Donald Cammell

Overview

Born
January 17, 1934 · Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Died
April 24, 1996 · Hollywood, California, USA (suicide by gunshot)
Birth name
Donald Seton Cammell

Mini Bio

Family

Spouses

Trivia

According to his wife China Kong, after shooting himself "he lived for forty-five minutes, in a state of clarity and ecstasy that was, for me, unimaginable. He spoke nearly continuously, recounting people, places, and plans. Finally, the room seemed to fill with light, and he died".
In 1988 Marlon Brando, impressed by White of the Eye (1987), employed Cammell to direct a script he had written called "Jericho", an ultra-violent action thriller. Brando would play Billy Harrington, a retired government assassin coerced back into action by evil CIA operatives who introduce his daughter to a Colombian druglord's son, who falls for her. Harrington, named after Brando's psychiatrist who had died recently, embarks on an ultraviolent rescue mission. Andy Garcia, Rubén Blades, Rita Moreno, Quincy Jones and Julia Roberts were going to star in the project. According to Cammell, the body count was huge: "He [Brando] kills everybody - everybody! - in the last reel." Producer Elliott Kastner paid Brando $3 million up front, but after eighteen months of work, while on pre-production in Mexico and with shooting only days away, Brando dropped out, claiming he couldn't get insurance. Kastner went bankrupt, and Cammell went back to his typewriter.
Son of writer/poet Charles Richard Cammell, heir to one of England's largest shipping fortunes, lost in the stock crash of the 1930s.
Was offered the chance to direct Bad Influence (1990) and RoboCop 2 (1990).
After Performance (1970), he wrote a script called "Ishtar" that was to feature William S. Burroughs as a judge kidnapped while on holiday in Morocco. Like most of the scripts he worked on, it remained unproduced.

Quotes

[about White of the Eye (1987)] I painted it as best I can, and if art is to be involved at all, you hope that some kind of energy or sincerity will result in some kind of revelation.
I am a painter who happens to make films.
One of the reasons I think Warners hated the film [Performance (1970)] so much is because it forces an audience to consider the construction of their own fragmented selves, the various aspects of sexuality, which is something people never question.
Performance (1970) is a landmark and a swan song for the era of swinging London.
[about his unrealized project "Jericho", which was set to star Marlon Brando] The overall image of the film is a man living with his own guilt over all the horror he's perpetrated . . . I felt I knew [Brando] as a performer and I could help orchestrate that performance, to see him bare his soul for once.