My Anecdotal Life

by Carl Reiner

  On our four-day visit to Alsace, the choucroute capital of the word, I dined on their specialty for three consecutive dinners and one lunch. I was half the age I am now and had half of the knowledge of the damage that salt, fat, nitrates, and cholesterol can do to one’s health, but that doesn’t diminish my love for choucroute. Nowadays I rarely, if ever, eat it, but if I see it on a menu, I think long and hard before not ordering it. In the last twenty years, I’ve weakened but four times—well, five, if you count the totally unsatisfying version of it I ate on May 13, 2002, at a New York bistro. I left over more than half.

  After deciding that choucroute Alsacienne was to be our main course, we went about gathering the many ingredients that would make our version singular but authentic. We started by making our own sauerkraut, using my grandmother’s famous Old World recipe, which was handed down to my mother: “shredded cabbage and lots of salt water, to taste.” We put these secret ingredients in a wide-necked, pottery crock, placed the crock in a warm place in the kitchen, and in four days, we uncovered the crock and said, “Phew, that stinks!” and knew that we had successfully created the base ingredient for our peasant dish. Now, of all the traditional meats that are piled atop the sauerkraut like slices of succulent ham and pork, German frankfurters, boiled ham hocks, to me the most important is the veal bratwurst. Bratwurst comes in all sizes and qualities, and if you’ve ever eaten a truly delicious one, you will never be satisfied with anything less. I was confident that we would hit a home run with our choucroute, because I knew where to get that perfect veal bratwurst. In 1969, while working at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood doing postproduction on Where’s Poppa?, a film I had just directed, the great Billy Wilder, who had an office down the hall, invited me to join him for lunch. It was Jack Lemmon, I believe, who introduced us. After that initial meeting, whenever Billy and I passed each other in the hall, we’d exchange a few pleasant words about current films and how Jack Lemmon is really as nice as everyone says. It was at my lunch with Billy that I tasted that perfect bratwurst, and it was he who told me about his little German sausage maker on Third Street, off La Cienaga Boulevard. Well, his little German sausage maker became my sausage maker too, and I became his steady customer.

  Since adhering to the low-fat, low-salt Pritikin diet, I had stopped shopping there. As I drove to the store, I thought about those plump white sausages in the display case, and was shocked to discover that hair dryers and beauty products had replaced the sausages. The little German sausage maker had retired! For the next few days, we made many calls to many butcher shops, literally scouring the countryside to find a worthy replacement.

  After four or five disappointing taste tests, I was almost ready to settle for second best. I’m sure you’re thinking, Why didn’t the idiot call Billy Wilder and ask him where he was buying his sausages? Well, I did think of that, and also thought of a damned good reason why I should not call the man. At that time, Mr. Wilder was more or less retired and only did consulting work for friends and colleagues. Since I was a working director, I worried that he might think I was calling to offer him work as a consultant on a new project. If I were to tell him that I called to consult with him about bratwursts, he might think, It’s Sunset Boulevard and I’m Norma Desmond! That sonofabitch Cecil B. DeReiner doesn’t want me, he wants my bratwurst!

  It was possible that he would not see it that way, but I couldn’t take the chance of offending my idol. I remembered then that Billy Wilder had a steady lunch date with a mutual friend, Jay Weston, a film producer and the publisher of a popular and excellent restaurant guide. He would surely know if Mr. Wilder had found another purveyor of top bratwursts—and he did know! The farmer’s market in the Beverly Center!

  The dinner honoring Arman and Corice was a triumph! The choucroute Alsacienne was outstanding, the bratwursts being singled out for special praise, the conversation was witty, and the wine very fine, as Mel Brooks, our wine supplier, informed us each time he filled our glasses. He made us aware of the exact retail cost of each sip we took. The evening was everything we had envisioned, and it turned out to be one of my wife’s most appreciated dinners—one of scores of appreciated dinners she has cooked in a lifetime of appreciated dinners.

  The following night, all of our guests joined Arman’s West Coast friends, collectors, and art lovers in attending the opening of his stunning new show. Hung around the gallery were huge canvases with bold slashes of vibrant-colored paint laid on heavily by large brushes that were left, glued to the canvases. He created another group of paintings by squeezing long rivulets of paint from their soft lead tubes and leaving the tubes on the canvas. Besides delighting collectors and afficionados on three continents, he is known to be the most sought-after customer by owners of art supply stores.

  Soon after we arrived, I was shocked to see Billy Wilder stroll into the gallery. We looked at each other and, without a moment’s hesitation—well, maybe with a moment’s hesitation—I walked slowly to him, debating with myself about whether or not l’Affaire Bratwurst would be something Mr. Wilder might get a kick out of hearing.

  “Hey, Billy,” I said, shaking his hand, “what are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” he shot back. “I collect Armans, do you?”

  “No.” I said.

  “Then buy something or get out!” he quipped.

  I laughed and he smiled.

  His smile told me that I could not keep the story of our dinner party from him.

  “Say Billy,” I said, tiptoeing into the tale, “you want to hear something funny?”

  “How funny?” he asked. “I don’t like to laugh on an empty stomach.”

  “That’s funny,” I said, chuckling.

  “What, that I’m hungry?”

  “No, that I was going to tell you about a dinner we just gave for Arman.”

  “That you didn’t invite me to,” he said, “what’s amusing about that?”

  “What’s amusing is that I made choucroute and went to that sausage store to get those great bratwursts you told me about and—”

  “—it became a beauty supply dump, I could have told you that,” he snapped, looking at me strangely.

  “I know, Billy,” I said, smiling apologetically, “I was going to call you and ask you where you get your bratwursts now.”

  “And why didn’t you?” he asked, looking at me strangely.

  “Well.” I giggled. “I called Jay Weston.… I thought that if I called you…”

  “Well, it’s good you didn’t!”

  “It is?”

  “You bet.” He sneered, grabbing my arm, his voice rising. “If you had called me I would have become Gloria Swanson and thought that you called to offer me a job and this would have gotten me so damned excited that I would have made love to my wife—for no good reason!!”

  I laughed loud and hard, as did the everyone within earshot. Billy didn’t laugh, but he did give me a wide and twinkly smile. Through the years, we both have related this story to our friends, and I’m sure if he were still around he wouldn’t mind my telling it to you.

  20

  RRRReiner, Shake My Hand and We Got a Deal!

  When the aide to Charles Bluhdorn, the owner of Paramount Pictures, CEO of Gulf and Western, and the man who signed my paychecks, asked if my wife and I would care to spend Christmas with Mr. Bluhdorn and some friends at his home in the Dominican Republic, I hesitated, and then thought, Why am I hesitating? Only a complete idiot would turn down this offer, and there being no real evidence that I am a complete one …

  Charles Bluhdorn could not have been more charming and gracious to us. Nowhere in his demeanor or behavior did I feel that I was talking to a multi-multibillionaire executive who had the power to fire me or have me executed. He introduced us to the other invitees, an eclectic group of talented, charming, witty, and accomplished people whose celebrity was a bit daunting. I felt completely out of my element with these people, who were so obviously in their element. My disco
mfort level dropped a bit when one of the guests, Jerzy Kosinski, the author of the classic The Painted Bird sought me out to chat about my television and film experiences. Jerzy Kosinski’s name is one of three or four celebrity names I plan to drop to help give this piece some journalistic accuracy. I had never met Mr. Bluhdorn, and I wondered why he was being so generous. Could it be that he’d heard about the positive reaction my new film received at a screening and was tossing me a little bonus? It was not till midway through our stay that I learned the real reason I had been invited.

  That first morning, after breakfast, I was surprised to hear Mr. Bluhdorn shouting, “RRReiner, wanna go for a swim?” Without waiting for an answer, he ordered me to put on my bathing suit and meet him at the beach in five minutes. I wondered why he singled me out. I was curious about how he, a grade school dropout, who came to the United States from Poland with pennies in his pocket and no prospects, could manage, in a very short time, to become a scion of industry and the boss of me. So eager was I to have a one-on-one visit with him that I hurried to the beach sans cap, sunglasses, or sunblock. I thought of doubling back and retrieving them, but on hearing Mr. Bluhdorn shout, “RRRreiner, you’re late!” I decided to manage without them.

  Down at the shore, I spotted a shirtless Charles Bluhdorn sporting a floppy hat and sunglasses and standing knee-deep in the water.

  “RRReiner,” he shouted, splashing water on his face, “jump in, the water’s perfect!”

  Mr. Bluhdorn spoke with a Polish-German accent and rolled his r’s as effectively as a Nazi drill sergeant. During my stay, those rolling r’s rolled my way many times. He never just said my name, he shouted it. As I approached him, he tilted his head and stuck out his hand.

  “RRReiner, shake my hand,” he growled, “and we have a deal!”

  I reflexively put out my hand but hesitated as I remembered a studio executive once say that my host regarded “a handshake to be more binding, morally, than a signature.”

  “Before I shake,” I asked, stepping back, “can I ask what the deal is?”

  “It’s for a new picture I’m preparing,” he said, offering his hand again, “shake and you’ve got yourself a deal!”

  “A new picture,” I asked politely, “can I read the script?”

  “There is no script,” he said, withdrawing his hand.

  “Is there a treatment I could?…”

  “There’s no treatment,” he barked, “just a story line.”

  “Can I read that?”

  “No.” He smiled. “It’s in my head. I can tell it to you.”

  “When?”

  “RRRight now! RRReady?”

  I thought, I am his guest, eating his food, making films for his company and wading in his ocean, how could I not be ready?

  “You’re on, Mr. Bluhdorn,” I said, enthusiastically.

  At the same moment Mr. Bluhdorn set himself to begin, the sun, which had been hiding, peeped out from behind a cloud.”

  “Ah.” I smiled. “A good omen!’

  With Mr. Bluhdorn’s first utterance, my smile froze.

  “The title of the movie is,” he announced dramatically, his hands sweeping the sky, “Buffalo Bill Meets Adolf Hitler!”

  “‘Buffalo Bill Meets Adolf Hitler,’” I asked, “it’s a … what … a fantasy?”

  “No, RRReiner, a comedy!” he explained impatiently, “A comedy! I need a comedy expert like you to write and direct it. Shake my hand, RRReiner, and you’ve got a deal.”

  Again I hesitated and he, realizing that I would not commit to the project without more details, started giving me details, many, many details, one more stupid than the other. Mr. Bluhdorn had positioned himself so that his back was to the blazing sun and my face was facing it. It beat down on my bald head mercilessly, and I stopped paying attention to the story and focused on how I might avoid a sunstroke and retina damage. I squinted, grimaced, and shaded my eyes with my hand, hoping Mr. Bluhdorn would notice and offer me his cap or sunglasses, but he was so totally concentrated on selling his silly story that he was unaware that my well-being was in jeopardy. I dared not interrupt my host-boss, but I knew I had to do something to protect my eyeballs. By taking baby steps and turning my body oh so slowly, I managed to inch my way to deeper, cooler water: Mr. Bluhdorn, intent on selling his movie, followed me, unaware that we were swapping positions.

  After hearing how the story was set in “the wild, wild, wild West” and how Buffalo Bill was going to be the good guy and Adolf Hitler the villain, and how “Adolf and the Buffalo guy” would have a big gunfight over Eva Braun and her cattle land. I knew there would be no handshakes today. I thought, Is this why he invited me here … to make a deal for this garbage? And then I thought about what I would say when he finished and asked for my honest opinion. What could I possibly say, without compromising my integrity, that would not be cruel and insulting?

  When, blessedly, he did finish, Mr. Bluhdorn had a huge grin on his face and looked at me expectantly. He didn’t seem to know or care that I had maneuvered him to deeper water and had him facing the sun.

  “So, RRReiner,” he asked, smiling proudly, “what do you think? I want your honest opinion.”

  There it is, I thought, a career-shaping dilemma! How to critique his stupid story in a way that would minimize my chances of getting booted off the island and out of my offices at Paramount. I grinned back at him while shaking my head slowly back and forth. A slow head shake is a noncommittal comment that could mean “Boy, you sure are something!” or “You stink!” Using it gave me some extra time to decide between telling the truth or bullshitting, and very quickly I realized that the truth could set me free—free of further development sessions on this project.

  “Mr. Bluhdorn,” I said, acting thoughtful, “I think that Buffalo Bill Meets Adolf Hitler could well be—no, is—the worst idea for a comedy ever. It makes absolutely no sense and is just not funny. I can see no earthly reason why you would waste your time trying to develop this piece of sh—shhallowness.” I paused, adding quietly, “If I were you, Mr. Bluhdorn, I’d dump it.”

  Mr. Bluhdorn stared at me long and hard while I attempted to act nonchalant.

  “So, RRRReiner, you are telling me that my idea is stupid and not funny? God damm it!” he growled, “that’s what everybody tells me! Well, thank you.” He sighed. “You’re the expert, so I guess I’ll dump it, like you say.”

  I never expected this reaction to my critique, and wondered why he exerted all that energy describing something he knew stank? Maybe to test my honesty, or maybe check on my ability to judge material.

  The day following our session at the seashore, Mr. Bluhdorn invited my wife and me to join him and his other guests on a tour of the island. We piled into one of five black limos and at every place of interest, while the cars were still rolling to a stop, black-suited bodyguards would appear from nowhere and open the doors for us. Two guards for each car. I noticed, after the next precision door opening, that three guards rode in the lead car and three in the last car, two carrying machine guns.

  “Why the machine guns?” I asked our driver.

  “Señor Bluhdorn loves all the people of this island,” he explained simply, “but not all the people love Señor Bluhdorn.”

  The presence of machine guns was a little unsettling, but I shrugged it off. A host doesn’t have a guest bumped off for telling him his story idea stinks.

  My wife and I were properly impressed with an art colony Mr. Bluhdorn had built for young resident artists, and we told him so. After visiting a few of the island’s points of interest, we were driven to the middle of a large, barren field. The moment the motorcade stopped, the bodyguards snapped those doors open and Mr. Bluhdorn excitedly ordered us to follow him. While hurrying alongside him and seeing no obvious point of interest in the barren field, I dared ask, “What are we doing here?”

  “Going for a ride in a helicopter,” he answered, peering up at the sky, “to give you a bird’s-eye view of the whol
e island.”

  He had asked Estelle and me earlier if we would like to go for a helicopter ride, and we made it clear that we would not. I was about to remind him of that, when he stepped between us, took us by the hand as if we were two schoolchildren, and trotted us to a spot where, seconds later, a helicopter dropped from the sky and set down. It was at that moment, when he talked us into boarding “the safest copter ever built,” that I understood how one becomes a billionaire. Set definite goals, own automatic weapons, and never take no for an answer. To give the devil his due, and he was a cute devil, we did enjoy our first, and still only, helicopter ride, and we thanked him for tricking us into it.

  On the way back, Mr. Bluhdorn invited us to ride with him so he could continue his monomaniacal need for me to shake his hand.

  “RRReiner,” he exhorted, extending his hand as we settled in our seats, “shake and you got yourself a deal!”

  “Not for Buffalo Bill and—?”

  “No, no.” He laughed. “No Bill, no Hitler. I’m serious, I want you to direct a great comedy.”

  “Does it have a title?”

  “Yes, but I can’t tell you that until we have a deal. RRReiner, if you want the deal, shake my hand!”

  “I can’t until you tell me something about—”

  “All rrrright, tough guy,” he growled, “I’ll tell you one thing. The biggest star in the whole world has agreed to be in it!”

  “And who might that be?”

  “RRReiner, shake my hand and I’ll tell you.”

  Variations of this conversation went on every day. I kept asking for hints about this “biggest star in the world,” but he held firm, no hints.

  “You have no comedy project,” I challenged, “and no ‘biggest star in the world.’ You’ve been practical joking me, haven’t you?”

  “Make a deal,” he said, extending his hand, “and see if I’m practically joking you.”

  This silly game went on until, at a dinner party at the home of the renowned fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, I forced Mr. Bluhdorn to divulge the name of the world’s biggest star. I was seated to the left of the flamboyant editor of Vogue, Diane Vreeland, who found me utterly fascinating. She told me this many times after commandeering my right arm and keeping me from eating a succulent-looking veal chop. During that spell when Ms. Vreeland clutched my wrist in a viselike grip, I challenged Mr. Bluhdorn to play a version of twenty questions with me.