 friend of mine was bemoaning the lack of photos
and articles about Rob Tapert the other day. After a bit of digging,
I was finally able to get some decent pics of Rob, but it was
surprisingly difficult considering that this man is THE head of
Renaissance Pictures. In business terms, he's definitely the most
successful of all of the Fake Shemps, but he's rarely written about or
discussed, and almost unknown to many Fake Shemp fans.
While
Sam usually gets credit for being a creative genius, Rob often goes unrecognized for
his sheer business
genius. Sam himself has pointed out that Rob deserves a
lot more recognition than he's ever had. Rob has been a quiet but
essential force behind the success of the Shemps as a whole, and has
especially impacted the careers of Josh Becker, Ted Raimi and Sam
Raimi. Who helped Josh get LUNATICS, A LOVE STORY written and
produced? Who hired Josh to direct for Hercules and Xena? Who pulled
Ted onto Xena, and insisted on keeping him there through thick and
thin? Who was out drumming up the money so Sam could write and
direct his films? Who was cutting the deals to stretch every penny
as far as possible so that Sam (who is notoriously sloooooow on the
filming schedule) could finish the shoot? Robert Tapert, The
Invisible Shemp.
Even now, with the mega-millions of dollars
that have poured in from Hercules and Xena, Rob's penny pinching
within the company is legendary. When people at Renaissance Pictures
want to spend money on something new to the budget, it's Rob's
approval they have to get. Not Sam's, because Sam is so rarely even
in the building that a lot of people hired within the past couple of
years have never even seen him. Renaissance Pictures is pretty much
Rob Tapert's deal now. Although Rob is a businessman from the word
go, I've found him to be surprisingly humorous and easygoing. The
first time I met him, I was wearing these brand new black suede
hiking boots and I noticed that he kept staring at my boots while we
were talking. It was making me a bit uncomfortable, so finally I
said, "I guess not many people wear boots around here, huh?"
Rob's eyes twinkled a bit, but his face seemed perfectly
serious as he looked me right in the eye and said, "Trade ya for my
shoes... they're killing me." Unfortunately for him, I had no desire
to swap footwear. Later someone teased me, "Hey, you could have
walked a mile in Rob Tapert's shoes!" I dunno... if they were
as uncomfortable
as he said, I wouldn't want to go there.
| |
 ob isn't very tall, in fact when Lucy is in
heels she sort of towers over him. He has a very distinctive face,
full of sharp angles and smooth planes, with a full head of fine red
hair and intelligent gray-blue eyes. It seems to run in the family,
because his younger brother (who also works for Renaissance) is a
carbon copy - looks just like him, but younger.
Stories
abound about Rob's antics
with his friends. He likes to put on acts, with different accents,
making himself seem strange, lecherous or dim-witted. Actually he's
very quick of mind and loves to tease people. Lucy has called him "The funniest man I ever
met." One of the other Shemps recently entertained me with an
imitation of Rob flirting with Lucy, which had me in stitches.
Basically, it was Rob with some shempy French accent saying,
"Luuuuuceee.... your body is like a Viiiiisa carrrrrd.... It's
everywhere -I- want to be." Apparently Rob has quite a few lines
like that. I ended up laughing so hard I forgot the rest of them.
One thing I noticed right away about Rob is that he shifts
gears very quickly and smoothly when dealing with a variety of
people. One time he and I were discussing a project and a constant
stream of production staff was interrupting us. Every single time,
Rob politely apologized to me, dealt with the person who interrupted
in whatever way he saw fit, and then settled back to calmly and
attentively speaking with me as if nothing had happened at all. It
was impressive, especially since I knew he was worried because Lucy
was late and their whole schedule was getting further and further
out of whack by the minute. Everyone else was running around in
major stress. Not Rob. He was cool. | |
 he "cool" Rob disappears when it comes to
dealing with computers or the Internet, however. I remember one time
he was supposed to look at a website, and he couldn't figure out how
to enter a URL. Someone had to do it for him as he threw his hands
up in frustration. He seemed only mildly embarrassed and quite
willing to laugh at himself as he admitted to me that he knows
nothing about the Internet, websites, mailing lists or newsgroups.
He was stunned when I told him some of the things going on, things
fans have said or done online. He shook his head in amazement and
said, "Wow. I had no idea about this stuff, and what people can
do."
Rob may be even more insulated by his
phenomenal success than Sam is. It's only natural, and unfortunately
necessary for people who work with these guys to form a protective
circle around them and try to help them have some peace and privacy.
Rob's relationship with Lucy has made it doubly difficult for him,
because she is such a huge attraction. I've seen Rob surrounded by
Xena fans, and yet go unrecognized. You can bet that doesn't happen
to Lucy too often. In any case, Rob strikes me as the least "in
touch" with the average person of all the Shemps. It's not that he
holds himself above everyone else, because I definitely don't see
that in him. It's just that he's really caught up in a very busy,
constantly demanding world that by necessity is mostly made up of
the many people who work with him. He just doesn't seem to get the
time to do much else these days.
And now he has to find time
to be a daddy, too. From what I've heard, he's done a great job with
Lucy's daughter, Daisy, and he seems to be really psyched about the
new Tapert on the horizon. He and Lucy are going to have their hands
full, that's for sure. Here's wishing them all the best.
Julius Robert Bay Tapert
was born Oct. 16,
1999 | | |
