Part 3 — The Later Years

 Ken Tipton was born in El Paso, Texas in 1952. In 1954, after Ken's step-father was discharged from the Air Force, he moved them to Columbia, MO to attend the University of Missouri "Mizzou” on the GI Bill. At age 4 Ken began his life-long journey as an entrepreneur when he learned that entertainment could provide an income. Ken’s mother made a cute Tiger costume for him complete with a tail and “Tiger Cub” across the chest in support of the Mizzou Tigers football team. On game days, Ken would sing the Tiger fight song as students walked to the stadium past his on-campus apartment that used to be barracks for the military in World War II. Ken would sing his heart out as he marched back and forth high-stepping and wielding a butterfly net handle like the drum major that lead the pep club band. All manner of coins were tossed which Ken and his mom would catch in their butterfly nets. The extra money supplemented his family's income. In 1958, the family moved to St. Charles, MO, located 23 miles from downtown St. Louis on the western bank of the Missouri River.

As Ken grew up, his entrepreneurial experience continued. He sold Mason Shoes, kitchen pots and pans sets, and various greeting cards door to door as well as just about anything else advertised in the back of the Boy Scout magazine called “Boys Life”. A paper route followed, along with numerous retail and restaurant jobs. In the winter he would shovel snow from driveways and in the summer he would cut people’s grass, pick strawberries at local farms, and scoop up lost golf balls at area courses with ponds using googles and a butterfly net.

After high school, Ken attended the University of Missouri before enlisting in the Air Force. Ken had 3 years of high school Air Force ROTC and was the Commander his senior year. Because of his prior ROTC experience he was given his first stripe before starting Basic Training. Ken was trained as an airborne electronic navigation specialist with a secret clearance due to his expertise with the IFF Mode-4 system (Identification Friend or Foe). His job allowed Ken to travel the world in a military airlift squadron. After his tour in the Air Force ended, he returned to St. Louis to work for IBM as a computer engineer.

Business Man

Ken has an unstoppable entrepreneurial spirit. While still employed at IBM he turned his love of flying into an aerial advertising company called HIGH SIGNS that used a powered hang-glider. St. Louis mega-realtor, Gordon Gundaker, was Ken’s best customer. Gordon hired Ken to fly over all Mizzou football games no matter where they were played with the words GUNDAKER REALTY in black tape on the massive wings. Many times Ken could not fly due to weather but was paid regardless. Ken’s unusual looking ultralight aircraft would wow the crowds by flying low and slow. He would then turn the craft into the wind and expertly trim the controls just right to allow him to actually freeze in midair. Fifty to seventy-five thousand spectators would all watch Ken’s advertising UFO sit motionless in the blue sky and would cheer and wave as Ken waved his Tiger flags with both hands. Ken and his wife Darlene now fly ultralight trikes and gyrocopters.

Ken is also a big-time movie geek and opened VIDEO LIBRARY in 1980 while still working for IBM. VIDEO LIBRARY was the very first VHS-only home videocassette movie rental store in the United States when all the other stores carried only Beta-max home videos. Choosing VHS over Beta looked like the worst possible choice because Ken had lots of interest but no customers because they all had Beta VCRs (Video Cassette Recorders). On the verge of going out of business and losing all the money originally set aside for a new home, Ken’s business was saved by none other than rock and roll legend Chuck Berry. Chuck had a compound 26 miles west of St. Charles and had just bought a brand new $1900 VHS VCR. Ken’s store in St. Charles, MO was the only VHS video store around and it happened to be on the way to Chuck’s home at “Berrytown” in Wentzville, MO. Mr. Berry rented 30 movies for 30 days and would come back month after month. Thankfully, Ken stayed in business and was rewarded when hundreds of people got new VHS VCRs that Christmas. (In Ken’s movie, “Heart of the Beholder”, Chuck Berry was played by the star of “CANDYMAN”, Tony Todd.)

With hard work, VIDEO LIBRARY grew into a multi-million-dollar company comprised of video stores, franchises, and stand-alone robotic video kiosks called “Movie Machines”. The Movie Machines were the first ever videocassette vending machines and were invented by Ken and his partners. The kiosks offered video movie rentals 24/7 with no employees and were sold in many states. Ken added pizza operations to his stores with pick-up and delivery as well as video delivery under his Movies-to-Go service. Decades before Uber Eats, Door Dash, or Grub Hub, Ken added pickup and delivery of food from local restaurants and grocery stores.

Other businesses Ken owned were PAINTBALL WARGAMES and BUSHWACKERS PAINTBALL which were very popular with corporations who used the game as a team building exercise. They operated out of the now closed St. Charles Speedway and in Wentzville, MO where they were constantly booked because the next nearest paintball field was over 70 miles away in Illinois.

Family

Ken’s lost his multi-million dollar video chain, Movie Machines, and paintball parks, after he was bankrupted and divorced because he refused to buckle to Rev. Donald Wildmon’s religious censorship group called the National Federation for Decency. The NFD demanded that Ken, and all video stores, remove Martin Scorsese’s controversial film “The Last Temptation of Christ” from their shelves. Ken fought hard against the censorship, winning two court cases, but still lost everything. See the next section HOLLYWOOD for more details.

In 1993 St. Louis experienced the “flood of the century”. As Ken had done many times in the past, he volunteered to help build sand-bag flood walls. His kids wanted to help also but they were too young. So, Ken set up an entrepreneurial project for them building flood souvenirs to be given to the flood volunteers. A CNN reporter saw Ken and his kids collecting Missouri River flood water in small glass jars and did a news report which garnered world-wide attention.

The flood souvenirs were given personally to Vice President Al Gore and the Governor of Missouri, Mel Carnahan, when they toured the flood damage. Due to the media exposure, orders for the flood souvenirs came in from around the world and the kids began mass production. Over a six-month period they sold and shipped, from Ken’s two-bedroom apartment, over 1300 souvenirs at $19.95 each. After the flood and publicity died down, the kids were allowed to keep 100 dollars each and the rest of the money was split between the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. The CNN reporter also referred Ken to a movie producer who optioned Ken's life story for a TV movie.

Hollywood

What lead Ken to Hollywood was the destruction of his business and family when he refused to remove Martin Scorsese’s controversial film, “The Last Temptation of Christ", from his video chain. He was targeted because he was the President of the St. Louis Video Dealers Association as well as one of the founders of the national VSDA - Video Software Dealers Association. Ken’s were also the ONLY video stores in St. Louis to offer the controversial movie. A religious fundamentalist group run by Rev. Donald Wildmon and his National Federation for Decency blackmailed the Prosecuting Attorney into ruining Ken, and his family endured constant harassment and death threats. One devilish bit of harassment was when thousands of magazine subscriptions were filled out by the religious fanatics using Ken’s name and address. Although Ken won two court cases, the legal fees and negative publicity bankrupted Ken's business and family, which eventually lead to his divorce.

Ken was very active in high school theater productions as well as community theater. He worked on almost every movie or TV show shot in St. Louis as a background extra, such as “Escape from New York” which was his first experience working on a feature film.

1986 - Since Ken owned the largest chain of video stores in St. Louis at that time, the St. Louis video distributor invited him and many of his employees to work as background extras in the John Hughes movie, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" with Steve Martin and John Candy. Ken was heavyset so they asked him to be John Candy's stand-in for the day. Ken was thrilled until he found out he wouldn't actually meet John Candy.

As Candy’s stand-in, Ken was used to help set up the lighting and camera focus. Then John would come out of his trailer, shoot the scene, and go back to his trailer. On a shooting break Ken went to John's trailer and knocked. John said to come in and a strange, but fun, conversation took place. Years later Ken was trying to earn his Screen Actors Guild Card and hoped to contact John for advice. He tried going through John’s agent, manager, and publicist but no letters or phone calls were returned. He then asked his first mentor, Dawn Steel, for help since she produced John’s movie “Cool Runnings”. Dawn could have called John herself but she wanted Ken to work for it. She said that if you really need to contact someone and normal channels didn’t work, then do deep research on the person and find a back door.

Ken did his research on John Candy and found out that he was part owner of the Toronto Argonauts football team with hockey great Wayne Gretzky. Wayne once played for the St. Louis Blues hockey team and he is married to actress Janet Jones who was from Bridgetown, MO where Ken once had one of his Video Library stores. Janet’s mom was a former customer and even brought Janet in to sign autographs when she was in the movies “The Flamingo Kid” and “A Chorus Line”. So Ken wrote a letter to Janet’s mom who gave it to Janet who gave it to Wayne who gave it to John. John, being the fantastically nice guy that he was, called Ken and agreed to mentor him in earning his SAG card.

John told Ken to go to the Los Angeles film office and look for permits on movie shoots whose locations were as far away from the city as possible, then go to the shooting location and tell the 1st assistant director that he was trying to earn his SAG card and that John Candy was his mentor. Being far from L.A. the shoot might have an opening available if a booked background extra failed to show up to work.

Ken found the perfect shoot in the movie “The Flintstones”. The 1st AD was very cool but there just weren’t any openings. Day after day Ken would show up but there was never a job for him. So, he created one by washing the dusty car windows in the parking area at the quarry where the Bedrock set was built. Finally, an opening came up and Ken earned his SAG card on the day John Candy died. It took some time to process his SAG card, and when he was fully in the acting union the very first job Ken got as a professional actor was doing photo-double insert shots for John on the movie Candy died on, “Wagons East”. When perseverance and opportunity meet, it’s called Karma.

The one thing that John Candy asked of Ken is that he help others earn their SAG card. Ken has helped many actors earn their SAG cards and five of them got their card on his directorial debut based on his family’s true story, “Heart of the Beholder”.

Heart of the Beholder

Ken moved to Los Angeles in 1993 and lived with his brother while helping the producer who optioned his family’s story. After over a year, his producer failed to get any interest in Ken’s movie because it was too controversial and sure to piss off the religious right. Getting any movie made is minor miracle and almost impossible as an independent project with no studio support. After dozens of producers failed to get a production deal, HBO finally put Ken’s story on their development slate only to have it knocked off when there was a change in management. It was time for a new mentor.

Ken’s first mentor was Dawn Steel, the first woman to run a major movie studio. Ken and his wife Darlene have mentored many young people, and Dawn’s book, “They Can Kill You, But They Can’t Eat You”, is required reading for every new mentee. As mentioned before, John Candy became his second mentor.

Ken’s third mentor was recommended by the National Coalition Against Censorship, who had assisted Ken when religious zealots forced Ken out of the video business. One of the NCAC’s board members was Academy-Award winning director Robert Wise. Mr. Wise directed movies such as “The Sound of Music”, “West Side Story”, the first “Star Trek” movie and many more. Wise invited Ken to his Beverly Hills office to talk and Ken made an impression right away when he pointed to the picture on the wall of the robot from the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and said, “Gort, klaatu barada nikto”. Mr. Wise and his secretary laughed because people have been quoting that phrase wrong for decades. Ken was the first to get it right. Others forgot to say “Gort” first which gets the robot’s attention much like our “Alexa” devices used today.

Mr. Wise read Ken’s screenplay, which was in very bad shape. After six months of rewrites, Mr. Wise agreed that it was ready to produce. Then he added something that shocked Ken: Wise was adamant that Ken direct his own movie because if anyone else did and it turned out badly, it would rip Ken’s heart out. Also, if the movie was successful then any doors that would be opened should be for Ken and not someone else.

Ken was still getting work in commercials and industrial films as well as SAG background extra and stand-in work. On every shoot he would ask the 1st AD to ask the director if Ken could sit out of the way and watch how to direct. All said no except Wes Craven on the movie “Vampire in Brooklyn” and Harold Ramis on “Stuart Saves His Family”. Ramis said yes because John Candy had been Ken’s mentor.

For 5 days Ken was allowed to sit behind Ramis and take notes. Every so often Harold would turn around and ask Ken if he had any questions. Ramis would also talk to Ken about movies in general because they were both film geeks. Harold Ramis’s personality and generosity were so much larger than life. Ken learned more from Ramis in those 5 days then he would have learned in any film school.

Ramis said Ken could stay as long as he wanted, but Ken had to leave after 5 days because he booked a Coors commercial as a principal actor. Harold Ramis was a great teacher and just a great person in general. The world lost a true warm-hearted and talented gentleman when he passed. Ken will never forget his kindness and has helped many others as Ramis would have wanted him to.

After Ken directed a few short films, Mr. Wise felt he was ready to pursue financing and production. Meetings with studio development executives, set up with the help of Mr. Wise, were a waste of time. These twenty-something execs couldn’t afford to take a risk on a movie that would definitely piss off the religious right. After a year of failed pitch meetings Mr. Wise proposed a new approach to showcase Ken’s creativity and hopefully find a way to get his movie made. Click Here to see what Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise advised Ken to do.

NOTE: Sadly, Mr. Wise died on the day “Heart of the Beholder” won its fifth Best Feature Film award in a row at the Big Bear Film Festival. Coincidentally, Ken’s Big Bear Best Feature film award was presented to him by cinematographer and director, William Fraker, and also by Richard Moll who Ken had worked with on “The Flintstones”. Moll was proud to see that one of his brother Flintstones’ “Water Buffalos” had become a successful feature film director. HOTB had previously won four back-to-back Best Feature film awards in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and St. Louis.

The religious group that Ken’s movie was about started coming to film festivals where Ken’s movie was featured. HOTB took second place instead of Best Feature in five other film festivals due to their negative votes they would cast after only watching the first scene about the funeral of a college student because he was gay.

In 2000 Ken made his living doing commercials and industrial films until a commercial strike was called by the Screen Actors Guild. To make a living Ken found work as a bodyguard and limo driver until he was fired for pitching his family’s movie to A-list movie star Renee Zellweger. TO BE CLEAR: Zellweger DID NOT want Ken fired. What happened was this:

March 12, 2000 was the day of the SAG awards where Renee’s boyfriend, Jim Carrey, was up for Best Actor for the movie “Man on the Moon”. Renee was headed to England to work on “Bridget Jones”. On the ride to LAX Renee was very nice. She and Ken talked about their home state of Texas and how Carrey was hoping to win Best Actor at the SAG awards. Ken stopped the limo at Virgin Airlines and assisted the limo company’s “meet and greeter” with Renee’s luggage, while Renee stayed in the limo listening to the bad news that Carrey had lost out to Kevin Spacey.

The LAX cops are notorious for ticketing anyone parked too long in the unloading area and one had just pulled up. Before Ken dealt with the cop he handed a packet to the limo greeter containing a synopsis of his family’s true story and his business card asking permission to pitch his family’s story to Renee’s agent or manager. He asked the greeter to turned down any tip Renee may offer to Ken and show her the business card with Ken’s request. That is NOT what the greeter did. Instead, he unzipped one of Renee’s pieces of luggage and placed the business card and packet on top of her clothes. The next day, Ken was fired.

Ken took responsibility for the incident and didn’t mention to the limo company that the airport greeter had violated Renee’s personal space, because the fact was that Ken was wrong for breaking the company’s rules about soliciting customers. The dispatcher that took the call about the breach of Renee’s personal space said that a man called about the infraction. He was very polite and he sounded like Jim Carrey, but he never said who he was. The caller asked only that Ken be warned about the personal intrusion of Renee’s luggage. Regardless, the limo company ignored the request to give Ken only a warning and fired him. At the time, losing the limo job hurt Ken badly because he had an ex-wife and four kids back in St. Louis and his current roommate was terminally ill. However, it was Karma being very creative in Ken’s firing and it turned out to be the best thing that could possibly happen to Ken. His firing lead to him to being the writer/director of his family’s movie as well as finding his true life partner.

An indie film website called Film Threat wrote a story called “How to NOT Make it in Hollywood” which was read by Darlene Lieblich. Darlene was an executive at Fox television in the program standards and practices, also known as the network TV censor. As a censor, she had to deal with complaints about programming on Fox from far-right religious groups, including the same one who ruined Ken’s video business in St. Louis, “The National Federation for Decency”, run by Rev. Donald Wildmon. Darlene had dealt with Wildmon before when she was at CBS. Wildmon accused CBS of promoting drug abuse because “Mighty Mouse” was shown sniffing a flower his girlfriend gave him with a look of euphoria on his face. CBS buckled and Darlene quit, moving to the newly-formed Fox Broadcasting Company. While she was a professional TV censor, she was and remains adamantly against censorship by special interest groups, especially by religious zealots.

After reading about Ken’s firing and how he was pitching his family’s story about religious censorship, Darlene went to his website and read the screenplay. The story was riveting and even though she had never produced a movie before, she optioned Ken’s life rights. Again, after many ups and downs, Darlene and Ken were able to crowdfund his movie and Ken was allowed to direct it on a budget of $500K and an 18-day shooting schedule. Their movie, “Heart of the Beholder”, won 5 back-to-back Best Feature Film awards and is available on Netflix and at Amazon.com.

It was also the feature film debut of Chloe Grace Moretz who later starred in “Kick-Ass” with Nicholas Gage and “Kick-Ass 2” with Jim Carrey.

When Darlene optioned Ken’s life rights and received the screenplay for “Heart of the Beholder”, he also gave her a book written in 1988 about his sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts. All he asked was that the book would not be released until after his death due to the monumental shame and guilt Ken carried for things he did in the Boy Scout sex club, and Darlene agreed. However, once the Boy Scouts declared bankruptcy with over 82,000 child sex abuse claims, Darlene was able to persuade Ken to release the book.

Tom Pollock - Ken’s Last Mentor

Ken had met Mr. Pollock at the American Film Institute (AFI) where he and his son, Paul, had volunteered to be in student film productions. At that time Ken had no idea that Tom had been the head of MCA/Universal in the 1980s and was the person who had green-lit Martin Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ” which ruined Ken’s family and video business. Coincidentally, Pollock was also the studio head who green-lit the movie “The Flintstones” which Ken earned his SAG card on.

While Pollock was at the helm of Universal, the studio earned seven Academy Award Best Picture Nominations, including “Schindler's List”, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1993. Other Best Picture nominees included “Field of Dreams”, “Born on the Fourth of July”, “Scent of a Woman”, “In the Name of the Father”, “Apollo 13” and “Babe”. Pollock was responsible for bringing numerous creative talents to the studio including Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, Ivan Reitman, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, George Miller, Jon Avnet, Martin Brest, Rob Cohen, Phil Alden Robinson, Jim Sheridan, Larry Gordon and James Cameron.

Ken’s producer in 2000 (and now his wife of 18 years) was former TV executive Darlene Lieblich, who is a member of the Red Hat Society and her best friend is Ellen Benjamin. Ellen worked for Pollock from his days as the head of AFI, the American Film Institute, as well as being his Executive Assistant at his powerful Hollywood law firm and later when Tom became the head of MCA/Universal Pictures. Ellen tells how Tom was so protective he had Universal Studios security escort her to work and home due to the religious backlash over “The Last Temptation of Christ”. Ellen suggested that Darlene and Ken contact Tom for mentorship and Pollock agreed to meet them in Montecito where he had moved to work with Ivan Reitman. Tom was happy to be their mentor but made it very clear he thought they had no chance whatsoever raising funding by traditional sources such as studios, and they would have to find an angel or some other way to fund the movie.

Ken and Darlene are good friends with Susan Sackett who was the long-time assistant to Star Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry. Susan later retired to become President of the Phoenix Humanist Society, which is a free thought organization that fights against religious censorship and intolerance. Ken and Darlene traveled back and forth across the country pitching their movie to freethinkers and were finally successful in crowdfunding the $500K budget of “Heart of the Beholder”. Darlene’s mother died on the last day of shooting the movie, and she paid back every penny put into the movie with a 66% return on their original donation. Why return donations? Because it was simply the right thing to do. CLICK for letters from people who put money into “Heart of the Beholder”.

When Ken and Darlene finally got their movie “Heart of the Beholder” made, Pollock came through by referring an up-and-coming editor who was working with Ivan and Jason Reitman named Dana Glauberman. On a budget of only $500K and a shooting schedule of 18 days with a first-time writer/director, Ken acknowledges that the editing work Dana did was exceptional, especially considering the low amount she was paid and being forced to use a stone-age AVID editing machine because that’s all they could afford. Ken won’t forget her help and vows to make it up to her.

In January 2019, Ken contacted Mr. Pollock for advice about a national lawsuit Ken was a part of, along with over 82,000 others, against the Boy Scouts of America for past child sex abuse. Tom assisted Ken in filing his child sex abuse claim against the Boy Scouts, and also volunteered to represent Ken during the Boy Scout settlement negotiation. After all, Pollock was responsible for some of the biggest deals in Hollywood, such as the famous deal he made for George Lucas by securing Lucas the merchandising and sequel rights to “Star Wars”. In addition to the Star Wars franchise, Pollock was instrumental in initiating production of the “Indiana Jones” and “Superman” franchises.

Sadly, Mr. Pollock died in August 2020. Ken and Darlene truly appreciated Mr. Pollock’s mentorship and wished that they had Pollock for mentorship many years sooner.

Today

Ken and Darlene were married in 2005 and have continued developing independent movie, TV, and Internet projects such as FosterFolks.com where seniors are matched with families who don’t have grandparents, aunts, or uncles. They have also expanded their entrepreneurial ventures by owning and operating Doody Calls, the #1 Pet Waste Removal company in St. Louis, which Ken manages remotely from their home in Los Angeles.

UPDATE: After 15 years the Tipton’s Doody Calls franchise agreement was not renewed. The Tipton’s closed the Doody Calls corporation and sold their trucks and Customer Data to their lead Field Tech - John Condon. John’s new company is Poop2Scoop.com.

In 2016, Ken and Darlene launched AmazingKarma.com based on their personal philosophy of Karma, defined as the non-religious concept of “what goes around, comes around”. They believe that good Karma comes from simply doing the right thing. Take responsibility by owning your actions, make amends, then move ahead, is the key to a higher quality of life. They hope to help many others as the brand ambassadors of AmazingKarma.com.