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What It Felt Like to Work With Frank Frazetta

When my agent said Ralph Bakshi was casting an animated movie to be co-directed by Frank Frazetta, I thought, ho hum. It was called Fire and Ice and they needed a queen of the Fire Planet. Bakshi’s blue cartoon Fritz the Cat had been a huge success, but in the early ’80s, doing the image and voice of an animated character was not considered a coup… despite how respected Frazetta and Bakshi were.
It was 1983 and animated films were not being sold with a star doing the voice as they are today. In fact if stars did do voice-overs they were quiet about it because everyone knew the star was doing this work for the cash. And carry. In and out work.
Today being a voice in a Disney or Pixar film is considered quite the achievement and ballyhooed until the banks come home.
We have Puss and Boots with Johnny Depp… Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz in Shrek. Angelina Jolie in Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda 2… and on and on. Doing a voice-over means you can work in your bedroom slippers. Not sit in a makeup chair for hours. And not face the aging process which Hollywood frowns on. Throw tinsel at those who count crow’s feet.
But in 1983, I was happy to have the opportunity to meet Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta who was recently ignored in the PR campaign for John Carter even though its author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, had chosen Frazetta to draw his book jackets.
To peak Bakshi’s interest, my agent sent the enclosed photo of me in a crocheted bikini taken by Sherman Weisburd who had taken it as a test shot when I was learning how to be a model. Weisburd was known for having photographed Marilyn Monroe.
“That photo of you in the crocheted bikini proved you are right for an image in Fire and Ice,” Frazetta said to me when we met. Frazetta was known for drawing images of pin ups. He was a mild spoken man and sensual like the images he drew.
“I want to rotoscope you.”
“What’s that? ” I asked.
‘We’ll film you and then I will draw on the film and create a cartoon image of you.”
I thought that sounds like fun as I looked into Frazetta’s smiling eyes. Despite the fact that their casting call was for a sexy woman, never once did Frazetta come on to me.
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