Interview: "The Son Of Ghoulardi Lives!"

Cleveland Sun, Written By John Urbancich
October 23rd, 1997


Paul Thomas Anderson is chip off the old creative block

TORONTO -- "Boogie Nights," the fabulously energetic film from 27-year-old Paul Thomas Anderson, ends more than 2 1/2 hours after it begins with two dedications.

One goes to Robert Ridgely, the veteran character actor who plays "The Colonel," a distributor of pornographic films. The other dedication is to network TV-voiceover king Ernie Anderson, the icon better known to Cleveland baby boomers as "Ghoulardi" for his memorable 1963-66 stint as Friday-night host of "Shock Theater" on WJW-TV.

"He made me, you know," Paul Thomas Anderson says about the father who died one day before good friend Ridgely last February. "He had a massive influence on me. I think he had a pretty wonderful and twisted sense of humor. He was very cutting-edge in a lot of the Ghoulardi stuff that he did.