> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Recycling leads to cinema - URL: https://www.smdp.com/recycling-leads-to-cinema/ - Published: 2007-06-11T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T01:02:08.000Z - Author: Melody Hanatani - Tags: Business, Montana, #archive-import, Homeless *Creative fund raising backs movie project* MONTANA AVENUE It was a few corrupt business deals and a run-in with a particularly bad dude that brought Blu de Golyer all the way from Manchester, England to Los Angeles, a safe haven thousands of miles away. He was a young man who left behind a fortune in a successful entertainment/bartending venture in England and eventually became a screenwriter in Santa Monica. Now, he’s trying to collect $75,000 worth in recycled cans and bottles to finance a documentary about a man who touched his life. The story begins with a kid with a sense of adventure — de Golyer was fresh out of high school when he embarked on a journey to a small town of Rhyl, Wales after leaving the United States. Unsure of how and where to earn a living, de Golyer waltzed into a local bar by the name of Scruples, seeing a feast for his eyes — flair bartending. Intrigued, de Golyer immediately approached the owner about a job bartending. Agreeing to conduct an interview, the owner, Richard Greenwood, asked de Golyer to demonstrate his abilities in flair bartending with a bottle of Johnny Walker. “I literally threw it over my shoulder not thinking I was supposed to catch the thing,” de Golyer said. The bottle shattered against the back wall, and an amused Greenwood hired de Golyer on the spot with the task of cleaning up the bottles. Calling himself a man with a “high ego expectation,” de Golyer learned the skills of flair bartending within two months, tired of picking up bottles. He would move up farther than he could ever imagine, traveling around the world with Greenwood, advising in designing bars and training people in flair bartending. By the time de Golyer was 20 years old, he was commanding a salary in the six figures range, “money a 20-year-old shouldn’t be making,” he said. After four years, the honeymoon was over. A few bad business dealings led to a fight at a local bar. A 24-year-old de Golyer was sitting in a bar when he was badly beaten up for a business deal gone awry. Angry and seeing red, de Golyer retaliated, paying back the favor, this time with a baseball bat. Greenwood and de Golyer agreed, it was time to leave. They threw out names, New York; Johannesburg, before settling on Los Angeles. The goal? To get as far away from England as possible. “We sacrificed everything and came here to Los Angeles,” de Golyer said. “(Ironically), here I live in Santa Monica with the one of the largest British expatriate (populations).” Greenwood eventually moved back to England after learning of his girlfriend’s pregnancy. But for de Golyer, used to living the high life and staying in $500 a night hotels, his remaining $36,000 savings was nearly wiped out after three months. “I didn’t know how to do anything other than the bar business,” de Golyer said. “I came here interviewing and throwing bottles, but they just sit there and look at you and say, ‘but can you pour a drink?’” At 24 years old, de Golyer had no idea what to do for a career. One afternoon, de Golyer was sitting at a coffee shop, smoking and contemplating the next big venture in his life, when he spotted it immediately. Two men were sitting nearby intently engaged in their laptop computers. Curious, de Golyer asks the men what they are doing. They quickly shut their laptops, replying that they were writing a screenplay. “What’s a screenplay?” de Golyer asks, only to be met with a strange glance. Intrigued once again, de Golyer headed to a store that sold old screenplays, purchasing one from the 1978 Academy Award winner “The Deer Hunter.” It was through reading “The Deer Hunter” that de Golyer learned how to write. Through a series of chance meetings, de Golyer little by little made his way into the screenwriting world, meeting the daughter of Richard Blodgett, who co-wrote the 1989 movie “Turner & Hooch,” at her birthday party, which he crashed. He later met director Penny Marshall, receiving her business card at a benefit. He ultimately became a ghostwriter for Blodgett and started to work steadily, writing screenplays for Korean movies. And then, in the midst of researching for a ghostwriting project for Blodgett four years ago, he stumbled into the topic of his current documentary project. De Golyer was roaming around near the 405 overpass on Wilshire Boulevard when he first saw a homeless man by the name of Noah, carting a bicycle wagon filled with cans. Noah was a man who was never seen begging, never doing drugs and never smoking. He seemed content with who he was, very focused on collecting cans, de Golyer said. Three months after they first met, Noah started talking to de Golyer. “He has this raspy voice, this chain-smoked muffler as if he’s been smoking for thirty years,” de Golyer said. Little by little, de Golyer learned about the life of this once mysterious homeless man, a Vietnam veteran. As time passed, de Golyer began to realize that Noah had little time left to live. “I’m thinking to myself, this guy is going to die soon,” de Golyer said. “What testament do you have in life?” One day, de Golyer presents that very question to Noah, about his goals and wishes and dreams. Noah started speaking about discarded boats washing up on Playa del Rey and how he wanted to fix one up and sail it away to Costa Rica. De Golyer thought Noah was losing his mind. A week later, while visiting a friend in Redondo Beach, de Golyer saw a number of discarded boats stored by the county. One month later, de Golyer went back to see Noah, but he was gone. “I’ve never heard from him again.” To carry on the legacy of de Golyer, he decided to create a documentary titled “Noah’s Ark, a look at the story of a man who spent 30 years on the streets, a man who had a family and paid service to a country that later paid a disservice in return, de Golyer said. But after spending three years on the screenplay, de Golyer found it was difficult to find someone to back the project financially. “I thought, wait a minute, I could fund this the traditional way of getting doors slammed on my face or I could turn it into a social experiment,” de Golyer said. What a better way to fund the project than by collecting cans and bottles. De Golyer has placed recycling bins at 18 businesses in Santa Monica. Since February of this year, he has collected almost $16,000, or more than 280,000 cans and bottles. His goal is to collect 1.5 million cans and bottles, for an estimated $75,000, to finance the project. “It’s one thing to make a movie, but it’s another thing to make a legacy, to make something better,” de Golyer said. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 11, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061107.pdf?ref=smdp.com)