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Actor Keir Dullea meets, talks to fans during ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ screening in Park Ridge

As a teenager in the spring of 1968, Wally Symcak saw “2001: A Space Odyssey” no less than five or six times at Park Ridge’s Pickwick Theatre.

“That was the movie to see,” he said. “As a boy in high school, that was the movie everybody was talking about.”

On Sept. 18, Symcak was back at the Pickwick for yet another screening of “2001,” but this time he also got to meet one of the film’s stars, Keir Dullea.

In the lobby of the 90-year-old movie house, Dullea, who plays astronaut David Bowman in the Stanley Kubrick-directed film, signed a copy of the “2001” original soundtrack record album for Symcak as he and other fans lined up to meet the actor and his wife, actress Mia Dillon.

“He’s a central character of this iconic film, and in some ways we know more about his character than we do about him,” said Paul Rauch, who was waiting to have Dullea sign a photograph the two had taken earlier in the day during a special VIP meet-and-greet.

Dullea’s visit to Park Ridge accompanied the launch of the seventh season of local film historian Matthew Hoffman’s Park Ridge Classic Film series at the Pickwick and marked the first time that a major star of the film being screened was a guest. A total of 614 people were in attendance, Hoffman said.

For Rauch and the crowd of other “2001” fans who filled the Pickwick’s main theater, the night was a chance to not only relive a classic sci-fi adventure on the big screen, but to get to know Dullea a bit as well. In addition to meeting with fans, Dullea, dressed casually in a blue blazer, checked shirt and jeans, took part in a Q&A session with author and film historian Raymond Benson, sharing some behind-the-scenes memories of making “2001” and his impressions of Kubrick, who selected him for the role without an audition.

“My first encounter with Stanley was [after] my first night in London,” he said. “The phone rang, I picked it up and a voice said, ‘Is this Mr. Dullea?’ I said, ‘Yes, this is he.’ And the voice said, “Oh, hi. This is Stanley.’ That was my first encounter with Stanley.”

As a person, Kubrick was a “very gentle, quiet man,” Dullea recalled.

“He never raised his voice. He was always open to new ideas,” Dullea added. “I was in terrific awe of him.”

Having not met Kubrick in person until he turned up for filming, Dullea admitted to feeling a bit nervous to be in the acclaimed director’s presence.

“He realized I was a little tense because of being in such awe, so he took me aside and he said, ‘Keir, I think you’re one of the best actors. I just want you to know how lucky I am to have you. He put me at great ease.”

As he has in past interviews, Dullea shared that the on-set voice of Hal 9000 was actually that of the first assistant director, who spoke with a Cockney English accent, very different from Douglas Rain’s gentle cadence that is heard in the film. Dullea also recited a complex line of mission control dialogue that was ultimately cut from the movie, but that he still remembers word-for-word more than 50 years later.

“It was technological gobbledygook,” Dullea said. “It was very difficult for me to memorize. For weeks, when I had a moment, I went over and over and over it. It was like learning a foreign language.”

Benson, meanwhile, shared background with the audience on how “2001” came to be, in part due to Kubrick’s desire to make a science fiction film during a time when such movies were known for being B grade, at best.

“He wanted to do a science fiction film that made you think,” Benson said. At the same time, the director wanted to “present space travel really realistically,” he added.

Without the computer-generated special effects available to filmmakers today, all of the visuals in “2001” were done using models, photography and lighting, Benson said.

“This is the pinnacle of old-school visual effects,” he said.

The movie’s initially poor reviews and audience walk-outs were also addressed, with Dullea crediting the young adults of the time for turning the tide as they started lining up in droves to see the picture. With its release at the height of the 1960s hippie drug culture, the studio created a new poster to appeal to a certain segment of the population, Dullea explained.

“It said, ‘The ultimate trip,'” he dead-panned, generating laughter from the audience.

Hoffman said he enjoyed spending time with Dullea and Dillon during their Park Ridge visit, which included a trip to the Park Ridge Library.

“He really enjoyed Park Ridge,” Hoffman said. “He was impressed with the size of the crowds we had and he absolutely loved the theater. We were giving him the history of the Pickwick while he was in town.”

The next Park Ridge Classic Films screening is set for Oct. 30, when the 1931 films “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” will be shown just in time for Halloween.

jjohnson@chicagotribune.com

Twitter: @Jen_Tribune