Filming the new low-budget movie “The Humbling” turned out to be a humbling experience for movie superstar Al Pacino.

The 74-year-old didn’t get his own trailer or any of the other comforts he is used to on pricier studio movies.

“We made this for under $2 million in 20 days and most of it was shot in the house of the director, Barry Levinson,” explained Pacino. “Then when we shot on location I stayed in this hotel in Staten Island and the bed wasn’t at all comfortable so I hardly got any sleep.”

But the Oscar winner and Beverly Hills resident said he didn’t care about any of that as he was so delighted to be making a quality movie adapted from a novel by Philip Roth.

“He’s my favorite American author,” said Pacino, who plays a veteran actor struggling with memory loss in “Humbling.”

Star Crossed

Talking of talented veteran actors, Malcolm McDowell made an entertaining keynote speech at the 55th annual Christmas luncheon of the British American Business Council Los Angeles on Dec. 12.

The 71-year-old British star of “A Clockwork Orange” entertained the audience of more than 500 at Santa Monica’s Fairmont Miramar Hotel with show biz stories including how he’s repeatedly been mistaken for the star of “A Clockwork Banana.”

Turbulent Trip

Joe Czyzyk is used to flying to dangerous places as chief executive of Torrance aviation services firm Mercury Air Group. But even he was a little nervous when he had to fly into Afghanistan this summer.

A subsidiary of Mercury Air was a joint-venture bidder on a $1 billion United Nations contract to rebuild Kabul’s main airport, which has been heavily damaged from fighting.

After reassuring his worried wife – “She wasn’t very happy about it” – the 67-year old Czyzyk (pronounced “Chizik”) first flew into Karachi in neighboring Pakistan, not exactly the safest place either. Then he flew into Kabul, where he was met by representatives from his company and escorted immediately to his hotel room.

The next morning, Czyzyk went on a visit to the site, next to the existing airport.

“There were as many machine guns as people and more security checkpoints than you could shake a stick at,” he said.

After meeting with the rest of the bid team and the U.N. contract officials, Czyzyk was immediately escorted to his plane and flew out. All told, he spent only 15 hours on the ground in Kabul.

“I didn’t spend one minute more than I had to there – no side trips, no nothing,” he said.

Staff reporters Sandro Monetti and Howard Fine
contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at
[email protected].