Party Animals

by Robert Hofler

  Just as he advised the girls of Gamma Phi Beta how to dress, he spent an inordinate amount of time on what his Grease actresses wore onscreen.

  “Stars do not wear poodle skirts!” he informed Olivia Newton-John, and promptly put her in Spandex.

  Allan also obsessed over Stockard Channing’s red-and-black polka-dot dress in the movie’s dance-contest scene, and insisted that the camera pan from her shoes up to her face. He called the camera movement “very Ava Gardner!” In another scene, he pushed aside the makeup artist, grabbed an eyebrow pencil, and personally applied freckles to the actress’s face. “Allan was kind of a nasty mother figure,” Channing recalls. “He never liked your hair, what you were wearing.”

  With the guys, he showed equal impatience, as well as attention to detail. When John Travolta thought his ill-fitting jeans didn’t allow him enough room to bump and grind sufficiently, Allan retired his star to a waiting limousine for an impromptu sartorial consultation. Twenty minutes later, Travolta emerged a new man but wearing the same old Levi’s.

  Even when Allan lay flat on his back in Cedars-Sinai, his spirit never left the set. “Allan had all kinds of deals for contests and these prizewinners,” says Randal Kleiser. One group of would-be actors came in the shape of out-of-town journalists. “They’ll go back home and write their articles, saying how great the movie is,” Allan told his director. “Find a place for them in the movie.” Kleiser rolled with the punches of Allan’s movie-as-circus. He took one look at his randomly assembled crew of small-town reporters—often referred to as “those press-junket whores”—and decided, “Well, they’re old enough. They could be teachers,” and cast them as faculty chaperones in the dance-contest scene.

  During another hospital sojourn, Allan phoned Kleiser to give him more casting news: “I’ve got thirty contest winners who must be in the movie. I’m flying them in next week and they must be in the movie.”

  “Where am I going to put them?” asked Kleiser.

  “You’ll figure something out,” said Allan. End of conversation.

  Kleiser sandwiched this latest bunch of nonprofessionals into a scene where students flee the school at semester’s end. “They were winners of various department store contests, like ‘Win a Spot in Grease,’” says Laurence Mark. “Allan turned Grease into a complete and utter romp.” Allan may have been the first and only producer in Hollywood history ever to be “thrilled” to chat up the studio apparatchiks in charge of department store tie-ins. “There were many people who thought that was low-rent,” says Mark. “Nothing was too low-rent for Allan,” who believed in creating buzz any way he could.

  He worshipped at the shrine of product placement. For Olivia Newton-John’s big song, “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” a Pepsi-Cola sign looms brazenly on the character’s back porch. Pepsi signs were also supposed to populate a hamburger hangout called Frosty Palace. Instead, the set designer used posters from another slightly more iconic soda-pop company.

  “Who did this?!” Allan screamed when he visited the set, only to discover that the Frosty Palace moment had already been committed to celluloid. “Who let those fucking Coke signs in my movie? I’ve got a deal with Pepsi. It has to be Pepsi-Cola!”

  Later, in the film’s postproduction phase, some poor flunky had to hand-paint out the Coke signs behind Olivia Newton-John’s head. “You can see it’s blurry in the final film,” says Kleiser.

  ten

  Only Half the Phone Book

  “Producing Grease made me feel like I was the president of my class,” Allan said.

  Early in the filming, Allan asked some of his actors to pose with him for “a class picture,” as he put it. Didi Conn, who played the destined-for-a-beauty-school character Frenchy, recalls that momentous afternoon. “There were all these cool greasers around him, and Allan was this honorary greaser, and that was something he never was in high school,” she says. “He was happy finally to be the hot guy on campus. He liked that role.”

  Tellingly, Allan decided to be different from all the other guys in that photo, and opted not to wear a leather jacket and jeans. Instead, he wore Bermuda shorts. Plaid Bermuda shorts.

  “He just beamed when he came on the set,” says Stockard Channing. “Allan had been very sick and he loved all of these boys and girls hugging and kissing him and being affectionate. He really believed in that glossy high school world, which is probably why he tapped into the gestalt of what so many people feel about high school.”

  While he was riding high with the production of a new movie musical, Allan decided to capitalize on his newfound producer status with an überparty. Unlike the Tommy Subway Party or the Truman Capote Jail House Party, this one would not have the gimmick of a funky locale. It would be a real class act—and he’d stage it at his new Malibu beach house, Seahaven. “I’m going to hold a party that runs over two nights,” he announced. He called it his Rolodex Party. “People with last names A-L will be invited on Friday night. Those with names M-Z on Saturday night.”

  Producer David Picker had joked that Allan invited his entire Rolodex to the Hilhaven Lodge housewarming party back in 1973. Five years later, Allan took that gentle jab and turned it into a party theme to publicize Grease and show off Seahaven. According to Variety’s Army Archerd, it was the house “that Survive! bought and A Chorus Line furnished.”

  “Everyone in Hollywood was trying to get an invitation to that party,” says producer Howard Rosenman.

  Allan knew it would be his best party to date. “It felt like the opening night of a Broadway show,” he said. And to back up that claim, he rolled out a yards-long red carpet on Old Malibu Road and even set up a few klieg lights in case any of his guests couldn’t find their way. And that was just Friday! The following evening he did it all over again, in total inviting over 750 of his best friends to a two-night party.

  Allan was proud of his multilevel beach house, which resembled his Highland Park home in that it sat high on a bluff overlooking the water. Allan took almost a year to decorate Seahaven, and he was eager to show off the fake palm trees and real ostrich feathers and peacock-and-pheasant-feathered dining table—“Every one of them molted. I couldn’t hear of anything being killed,” said Allan—and enough mirrors to stock a fun house. Allan wanted Seahaven to be a veritable jungle of kitsch, and he enjoyed pointing out the entryway’s big round fish tank, which, he told guests, featured “very, very expensive” tropical fish. (A caretaker, who filled the tank, revealed that no fish ever cost more than $35.) Never one for understatement, Allan glued Valentino fabric to the walls and used it to also sheathe his “conversation pit,” that 1970s architectural oddity otherwise known as a sunken living room. He considered the Valentino fabric a classy touch, because it restricted the décor to the colors gray, white, and silver. And so it hurt when, on the second night of the Rolodex Parties, his Malibu neighbor Merle Oberon—looking preternaturally young at sixty-six years next to her even younger husband, Rob Wolders, of indeterminate age—advised Allan on how to treat mold in an oceanside house. “Get rid of the wall fabric!” Oberon ordered as soon as she stepped inside Seahaven.

  Other Malibu residents dealt with their own soap operas that weekend. Dani and David Janssen, who lived next door and were estranged, made amends at the Rolodex Party. Britt Ekland, having just broken up with Rod Stewart, told her sob story to George Hamilton, who had just broken up with his date for the night, his soon-to-be-ex-wife Alana Hamilton, who a year later would marry Rod Stewart. Hamilton, in turn, offered Ekland his Malibu couch for the night, while the Hollywood Reporter’s George Christy wondered aloud why “George and Alana are seeing each other more now that they are separated.”

  Where the invitation for his Cycle Sluts Party had read “glitterfunk,” Allan asked everyone to wear “beach chic” to his Rolodex Party. Keith Carradine came in a jogging suit. Gossip columnist Rona Barrett wore a terry beach robe and diamonds. Struggling photographer (and ex-wife of the Canadian prime minister) Margaret Trudeau arrived
in a simple suit. Sophia Loren’s husband, producer Carlo Ponti, showed up in a checked jacket and open-neck shirt.

  Allan insisted that his client Stockard Channing attend both nights, so she could meet important people. No sooner did she walk into Seahaven than he rolled his eyes. “It’s all wrong,” he said of her Halston knockoff, then whispered, “Never leave the house unless you look like an eight-by-ten glossy.” He suggested a more appropriate outfit for Saturday night, and picking some lint off her dress, he turned to kiss a drag queen made up to look like Bette Midler.

  That first night, Allan changed his outfit three times, donning first a scarf caftan by La Vetta, followed by a Japanese obi jacket with harem pants, and finally an Egyptian fisherman’s tunic and pants. After so many trips to Cedars-Sinai, he looked svelte that weekend, and proud of it. One more jaw wiring and he’d get himself down to under 200 pounds, he promised. He’d recently gone to the hospital to have the bypass removed, hoping somehow that it would relieve his chronic problem with kidney stones. He told guests, “I am confident that I can now maintain my weight. There is no doubt I want to stay happy about the way I look more than I want to eat.”

  If he was on a diet, Allan didn’t think it fair to make his guests stick to veggie sticks and brown rice during the two nights of the Rolodex affair. Now that he could afford better, he eschewed the pro bono food of Chicago Pizza Works in favor of the Studio Grill’s chef, Tom Rolla, who prepared a buffet menu that included his newest invention, a fresh crab and lobster mousse. Also served was a “wall of seafood,” as Allan described the hors d’oeuvres.

  Partygoers John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Michael Eisner (but not Barry Diller, with whom Allan was already feuding), ABC’s Gary Pudney, William Morris’s Stan Kamen, Roger Vadim, Lee Grant, Michele Lee, Johnny Carson and his producer Fred De Cordova, and Steven Spielberg obeyed Allan’s weekend dictate, with the A through L’s arriving on Friday night and the M through Z’s waiting until Saturday.

  A notable exception was Anjelica Huston, who broke the alphabet rule by attending the second night and regretting her decision the minute Roman Polanski, her major courtroom nemesis, stepped through the front door of Seahaven. The big news at both parties was (1) Roman Polanski’s rape trial and (2) Cher’s breakup and reconciliation with Gregg Allman after nine days of marriage. Allan had invited the Polish émigré, as well as the rock-pop couple. At that moment in time in Hollywood, they could make any party by their mere appearance. If Allan didn’t land Cher and Gregg Allman for his party, he got the other 50 percent, and in his opinion it was the better half: Polanski.

  On Saturday night, Allan noticed a sudden change in the room’s temperature, and looking around, he saw the Rosemary’s Baby director—all sixty-five inches of him—in the doorway. Even though he was already standing, Allan motioned for everyone else to rise, and he led an ovation for the much-maligned Polanski, who’d been accused of the statutory rape of Samantha Geimer, a thirteen-year-old from Woodland Hills, on March 10. Everyone in America, much less Malibu, had been following the trial and knew that the film director had taken nude photos of the girl after plying her with champagne and Quaaludes at Jack Nicholson’s house up on Mulholland Drive. Sometime during the impromptu photo session, Nicholson’s ex-girl friend, Anjelica Huston, returned to the house to pick up some belongings, and no sooner had she expressed outrage at Polanski’s underage company than the police arrived. Polanski accused Samantha’s mother of the tip-off. The police booked Polanski. In a surprise twist, they also booked Huston after finding cocaine in her purse, and in exchange for immunity on all charges of drug possession, the actress gave evidence for the prosecution.

  “The DA’s case would be weak without some supporting testimony from Anjelica Huston, who could place me in the house and the room where [the thirteen-year-old] and I had made love,” Polanski wrote years later in his autobiography. Huston’s testimony had been nasty. She called Polanski a “freak” and ridiculed his story that the photographs were for Vogue. The night of the Rolodex Party, Polanski told Allan’s guests that he couldn’t really blame Anjelica for accepting the deal, “though it left me feeling slightly bitter,” he said.

  Polanski was now free on his own recognizance, having paid a $2,500 bail, and he tried to keep a low profile—until the Rolodex Party—and the photographers at Seahaven went wild. With the trial going on, Polanski’s appearance on the second night of Allan’s party propelled it from a must-attend event to one for the record books, giving the Malibu event the softest brush of scandal. With his standing ovation for Polanski, Allan let Hollywood’s most recently indicted rapist know that he was a welcome guest, and the gesture moved Polanski to tears, even though not everyone approved. “Only in Hollywood,” complained Alana Hamilton.

  For two evenings, Allan had it all. Survive! and A Chorus Line made him a multimillionaire, and with Grease now before the cameras, he was clutching the producer’s brass ring. No longer was he somebody who got lucky recycling a Mexican flick. Allan was a Hollywood power broker, and he liked having that power. Friends noticed that it brought out a new side to his personality. As his school friend David Umbach had observed, Allan “wasn’t a beauty. His sexual inclination would have been to be shy and not bring it up until later in life when he could control it.”

  A true Hollywood player at long last, Allan could now “control it” with a vengeance, and when he wasn’t flinging out his arms to say, “I’m Allan Carr and it rhymes with star,” he approached young men with a newfound confidence. He no longer tried to seduce or be seduced or even roll out a mattress on the pretext of a late-night wrestling match. He instead took a shortcut to the object of his desire, and asked point blank, “Cash or career? What will it be?”

  eleven

  Grease on Track

  “He saw me as a worker bee on Grease,” says Randal Kleiser.

  Allan had a way of treating fellow homosexuals like mere employees and straight male friends like the brothers he never had. Despite Kleiser and Joel Thurm’s exemplary work on Grease, it was the film’s cinematographer, Bill Butler, whom Allan sought to adopt as an honorary brother of sorts, and he rewarded Butler in ways that went far beyond the dollars of his contract.

  One weekend, as he drove his Grease cinematographer to Malibu, Allan let go with a surprise.

  “Your salary on this picture is not enough,” Allan said.

  “It’s a very good salary,” Butler replied.

  Allan shook his head. “I want you to have a piece of this picture.” And out of his own percentage of the gross, he handed Butler one point of the gross profits from Grease. “I’ll have our lawyers write it up tomorrow,” Allan said. And he did.

  As filming on Grease continued into its final days, Stigwood and Allan began to turn their attention to the film’s title sequence, which had been animated at great expense by John D. Wilson. Stigwood wasn’t happy with the music and got the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb to slap together an alternate tune. Allan thought it was great, but Kleiser disagreed. “The beat of Gibb’s song is out of sync with the editing,” said the director. “The lyrics don’t reflect the movie. They’re too serious.”

  Gibb wasn’t smiling when he suggested, “So why don’t you shoot a serious scene for the movie?”

  Ill fitting or not, the title song “Grease” helped sell 13 million albums in the soundtrack’s first year of release, and Gibb received a full 1 percent of the net profits on the movie for his songwriting effort.

  Early in the producing process, Allan and Stigwood divided their respective fiefdoms. Stigwood handled the music, Allan masterminded the film’s production and promotion, and they basically stayed out of each other’s way. “Robert was quiet, he made his presence felt, but his style was much more laid back,” says Laurence Mark. “Allan was much more out there in every way. They complemented each other that way nicely.”

  Until they didn’t.

  The showier of the two men, Allan sometimes got credit—or took credit—where none
was due. It began with Tommy, and now Stigwood watched as his producing partner leveraged a similar publicity grab on Grease. Reporters often mentioned Allan as the producer of Grease, with no ink spilled Stigwood’s way. It’s difficult to say whether it was a Variety or a Los Angeles Times profile of the fabulous Allan Carr, “the producer of Grease,” that pushed Stigwood out of the backseat.

  “It made Stigwood nutty,” Kevin McCormick says of the hoopla surrounding Allan. It was McCormick who brought Nik Cohn’s New York Magazine article “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” to Stigwood’s attention and, in turn, became executive producer of Saturday Night Fever. McCormick recalls a phone call that Stigwood placed to Allan: “He started making fun of Allan’s clothes, how ridiculous he was. It was hurtful.”

  For much of the filming and postproduction, the two men didn’t speak and instead used go-betweens like McCormick and Freddie Gershon to relay messages. It wasn’t until the Hollywood premiere of Grease that they met again, face to face. “They pretended it didn’t happen,” McCormick says of their long-distance blowout. “But they both knew it had.”

  On June 2, 1978, Grease premiered in Hollywood at the Chinese Theater. Allan came with Elton John, and they double-dated with Stockard Channing and her husband, David Debin. In the limousine, the rocker told the actress, “I really like your singing in the movie,” and on the strength of that high praise, she paid little attention to anything else that happened on the way to the theater. Stigwood brought Lily Tomlin, who was starring in his upcoming Moment by Moment with John Travolta, who arrived with Olivia Newton-John. John wore black leather, Olivia a vintage prom dress. “There was total panic in the streets outside the theater,” says Randal Kleiser. Channing was dumbfounded by the crowds, which “recalled the golden age of Hollywood!” Allan exclaimed. Since the buzz on the film had been so subdued, the actress never expected multitudes of people on the street. “Everybody in the business was puzzled by it. Grease was dismissed,” she says.