Aldrich also made it clear that all the remaining candidates would have to pursue training as professional wrestlers.

 

"One of the prerequisites by Robert Aldrich right away was that we were never going to be doubled. We all went to wrestling school for a long, long time. It was endless and incredibly arduous."

 

The school they attended was run by none other than legendary female grappler Mildred Burke.

 

"Basically, we were training for $800 a week, which back then was a fortune. We would get there at eight o'clock in the morning and we start off by jogging in this giant park until we virtually collapsed and doing leap frogs to build up our stamina. We got into the ring and we didn't know what the heck we were doing. She (Burke) showed us all these moves and combinations of moves -- suplexes, flying mares, air plane spins and stuff that none of us had ever heard of, of course. There were these wrestlers from Mexico that were incredible, bouncing off the mat and flying in the air. I thought 'How on earth am I going to learn that?' I kept thinking 'I'm an athlete and I can do it.' It became so easy, so second nature to me that I could have done it blindfolded."

 

As fate would have it, the Screen Actors' Guild (SAG) went on strike on July 21st of 1980, right at the same time that Landon and the other actors were in the midst of their wrestling training. In the spirit of solidarity, all of the actors in question were expected to discontinue their training until the labor dispute was over.

 

"The actors' strike hit half way through and we were supposed to stay away from the gym where we were practicing our wrestling. Instead, Vicki Frederick and I opted to go out to the gym to wrestle with the Mexican wrestlers. We just wrestled every day and practiced, practiced and practiced. That's one the reasons why I think I was lucky enough to get the role because I wouldn't give up. I had a lot of blind faith when I was younger and I wouldn't take no for an answer."

 

It may very well have been faith that would ultimately lead her to scoring the role. Before a gathering of studio brass at MGM studios, Landon, and the other candidates, wrestled in a ring in their final attempt to earn the roles.

 

"Funny thing is, I got thrown out of the ring and I broke my foot. I kept wrestling anyway, even though I knew I had some kind of fracture. I limped out side and they all thought it was great, that I was so believable that I acted like I hurt my foot, when in fact I really did hurt my foot," Landon said.

 

"Robert Aldrich called in one of the girls and apparently she went out the back door. Then they called me in and Robert Aldrich said 'You know, you did a fantastic job, you worked really hard. We're all very, very proud of you.' He was staring out the window the entire time that he said this. He hesitated and I blurted out 'But you don't want me in your movie!' I started to cry like a fool. He laughed and said 'No, no, I want you to play the role of Molly.'"

 

Aldrich wasn't done with having his fun. Under orders from him, Landon returned to the back to confront the remaining actress, Frederick.

 

"He said 'Vicki is also in the film, she'll play the role of Iris. But don't tell her she got the role, make it look real bad.' I was jumping up and down real excited and Vicki was sitting there looking at me with her eyes wide open and she said 'What happened?' I said 'Well, you better go in but it doesn't look good. I'm sorry.' She came running out five minutes later, punching and screaming at me 'You liar! Why did you do that to me?'"

 

With that, Aldrich found the two actresses who would go on to play a struggling women's professional wrestling tag team in his movie. The name of their team would be – The California Dolls.But if Frederick and Landon thought they were on easy street, they were in for a harsh awakening.With the SAG strike ending in later October of 1980, a 10-week shoot schedule was struck. The film was shot in two primary locations; soundstage 11 at the MGM studios in Los Angeles and Ohio.

 

The story, written by Mel Frohman, would follow the typical rags-to-riches story arc. The film opens in a darkened arena where Iris and Molly are battling it out in the ring against another women's tag team. Ever present of course is their fast talking manager, Harry Sears (Falk).

 

From that point, the saga unfolds of Sears maneuvering his team through the impoverished and nefarious maze that is the wrestling business, burdened with dream of making it to the big time where fame and fortune await.You would think that in their roles as a tag team would lead Frederick and Landon to establish some kind of special bond to carry them through the coming physical rigors of the film.

 

"Vicki was very beautiful, very athletic looking. She had come off broad way and had done A Chorus Line. She was a very famous dancer on broad way, which I didn't know," told Landon. "She was very serious about the role, where I was goofy and irreverent. I just couldn't help myself back then. We weren't that close during the shooting at all."

 

"The thing was Vicki was 10 years older than myself. She was more conservative and serious than I was, even though I was extremely dedicated to the work and wrestling. She smoked, and I had a tremendous aversion to smoking at the time. I would get sick in the car and ask her not to smoke so that caused a little friction. I was always goofing off with the crew and Robert Aldrich and making jokes. I don't think she quite appreciated that in me. Looking back, I don't blame her, but that was my personality. She was very sedated and very serious."

 

Both actresses would have no choice but to hold a mature focus when it came to delivering convincing performances, especially in the ring. Fortunately for both Frederick and Landon, their time at Burke's gym had prepared them well.Tracy Reed of the Toledo Tigers has Laurene Landon in a hold while Vicki Frederick yells, and Peter Falk argues with the referee Richard Jaeckel

 

"We had built up so much stamina. The wrestling came easily for me. Sure, we were tired by the end of day. We did the dialogue stuff first and saved the wrestling for the last four weeks in case we got injured."

 

With Burke acting as a consultant on the film, Frederick and Landon would shoot numerous wrestling scenes. In some cases, their opponents were in fact active professional wrestlers, including the Japanese team of Taemi Hagiwara and Ayumi Hori, and famed Mexican wrestler Irma Aguilar.

 

"They were into their own world and they probably assumed we knew what we were taught," explained Landon when it came time to get the ring and wrestle while the cameras were rolling."They really didn't give us any direction at all. We had Mildred Burke there and we just kept practicing and choreographing the moves that we were going to do in the movie.

 

They would just basically tell us you're going to do this type of move in this sequence and then you guys can just improvise the rest. It was so easy to improvise because we learned so many moves. At least 50% of what you saw was improvised. They shot so much footage they said they could have made another movie out of it."

 

With the wrestling side of movie in good shape, all Landon needed to do was focus on her dialogue, something of a challenge as she explained.

 

"Peter (Falk) had a tendency to change the dialogue around in the movie the night before we shot. He would call us up to his room and change the dialogue all around. The next day we would go on the set and the dialogue had very little to do with the scene whatsoever."

 

The end result was predictable with an enraged Aldrich confronting the actors while shooting in Ohio.

 

"Robert Aldrich took us all out in the alley and screamed at Vicki and I and said that we were fired. He slammed Peter Falk up against the wall and said 'These girls are getting fired because of you. I know it's you who's behind this. You can all be replaced if you don't stick with the script.' Vicki and I were positive we were going to get fired. We went back and did the scene properly.

 

That night, I went up and knocked on Robert Aldrich's door and I said 'I apologize for what happened. Please forgive me.' He said 'I know it wasn't you. I know it was Peter, but I was trying to make you guys an example. I was trying to humiliate Peter so he won't do it again.'""Three days later, Peter called us up to his room again and changed more dialogue."

 

It wouldn't be the last time Frederick and Landon would butt heads with Aldrich. Assuming the role of wrestlers meant the two actresses were expected to wear one piece, form fitting bathing suits, the traditional garb for women grapplers for decades.

 

"When we started shooting the wrestling scenes, Vicki and I decided we weren't going to go bare leg. That's what Robert Aldrich demanded; that we not wear pantyhose," told Landon, as she and Frederick had other plans."Well, Vicki went down to this place and got a pair of panty hose that we could wear that would not show on film, or so we thought. So when we were shooting the wrestling stuff, we put on our pantyhose and got up on the mat. We're ready to shoot and Robert Aldrich comes up to us and says 'You and you; get in my office now!' Vicki and I were like 'Oh shit.'"

 

"We went into his office and he said 'I know goddamn well you're wearing pantyhose. You're defying me once again. Unless you take off those pantyhose you're fired. The first thing I noticed when I saw you two get up was those fucking pantyhose. I knew you two were going to pull a fast one on me because you mentioned this pantyhose crap before.'"

 

With that, the pantyhose were gone.

 

But the stress of delivering convincing performances, whether it was acting or wrestling, or wardrobe preferences, would pale in comparison to the one scene in the movie that still reviles Landon to this day. The setup would involve Frederick and Landon mud wrestling. The catch? Aldrich insisting they must go topless.

 

"He (Aldrich) told us there was going to be a nude scene and we were going to be topless in the mud. Vicki and I totally freaked out," said Landon. "We figured out a way that we could get away with not showing our breasts. When we were wrestling, we kept coving our breasts with the mud, or wrestling in the mud at the other girls to cover our breasts. We thought we got away with it."

 

"Well, we got a call from Robert Aldrich the next morning in a rage. He was very angry that we didn't show our breasts. In addition to that, they struck the mud wrestling set the night before. He said 'I know what you two tricksters are up to. We're building the set all over again because of you two.' We had to go in there again and wrestle and show our breasts so to speak. I was mortified; I was so ashamed and embarrassed. Plus my parents were still alive and I respected my mom and dad so much that I promised them I would never do nudity in movies."