American Rhapsody

by Joe Eszterhas

  Rudy Durand, who was sixty-four years old, to Mark’s fifty-one, was not a man to trifle with that way, to issue an invitation through an assistant at the cost of a grand. He was a man with a fascinating history, even for Hollywood, a place where people invent and reinvent themselves every few years. According to Rudy, his curriculum vitae included stops in Washington (as an advance man for JFK), in Palm Springs (as Frank’s running buddy), and in Vegas (Frank had introduced him to some of the boys).

  Then he came to Hollywood and wrote and directed an odd little movie called Tilt, which had lots of pinball machines and Brooke Shields. When Warner Bros. took the movie away from him and recut it, Rudy sued the studio for interfering with his artistic vision. The suit stretched endlessly (as antistudio suits will), for nearly a decade . . . a time during which all Rudy Durand, blacklisted now, did was pursue his case. Not through lawyers, by himself! Some people said he had become the best nonlawyer lawyer in town. He argued the case in front of a federal appeals court himself, made the Warner attorney literally vomit during his presentation, and won . . . $7 million, tax-free.

  No, Rudy Durand was not a man to trifle with, as one of the town’s top agents learned one day when he made a joke that Rudy Durand took personally. Rudy went up to him and said, “What did you say? What the fuck did you say? Either stop making jokes or get a new comedy writer. You hear me, you cocksucking motherfucker? You want a fucking war with me? You piece of shit?” And all the agent, a powerful man in Hollywood, could say was, “I know who you are. I didn’t mean anything. I’m sorry.”

  A lot of people in town knew who Rudy Durand was, like Kelly Preston, now married to John Travolta, who met Rudy when she was a waitress at Gladstone’s on the PCH, and let Rudy take some revealing (and un-Scientological) pictures that she still wanted back. Rudy Durand met Bill Clinton on a golf course and the two of them liked each other. That’s why, when Rudy Durand called Mark Canton back about the women’s soccer game at the Rose Bowl, Rudy Durand said, “Naw, I can’t go with you. I’m going to the game with the president.”

  And Mark Canton, who had never met the president of the United States, said, “You are?”

  . . .

  It was a whopping, bald-faced lie. Fuck Mark Canton, Rudy Durand thought, this self-inflated dwarf who couldn’t even play a decent round of golf, this Peter Sellers character who seemed most interested in the celebrity photos adorning his office walls. Fuck him! If Mark Canton wanted to play these stupid games with him, Rudy Durand thought—the assistant’s call, the grand—he’d nuke his skinny little ass with the president of the United States.

  On the morning of the day before the game, Bill Clinton called Rudy Durand. He was in L.A. at his friend Ron Berkle’s house (Ron owned Ralph’s supermarkets) and Bill Clinton wanted to know if Rudy felt like playing golf with him. Rudy said he’d love to but that he was booked; he was playing with Pete Sampras that day. Pete had just won Wimbledon.

  “Can I use your name to get into the Riviera?” Bill Clinton asked Rudy. He hated the Bel Air Country Club, where the houses were almost on top of the course, where there was little privacy, where a telephoto lens could easily capture a wet, chewed-up cigar in the mouth of a wet and sweating president.

  “Sure,” Rudy said.

  “Well come on over,” the president said, “if you get a chance.”

  When Rudy went out on the golf course with the strikingly good-looking Sampras that day, he saw all the Secret Service agents in the distance, and as he started heading that way on his cart . . . he saw Mark Canton, too, playing with his own group of friends not far away. Rudy drove over to Mark and his friends, with Sampras alongside him, and Mark could barely contain his overbubbling excitement: “Rudy, Rudy, the president’s here!” Rudy told Mark that he could see that, that even Ray Charles could see that, and he introduced Mark to Sampras.

  “I’m Mark Canton,” Mark Canton said to Pete Sampras. “I’ve produced . . . ” And he listed a series of movies, many of which he hadn’t produced . . . but some of which had been made under his aegis at Sony.

  “I’ll see ya later,” Rudy said to Mark, and started driving down the fairway to where the president was teeing off. As he drove, he heard the Secret Service squawk boxes going “Six-five! Six-five!” (Rudy’s own code number) and he knew Mark Canton was hearing it, too, and gasping openmouthed. Rudy had his own code number! As he approached the president, Rudy slowed down; he didn’t want to disturb him. Rudy Durand believed that the three finest feelings in life were “a great climax, hitting a golf ball,” and what Rudy described as “the pyramid”: great food going down the pipe and into the digestive tract.

  So he waited until the president hit his golf ball, and then he and Pete Sampras went over. The president, Rudy saw, was with Sly Stallone, once the box-office heavyweight and now, like Bill Clinton, caught in the headlights of a kinky sex scandal. Some Hollywood hookers had written a book alleging that Sly had built a glass contraption above his bed. They had to relieve themselves on the glass, they said, while Sly watched, stretched out on the bed below, and did the Bill Clinton thing with his right hand.

  The president turned to Rudy and hugged him. Sly asked the president if he knew that Rudy was the best producer in Hollywood. Rudy introduced Sampras to both of them and the president praised Sampras for representing his country with such class and distinction at Wimbledon.

  Rudy suggested that they all meet when they were half-finished with their games . . . at the Halfway Clubhouse between the tenth and thirteenth holes. The president and Sly, seemingly getting along well together, certainly with enough to talk about, agreed.

  “Can you do me a favor?” Rudy asked the president of the United States.

  “Sure,” Bill Clinton said, drawing him a little aside for privacy, “what is it?”

  “When we’re at the Halfway House, can you say, ‘Hey, Rudy, are you still coming to the game with me tomorrow?’ ”

  “Sure,” Bill Clinton said. “Do you want to come to the game tomorrow?”

  “Hell no,” Rudy Durand said, and both of them, good friends, laughed.

  “What’s it about?” Bill Clinton asked.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  The president asked about a few mutual friends like Jack Nicholson—who had just been reaccused by a thirty-two-year-old hooker of beating her so badly in 1996 that she’d suffered brain damage—and they went off in different directions on the golf course.

  When Rudy and Sampras were nearly halfway finished, Mark Canton came by on his cart and Rudy told him they were going to meet Bill Clinton and Sly at the Halfway Clubhouse.

  “Can I come with you?” Mark asked.

  Rudy said he supposed so.

  “I’ll ride in the cart with you!” Mark said.

  “I’m riding with Pete,” Rudy said. “Follow us over.”

  Mark Canton said, “Rudy, please! I’ve gotta get a picture with him for my wall. You gotta promise me, Rudy, please. I heard the White House photographer’s with him wherever he goes. Can he take a picture of us?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Rudy Durand said.

  When they got to the Halfway House, Bill Clinton and Sly were already there. Mark said hi to Sly and Sly asked the president if he knew that Mark Canton was the best producer in town.

  Mark Canton shook Bill Clinton’s hand and said, “Mr. President, I’m Mark Canton. I’m a producer . . .” And he listed the same credits he’d listed to Pete Sampras, in the same order.

  The White House photographer came by and Bill Clinton put one arm around Sly and one arm around Rudy . . . and Mark Canton leaned into the picture as far as he could.

  Bill Clinton started heading away with Sly, and then the president of the United States turned back and said loudly, “Rudy, are you still coming to the game with me tomorrow?”

  And Rudy said, “Hell no, I wouldn’t want to be seen with you.”

  And Mark Canton looked the way he must have looked the night that Wendy walk
ed in on him with Amy. Unbelievable! Un-fucking-real! Not only was the president checking to see if Rudy would still be his guest . . . but Rudy was so close to him that he could tease him like that.

  Mark Canton went over to the White House photographer to make sure he got the picture, and Bill Clinton, who was watching Mark Canton now and laughing with Rudy, said to Rudy, “You want me to put a little mustard on it?” Rudy laughed and Bill Clinton said, loudly enough to make sure Mark heard it, “I’ll send the helicopter for you, Rudy, if you’re busy. Come on!”

  Mark Canton shook his head as Rudy and Pete Sampras drove away, and he didn’t hear Pete say to Rudy, “Who was that asshole?” And Rudy answered, “That’s Mark Canton, producer.”

  The next morning, Rudy’s phone rang and an official from the Chinese embassy asked if Rudy would like two tickets to the official People’s Republic of China box at the Rose Bowl championship soccer game. Rudy had just done several deals with Macao and Chinese financiers and he accepted the two tickets. He called his friend Jack Nicholson and told him about the two tickets in the Chinese box, and Jack Nicholson, who was supposed to attend in Mark Canton’s box, said, “I’ll come with you.”

  Moments later, Rudy Durand’s phone rang again; it was Mark Canton. “Jack’s going with you?” Mark asked.

  “That’s what he said,” Rudy said.

  “But he was supposed to come with me.”

  “Where’s your box?” Rudy Durand asked.

  “On the ten-yard line.”

  “Shit,” Rudy said, “That’s almost in the end zone.”

  “It’s not in the end zone,” Mark Canton said; “it’s on the ten-yard line.”

  There was a pause, and Mark Canton said, “Where’s your box?”

  “You mean the official box of the People’s Republic of China?” Rudy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s on the fifty,” Rudy Durand said. “Right next to Bill Clinton’s. Right in the middle of the field!”

  Mark Canton asked Rudy Durand if he and his party could follow Rudy’s and Jack’s limo to the Rose Bowl. Mark had heard the Secret Service squawk boxes going “Six-five! Six-five!” and knew that security at a public circus like this one could wind up being embarrassing if you didn’t have your own code number.

  That’s what happened. Rudy and Jack in the lead, and then Mark’s party’s limos; among the passengers, Dennis Hopper and his wife and two kids, pissed off that it had cost them four thousand dollars to see this game. Dennis, the ultimate sixties icon, the Easy Rider himself, who’d gone on after that monstro/boffo hit of a movie to write and direct something called The Last Movie (which was so bad, it almost was Dennis’s last). Dennis, once a human Dumpster of LSD, longtime former resident of that holy place, Taos, now hanging out with Mark Canton.

  It was going to be like a sixties reunion: Dennis and Jack, also an Easy Rider graduate, and Bill Clinton, the former Street Fightin’ Man who didn’t inhale.

  When they got to the security gate at the Rose Bowl, they were all whisked through—“Six-five! Six-five!” said the squawk boxes again, magic words—and when they got off the elevator and started heading for their boxes, the president of the United States heard the “six-five” announcements, too, and stuck his head out of his box and yelled, “Hey, Rudy!”

  He invited Rudy and Jack into his box and introduced Rudy to his personal guests, Gray Davis, the governor of California, and L.A.’s mayor, Richard Riordan.

  “I want you to meet the best producer in Hollywood” was the way Bill Clinton introduced Rudy Durand to the others. And boy, did Rudy get a kick out of that!

  Then Jack and the president schmoozed off in a corner for a while, grinning, enjoying each other, two horndogs who liked each other’s scent. Jack Nicholson had even come to Bill Clinton’s public aid during the darkest impeachment days, appearing at a rally at the Federal Building in Westwood with Barbra, who wore a ditsy little hat some people said she’d worn in The Way We Were.

  Jack Nicholson liked Bill Clinton a lot, a whole lot, better than he even liked Fidel Castro, almost as much as he liked Robert Evans, who kept Jack supplied with endless boxes of windup dolls, misty, vacant-eyed midwestern farm girls who’d come to Hollywood to be stars and who were now on the hairy, varicose first leg of that trip.

  When Jack Nicholson and the president were finished schmoozing, they gave each other a hug, and then the president gave Rudy Durand a hug, and the Marine Corps guard in the box saluted Jack (as marines everywhere did after A Few Good Men).

  Jack and Rudy went over and sat in the Chinese box, smack square on the fifty-yard line. The good old USA won the game. A great time was had by all.

  Bill Clinton went back to Washington, but he would return soon. Rudy and Jack played some golf the next day. Mark Canton got his picture for his wall. He was so happy about the picture, he gave Rudy Durand a deal to produce two movies, the kind of deal Rudy hadn’t had in Hollywood for a long time.

  It was all thanks, Rudy Durand knew, to Bill Clinton. Hollywood . . . and Rudy Durand . . . and Sly Stallone . . . and Mark Canton just loved Bill Clinton!

  [13]

  Hillary Bares All

  He’ll end up like Nelson Rockefeller, his heart exploding as he grunts and groans on top of some young slut who’s flattered him into being his aide. It’s funny . . . I campaigned for Rockefeller in 1968, you know. The Democratic National Convention was about to become a symbol of a changing world, and where was I? At the Republican one, campaigning for Rockefeller. Make of that what you will, those of you who, like Barbara Olson, consider me the last Communist, who accuse me of having worked for a Communist in Berkeley, who say that Saul Alinsky was my Karl Marx. (Dick Morris was enamored of Saul, too, and he works for Trent Lott and Rupert Murdoch now.)

  Did you read the Barbara Olson book? Did you know that her husband, Ted, is one of Ken Starr’s best friends? Did you know that her publisher, Al Regnery, who’s published so many books trashing Bill and me, has the same exact interests as Bill? Police who were called to his house found Al’s porn stash, including a book with colored photos of “oral sex and the placing of objects into the vagina.” I’ve done my research, as you see. I’ve always done my opposition research.

  But getting back to Bill: I once deluded myself into thinking that maybe in our dotage he would settle down. That atherosclerosis (from cheeseburgers) and flaccidity (from overuse) would sober his priapic drunkenness. I say “deluded myself” because, thanks to the marvels of modern medical science, that is no longer a possibility. No one ever considers the heartbreak that Viagra means to a woman like me.

  You know, it was never very good with us, even in the beginning, when there was a was. Oh, he said it was good for him, but I somehow never believed him, even before I had the evidence, before I went through his pockets looking for phone numbers as soon as he was asleep. I tried to please him. I shaved my legs and armpits, even though I felt the act was a betrayal of my beliefs. God knows, all of you know how many times I tried changing my hair. Not that he was ever Adonis himself, with his pale gut sticking out of his T-shirt, his thighs like the flabby Crisco fat of a man who was twenty years older. But I tried. And kept trying. And kept trying. Until the pain and humiliation congealed into an angry black clump in my heart. It wasn’t enough that he was cheating—he was rubbing it into my face.

  I wondered for a while if that was a part of his thrill. He wanted to take Gennifer into that bathroom at the statehouse as I stood only a few feet away. He knew I saw them together outside that bathroom door. He brought that whore to the airport to kiss him good-bye. He knew I knew who she was. And on the morning we left for Washington after the election, at 5:15, he had to see that slut down in the basement, knowing that I was upstairs, knowing that I knew, knew even that she was wearing a raincoat with nothing underneath it. Was it any wonder, do you think, that I turned away from him when he moved to kiss me for the cameras at the inauguration? I’m not his prop. I am no one’s prop. The
fucker can’t do me that way. Unless I want to be done.

  I knew everything. I know about all of them. I’ve always known everything. God, do you have any idea of the pain knowing everything has entailed? I had to know to be able to protect him. To be able to protect us. We wanted to go to the White House. We’ve always wanted to get to the White House. The sluts and the whores, the bimbos and the groupies had to be silenced, neutralized. The stakes were too high. They had to be made to understand that if they spoke about what he had done with them, their own frailties and weaknesses would be exposed. They had to be reminded—by the troopers, by Terry, by Palladino—of their own humanity. They had to get a vulnerability wake-up call. Opposition research, really, that’s all it was. If you tell someone what you did with him, the world will find out that you fucked half the high school football team on the fifty-yard line—even if you didn’t. That sort of thing. An antidote to self-righteousness, an inoculation against a gag reflex to take fifty thousand dollars from the National Enquirer.

  I trust Terry Lenzner. I worked with him on the Watergate stuff. He knows who the good and bad guys are. He knows that reality-checking a whore is a venial and noble sin in the pursuit of keeping the bad guys out of the White House. But consider the position it put me into relative to my own heart. I had to know all the filth to know whom to silence. But it was filth that poisoned me against him with each piece of information. In the process of saving him, I was destroying him inside myself. But even if it meant his destruction within me, I had to destroy him in order to save him. It became the nightmare equation that had been worked out by the Pentagon in Vietnam, the equation that I had railed against and loathed so much: You have to destroy the village in order to save it. I was napalming my own heart and soul. I laughed when they called me Joan of Arc in the media. If they only knew. I was burning my own most intimate feelings at a stake of my own creation.