How did Easy Rider end up at Columbia?
“That was through this guy, Bert Schneider, who made a deal for the distribution rights. He wasn’t involved during the production. He made some kind of deal with Dennis and Peter. Peter was the nominal producer. So that was the situation when they came by to my place in New York. They said we want you to write this and we’re going to defer any money in exchange for splitting ten per cent three ways. For a variety of complicated business reasons, I wasn’t in a position where I could defer so they said you can get $350 a week for 10 weeks in lieu of that. So I had to do it that way. So I never had a piece of it which turned out to be very lucrative. “Anyway, so I had the story. They told me the basic notion of two guys who were fed up with the rat race and commercialization of America. They wanted to split. So in order to get out of it, they’re going to make this score and then go to Galveston or Key West and buy a boat and take off. The story would involve a cross country trip and the v
