Harry Hamlin Has Only One Item From the ‘Clash of the Titans’ Set
Starring as Perseus in the 1981 mythological classic Clash of the Titans, Harry Hamlin beheaded Medusa, slayed Calibos, defeated the Kraken and took the hand of Andromeda in marriage.
And what spoils did Hamlin collect from his exploits? The head of Medusa? Bubo the mechanical owl?
Er, not quite.
Hamlin, who recently talked with us for Channel Guide Magazine about his new IFC series In the Kitchen With Harry Hamlin (Wednesdays at 10pm ET/PT), told us about one particular item from Titans that shows up in the trailer for his new show:
That clapperboard is in fact the genuine article from Titans.
“I collected all the clapperboards for the first five or six films that I did, until they started having digital readouts,” Hamlin tells us.
Unfortunately, that’s the only relic Hamlin has from the set of the movie, and he had to get it from Pinewood Studios, where Ray Harryhausen was putting the final touches on the animatronic characters.
“The producers really didn’t like me at the end of the shoot,” Hamlin says. “I was very adamant about a few things on that show, and I actually had to quit one day. I had to say, ‘I’m going home. You can find someone else to play Perseus,’ because they insisted that I not cut Medusa’s head off with a sword.”
Producers were concerned that the violent act would get the film an X rating in England and prevent millions of kids from seeing it.
Hamlin protested, believing it was improper to sanitize an ancient Greek myth for additional ticket sales. “They wanted me to throw my shield like a Frisbee and have it inadvertently snatch her head off. I just refused to do that,” he says.
“They were so mad at me at the end of the whole thing, for that and a few other reasons, that they wouldn’t give me anything. So I got nothing. But I did get the clapperboard.”
1980s Top Summer Blockbusters
July 2019
Celebrate the biggest summer movies of the ’80s, when moviegoing morphed from mere entertainment to blockbuster events.
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