by Robert Evans
Harlem never recovered from the war. The old had become older, the dirty dirtier. By the early fifties, Lenox Avenue was a war zone. Depressed by the neighborhood’s decline, Pop closed shop, never to practice dentistry again.
Meanwhile my mother had found a new life. Every morning she came to work at Evan-Picone, calling herself “Mrs. Stone,” leaving her identity as our mother behind. With her warmth, energy, and astute eye, she was more than just the star of the showroom, she was a voice to be reckoned with, her opinions sought by buyers and fashion writers across the country. She traveled with Charles from Hong Kong to Milan, looking to break barriers in fashion and fabric. Yet my father had no place to hang his hat. Though he had introduced Charles to Joe Picone and given them seed money to start the business, he was now the only one in the family who didn’t enjoy a part of its success. His dentistry behind him, he was now the one left out in the cold.
His self-esteem shrank; his rage grew. Family dinners now joyless, tension was all that prevailed. There wasn’t a day Charles and I didn’t talk about how to make Pop feel part of our success. We gave him various responsibilities, knowing they were only Band-Aids. He knew it too. Charles would sadly shake his head, “Poor Pop, from the Führer to Archibald to Archie to ‘A.’ ” For the rest of his life, we referred to Pop as “A”—a secret sadness Charlie and I shared for the muted dreams of a man we loved.
Pop was never short on vision, only on luck.
“Charles. Bobby. There’s more money to be made on the west coast of Florida than anywhere else in the country. Miles and miles of undiscovered beachfront with nothing on it, not even electricity. The sand is like silk. It’s only a dot on the map now, but in a decade it will make Palm Beach look like Coney Island. Boys, if you want to hit the jackpot, this is it—let’s lock it up.”
In the spring of 1953, Charlie and I agreed to make the trek. On reflection, we were only patronizing him. If I hadn’t been very close, in the biblical sense, with the top showgirl at the Latin Quarter in Miami, I doubt that we would have gone at all. I told her Charlie and I would be there for the weekend and to fix my brother up with the greatest pair of legs in the line and “Look out; we’re not coming there for a tan.”
With a great weekend to look forward to, we went off in search of Pop’s mountain of wealth. Pop was right. Stretching before us were miles and miles of white sand, blue water, and palm trees. Nothing else was there except a trailer. Out of it stepped a man with a shark’s smile and a neck as red as the Russian flag.
“Riley the land agent.”
Pop stuck out his hand. “Evans from New York.”
“Nice seein’ ya, Doc,” Riley answered. His eyes lit up as though Pop were Diamond Jim himself.
Hours of negotiations later, papers were drawn. We were to become the land barons of more than a mile of empty Florida beachfront for $318,000.
“We’ll close tomorrow?” sharked Riley.
I sneaked into the trailer to call my squeeze at the Latin Quarter in Miami, whispering that I couldn’t get there until the next day. She didn’t take it kindly.
“You fucker, I took the weekend off. I fixed your brother up with the best legs in town, Chicky Jones. Now you tell me you’re a no-show? If you’re not here tonight, forget it!” Bang.
Whispering the update to my brother, he looked at his watch. “The last plane’s at six-thirty. We can still make it.”
“But, Pop told Riley we’d close tomorrow.”
“Okay, big shot, you decide.”
Coming up with a brilliant idea, I whispered back, “With property, we’re buyers; with pussy, we’re sellers. Let’s make the plane!”
“How about putting the closing off until Monday?” Charles suggested to Pop. “Just to be sure everything checks out.”
Riley’s neck got redder. He wasn’t happy. “There’s a time to close and a time to close.” He glared back.
“It’s too late for us to check with our bank, Mr. Riley,” my brother interrupted. “We want to be sure everything’s in proper order for the check transferral. Is Monday all right?”
“Have to be in Tampa on Monday,” Riley icily blurted out. “It’ll have to wait till Tuesday.”
Great, I thought to myself, gives us an extra day to play.
Well, Pop did his homework, checking out every possible negative. There weren’t any. Charlie and I did our homework as well. For the next three days in Miami, we never saw the sun.
On Tuesday morning, promptly at 11:00, with check in hand, Pop, Charlie, and I were back on the empty Naples beach in Riley’s trailer.
“Sorry, fellas. No deal.” Riley had done his homework too. “Remember what I said, Dr. Shapiro, or is it Shapera?” snickered redneck Riley. “ ‘There’s a time to close and a time to close.’ Well, ya missed the train. Just as well. Your kind don’t belong on this side of Florida anyway.” As he closed the door in our faces.
Today, that mile-plus of Naples beachfront, known as “the gold coast of the Gulf,” is worth not millions, but billions.
Poor Pop, another extraordinary vision, another unrequited dream.
Chapter Five
Putting pussy before property changed the course of my fortunes. Putting pussy before patriotism changed the course of my life.
November 5, 1956. I was in Beverly Hills setting up Evan-Picone boutiques at Bullock’s. Staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I had graduated to a suite and cabana by the pool. Theona Bryant, an actress under contract to MGM, was helping me pack. The next day was the Eisenhower/Stevenson runoff for president and I wanted to get back to New York to vote.
“Bob, I need quiet time alone with you more than Ike needs your vote,” purred Theona. “You’ve been married to the phone since you’ve been here. Stay please,” taking two of my fingers in her mouth. “It’ll be better than voting any day. Promise.”
It’s a good thing I wasn’t born a girl, I’d have been the town push-over. Naturally I stayed, lying by the pool on election day, sucking up the sun. Theona by my side.
“Excuse me, young man, my name is Martin Arrogue,” a voice interrupted. “Are you an actor?”
Squinting through the sunlight, I half laughed. “A long time ago.”
“It couldn’t have been that long,” he laughed. “My wife and I have been watching you by the pool these past few days. Her name is Norma Shearer. She’d like to meet you.”
“Why?”
“Let her tell you.”
Norma Shearer, one of the few remaining icons of Hollywood’s legendary aristocracy, was a petite blonde in a striped short robe. Raising herself on her chaise, she repeated her husband’s question.
“Are you an actor?” I gave her the same answer. “Pardon me for being curious, but why are you always on the phone?”
“I have to pay my bills.”
“You’re not a bookmaker?”
“No, I’m in ladies pants.”
She laughed. “I was right, Marty. Young actors don’t have his presence, authority. He’s perfect. He’s Irving.” Then looking to me. “Would you like to play my husband?” I quickly looked at her husband. “No, not Marty,” Norma giggled. “My deceased husband, Irving Thalberg.”
Flashing through my mind, That guy was the boy genius of Hollywood.
“They’re making a film at Universal called Man of a Thousand Faces. My friend Jimmy Cagney is playing the title role of Lon Chaney. It was Irving who discovered him and made him the biggest star in silent film. He was only twenty at the time, too young to sign the checks, but not too young to run a studio. Would you consider playing Irving, Mr. Evans.”
This had to be a gag.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m already a day late. I have to leave for New York this evening.”
“Then it’s not too late. Aren’t we lucky, Marty? We still have this afternoon to set a meeting up with Jimmy and the producer, Robert Arthur.”
“Why me?”
“I have the approval of who plays Irving, Mr. Evans, and every actor the studio’
s brought over for me to meet looks like a young actor. Watching you on the phone, I said to Martin, ‘Now that’s Irving.’ Would you consider playing him?”
Thinking to myself, Cagney owes me one—the scar down my face is still there. “Sure, why not? Cagney’s the one guy I’ve wanted to meet.”
Robert Arthur’s office was a bungalow next to Cary Grant’s at Universal. Waiting for him in the anteroom, Marty whispered, “Norma’s been impossible. She’s turned all of their choices down, so don’t expect a hero’s welcome.”
Wearing a three-piece Harris tweed suit and thick horn-rimmed glasses and smoking a pipe, the distinguished producer Robert Arthur tolerated my presence for as long as he thought was professionally polite to satisfy Miss Shearer’s desire.
Picking up the phone, he dialed. “Jimmy, Norma’s found a young man that she thinks is perfect to play Irving. We’d like to put the two of you on film together. Would you mind?”
All the years I had been trying to get in the door, something like this had never happened. Within minutes, I was on the set with the director of the film, Joe Pevney. Then, appearing beside me was the man responsible for the knife slash that scarred my left cheek close to twenty years before.
“Jimmy Cagney,” he said, offering his hand. “Nice to meet you, kid.”
“I’ve told Mr. Evans what the scene’s about,” said Pevney. “Let’s improvise. Get the two of you together and see how you look.”
I knew they were going through the act just to patronize Norma. What the hell. At least I’d have in my scrapbook being on film with Cagney.
The set was a replica of Thalberg’s office when he was the “boy wonder” boss at Universal. Cagney assumed the nervous air of an actor meeting the head of the studio for the first time. Me? I don’t remember what I did.
When it was over, Cagney gave me a quick look.
“You did good, kid.” Then, with equal quickness, he disappeared.
Theona was right: a landslide victory, Ike didn’t need my vote. Twenty-four hours later, I was packed and ready to fly via the 11:00 TWA sleeper to New York when the phone rang. It was Robert Arthur.
“Congratulations. I’ve just called Norma and thanked her. We need you in wardrobe tomorrow.”
“What?”
Martin and Norma were permanent residents of the hotel, their suite but ten doors away from mine. Before calling my family with the news, I called Norma. Triumphantly, she said, “Join us for dinner.”
BIG SPLASH:
N.Y. BUSINESSMAN DIVES IN POOL
AND COMES OUT MOVIE STAR!
Variations of this headline appeared on entertainment pages around the world from Louella Parsons’s column to The New York Times. The Times story began, “The real and reel worlds of Hollywood were merged unexpectedly when . . .”
Norma personally worked out my contract. At her insistence, Universal was not allowed options on me. Ten thousand dollars for four weeks of shooting. A favor.
“Please come out two weeks before principal photography starts. I want to help you prepare for the part.”
In the twenties and thirties Norma Shearer had been the queen of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio Irving Thalberg had helped make the most prestigious in the world. She had appeared in more than fifty films, including The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo and Juliet, and The Women. Nominated for five Academy Awards, she won her Best Actress Oscar for The Divorcee in 1930. She was royalty. Hollywood royalty.
Back in New York, every big honcho from Saks Fifth Avenue to Neiman-Marcus and Marshall Field was cramming the showroom, interested not in my new spring line, but in my new role in life.
Arriving back at the Beverly Hills Hotel early, as promised, I started working with Norma, learning everything about Irving from the day he was born in 1899 till the day he died in 1936 at the early age of thirty-seven. Though 98 percent of what she told me about the love of her life would never show up on the screen, at the very least I’d know the man I was playing. Her letters were not merely a biography of Hollywood’s boy wonder, but rather a crash course of what constitutes a filmmaker’s brilliance. Thalberg had an obsession for excellence and endless patience with talent. He fought continually with Louis B. Mayer over not rushing a film into the theaters—“an artist needs time to complete his canvas.” His heart was that of an artist, his mind was that of a mogul.
The script called for Man of a Thousand Faces to open with Lon Chaney’s untimely death in 1930 and Thalberg’s eulogy to the great actor. Norma had agreed to write the eulogy as she remembered it. For days we worked on the speech, Norma coaching me so I would sound and look as much like Irving as possible. She was obsessive about every detail, every inflection of his voice, every pause, every movement of his head and hands. It wasn’t a performance she was after, it was a resurrection.
One thing was crucial. “You must not allow them to put makeup on you, Bob,” she said. “I don’t want you looking like another pretty-boy actor.”
After one of our sessions she told me she was negotiating to buy the film rights to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon, his unfinished novel about the Thalberg-like Monroe Stahr. She hoped to produce it herself for MGM. “I’ve always thought,” she said, “that Tyrone Power would be perfect for Monroe Stahr. But Ty’s too old.” She smiled. “Now, Robert, you understand why I’ve been spending so much time with you.”
Was I lucky? Sure. But luck doesn’t happen by mistake. If I hadn’t had the experience of working with the pros as a pro in radio, television, and theater, I never could have gone eye to eye with Cagney. Conversely, if I had stayed an actor, Norma never would have given me a second look. What caught her eye was a young go-getter, sure about himself, persuasive, a subliminal reminder of the man who was once her mentor and her husband.
What a turn-on to have Pop fly out to L.A. to share my dream.
The night he arrived, we dined with Norma and Martin at Chasen’s. Norma turned on the star power. How fortunate I was, she said, to have a father who had encouraged his son to strive for goals! For hours they spoke. Her poetic admiration toward Pop made the night among the most memorable in his life.
The next morning at six, Pop and I arrived at Universal.
“Okay, Mr. Evans, into makeup,” said the assistant director.
“I’m sorry, Miss Shearer instructed me not to wear makeup.”
“I’m sorry too, but Miss Shearer is not directing this picture. Into makeup.”
Here I am at a standstill before I even start.
Joe Pevney, the director, quickly entered the scene.
“Maybe Norma’s right, Bob, but the scene is just between Cagney and you and he’s in heavy makeup. Without you in makeup we won’t be able to light it—make the by-play match.” Into makeup I went.
For some ungodly reason, they pick the longest and toughest scene in the film to do first. Five pages of dialogue between Cagney and me. Not only was it my first shot on the big screen, but to make it worse, the crux of the scene was me teaching Jimmy Cagney how to act!
The scene begins with the arrival of Lon Chaney in Thalberg’s reception area. He has been summoned by the studio boss, whom he has never met, to discuss his portrayal of Quasimodo, the lead character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Nervously, he announces himself to the receptionist. Next to her stands a young man in shirtsleeves who ushers Chaney into his luxurious office and then walks behind the desk. Chaney’s jaw drops. “Is this kid the head of the studio?”
The publicity being derived from Norma Shearer allowing Thalberg to be portrayed for the first time—by an unknown, no less—had made news throughout the entertainment world. My luck, the fuckin’ press of the world plus the entire brass of Universal was on Stage 15 to see Thalberg re-created.
“Rolling, quiet please, bells.” Suddenly one could hear a pin drop.
A guy comes out in front of my face with a clapboard.
Slate slams.
“Scene 140, Apple, take one.”
Through
his bullhorn, director Pevney, who’s perched on top of a ladder, bellows, “Action!”
I usher Cagney into my office. Timidly he glances around. I cross around to my desk, button my vest, slip on my jacket. Take my chair.
“Please sit down, Mr. Chaney.”
Incredulously, Cagney looks around the office, then at me.
“Mr. Thalberg?”
I look at Cagney. Not unlike my brother at my near fatal audition for Chamberlain Brown, nothing comes out. Camera continues to roll.
Cagney gives me a quizzical smile. Nothing.
“Okay, let’s do it again!” Pevney says through the bullhorn. Cagney walks back to his marker. I stay frozen in the chair—Thalberg’s chair. Pevney walks over to me. “Don’t wait so long to react, Bob. Pick up the action.” Again, through the bullhorn, “Okay. Take two. Action!”
Cagney and I walk into my office together, I go around to my desk, I button my vest, Cagney does the same incredulous look around the office, then at me, Mr. Thalberg.
Looking at Cagney, I open my mouth. Again, there’s one problem, nothing comes out.
From the bullhorn, “Cut. Okay let’s try it again.”
Cagney throws me an encouraging wink. We try it again. Then again. Then again. Then again. The result is the same. Every time Cagney says “Mr. Thalberg?” I freeze.
The stage is abuzz. Pevney, Cagney, and Robert Arthur huddle. Me, I’m standing behind the desk. I’ve waited fifteen years for this shot—now I can’t even open my mouth. They’ll have me on the noon plane to New York. I look over at my pop, his head down, another dream vanished.
Cagney walks over, does a quick “Yankee Doodle Dandy” dance step.
“Let’s take a walk.”
Now, outside in the blinding light, the Yankee Doodle himself puts his arm around my shoulder. “Let me tell you somethin’, kid. I’m only five foot five. When I came to Hollywood my first scene was with a guy six foot four; when the scene was over, I was six four, he was five five. Now don’t be scared of me. Let’s go back in . . . get it on.”
Cagney knew the feeling of looking up to somebody, knew the feeling of being scared. That’s a real tough guy.