Dr. JULES MEECHAM: In other words, when you get up in the morning that’s as good as you’re gonna feel all day.
* * *
DANFORD GREENE: There was another side of him, too. There was this girl, a hairdresser, married, and really a dynamite sex-looking thing. So I put that together one night and borrowed the car. The next morning he’s grilling me about what I did, and I didn’t have a good story made up. I didn’t want to tell him what happened. Anyway, he finally gets me to say who it is. And I say, “Jesus, it’s really touchy, so please don’t say anything.” Well, the next day this girl comes up to me and just lays me out. That prick just went up to her and said, “Oh, you got fucked last night by my editor,” or something like that. I was so embarrassed. That’s a terrible situation. But he liked to do things like that, embarrass people that he shouldn’t put on the spot, because they were part of him, you know? I’ve thought about all the things it might be—control? envy?—but he had all of that stuff. He didn’t need to do that at all. I don’t know. I talked to guys that he kind of got rid of or bounced out, and they’ve all said the same thing, that he kind of likes to hurt the people he loves.
He could be a prick sometimes, but he had too much good in him. It’s Kansas City or something. There’s no Hollywood horseshit. That’s one of the reasons I liked him so much. We were two Kansas City boys playing Hollywood. Playing movies.
MICHAEL MURPHY: Cold Day in the Park is an example of Bob just picking himself off the ground. To me that was his major, major virtue. I mean this guy, I’d seen him just flattened by studios and no money, and he just gets up and starts casting, you know? Which is exactly what he did with that movie. And there was a time when the money fell out. He had a little billfold together, and then that fell out, and he just pushed ahead.
GRAEME CLIFFORD (assistant director): He had a preproduction speech at the beginning of the movie that just captured his whole approach. He said, “Anybody can come up to me at any time and give me any ideas they have or discuss anything they want. Sometimes I’ll use them and sometimes I won’t. I may not always have time to tell you why I’m not going to use your idea, but I’ll always listen.” I didn’t work for anybody else for the next five years, and I just assumed everybody worked this way—the way he treated the crew, the way he treated actors. I stole that speech and I use it on any movie I make, but you think many directors say that?
DONALD FACTOR: Everyone came to rushes every evening to watch each other’s work. That became a trademark of Bob’s—getting everyone together, letting them know they were all in it together. Bob would have a bottle of whiskey and a few joints and we’d have a party until Bob was out and had to be carried off to bed. The next morning, we’d all be dragging and Bob would be full of energy and raring to go.
I saw how talented Bob was in the scene where Michael Burns’s character, who’s called The Boy, sneaks out of the apartment and Sandy Dennis’s character finally gets her nerve up to make a pitch to him, except it’s to an empty bed. Sandy objected. She said, “I would know there was no one there.” Bob took her aside and said, “Look, Sandy, let’s just try it my way, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll try it another way.” She couldn’t say no to that. She went in and it was a long monologue to an empty bed with pillows stuffed into it. It was a single take and Bob said cut. Even the crew in the scaffolding was applauding. That was it. It was Altman magic.
GILLIAN FREEMAN: The next thing I knew was a phone call from Canada at two in the morning. Bob’s voice said, “You know that picture we worked on, well, we just finished it five minutes ago.” Don Factor had put up more of his money, half a million dollars on a budget of one-point-two million dollars.
I liked the film a lot. It had a lot of those qualities that made so many of Bob’s films marvelous and memorable, although I have to admit that Bob’s habit of letting the actors skip the written dialogue I found irritating, thinking that their ad-libbing was less succinct, less illuminating of their characters, than the dialogue I had written.
A year or two later Bob outlined another story idea of his own to me and gave me permission to flesh it out as a novel, which I did. Entitled An Easter Egg Hunt, it was set during the first World War and involved the mysterious disappearance of a young French teacher. It proved to be one of my most successful novels, going into several editions. For many years Bob talked about developing it as a film, but there was always another project that he wanted to do first.
GEORGE LITTO: So he made Cold Day and I sold it to this new company, Commonwealth United. It was well regarded and liked, and it was a very well made, good film. But it was no hit. It was a small company and they were new and they didn’t know how to promote a hit, you know?
DONALD FACTOR: It wasn’t very successful. Critics didn’t think much of it until Bob became Bob. Then they discovered things to like about it.
GEORGE LITTO: After Cold Day, one night I was having a party at my house. I said, “Bob, before you go home I want to give you a script to read.”
ACT II
1970–1980
Robert Altman directs a creative and commercial blockbuster, becomes an international star, builds a dream house, is a darling to critics, is a disappointment to critics, threatens his marriage, comes to his senses, creates his own studio, brings arms to Malta, and gets written off.
*
CHAPTER 12
M*A*S*H
*
M*A*S*H (1970)
Pauline Kael, review in The New Yorker, January 24, 1970: M*A*S*H is a marvelously unstable comedy, a tough, funny, and sophisticated burlesque of military attitudes that is at the same time a tale of chivalry. It’s a sick joke, but it’s also generous and romantic—an erratic episodic film, full of the pleasures of the unexpected. … It’s a modern kid’s dream of glory: Holden Caulfield would, I think, approve of [the heroes played by Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould]. They’re great surgeons, athletes, dashing men of the world, sexy, full of noblesse oblige, but ruthless to those with pretensions and lethal to hypocrites….I think M*A*S*H is the best American war comedy since sound came in, and the sanest American movie of recent years.
* * *
From the M*A*S*H theme song, “Suicide Is Painless,” lyrics by Michael Altman:
A brave man once requested me,
to answer questions that are key.
Is it to be or not to be?
And I replied, “Oh, why ask me?”
[Refrain] Suicide is painless. It brings on many changes,
and I can take or leave it if I please.
A poster for M*A*S*H with the iconic peace- sign- on- legs image
Memo titled “Synopsis of M*A*S*H” from James Denton, director of publicity, Twentieth Century Fox, July 16, 1969: Soon after Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland), Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt) and Trapper John McIntyre (Elliott Gould) join the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), Col. Henry Blake (Roger Bowen) ruefully realizes how placid his Korean War command had been before. The three surgeons have two things in common: They are the best in the Far East and they are hell-raising lunatics who make a shambles of army bureaucracy.
MICHAEL MURPHY: George Litto was an unsung hero of this movie. As brilliant as Bob was, studios worried about him because he was really an artist and he was rebellious and he wouldn’t do it the way they wanted it. That’s where George came in.
GEORGE LITTO: The way it started was my client, Ring Lardner, Jr., was asked to review the book M*A*S*H for The New York Times. You know Ring’s story? He was one of the blacklisted guys from the Hollywood 10, a brave guy who went to jail not to name names. I’m not a Communist. If anything I’m a capitalist—if anything I’m a royalist [laughs]. But I was very sympathetic to the fact that the blacklist was unfair. People have the right to disagree, they didn’t do anything in my mind illegal; you know, believing in something that’s not popular is not a crime. They have their First Amendment right. And they were treated terribly.
Anyway, he called me and said, “George, I t
hink it would make a terrific movie.” Well, Ingo Preminger was Ring’s agent before me, and we were very friendly, and he was moving into producing. So I called up Ingo, and I said, “Ingo, your ex-client just sent me a terrific book. I read the book and I think it would make a wonderful movie. But one condition: If you like it and you buy it, you’ve got to hire Ring to write it.” He said, “No problem.”
RICHARD ZANUCK (studio executive and producer): Ingo Preminger came into my office one day—he had a big literary agency—and he came in and he said, “I’ve read a book I’d like you to read over the weekend. If you like it I’ll sell the agency if you let me produce it.” I said, “Jesus, Ingo.” He had substantial clients. It was a thriving agency. Ingo was much more civil than his brother Otto, who was an arrogant prick. Well, I read it, and I called him up and I said, “I have your office ready.”
GEORGE LITTO: I had a house in Benedict Canyon. We had a poker game there on Sundays with a lot of people in the industry—writers, directors, producers—and Bob came to the poker game, and at the end of the poker game he said, “George, I read M*A*S*H. I think it’s great. Do you think you can get me this movie?” I said, “I don’t really think so, but I’m going to try.”
So Ingo and Ring wanted to have a meeting. “George, who should direct this movie?” And I said, “Stanley Kubrick.” They say, “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” So I say, “How could you get him? You can’t. Or, Bob Altman.” And Ring said, “Who’s Bob Altman?” Ingo said, “George, we can never get Bob Altman this job.” I said, “I’m telling you right now, you want to know who can direct this movie? Stanley Kubrick or Bob Altman. That’s all I got to say. You know everybody in town, Ingo. But I’m telling you who can make this a terrific movie.” Ingo says, “George, I can’t get him the job.” So, dissolve.
Ingo and Ring called me up some days later. They said, “George, we got a problem. Practically every meaningful director in Hollywood has turned down the script.” Fifteen, sixteen top directors turned it down. I learned later that many directors turned down M*A*S*H because it had a group of characters, but it was a series of vignettes, and they were used to the traditional beginning, middle, and end. You have to have a motor to get you to the middle and a motor to get you to the end. And this series of vignettes didn’t seem to have a motor. The way Bob fixed that was brilliant, but that comes later.
So Ingo said, “George, if we go to Fox with another turndown, they’re going to cancel this project. We need a director who won’t turn us down.” I said, “Well, you know Kubrick probably will turn you down.” He said, “George, stop being a smartass.” I said, “But Bob Altman won’t turn you down.” That was the only lie I ever told Ingo. Because, you know, he did turn it down [laughs].
Ingo Preminger, from “Remembering M*A*S*H: The 30th Anniversary Cast and Crew Reunion”: To get rid of George Litto, I went and met his client Robert Altman. And at that time he played a little film for me that dealt with the smoking of pot. It was short, it was sweet, and I loved it. I called Richard Zanuck and said, “We found the guy.” He said, “You’re crazy.”
RICHARD ZANUCK: Ingo said, “Look, this guy has done some talented work. Not much, but good work.” That’s when we ran the picture That Cold Day in the Park and something like fifteen episodes of Combat! He came in and we talked about his concept and how he would shoot it and all the rest. It was a gamble ’cause he really hadn’t done anything quite like this.
DAVID BROWN (producer): We were absolutely bowled over by the book, but not by Altman. Ingo convinced us to go with Altman. Well, we weren’t convinced, but we supported the producer.
GEORGE LITTO: So I call up Bob, I tell him, “You won’t believe this, but I got an offer from Ingo Preminger for you to direct M*A*S*H.” It was like a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars and five percent of the picture profits, but Ingo had two other options for more pictures. So that was the deal I made with him. Ingo was a good, smart guy. So Bob agrees and great, fine, I make the deal. Dissolve.
A few days go by. I get a call from Owen McLean, who was head of business affairs for Fox. He said, “George, we got a problem.” He said, “Ingo did not have the authority to make a deal with you for Bob Altman. We’re canceling that deal unless you agree to our terms.” He said seventy-five thousand, flat, no profits. That’s it, take it or leave it. I said, “You know, you’re a big shit, Owen.” He said, “George, are you leaving it? I guess you’re leaving it.” And you wonder why Bob had such an attitude about studios? I said, “Hey, Owen, I’m just a humble agent. I can only deliver your message. I cannot accept or reject your proposal” [laughs]. He said, “There’s not a fucking thing that’s humble about you” [laughs].
RICHARD ZANUCK: When I made Jaws with Spielberg, he didn’t have points and he had done a lot more work. He got no points and that was much later than Bob. In those days points weren’t thrown around unless you were Bob Wise or Willie Wyler or somebody like that.
GEORGE LITTO: So I called Bob and every profane word you can think of he uttered through the telephone about Owen and Fox, because he had a bad experience there. I don’t know if you know this. He was doing a television show with a singer from Philadelphia, Fabian. Yeah, the Bus Stop thing.
So I said, “Bob, do you really want to fuck them?” He said, “Yeah, I’d love to fuck them.” I said, “Take the deal.” He said, “What?” I said, “Take the deal. You think it’ll be a great movie. If it’s a great movie, after that I’ll get you anything you want. Any picture you want to make. I’ll get you the biggest salary in Hollywood. Just take the deal.” So I called Owen and I said, “Owen, I got bad news for you. Bob’s taking the deal.”
RICHARD ZANUCK: When he was gearing up he came in and said, “I want to go scout Korea.” I said, “Why? We’re not going to Korea. We’re going to the studio ranch in Malibu.” He said, “This is ridiculous.” I said, “Go out and look. I’ll show you pictures of mountains in Korea. They match perfectly with what’s out at the studio ranch.” It was probably more Korea than had we gone to Korea. Nobody knows what Korea looks like, anyway. That’s what I said to him and he got very angry.
He said, “We’re going to shoot that golf scene in Tokyo.” I said, “No we’re not. We’re going across the street to Rancho Park. There’s a golf course. All you have to do is get a couple of Japanese girls and dress them up and they’re caddies.” One golf course looks like another. Why would we ever do that?
During the filming of M*A*S*H
In those exchanges, Bob was a guy who didn’t like authority. He was a real rebel. I always felt that underneath that anger there was kind of a playboy. I would see the way he would dress, in the Paris airport, with the hat, the flashy white suit. I think there was a rogue element about that.
GEORGE LITTO: Now he’s doing the picture. He’s working with Ingo and Ring. They’re doing the rewrite. They’re planning the movie and talking to the production department. There’s a guy by the name of Doc Berman that’s like their executive in charge of physical production. Bob calls me up one day. He says, “I fucking hate Doc Berman. I’m planning a shot and they said, ‘Well, you can cut it off here and you don’t have to finish it now, you can finish it next week.’ They’re telling me how to make the movie. I’m sick of this shit. I don’t want this shit. I don’t want to do the picture.” I said, “Come on, Bob. I’ll have Ingo talk to Doc Berman. It’ll be okay.” Ingo talks to Bob, to Doc. Dissolve.
I think everything is okay. My phone rings about six o’clock in the morning. It’s Kathryn. She says, “George, I’m very upset. Bob couldn’t sleep all night. He’s on his way to see you. He’s not going to do the picture. He’s going to walk out on the picture.” I said, “Don’t worry about it.” She said, “What do you mean, don’t worry?” I said, “Don’t worry about it. You’ve told me he’s going to walk out of the picture, you’ve told me he’s on his way. I am up, I will have the coffee on, I will talk to him, and he’ll do the picture.” She said, “Why are you so sure?” I said
, “Because he owes me so much fucking money” [laughs].
So Bob comes in, he said, “George, we got to talk. I don’t want to do this movie.” I said, “You want some coffee?” He said, “George, I’m serious.” “I know you’re serious, Bob, but come on, you like those eggs I make with sausages? You want some eggs and sausages?” “George, stop fucking with me. I’m telling you, I don’t want to do it.” I said, “I hear you. Can we have a little breakfast? I got to eat alone? Just take it easy. You’re not going to do the movie. If you got good reasons, I won’t be able to change your mind.” We eat.
I say, “Okay, now tell me the reasons you don’t want to do this picture.” And he gives me a whole thing about, “I can’t pick my own editor, I can’t pick my own cameraman. …” He gives me a whole list. I said, “Okay, here’s what I think. I think you’re right. You should be able to pick these people. They shouldn’t be telling you what to do. I’m going to call Ingo Preminger, and I’m going to tell him that you have problems about making this movie and you’re very upset about it, and he has to resolve it for you to continue with this picture. And I’m going to ask him if he could see you this morning and you can go right from my house to his house”—which was in Brentwood.
So I call up Ingo and I said, “Ingo, you got a pencil and paper?” And I read him the list. He said, “George, I got to get all this?” I said, “What the fuck is the difference? Just go get it for him. Somebody’s got to make the decisions. Say it was your decision.” Bob went to see him, they worked it out.
ROBERT REED ALTMAN: My mom’s desk had a piece of glass on it, and under the glass was a little piece of paper with my dad’s writing on it. I said, “What’s this?” And she said, “That’s from when your dad decided that he would make the movie M*A*S*H.” The note said, “Oh fuck it, I’ll do it.”
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