George Clooney revealed his long time relationship with Grant Heslov at the BAFTA Awards - (Nicolas Genini photo)

Grant Heslov a Academy Award winning producer of the film Argo has tried his hand at acting with marginal success but struck gold as a producer - (Ryan Coleman from Burlington, Canada photo)

Traci Lords - (Toglenn photo)   Tom Byron - (Toglenn photo)

Video Beat EXTRA Part 3 - The GEORGE CLOONEY, GRANT HESLOV, ARGO CONNECTION - TRACI LORDS

James Loving - National Radio Text Service

As they say what goes around comes around. For Academy Award winning Argo producer Grant Heslov it was a good thing for the good deed that he did for his life long friend and partner George Clooney. For Traci Lords it is a not so good thing as her history as an underage porn star was thrown in her face on the Piers Morgan show... - Recommended TV Listings

Saturday, March 23, 2013

THE PAPER TRAIL

There was something familiar about George Clooney every time I saw him but I couldn't put a finger on it. The other oddity was his extremely close relationship with his co-producer of the Academy Award winning film AGRO, Grant Heslov. There have been numerous times that I've witnessed these two together with Clooney being the main focus and Heslov in the background usually sitting at the same table at film award ceremonies.

The two seem to be inseparable but what caused the fusion between two apparently different individuals. After years of wondering that subject came clear at this years BAFTA Awards as the two took the stage to receive the BAFTA Award for Best film of the Year.

Clooney pulled Heslov forward to the podium and revealed to those in attendance and an International television audience how talented his close friend Heslov was. He noted that the two have been friends for 30 years. Clooney related that Heslov was there for him when he needed money to have his photos taken so he could seek work as an actor. Heslov lent Clooney $50 to do so which and as it turns out helped enable Clooney to launch his acting career.

But that is not the whole story as I back dated my life 30 years and it was then that Heslov and I worked together he as a dispatcher for Dave El Limousines and me as a chauffeur. Heslov's mother Jeri was the boss but she is not mentioned in his Wikipedia profile. Heslov comes from a very comfortable well off background.

Clooney always looked like someone I knew but not well. The question it raises is was Clooney a chauffeur at Dave El? ? It was a huge company and during the 1984 Olympics we had 175 cars and close to a 100 chauffeurs on call for 24 hours around the clock.

Due to a back injury I left the company trading in a limousine for a body cast around the time that Clooney received the $50 from Heslov. At the time Heslov was a student at USC (University of Southern California) and worked part time at Dave El when we were based at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Clooney's career took off as he went on to gain recognition by portraying Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Emmy Award nominations. While working on ER, he began attracting a variety of leading roles in films including Batman & Robin (1997) and Out of Sight (1998), in which he first teamed with long-term collaborator Steven Soderbergh. 1999 saw the release of Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War featuring Clooney in another lead role.

In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, Ocean's Eleven, the first of a profitable film trilogy, a remake of the film from 1960 with the members of The Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. He made his directorial debut a year later with the 2002 biographical thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008), and The Ides of March (2011). He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005) and subsequently fetched Best Actor nominations for such films as Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011).

Heslov's acting career was not as spectacular. His acting credits include films like True Lies, Dante's Peak, Enemy of the State, The Scorpion King and Good Night, and Good Luck and several credits in TV series (Happy Days, Family Ties, L.A. Law, Catch Me If You Can, the 1989 directorial debut by Stephen Sommers, Matlock, Sleeper Cell). He also appeared in such films as Congo and Black Sheep.

Heslov somewhat put his acting career on the back burner and found greater success in directing and producing. He was the Academy Award-nominated producer of Good Night, and Good Luck with Clooney. He was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Heslov also appears in the film as Don Hewitt, the director of the TV series See It Now, around which the movie is centered.

In August 2006, he and Clooney started a movie company, Smoke House. Currently Heslov is writing screenplays with Clooney. He has also directed a screen adaptation of The Men Who Stare At Goats, starring Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey.

This year Heslov, Clooney and Ben Affleck, won for the Best Picture Oscar for the 2012 film Argo. Also via Argo the three actor/producers won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama, the SAG award for Outstanding Performance Cast by a Cast in a Motion Picture, the BAFTA award for Best Film, and other awards.

But here's the twist as a very young limousine dispatcher Heslov had to learn how to deal and direct some very strong personalities many of whom were actors being chauffeurs between acting jobs. Bobby Diccicco who starred in the Philadephia Story was also a dispatcher and former driver at that time.

A driver buy the name of Guy Calgrove was also an actor and chauffeur during that period whose locker was next to mine. He often came in late and complained that he was tired from shooting a film that kept him up through most of the evening. We later found that he was doing pornographic films under the name of Tom Byron.

His biggest claim to fame was he was the first to have sex on film with then under age porn star Traci Lords. Byron first started acting in hardcore films in May 1982 during my three year stint at Dave El. He performed mostly in roles portraying the young schoolboy or "coming of age" scenarios, as he resembled a teenager even though he was in his early to mid 20s. He starred alongside the Lords in many films including her porn debut in early 1984, What Gets Me Hot!. He was also said to have had an ongoing off-screen relationship with Lords, though he later downplayed their relationship.

He has changed his image several times throughout his career, frequently portraying a clean-shaven, adolescent virgin in his early years in porn. By the early 1990s, Byron again changed his image and appearance to that of a clean cut "businessman" type.

In August 2002, Byron announced his retirement from performing to focus on his directing career, but in the fall of 2005, after just three years, he returned to performing in numerous scenes, most notably his House of Ass series for his own company Evolution Erotica.

As a sidebar to this limousine story was early this week Lords appeared on the Piers Morgan show relating her tale of how she was raped at the age of 10. She was relating her experience with regard to the rape case in her home town Steubenville, Ohio where two high school students were found guilty of the rape of another high school student.

The boys lawyer was also was on the show and Lords became somewhat irate as she came off as blaming her rape experience as to why she became involved in sex films. The lawyer brought up the point that she was happy cashing her checks from her work. It was at that point that Morgan defused the issue and moved on as Lords was seen looking furious on the video stream into he live studio telecast.

So what does all of this mean... that is a good question? This is a prime example of what goes around comes around. What we do with our lives can come back to haunt you if it was negative. In Heslov's case his good deed in helping another aspiring actor has paid off with a life long friendship and an enhanced film career.

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VIDEO BEAT- EXTRA Part 2 - AMERICAN IDOL IS SOS (Same ol $#!t)

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