Jon Peters Returns
You were to be forgiven if, during Superman Returns' opening credits, you had assumed you had stepped into some kind of wormhole to the 1970s: The whooshing blue letters, John Williams' familiar score, and, most of all, the name Jon Peters listed as producer, were enough to instantly throw you back to a simpler time, when the men were ex-hairdressing superproducers, and the Barbra Streisands were afro'd. The LAT takes a look at one-time King of Hollywood Peters, a larger-than-life and reviled figure who, thanks to his 13-year attachment to the Superman project, finds himself in the unlikely position of having another shot at the game. While he refused to be interviewed for the piece, his ex-wife, Mindy Peters (who's now romantically back in the picture), was more than willing to share some insights into what she feels makes this loathsome, lovable man tick:
"He's a madman, crazy and mean. But he has a beautiful heart. [...]
Mindy Peters also talked about the side of Peters that few get to see, such as his generosity. He donated money to the family of a deputy sheriff slain in the line of duty and paid for a terminally ill girl from the Pacific Northwest to come to L.A. for a week to visit Disneyland and other theme parks.
She said he also wakes up sweating, unable to breathe because of a recurring nightmare: "Jon is sitting on a curb waiting for his dad to come home and as he runs up to the car, the car pulls away."
Anyone with even the most cursory of dream-interpretation skills would assume Peters' recurring nightmare was rooted in a childhood trauma involving an affection-withholding father figure. Of course, they'd be wrong: Further analysis revealed the "dream" was merely a confused recollection of Peters' own favorite slow-day activity, in which he would push his assistant out of his BMW on Wilshire Blvd., then giggle uncontrollably as the underling tried unsuccessfully to catch up to his boss.
