 Lange began the new decade in the light romp "How to Beat the High Cost of Living" (1980), co-starring Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James, but it received mostly negative reviews and quickly disappeared from theaters.A year later, she was contacted by director Bob Rafelson regarding a project on which he was working with Jack Nicholson, who had recently auditioned Lange for "Goin' South" (1978).Rafelson paid Lange a visit in upstate New York, where she was doing summer stock theater, and has famously recounted how he watched the budding actress conversing on the telephone for half an hour before their meeting when he decided that he had found the lead for his film.