According to Mark Singer's article in The New Yorker, Hopper insists he can't remember getting the letter and, "in any case, [Hopper] never gave Southern a share."
Terry, it seemed, had one bad habit that would be the ruin of him: He didn't much care for paying taxes. By 1970, the IRS came after him, claiming Southern owed more than $100,000 in back taxes. By then, with all his money blown, Terry couldn't even afford to hire an accountant to assist him with the government. If only he had some of that Easy Rider scratch. That might well have saved him.
But the I.R.S. began docking money from his paychecks and royalties, even seizing money from the penny-ante gigs he would take just to stay afloat. Terry's second wife, Gail, began teaching ballet lessons at five bucks a pop to help put food on the table and pay the bills--despite Terry's habit of picking up expensive checks whenever he went out. Josh Friedman recalls that one night in New York, Southern insisted on paying a $200 bill and getting all their cab rides. He wouldn't let his friend's son fork over a cent.
Each day, it seems, Nile is still discovering some studio in L.A. handing over a fraction of Terry's royalty checks to the government. (Terry gets $250 for each televised screening of Strangelove, considerably less every time Easy Rider runs on TV.) It will take years before Nile can account for every cent due his father--and every cent his father owes someone else.
All Nile can do now is wait it out and hope someone will buy the estate and donate it to a library. All he can do is keep spending his own money to fly to L.A. for a meeting with an agent to discuss filming Texas Summer or remaking The Magic Christian or, maybe, Blue Movie, which itself is a tangled mess of legal issues, since Stanley Kubrick might own up to 40 percent of its rights (it was, after all, his idea!). All Nile can do is keep getting temp jobs--working construction, stretching barbed wire on area ranches, anything--and hope his wife and 2-year-old daughter understand how important this is to him.
"I knew that I wanted to be involved with Terry's work, because I feel it's an important body of work," Nile says. "They're wonderful stories. There's this kind of nagging feeling of something wonderful that's neglected--like, say, a beautiful woman who's unmarried. It just doesn't feel right. That's a situation that ought to be corrected."
It is now a few hours after Nile first called Peter Fonda. He decides to try again, and this time gets him on the phone. Fonda is in bed, ready to talk, reminisce...even, Nile says later, sort of apologize. They talk about the old days, Easy Rider, how much Fonda wishes he had known earlier of Terry's financial state. He says he wants to help.
Nile is direct, wanting to know how much Fonda can contribute. Maybe the whole 200 thou?
Fonda says it's late, and he will call again tomorrow. They will talk specifics then. Nile is relieved.
But Fonda doesn't call on Sunday.
Still, Nile waits.
