Hollywood Animal

by Joe Eszterhas

  I learned these crucially important things about Naomi:

  She loved Mrs. Fields cookies and could eat a dozen at a time.

  She loved Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer.

  She prayed each night to the Blessed Virgin Mary and kept a rosary in her purse.

  She adored Peanuts and Charlie Brown.

  She’d paid for her vintage Mercedes with her own money.

  Gerri had told her that she loved me so much that when I walked into a room, Gerri felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  · · ·

  We left the suite and went downstairs to the bar.

  We sat at the bar and I realized I liked nothing better in the world than sitting at a bar and drinking with Naomi, who, except for a rare wine spritzer, was a nondrinker.

  “A thousand bar stools,” I said to her.

  “What?”

  “Before it’s over,” I said. “Before it’s over, we will have sat on a thousand bar stools.”

  The drinking helped me deal with what was happening at the Four Seasons, on the other side of the island.

  Gerri, Guy told me over the phone, was destroyed … pulverized … riven … nearly hysterical.

  “This is painful stuff,” Guy said. “I’m not sure how much good I’m doing here. I walk the beach with her, but I’m crying as much as Gerri is.”

  I dreamed often about Gerri. She was always crying in my dreams. It was always the same dream, really.

  I had hurt her terribly and I felt terribly guilty. She was young in my dreams—the Audrey Hepburn lookalike I’d fallen in love with.

  I achingly wanted to stop her tears. But I knew I couldn’t. Because I knew I was causing them.

  “I love you, Joseph,” she said in my dreams. “I’ve always loved you. I’ve always been your friend. You don’t understand how much I love you. I will cry every day, Joseph, until the day I die.”

  Naomi comforted me when I awoke. She blamed herself for Gerri’s pain.

  I knew the truth: I was to blame. No one else. Gerri didn’t deserve what I’d done to her.

  Leaving her was the worst thing I’d ever done. And the best.

  I drove over to the Four Seasons the next day and told Gerri I wanted to speak to Steve and Suzi alone.

  I told them that I was in love with Naomi. I told them that they wouldn’t see me very much for a while. I said I had to “straighten my head out.”

  They looked down at the table and said nothing. Not a word. They didn’t react.

  I told them that this was no one’s fault—not their mother’s, not Naomi’s, not mine … and certainly not theirs.

  They didn’t react to that either.

  I realized, as I looked at them, that they were in shock.

  I had put the kids I loved so much into a state of shock.

  · · ·

  Then I spoke to Gerri alone. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes were red and badly swollen.

  I told Gerri the same things I had told Steve and Suzi.

  After a while Gerri put her hand on mine and softly started to cry.

  “Please don’t leave me, Joseph,” she said. “Please don’t do this to us.”

  Gerri kept saying, “Please don’t, please, please,” whispering the words to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I have to go.”

  She said, “Okay.”

  I saw her tears roll off her cheek and strike the table. She said, “But when will we see you?”

  I said, “Tomorrow. I’ll come over tomorrow.”

  She said, “Okay.”

  I went over to the Four Seasons to see them every day until they left.

  Steve and Suzi still had hardly any reaction at all.

  Gerri said, “You asked me the other day why I want the marriage to work. Sometimes the strain of all this makes it very hard to be really honest. I hate these guarded conversations we’re having now. I’m so used to being honest with you. But it’s very hard under the circumstances.

  “I want this marriage to work because you are so deep inside me, so much a part of me. I’ll never be free of you and I miss you a lot. And ultimately because I feel the good things far outweigh the bad and we’ve both lost sight of that now. And because I’ve always felt and still do that we are Two for the Road and that’s a long, long time.”

  Another day Gerri said, “Just because I’m so angry with you doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

  Naomi’s journal:

  I feel like I’m wrestling with myself. On the one hand, I’ve never been so happy in my life. Everything looks different. Trees are breathtaking, a sunset makes me want to weep; the wind feels like soft kisses. I feel like my heart is soaring.

  And then, when I think of Gerri and the kids, which happens every few minutes, I feel heartsick and guilty. Joe’s pain is so palpable. I try to be a comfort, but I know there is little I can do.

  The worst thing is, I miss them, especially Gerri. I wonder what she is doing; I wish I could talk to her. But I know she must loathe me now.

  Joe keeps saying over and over, “You are not responsible for the end of this marriage. It was over a long time ago.”

  But I know that Gerri and Steve and Suzi don’t think that. And I will forever be the cause of their pain. My happiness is creating their suffering.

  Gerri left to go back to Tiburon with Steve and Suzi and their two friends.

  She threw up all the way back.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  I was throwing up in the middle of the night, too.

  I couldn’t get the image of Steve and Suzi out of my head, looking down at that table, at the Four Seasons, shell-shocked, almost like they’d been lobotomized.

  Naomi and I were down on the beach at the Ritz-Carlton during the day and I suddenly noticed, fifty feet to the left, a guy taking a picture of us.

  I got up to go after him and he started to run.

  At that moment, I saw a guy about fifty feet away to the right taking pictures, too. Then he ran.

  I called hotel security and they stopped the two guys in the parking lot … local stringers for the National Enquirer.

  Guy called from L.A. to say that someone from the industry saw us at the hotel and word in Hollywood was out that I was with Naomi.

  Guy said that Sharon, who was still his client, had walked off the set of Intersection for the day when she heard.

  Guy was being bombarded with interview requests and suggested that we “get ahead of the press” by issuing a statement.

  The statement which Guy issued in my name read:

  Joe Eszterhas and his wife of nearly twenty-five years are in the process of a trial separation.

  His great friendship with Naomi Macdonald has nothing to do with the marital problems that led to his separation.

  The only comment Eszterhas will make is: “Life is strange.”

  The premiere of Sliver was fast approaching.

  Paramount sent me a publicity packet of articles that mentioned Sliver. Among them were:

  The Boston Herald: “In a scandal that could rock Hollywood, a heartbroken bride said she tragically miscarried after Sharon Stone stole her husband. ‘I think she’s heartless,’ said Naomi Macdonald.”

  New York Newsday: “If it were up to Naomi Macdonald, actress Sharon Stone would be stoned.”

  The New York Post: “Abandoned bride Naomi Macdonald says sex bomb actress Sharon Stone destroyed her marriage, stole her husband and played a key role in the death of her unborn child.”

  The Washington Post: “It’s starting to sound as if Sharon Stone is playing out one of her vampy roles, what with all the lurid details dribbling out about her new romance.”

  The headlines were: “Newlywed Says She Miscarried After Stone Stole Hubby … Stone Hit for Rocky Marriage … Sharon Stone Stole My Hubby! … Heart of Sharon Stone.”

  Reading these stories Paramount publicity had proudly sent me, I told Naomi I thought Paramount was trying to sell Sli
ver by trashing Sharon.

  I missed Steve and Suzi so much I couldn’t stand it.

  Naomi and I jumped on a plane and flew to San Francisco to see them.

  We noticed the photographer as soon as we got out of the limo in front of the Huntington Hotel.

  He took three pictures, waved good-naturedly, and was gone.

  I took Steve and Suzi to the Mandarin, on San Francisco’s wharf, for dinner. It had always been our favorite restaurant—but it had been our favorite family restaurant.

  As soon as they sat down, I knew I’d made a mistake by picking this place.

  They looked like they were still in shock, but they asked me questions:

  Where are you going to live, Dad?

  How long are you going to stay with her, Dad?

  Did you tell Grandpa, Dad?

  Do you know Mom cries all the time, Dad?

  Then Steve said, “You and Mom aren’t going to get divorced, are you, Dad?”

  I said I didn’t know the answer to that one yet.

  Then Suzi said, “We miss you so much, Dad.”

  Steve said, “Promise me something, Dad. Promise me that if you divorce Mom, you won’t do it for a year. Promise me that, Dad.”

  I did.

  Then Suzi said, “I hope Naomi dies, Dad.”

  · · ·

  We were flying to Cleveland the next day to see my father and Naomi’s father and her siblings.

  We didn’t want them to hear about this from the newspapers.

  Naomi and I slept that night at the old Victorian that Gerri and I owned in Stinson Beach.

  I had to drink a lot of Tanqueray and smoke a couple of joints to be able to fall asleep.

  As soon as we left the next day, Gerri sent a workman to take the mattress Naomi and I had slept on.

  He took it out on the beach and burned it … as Gerri had instructed.

  In Lorain, Ohio, meanwhile, Gerri’s brother, Bob, found an oil portrait of my mother, which Gerri and I had left in her family’s house before we moved to California.

  Bob took the oil portrait out into the backyard and burned that, too.

  I hadn’t seen my father in a long time. Even after everything he and I had been through, I was still nervous about telling him what I was going to tell him.

  He had always been so fond of Gerri.

  But Gerri, he said, had already been there. He already knew what I was going to tell him.

  Gerri told him that I had lost my mind, that I was having a middle-aged identity crisis. She asked him to intervene and speak to me.

  “What did you tell her?” I asked my father.

  “I told her that you are my son,” my father said. “But that she is not my daughter.”

  I remembered the line from Music Box: Blood is thicker than spilled blood.

  I thought that my father’s response to Gerri after all the years of affection between them had been cruel and insensitive.

  Yet I knew I had no right to think that after what I had done to her … on that dance floor on Maui at Moose McGillycuddy’s while I danced with Naomi … and at the hotel later that night when I left her to sleep with Naomi.

  I had done these things to Gerri … after all the years of affection between us.

  “When you were about thirteen years old,” my father said to me, “I fell in love with a woman. I didn’t let it go anywhere because we were Catholics and because of you. I’ve wondered all these years what my life would be like today if I had followed my heart back then.”

  I wondered: Huldah Kramer or Katherine Webster?

  And did it mean that he really didn’t love my mother—that she had been right all those times when she told me he didn’t love her.

  I was sorry he had told me.

  And, of course, I noticed that he was using me again as his excuse.

  He hadn’t followed his heart because of me.

  He had sacrificed his own life for mine.

  “When will I see Noemi?” my father asked, pronouncing her name the Hungarian way.

  “Tomorrow,” I said.

  “Remember what I said to you when you were a boy: Italian women are the most beautiful women in the world.”

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” I said to my father. “Many people will think less of me and less of Naomi for doing this, especially with two kids involved.”

  My father said, “Hold on to each other and shit on the world.”

  The coldness of his advice jarred me.

  Yet it was exactly the advice I wanted to hear.

  I knew he was purposely giving it to me to make me feel better.

  And I knew he was purposely giving me this advice so that I would feel better about him.

  I remembered Gerry Messerman telling me that of all his very many clients, my father was the most manipulative.

  Naomi’s journal:

  I finally met Joe’s dad. I keep feeling like being with Joe is like going back home, to the realness of Ohio. Walking into his dad’s house was almost eerie in that it looked exactly like my grandparents’ house had for so many years and my dad’s house did now.

  On the wall was a picture of the Blessed Virgin with an old yellowed palm (no doubt blessed) hanging behind it. There was an old chair by the door, and as I went to sit in it I dropped lower than my knees, since the springs were shot. The house smelled of mouthwatering ethnic cooking and was warm and cozy and inviting and all so familiar.

  I knew when I walked into that house that the reason I am so completely in love with Joe, so immediately comfortable, is that we come from the same place. His father kissed my hand (which is a traditional Hungarian greeting).

  I was nervous that he would resent me for the unrest in his son’s life, but his eyes danced and he seemed genuinely happy. We sat at the table and I found I was ravenous. A home-cooked meal like so many in my past sat steaming on the little table.

  We talked and ate and laughed and I couldn’t believe how easy it felt to be there. Or like I’d been there before. I hoped meeting my family would be as wonderful for Joe.

  My father said to me afterward, “She’s beautiful and she’s funny. She’s everything I imagined she would be and more. You’re a very lucky man. I envy you.”

  I smiled and said, “Thank you, Pop.”

  “Tell Gerri that she can speak to me anytime she wants. I think I can help her.”

  I said, “What will you say to her, Pop?”

  My father said, “These things happen.”

  Naomi’s journal:

  That night we joined my brothers, Bernie and Bep, and their wives for dinner. I had already told Joe some specifics, “Bernie is white-collar right-wing conservative. Bep is a former Vietnam vet, blue-collar, staunch Democrat. They are both physically big … 6-2, 200 pounds …”

  Joe said, “Should be interesting …” When we walked in they said, “You look beautiful. You haven’t looked this happy in a long time.”

  Their eyes were wide. Joe is a lot to take in at first glance. We ordered drinks and proceeded to have such a wonderful time.

  At one point Bep (who was in the National Guard) started talking about Kent State. He was going on about how he could understand how the guardsmen felt, how it happened that they fired on those students, as tragic as it was, etc., etc.

  I knew Joe had written a book about Kent State, and certainly knew his sympathies did not lie with the guardsmen. So I held my breath. Finally, Bep paused. I was sitting in between the two.

  Joe leaned over me and said, “Let me tell you something. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  The table froze. Everyone was uneasy except Bernie; he seemed to be loving it.

  Finally Bep looked at Joe and said, “You know, you’re probably right.” It was hilarious.

  The next day we visited St. Emeric’s in Cleveland, where Joe went to elementary school. We even went to the basement where there was a little classroom. On the small chalkboard were children’s names in Hungarian.
Joe looked at it like he was a million miles away.

  We went up to the church and tiptoed in. It felt so strange. A few months before, I hardly knew this man. Now I was visiting the deepest parts of his past; the most difficult parts of his life. I felt so grateful.

  A church is such a familiar place for me. I spent the first thirteen years of my life going to church every morning six days a week. So, once again, I felt I had gone back home.

  Joe suddenly leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I will love you forever. I promise you that.” He said it with such earnestness and gravity, it was like a boy who makes a small cut on his finger, and then cuts yours, rubs your blood together with his and makes a vow for life.

  I walked her from St. Emeric’s over to the West Side Market, where I had spent so much time when I was a boy.

  As we were walking through, an old Italian vendor spotted me. He had a huge grin on his face.

  He yelled, “Here ya go, Joee!”

  And he tossed me an apple … just like he had when I was a boy.

  We went back to L.A. so I could do a week’s publicity for Sliver. The interviewers, I quickly discovered, weren’t interested in Sliver … or me … as much as they were interested in the story of Sharon and Bill and Joe and Naomi and Gerri.

  The New York Times: “His girlfriend, Naomi Macdonald, is sitting next to Mr. Eszterhas, wearing a lace bustier, cutoff jeans, and matching brown leather boots. He has given her a few pounds’ worth of silver necklaces and bracelets based on Apache designs that match his own. …

  “As Guy McElwaine, his agent at International Creative Management, points out, Mr. Eszterhas’s life has become as lurid a psychosexual drama as his scripts, with Ms. Stone taking a role in real life that could prompt some people to confuse her with Catherine Tramell, the man-eating, manipulative, hypnotic vixen of Basic Instinct. …

  “Although it has been said that Mrs. Macdonald resembles Ms. Stone, the only resemblance is in coloring. Mrs. Macdonald has blond hair and blue eyes, but she is more the sweet Midwestern farm girl than Hollywood glamour boat.”

  People magazine: “Appearing on Fox’s A Current Affair April 6, Naomi Macdonald claimed that Stone has brought a calculated end to what had been a blissful marriage, causing Naomi so much stress she’d suffered a miscarriage.

  “Naomi, however, was in no position to throw Stones. Just weeks after her teary TV appearance, she went from woman scorned to woman smitten. Her suitor: none other than Joe Eszterhas.