Yesterday The Playlist‘s Kevin Jagernauth reported about Sacha Gervasi‘s My Dinner With Herve, a drama about a 1993 interview Gervasi did with Herve Villechaize (“The plane! the plane!”) days before the dwarf-sized Fantasy Island actor killed himself. The director of Anvil! The Story of Anvil is looking to snag James McAvoy as the journalist; Peter Dinklage will play Villechaize.

This story gives me an excuse to post a clip of Villechaize’s gay cowboy scene in Robert Downey, Sr.‘s Greaser’s Palace (’72). I saw this film in its entirety once sometime in the early ’80s, and I’ve never forgotten the silly sexual current in this scene. Stanley Gottlieb‘s performance as Villechaize’s cabin-partner “Spitunia” is a classic. Villechaize was 28 or 29 when this scene was shot; he killed himself at age 51.

Sidenote: The Greaser’s Palace Wiki page claims that Robert Downey, Jr., “the son of the writer-director of the film, has an uncredited role as a Quasimodo-like child.”