by Robert Evans
There was one problem: Me. I owned it.
The top studio honchos at Twentieth did not take kindly to the news that Pretty Boy Evans was the novel’s proud proprietor. Unsure whether to laugh or shudder, they upped the offer to rid themselves of me. “Am I this diseased?” I thought to myself. “Let’s find out.” Hey, as a half-assed actor, Twentieth was my home for six years. Guess I didn’t leave much of an impression. Not realizing the more they offered to buy me out, the more insulted I was. Without Sinatra attached, I knew full well I’d be barred entrance to the studio commissary. But the Chairman was committed, and I came with the package.
Tired of being pissed on, I let spite prevail. Clenched jaws and all, the suits let their fear of losing Sinatra overcome their pique over my outlandish demands. Starting with a suite of offices in their elite building. For a virgin producer? Is he crazy? Yes, but I got it. The announcement of a three-picture deal with the studio. The first being The Detective. Grudgingly, they called their head of publicity to write up the announcement for my approval. The last of my demands was met with a rebellious “No!” A call from Sinatra’s consigliere, Mickey Rudin, turned that into a tight-lipped “Yes.”
Every actor’s fantasy: The studio took out full-page ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, with photos of the top honchos, from Darryl Zanuck on down, surrounding me as I signed an unprecedented production contract. The headline read “20th Century–Fox welcomes Robert Evans back to the studio as producer of The Detective.”
To this day, both Variety and the Reporter hang above my desk. Till this day it remains the money shot of my career. You don’t get many. When you get ’em, savor ’em, enjoy ’em. Whenever I’m feeling low, which ain’t too infrequent, I look up at them forty-year-old ads. Wham, bam, there I am—smilin’ wide again. Never fails.
The Crooner, his porcelain beauty bride, Mia Farrow, and I champagned to the tens The Detective’s closure at Fox. Rarely had a case been solved that quickly. And never did a case come back to bite me so viciously on the ass. Pussy power was what brought Sinatra and the wannabe together. Pussy power was what tore Sinatra and the newly appointed studio chairman viciously apart.
With whirlwind speed, before spring turned to summer, I called a press conference at the Bistro restaurant. There I announced the making of the life story of Maurice Chevalier, scripted by the Academy Award–winning writer Maurice Richlin, starring Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot. Having both Chevalier and Delon, who was my houseguest at the time, in attendance answering the bombardment of questions thrown at them by a frenzied press corps gave credence to my ambitious undertaking. There wasn’t a newspaper in the world that didn’t headline the announcement in their entertainment section. Soon after that, I acquired the film rights to Sam Sheppard on the Run, a true crime story that soon became the hot new nonfiction book of the year. Paul Newman and Steve McQueen both vied for the role of Sheppard, whose story was the basis of The Fugitive.
Lady Luck must have been touchin’ me that year. The Achilles Force, an original screenplay I’d commissioned Leonard Hughes to write, caught the eye of John Huston, who fell hook, line, and camera in lust to put it on the screen. With Huston in the maestro’s seat to direct, it forced the honchos at Fox to announce yet another flick for their virgin producer.
Something’s wrong here, thought the bigwigs at Fox. In three months, the kid’s caused more of a stir behind the scenes than he did in a decade on the screen. In those days, actors weren’t given much respect, especially those whose profile and smile prevailed over their talent.
Then, over dinner one evening, the Academy Award–winning screenwriter Abby Mann, who at the time was scripting the filmic version of The Detective, introduced me to Peter Bart, the Sunday New York Times’ ace cinema journalist.
With typical journalistic cynicism, Bart was suspicious. Was this new kid on the block just generating a lot of puff, or would there be proof behind the zeal? He got the proof. Before spring turned to summer, there I was, chronicled by the New York Times: “Hollywood’s New Wunderkind.”
All before I’d made a single picture.
Me, I’m scratchin’ my head, thinkin’, How can you be a wunderkind and still a virgin? It didn’t matter. The printed word spreads faster than fire. From virgin producer, I’m catapulted into King of Paramount. All because of a five-thousand-dollar option on a first-time author’s work, coupled with Chairman Sinatra’s love song to Joe Leland, detective.
Truth’s truth: I was far better prepared as an actor becoming a so-called movie star than I was a virgin producer becoming King of the Studio. Had ’em laughing in the aisles. Vegas had me a three-to-one favorite not to make year’s end. Forget the fact that I beat the odds. Without Chairman Sinatra’s embrace, I seriously doubt I would have ever made it to the field to be bet against.
Then my incident-prone nature came into play again, throwing me the kind of curve few could survive. By this time, I had Rosemary’s Baby, my pet film project at Paramount, and The Detective slated to start principal photography—at approximately the same time. Seem inconsequential? Not so! It had consequences big-time, starting a blaze that spread with a vengeance, leaving behind it havoc, both life-threatening and life-changing. Why? The power of the pussy: in this case, the ethereal Mia Farrow.
Both Mark Robson and Frank Sinatra were on high, anxiously expecting Mia to be Frank’s leading lady onscreen, as she was in life. But Roman Polanski envisioned the theatricality of Mia’s fragile beauty giving birth to the Devil’s own.
What happened? Sinatra’s ego went into shock when his lady fair opted to play mother to the Devil rather than putter-putter to his Detective. Didn’t sit well with Chairman Sinatra. And that didn’t sit well with the new chairman Evans. From years of embrace, instant acrimony exploded between The Chairman and the Chairman.
I wanted out. An actress is an actress is an actress is an actress. But I was too late. Professional smarts prevailed over family loyalty. Ethereal Mia tasted immediate stardom, leaving Sinatra hot beyond heat. Should have remembered his own advice: Don’t try to figure ’em out. You can’t. His acrimony turned to umbrage. Not toward Mia, toward me. Hey, Frank, we both know Lady Mia was no innocent bystander. It didn’t matter; I was the guilty one. There was nothing I could do except close the picture down . . .
. . . which I couldn’t.
Ugly the irony: The film that gave me my entrance to that elusive inner circle, and catapulted me into instant power, was now causing instant pressure to the marital bliss of the guy responsible for my jumping up the ladder.
Rampant ran them emotions. By now, the tension between Sinatra and his lady fair had erupted into open warfare. By dictate of the Chairman: “No negotiations. Total capitulation or you can drop the name ‘Sinatra.’ ”
By now we were six weeks into principal photography. Rosemary was giving birth on the screen and causing havoc in the streets. The Chairman’s verbal threats turned into formal legal notice. For her real-life marriage to prevail, her cinematic pregnancy would have to abort. Gotta believe babies always win out. Rosemary’s did, bringing about a visit to the Paramount soundstages by the Chairman’s consigliere Mickey Rudin. Interrupting a highly emotional filmic moment, Rudin served the expectant mother with her true-life walking papers. This was no on-your-knees forgive me time, no tears, no copping pleas, no recriminations, and no second time around . . . it’s over and out.
Adios, Mia. Evans, watch out.
Chairman Sinatra let it be known loud and clear, in any and every circle that mattered, that I was the rat fink responsible for wrecking their marriage. Restaurant, party, you name it—whenever Sinatra’s presence was expected, I got the high sign to stay away.
Not only did the heat not subside, it went from back to front burner. For good reason: The Detective and Rosemary’s Baby opened on Broadway on the same fuckin’ day in June 1968. And everywhere it counted—from film critique to box office—Baby sizzled, The Detective fizzled.
After the
handwriting was on the wall, Porcelain Mia shocked me by requesting a “fragile” favor. Call it cat claws, call it a fuck-you to a loved one lost, her ethereal petition was to have Paramount take out a double-page ad in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Variety, and Hollywood Reporter comparing the dual openings of their pictures, in terms of box-office dollars and critical acclaim. I gave her request the heaviest thumbs-down I’ve ever given. Thanks but no thanks, Mia. I’m not looking to wake up with a vacancy between my legs.
Not long thereafter, it was Gunfight at the O.K. Corral time. The place: Ruby’s Dunes restaurant in Palm Springs. We collided. The restaurant cleared. There we stood. No guns, but plenty of language. When it came to letting off steam, it wasn’t easy going toe-to-toe with the Chairman. I did. The more we vented, the dumber we looked. Two sophisticated guys acting like junior high school losers. Sinatra’s tirade was such that he ruptured a vocal cord, putting him out of action for more than a month.
It was the late sixties. Flower child time. And mystical Mia towered tall as the quintessential flower girl. When she made another, more flowerlike request—that I lend her the sanctuary of my hidden garden under my multi-hundred-year-old sycamore tree for her birthday party—how could I refuse her? She was Rosemary, the “mother” of Paramount’s biggest flick.
I wasn’t invited myself, so that night I joined Sidney and Bernice Korshak for dinner at the Bistro. Upon returning home, Sidney and I ventured past the pool toward the projection room. Looking yonder, fifty or more flower children were partying on the grass. And it sure smelled like grass. That pungent aroma hit us both. Sidney grabbed my arm. “You’re getting out of here.” Without even saying hello to the birthday girl, I Carl Lewised it to the Beverly Hills Hotel for a safe night of sleep.
With every blue sky, there’s always dark clouds. The more awards Mia plucked for playing mother to the Devil, the more devilish Sinatra’s acrimony toward me grew. We spent the next four years in red flag time. Only once did the white flag rise, and that was for an afternoon only, allowing us both to attend our mutual friend Charlie Feldman’s wedding. By the time the sun set, the red flag was wavin’ again.
Finally, though, we discovered that time does heal all. By now, it was 1974. As I was sitting down to dinner at La Grenouille, Sinatra walked over to my table as if nothing had ever transpired between us. With royal aplomb, he congratulated me on making Chinatown. Asked me to join his table. I did.
An hour later, we left together. Walking to his awaiting limousine, Frank shook his head, laughin’.
“Remember that night at Chasen’s?”
“How could I forget?”
“Gave you some good tips, huh?”
“Saved me more green than my accountant ever did.”
As the chauffeur opened the back door of the limousine, Ol’ Blue Eyes threw me a half smile. “Dames! Sayin’ nothin’, they’re more seductive than any lyric.”
Stepping into the backseat of his limo, he lowered his window.
“Strange, ain’t it?” I said. “Pussy power. There ain’t nothin’ stronger.”
Our eyes met, and Ol’ Blue Eyes shook his head. “Can’t fight ’em, they just don’t play fair.” He started to roll his window back up. “Stay in touch, huh?”
12
I will not stand at your grave and cry.
For you are not there.
Your soul will never die.
I love you, dear Sidney!
Thus ended the longest, most heartfelt eulogy I have ever given. Date, January 22, 1996. Place, Hillside Chapel, Los Angeles. The deceased? Sidney Korshak.
Those words were triggered from the emotion of sharing forty years of each other’s most sacred secrets. Do I remember them secrets? Of course not! Never did, never will . . . except for them that add credence to his myth. The one sentence that best describes “the Myth,” as Sidney was called by many who know him, or said they did:
He was, and remains, the single most seductive person ever to cross my life’s path.
Was he charming? Not particularly. Was he funny? Not particularly. Was he verbal? Not particularly. Was he a magnet? His presence in any room, no matter city or country, stopped it fuckin’ cold! Cold good or cold bad? Depends who was in the room.
Unlike the classic charmer, Sidney’s persona was not cultivated, not calculated or educated, neither taught nor bought. Growing up in the streets of Chicago, he was nicknamed by family and friends the Shtumer, Yiddish slang for “the silent one.” “They bull’s-eyed me good,” he told me more than once. Until the moment his eyes closed for the last time, he was always the same.
On December 29, 1996, the last Sunday of the year, the New York Times Magazine devoted its year-end issue to its annual feature “The Lives They Lived: Some People Who Made a Difference and Why.” Between its covers, author Eugene Kennedy chronicled the life and death of Sidney Korshak: his power, his style, his myth. In particular, his dealings with Estes Kefauver, the ambitious senator who was planning to bring his televised organized crime hearings to Chicago. Kefauver’s ulterior motive? His presidential candidacy.
“After a few secret meetings,” the Times piece noted, “Senator Kefauver suddenly departed, without ever gaveling his public hearings to order. An associate later claimed that Korshak showed Senator Kefauver a compromising picture of himself with a young woman. A sting orchestrated by the young Chicagoan . . .” That was the end of the hearings.
Kennedy continued: “As Heifetz was to the Stradivarius, so Sidney Korshak was to the telephone, on which he did more business than most lawyers do in a lifetime in their offices.”
Jackie Presser, the late Teamsters president, looked up to Korshak in awe. “There’s nothing he can’t fix. He don’t even have an office. He don’t even have a briefcase. He keeps everything in his head. No wonder Sidney’s mystique still gives old acquaintance amnesia. When called to repeat anecdotes they once told freely, they respond, ‘I don’t seem to remember that,’ or ‘I heard Sidney died. I didn’t hear he was buried.’ ”
Billy Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director—one I yearn to work with again—has plagued me for years with pleas to collaborate with him on the story of the Shtumer. The Real Godfather. The definitive story of power in our time.
“I can’t make it without ya, Evans. You’re the only one alive who has the keys to open them locks. Tell it as it really is.”
Billy’s not wrong. He knows only too well, though, I’d stop a bullet to protect them down-and-dirties from ever hitting the silver screen.
The Myth and the Wannabe met in the early fifties. It was love at first sight. For the next quarter of a century, we were quintessential godfather and son. There was not one month of one year when we didn’t share at least an hour a day together. When geography prevailed, “the horn” was our connective tissue.
How proud the Big Man was of his godson. Always at my side, helping my ascent from aspiring actor to studio head. Wherever we traveled, it was seat-to-seat. Whatever the hotel, it was suite-to-suite. Every secret we shared, it was whisper-to-whisper. From the highest echelon of corporate hierarchy to the side streets Mulberry to society’s royalty, I was Sidney’s kid.
“Hurt Bobby, hurt me!” he said more than once—to people who weren’t used to such warnings.
In turn, he lived somewhat vicariously through my adventures—ones he could never afford to indulge himself. Our relationship became the stuff of folklore—not just of Hollywood folklore, but of intrigue at the international level.
Was he famous? Or infamous? Depends on who you asked. Never once, in all the years I knew him, did he grant an interview to anyone. Nor did he let anyone take his picture—except behind my Woodland gates!
Though he was much-gossiped-about himself, the Myth was always short on gossip about others. From the early fifties—the time of Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, and Kim Novak—into the early eighties, most every above-the-title glamour queen shared the same fascinated desire to meet up with the Myt
h. And, more blatantly, to know the Myth, and know him well.
It never failed to shock me. Married, unmarried, it mattered little. What really happened between them? I never knew. I never asked. Would you?
Up there on the podium, that day in January 1996, I reflected on an embarrassment I’d carried with me for sixteen years concerning the Myth and myself:
“For more than a decade now, Sidney and I have shared friendship”—that’s right, just friendship—“where love once blossomed.”
Holding back my tears: “He dumped me . . . He was right! I was caught cheatin’. When I got in trouble, I made what remains, till this day, the single worst mistake of my entire life: not to call my godfather when I needed him most.”
Later, at the burial, a world-famous entertainer embraced me, asking if we could have a chat back at my home. Of course, I said. But once we got there, it was no embrace.
“I’m glad you were honest, Kid. Paid your respects. Made peace with the Big Man.”
Then, right smack in the cojones, he whispered hoarsely: “You may not know it, but you broke his heart. Your bullshit excuse for what you did? He never believed it. I never did, either. No one did. You’re too smart to be that dumb.”
“You’re right. But I was.”
“Bullshit!” Thrusting his forefinger into my shoulder, he forced me into a chair, then started ranting at me. “I was picked up on the same fuckin’ charge. Cuffed, right smack in the middle of my performance. I’m allowed one phone call. I call the Big Man . . . and I’m out in half an hour. And I was fuckin’ guilty.”
With an angry laugh: “You, his pride and joy, and I know you were fuckin’ innocent. And you don’t call? It don’t add up. Never did. You were three thousand miles away when it went down, and you cop a guilty plea? A retard ain’t that dumb. Like locusts, all of the Big Man’s friends came out of the woodwork. ‘How could you let this happen to Bobby?’ they kept sayin’. You know Sid’s ego. He don’t look well on being looked down on. This went on for years. They had one fuckin’ field day with him.”