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One of the saddest memories of Mike’s stay with me was the unraveling of Robin Bean over many trans-Atlantic calls as he descended into madness with drugs and alcohol.

Michael tried so hard to get Robin out of his flat, which was in ruins, and into a hospital.

It was obvious to me that seeing his friend slide into self-pity and substance abuse was a bit of a wake-up call for Mike. Robin had been a sought-after photographer and film journalist with a successful film magazine when this darkness just took it all away. We never discovered what became of Robin, and his disappearance is still a mystery.

Michael was, at the time I first met him, working for a producer named Sandy Howard who was full of beans most of the time. No matter how often you would meet this guy he would never fail to grasp your hand and say “Hello, Sandy Howard here.” Always hustling, never listening, that was the Sandy poor Mike had to deal with. We did go to the wrap party for VICE SQUAD in Hollywood, where Michael ran into fellow Brit Malcolm MacLaren, who compared notes after both had their day with the sex pistols. Quite an evening with Carrie Fisher, Wings Hauser and Nina Hagen all shaking hands with who else — Sandy Howard.

During this time Mike lived across the street from me and soon became a fixture at my place, as he was lonely and loved to drink and chat the night away when he wasn’t rewriting some of Sandy Howard’s crappy screenplays. Once this job ran its course, Mike was in dire need of money, so it was not long after the Howard gig ended that Mike was evicted from his flat and was sitting out in front of the building on Doheny Drive with all his belongings in shopping bags, with him in the center suffering a raging head cold. I finally gave in to the inevitable and invited him to stay with me until he could get back on his feet.

Now I knew going into this arraignment that it would not be a walk in the park, as Mike had displayed a dependence on drink, as well as delusions of grandeur regarding his career. His one cherished dream was to see the realization of a screenplay he had been working on for years, a stalk-and-slash epic he called ORPHANAGE. This was the tender tale of a sad group of under-age boys being prayed upon by a serial killer. The killer it seems was a bit of a pervert who masturbated over the lifeless bodies of the boys after killing them. Well, if David Bowie having it off with a lad was a no-go, you can imagine how much of a chance this had in the market place of 1985

After reading ORPHANAGE, it became rather obvious that all of Mike’s adolescent sexual yearnings were in full flood as they had been to some degree in all his screenplays as far back as THE IMAGE. It is a shame that this one project could never come together as it was no worse than most of the slasher films of the era in terms of violence, or Mike’s kinky sex killer for that matter.

Michael spent nearly all of 1985 with me, and we had some great times going to parties, screenings, and at one point reading scripts together for Cannon Films under the supervision of Chris Pearce who would produce a number of titles for the company.

Michael had written the screenplay for HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS for Cannon which boasted the only screen pairing of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine. This historic moment was held together by a revamping of the old warhorse DEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE. Mike wanted to create a homage to the thirties style thriller with Dick Powell trapped in an old dark house with Joan Blondell. What he got was Desi Arnaz Jr, who performed with grace under the circumstances. The legend goes, Cannon head Manachim Golan told producer Jenny Craven he wanted to make a horror film with all the horror stars. “Now get me Boris Karloff and Vincent Price!” When Jenny told him Karloff was dead he said “Well get him anyway”

HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS was not a success in spite of the dream cast, and Michael blamed Cannon for not promoting it, and especially Jenny Craven for tampering with the final edit without director Peter Walker in attendance (something she apparently had done on another Cannon release entitled ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE). We were friendly with Jenny at the time as she lived in Venice by the beach, and even had her birthday party at my house that year.

One assignment Michael worked on while he lived with me was trying to polish an anti-war script written by TV star Richard Hatch (Streets of San Francisco, Battlestar Galatica). The story was meant to be a showcase for Richard as a soldier caught up in the Vietnam experience entitled THE MAN WITH THE BROKEN GUN. Richard Hatch was a soft-spoken guy who lost his TV fortune by trusting his accountant who made off with his earnings from both hit shows. This script was one of his last attempts to get back in the mainstream and the pressure was on Mike to deliver the goods. I would drive Mike up to Richard’s house in Benedict Canyon for endless rewrites. Eventually Richard had to let go of the house and move into smaller quarters. They would then meet at my apt and to help with his tan Richard would insist they work on my sunny back lawn. I would look out my window to watch poor Michael, white as a snow, roasting in the sun while Richard tried in vain to get in touch with this tormented character. I don’t believe the project ever took off, and years later I saw Richard, a trifle long in the tooth, playing his old character “Starbuck” on the retread of ‘Battlestar’ as a special guest to bridge the connection from the old to the new space opera.

It was an experience to watch him network around town doctoring other people’s scripts, and at one point ghost-writing a dreadful play done in Long Beach as “My Jewish Vampire,” though through the entire experience he remained in high spirits, actually living in Long Beach for the duration. The only perk was using the director’s phone to call his mum in the UK to tell her the latest plot twist on “Dynasty” so she could impress her neighbors who were all hooked on the soap opera, as was most of the United States at the time

After Michael returned from Long Beach it was time to face up to what was not happening in terms of his chances of making a go of show business in a town that had pretty much written him off. He gave it his best shot with the likes of Sandy Howard, and experienced a bit of hope with actor Kristopher Tobari, who tried to fashion a screenplay about hookers which looked promising for a while, and then no money could be raised so that went by the way side as well. Michael also had a green card problem to add to the confusion, so now was the moment of truth.

For a few weeks Michael wandered around the Hollywood area, staying a while at the seedy motel where Jim Morrison supposedly wrote “LA Woman”. Finally Michael became truly homesick, not to mention concerned about his parents’ health. So with lots of wine and tears I got him to LAX and walked him personally onto a jet heading back to the UK. For a while afterwards I would receive drunken midnight calls from Mike, still reeling from his “Hollywood nights.” Later he would travel to Paris to do a rewrite for some small film company. After three months that, too, ended badly, so once again back to his parents for a rest and a rethink. The last time I would hear of Michael Armstrong he was giving an acting workshop for those wishing to toil in theater and film. Remembering the old axiom “Those that can, do, those that can’t, teach” it seemed life had finally come full circle.

Yet there was one more glimpse before the final oblivion of Michael Armstrong, and that would be receiving a review copy of “Tigon’s boxed set of Horrors” PAL transfer editions, where Michael Reeves’ now classic WITCHFINDER GENERAL stood along slide the company’s real miscalculations like THE BEAST IN THE CELLAR, the mind-rotting VIRGIN WITCH, and yes, THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR, with a commentary by a rather lathered Michael Armstrong.

There he was, a full two decades later, explaining the obvious regarding his lost opportunity to direct this film. As the film revealed itself, Mike would say things like “Well this bloody thing has been at it for twenty minutes and there is not one scene that is directed by me.” I did enjoy his recollection of Karloff being offered by AIP to appear in the film, only his ill health got the best of him and he was replaced at the very last minute by Dennis Price, who was just about to die himself. The saddest moment came at the end of the commentary when Mike spoke about his screenplay of ORPHANAGE, which he hoped to see on the screen before his sixtieth birthday. In a perfect world he would do just that

As Clint Eastwood was fond of saying in his ‘Dirty Harry’ mode “A man has got to know his limitations.”

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