Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

by Peter Biskind

  “What the hell is phlebitis?”

  “You know, what Nixon had, a traveling clot, through the bloodstream. Let me send you to a doctor.”

  Ashby hated doctors, and shrugged off Beatty’s concern. A few days later, he called Jerry Hellman, wanted to know if the script meeting they had scheduled could be moved from Hellman’s house to his house. He didn’t feel well. Recalls Hellman, “I got there, and one of his legs was propped up. It was black-and-blue and swollen, and looked fuckin’ awful.” Hellman asked, “What in the world is that?”

  “Well, I don’t know. It’s funny, isn’t it? Looks terrible.”

  “Yeah, it does look terrible. What does the doctor say about it?”

  “Oh, I haven’t been to the doctor.... It’s the oddest thing, the damn thing keeps moving around.”

  “Whaddya mean it keeps moving around?”

  “One day last week it was in my arm, my leg was fine, but my whole arm was swollen up.”

  Meanwhile, Beatty called some people he knew at Johns Hopkins, where his father had been treated before he died: “Is there such a thing as phlebitis in both legs?”

  He was told, “There is a migratory phlebitis, which comes as a result of pancreatic cancer.”

  Recalls Beatty, “That scared the hell out of me. We had some CAT scans and pancreatic scans done at Hopkins, and of course he did have malignancies. I said, ‘I think you should have the surgery,’ but I couldn’t talk him into it, and he came back to L.A. It was about five or six weeks—I felt they were crucial weeks—before me and Jack and Haskell finally talked him into going back and having the surgery.” Dustin Hoffman flew back to Baltimore with him.

  At Hopkins, they took out part of the liver and the pancreas, trying to get the tumors, gave him chemo, but the procedures were unsuccessful, and it was clear to everyone but Hal that he was dying. He resented the procedures, hated the hospital. All he knew was that he was in tremendous pain, so much pain that no amount of morphine seemed to dull the edge. He was losing his eyesight; the weak autumn sun hurt his eyes when they wheeled him onto the hospital grounds for some air. One day he just walked out of the hospital with an IV drip in him, checked into a hotel. He called Jeff Berg, told him the operation was the final humiliation of his life, and begged him to get him out of there. Berg called Warners co-head Bob Daly, got the company jet to fly him home.

  Ashby was furious that he had allowed Beatty to talk him into the surgery. He refused to let him visit, and Beatty rarely saw him again. Hal’s friends set up a kind of hospice in his house in the Colony. He had a big TV set, a couple of VCRs, and he was hooked up to a satellite. Hal’s girlfriend, a New Ager, Griff, gave him herbs and natural remedies, didn’t want to medicate him for his pain, but was finally convinced to do so by his friends, whom she angered by playing the gatekeeper, controlling who got to see him. Jerry Hellman came every night, sat by his bedside. Haskell Wexler, Bob Jones, Bruce Dern, Bob Downey came and held his hand.

  Almost to the end, Hal was in denial. “The truth is, I’ve never seen anyone so frightened,” recalls Hellman. “It was terrible to watch. Hal couldn’t deal with reality. I don’t think he ever recognized what was really wrong and accepted his death.”

  Chuck Mulvehill and Ashby had been estranged for years, and Mulvehill didn’t want to see him, he was still too angry. Jones had to persuade him to visit. He and his wife, Shari, finally came over. They were shocked. Hal had become an old man. He looked bloated, was obviously in a lot of pain. “He saw Shari, and burst into tears, because they hadn’t seen each other for about ten years,” recalls Mulvehill. “We were trying to make light of the situation. Somebody made a joke, and we all laughed, and then Hal turned on everybody, I mean, it was vicious, like, whoops, talk about quieting the room. Everybody was on eggshells. I’d had a fantasy that he and I could sit down and be honest with one another, just bring it to a closure. It wasn’t going to happen. I walked away one day thinking, It’s too painful to watch.”

  But Hal knew more than his friends thought. One evening in the late fall after leaving the office, Berg drove up the coast into the setting sun to see him. It was hot; the Santa Ana winds were whipping through the canyons and rattling the shutters against Hal’s house. Ashby told Berg, “Well, they’re here.”

  “Who’s here?”

  “Them. Can’t you hear them?”

  “No, Hal, who is them and what am I not hearing?”

  “The people who are taking me away.” Berg thought, He’s having a premonition of his death. The clattering of the shutters represents a knock on the door, saying, We’re ready, are you?

  A few days later, Jones went over to visit him. He sat at Hal’s bedside watching him sleep, his skin pallid and dry as parchment, nearly translucent, his wispy beard matted and damp, his eyes buried in their sockets. Hal regained consciousness, said, “Bob, they’re calling me from across the river. Don’t let ’em get me. I don’t want to die.”

  Hal Ashby did die just after Christmas, on a raw, rainy Tuesday, December 27, 1988, at the age of fifty-nine. The papers said it was liver and colon cancer, but it could just as well have been a broken heart.

  There was a memorial service at the new DGA building on Sunset on Friday the 30th. Despite the fact that Hal had a lot of friends, the hall was only half full, because everyone was in Aspen or elsewhere for the holidays. The people who came sat alone, or in small clusters separated by rows of empty seats. They came because they cared about him, or they’d worked with him. Jeff Bridges presided over the procession of speakers, one from every film, and then some. He stood next to a jumbo-sized blow-up of Hal’s face, smiling benignly down at the mourners. A L.A. street sign purloined by Sean Penn from an intersection on Overland that read “ASHBY” in white letters on a blue background, leaned against the base of the podium. Beatty spoke, Hellman, and Dern. So did Shirley MacLaine, Andy Garcia, and Bud Cort. Haskell Wexler was away on location, so was Nicholson, who sent a telegram. It was clear that they loved Hal, who despite the success of his films was more admired by the Hollywood community than by the reviewers. Kael never liked him much, put off perhaps by his politics and his deceptively relaxed mise-en-scène. But actors killed to work with him, even in the years of his decline. It was a wake as much for Hal as for themselves, for their dreams, for the best years of their lives.

  Ashby had a thing about the ocean. He had made his way from the Wasatch mountains of Utah to the Coast, and then from Laurel Canyon down to the beach, which he dearly loved. He joked about ending it all by drowning himself, and there is a celebrated scene in Coming Home where Dern does just that, strips off his clothes and walks into the ocean. There is an equally celebrated scene in Being There— the last film clip shown at the memorial—in which Peter Sellers, impeccably dressed like an English gentleman, strolls casually across the surface of a pond. Hal had gone under, but his friends preferred to remember him as he portrayed himself, walking on water.

  Beau Bridges, who had appeared in Ashby’s first film, The Landlord, summed it all up. Ashby didn’t like formal social occasions, Bridges recalled, and had he been there, like Tom Sawyer a witness to his own funeral, he would have been found sitting in the last row, mocking the gravity of the tributes. “And when the lights came up after the show,” said Bridges, “and you looked around for him, he’d be gone. Hal always left early.”

  After the lights in fact came up, people filed out and got into their cars, no refreshments, no coffee, just drove off. In the weeks that followed, Griff occasionally invited small groups of Hal’s friends over to the Colony house for a sort of service, to bring Hal’s spirit back. Bob Jones was there once, on the deck, at night: “Griff saw a meteor streak across the sky, and she said, ‘That’s Hal.’ I never heard from her again.”

  Cast of Characters

  Not everyone mentioned in this book is included. Only those people who appear repeatedly or in widely separate sections of the book are listed, with selected credits.

  Robert Altman
: director, M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Popeye.

  Hal Ashby: director, Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Coming Home, Being There.

  Ted Ashley: CEO, Warners.

  Gerald Ayres: executive VP of creative affairs, Columbia; producer, Cisco Pike, The Last Detail.

  Steven Bach: head of East Coast production, United Artists.

  Peter Bart: VP of production, Paramount, under Robert Evans.

  Warren Beatty: actor, Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds; producer, Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds; co-director, Heaven Can Wait; director, Reds.

  Barry Beckerman: VP of creative affairs, Warners.

  David Begelman: agent, CMA; president, Columbia.

  Robert Benton: co-writer, Bonnie and Clyde, What’s Up, Doc?, Superman; director, Bad Company, The Late Show.

  Jeff Berg: agent, CMA, later ICM.

  Candice Bergen: actress; relationship with Bert Schneider.

  Tony Bill: producer, Steelyard Blues, The Sting; partnered with Julia and Michael Phillips.

  William Peter Blatty: screenwriter-producer, The Exorcist.

  Steve Blauner: partner, BBS.

  Charles Bluhdorn: CEO, Gulf + Western, owner of Paramount.

  Peter Bogdanovich: director, The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon, Daisy Miller; married to Polly Platt.

  Sam Bottoms: actor, The Last Picture Show, Apocalypse Now.

  Jacob Brackman: writer, The King of Marvin Gardens; producer, Days of Heaven.

  David Brown: executive VP of creative opportunities at 20th Century-Fox during M*A*S*H; producer, The Sting, Jaws; partner of Richard Zanuck.

  Ellen Burstyn: actress, The Last Picture Show, The Exorcist, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

  Scott Bushnell: producer for Robert Altman.

  John Calley: head of production, Warners.

  Julia Cameron: writer; married to Martin Scorsese.

  L. M. (Kit) Carson: actor-writer.

  John Cassavetes: director, Shadows, Faces, Husbands; actor, Rosemary’s Baby.

  Michael Chapman: camera operator, The Godfather, Jaws; cinematographer, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Personal Best.

  Julie Christie: actress, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait; relationship with Warren Beatty.

  Michael Cimino: director, The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate.

  Rob Cohen: executive VP of motion picture division, Motown; later, producer and director.

  Eleanor Coppola: married to Francis Coppola.

  Francis Coppola: director, the Godfathers, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club.

  Roger Corman: producer, Targets, Boxcar Bertha; director, The Wild Angels.

  Bosley Crowther: movie reviewer, the New York Times.

  Sean Daniel: production executive, Universal, under Ned Tanen, Animal House.

  Robert Dalva: director, The Black Stallion Returns; associated with Zoetrope.

  Peter Davis: director, Hearts and Minds.

  Robert De Niro: actor, Mean Streets; The Godfather, Part II; Taxi Driver; New York, New York; Raging Bull.

  Brian De Palma: director, Obsession, Carrie, The Fury.

  Bruce Dern: actor, The King of Marvin Gardens, Coming Home.

  Caleb Deschanel: cinematographer, The Black Stallion, Being There.

  Barry Diller: CEO, Paramount.

  Marion Dougherty: casting director.

  Faye Dunaway: actress, Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown.

  Carole Eastman, aka Adrien Joyce: screenwriter, Five Easy Pieces, The Fortune.

  Michael Eisner: president, COO, Paramount.

  Robert Evans: executive VP of worldwide production, Paramount; producer, Chinatown, Marathon Man, Popeye, The Cotton Club.

  David Field: president of West Coast production, United Artists.

  Freddie Fields: head, CMA; founded First Artists; producer, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, American Gigolo.

  Verna Fields: editor, What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon, American Graffiti, Jaws.

  Louise Fletcher: actress, Thieves Like Us, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

  Peter Fonda: actor-writer-producer, Easy Rider.

  Gray Frederickson: associate producer, The Godfather; co-producer, The Godfather, Part II, Apocalypse Now.

  William Friedkin: director, The French Connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer.

  David Geffen: executive, Warners; producer.

  Michie Gleason: assistant to Bert Schneider, Days of Heaven; director, Broken English; relationship with Terrence Malick.

  Harry Gittes: co-producer, Drive, He Said.

  Ronda Gomez: executive under Peter Bart, Paramount.

  Carl Gottlieb: writer, Jaws, Jaws 2.

  WaIon Green: writer, Sorcerer.

  Charles Greenlaw: executive VP of worldwide management, Warners.

  Dr. Martin Grotjahn: psychoanalyst for Warren Beatty, Robert Towne, and David Geffen.

  Peter Guber: executive, Columbia.

  Kitty Hawks: relationship with William Friedkin; daughter of Howard Hawks.

  Bill Hayward: associate producer, Easy Rider; partner of Peter Fonda; brother of Brooke Hayward.

  Brooke Hayward: married to Dennis Hopper; sister of Bill Hayward.

  Patricia James: assistant to Robert Towne.

  Gary Kurtz: producer, American Graffiti, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.

  Jerome Hellman: producer, Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home.

  Buck Henry: writer, The Graduate, Catch-22; co-writer, What’s Up, Doc?; co-director, Heaven Can Wait.

  Paul Hirsch: editor, Carrie, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.

  Dennis Hopper: actor-director-writer, Easy Rider, The Last Movie; actor, Tracks, Apocalypse Now; married to Brooke Hayward, Michelle Phillips.

  Willard Huyck: writer, American Graffiti, Star Wars (uncredited); married to Gloria Katz.

  Joe Hyams: marketing executive, Warners.

  Amy Irving: actress, Carrie, The Fury; married to Steven Spielberg.

  Leo Jaffe: president, Columbia; father of Stanley Jaffe.

  Stanley Jaffe: president, Paramount; executive VP of worldwide production, Columbia.

  Henry Jaglom: director, A Safe Place, Tracks.

  Dennis Jakob: creative consultant, Apocalypse Now.

  Robert Jones: editor, The Last Detail; co-writer, Coming Home.

  Pauline Kael: movie reviewer, The New Yorker.

  Gloria Katz: writer, American Graffiti, Star Wars (uncredited); married to Willard Huyck.

  Mar got Kidder: actress, Sisters, Superman; housemate of Jennifer Salt.

  Sidney Korshak: attorney for Charles Bluhdorn, Robert Evans.

  Arthur Krim: CEO, United Artists.

  Alan Ladd, Jr.: president, 20th Century-Fox.

  Jeremy Larner: writer, Drive, He Said, The Candidate.

  Richard Lederer: VP of production, VP of advertising/publicity, Warners.

  Paul Lewis: unit production manager, Easy Rider, What’s Up, Doc?

  George Litto: agent for Robert Altman; producer for Altman and Brian De Palma.

  Evan Lottman: editor, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now (uncredited).

  George Lucas: director, THX: 1138, American Graffiti, Star Wars; producer, The Empire Strikes Back; married to Marcia Lucas.

  Marcia Lucas: editor, American Graffiti; Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore; Taxi Driver; New York, New York; Star Wars.

  Mimi Machu: relationships with Jack Nicholson and Hal Ashby.

  Terrence Ma lick: director, Badlands, Days of Heaven.

  Chris Mankiewicz: executive at Columbia, United Artists.

  Mardik Martin: co-writer, Mean Streets, New York, New York, Raging Bull.

  Melissa Mathison: co-writer, The Black Stallion; writer, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.

  Jim McBride: director, David Holzman’s Diary.

  Mike Medavoy: agent, IFA; head of West Coast production, United Artists.

  Sue Mengers: agent, CMA; clients included Peter Bogdan
ovich, Barbra Streisand.

  John Milius: writer, Apocalypse Now; director, The Wind and the Lion.

  Susanna Moore: assistant to Warren Beatty; married to Richard Sylbert.

  Charles Mulvehill: associate producer for Hal Ashby.

  Walter Murch: sound designer-editor, The Conversation, The Godfather, Part II, Apocalypse Now.

  Jennifer Nairn-Smith: dancer-actress, relationship with William Friedkin.

  James Nelson: post-production sound for BBS, The Exorcist.

  David Newman: co-writer, Bonnie and Clyde, What’s Up, Doc?, Superman.

  Huey Newton: leader, Black Panther party; friend of Bert Schneider.

  Mike Nichols: director, The Graduate, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, The Fortune.

  Jack Nicholson: actor, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, The Last Detail, Chinatown; director, Drive, He Said; relationships with Mimi Machu and Michelle Phillips.

  Julie Payne: married to Robert Towne.

  Arthur Penn: director, The Left-Handed Gun, Mickey One, Bonnie and Clyde, Night Moves, The Missouri Breaks.

  Lester Persky: producer, Shampoo.

  Julia and Michael Phillips: producers, The Sting, Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind; married; partners of Tony Bill.

  Michelle Phillips: singer, the Mamas and the Papas; married to Dennis Hopper; relationships with Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.

  David Picker: head of production, United Artists.

  Polly Platt: production designer, The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon; married to Peter Bogdanovich.

  Roman Polanski: director, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown.

  Tom Pollock: attorney for George Lucas.

  Ed Pressman: producer, Sisters; executive producer, Badlands.

  Steve Prince: cameo in Taxi Driver, subject of Martin Scorsese’s documentary, American Boy.

  John Ptak: agent, IFA; clients included Paul Schrader.

  Bob Rafelson: director, Head, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, Stay Hungry; partner, BBS; married to Toby Rafelson.

  Toby Rafelson: production designer, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Stay Hungry.

  Kathryn Reed: married to Robert Altman.