Trailer Blows Up on the Set of Miami Vice
In the photo of the several guys standing around, and Paul Michael Glaser “directing traffic”, the real “star” of the photo is the trailer behind everyone.
In this episode, Trudy, (the black detective, played by Olivia Brown) will be kidnapped and held hostage by a drug lord. The script calls for Trudy to be tied up in a trailer, and soon after Sonny Crockett sees her silhouette in a trailer window, the trailer will blow up. Honestly, and ironically, I don’t recall the outcome of the episode, (that is, if Trudy survives or not) but I do recall that the trailer will be blown up.
Yes, the one we stand in front of will go KABOOM! On this episode, Paul Michael Glaser, (from Starsky and Hutch fame) is the Director. Michael Mann, the show’s executive Producer, loved old seventies TV shows, and hired George Stanford Brown, (from The Rookies), and David Soul, (Hutch from Starsky and Hutch) to direct some episodes.
The gentleman in the far right of the photo, holding the strip board, is the First Director. His job was to schedule each shot and camera move in the filming of each episode, so that the filming went as efficiently as possible. If I remember correctly, the two gentlemen to his right were higher-ups from the Special effects Department. They needed to know all details with regard to where and when the dangerous stuff was going to happen. I believe the woman leaning on my car was a wife of one of the Special Effects guys. And, that’s me, the guy who found and “purchased” the trailer, (with Universal’s money) and hired a trailer mover to get it to its location, (final resting ground).
I remember that day. The guy who came to move the trailer was just like a tow truck driver. He had a big truck, all the towing equipment, and knowledge of vehicles. The trailer had sat on someone’s land for several years, and feet of grass had grown around the wheels. The guy looked at the trailer’s tires, and was worried that one or two of the wheel hubs might be rusted tight, and could burn as we moved the trailer the seven miles through the streets of Miami to the set DOWNTOWN, in an empty lot.
I wasn’t Locations. I was Vehicles, so I was a little sketchy about where I was supposed to have the trailer delivered. So, with me in the lead, and the truck pulling the trailer through downtown Miami behind me, I saw an opportunity. I was at a streetlight, and happened to see a cop on the side of the road talking to someone. I opened my door, yelled across the street, and asked him where to go. I was so nerved up, I had forgotten to put my car in park, and after the cop gave me the directions, said matter of factly, “Hey, your car’s moving.” And it was. I got back in, and we proceeded down the road. One of the hubs on the trailer’s wheels did burn up, and it was red hot and smoking as we finally brought the leviathan into the empty lot and positioned it… IN TALL GRASS!
The driver hopped out of his truck and ran to the trailer’s wheels, and began yanking away the tall dried grass. I helped him as sweat poured from me.
“Could have easily caught fire,” the driver said to me over his shoulder. But it didn’t. Just another day at the office.