10 Things You Didn’t Know About They Live
It is hard to believe it has been five years since Roddy Piper, a larger than life personality who left an indelible mark on both professional wrestling and the action movie industy, passed away.
Piper left behind a body of work that will live on forever with hundreds of memorable wrestling escapades including headlining the first WrestleMania and dozens of movie and television appearances away from the ring. But I don’t think there’s any argument that Piper’s greatest contribution to the movie world was in 1988’s They Live.
Recently I sat down and watched Scream Factory’s Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release of They Live. Among the special features on the Blu-ray was a commentary track with director John Carpenter and Roddy Piper.
Carpenter revealed he was a long time wrestling fan and actually wrote a column for Ring Magazine in his youth. So it is no surprise that Carpenter was in attendance for the biggest wrestling spectacular of all-time, WrestleMania III in Pontiac, Michigan. It was at WrestleMania III where Carpenter and Piper first met and the ball got rolling for Piper to be the star of They Live.
The rest of the commentary track is filled with behind the scenes stories from the film and was the source material for this article….
10 Things You Didn’t Know About They Live…
1. They Live was shot in some of the less glamorous portions of Los Angeles and John Carpenter opted to give the homeless people in those areas work on the film. A prime example would be the newsstand scene, where one of the ghouls has words with John Nada shortly after Nada is seeing the world for what it really is. The guy operating the newsstand was not an actor, but one of the homeless people that Carpenter hired.
2. To get their chemistry down, John Carpenter instructed Roddy Piper and Keith David to go out one day and have lunch while staying in character. The exercise worked and a friendship was born.
3. The tune that John Nada was playing on his harmonica was actually a song that old time professional wrestler Jay “The Alaskan” York made up called “The La Brea Tar Pit Blues”. York was a mentor to Piper early on in his professional wrestling career and actually had a small part in Piper’s first movie, 1986’s Body Slam.
4. When John Nada puts on the sunglasses, the billboards and the signs on the sides of the buildings that he sees were not actually there. They were all matte paintings done by Jim Danforth, whom John Carpenter referred to as an unheralded genius. Some of the other movies that Danforth has worked on include Conan the Barbarian, Ninja III: The Domination and Commando.
5. Roddy Piper took two pairs of the They Live sunglasses home as momentos.
6. For years, Roddy Piper kept a notebook of material he’d come up with to use on his televised wrestling promos. In Piper’s notebook was the famous line “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.. and I’m all out of bubblegum.” Piper suggested the line to Carpenter and Carpenter put it in the movie. Speaking of lines, Piper shared a story about the line, “Life’s a bitch and she’s back in heat.” being “Macho Man” Randy Savage’s favorite line in the movie.
7. Stunt coordinator Jeff Imada played both male and female ghouls as needed because he could fit into all of the costumes.
8. The tunnels that Nada and Frank find themselves in after they escape from the alley, are actual tunnels beneath the streets of Los Angeles. The tunnels run under several government buildings including the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center and the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
9. Most of the movie makes use of practical locations, but the grocery store was actually a set built for the film and one of the more costly aspects of the production. They Live cost in the neighborhood of $4 million dollars to make.
10. Roddy Piper and Keith David rehearsed what would end up being one of the most historic fight scenes in cinema for nearly two months in the backyard of Carpenter’s office in Van Nuys. When Carpenter suggested that a suplex be incorporated into the fight, Piper unsuccessfully attempted to demonstrate various suplexes on Carpenter.
