David is in his element. ‘Armand, how about that HBO TV movie you did on thr Gambino crime family – you as Don John Gotti in Gotti?’

The housemaid serves pineapple juice. ‘David, I got an Emmy for best actor for my portrayal of John Gotti.’ Assante’s eyes twinkled. ‘One of my idols Anthony Quinn portrayed the underboss of the New York Gambino crime family, Aniello Dellacroce.’

I am a devotee of Quinn’s work. ‘What was it like working with Quinn?’, I enquire.

‘Tony Quinn is a force of nature, a boxer in his youth who could only have been conjured up by the Golden Age of Hollywood,’ Assante explains.

I pressed him further. ‘What kind of research did you do to immerse yourself in this character?’ Armand laughs. ‘I had to put on 25 pounds to look like Gotti. I ate tons of pasta and Italian sausage. Putting on weight was easy. Taking it off was another matter…'

David receives a phone call. ‘Our driver is outside ready to take us to a cosy trattoria.’

We cruise throughout the Sukumvit region of tourism hotels and go-go bars as BTS trains rumble overhead and the sidewalks bustle with hustlers enticing tourists to enter jewellery and tailors’ shops or entertainment centers. A large Cinzano sign is branded on the front of the trattoria.

On cue, the soundtrack by Nina Rota of Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita plays. David is in good nick. ‘I shot The Kingmaker here for $2m dollars and sold it on for five million. Investors received a profit and I’m ready to shoot another film.’

Armand tucked into his meal. ‘It’s an exotic foreign location. I hear the film crews are quite professional. Five star hotels provide great value for hospitality.'

‘I shot with John Rhys Davies and Gary Stretch a British boxer of championship repute. Tony portrayed Don Vincente. Gary portrayed Cletus in Oliver Stone’s film Alexander that shot on location here.’

I drink Vino Rosso. ‘John Rhys was brilliant in Indiana Jones,’ Armand expands. ‘The local cuisine is to die for. A lot of Hollywood directors want to shoot here just to escape their wives in Beverly Hills or Bel Air and tryst with beautiful Thai women.’

David doesn’t drink and sips designer water. ‘I have some friends from the film colony I want you to meet. They’re hip to where all the fab babes hang out. Tony you go back to headquarters and guard the fort.’

Ciro amends:' ‘David next time you’re in Los Angeles call me and I’ll give you the VIP treatment at Pomodoro.'

In 2008, David was in talks with Oliver Stone to develop an international studio in Thailand. The press immediately labelled it ‘Ollywood’. But the studio project never came to fruition.

In mid-September of 2008, David rang me and instructed me to come to the office ASAP. The offices were on Soi 12 near Sukhumvit. Soi dogs rooted about looking for food. The inhabitants of the street mingled with demimondaines going home from the assignations of the previous night.

Flowering trees accommodated birds singing in a universal language. The eternal jeweled city of prophecy and poetry, the decadent and the divine, shone in the distance like an ancient El Dorado, a Lost City of Opar, a Gilded City of Sin and enlightenment. A German foreigner with an obvious hangover slummed down the Soi, followed by a wolf pack of wild dogs.

When I arrived David motioned me to be silent and sit down. David was on his computer, he appeared stressed, there was a pall over the room. He concluded his work then sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes with his fingers, which he often did when perturbed.

‘I was liaising with Joanne Woodward... Paul is seriously ill....maybe terminally ill.’

David stared out the windows of his office. The tropical climate was working its magic. The sun shone over palm trees. ‘Joanne is so great. Paul and she have been married for 50 years. Wow, the 50s in the Big Apple. Paul studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio.

‘When the 60s came, all the great talent relocated to Hollywood, as that’s where the film colony was. But New York City was still the art centre of the world. It was all about “the Method” and the Beat Generation then, Sal Mineo worked with Paul in the movie that told the story of Rocky Graziano, the champion boxer.’

David leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his head as in reflection. The poster for a production of a film entitled Deadly Prey, starring Cameron Mitchell and Troy Donahue, stared at me from a wall behind his head.

‘Paul and I were like brothers. We played baseball, hung out, he was a total gentleman, a family man. We owned several race cars together. Arguably one of the finest actors of his generation. He was a Civil Rights activist, as were many of the great luminaries of that generation.

Pictured above: Actor Paul Newman

‘Richard Nixon put him on his shit list. Tricky Dick put him number nineteen on his enemies list. He had that great look, the Greco-Roman demigod. Paul was so incredibly fit, I thought he was invincible.’

David prided himself on being teetotal. ‘Paul was devastated when his son, Scott, died of a drugs overdose. Scott was a fresh cinema talent, an up and coming actor. What a waste of a life.’

Winters expressed fond remembrances of the lean, mean, Newman of Hud, The Hustler and Hombre... the chiselled face and chest...the piercing eyes...the Oscar winner in the sequel to The Hustler, The Color of Money. An iconic outlaw in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The chilling performance in The Road to Perdition. Like Brando,

David behaved as if Paul Newman had confronted him with with the issues of his own mortality, although Paul was a decade his senior. ‘Joanne said Paul was diagnosed with lung cancer a while back. He’s lingering now. Man, it was the Golden Age of the Method, Brando and McQueen, Kim Stanley and Uta Hagen. And Paul was so great, the perfect vessel, in Tennessee Williams dramas.’

Winters was calm and collected, although there was a veneer of sadness and a deeply maudlin air at the inevitability of death. ‘Paul still drove racing cars until recently. He’s only 83.’

Paul Newman passed away on the morning of September 26th, 2008, in the presence of his loving family.His body was cremated after a private funeral service near his house in Westport.

In 2015, the US Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp featuringNewman. A ‘Forever Stamp’, it went on sale in September 2015. It features a 1980 photograph of Newman by Steve Schapiro. It is accompanied by a text that reads: Actor/Philanthropist.

David contacted me and proposed myself and his eldest son, Jonathan Winters, with whom I had previously worked with in The Kingmaker, to cast for Teddy Bear. The Kingmaker, film with former British boxing champion Gary Stretch and John Rhys Davies, won many prizes. It received a huge theatrical release in Asia. It was sold in 36foreign territories making it the most successful Thai film ever.

Danish director Mads Mathieson cast Danish body builder Kim Kold as the main protagonist. Kold portrayed a macho man who was unable to communicate with women. He goes to Thailand and finds a love interest.

The script moves back and forth from Denmark and Thailand. Reviews were positive and the film was entered in the Sundance Film Festival. It was adapted from a short film, submitted to the Danish Film Board, who financed the film.

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times referred to it as ‘a very likeable tale. Mr. Matthieson has a way of consistently and gently upending expectations, often with great humor.’

Jonathan Winters and I shared scenes with the principals, David Winters and Kim Kold, in a bar in Pattaya. Kim was congenial and good fun. He was six feet five and 350 pounds of muscle, but Jonathan and I revelled in his good graces. He was chuffed to be in Thailand where the sun always shone.

He regaled us with stories of his humble origins as a second tier soccer player to his evolution as a champion body builder. The shoot was hosted and organized by Chris Lowenstein, executive producer of Living Films.

David Fear of Time Out New York wrote: ‘It’s only a slight exaggeration to say Kim Kold gives the performance of the year. One that offsets the movie’s occasional dips into self-consciousness and quirkiness but adds a genuine sweetness to the proceedings.’

The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Matthieson was awarded the directing award in the category ‘World Cinema –Dramatic’. At the 2012 Sundance, Teddy Bear propelled Kim Kold to roles in Fast and Furious 6 and Star Trek Beyond.

Teddy Bear was nominated for awards in 11 film festivals. The Athens International Film Festival, the European Film Awards, and the Arts Film Festival were among the many.

In 2015, David released Dancing It’s On and reconnected with his passion for dance. It starred Whitney Carson and Gary Daniels. He became ill shortly after, and underwent a double bypass heart operation.

He was in good health for several years but underwent a second surgery in 2019. His younger son Alexander revealed: ‘David never fully recovered from surgery. He was weak and in pain. Nevertheless he wrote and published [his autobiography] Tough Guys Do Dance. It was his swan song. It was a huge seller and brought him the critical acclaim he deserved for his accomplishments as an actor and father.’

The camera flashes back to the early 60s, and engages in a tracking shot of fans outside the Bitter End on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village clamouring to get in. Formerly the Cock and Bull, it welcomed and staged performances of top rock acts and comedians, Bob Dylan shot pool and dug the scene in his salad days.

Winters walks through shots of West Side Story, handsome as the camera fixes on a close-up of he and Barbara Streisand chatting. Cutaway to an over-the-shoulder shot of David and Rita Moreno, twisting and dancing with background players posing as Andy Warhol Factory stars.

Underground abstract expressionist luminaries dig a Beat poetry performance by Gregory Corso and the stars all align in the heavens as the cameras drive the film to its finale and the curtain descends and the screen fades to black.

David Winters’ funeral was held in Los Angeles. It was attended by his family, friends, dance students, and colleagues who worked with him onstage or behind and in front of the cameras.

Son Alexander concludes. ‘It was a solemn yet wonderful occasion. People came to weep, laugh and share the love. BarBara Luna, a contemporary and dear friend of my Dad greeted me with love. She is a great dancer and actor who is best remembered for the TV show Zorro and Star Trek.

‘BarBara – who is enshrined in the West Side Story family for her brilliant stage performances – gave an impassioned chronicle and eulogy to celebrate my father. David has left us, but he will never be forgotten.’

Russ Tamblyn who starred with Winters on screen and stage also gave witness in memoriam as did many stars of that generation. Actor Renald Cosma, who was a student at David’s dance classes, remarked: ‘Ann Margret was there, but I was too awestruck to approach her. I burned out. “I love you Miss Margret.” She laughed and replied to please call her Annie.’

Terri Garr known for her work as a dancer and actor, George Chakiris the Greek-American recipient of an Oscar for his performance in West Side Story, who is a brilliant and ever handsome nonagenarian now, and Toni Basil the singer- choreographer who studied dance with David and endeared herself to the MTV generation with her hit song ‘Mickey’.

David was a major influence on my life. He inspired and cultivated creativity. Now I still feel he is watching over me from heavens afar. Perhaps it’s best summed up in the title of his best friend Paul Newman’s previously mentioned film bio of boxing champion Rocky Graziano: Somebody Up There Likes Me.

See also: ‘A Winters tale #2’, February 15th, 2025; ‘A Winters tale #1’, November 29th, 2024

Editor’s note: Antonio Pineda has contributed number of articles for Rock and the Beat Generation since our earliest days. His novel Beat, the Beautiful and the Damned will see the light of day soon. Watch this space!