Frank Lisciandro and Babe Hill

[Stuart]

Vince, what are your Views On Jim's Friends Frank Lisciandro and Babe Hill as saw from your perspective"Back In The Day"?.

[vince]

Babe Hill was a teddy bear. Unless he had a little too much to drink - I don't refer to water here - Babe was a really nice guy. Always friendly and fun loving. When he got tiddley, he became a very agressive person. Flip of the coin. Babe came to the Doors film crew through Paul Ferrare. Babe went from a nothing to a pretty adept sound man. He was on all the shows that were filmed. At first Babe had trouble getting the best sound but toward the end he was quite good.
I have the feeling that Babe, who did accompany Jim frequently, was a sort of self appointed body guard. Not so much for Jim and to keep Jim from doing so much damage when he got drunk. In any case, Babe disappeared when the movie was over (Before the Music). I did not see him during the making of the film in 1990.

Frank was another film school friend. He was an excellent camera man. Frank always had a commercial mind. He took advantage of his position to take thousands of photos of the group in general and Jim in particular. He may well have the largest collection of photos in existance. SOme of you may be aware that he has published at least two books of photos, possibly a third. I don't really know about that.
He may even have some photos of me when I was young and handsome.
(The last public photo of me was taken in 1990, Venice, Ca.)

Frank was editor on both the Doors movie, a sort of disjointed and meaningless "Day wth the Doors type thing. That was undertaken by the Doors and originally they wanted it to follow the format, with different contend, of the Beatles movie. It was a great disappointment for the Boys. It was overly expensive, the shooting ratio was over 10:1. When completed, Frank had only managed to get about 50 minutes or so. Too long to be a "Short" and to short to be a feature. He did what he could with the footage that was provided,
Frank was also responsible for editing the collection of bizzar or often meaningless shots put together in no specific order, hosted by Jim called "Highway" It was sort of a mini travel log. You know it is the start by the opening title sequence and you know it ends when the lights come on. That has nothing to do with Frank who did his best to make sense out of the raw, unscripted, pointless camera footage,

Krank Married, then divorced, the Doors wonderful Secretary, Kathy. I don't know where he is at this time, Somewhere around Santa Barbera I think. No matter, I have not seen him since 1972.