by Robert Evans
Conversely, with Funny Girl not being ours, Bluhdorn had a competitive yearning to make up for what he knew was a mistake. Everyone was on alert. Paramount had to make the musical of musicals. At that moment in time, only one musical female star had the magic to capture the attention of the entire world. With Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Thoroughly Modern Millie behind her, Julie Andrews was it. It could have been the phone book—Bluhdorn had to have her.
We got her all right. Her new husband, Blake Edwards, had written a thinly disguised romantic comedy that took place during World War I. It was titled Darling Lili. No darling was she. I had already turned the project down when Bluhdorn called me in a huff.
“As a comedy, Evans, you’re right. But, add twelve songs to it, then put Julie Andrews into the mix to sing them, and we’ve got ourselves a musical. I mean a musical! Barbra Streisand—who knows? Julie Andrews—the world knows!”
“I still don’t like the story, Charlie.”
It didn’t matter. For all anyone cared, I could have been on top of Mt. Everest. No one wanted to hear me.
Darling Lili was Blake Edwards’s wedding gift to his lady love and Paramount paid the bill. The film’s losses were so exorbitant that, were it not for Charlie’s brilliant manipulation of the numbers, Paramount Pictures would have been changed to Paramount Cemetery. The film business was going through tough times, as was the country. Ah, but the cemetery business was booming . . . never having a losing year.
Chapter Seventeen
“Bob,” said Robert Redford, “there’s only one girl I want to use in Downhill Racer.” His big blues were looking right at me.
I thought he was about to say Elizabeth Taylor, whose asking price then was a mere million.
“Camilla Sparv.” Redford smiled.
I said to myself, “If this is another Zanuck sicko trick, I ain’t fallin’ for it.”
It wasn’t. For some reason, still unknown to me to this day, Camilla was Redford’s only choice for the part.
Giving me his whites, Redford smiled. “You don’t mind, do you, Bob?”
“Mind? From one Bob to another, it’s great casting, Mr. Redford. It’s about time someone gets to bat, be inventive, use creative casting.”
I had to get Redford out of my office. I didn’t want him to run into my next appointment—Roman Polanski.
William Castle, a veteran director and producer of low-budget horror movies, had optioned the film rights to Rosemary’s Baby, Ira Levin’s new novel—a surefire best-seller. Castle insisted on directing it!
“Sorry, Bill. Produce it, yes; direct it, no.”
“Sorry, Bob,” Bill snapped back. “I own the property personally and I’m gonna direct it.”
Knowing the novel had a real shot at becoming a big film, I played hardball.
“Sure, that’s fine with me, Bill, but we’ve got an exclusive three-year deal with you. If you want to hold it until your contract’s over, then you can set it up someplace else. Or you can start tomorrow as the producer and I’ll double your deal.”
Suddenly Castle only wanted to produce it.
The director I had in mind was the Polish creator of Knife in the Water, Repulsion, and Cul de Sac, three really offbeat thrillers. Roman Polanski, a top director in Europe, had just made his first Hollywood film, The Fearless Vampire Killers, for producer Marty Ransohoff. No disrespect, but whatever Ransohoff liked, I hated, and vice versa. When I heard Marty ranting all over town about what a no-talent Polanski was, I knew Roman was the man for me. But how to get him?
Hearing he was an avid skier, I’d lured him to my office with Redford’s Downhill Racer, even though I already had a director for that one, Michael Ritchie.
Redford had been gone a couple of minutes when Roman walked in. Right away, I knew this was some character. He picked up the ashtray and turned it over. He looked at the titles of the books on my shelves. Within five minutes he was acting out crazy stories—somewhere between Shakespeare and theater of the absurd. We clicked immediately because we both came from the same school of drama, the drama of life. Almost three decades later, our friendship is still electric. Roman stands in my book of life as being one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet, know, befriend, and love.
I didn’t want to bullshit him. “Downhill Racer was just a pretext to get you here. Would you read this?”
I shoved the galleys of Rosemary’s Baby across the desk.
“This isn’t about skiing.”
“Read it. If you don’t like it, your next ski trip is on me.”
Roman loved it. Then the fights began. Fighting is healthy. If everyone has too much reverence for each other, or for the material, results are invariably underwhelming. It’s irreverence that makes things sizzle. It’s irreverence that gives you that shot at touching magic.
Casting, by far, is the most subjective aspect of filmmaking. When two people agree that there’s only one person to play the part, with rare exception, both are wrong. For the title role of Rosemary, Roman wanted Tuesday Weld. I wanted Mia Farrow. Tuesday was more experienced in film and technically the finer actress. She would deliver just what the part seemed to demand—all-American healthiness. Mia was more complex. On the surface she was the quintessential flower child, the ingenue on TV’s “Peyton Place” who had just married Frank Sinatra.
Roman was worried that Mia’s ethereal quality might evaporate on film. I argued that this was exactly what would give the picture something unexpected—real magic. Roman gave in. For the part of Mia’s husband, Roman wanted Redford. But Redford was feuding with Paramount’s legal department over Blue, a western he’d walked out on, anticipating, rightly, disaster. Anyway, Bob’s real passion was Downhill Racer. When Warren Beatty heard about Redford, he asked why he hadn’t been offered the part first. I knew he only wanted to be asked so he could say he’d turned it down. He’s still that way. “It’s yours, Warren,” I said. “But you’re not right for Rosemary unless you play it in drag.”
We ended up with John Cassavetes, a terrific, intense actor but hardly ideal casting for the all-American husband.
By the end of the first week’s shooting in New York, Roman was a week behind schedule. His dailies were brilliant, but everyone from Bluhdorn to Bill Castle wanted me to throw him off the picture because he was such a perfectionist. Bluhdorn had his nose in everything. When he learned that Roman had rejected a red cab for the cemetery scene and ordered props to produce a yellow cab, he went nuts.
“This crazy Polack doesn’t like the color of the cab” became Charlie’s favorite line whenever Roman’s name came up. Roman wasn’t crazy. He was right in insisting on an authentic yellow banner.
Roman’s dailies touched an ominous sense of fright—one I’d never seen on film before. At the same time, Bill Castle was pressing the right buttons getting the New York brass unnerved over my Polish discovery.
“Fire the Polack” was the word from New York.
I flew to New York and confronted the accusers. “If he goes, I go.” And I would have. You can’t make a deal unless you’re prepared to blow it. For a moment, I thought I’d have to pay my own plane fare back. Not with a smile, they acquiesced.
That night I grabbed Roman aside. “Pick up the pace, will ya, or we’ll both end up in Warsaw.”
Bluhdorn and company weren’t the only ones screaming about Roman. Another power entered the scene. Marty and I were in a meeting with Bluhdorn when a secretary interrupted with an urgent message for me. Frank Sinatra was on the horn. “Must speak with you,” was the message. Ole Blue Eyes was married to Mia at the time. Me . . . I’d known Peck’s Bad Boy for years, I put him on the speaker phone. He wasn’t crooning.
“I’m pullin’ Mia off the fuckin’ film, Evans, if it ain’t finished by November fourteenth. She’s starting my picture on the seventeenth.”
His picture was The Detective, the project that had launched my producing career. Now it was about to sink it. Sinatra wan
ted to start shooting by Thanksgiving.
“Sorry, Frank. She won’t be finished with Rosemary’s Baby until mid-January.”
“Then she’s quittin’.”
Frank didn’t bark; he bit. He let Mia know in no uncertain terms that if she didn’t walk off Rosemary’s Baby, he would divorce her. Hysterically, she came into my office, telling me of her dilemma.
“I love him, Bob. I love him. I’m going to have to quit.”
“Mia,” I said, “if you walk off in the middle of my film, you’ll never work again.”
Now crying hysterically, “I don’t care. I don’t care. I just love Frank.”
“Screen Actors Guild will enjoin you from doing his picture too, Mia.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care. I just want to be with Frank.”
Years of knowing what makes the head of an actress tick finally found its purpose.
“Mia, come with me.”
Into the executive screening room we went. I showed her an hour of Rosemary’s Baby cut together. We watched it in silence. The lights came up.
“I never thought you had it in you. It’s as good, no, even better than Audrey Hepburn’s performance in Wait Until Dark. You’re a shoo-in for an Academy Award.”
Her tears gone, her face lit up.
“Do you really think so?”
“The one thing I’m not is prone to exaggerate. You’re a shoo-in, Mia, a shoo-in.”
Suddenly, a smile. Suddenly, she didn’t take a hike. Just as suddenly, Frank served her with divorce papers, right on the set, delivered by Mickey Rudin, his attorney.
It’s strange how quickly women recover. It took her a full week. Suddenly, her only interest was to see Rosemary’s Baby outgross The Detective.
What irony. To Mia’s satisfaction, Rosemary’s Baby and The Detective opened on the same day. While The Detective opened to good box office, Rosemary’s Baby was the smash hit of the summer. Overnight, Mia was a full-fledged star. I couldn’t fill her one request—taking a double-page ad in both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. On one side she wanted in bold numbers the theater gross of Rosemary’s Baby; on the other, the theater gross of The Detective.
“Bob,” said Sharon Tate, “the baby’s kicking!”
“How does it feel?”
“It’s the best feeling in the world.”
“I’ll tell Roman.”
“While you’re at it, tell him he’d better be home for his birthday. Remember, it’s the eighteenth.”
“He’ll be here, baby.”
Just about the only really happily married couple I knew in Hollywood were Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. Coming from a childhood of horror in Nazi-occupied Poland, Roman couldn’t believe he was the husband of this milk-fed American beauty. Sharon’s movie career was just beginning to heat up after Valley of the Dolls. In Roman’s eyes, she was already the brightest star in the world. Around his gentle, sun-kissed bride he was like a child who’s just seen his first Christmas tree light up.
In the spring of 1969, Roman had asked me if Paramount would put some money into a low-budget film he’d written called A Day at the Beach, which a friend of his, Simon Hessera, was directing in London. When he got Peter Sellers for a small part, I persuaded Bluhdorn to cough up $600,000. I flew over to London in July to look at the rough cut. It was unreleasable, but Roman wanted to stay on and reedit it. We spent a wonderful week together shopping for a vintage Rolls Silver Dawn, a surprise present to Sharon for their first baby.
Before I took off for L.A., Roman said, “Look after Sharon for me, will you, Bob? Tell her I love her. I’ll be home in a few days.”
Now Sharon was on the phone from the house they were renting on Cielo Drive, up in Benedict Canyon. She loved feeling the baby kick, but she felt cooped up. How about joining her and a few friends on Friday night? It would just be her houseguests, Gibby Folger, of the San Francisco coffee family, and Gibby’s boyfriend, Wojiciech “Voytek” Frykowski, a Polish rogue and great friend of Roman’s. Dinner at a nothing place like El Coyote on Beverly.
“Sounds great, baby. I’m working in the editing room. I might be a little late.”
At nine o’clock on Friday, August 8, 1969, I was still in the editing room. I called Sharon.
“I’m stuck, baby. Count me out. Sorry.”
“Don’t be silly, Bob. I can always get Jay.” Jay was the star hairdresser Jay Sebring, an ex-boyfriend who was still devoted to her.
“Sweet dreams.”
“You too.”
The success of Rosemary’s Baby hadn’t been enough to turn Paramount around. Charlie Bluhdorn was flying out that night for weekend meetings. This time the threats sounded real: the studio would have to be closed down. At ten on Saturday morning I picked him up at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When we returned to Woodland, David, my majordomo, was standing at the door. Joyce Haber, the L.A. Times columnist, was on the phone. Bluhdorn frowned.
“I thought I said no calls this morning, David.”
“She said it’s urgent, Mr. Evans. She sounds terrible.”
I took the call in my bedroom.
When she heard my voice, Joyce started wailing. “You aren’t dead! You aren’t dead!”
“Joyce, what are you talking about? Of course I’m not dead!”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“It’s on the radio. Last night at Sharon and Roman’s house on Cielo. They’re all dead. . . .”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re all dead.”
“Joyce, what is this?”
“Sharon, Jay Sebring, Gibby Folger, that Polish Voytek what’s-his-name . . .”
“I know. I was supposed to be there.”
“They’ve all been killed!”
My body went numb. “A landslide?”
“No, they were murdered—some kind of massacre.”
“Joyce, are you making this up?” From the sound of her voice, I knew she wasn’t. “What about the baby?”
She couldn’t go on.
Charlie had been pacing my living room impatiently. “Come on, Evans,” he said when I walked in. “Let’s go outside and get started.”
“I can’t, I can’t, Charlie.”
I started to cry.
He came over and put his arm around me. “What is it, Bob? What happened?”
I told him what happened and we went out to sit under the tree.
When Roman arrived from London, I knew he mustn’t go home. I arranged for him to be driven to Paramount and installed in the suite that had recently been Julie Andrews’s dressing room for Darling Lili. There he hibernated for a few days, heavily sedated by a Paramount doctor.
Not wanting to leave him alone at Paramount, I had Roman move into my guest house. Sounds simple; it wasn’t. Every crackpot in the state wanted to get a jab in. It necessitated having around-the-clock guards for the duration of his stay. The LAPD put their own tap on my phone, which became an integral instrument in their investigation. How I remember cradling Roman as if he were a child. I loved him. I felt his pain. Even though criticized, I went the extra nine yards, doing whatever I could, whatever to ease his suffering. Though I could do little, at least I was there.
The horrific murders of Sharon and her friends by the insane followers of Charles Manson sent a shock wave through Hollywood that is still felt today. What made them even uglier was the media orgy of lies, all of which came down to one outrageous innuendo: because of their “decadence,” the victims had somehow brought it on themselves. Typical was a Newsweek story calling the massacre not a tragedy but a “fascinating whodunit” and reporting, among other ridiculous speculations, that the murders might have “ . . . resulted from a ritual mock execution that got out of hand in the glare of hallucinogens.”
The press even implicated Roman. It didn’t matter that he was six thousand miles away when the tragedy occurred. Somehow the “master of the macabre” had to have been involved.
Roman’s good friends—Warren Beatty, Richard Sylbert, I, and a few others—took turns keeping him company. Roman threw himself into helping the police investigation and with his incredible strength he got through it. Many of the biggest names in Hollywood turned out for Sharon’s funeral. Later, Roman wrote that “it was like some ghastly movie premiere.”
Leaving Holy Cross Cemetery, he said something that would come back to haunt me: “The only one of Sharon’s good friends who didn’t come, Bob, is Steve McQueen. Sharon loved that cold son of a bitch.”
Chapter Eighteen
Midafternoon, July 3, 1968—the studio, already half empty, most everyone was off and running to a festive July 4. After the last of my secretaries had given me her good-bye, she rushed back into my office, her face a-blush, her voice a-stutter.
“Mr. Evans. I’ve just gotten off the phone with Mr. Cary Grant.”
Her stutter so pronounced now, I couldn’t make out what she said.
“What?”
“Mr. Grant would like to see you.”
“Why didn’t you put him through?”
“He . . . he told me not to. He wanted to know what your weekend plans were. I, I hope I wasn’t out of place. I, I told him you didn’t have any. Mr. Grant . . . he laughed. Could you spare a moment for him later this afternoon?”
“Call him. Tell him I don’t have one plan, zero, till July fifth. Whatever time he wants to come is fine with me.”
A moment later, she returned, stuttering, “He, he’s coming here Mr. Evans—at six. Can I stay?” Her face now a Delicious apple. “Please?”
“I thought you were off to Catalina.”
“Catalina can wait. Cary Grant!” Her eyes said it all.
“Sure, stick around.”
A few hours later, Cary and I were sitting at opposite ends of my coffee table being served tea by the trembling hands of my now flustered secretary.
She whispered in my ear, “Could I . . . could I ask Mr. Grant for his autograph?”
There was only one Cary Grant!
“My secretary’s blown her weekend to check out your smile. Write down the old CG for her, will ya?”