Irwin Levin Friend of Buster Crabbe's

I thought I'd share a couple of Buster Crabbe's Flash Gordon stories.

While we were sitting in the den of his home in Scottsdale...

The fight with the octopus: 

In response to a question from my son, Buster said that they ran the scene backwards. The rubber octopus had no moving parts so they had Buster pulling the arms around him. When they ran it backwards, it looked like the octopus had grabbed Buster & he was trying to pull it off.

The fight with the ape (Orangapoid): 

The scene was only supposed to take about an hour to shoot but the actor in the suit stretched it to a couple of days pay by stopping to take off the suit every few minutes because it was so hot inside. He then had an entourage of women to wipe him off. The actor was Ray "Crash" Corrigan. Years later, Buster shot many of his Westerns at "Corriganville".

 

The disintegrating ray: 

When Buster read the script for that day he wondered how they were going to make a metal statue disintegrate. They held it together with magnets then demagnetized it. 

Did you know: 

Buster never got paid for Flash Gordon & never even got a holiday card from the studio? He was under contract to Paramount & was loaned out to Universal for the serials. Universal paid Paramount for his services but he never got a cent for it. On the other hand, he once wrote me that the old serials & Westerns are what "kept him alive" & led to his later popularity on TV.

Buster played Flash into the 1970s. He was featured on the Flash Gordon float in the 1973 Rose Parade. This appearance led to a reunion between Buster & John Wayne who was Grand Marshal of the parade. They were in the same fraternity (Sigma Chi) at USC as was the Duke's brother who was Buster's college roommate. John got Buster & the other fraternity members, including Ward Bond, bit parts in a couple of football movies in the early '30s. He also did a Flash Gordon skit around 1977 on the Mike Douglas Show (with Flip Wilson as Dale). Also, in his guest appearance on the Buck Rogers TV show in 1979, his character was called "Commander Gordon".

More later.

Irwin Levin

 

Mr. Levin is a Psychology Professor at the Univ. of Iowa & was a friend of Buster Crabbe's.

Photos from Irwin Levin's Treasure Chest 

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