Hollywood Animal

by Joe Eszterhas

  I still didn’t have my temporary license, but my father allowed me to drive. My mother sat between us in her velvet dress. She looked terrified.

  My father stomped his foot each time I braked. I hit the horn every ten seconds. Somebody gave me the finger—my father waved his middle finger back at him and cried, “Fucky you!”

  “What did you say?” my mother asked him.

  “Move over,” my father said, “that’s what I told him.”

  “Why did you point to him with your finger?”

  “It is an American custom,” my father said. “Jozsi taught it to me. I am teaching Jozsi to drive and he is teaching me how to behave with Americans.”

  When we got to the old-age home, I drifted away from them as my father made his way with her to the stage. I went back to the car and when he started to orate, I started the Ford up and took it out on the road. I knew from bad experience how long my father’s speeches were. I figured I had plenty of time.

  I took the car out on the two-lane rural roads and stomped on the gas, getting it up to eighty and ninety. I turned the radio up as high as it would go. The sun was shining. The smell of burning leaves was in the air.

  I was in bliss.

  I don’t know what happened. Maybe I lost myself somehow in the speed, the music, the sun. But when I got back to the old-age home, most of the cars were gone. Standing there in the parking lot, waiting for me, were my mother and father. His face was purple. Hers was snow-white. I could tell she’d been crying. I pulled the car right up to them and got out.

  My father shook his head and looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. My mother looked away. We got into the car, my father behind the wheel, my mother between us. We drove in utter, absolute silence.

  My father honked and honked and at an intersection an American driver gave him the finger. My father stared grimly ahead, but my mother smiled suddenly and waved at the American with her middle finger.

  I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. She kept waving happily with her middle finger. My father, without looking at me, started to laugh, too. I laughed harder and so did he as my mother kept waving her finger.

  Offended, my mother said, “What’s so funny? I can be American, too.”

  I read about the movie Psycho in the Plain Dealer. It was an American sensation. There were long lines for the movie in every city. I asked my father to take me to see it. He agreed, and my mother said she wanted to come, too.

  “It is very violent, Mária,” he said. “You wouldn’t like it.”

  But she kept insisting and he finally agreed.

  It was the most exciting movie I had ever seen. Not just because of Janet Leigh in the shower but because of how frightening so many scenes were. At each frightening scene, my father laughed, I stared, and my mother softly said, “Jaj.”

  When we walked out, she said, “I am never going to a movie again.”

  “I told you it wasn’t for you,” my father said.

  “Then why did you bring me?” she said.

  “Because you insisted, Mária.”

  “No,” she said. “You brought me because you knew it would upset me. I am upset. Are you satisfied now?”

  “I thought it was really good,” I said.

  “You have corrupted the boy,” my mother told my father.

  A famous Hungarian actress named Zita Hamori was appearing at a Hungarian theater on the East Side. I saw her picture in the Hungarian daily, the Szabadsag. She was an attractive blonde. All the Hungarians who came to my father’s office were talking about her.

  My father said he had known her in Hungary and she was asking him now to introduce her at the start of her program.

  “I’m not going,” my mother said.

  He pleaded with my mother, but she refused to go.

  “She wants to see you,” my mother said to my father, “not me. She’s your friend, not mine.”

  “For God’s sake, Mária,” he said, “we were friends, that’s all.”

  I wanted to see Zita Hamori, too, but the day of the event, he said, “I don’t like leaving your mother here alone. Maybe it would be better if you stayed home with her.”

  When he got back from the East Side that night, it was very late. I was asleep. My mother’s screams woke me.

  She was screaming at him. She was calling Zita Hamori a painted kurva and she was calling him a pig.

  “We were friends, that’s all,” he yelled at her. “We’re friends, friends.”

  She came out of the bedroom, slammed its door so hard it shook the floor, and went on into the kitchen. I heard her crying.

  “Go to sleep, Jozsi,” my father said from behind the closed bedroom door. “Everything is fine.”

  He said the word in English: fein.

  [Quick Cut]

  Tom Cruise Is a Mousy Little Guy

  PAMELA ANDERSON LEE’S (and Naomi’s) manicurist seemed to know everything about Hollywood and, after a while, we started writing her revelations down:

  Palm Springs is death’s waiting room.

  Debbie Reynolds called Zsa Zsa Gabor a “cop socker”

  Errol Flynn and Howard Hughes had sex together.

  Howard Hughes offered Hedy Lamarr $10,000 to pose for a rubber dummy he wanted to have sex with.

  George C. Scott beat his wives.

  Steve McQueen was into orgies.

  John Wayne drank a quart of whiskey a day for three decades.

  If Mama Cass had given Karen Carpenter her sandwich, they’d both be alive.

  Jayne Mansfield never turned anything down except the bedcovers.

  Nancy Reagan’s godmother was Alla Nazimova, the silent film star.

  Clint Eastwood always asked Sondra Locke if she had flossed before they had sex.

  Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to be in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

  Robert Mitchum was Elvis’s favorite actor.

  Shirley MacLaine is Warren Beatty’s older brother.

  Loretta Young worked with a full-length mirror next to the camera.

  Richard Gere takes his shirt off in almost every movie he makes.

  Yul Brynner loved black or white leather suits.

  Tom Cruise is a mousy little guy.

  Bob Hope used wars to publicize himself.

  Tommy Noonan acted in films with Marilyn, Jayne Mansfield, and … Mamie Van Doren!

  CHAPTER 18

  [Naomi’s Journal]

  In the Fetal Position

  SLADE

  You think you’re really something, don’t you? You twist everything around, don’t you? You don’t care who you hurt.

  Jagged Edge

  August 28, 1992

  Bill and I sit waiting to take off for San Francisco for a visit with Joe Eszterhas. He’s offered to let us stay in his new Stinson Beach house. Joe came into town this week and met with Evans and said it is grossly unfair that the studio is attempting to cut Bill out of a credit on Sliver, especially since Bill was responsible for Joe’s prompt delivery of the script.

  Thank God Joe is on Bill’s side.

  August 31, 1992

  Joe and Gerri were wonderful and generous as usual. I confided to them about how vicious the movie business has been for Bill and they offered sage advice. Watch your back and don’t take any of it too seriously. Joe showed us the letter he is sending to John Goldwyn to make sure Bill will get a credit on Sliver. We are most grateful for his friendship and support.

  September 1, 1992

  Bill came home at 1:30 this morning, exhausted after a grueling day. Sharon Stone walked off Sliver, but she’s back on. It promises to be a stormy few months.

  September 28, 1992

  Joni, Bob’s secretary, has lost her mind. She came into the office on Monday and announced that she had made an earthshaking discovery. She had spent the weekend reading and rereading the Sliver script and had discovered that—

  It is a satanic message from the devil.

  Joe Eszterhas is Satan himsel
f and she had a vision of him with his long hair levitating from a dark pond.

  Phillip Noyce, whose address is “666” something, is in cahoots with the devil.

  Even Evans, insane as he is, turned to Bill and said, “She’s lost her mind, hasn’t she?”

  Others at Paramount claim they have seen an actual ghost roaming the halls in one of the old buildings on the lot.

  This has resulted in a group of Jerry Falwell’s fanatics meeting in Evans’s office when he wasn’t there. Bill walked in to take a meeting and discovered there were religious fanatics there whispering in hushed tones to the professed “ghost sighters.”

  Bill discovered that Joni had conducted a séance in Bob’s office last Friday night to try to communicate with the restless ghost.

  Joe gave Bill his copy of his original Sliver script and signed at the bottom of the first page—“To Bill Macdonald, without whose friendship and support this script would never have been written.”

  Bill had tears in his eyes when he showed it to me. We’re going to have it framed.

  Bob is now desperate for cash because the latest bank loan failed because he failed his physical. They found cocaine in his blood.

  October 27, 1992

  Bob shrieked at Bill today, “Can’t someone find me some money?”

  October 29, 1992

  Bill had a screen test for a part in Sliver. The casting agents thought he’d be perfect for the part of Sharon Stone’s boss, who, much to Bill’s dismay, is described as “40ish, balding, and tweedy.”

  Joe Eszterhas told the casting agents that if they use Bill they could cast every movie he makes in the future. Guess he loves Bill.

  November 4, 1992

  Bill and Joe were chatting with Sharon Stone on the lot yesterday. Of course she took an immediate liking to Bill. As they chatted and laughed, Bill discovered she is very well read and very bright. Joe says that he has never seen her open up as quickly to anyone as she did to Bill.

  She finally said to Bill, “What do you do?” completely unaware that Bill is actually a co-producer of Sliver.

  Bill, in his typical way, answered, “Well, I’m in the import-export business.”

  She said, “What do you import and export?”

  And he said, “Everything but drugs and arms.”

  Stanley Jaffe walked by. Bill said he was thrilled that Stanley saw him standing there with Sharon and Joe.

  November 6, 1992

  At around 4:00 P.M. yesterday, Bill said he went in to watch Sliver dailies. He was alone. Then Stanley Jaffe himself walked in. Bill said he then spent the next forty-five minutes with Stanley Jaffe, talking about Sliver and Jade, the next Eszterhas script for which Bill just finalized the deal.

  Stanley said, “What do you think of Sharon in the dailies?”

  And Bill said, “Well, for one thing, I think she’s wearing too much makeup.”

  Stanley Jaffe wholeheartedly agreed, Bill said.

  November 11, 1992

  Bill went onto the Sliver set yesterday and Sharon Stone was calling him “buddy.”

  Evans has entered into a deep depression and has not returned anyone’s phone calls. He is doing massive amounts of cocaine and takes Nembutal suppositories at night to bring himself down. He told Bill he is “in the fetal position.”

  Joe Eszterhas wants to really stick it to Paramount and Bob for what he considers horribly unjust treatment of Bill. Joe’s idea is to let everyone, including Sherry Lansing and Stanley Jaffe, call him and beg him to do The Saint rewrite. He will say no.

  Then Bill will talk to him and he’ll agree to do it. Only Joe could come up with such a plan—or should I say only Bill and Joe, since those two devious minds seem to flourish together.

  November 16, 1992

  Bill and Joe have been on the phone constantly, plotting a joint production company tentatively called “Renegade.”

  Joe said, “It sounds like you should get up here and we should talk.”

  Evans is still “in the fetal position,” still not returning phone calls.

  November 23, 1992

  Bill arrived at Joe’s only to find that two cameramen who were shooting locations for Sliver in Hawaii were trapped near a volcano. Another disaster.

  Sharon Stone is apoplectic because she says she’s being forced to direct herself since Noyce is so weak. And Evans is in Acapulco in the fetal position.

  November 24, 1992

  Bill came home from Joe Eszterhas’s birthday bash—at a small place on Sunset—at 3:30 in the morning. Sharon Stone was at the party.

  She told Bill that he looked “world-weary” and that she bet he was thirty years old when he was ten. He filled her in a bit on his background (God only knows how much, he was pretty drunk when he got home).

  She said she wants to tell Bill something the next time she sees him. She wants to “formulate it” in her mind first.

  I comfort myself with the knowledge that at least she’s my age.

  November 27, 1992

  Bill and Joe keep talking about Renegade, the production company they’re thinking about setting up. The company logo on their films will show a skull and crossbones and say “Renegade Presents.”

  Then the screen will go black and silent, only to be shattered by the sound of a gun firing, leaving a bullet hole in the black screen. It’s too perfect for Bill.

  December 2, 1992

  The studio, which Evans always calls “The Mountain,” has decided they very much want Joe Eszterhas to rewrite The Saint, so Bill is meeting this morning with Evans, Goldwyn, and Sherry Lansing.

  Sliver is $700,000 over budget and still shooting. The studio wants to cut three days’ shooting from the script.

  They approached Joe and he said, “No way. I’m not cutting any pages. It’s a thirty-million-dollar movie, what’s another seven hundred thousand? If you cut any pages, you’ll really screw the movie up and it’s already pretty screwed-up.” The studio backed off.

  December 4, 1992

  Evans wrote a letter to Sherry Lansing that says he can get Joe to rewrite The Saint, which we all know is hogwash.

  December 5, 1992

  Joe heard about Evans’s letter and said, “Fuck him.”

  December 6, 1992

  Bill told “The Mountain” he was meeting with Roger Moore to appease him and quell his apprehensions about the lack of direction for The Saint. Bobby Jaffe, who’d never read The Saint contract and didn’t know that Roger is contractually bound to be in the movie, said, “Why do you keep bothering with Roger Moore?”

  Bill almost shrieked, “Read the fucking contract!”

  Bobby looked stunned and said, “Oh, I thought it was just some goodwill thing that he be in the script.”

  December 8, 1992

  Yesterday Bill went on the Sliver set and Sharon said, “Oh, not you again!”

  But I know she was clearly glad to see him. I don’t care what Bill thinks, I think she likes him. She always compliments his clothes and managed to use his office while Bill was in San Francisco.

  I’m glad she likes him. It can only be good for his career. Also, he has never given me any reason not to trust him.

  I hope I get to meet her.

  December 15, 1992

  Joe came to L.A., to work out the deal to do The Saint rewrite. Several problems developed.

  1. His attorneys got involved in the negotiations. It got complicated, as things do when lawyers get involved; 2. Joe asked for a deal so rich that Bill and Evans couldn’t even consider taking it to Paramount.

  This after Evans wrote Sherry Lansing that Joe would do it for free!

  Evans was livid. He couldn’t believe that after his brother, Charles, gave Joe $2 million to write Showgirls, Joe’s “sticking it into me.”

  “That sonofabitch Eszterhas humiliated me,” Evans said to me, referring to his letter to Sherry Lansing. “I feel used! I feel like a woman who opened her legs for a guy on Friday, opened them for another guy on Saturday,
and another guy on Sunday, and on Monday, not one of them called her. I detest him.”

  December 26, 1992

  Christmas Day at Joe’s house was fun. I spent the day in the kitchen with Gerri preparing a turkey feast, which was delicious. I like Joe’s kids very much.

  December 27, 1992

  We’re on Maui. Gerri, Suzi, Joe’s daughter, and I went on a hike to see one of the sights of Maui. I originally planned not to go but Joe said he wanted to talk to Bill some more about Renegade.

  December 29, 1992

  There’s a tension to Joe here, a kind of moodiness, that I haven’t felt with him before. Sometimes he doesn’t look me in the eye. If I move toward him, he moves away. He never speaks directly to me.

  Combine this with the fact that I’m walking around in a bikini all day, and you may get an idea of how uncomfortable I feel.

  At lunch today Joe said, “You know, when he drinks, Bill has a point of near insanity that he reaches sometimes. You can see it coming.”

  I said, “That’s true. You know him very well. The only difference is that while I try to keep him from getting to that point, you act as a catalyst to get him there quickly.”

  He looked at me (for the first time in days) and smiled. “That’s right,” he said, “I knew you and I were destined to be enemies.”

  December 30, 1992

  The tension with Joe was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Maybe I’m flattering myself, but there was also, it seemed to me, sexual tension. Every time I was near him I felt naked.

  January 1, 1993

  There were a whole bunch of people in Joe and Gerri’s suite when I got there last night. They were all Industry people also on vacation here. Bill was already there when I came in.

  It looked like a subdued group and when I commented on it, Joe said, “We were just waiting for you to get here.”

  So I said, “Well I’m here. Let the games begin.”

  When we all went out to get in the cars, there were two limos and a van awaiting us. Gerri got into a limo with Suzi … with one of Joe’s lawyers and his wife … and others quickly jumped in. Bill and I got into the van. At the last second, so did Joe and Steve.