not fond of fonda

Ken Hoffman relives his legendary and costly celebrity gambling fail

Hoffman was all in on Hollywood legend Peter Fonda.

Actor Peter Fonda, co-writer and star of the groundbreaking counterculture film Easy Rider, died last week. He was 79.

Here’s my Peter Fonda story and the night I took the worst gambling “bad beat” of my life.

In 1998, Fonda was nominated for a movie called Ulee’s Gold. I never saw this movie, I still have no idea what it’s about, but I kept hearing about Fonda racking up important acting awards:

Golden Globes: “Best Performance by and Actor in a Motion Picture.”

Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics: “Best Actor.”

National Society of Film Critics: “Best Actor.”

New York Film Critics: “Best Actor.”

Society of Texas Film Critics: “Best Actor.”

On and on, Fonda was sweeping every acting award in sight for Ulee's Gold.

Fond of Fonda in Vegas
Around that time, I checked the Las Vegas odds for the upcoming Academy Awards. Internet gambling was starting to hit big, and I happened to have an account with an Irish bookmaking site.

The nominees for Best Actor were: Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting, Jack Nicholson for As Good as it Gets, Dustin Hoffman for Wag the Dog, Robert Duvall for The Apostle, and Peter Fonda for Ulee’s Gold.

I thought for sure that Fonda would be the overwhelming favorite to win the Oscar. After all, he was sweeping all the acting awards in the runup to the Academy Awards. But whoa, Fonda was only the third choice among the Vegas oddsmakers at 8-1.

Easy Rider; easy money
Are you kidding? This is the lock of the millennium. I was going to load up on Peter Fonda to win Best Actor. Easy money. A printing press. A key to Fort Knox.

But first … I’m in the media and I used to sit two desks over from Joe Leydon at the old Houston Post. Joe absolutely lived and breathed movies. These days he teaches film studies at UH and HCC and reviews movies for Variety. I trusted his knowledge of the industry. I called Joe and asked him, “Who’s going to win Best Actor at the Oscars?” Like every other film critic in America, he was all over Peter Fonda’s performance in Ulee’s Gold. I double asked him, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

That was good enough for me. I’m not a movie guy. I never saw Easy Rider, either. But I knew about Peter Fonda because he inspired a Beatles song. In 1965, Fonda attended an LSD party with members of the Beatles and the Byrds. John Lennon overheard Fonda say, “I know what it’s like to be dead.” Lennon was taken by the line and wrote the song “She Said, She Said” around it for the Beatles album Revolver.

So we have an actor who was a sure thing to win the Oscar, who inspired a Beatles song, and I can get 8-1 odds on him? Where have you been all my life?

I called my friend Oreste San Juan, who, let’s say, dabbles in the manly sport of wagering, and said, “Peter Fonda is 8-1 at the Oscars, he’s winning all the other awards, and Joe Leydon said he’s a lock. Let’s jump on this.”

Oreste and I kicked in $1,000 each and I clicked “send” on a $2,000 bet with my online bookie. We were going to win $8,000 each. As Kramer would say in Seinfeld, this was some sweet action. Bookies were just giving away money. At the time $1,000 was crazy huge money for me, still is. My son was eight months old then. I was blowing all my money on frivolous things like diapers and college funds. I had no business risking $1,000 on anything except onesies.

A winning bet...or is it?
Ever watch Scott Van Pelt when he host ESPN’s SportsCenter on Monday nights? That’s when he does his “Bad Beats” feature … surefire winning bets that go horribly wrong.

I rarely watch the Oscars, but that night you couldn’t have peeled me off the TV screen with a spatula. And the Oscar for lead actor goes to … Jack Nicholson!

Within two seconds my phone rang. “What happened?” yelled Oreste. I told him, “Well, I hope you learned your lesson from this.” What I was thinking was, “Wait till I get my hands on Joe Leydon.”

More than 20 years later, Leydon emailed me this week: “I actually thought about you and your bet when I heard that Peter Fonda passed away.”

It's nice to be remembered.

Movie review

Florence Pugh proves her stardom yet again in A Good Person

Photo by Jeong Park / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Florence Pugh in A Good Person.

The rise of Florence Pugh has been pretty astonishing to witness. After gaining acclaim for her film debut in 2016’s Lady Macbeth, the actor has gone back-and-forth between mainstream and art fare, starring in films as disparate as Fighting with My Family, Midsommar, Black Widow, and Little Women, for which she earned an Oscar nomination.

Now, thanks to her former romantic partner Zach Braff, she has another intense leading part to add to her filmography in A Good Person. Pugh plays Allison, a young, music-loving pharmaceutical rep who’s engaged to be married to Nathan (Chinaza Uche). One day, however, she’s involved in a car accident that winds up killing Molly (Nichelle Hines) and Jesse (Onwumere), her would-be sister- and brother-in-law.

The bulk of the film takes place a year after the accident, as Allison is still struggling with pain resulting from the crash and the grief/guilt over the deaths. Simultaneously, Daniel (Morgan Freeman) is doing his best to raise Molly and Jesse’s daughter, Ryan (Celeste O’Connor), and deal with his long estrangement from Nathan. A search for help with addiction for both Allison and Daniel leads them into a tentative friendship.

Written and directed by Braff (Garden State), the film touches on its serious issues in a deft manner. While Allison’s depressive state sends her down a bunch of tough roads for both her and the audience, the film is balanced with lighter moments, many of them courtesy of Allison’s mom, Diane (Molly Shannon). As much as the film is a meditation on how – and how not – to handle grief, it thrives on Allison’s various relationships, and scenes with each of the main co-stars build those bonds nicely.

Smaller details, like Allison riding her bike everywhere because she’s afraid to drive, pay dividends as well. Riding her bike causes her to show up sweaty and out-of-breath in multiple scenes, adding to the haggard and withdrawn look she maintains for most of the film. There can be a certain cliché in how someone acts when they’re trying to portray the state Allison is in, but Pugh, Braff, and the filmmaking team are able to subvert that trope with their choices.

If there’s one fault to the film, it’s that Braff can’t quite land the plane on each of the characters’ stories. All of the stories are related to one another, so it’s difficult to untangle them. After spending most of the film keeping them relatively separate, a decision to bring them all together in a late scene feels rushed and unsatisfying. It doesn’t ruin the film, but it does lessen it to a degree.

Written for Pugh by Braff when they were still a couple, the film hinges on Pugh carrying most of emotional weight of the story, and she delivers in a big way. She eschews histrionics in favor of more subtle acting, and the result is powerful. The 85-year-old Freeman hasn’t had a meaty dramatic role like this in a long time, so it’s nice to see he still has it. Shannon, O’Connor, and Zoe Lister-Jones also elevate the story.

Though it’s early in the year, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Pugh could snag an Oscar nomination for her performance in A Good Person. You could call it a star-making turn if she weren’t already a star; this just solidifies her place in Hollywood for years to come.

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A Good Person opened in theaters on March 24.

Photo by Jeong Park / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Florence Pugh in A Good Person.

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