What the Hell Happened to Cindy Morgan?

https://lebeauleblog.com/2020/01/21/what-the-hell-happened-to-cindy-morgan/

You may not know Cindy Morgan by name, but odds are you are familiar with at least one of her movies. In the early eighties, Morgan delivered an impressive one-two punch by appearing in Caddyshack and Tron. Those two movies more or less comprise her filmography. Morgan continued to work in television but her movie career stalled almost immediately.

What the hell happened?

Two years after Caddyshack, Morgan returned to the big screen in Disney’s computer-animated science-fiction adventure, Tron. The movie was hailed for its revolutionary special effects but critics were less enthusiastic about the narrative. Writer-director Steven Lisberger’s script is filled with technobabble that doesn’t necessarily make sense.

“I had no idea what I was talking about half the time. I’d walk up to Steven and say, ‘If I don’t know what I’m talking about how will the audience know?’ You never win an argument when you say ‘this line is stupid’ to the director – who also happens to be the writer.”

Tron starred Jeff Bridges as a video game engineer who enters a computer-generated world populated by sentient programs. Bruce Boxleitner portrayed Bridges’ partner in the real world and a heroic program in the computer world. Morgan also played two characters. In the real world, she portrayed Boxleitner’s co-worker and girlfriend and in the virtual world she was an ally of Tron.

The challenges on Tron were more technical than personal. Morgan has praised Lisberger as “a great guy who knew what he was doing.” To get the movie’s unique visual style, Tron was filmed in black and white on a blacked-out studio set.

“Bruce, Jeff and I would run from point A to point B and say our lines. And since you couldn’t put down a mark because it was all black you had to train yourself to run into the scene and hit it dead on. It was tightly choreographed. The reality they found was in each other’s eyes because there was nothing there!”

Within the halls of Disney, Tron was viewed with skepticism. The movie was brought to the studio as an independent production which would be released by Disney. Lisberger tried to recruit help from Disney artists and animators, but no one was interested. They saw Tron as a threat. If the movie had been a big hit, it could open the door to other projects developed by outsiders.

Originally, the movie was scheduled for a Christmas release. But when Disney board chairman Card Walker discovered that rival animator Don Bluth was releasing The Secret of NIMH during the summer, he moved up Tron‘s release date to compete. The summer of 1982 proved to be a competitive market with E.T. dominating the box office.

With mixed critical reception, Tron was a box office disappointment if not an outright flop. It opened in fourth place trailing E.T., a rerelease of Bambi (that had to hurt) and Rocky III. Tron ended the year with a domestic gross of $33 million dollars at a cost of $17 million.

Despite its lackluster performance, Tron developed a small but devoted fan following. Decades after disappointing Disney, Tron would return.