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Moon film wars



Here's something that was in Toronto's Globe & Mail on Friday:

Roger Daltrey doesn't like the idea of Robert De Niro making a movie about
Keith Moon, the late and maniacal former drummer of the Who. So Daltrey is
refusing to let De Niro use any of the Who's songs in the picture, which
should put a bit of a crimp in the proceedings.

Daltrey's angry because he feels that De Niro's movie, which is in
development with Paramount, will concentrate on Moon's reputation as one of
the Western world's greatest hellraisers and won't show the more complex
person Daltrey remembers. The movie is based on Moon the Loon, by Moon's
former chauffeur Peter Dougal Butler. It's a sensational tale of the
drummer's head-long pursuit of girls, drugs and booze and is the source of
such classic stories as Moon driving his Bentley into a swimming pool and
beating Pete Townshend to a hotel bar by jumping out of a fourth-storey
window.

"The script is such a travesy of what the Keith Moon story is that I can't
work with them," Daltrey told Steppin' Out magazine. "Everyone wants to
make the `Keith Moon funny funny buddy buddy' story, but Keith was more
complicated that that."

However, the New York Post reports that Daltrey's dim view of the De Niro
project might be influenced by the singer's desire to make a Moon movie
himself.

Daltrey says he's making a picture for Warner Brothers and hopes to start
shooting in August. "Right now," says Daltrey, "We are looking for an actor
who can age 10 years in the film until he looks 60 years old. Moon lived
only a short life, but when he died he was an old man."

Jim