The Kid Stays in the Picture

by Robert Evans

  Without cracking a smile, Marty gave me my marching orders. “We’re making you head of European production. You’re going to be based in London. That’s where the action is. Writers, directors, actors. It’s fresh, not stale like Hollywood.”

  Bluhdorn burst in. “I want twenty pictures a year from you. The Paramount caca in charge there now is ninety years old. He saw Alfie and couldn’t even hear it.”

  “Gentlemen, I’ve got a deal at Twentieth and—”

  “Get out of it,” Marty said. “You’ll be running Paramount in three months. Is that right, Charlie?”

  “That’s right, Marty.”

  “My Fox contract, it may not be that easy.”

  Marty gave me a look.

  “If you’re gonna run Paramount, you better be tougher than you are now.”

  I got the message. Two hours later I was walking on Sutton Place with David Brown. When I told him what had happened his eyebrows arched.

  “You haven’t even made your first picture yet. Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”

  “Truthfully, David, I don’t and I don’t give a shit. I’ve been on a real low since busting up with Camilla. Just living in another city could be exciting. Most of all London.”

  His tone changed, from family to steel. “Is this a negotiation?”

  “No . . . no, David.”

  “Have Bautzer call me tomorrow.”

  “David, you gave me my chance. You can keep The Detective. You can keep everything. I don’t want a dime for my projects.”

  By eleven the next morning, David had sent over the papers. The terms were simple: walk away, give up all financial participation in my projects at Fox. Only an Okie would have signed—I did. The next day I called David to say good-bye.

  “I just hung up from Dick Zanuck,” he said. “When I told him the news he couldn’t believe it.”

  “I’ll bet he couldn’t.”

  “He couldn’t stop laughing. ‘David,’ he said, ‘let me understand you correctly. Did you say Robert Evans will be based in London as head of European production for Paramount Pictures?’ I said, ‘That’s right. And the odd thing is I don’t think he’s ever even been there!’ Then Dick said the strangest thing: ‘Yes, he has . . . once!’ ”

  Chapter Fifteen

  There I was in England. Is this a dream? It was a nightmare. I spent about five months in London and never even saw Big Ben. I was an inpatient at the Connaught Hotel, just like a hooker, always on call.

  It wasn’t only the time difference between London, New York, and L.A.; I was in the middle of a revolution. Charlie Bluhdorn and Marty Davis were restructuring the whole Paramount mountain. Between the politics, the managerial upheaval, the confusion over what films to make, and the fact that I had two tigers by the tail, I had one life—the phone. It didn’t matter whether it was three P.M. or three A.M., I had to be there, waiting for the ring.

  Paramount’s executives in London were overage, overpaid, and over-British. To my face they bowed, to my back they laughed. Within a month, I fired half of them. The others knew their days were numbered. I was too new at the game to be sure of what I wanted. But I knew what I didn’t want—which was everything my Dark Age compatriots were excited to see get to the screen.

  To protect my back was one thing, but how do I protect my front? Six thousand miles away, Peter Bart, an avid reader, became my unpaid right-hand man. Peter could read more over a weekend than I could in a week. I burned up the transatlantic wires. Every night I called him for his report. Peter had no idea how good he made me look before the aging Paramount House of Lords. The audacity putting this philistine, an American, not even with the credentials of a master’s degree, an uneducated indigent actor no less, to preside over us! They were right. But, thanks to Peter, they never knew how right they were.

  One of the old guard’s pet projects was Half a Sixpence, adapted from the hit musical, starring Tommy Steele. I had liked it onstage. But a movie? Who would see it in Kansas City? I was not shy in voicing my opinion.

  If I was to lose that battle, I wouldn’t go down easily. One night I was on long distance with Charlie and Marty, taking one last shot at killing Half a Sixpence.

  “I’m going on record, Charlie. This picture’s going to be a disaster.”

  “Told you, Marty,” Charlie said. “The kid’s got balls.”

  I got a weekend leave. The studio’s most expensive picture in years, Is Paris Burning?, was opening in Paris. Every top executive, from production to distribution, advertising, and publicity, had been summoned to Paramount’s night of glory.

  Two days before the premiere, there were round-the-clock meetings. The buzz was that Bluhdorn was going to close down the studio and sell off its assets. Being the new kid on the block, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t easy when I heard all the posturing. Everyone was there to protect their jobs, it was all that mattered.

  Another thing was clear—the people to please were not Charlie Bluhdorn or Marty Davis, but the heads of international distribution. They’d been there forever and they shared one philosophy. A calendar had to be filled. They didn’t care how as long as it had stars, stars, stars. The phone book would be green-lighted; that is, if it starred John Wayne, Paul Newman, or Elizabeth Taylor.

  Somehow nobody brought up the fact that last year’s In Harm’s Way, with John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, etc., had been a colossal dud. After all, Paramount had three “blockbusters” on the way: Assault on a Queen, with Frank Sinatra; Promise Her Anything, with Warren Beatty and Leslie Caron; and, the biggest one of all, Is Paris Burning?, featuring a who’s who from Orson Welles, Kirk Douglas, and Charles Boyer to Alain Delon, Simone Signoret, and Yves Montand. How could we miss?

  I’d seen them all. Assault on a Queen was a B-picture inflated to A status only because it had Sinatra. Promise Her Anything promised onscreen chemistry between the year’s hottest offscreen couple, but since it had no story, it had no oxygen. Is Paris Burning? was a historical fashion show.

  Yet only a few months earlier, Paramount had released, almost by mistake, a beautifully written “little” picture called Alfie, starring an unknown Cockney actor named Michael Caine. So what if Alfie cost less than John Wayne’s asking price and captured the imagination of the world? To the prima donnas in distribution, it was no more than a fluke. Their dictate remained intransigent—“stars, stars, stars.”

  The morning of the premiere, I requested a breakfast meeting with Charlie and Marty.

  “You know this business better than me, Marty,” I began, “but from all the bullshit I’ve been hearing it seems that distribution is running the business, not production. We’re going the wrong way, fellas. If the product stinks, you can’t sell it. Certainly not these dinosaurs.”

  “You’re right,” Marty growled. “I’d like to fire the whole bunch of ’em, close the studio.”

  This was the real Marty Davis talking. I knew one thing. As long as I was at Paramount, I wanted to be on his side.

  Suddenly Bluhdorn stood. “I gotta take a piss.”

  Then both of them walked toward the john, leaving me sitting. It was weird. Bluhdorn went into the john, slamming the door behind him, and there stood Davis guarding the fuckin’ door like an SS trooper. This idiosyncratic behavior between the two of them continued for years. Every time Bluhdorn went to the john, Marty followed him and stood guarding the door. Finally, I found out why. Bluhdorn never admitted to being Jewish, yet everyone he met was sure he was. Whether it be a corporate meeting or a social function, from England to South Africa, every time he got up to take a piss, curiosity overshadowed manners and, by reflex, every guy in the joint wanted to take a piss at the same time to check out one thing: was Bluhdorn circumcised? But they were shut out. There stood Marty guarding that door. Damn it! Why couldn’t I have had Marty’s job? Instead of winding up in the financial crapper, I too could have been heir to the Paramount throne, selling my interest for several hundred
million buckaroos.

  After Bluhdorn relieved himself, the General and the Colonel walked back to where I sat.

  “Maybe we will sell the studio, Marty,” said Bluhdorn. “Maybe we will. Is Evans right about distribution?”

  “He’s right about distribution, but production stinks too. Would you excuse us, Bob? I want to speak to Charlie alone.”

  He didn’t seem to care that my bacon and eggs had just been served.

  It was a big night for Charlie Bluhdorn: his first world premiere as a film mogul. His wife, Yvette, was not only French, she was Parisian. Opening this film about the liberation of her city from the Nazis—and at the opera house!—was an incredible high. A year ago, Charlie would have been lucky to get a reservation at Maxim’s. If he had, they’d have seated him near the kitchen. Now the entire restaurant was his for the asking—bows and all.

  Our night of glory was nearly a washout. Paris wasn’t burning, it was flooding. The rain all day was torrential. Traffic was at a standstill. Would anybody be able to get to the premiere? Well they did, from every half-titled Charlie in Europe to all the famous faces in the film, including Leslie Caron, who was on the arm of little mogul Evans.

  My night with Leslie was about as romantic as the picture. For a girl who said she didn’t care, she couldn’t stop talking about her baby boy ex-lover, my old pal Warren Beatty.

  It was a setup. How could the picture not play well in Paris? When the lights went up, Charlie Bluhdorn was like a kid in a candy store.

  The next morning all the candy was gone. He was in his suite with Marty, pacing the floor. “Marty, how much did last night cost us?” When Marty told him the number (with the coldness of an IRS investigator), he took off his thick-rimmed glasses. “Marty, you’re right. Let’s close the whole place down.”

  Sitting between these two guys I couldn’t help thinking, Why didn’t I listen to David Brown?

  Charlie Revson, the baron of Revlon, was tough, but at least you could read him. He liked you or he didn’t. These guys were in a different league. These guys made Revson look like Santa Claus. They’re major-league motherfuckers—and I’m on their roller coaster with no way off.

  They didn’t close Paramount. Worse. They launched a third world war. Heads rolled faster than marbles. Paranoia became the name of the game. Politics first, films last.

  Awakening me at three in the morning from the first good dream I had in months was Marty Davis barking my marching orders. “Be in New York Monday morning, ten A.M.”

  “Marty, if I left right now I wouldn’t get there in time.”

  He didn’t answer me; he hung the phone up.

  Monday morning at ten there I was sitting across from him at his desk. Without looking up to smile, he said, “You’re leaving tomorrow to run the studio.”

  “Run the studio? I’ve got all my clothes, my stuff in London.”

  “They’ll be sent.”

  “What about Howard—”

  Bluhdorn burst in the room, cutting me off. “Did you tell him, Marty? Did you tell him?” Taking his glasses off, he squinted in my eyes. “Well, what do you think?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No,” Davis answered.

  I looked at the two of them. “It’s suicide, fellas. There isn’t anyone in Hollywood who’s better liked than Howard Koch. It’s not fair! It’s not fair to him; it’s not fair to me. You haven’t even given him—”

  Davis cut me off. “It’s not fair, huh? Would it be fair if there’s no studio next week? Don’t worry about him. Worry about yourself. Koch will have it better than he’s ever had it. We’re setting up a tandem operation. You take care of the picture end. Bernie Donnenfeld will take care of the business end.”

  In machine-gun style, Bluhdorn overlapped: “Go by the seat of your pants, Evans. Make pictures people want to see, not fancy-schmancy stuff people don’t understand. I want to see tears, laughs, beautiful girls—pictures people in Kansas City want to see.”

  “But I—”

  “That’s all, Evans. Marty, what else do we have to go over?”

  David Brown, where are you? What the hell did I get myself into? Fifteen years earlier, I had gone through the Windsor Avenue gates at Paramount as a would-be contract actor. A long shot then, but a shoo-in compared to now.

  For everyone from the guards at the gate, to the actors, directors, writers, and producers, there was no one as popular as Howard Koch. Schmuck. No wonder I got the nod. Who else would take the job?

  At first Howard was devastated, not only that he was being replaced, but the indignity of turning his reins over to some half-assed actor turned producer. To this day, we both laugh about its being the luckiest day of his life. It didn’t take long before Howard was one of Hollywood’s top producers. It didn’t take long for me to be the biggest joke in town.

  I was called “Bluhdorn’s Folly” by The New York Times and “Bluhdorn’s Blow Job” by Hollywood Close-Up, a local scandal sheet read by all.

  Army Archerd, the encyclopedia of the industry, was once asked: “In forty years of writing for Daily Variety, which of your columns caused the most outrage?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he answered, “The day I printed Bob Evans would become head of production at Paramount! This actor from Twentieth Century–Fox! With no experience!”

  I watched the dice roll from my hand. “Eight the hard way!” I barked.

  “Seven,” the croupier icily responded, quickly clearing the chips off every number on the green felt.

  A hard tap on the shoulder. “The plane’s waitin’. We’re leavin’, Vinnie. How much did the schmuck lose?”

  Counting the markers, “Forty-three thousand, Mr. K.”

  Suddenly, a blank check was put before me. “Sign it. I could take the markers and use ’em as toilet paper, but you’re payin’ every fuckin’ cent.” It was the voice of Sidney Korshak, the silent owner of the Riviera Hotel in Vegas. “Before you shaved, you shot crap better than you do today. No one stands at the table all night and ends up winning.”

  “Cut it, Sidney, will ya?”

  “Listen, schmuck, if I didn’t brass knuckle ya now, within a year you’d not only be out of a job, you’d be on the lam from the collectors. Flicks is a tougher gamble than craps. Instead of doing your homework, you’re standin’ here like a pigeon.”

  Just fourteen hours earlier, Sidney had invited Mike Frankovich and myself down on a private jet to be at Ann-Margret’s opening at the Riviera in Las Vegas. It was command performance time for me; Ann-Margret was an important star at Paramount.

  But, as they say, “a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.” A quick $200 on the line. Win. Doubled it. Won again. Doubled it. Won again. Twelve hours later, not having seen either of the two shows, I was still standing at the table having blown half my yearly salary.

  I didn’t know it then, but Korshak was right. Craps was a safer bet than flicks. Not wanting just to survive, but to win, I handicapped my chances. One thing was for sure, I wasn’t gonna grab the brass ring in Vegas.

  That was close to thirty years ago. Only once have I picked up the dice in Vegas since. I rolled for a million dollars and won.

  Hal Wallis, the producer of Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Maltese Falcon, and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, was now having to report to me? If this was a joke, it wasn’t taken as such. Only ten years earlier, Norma Shearer brought me to his office to discuss my playing Monroe Stahr in The Last Tycoon. He was underwhelmed then.

  I heard him tell his right-hand flunky, Paul: “Who is this little shit calling me down to his office?”

  To add insult to injury, I canceled the western he was going to make at the studio. He slammed the door behind him with such anger that the hinges gave in. Pleasantries now antiquated, hostile exits flourished.

  Being served a shrimp rémoulade at Chasen’s one night, George Hamilton laughed. “Bluhdorn offered me the part first, you know. But I was too busy testing for an importa
nt film, Gidget Goes to Hawaii, but he saw you play Thalberg and thought you knew the role well.”

  Was I taken as a joke? Worse—a Polish joke. But fuck ’em, fuck ’em all. The more they laughed, the tougher my resolve.

  Who could I count on? Who is brighter, better read, no, much better read? Even more important, where could I find loyalty in an industry where loyalty is not even in Webster’s? Peter Bart stood alone on all counts. Even more important, it was his article in The New York Times that got me into this fuckin’ mess.

  There was one problem. Everyone at Gulf + Western and Paramount thought bringing Peter Bart in as my right-hand man was unconscionable. A nosy, smart-ass journalist in a conglomerate?

  “No way,” said everyone.

  “Why?” said Bluhdorn.

  “He’s not tarnished, that’s why. He’s not Hollywood. He doesn’t read synopses—he reads the entire text. Where he can read six books over a weekend, I am pressed to finish one in six days. It’s my ass on the line, Charlie. If you’re giving me the store, let me run it.”

  Thriving on conflict, Bluhdorn agreed. “Marty, I told you the kid’s got balls.” He laughed.

  They all laughed. From the press to the industry and Wall Street. An actor and a journalist running “the mountain”—it had to crumble. Well, fuck you too.

  The first to feel my lethal charm was distribution.

  “It’s a new ball game, fellas. Let’s cut to the chase. I don’t care how good you are as salesmen. For better or worse, you’re only as good as your product.”

  With chalk in hand, standing with a blackboard behind me, I stood before all the distribution managers who represented Paramount across the country. I had one point—and one point only—to instill.

  “There’s no worse sound than chalk on a blackboard, fellas. So don’t make me have to do it again.”

  Then turning my back, facing the blackboard, I made a line straight down the middle. On one side I wrote in large letters, “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO MAKE.” On the other side: “ . . . AND I WON’T TELL YOU HOW TO SELL.” Then, turning back to them, “Are there any questions?” There weren’t any, nor was there any love, but I wasn’t looking to get married.