Ace Goes to Hollywood: Episode 13
by Jack Pendarvis
Ace Goes to Hollywood is the continuing transcript of a ride from Oxford, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, during which Jack Pendarvis interviewed Ace Atkins about his work on the Pauly Shore film Jury Duty.
Episode 13: Great Cat Actors
JACK: It sounds like you were really into your job! You said people were not excited about working. [See Episode 8.] But weren’t you excited about it? You said the tough Israeli former commando was impressed with your gung-ho attitude! [See Episode 11.] You must have been…
ACE: Yeah, no, I… I liked it. It was fascinating. And there would be moments where you’re like, oh, I’m so far away from old Hollywood, it doesn’t exist, and then at one point we’re shooting the interiors of Pauly’s trailer home with Shelley Winters, and it was in a studio where they had filmed silent films with Mary Pickford. So you’re walking around and you can see this building, this set was built during the silent era. It was a step back in time.
JACK: And, like you said, Shelley Winters. She was a towering icon of Hollywood. And Billie Bird being in vaudeville, as you mentioned. [See Episode 2.]
ACE: Billie was a real pro. You met these people—I walked into Billie Bird’s house, she had, like, a thousand cats. But her house—
JACK: Now, wait. She didn’t have a thousand cats.
ACE: She had a lot of cats! But she lived alone, and she had a house that looked like 1966 up there. Green shag carpet and, you know, midcentury modern furniture. Nothing had changed. And inside her house, besides all the cats and the cat beds and stuff, she had all these types of musical instruments. Her claim to fame, back in the 50s and 60s when she was performing shows, and even back to her vaudeville days, she could play any instrument. She could tap dance. She could do anything. And I thought, what a weird era that we’re in now. I mean, like, going to Pauly Shore, pretty much a one-trick pony, but for Billie Bird to have survived fifty or sixty years in the entertainment business, she could do anything. She could do comedy, she could do drama, she could do it all. She was a pro.
JACK: Could she play a trumpet?
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