Eric Caidin: Los Angeles Legend, Hollywood Cultural Treasure and My Friend

Got the stupid phone call earlier today. I had just woken up. My cats hadn’t even switched positions from where we went to sleep the night before.

I did the same thing that I did when I got the phone call that Sherman Torgan died. I was so dead silent that the person on the other end had to check if I was still there. In fact, it was the same person who told me in both cases.

I argued with my friend: “Are you sure? This isn’t a rumor or a mistake?” I knew it wasn’t. “You’re absolutely positive? This CAN’T be true. This is not someone we can afford to lose. We really need him.” Which was a mixture of the oral historian/archivist/scholar in me speaking but the Film Friend saying: I really need him. I’m going to miss this man so fiercely. He changed my life. Who will I see and hug now at film events? Who can I giggle with in that way we did?

My friend on the phone, who had his own extremely intimate relationship with Eric, was good with me. But he assured me that it was not a mistake. I said that maybe we brought it on by talking about people we had lost over the weekend. Was it our fault? “No, Ariel, it’s not our fault. He had a heart attack. We are not responsible.”

I still feel responsible. If I hadn’t brought that topic up last Saturday, would Eric still be with us? I know I’m not responsible. But I also keep wanting to wake up from some stupid nightmare and have this be false information. However, after seeing an article already published in Los Angeles magazine…I guess it’s not somnolence-related.

I wish all of you could have met Eric Caidin. I’m sure many of you did, perhaps for more than 20 years. I can only claim to have been Film Friends with him for 13-14 years. But my first introductions to Grindhouse Cinema were through him. And I had no idea what the term meant. Like zero clue.

Original storefront for Hollywood Book & Poster

Eric Caidin owned and ran Hollywood Book & Poster in the very center of Hollywood for years. In fact, it was only within the last year that it closed (due to raised rents, go figure). The plan was for HB&P to relocate to a highly popular spot in Burbank for themed boutiques, certainly one that would have been well-suited to Caidin’s years of hard work and skilled curation of motion-picture themed collectibles. As a woman who has grown up in this city and watched as places like Book City, C.C. Brown’s and other signature Hollywood Blvd landmarks disappear, this was sad. But I was also excited for their new future since I believed in the “Caidin Touch.”

If you watched Eric at a Convention or at a Q&A, if you had him hand you a flyer for a Kiddee Matinee at the New Beverly or any of the umpteen thousand projects that he did aside from running that shopyou would see something that we are lacking in 2015: THE ULTIMATE SHOWMAN.

Eric in his “milieu” at a convention! Always on & always “on it”!

He didn’t do a little bit of everything, he did a LOT of everything. And he knew about everything. While kids need google now and barely anyone remembers using real encyclopedias or card catalogs, Eric Caidin was a walking encyclopedia. And not just on horror films or exploitation- but on all kinds of cinema/pop culture. And on wrestling?? Expert!! And I. Love. Wrestling. Eric and I had so many conversations about the squared circle. In fact, almost every time I saw him- New Beverly, Noir City, running into him at random film screening- if there was some random wrestling thing (mainly Mexican Wrestling, but a good deal of other stuff too) that he was involved in, he would tell me about it and ask me if I wanted to go. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and I hate that it is, but I am sure as hell sorry that I never watched wrestling with Mr. Eric Caidin.

A favorite personal Eric Story:

Many years ago, I’m down at Comic Con to present on a panel. As usual, I go by the Hollywood Book & Poster table to say hello and chill out and have some laughs with Eric. The day goes on, and Caidin says:

“Hey- you wanna go to Mexico with me tonight and get some wrestling masks and go to a match?”

UM, OBVIOUSLY. So the hall closes, we get into a van, park at the border, get a cab into Mexico. The match was a bust, we spent about an hour driving around TJ with Eric, laughing and listening to him talk to the cabbie, trying to figure out where there might be some Lucha. There was none. We went to a stadium and there were some guys outside who talked to us, told us there was a bullfight? No lucha. We got back in the cab. We returned to the main drag.

“Oh well. So much for that. Got this GREAT place to eat though.” So Eric Caidin took us to a place called “Tacos Not Drugs.” Still the best molé I have ever eaten. I don’t know what happened to the pictures that we took, which is sad. They had a “Tacos Not Drugs” stand-up with places for you to put your face. What a night.

But Eric was a Los Angeles Film Community Raconteur, in the very best sense of the word. Every time I saw him at a film event, I was overjoyed at being in his presence and at getting to bask in his experience and knowledge. Because he was one-of-a-kind and he genuinely loved film.  I spent a few hours at the final party of the Noir City party in 2014 listening to him tell me great stories that just made my jaw drop. And I just kept hugging him and asking him: “How do you even exist? Are you writing these things down? These stories are so fantastic?” And he just shrugged and told me another, while patting his fabulous film-related tie. Another thing- I loved Eric Caidin’s ties. NO ONE COULD EVER ROCK THAT THREE STOOGES TIE LIKE CAIDIN. And no one should ever try. End. Of. Story.

This tie was the best ever. No one could wear this like Caidin.

We joked about gangster pix and decided to try to take a gangster picture together that night. It didn’t quite work, but we had such a great time.

Eric Caidin- the bandit! With another AMAZING Three Stooges tie!

My Film Friend ❤

I suppose when you hear of someone close to you dying you need to process it in certain ways, right? I want to remember the times that I had with him and our fabulous personal relationship, but that was personal.

No one reading this will know the singular joy I felt when I saw him at festivals or events. And I don’t get to do that ever again. That’s fucking painful. He gave great hugs. I like good hugs.

I always brightened because I recognized a Fellow Traveler. And by that I mean someone who engaged in the world of cinema for the Right Reason (and yes, there is One Right Reason): because you love and enjoy it and it makes you happy. It entertains you.

Many people knew Eric without “knowing” Eric. He was one of the founders of the Grindhouse Cinema screening series at the New Beverly Theater where he would show up, always wearing that baseball cap and that jacket that he loved (which was probably one of the 10 ugliest pieces of clothing that has ever been invented), and introduced so many forgotten film titles with Brian Quinn. This much-loved film series still continues and was an education for many cinephiles over the years. Before there was Cinefamily and their cult-screenings, before Cinefile even existed with specialized sections, there was Grindhouse night at the New Beverly. The only thing in LA that was comparable was Mondo Video but….that’s a whole other thing and that was a video store.

Grindhouse night at the New Beverly was one of the most flavorful and unique things that Los Angeles repertory theater culture has ever had. Sherman Torgan knew that, Michael Torgan recognized it, and it remains there today, albeit in a slightly changed capacity. But Eric Caidin’s influence on the minds and eyes of so many audiences in the Los Angeles area is hard to gauge. It’s expansive. To give you a slight idea, here are a few images from past calendars:

Speaking from a media archiving standpoint, Eric Caidin was an exceptional person. He curated ephemera in a remarkable manner for fans and special interest groups for many years and was a specialist in this area. His masterful ability to engage “lost” Hollywood personalities and recenter them within a space that made them feel special was a gift that not everyone has. Because of his own love, admiration and fandom for the work that he was presenting, he was able to show respect for the materials showcased and the people that he interviewed or who came to his booth during the multitude of conventions that he would attend. Whether it was Rowdy Roddy Piper, Vampira or Ann Robinson, Caidin was a scholar and a gentlemen…albeit in a Monsterpalooza baseball cap most of the time.  But really- who is the arbiter of what scholarly or gentlemanly aesthetics should be, anyway? The man was a rock star and we will always remember him as such.

In 2015, when fandoms seem to be more about the “haters” and which fan item is better than another, Eric Caidin never pursued such folly. Thus his cultural power and ability to gain love from us made him legend. This icon who celebrated media so brightly and spent his life sharing that adoration with others is gone. And that sucks.

Men like Eric Caidin don’t “just happen.” He programmed the works posted above and was completely jazzed about the recent slew of Kiddie Matinees that he had going at the New Beverly. He handed me a flier from one of them and talked excitedly about how I had to come. “All in 35mm! You’ll love it, Ariel. It’ll be a great afternoon!” and then started telling me about the other ones that he was planning.

Eric Caidin was the most joyful Talker I’ve ever met not standing on the ballyway.

Eric Caidin attended the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival this past weekend and passed away after having what I have been told was a lovely meal with some of my other most dear and closest Film Friends. One of the things I have come to cherish about my years with Eric was seeing him at the Festivals- TCM, Noir City, AFI, you name it. We’d dish, talk about what we’d seen, who we thought was good, all the filmy things. It was good to talk to him because there was no ridiculous drama. It was great and I felt like I was talking to an adult. All we talked about was what was important: film content, quality of print, similarity to other films, quality/calibre of performance, things that are so very valuable in a conversation. He would inevitably bring up something I hadn’t heard of. I would inevitably forget it and have to ask him next time what it was that we were talking about the last time we talked. Sometimes he’d remember, sometimes not. But such is life.

Something in me says that “if he was gonna go, at least it was after a fabulous weekend of seeing film noir and Q&As with Norman Lloyd and Jon Polito, and being with loved ones. That’s exactly the way I’d wanna go.” The other part is saying, “dammit, what was the last thing/movie we talked about?” and is terribly sad that there won’t be a “next time” refresher for whatever it was.

Thank you Eric Caidin. I still can’t believe you are gone. This is going to take a while.