Filming on Purple Rain officially began in November of ’83 through late December. Prince portrayed The Kid—a gifted, troubled and paranoid Minneapolis musician who battled rival Morris Day for both stage supremacy at First Avenue and the lustful affections of Apollonia.

Seasoned actors Clarence Williams III and Olga Karlatos, who played the Kid’s dysfunctional parents, were brought in to give the film dramatic legitimacy. A rainbow coalition of local extras was carefully selected to project the utopian look and vibe of Purple Rain for the First Avenue performance sequences.

As for Day, who many critics cited as a true comedic revelation in the film, the Time’s scene-stealing performer was growing increasingly dissatisfied with what he perceived as Prince’s heavy-handed control. He was disturbed by the abrupt firing of Time members Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (Prince had accused the now celebrated production duo of working outside the band after the 1999 tour).
“I think it was kind of a divide and conquer strategy,” Jimmy Jam says. “Prince asked Jellybean Johnson to call Terry to ask him to come back. And Terry said, ‘Well, what about Jam?’ And Jellybean said, ‘Well, he don’t want Jam back . And part of the conversation was the fact they were getting ready to shoot Purple Rain. I told Terry he should go back and do the movie and Terry said, ‘Are you nuts?!!! I ain’t going back.”

Day found it increasingly hard to cope with the Hollywood bottom line. “It was tough and there were some long days,” Day recounts. “The call times and just getting used to the Hollywood thing via Minneapolis was a trip. 6 a.m. call times. Sometimes I would get dressed with makeup, hair and clothes all day and they wouldn’t even use me. There was so many sexy’s on the set with all the extras and stuff, we had too many things to do.”

Film production manager Alan Leeds recalls having to show up at Day’s Eden Prairie home more than once to retrieve the disgruntled singer. “There were a few people who just couldn’t get up and one of them was Morris,” laughs Leeds. “At one point I’m walking around the side of the house and banging on the window. He would open the door and say, ‘What do you want?’ And he knew…he wasn’t stupid. I understood Morris’ feelings. felt that he had lost whatever control he ever had. His issue was control. Basically Prince said, ‘If I’m going to have an R&B band this is what its going to be.’”

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By November of ’83, the infamous Minnesota winter had become unforgiving. Most of the California-based production crew was shell shocked by the realization of plunging 80 below zero temperatures. Car batteries were routinely taken out to protect from freezing. A generator truck supplying power to the Purple Rain set was literally encased in ice.

When the weather warmed up to a “bearable” 20 degrees, the memorable Lake Minnetonka scene, featuring a purple motorcycle riding Prince and Apollonia was set to film. However, when it came time for Apollonia to take off her clothes and dive into the water for the film’s infamous money shot, the shoot was nearly marred by ironic tragedy.

“We had shot Apollonia jumping into the water,” Magnoli recalls. “She hit the water and we had divers underneath just in case. But she just went into shock. We couldn’t film her coming out of the water because she was through. The divers grabbed her and immediately rushed her into a tent full of heaters and it took her 50 minutes to thaw out. She was done.”

Eventually the remainder of the Lake Minnetonka scene was shot in Los Angeles. But before the additional footage could be completed, the Prince camp had to deal with the reality of a depleted production budget. An additional $600,000 was needed to finish Purple Rain, which left Prince’s managers scrambling to raise funds. When the producers showed a rough-cut of the film to Warner Bros. suits, the reaction was less than receptive. “They were pissed,” says Cavallo. “It was enormously long and had some critical scenes missing, especially of Morris and Jerome. But Mike Ovitz pretty much told them, ‘Give us the money or we will just give you the money for the negative and I’ll take the movie elsewhere.’”

Warner Bros. Pictures blinked. With the remaining budget secure, Prince was back in the recording studio to finish the bulk of the Purple Rain soundtrack. By April 1984, the album was complete. For the first time in his career Prince, a self-contained unit heralded for playing all the instruments on past albums, had collaborated with his band in the studio. Among the highlights were “Let’s Go Crazy,” "Computer Blue" and "Darling Niki." Yet, band members were still in awe of Prince’s exceptional gifts for songwriting.

“You knew something special was going to happen," says Revolution drummer Bobby Z. “He would write "The Beautiful Ones" in one night and then 10 hours later he’d have that song mixed and mastered. His creativity never stopped. He never slept."

Musically, there was never any question of Purple Rain delivering the goods. However, there were legitimate concerns amongst producers about the film’s amateurish acting handled mainly by first-time thespians. Indeed, Prince was no Marlon Brando. But Brando couldn’t capture the screen with razor blade guitar solos, James Brown like work-outs and on-edge screams that suggested Prince was either possessed or insane. Prince and the Revolution’s blistering First Avenue stage performances simply rendered such concerns meaningless.


Following its theatrical release, the R-rated Purple Rain was a multi-media breakthrough. The album sold over 2 million copies in less than six weeks. Purple Rain would go on to win a Grammy, pick up a 1985 Oscar for Best Original Score and anger parent groups and politicians who branded Prince as a simulated sex act in high heels. Warner Bros. publicity hounds quickly played up the biographical undertones of the film, which left fans and the press at times scrambling to separate fiction from reality. Did Prince’s volatile father really abuse his mother? Was he black or white? Was there really a burning dislike between the Revolution and the Time? Did an arrogant Prince really treat his bandmates Wendy & Lisa with such paranoia and scorn? Did he really slap around his women? Some movie critics balked at what they saw as Purple Rain’s disrespectful treatment of its female characters.

Later in a 1985 televised interview with MTV, Prince simply pleaded artistic license when asked about the film’s more controversial material. "It was a story, a fictional story, and should be perceived that way," he maintained. "Violence is something that happens in everyday life, and we were only telling a story. Sometimes, for the sake of humor, we may've gone overboard. And if that was the case, then I'm sorry, but it was not the intention."

Whatever Prince’s intentions were, they were indeed polarizing. With the August DVD release of the 20th Anniversary edition of Purple Rain, we are again reminded of the film’s lasting impact. Whether it’s Mariah Carey’s celluloid meltdown Glitter or Eminem’s confident 8 Mile, Purple Rain will forever be that mythic bar for any artist attempting to create musical drama. "We never got our due from the Hollywood elite,” a proud Cavallo says. “$70 million today translates to close to $150 million.”

“You understand how insane this was?” adds Magnoli says of Purple Rain’s unprecedented success. “It was a first-time white director with a first time urban artist, with a first-time team of producers. I remember one of the Warner Bros. studio heads said to me, ‘You understand that basically you have a weekend or two with this movie at box office?’ But we knew we were apart of something special.”