Donald F. Glut, Writer, Film Director, and Screenwriter: And I looked at my friends who
were successful and they were all concentrating on the thing they did best and once I learned that
a lot of doors opened up for me.
Film Courage: Don how many office jobs or day jobs have you had in your lifetime?
Don: In my entire lifetime? Let me see, what kind of normal jobs that I have? When I was 17…or when
I was about 12 I had a paper route for a while and I delivered neighborhood newspapers. When I was
17 I worked a month and a half in a greeting card and wrapping paper company in Chicago.
Then I worked once during Christmas vacation for a month and a half for Father's Book Company in
Chicago putting bins together and stocking shelves of books. When I moved to California as an adult
I had a girlfriend whose mother didn't believe that writing was a real job,
so to impress the mother I took a job at an advertising agency
in the daytime and then to make a little more money I worked in a bookstore at night. The
only time I was home was when I was sleeping or in between the two jobs and I think that
was pretty much it. I don't think any of these jobs lasted more than about a month and a half.
Film Courage: Has it been your life's mission to not work a quote-unquote day job?
Don: Yeah, my life's mission really was not to work in a regular job and I've been able to
sustain myself all these years doing that because I'm so passionate about that, so furious about
that then I'll go to great lengths to network and make connections and take chances and risks and
things and it worked out for me or most people would just take the easy way out and take the
job at the supermarket or waiting tables in a restaurant or an office job or something like
that. I couldn't do that. I couldn't work eight hours a day five or six days a week doing the
same thing year after year working for somebody I probably didn't like or respect anyway so
yeah I've made a real point to survive without having to get a regular normal job what if someone
told you that they didn't think it was possible to make money as an artist for the rest of your life
or maybe someone did tell you that well I grew up in Chicago and we were told that all the time
we were told that you're going to be starving most of the time and all these people with connections
I mean I didn't have any connections in any of the businesses I got in really I knew a
few people like in the comic book business and but that was about it my movie connections were
all done the hard way I made amateur movies when I was a kid and I kind of learned a lot of things
about filmmaking by doing it and because in those days there weren't any books that told you how to
do it you had to figure out how to edit and do special effects and makeup and all that kind
of thing on your own you have to make it up as you went along and I learned a lot that way but
I was called by my high school once they knew I was going to be in town my high school in Chicago
if I would speak to the creative writing classes the English classes and I got up there and I was
talking and I was I pretty much made it a Q&A and the only things anybody was interested in like
what kind of car I drove when did I go to parties and all this sort of thing and well finally one
guy raised his hand and this is right when Ronald Reagan got elected president and he said well we
know we're from Illinois here we know that none of us are ever going to get in the acting business
or the writing business or the art business or become president I said well the president you
got right now is from Illinois and they there was silence after that but yeah my family
most of the people in my family didn't know until the day they died what I did for a living I was
the black sheep because I was the one without the job and we would have like these Thanksgiving
dinners and Christmas dinners all the relatives would come over and we'd sit around the table
and people would start telling what oh what their kids had done and what was new in their
lives and they would skip over me they wouldn't even ask me what I was doing because they knew
it wasn't it wasn't anything they could relate to and I was trying to make some points once
within with an uncle who was visiting us we were sitting in the living room while everybody else
was in the kitchen and I had a new book that had just come out with my name on it
as author and I showed he said what have you been doing lately and I showed him this
book and he looked at it and he looked at him and finally he said ah I am I am finally proud of you
you finally have a job you work in a print shop you are an apprentice printer he couldn't
understand that the words in that book I wrote and I just at that point said I'm not going to
buy that anymore we're trying to impress people that just don't get it or don't want to get it
how much of a creative career do you attribute to luck I attribute a lot of it to luck because
bad luck and good luck I believe luck is simply taking advantage of or not taking advantage of
serendipitous situation that comes your way and give you a couple examples one is I used to be
the musicians union and I used to play in a lot of rock and roll bands and things they were we played
at weddings and parties and things like that but never the big time which is what I always
wanted to be I wanted to be a rock star and a friend of mine happened to be at the Musicians
Union reading the bulletin board and he called me up when he got home and said hey I saw this
notice on the bulletin board somebody starting up a new band and they're looking for a bass player
and he was a bass player he said I'm not going to bother her with this things always turn out to be
phony why don't you try so give me the number so I called up it turned out to be a band that was
was a little bit down the road was produced by Michael Nesmith who was one of The Monkees and
we for two years we were recording doing albums playing important gigs and he resented me the
rest of my aggressive and the rest of his life he's dead now but because I stole that from him
that's what he believed I stole that job that gig from him that opportunity another time
I went down to the I was living in an apartment building and I went down to the mailbox to see
if I had any mail and as I opened my mailbox a woman walked by the outside on the sidewalk
she stopped and she looked at me and I had pretty long hair back then and she said
are you 17. I said no I'm like 21 or so I was I was pretty old already he says well I'm an agent
they're casting a TV commercial in an hour come go to this address tell them you're 19.
so I went down there there's a whole line of young actors out there with their stage
mothers they're reading scripts and they're getting rehearsing I went in there cold
didn't have any stage mother or agent with me I just went in there cold
and I did the audition and I got the I got the I got the gig and it turned out to be for a a union
brick hairspray commercial with Dick Clark oh wow and I lived over that commercial for about
two years I just did it cold and they liked the way I did it but those are examples of just half
happening to be someplace now I'd gone down to check my mail 10 minutes before or after I
wouldn't have known about it if my friend hadn't have gone to the Musicians Union Bulletin Board
and turned down the notice he saw on there I wouldn't have known about that either and that
kind of thing happens to me all the time but I'm a very social person I get out I Network I meet
people and a lot of times those people think about me and hire me for something and it's they used to
say it's not what it's who knows that's not it either it's who knows you that's the important
thing and it sounds like you're not afraid to take a chance it sounds like you were willing to go out
on a limb in case it didn't work out no I've take chances all my life and I admire people who are
risk takers and I don't mean necessarily jumping off a building or something to prove there was
stunt in the end but but to make business risks they put their money into something that everybody
else says is going to fail but they know in their heart of hearts it's a solid thing and even if it
doesn't take off they know they've done their due diligence they've done their part they've
done their best to make it take off and that's a great thing for for me making movies isn't so
much the money coming back it's going through that experience of making the movie seeing it all come
together step by step by step and hoping that it will be successful but if it wasn't successful
wow you had a great time during your life going through that process says what do you tell someone
who wants to be a full-time creator but they they think that they need their day job well I say
to succeed at anything like this the the Arts let's see acting music writing whatever you've
got to give it your 100 and that means you have to make yourself available during the day and it's
strange hours and things and you have to learn how to tighten the belt you have to learn how to
starve for a while in those lean years because if you don't I had a friend who was a very good actor
he came out here from Indiana and he was a good looking guy and he had he would look good on
camera he was a pretty he was a good actor but he he'd been brainwashed by the people back in
Indiana you gotta you got to have something to fall back on so he took a job at a major studio
I won't say which one but a major film studio (one of the major studios) in the security department
and they got really good at security and he got promoted and that's what he became a security
guard because he couldn't send the money down to steady work what's more important to a creative
career talent or an understanding of business John Milius is used to tell me that surviving
as a creative person is the director or writer or something
it's sixty percent what I think I think is that 40 percent talent and sixty percent used car salesmen
I think it's more like about 50/50. That's one mistake a lot of creative people people
make they have no business sense they don't know how to manage their money they don't
see a scam when it comes I mean I learned all these things the hard way and sometimes teaming
up with a business person and that was very important when I started my first film company
there were three of us I was only moving I had no business sense at all me I was just let's
make the movie let's go out there and do it one partner was strictly business he had no knowledge
of or really interested in the movie business he just want to make money and the third was
sort of a combination between the two of us and we got along great and he did all our contracts
and then if they make sure we weren't getting cheated and it was left to the other two to
make the films and to turn them out but I know so many creative people that are really really
good and they don't know how to keep their checkbooks organized or they don't know how
to should we really go out to dinner in this expensive restaurant tonight when we have the
electric fuel tomorrow to pay and they they'll go to the dinner and then they have no money and
I learned that a long time ago I had to be frugal how to manage my money every morning when I get up
after my coffee is is ready I sit down at my computer I check my email and everything my social
media and then I checked my oh no before that even I checked my what I call my morning banking I go
to my website where I have my several accounts make sure no money went out that I didn't know
about and all that because I because you you make a mistake in your checkbook and then you get fined
ten twenty thirty dollars and I know people that didn't care they would just do that they would pay
the fines and go on their merry away I got real paranoid about that when it hit me a few times and
I'm real cautious about my banking now and so I think it's a I think it's kind of a two-way street
the creative end you put as much time and effort as you can into learning your craft and getting
good and getting good at it and the other thing is learn how to manage your money and what to do with
it and how to protect yourself and lean times and now that I have my own production company
and I'm the only partner I had to learn a lot of other things things about licenses you have
to pay for and all that kind of thing and taxes you pay on certain things and
but you got to learn those things and some people think it's just nice to stay home and
draw pictures all day or write stories all day and that's not what it's all about and
dirty and when the Dirty Harry movies were Clint Eastwood says “A man's got to know his
limitations,” that was really important when that finally sunk in because I was I wanted to I could
do a lot of things and I wanted wanted to do them all and none of the places none of the things I
was trying to do what we're going anywhere and I looked at my friends who were successful and
they were all concentrating on the thing they did best and once I learned that a lot of doors opened
up for me I have three rules of life frivolous though they may sound 1). is a man's got to know
his limitations Dirty Harry 2) is if you think if you can't deduct it, don't spend it and you can't
always do that but a lot of times you can't and 3) and this is very important it's going to sound
really stupid but it can be applied to a lot of things remember the old mummy movies The Mummy is
and he's always the guy always runs into a cul-de-sac or something or stumbles or
something and gets killed by The Mummy Okay the third rule if you can't outrun The Mummy
you deserve to get killed. Get yourself all hooked on drugs, you did that to yourself. Nobody forces
you to (usually except in horror movies) where they strap you down they give you an injection
and I see so many people that destroy their lives on drugs or alcohol or whatever it is
they're not out running that mummy and it's hard to feel sorry for them.