The Kid Stays in the Picture

by Robert Evans

  “If we’re gonna gamble, I’d rather go to Vegas,” said another board member. “You only have the dice to deal with there.”

  Their held-back steam? Directed at only one person—me! The door opened; my secretary walked in, interrupting everyone. Is she out of her fuckin’ mind? Before I could explode, a note was in my hand: “Grounds killed. Run over. Ali’s out. Doesn’t know yet.”

  While they’re telling me they’re rubbing out the studio, my wife’s dog gets rubbed out. The little mutt was far more important to the survival of our marriage than the studio. I staggered over to Bluhdorn, showed him the note. Quickly, he thumbed me out. Driven back to my house in a trance, I was greeted by Tollie Mae.

  “She ain’t home, Mr. E. She’s takin’ some pictures with some long-haired weirdos. That dog of hers been dead over an hour.”

  I knew Tollie was getting her nuts off telling me. She “don’t like no agin’ hippie around, invadin’ her territory,” said Tollie.

  A voice rang out. “Grounds . . . Grounds . . .”

  Christ, Ali’s home.

  “Evans. What are you doing here? Did they fire you?”

  “Grounds is dead.”

  She started to tremble, threw herself on the bed. I lay down next to her, cradling her in my arms.

  An hour or two must have passed when the doorbell rang. There stood Charlie Bluhdorn. He was holding what looked like a little gray powder puff. It was a puppy. A brand-new Scottish terrier.

  “This is for Ali.”

  “The starched collars?”

  “They’ll wait. Where’s Ali?”

  Like a delivery boy, there stood Mr. Tough Tycoon holding a little powder-puff puppy. Not waiting for me, he walked directly into the room where Ali was crying. The vision of seeing Charlie embrace Ali, handing this little puppy over to her, will stick in my memory till Alzheimer’s takes over. The studio crumbling, on the brink of bankruptcy, but who the fuck cared? There we sat watching our Love Story girl, tickling her new little powder-puff terrier.

  “Where did you get the little mutt?” I asked him.

  “From a kennel near Oxnard.”

  “Who’d you send?”

  “Me. Who else could I trust?”

  That’s a man, no movie star, a real leading man.

  Charlie, Stanley, and I talked the directors into a stay of execution on the condition that we run the production business from small offices wherever we could find them. The lot would become a rental facility for anyone who would pay the two bucks. A few weeks later, we found a suite of offices on Cañon Drive in Beverly Hills. It was barely big enough to accommodate a half dozen executives. From that little hole in the wall, not only did we become number one in the business, but the most historic successes in Paramount’s history were conceived there, in a cubicle not fit for a barbershop.

  Now the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was taking place at Woodland. The stars weren’t Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, but the new Mrs. Evans and Mammy Tollie Mae.

  “Sorry, Mr. E., but I’m not allowin’ no agin’ hippie cookin’ in my kitchen.”

  Is she crazy, telling my new wife she can’t come into the kitchen? She was, she meant it. It was either Tollie Mae or Ali. Till this day, I think Tollie Mae thought she’d win out.

  A sad good-bye. Tollie Mae was a bachelor’s lady no more.

  “Bottom line—it’s unreleasable.”

  Dinner was ready, our guests were there, I’d just arrived back from the studio having seen the first cut of our baby—a failure. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t hold it back; I begged off on dinner, closed the door to my bedroom, and buried my face in a pillow.

  Rushing in behind me, Ali put her hands through my hair. “Evans, you always exaggerate.”

  My face still in the pillow, I just shook my head, “Just two pretty faces, Ali. No plot, holes as big as the Boulder Dam.” I turned over facing her. “It never fails, damn it. The fuckin’ dailies always fool you. I’m sorry, baby.”

  “You’ll fix it, you always do.” She smiled, kissed me. “That’s why you’re my Evans. You haven’t slept more than ten hours all week. Get under the covers. I’ll take care of your guests.”

  If I had one-tenth the brains she thought I had, I’d have owned Paramount, not be working for it.

  I jolted out of a deep sleep at three in the morning.

  “Ali, I’ve got it. I’ve got it! I know how to fix it, but I don’t have the bread, can’t get another dime from G+W. I think they’d like me to fall on my ass. Fuck! How do I get some quick green?”

  Photographic Insert 1

  Pop worked seven days—and nights—a week to keep his family winter-warm. With my brother, Charles, and our mother during the Depression days of the thirties.

  Mom and Pop circled the world when the world was tough to circle. Together in Havana circa thirties.

  Before my first shave, I was steady dating femme fatale movie star Terry Moore, too young to know she was also dating legendary billionaire Howard Hughes whom she eventually married.

  Celebrating Mom and Pop’s new Park Avenue digs with brother, Charles, and sister, Alice.

  Charles, the professor. Me, the student. The course? Fashion. The campus? Evan–Picone.

  Zorita: No queen of the high-school prom— rather crowned queen of the strippers. One hell of a date to share my eighteenth birthday with.

  A bachelor is a bachelor is a bachelor is a bachelor.

  Strike 1—Sharon Hugueny

  Strike 2—Camilla Sparv

  Strike 3—Ali MacGraw

  Strike 4—Phyllis George

  And out for good!

  My mentor, Hollywood royalty Norma Shearer. Knighting me to portray the legendary boy wonder Irving Thalberg, her deceased husband, on the big screen in A Man of a Thousand Faces.

  My first scene in flicks. Going eye to eye with my idol, Jimmy Cagney. Me telling him how to act. Now that’s comedy, colored black.

  The Sun Also Rises. To all I told: “I was lucky to come out alive.” Shhh . . . it was bullshit, I only fought the camera.

  Seductress Ava Gardner during intimate on-screen moments for The Sun Also Rises with ME—her young prey, Matador Pedro Romero.

  Ava Gardner giving an Academy Award performance during intimate off-screen moments with me. For two weeks I thought it was love with a capital L. Was I wrong!

  Not a bad parlay for a guy who had just started to shave.

  Sounds good, huh? It worked against me.

  Together with Dolores Hart in 1958, both of us winning the Outstanding New Personalities of the Year award presented on CBS television. Dear Dolores, it was her last public performance. She became a nun.

  Together with dear Joan Collins that same year. She didn’t become a nun!

  It ain’t easy stayin’ in the picture! . . . Even in flicks!

  Hugh O’Brian saying good-bye in The Fiend Who Walked the West.

  Hope Lange saying good-bye in The Best of Everything.

  Mel Ferrer saying good-bye in The Sun Also Rises.

  Told ya! If only I had hit the theaters as the “Hell Bent Kid,” not “The Fiend,” “I could have been a contender.”

  But never Brando! Onwards and upwards.

  Career change: Starting my climb up a mighty treacherous mountain. Back page announcement in both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter: “Hollywood, Calif . . . Richard D. Zanuck, 20th Century-Fox vice president in charge of production, signs Oscar-winning screenwriter Abby Mann to script the celebrated best-selling novel The Detective. Robert Evans (left) will produce and famed director Mark Robson will helm the production for 20th Century-Fox release.”

  Ninety-three years young—Adolph Zukor, Paramount’s founder, announcing to the world press that “The Kid” is now running the joint.

  My first big coup at Paramount, The Odd Couple. From left to right: Jack Lemmon, producer Howard Koch, myself, director Gene Saks, head of business affairs Bernard Donnenfeld, and Walter Matthau.

 
Sandwiched between mentor Charlie Bluhdorn and Martin Davis the day of the world premiere of Is Paris Burning?

  How young we looked, circa 1967. Peter Bart and I preparing to announce our film slate to the press.

  How young we looked, circa 1968. Stanley Jaffe and myself at the post-premiere party of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet.

  How young we looked, circa 1967. Clint Eastwood and I at Super Bowl Number One at the LA Coliseum.

  How young we looked, circa 1968. Warren Beatty and I at the Directors Guild screening of The Odd Couple.

  Getting camera-dodger Sidney Korshak to pose for a picture was no easy feat. Left to right: Sidney Korshak, his wife, Bernice, Annabel Garth, and me.

  The stars are back at Paramount! Front (left to right): Lee Marvin, myself, Barbra Streisand, Bernard Donnenfeld, Clint Eastwood. Rear (left to right): Rock Hudson, John Wayne, Yves Montand.

  Looking in on maestro Roman Polanski directing Mia Farrow, pregnant with Rosemary’s baby.

  Joining Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski at the first screening of Rosemary’s Baby.

  (COURTESY PETER C. BOSARI)

  October 24, 1969. Moments after getting hitched to Ali MacGraw in Palm Springs, with high hopes of hitting a grand slammer, not a third strike. Sharing our joy with Tollie Mae Wilson and David Gilruth, our housekeeper and butler.

  Sharing the most magical moment of our lives— Joshua!

  With Barbra Streisand discussing a new upstart Jack Nicholson playing her stepbrother, Tad, in On a Clear Day. Naturally it was her only unsuccessful musical.

  (PHOTO CREDIT: ALFRED EISENSTAEDT)

  Together with Duke Wayne for the cover of Life Magazine during the making of True Grit. Duke always told me I was his lucky charm. He won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for the flick.

  From the palace they came! MacGraw and Evans being formally introduced to the Queen Mum at Love Story’s royal premiere in London.

  Ali’s nude body embraced me as she whispered in my ear, “Who was the guy who told me ‘when your back’s against the wall, the impossible becomes possible’?”

  As soon as I could, I got on the horn with Arthur Hiller; Dick Kratina, the cinematographer; his camera operator; and Ryan O’Neal. Three hours later we were all in my projection room at my home.

  “We’re on top of two mountains, fellas. One is living hell and the other is an oasis in the sky. There’s just a hundred feet separating the two of them. How do we get from living hell to the oasis? We gotta try.” I looked at my watch. “It’s ten A.M. March 23. The bad news is that it ain’t there. Now the good news is, it’s there to be had. There’s not a fuckin’ dime in the budget. To make it worse, I can’t let the suits know the deep shit we’re in. Arthur, if they saw what we had on screen, you’d be shooting “Battery Park,” not Plaza Suite next month.”

  A bit of color left the maestro’s face.

  “Ryan, if they offer you the third lead in a TV series, take it.”

  Looking to the other guys in the room, I continued. “Am I exaggerating? Uh-uh. It’s an underplay. If we have to hijack the cameras, grow beards, get back to Boston, sneak in. We’re missing silence, bike rides, car rides, running through the park together. The good part is it’s all silent. We don’t have to bring sound with us. The bad part is, not only do we not have money for plane fares, we can’t let anybody—I mean anybody—know we’re doing it. If the unions find out, they’ll close the studio down. I’m gonna have my pal Gary Chazan buy the tickets on two different planes. The fares and hotels are on me, not on the company. Your agents can’t know; if you trust your wives, you can tell them, but no one else. I’m putting my job on the line doing this. Not because I’m a martyr, not because my bride’s in the film, but because we have a shot at grabbing the brass ring.”

  On separate planes they traveled, secretly they worked, together they conquered. This was no bullshit labor of love, rather selfish survival that turned into career explosions with gushers of green for everyone but me and Ali.

  April 1 was one of the six days my Green Berets were secretly shooting away. It was also Ali’s birthday. So not to blow their cover, I couldn’t be with my bride to celebrate. Perverse, but it was the beginning of an M.O. that destroyed what was to be “forever.” Whether it be a birthday, an anniversary, a holiday, or the birth of my kid, I was never there to share the extraordinary moments that make two people inseparable.

  Ali and I spent a belated honeymoon at Tres Viedas in Acapulco—sun, swimming, sailing, and conceiving our only lasting production, Joshua. If only we’d taken more vacations.

  A Man and a Woman, directed by the auteur Claude Lelouch, was possibly the only French film of its time that the entire world rushed to embrace. Few words were spoken. Silence, touch, and the brilliance of their score made for magical moments. Francis Lai was the genius behind the music. Taking his soundtrack, I temporarily mixed them to Love Story—and it was magic. But Francis Lai was unavailable.

  “No” was never a word I accepted. My ace? A great friend, Alain Delon, who at the time was the number one star around the world (except in the U.S.). In France, he was close to God. Muscle? Schwarzenegger style. Poor Francis Lai. He had no choice—Love Story was now his to do.

  Off Ali and I went to the Hotel du Cap in Antibes. She was pregnant, while I spent day after day working with Lai, thinking of the themes that could make Love Story an American Man and a Woman. He couldn’t speak a word of English and I couldn’t speak a word of French. The best way to work. The reluctant debutante won the Academy Award for his score. Not bad for a guy who didn’t want to dance.

  The fuckin’ phone again. Luigi Lurasci, our top production honcho in Italy, was on the line about The Red Tent, a film Paramount was doing as a “Bluhdorn favor” (he was pals with its producer, Franco Cristaldi).

  “We’re in deep shit,” Luigi said in broken English. “It could sink the company. It doesn’t hold up. Can’t cut it together. It’s a mess. It makes no sense. Evans, we need you on the double. Tomorrow’s too late.”

  I said to Ali, “Fuck ’em all, I’m not going. They fucked us on your birthday. They fucked us on my big four-oh. Instead of us celebrating it together, I was a carrier pigeon off to Rome tryin’ to fix another Bluhdorn spaghetti western. Saint Peter couldn’t have fixed that piece of shit. Well, I’ve had it—I’m tired of being called in to fix other people’s mistakes. These fuckin’ Italian hybrid flicks don’t work in America. Never did, never will. It’s one big jerk-off. Let someone else be the carrier pigeon. It’s our first anniversary, baby, and we’re celebrating it together. No half-assed flick is gonna rain on our parade.”

  Interrupting me, Ali said, “Shhh . . . Evans, you’re the only one who can save it.”

  “It’ll be a piece of shit either way.”

  “Uh-uh, give it the Evans touch. Do it for me.”

  “Instead of the head of a studio I feel like a Western Union delivery boy.”

  “You don’t get it, Evans,” kissing me all over my face. “Everyone knew you didn’t want to make it. Now they’re calling on you to save it. I’m so proud of you.” Putting her finger to my lips, not letting me answer, “For me . . . please.”

  Awaiting me in Rome was a hand-painted sepia-colored, pictorial book. Inside were pressed daisies, poems, drawings, and quotes from Thoreau to Fitzgerald, a hundred pages lay between its covers. A romantic chronology of our first year together. A cherub was drawn on the last page, along with a circle in which was written: “Happy First Anniversary . . . My love forever . . . MacGroo.”

  Reading and rereading her written thoughts, I could only think what a lucky motherfucker I was. “Don’t press your luck, Evans,” I told myself. Yet, as every gambler does, pressing your luck is what it’s all about.

  Masochistically, fourteen hours day into night, for twelve straight days, there sat Mandrake trying to mold chicken salad from chicken-shit. Staving off a $15 million disaster, scene by scene I restructured the canvas. Who knows? With a
little bit of luck, maybe it’ll work. Get part of our investment back. (It eventually did! Its international receipts gave us our investment plus. I got a pat on the back.)

  I was so fuckin’ angry with myself for fucking up my priorities that I had to get my nuts off some way.

  “Close down all European production,” I announced. “It’s a pain in the ass and a pain in the pocket.” I had only one major scene to restructure when my assistant, Renzo, summoned me to the phone. “Tell ’em to call me back in two hours. I’ve got to make this drowning scene work.”

  Within five minutes the phone rang again. There was Renzo grabbing my arm. “Life or death, Roberto—telephono.”

  It was my stockbroker, Stanley Garfinkle.

  “What the fuck are you bothering me here for, Stanley?”

  “Evans, you got a drought problem—cash.”

  “Is that all? Call me back in a couple of hours, will ya? I’m in the middle of reediting a scene that will save Sean Connery from drowning—”

  “You’re the one who’s drowning. If I don’t get $112,000 tomorrow by ten A.M., you’re wiped out. Haven’t you read the papers? It’s the worst drop the market’s had since ’twenty-nine.”

  I was too embarrassed to tell him I hadn’t looked at a paper in more than a week.

  “You schmuck. Why don’t you have the brains of your brother? He doesn’t own one stock on margin.”