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Now Cliff Robertson Is A Believer!
By Andre Hinds
From page 12 of the November 1986 issue of Lost Treasure magazine.
Cliff Roberson's involvement with Mel Fisher didn't just start after Mel found the Atocha in the Florida Keys last year. Actually, it began more than 2O years ago.
Robertson was then under contract with Universal Studios, but had enough time between pictures to go into business for himself. One of his projects was a surfboard-making business with Roger and David Sweet
"These two guys had developed a polyurethane surfboard that was fantastic," Robertson said. "I could see that they were going places, so I helped finance them. We called the business Robertson and Sweet.
"One of the stores that carried our boards was Mel's Aqua Shop in Redondo Beach, Calif. That was the first time I met its owner, Mel Fisher."
But Fisher's business wasn't doing too well, and Robertson's acting career was, so they soon parted ways. But Robertson remembers the last time he saw Fisher in California.
"He invited me for coffee one day," Robertson said. "So we got into his pickup. I still remember that pickup. Mel wasn't doing too well and he had this old, beat-up pickup.
"We went for coffee and he started telling me about going to the Florida Keys. He told me there was buried treasure there. Well, I told him it was his mind that was buried.
"He said, no, he was going to dive on some of the ship wrecks there, the Atocha and some others. Although I was into treasure in those days, I was also responsible for a child and a movie contract. I had to tell him no."
For the next two decades, Robertson would mine for gold in the movie lots of California, while Fisher searched for the end of the rainbow deep below the surface of the water around the Florida Keys.
And both found what they were looking for.
Robertson's gold came in the form of an Academy Award for his portrayal of a retarded man turned into a superbrain in the 1968 film Charly.
Fisher's gold didn't come as quickly. Along with his family, including his wife Dec, he spent more than 16 years searching for the sunken treasure of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon that went down in a storm in 1622.
During their years of agonizingly slow, relentless work, the sea yielded silver pieces and other hints of the wreck that enticed them along false trails - and cost the lives of a son and daughter-in-law.
It wasn't until July 20, 1985, while diving off the Marquesas Keys in 55 feet of water, that they found the encrusted remains of the ship and a payload worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Had fate been a little different, Cliff Robertson could have been one of those divers finding the Atocha. It was natural, then, that when a made-for-TV movie was written about Mel Fisher's search for the Atocha, Robertson would be the best choice to play the role of Fisher.
The made-for-TV film, Dreams of Gold: The Mel Fisher Story. is set to air this fall on the CBS Television Network.
"I had followed his career all along," Robertson said. "The good times and the bad times, like when he lost his son and daughter-in-law.
"Mel sent me a script and told CBS he wanted me to play the role. As an actor, I jumped at the chance.
"It would give me a chance to dip into a character I knew was different. Mel Fisher is an FM kind of guy in an AM world. There were some things I knew I could do with that character. He is a delightful character to play."
Of course, one of the hardest parts of playing Mel Fisher would be diving. Although he was already an accomplished diver, Robertson decided to take a refresher course.
"I also do a lot of flying," Robertson said. "I fly both planes and gliders. I find it is best to try to stay on top of new things."
Acting underwater was a whole new thing for him, though.
"Well, your words tend to get a little garbled underwater," he said. "But the hard part is directing. There are so many things happening and so many things that slow you up.
"But we had a great underwater director - Nick Caloyianis. He was terrific. He had dove on the Andrea Doria and had done some work for National Geographic.
"He knew what he was doing. He told us exactly what he wanted us to do. I wish directors could direct on land the way he does in the water. I just can't say enough about him."
The movie producers didn't choose the Atocha site for filming, though. They picked the Virgin Islands instead.
"I'm not really sure why they chose the Virgin Islands," Robertson said. "I suppose part of it was the visibility factor.
"The waters were clearer there than when I recently went to the Atocha site. Of course, there might have been budgetary considerations."
Of all the hazards that could be involved in the filming of the Mel Fisher story, Robertson said the filming was rather smooth.
"The biggest hazard was getting the actors cranked up in the morning," he said. "But we did all - well, almost all - of the diving ourselves.
"There was a diving medical officer helping us with the diving. We called him 'Doc.' He was there, in the water, every day. We all got our diving certiticates during filming.
"The only time we used doubles in filming was when we were on surface doing dialogue. And that was only to speed up things a bit."
Dr. William ("Doc") Schane is a St. Croix resident who operates an underwater habitat where scientists live for a week at a time on the ocean floor. He supervised the entire diving program on the set of Dreams of Gold.
Spending six full days and about 40 hours doing classroom and underwater work, Schane's "pupils" - including Robertson and co-star Loretta Swit were taken on five dives before being certitied.
Among the maneuvers they learned were how to remove mask and gear at the bottom, swim a short distance without them and do various maneuvers with a diving buddy. When the time came for them to swim before the cameras, there were about 20 other diving personnel in the water, including safety divers, cameramen, extras and doubles.
But unlike the dives taken by the divers of Treasure Salvors, there was little excitement on the set of Dreams of Gold, according to Schane.
"I'm trying to run a dull operation," Schane said during filming. "The last thing I want to see is 'excitement."'
Now that he's had a taste of the excitement of diving for treasure, Robertson has been doing some of his own.
"This has been a particularly exciting week," he said. "We've been diving right off the Atocha site for emeralds.
"They had been getting some pretty low-grade emeralds, but this week we got some high grade stones -- between 5 and 10 carat.
"I really do enjoy it. I'll probably do some more diving in Florida, where my son lives, and some back home in Lajolla, Calif."
Best of all, the movie gave Robertson a chance to have a reunion with his old pal, Mel Fisher.
"When we finished shooting, Mel told me about this unopened box he had found at the Atocha site," Robertson said. "He wasn't sure what was in it, but he was going to reveal its contents on the CBS Morning News."
The live telecast was scheduled for May 6, not long after the disappointing two-hour special on Al Capone's secret vaults, which were found to be empty.
Robertson told the TV audience before opening the Atocha box, "I hope there's not a note from Al Capone saying 'Better luck next time."'
But there was treasure in the 4- by 3-inch wooden box -- five gleaming gold chains and 24 brine-blackened silver pieces of eight. The five chains weighed three pounds and were worth $250,000.