Robert Altman

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  Applying movie blood to Keith Carradine’s face in Thieves Like Us

  * * *

  JOAN TEWKESBURY: I met Bob when he was in his mid-forties, so he had already been in the Second World War, he was on his third marriage, he had more children than you can shake a stick at, he was always worried about having enough money, but he was living like a rich man. A guy who would take fifteen people to dinner and he would always be the guy who grabbed the check.

  After we finished McCabe I wrote this screenplay. And Bob said, “Do you mind not starting at the top?” And I said, “I don’t care.” We couldn’t get my movie financed and he had a book he needed to be adapted, Thieves Like Us. I read it and adapted it in about four days for him.

  By this time I had been around Bob long enough. It’s almost like when you find a really good dance partner—you know where the next step’s going to go. It’s not that you anticipate it, but you can relax enough to go with it. In the film I always thought that Bert Remsen’s character was Bob, reading his reviews—the newspaper stories Bert would read about the bank robberies. You know, “Why’d they say that? They got that part wrong.” It’s interesting how the personal becomes part of the overall in those things.

  The money fell out for the project about three times. It was really by the grace of George Litto and Bob and the other producer, Jerry Bick, standing in a room and practically mortgaging their houses and saying, “Let’s go ahead.” It was a really good lesson in terms of not backing down. When you’re making movies, and even more so today than ever before, there comes a point where you either put it on the line and do it or simply walk away. I always think back on that moment and the three of them and what a brave thing it was to do.

  In the last scene, when the police come in to kill Bowie, Bob wanted more gunfire because of course we were living through all the assassinations. Bob wanted them to just kill, to kill the house with bullets. Overkill. Without asking any questions they just went in and shot the house until it fell down, literally. And then when Bowie was carried out, he was like another deer they shot while hunting.

  With Shelley Duvall and Joan Tewkesbury in Cannes in 1974 for Thieves Like Us

  JOHN SCHUCK: Thieves was a picture that was so non-mainstream that the studio had no idea how to promote it. They treated it like a bank-robbery movie, which it isn’t, of course. And thank God for television and cable and all that. It’s developed a sort of a cult following and it got extraordinary reviews. Pauline Kael just wrote a love poem to Bob and to us individually as actors, perhaps the nicest set of notices we’ve ever received. But it was released and went in a few weeks.

  BUCK HENRY (writer and actor): I met Bob in Cannes. He and Kathryn said, “Come to a screening of Thieves.” We went to the screening and he went nuts because people were still milling around and talking when the film started. He stood up and yelled, “Goddammit, you fucking people. Will you sit down!” Scared the hell out of them—and they did.

  CHAPTER 17

  Split, California

  *

  KATHRYN REED ALTMAN: Oh yeah, he knew how to manipulate women—except for me [laughs]. … Women were always drawn to him, and vice versa, I suppose.

  * * *

  JOAN TEWKESBURY: It was a tough time between Bob and Kathryn. They were going to get divorced and all this stuff was going on. This was while we were prepping for Thieves.

  POLLY PLATT (art director and producer): I guess he saw The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, and he wanted me to come work for him as an art director. At that time I had the highest respect for him. I adored McCabe. He invites me to New York to talk about working on Thieves Like Us.

  The minute his wife went home he had the door open between our two rooms and wandered between our rooms and started talking about why I should sleep with him.

  I did not sleep with him. I had already been married to a director, Peter Bogdanovich. So I didn’t want any director in my life at all. I never slept with a director after Peter. They don’t interest me. They’re all alike—egotistical and used to having every word listened to. They’re spoiled. The very nature of the job spoils you for personal relationships.

  Then I didn’t do the picture. I passed.

  RENÉ AUBERJONOIS: It never seemed to me to be a big deal. In this business, on location, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I’ve been on so many locations and there’s so-and-so leaving so-and-so’s room, and these people are happily married to other people. Bob’s just a guy, you know, with all the weaknesses of any guy on location.

  Robert and Kathryn Reed Altman

  ELAINE KAUFMAN: I’m not gonna go into this. Let the guys do that. It’s a guy thing. Although I saw more than I wanted to, and they all looked like Kathryn. Shit. You know, those kinds of things go with the job. But Kathryn was always there.

  LILY TOMLIN: I’m sure he was a womanizer in many ways. You can’t judge anybody on one facet. People are too complicated. Maybe I was just more forgiving of things like that because of Bob and the way he was.

  * * *

  KONNI CORRIERE: He told me that he loved how my mother sacrificed her whole life for him. He will always just adore her for giving up her life to make his happen, and to make him comfortable, and to take care of him the way she did.

  LAUREN HUTTON (actress): Kathryn was half the team, for sure. I used to call her Kathryn the Great because she was like a queen. Queen Kathryn. She was incredibly gracious to everyone and knew everything that was going on. She had this weather eye and could see, you know, behind her head as well as from all sides. And could be blind when she had to be.

  MARK RYDELL: Kathryn Altman is one of the most magnificently loyal supporters of Bob. You know, Bob was a very, very quixotic fellow. She hung in. She was his supporter. She rode through all kinds of crises with him. She was the leveler. She was the loving one. She moderated his behavior, his excessive behavior. She was the perfect, beautiful, loyal, decent, intelligent, witty wife. And he knew that. I’ll tell you that. He knew it, he hung on to her, despite many crises in their lives. She was the absolute cornerstone of his career. He could never have done what he did without Kathryn Altman. She deserves as much credit as a filmmaker as he does.

  JENNIFER JASON LEIGH (actress): She’s so effortlessly graceful and easygoing, and she can party with Bob till dawn and she’s so loving. For so many women it’s hard when the guy is the center. It can be hard on a marriage. With them it felt completely natural. I’m sure they had been through it, but they came out the other side in such a gorgeous way. She made it possible for him to be that free and trusting because he always had her.

  STEPHEN ALTMAN: I know he loved her. Some people have a personality about having to be in control or having to be in charge. I think she has the type of personality that didn’t have to be those things. “Why aren’t you taking me here, why aren’t you doing this?” I never heard that. She liked her life and liked what he did and trusted him and let him do his thing and they both loved each other. But love is not enough. You got to give each person their space, and she had her own life, too. They gave each other their space and then enjoyed each other’s company. I mean it’s not like they didn’t get into it—“Oh Bob, what are you doing?” Or, “Goddamn it, Kathryn!” It’s not like that didn’t happen. But jeez, for fifty years. You could have more arguments with your cat than they did with each other.

  ROBERT REED ALTMAN: She’s always been like the queen mother in charge. She always made sure everything was running smoothly, that Bob was happy, that he could throw his parties and his gatherings with people. He’s the guy whose job is to bring total strangers together, find out the ones that work and get rid of the ones that don’t. It was a continuous job for her, all the parties, all the entertaining, all the things to remember. She’d help Bob remember all the stuff on the social front, which was really the base to everything. Even though Bob had his office and the people who worked for him, there was also the whole other side, which she definitely took care of and made sure w
as running smoothly. Every time we’d move from one house to another to go on location she’d find the right house, she’d get all that stuff together, make sure it was good for entertaining, that it had what we needed. She kept this whole family together. Because like we said earlier, Bob was always just making the movies. She really had to run everything. She’s like the grease between all the metal gears that kept everything running smooth and perfect.

  * * *

  KATHRYN REED ALTMAN: In October of ’72, when we were in post-production for Long Goodbye, a whole group of us were at the Lion’s Gate office one night. We were all drinking and they were smoking dope and carrying on. A telephone rang. There were two extensions—one on one side of the room and one on the other. I picked it up and a woman asked for Bob. I didn’t know who she was, but I could just tell something was up when I saw him pick up the other extension from across the way.

  Before the night was over, it all kind of broke that he was having this encounter with Faye Dunaway—she was the one on the phone. She had been at the house a couple of times. She was a real smart-assed bitch and I really didn’t like her.

  Well, we had a pied-à-terre attached to the offices because we were between owning homes at that point. He stayed there and I went back to the house we were renting, which was the beach house in The Long Goodbye. When it all broke, then everybody started opening up about what happened when I wasn’t around. I got a version of what happened in Ireland, what went on in Spain, what happened elsewhere.

  We were separated about two weeks. Bobby had just started boarding school. Matthew was so little he didn’t know the difference. Konni was already off on her way. I was devastated, and so one dear friend, Johnny Williams’s late wife, Barbara, suggested I go see this family therapist. I had never been to a therapist before. I liked him. He was saying things like, “Well, he’s on a roll, he’ll probably get over this, he’ll get it out of his system.”

  Bob was saying, “You’re going to a therapist and you’ll probably leave me.” He consented to go see him, but something about how he said it bothered me. I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

  I said, “This isn’t going to work.”

  I don’t know where it came from. I will never know where it came from. I was heartbroken. I was hurt and I was mad and I was scared. I thought I was too old to have another life. Somehow or other I got very strong and I invited two or three of my girlfriends to The Long Goodbye house on the beach. Before they got there, Bob called me and said he had been to see the doctor. He said, “Listen …”

  He was not going in the right direction.

  Out of the blue I said, “This is October. I don’t want to have any contact with you until after the first of the year. I’ll take care of the boys. I’ll have our business manager take care of the money for me. And that is really that. If you need to tell me something, Bob Eggenweiler can be the liaison. I can’t go on like this. I don’t care what it is you want to do or don’t want to do. Call me after the first of the year.”

  JOAN TEWKESBURY: I think he sat down and really thought about it. I mean, how are you going to replace Kathryn when you’re a working director who has six kids in various places and stages and ways of growing up? Plus the fact she’s as smart as you are, she’s very attractive, she gives a hell of a party, and she’s great at mixing people together. Give me a break.

  KATHRYN REED ALTMAN: The girlfriends came down and we boohooed and got loaded, and one of my friends, Helen Colvig, stayed all night with me. About six thirty in the morning, he called and said, “Could I please come home?”

  I said yes.

  My girlfriend Helen jumped out of that bed [laughs]. And he came in. He didn’t want to talk much but he figuratively got on his knees asking to come back and begged forgiveness and all that stuff. He said all the right things. It was like a little boy who had done wrong and knew it and wanted to make amends.

  JOAN TEWKESBURY: I think what saved him was Bob’s good sense. I remember saying to him at one point, “You know, if you’re going to do this philandering and all, just get a divorce and do that.”

  He said, “You know I can’t do that.”

  And I said, “Well, then make up your mind here, because this is sort of silly.”

  LOIS SMITH (press agent): Anytime someone put a choice like that to Bob there was only one way he was going to go, and that was Kathryn. He was offered many choices over the years, but he realized how important Kathryn was to him, so there couldn’t really be any other choice.

  KATHRYN REED ALTMAN: Well, Faye Dunaway started calling and saying she was coming to the house. It was a whole drama. Sally Kellerman—she’s such a dear friend—came and took Matthew to an amusement park just to get him out of the house before Dunaway showed up. It came very close but it never happened. She never came over.

  We got through the night in a very healthy way, and the next morning the therapist called. And he said, “I talked with Bob. I think you’re going to have to give up on this. I don’t see any way for it to be solved” [laughs].

  We had Thanksgiving at the Williamses’ house, and for Christmas we took the boys back to Kansas City to meet their cousins, and we stayed in a big suite in a hotel there. As far as I know, and I would almost stake my life on it, that was the end of that behavior.

  Dunaway? I saw her a couple of times at functions over the years, and I avoided her. Then we were at a Vanity Fair party at the Mondrian for the Oscars, with Gosford Park. Star-studded to beat all. She was at one end of the table and we were at the other end. She came over and Bob didn’t acknowledge her. He was like it never happened, which is a good way of handling it. She came around to my side and kneeled down and went through this big apology to me.

  I said, “You can’t take full responsibility. It wasn’t just you, Faye.” Bob was the one who should have been down on his knees.

  He was feeling his oats, there’s no doubt about it. I loved the way it ended. Now I can say I’m glad he got it out of his system, and I’m glad I didn’t take a walk. It was close.

  FAYE DUNAWAY (actress): I don’t have anything to say about Mr. Altman. I never worked with him. I don’t have any time to give you on this subject.

  Robert Altman, Q & A with F. Anthony Macklin, Film Heritage, Winter 1976—77 (discussing whether the audience could identify with Shelley Duvall’s performance in Thieves Like Us):

  F. ANTHONY MACKLIN: Shelley is not a Faye Dunaway, for instance. They [the audience] can relate to a Faye Dunaway.

  ROBERT ALTMAN: Why? Because she’s not real. Faye Dunaway’s not real. There’s no such thing as Faye Dunaway.

  LOIS SMITH: Kathryn was a rock. She was the hand on the tiller through all of their life, which as you’re aware was quite tempestuous at times. Everyone who knew the two of them prayed he would go first, because his life without her would not be possible.

  * * *

  California Split (1974)

  Roger Ebert, review in the Chicago Sun-Times, January 1, 1974: They meet in a California poker parlor. One wins, despite a heated discussion with a loser over whether or not a dealt card hit the floor. They drink. They become friends after they are jointly mugged in the parking lot by the sore loser. … They’re the heroes (or at least the subjects) of “California Split,” the magnificently funny, cynical film by Robert Altman. Their names are Bill and Charlie, and they’re played by George Segal and Elliott Gould with a combination of unaffected naturalism and sheer raw nervous exhaustion. … The movie will be compared with “M*A*S*H,” the first big hit by Altman (who is possibly our best and certainly our most diverting American director). It deserves that comparison, because it resembles “M*A*S*H” in several big ways: It’s funny, it’s hard-boiled, it gives us a bond between two frazzled heroes trying to win by the rules in a game where the rules require defeat. But it’s a better movie than “M*A*S*H” because here Altman gets it all together. Ever since “M*A*S*H,” he’s been trying to make a kind of movie that would function like a comedy but
allow its laughs to dig us deeper and deeper into the despair underneath.

  George Segal (as Bill Denny) and Elliott Gould (as Charlie Waters) in California Split

  * * *

  JOSEPH WALSH (screenwriter): I was a child actor, almost a child star, in New York City. I went from the incredible time as a child star, to at eighteen years old, you now are literally a has-been. It didn’t mean anything to me because I was a super-duper gambler. I was a great college prognosticator. It was a loss to my father, not to me. When I came out here—not really working—I was always gambling, keeping ahead of the curve and really getting good at that kind of thing. I realized nobody had done a real gambling movie. When I see a Cincinnati Kid it’s like a Western—“Is the hero going to win or going to lose the gun-fight at the end?” There’s nothing real about that.

  I was friends with Steven Spielberg, and Steven and I were going to do California Split. I worked in Steven’s home for about eight months. MGM said yes, and suddenly everything changed. Jim Aubrey, head of the studio, was the smiling cobra—and the snake struck. He said, “I want it changed. I don’t want what’s going on here. I want a straight movie. I want the Mafia to chase the two guys—they owe the Mafia money. The Mafia catches the two guys, they get away. And I want Dean Martin to be the star of it. He wears a lucky chip around his neck, and he gets shot and the chip saves his life.” He even had the title for it—“You call the movie Lucky Chip.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  I pulled out of it with a hundred twenty-seven dollars in my pocket. People said, “You are one of the great morons of all time. You should do what they want.” But to me I couldn’t do it. My agent, Guy McElwaine, made a quick move. He sent it to London, to Bob. Within two days he said, “Bob loves this and he wants to do it.” We did it with Columbia.