For those of you out there in Cinema Retro Land, who
are not familiar with the name Robert E. Relyea –well how about I drop a few
other names… ? The Magnificent Seven, The
Alamo, West Side Story and Bulllitt for
starters – all films on which Mr. Relyea has served as a valued member of the
production. Whether he was in the role
of Assistant Director, Assistant to the Producer, Unit Production Manager or
even Executive Producer, Relyea played an important part in the making of those
great, iconic pictures. At 78, he’s still as sharp as ever and for the first
time , he has decided, at the bequest of son Craig, to document his career in
the recently published autobiography Not
So Quiet on the Set –My Life in
Movies During Hollywood’s Macho Era. As a film historian, I highly recommend
his book, especially if you supplement it with two other volumes that also came
out last year –Escape Artist: The Life
and Films of John Sturges  by Glenn
Lovell and I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History by Walter Mirisch. These
books offer their own unique perspectives, something I hope to capture in this
article. So if everyone’s ready –we’ll call action!-
 and go for a take!
It was a beautiful sunny January morning, when I drove
out to Westlake Village northwest of Los Angeles to visit a man I felt I
already knew. Growing up back in London,
England, I kept seeing his name coming up in the credits of so many of my
favorite movies. Now I was driving
through this classy suburb that once used to be where the cattle grazed and
stampeded on TV’s Rawhide. In a magnificent corner home complete with
white picket fence, I was greeted by the 6ft. 3in. retired studio executive
himself. Having spent a few hours on the
phone weeks earlier, we were already on the same page - although he did
surprise me and say that his and his lovely wife Dorothy’s favorite movie genre
was horror films. Of course, if he had
cloned himself, he could have worked on Hitchcock’s Psycho in-between making The
Alamo for John Wayne and The
Magnificent Seven for John Sturges. Those are among the honor roll of
famous names Relyea has worked with – in addition to William Wyler, Robert Wise
and Richard Brooks. The first of these
legends to recognize talent in the young 29 year old Relyea was the Duke. Wayne was looking for a First Assistant
Director for his upcoming lifelong dream epic The Alamo. Relyea’s successful work on that high pressure film saw
his salary instantly doubling, along with a rise in his reputation within the
industry. Upon returning home to LA from Texas on Christmas Day 1959, he got a
present that was far more rewarding than anything under the tree: an offer from
action director John Sturges to work in Mexico on something called The Magnificent Seven..