Of course, everyone discovered George Chakiris in West Side Story in which he received the academy award for Best Supporting Actor. Rita Moreno says of George, "There are only two elegant dancers I can think of, Fred Astaire and George."

I had not thought of him to play the part of a Puerto Rican loan shark in for my audio-book Rock Star Rising.

I just didn't make the connection when I first thought about Russ Tamblyn to play the lead in it. This was probably because it was too much of a stretch to dream that big, that it never entered my head. But by chance the two of them appeared at a photo signing convention and then idea clicked.

And if I could pull it off, not only would he be perfect for the part, I'd be making movie history, of a sort, by putting these two actors together for the first time since they both got stabbed and killed below that highway, so many years ago. A sort of resurrection for Riff and Bernardo.

Too much to dream? Probably. Russ got the script to George and, after a weeks wait, he told my agent he would do it.

Out of the blue, I got a call from George saying that he would like to make some changes to the script and wondered how I felt about it. I told him that the overall story was of more concern to me than each individual word, so it would be fine. And of course, I wanted each actor to make the part his own, thusly putting more of them into my project then just showing up and performing what was on the page.

George asked where could meet. I asked him if there were a big five-star hotel near where he lived, as they would always have a comfortable lounge where we could talk with beverages available. He said the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, and we set the time and date.

I got there early to checked out the hotel. The lounge looked like a scene from a movie about Hollywood. It was beautiful with three connecting lounges with a bar in the middle one. Seated on sofas were men and women with laptops and talking over the cell phones about movie deals.

I picked an a comfortable sofa with a chair and table next to it for George to sit in when he arrived. I still remember the husband and wife producing team that sat facing me on the other sofa. They were talking big movie deals and taking to money people on their phones. 

George arrived right on time. He looked just like Bernardo and was definitely in shape as he trains at a gym daily and does dance exercises. We talked about being Greek descendants. His parents coming from Greece and both sets of my grandparents coming from Greece.

We talked about some of his movies like Diamond Head. He said he is still friends with James Darren, who played is brother from that movie. I didn't know then that James Darren would end up in the project. But not through George, but because I was a big fan of Darren's I hired Darren on my own.

Then we went to work on the script. Basically, his changes were more of the editing nature. Condensing longer speeches into more concise dialogue between him and Russ' character, for whom he had most of his scenes with, besides the character of his sister.

At one point, George started to act out his dialogue and from the corner of my eye I noticed people turning and looking at him and then me. Normally, being a shy person, this would have bothered me. But being it was academy award winning George Chakiris that I was working with, it didn't bother me at all. In fact, surrounded all by all those "in" Hollywood types, I felt like that I was "in" with them. But only for a second and then put my mind back on the script.

Two hours later, and after some more movie talk, both George and I were satisfied with his dialogue.

At the recording studio, Russ and George sat facing each other, and did all their twenty or so scenes together. We would record each scene one by one, taking a break between them to analyze and prepare for the next one.

We first ran the scene where Russ' Puerto Rican girlfriend introduces him to her brother, so it was a three-mike set up and we got it in one take, with the actress sounding like Rosie Perez. Then she took a break and Russ and George continued with scenes they had to do alone.

Once in a while they would stop and have to go over what they had agreed to do, and the changes that George had made only with me. I had typed up and copied the changes, which I had ready for both of them if needed, but they preferred to work off their own scripts.

It was great to hear the two of them set up what they would say before the start of each scene. After two hours, their scenes together were done. Next George had to do his remaining scenes with the actress playing his sister. It was great to hear the two of them, in character, argue about what was happening in the story.

When George finished all his scenes, I had Russ back in the booth continuing on with his scenes. I was happy to see that, even though finished, George sat in the back on a sofa with his "sister" and talked and enjoyed the atmosphere. It turned out they were both cat lovers and George told her that he would design a special piece of jewelry for her.

Finally, during a break, George said his farewells. He shook my hand and said, "It was a pleasure working with you." I replied, "I'll always remember The Four Seasons. It was very productive."

After George left, Russ turned to me and said, "You know Paul, these days, George hardly does anything, but after meeting you, he decided to do this."

I replied, "I'm really happy about that." Right then I learned that George had not been 100% sure about doing the project until after our first meeting.

Now as I type this article with a photo of Riff and Bernardo knife fighting on my PC table in front of me, both signed by Russ and George, I still can't believe that I have their performances to share with fans. 

And most of all, they didn't know about the other name actors that would join this project. Rod Taylor was to follow, then Robert Culp recording with James Darren and Kevin McCarthy.