by Robert Evans
“Stanley, I don’t have the bread. I’m cutting a picture. Can’t it wait a few days?”
“By ten-oh-one tomorrow morning, without a check, you’re worth zero.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“Ask Sean Connery. You’re saving him from drowning.”
There was one person I could call who had the money. My flowerchild bride herself. She had 100 Gs in the bank, in cash. The first real hunk of green in her life. I can’t, I can’t ask her. What kind of fuckin’ fraud are you anyway, Evans? Chauffeurs, servants, private planes, sixteen-room palatial home and for an anniversary gift, I’m takin’ her entire savings to pay a margin call.
Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I picked up the phone and dialed my pregnant bride. She cut me off before I could even finish my story of woe.
“Bob, quickly, give me the name and address of where the money has to be. We can’t afford to have it arrive there late.”
Months later, Ali and I had the biggest fight of our relationship. I wrote a check to her for the money I borrowed. She tore it up. I wrote another. She tore it up.
Writing my third check, I looked at her. “If you don’t take it and put it in the bank, I’m divorcing you. It ain’t a joke; it’s pride.”
She believed me. She took it.
“There’s a big problem, Evans. The board of directors want out. Get rid of Paramount, sell it, can’t afford it. It’s turning cash flow into a cash drought. They’ve had it. They want me out too, out of show business, get back to what I do best—making money, not movies.”
The coldest November day in New York’s memory was a perfect backdrop for commiserating with Charlie Bluhdorn. His spirits matched his complexion—green. He looked the way he felt—beaten.
“You don’t deserve the heat, Charlie. Sell the fuckin’ company.” I got up, walked to the window. “They don’t deserve you either.”
I knew he was looking for a boost. He deserved it; he deserved more, but he never seemed to get it.
“Fuck ’em, Charlie. Stall. With your eyes closed you can buy another quarter. Give us one more shot at the table.” No reaction. I walked over to the couch and for the first time took him by both arms and shook him.
“Charlie, that’s all we need. We’re gonna throw naturals with Love Story. Big green ones.”
“You’re crazy, Evans. You’ve always been crazy.” Ah, but a smile. “I suppose that’s why I love you. Your head, Evans, where is it? We need a miracle, not a movie.”
Walking down Fifth Avenue toward the Sherry-Netherland, Charlie was somber.
“The board’s already decided. They called an emergency meeting a week from tomorrow. Damage control. Protect the stock.”
Walking through the revolving doors of the Sherry, I had a kamikaze flash. “Give me a half hour with the board, Charlie, a half hour.”
Finally a laugh—a big one. “Evans, the one person they don’t want to see is you.”
“Yeah, that’s why I want to see them. You better hope it works or you’re gonna have to teach the crazy one the coffee business.”
“You’re crazy, Evans.”
Giving him a good-bye embrace, “Yes, but crazy good. I’ve got one ace in my hand, Charlie—Love Story—gonna build a hand around it.”
Charlie looked at me as if I was really crazy. “Love Story, ace, what are you talking about? I don’t want to hear. You’ve caused me enough tsuris.”
It wasn’t good-bye time yet. Rather than go up the elevator to my suite, I took Charlie by the arm and continued through the revolving door back outside and stood under the awning.
“Who told me only losers take no for an answer?”
Shaking his head, Charlie couldn’t help saying, “I knew I shouldn’t have seen you today. It’s up to Marty.”
The next morning I was in Los Angeles. My first call was to Marty Davis. He’d already spoken with Bluhdorn. He seemed unfavorably disposed, but said he’d go over it with Stanley Jaffe. The next day Davis called me. He and Stanley had discussed it at great length. Colder than any turndown, he gave me an affirmative nod.
“You’ve got a half hour immediately following the luncheon, next Monday, two-thirty, at the boardroom. Buy a one-way ticket.”
Down went the phone. Why does everyone slam the phone in my ear?
Knowing his personality, his dry-ice affirmation was what I wanted. The more Marty liked something, the less he showed it. For the rest of the week Stanley and I planned a little show business surprise for our starch collared partners in zinc, oil, and gas. Peter Bart asked Mike Nichols for an afternoon of his time to film a presentation for his boss to deliver to the board of directors at Gulf + Western.
“Need you, Mike,” said Peter. “We’ve got a lousy actor, but a helluva presenter.”
Mike borrowed a set from “The Young Lawyers,” a television series they were shooting at the studio. At last, I was working with a great director. Where were you ten years ago when I really needed you? Instead of spreading my legs for the collars, I’d be giving Beatty and Redford a run for their money. Without ever knowing it, Nichols saved Paramount from being buried. A belated thanks, Mike.
I spent the next few days editing what Mike had shot, interjecting various scenes from many pictures that were in production at the time. Fully aware that any product reel, no matter how tempting, would not change an already guilty verdict to innocent, I had another ace. Stanley and Marty wanted to know what I was preparing.
“Trust me,” I told them. They didn’t.
“Hey fellas, I’ve got less than a week before I’m thrown out. If it doesn’t work, Marty, you can open the window.”
“I will.”
“If it works, will ya kiss me?”
Stanley burst out laughing. Marty again slammed the phone down in my ear. In an hour Stanley called back.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Nope.”
By Sunday at 6:00 P.M., I finished the last edit of Mike’s footage and caught the red-eye into New York. No luggage, but a can of film under my arm. Not that Paramount was playing it tight, but the orders were clear—no hotel room for me. From a double-exposure corner suite at the Sherry to walking the streets and breakfast at the Plaza Hotel alone. At least they had nice johns downstairs, so I could wash up and make myself look presentable for the axe to fall.
When I entered the board of directors’ anteroom, a secretary immediately got up and went into the boardroom. Out came Marty Davis with a warm embrace.
“Couldn’t get a haircut, huh?” he said, shaking his head. “You look like a Woodstock reject.” Without cracking a smile, “Charm your way out of this one.” He opened the door. I walked in.
Before me sat sixteen of America’s finest nonsmilers. Not one of them looked at me. Rather all sixteen looked through me.
“Gentlemen . . . I apologize for not being better dressed, but when you’ve got a one-way ticket and no hotel, it ain’t that easy to keep up with the style of the room.”
A laugh? Not a crack. Not even the white of a tooth in sight. Without a word, I slowly eyed everyone in the room. From under my arm I held up the film can.
“Call it a twenty-minute good-bye. Put it together last week. I asked Mr. Davis for permission to show it to you before I get out of your hair. Then I’ll look for the longest, quietest beach I can.”
Still not the white of a tooth. Maybe they left their dentures at home. The hanging judges, all sixteen of them, reluctantly adjourned to the small screening room adjacent to the board of directors’ suite. Charlie, Marty, and Stanley were behind them. Quickly, I hopped into the projection booth and handed Al Lo Presti the reel.
“Give it a ‘Hail Mary,’ Alfonso, then give me one too. Look through the booth. When I sit, start it.”
“You got it, boss.”
The lights slowly went down, the curtains parted, and on the screen, a wood-paneled door opened. An extraordinarily large wood-paneled office. A tan well-groomed young man walks through
the door, looks around the office, and then sits on top of a desk—me!
Good afternoon. My name is Robert Evans and I’m Senior Vice President of Paramount Pictures. My job at Paramount is to oversee our productions around the world. These past few years have been rough for Hollywood. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. Some people have learned from them and some people haven’t. We have.
By the way, this is not my office. We tried to shoot it in my office. There was one problem—my office was too small to get even one camera in.
I was left with little choice, so I’m here at the studio borrowing a set from “The Young Lawyers” and that’s where we are now. As a matter of fact, I don’t even have an office at the studio anymore. Last year we packed up our gear, cut down our staff, tightened our belts, moved into small offices, little offices, in Beverly Hills. The money we spend is not going to be on extravagances. The money we spend is going to be on the screen. And speaking of the screen, well, that’s the reason we’re here today.
I’d like to have the opportunity to show you some of our product for next year. I’m going to show it to you in its roughest state. There are going to be disconnected scenes from several pictures. But I think it’s going to give you a feeling of our trend for movies in the seventies.
We then gave the starched shirts a taste of Hollywood, unveiling carefully selected scenes from Harold and Maude, A New Leaf, Plaza Suite, and The Conformist for their eyes to feast upon.
Back to me. Mike’s camera slowly panned to an extreme close-up. I gave the best and most important fuckin’ performance of my acting career. Till this day, it still bugs me. Why didn’t I meet Mike Nichols ten years earlier? “I could have been a contender.”
But right now we’re approaching Christmas and Paramount’s Christmas gift to the world is . . . Love Story. Love Story opens all over America on Christmas Day. Love Story is a strange phenomenon, it’s the first time in motion picture history that a picture is being released while the book is still the number one book in the nation. I shouldn’t say that. It’s the number one book in the world. It’s the first time in literary history that a book has been number one in the United States, France, England, Sweden, or for that matter whatever country the book has been published in. I think Love Story is going to start a new trend in movies; a trend toward the romantic, toward love, toward people, toward telling a story about how it feels rather than where it’s at. I think Love Story is going to bring the people back to the theater in droves.
I think we at Paramount look at ourselves as trendsetters rather than trend followers. I could go for an hour and tell you about twenty or thirty projects that are in various stages of development and bore you with it. So I won’t.
But I want to bring up one project, and that’s The Godfather. I bring it up for several reasons—one, that it’s starting production next month; two, that it’s going to be our next Christmas’s picture; and three, to bring up once the similarity between The Godfather and Love Story, which are the two biggest books of the last decade. Paramount owns them both.
(The camera now so close, my face fills the entire screen.)
But Paramount more than just owns them both. We didn’t sit back in our plush chairs and write a check out for a million or a million and a half for the two most important books of this last decade. We developed both of these books. If it weren’t for Paramount, the book Love Story would have never been written. If it weren’t for Paramount, The Godfather would have never been written. Because we were in there in the beginning, spurring the writers on, working closely with them, to make these books the best-sellers they are . . . and the great movies we know they’re going to be.
We at Paramount look at ourselves, not as passive backers of films, but as a creative force unto ourselves.
(Smiling at the camera now, I looked at my sixteen hanging judges as if we were all part of a big happy family.)
Gentlemen, one thing I promise you—Christmas of ’69 will be very special throughout the world.
(With Mike’s direction, I then took a long, thoughtful pause.)
Paramount’s gift—Love Story—will make it that. It’s what life and love and Christmas is all about.
(Another Nichols-rehearsed pause.)
Without you, Love Story never would have been made. Without you, The Godfather would never have gotten to the screen there for the world to enjoy.
(Looking now straight into the camera . . . silently counting . . . one . . . two . . . three . . .)
Thank you.
The screen went to black. The curtains closed. The lights heightened. Not a sound. A tap on my shoulder; it was Marty. “Wait in the boardroom.”
Ten minutes later, Davis walked in. “Forget the haircut.”
“Fired, huh?”
“Uh-uh. You’re even a bigger fraud than I thought.”
No kiss on the lips, but a hug. From Davis, that was more than an engagement ring, it was the gold band itself. Then a typical Davis zinger. “Evans, the beach, forget it. You don’t need a tan. You need mazel.”
By thirty seconds I made the 5:00 TWA plane back to L.A. Landing, I rushed to the phone to call Stanley. His wife answered.
“Stanley is already asleep,” she said.
“Awaken him please.”
“Bob, you know Stanley.”
“Please.”
He picked up the phone. Was he angry that I awakened him? I don’t think so. For five minutes the two of us laughed and laughed and laughed. He from a deep sleep, me from the airport. We never said a word, both of us hung up the phone at the same time laughing.
Back at Woodland, I realized that only twenty-four hours had passed since I had come and gone. But Paramount was now on the come, rather than gone.
By the time I arrived home, Ali was already asleep. Lying beside her in bed, I looked at her—then looked at her again. Incredible! Ripley wouldn’t buy it. Here beside me was this flower child whose crooked-toothed smile on the screen was the one chance Paramount had for survival. The brilliant minds, sharpened pencils, international sales offices around the world, all bullshit. It came down to the power of a crooked-toothed smile.
Everything was building toward Love Story’s premiere in New York. The swell had begun. Ali was to be interviewed at length in New York by Mary Cronin for Time magazine’s first cover of 1971. Ed Sullivan was setting aside the last segment of his show for Ali to sit on a chair, empty stage and all, to read poetry of Christmas, of love, of family. Every top magazine, TV show, and newspaper was desperate to have Ali MacGraw as their top story.
Her obstetrician told her that the seventh month of her pregnancy was the most dangerous. Too late to abort, too early for birth, and it is the month where it is far wiser to be cautious than cavalier.
How I remember his words: “If it were my child, especially with all the attendant pressures surrounding your life, Mrs. Evans, I would stay right at home.”
Would you say my priorities were fucked up? I laughed at the doctor’s caution.
“Ali, if I’d have listened to doctors, I’d have been under the knife three times by now and I’m still a virgin. Surgeons like to cut, lawyers like to litigate, and obstetricians like to scare the shit out of you.”
“Evans, you’re the boss.”
Off to the Big Apple we went, Ali having no idea that four thousand jobs, including mine, were on hold awaiting the outcome of a crooked-toothed smile on the screen. What a smash she was on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Her poetry of Christmas love was music to the ears. Wherever we went we heard it over and over again. The next evening Time’s editor-in-chief, Henry Grunwald, gave a most elite soirée for his cover girl of the year. How magical were the days and nights, especially sharing the feel of our little bambino kicking inside her tummy.
On December 16, 1970, Love Story had its world premiere at Loew’s State in New York, opening nine days later on Christmas Day to spread love to every city in America. That rainy night, Ali and I slipped through the side door of the Sh
erry and into the limo. Outside Loew’s State, an army of policemen went into assault position to keep the crowds away from her. For a woman who was seven months pregnant, it was terrifying.
The lights went down. Francis Lai’s haunting piano and strings started up. Ryan O’Neal, alone and bereft in snowy Central Park, said in voice-over, “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?”
Only the title appeared—there were no further opening credits. During the first hour the silence was such that a single cough was an intrusion. Then seeping slowly through the theater, a most peculiar sound began. All I could see was white. Cocaine? No—Kleenex! By the time the end credits began to roll the entire theater was one white flag of surrender.
Stanley Jaffe arranged a small post-premiere party at the Hippopotamus Club. It wasn’t really a party, it was a love feast. Everyone there felt just a bit closer to one another as Francis Lai’s music from the film filled the room. Me, I felt like Casanova. The most extraordinary lady in the world on my arm and in her belly a little Evans to be.
At the bar, Ryan rushed over. “I know if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have gotten the part. I owe you my career, pal.” We embraced. With a glass of champagne, we toasted to it.
Ali’s hand grabbed my arm. Her face ghostly. “I’m starting to hemorrhage, Evans.”
With blood starting to stream down her legs, I rushed her into the waiting limo.
I told the driver, “Keep your hand on the horn, don’t stop for lights, and don’t argue, you’re covered.” Within seven minutes we were in the emergency room of Doctors Hospital.
Suddenly, a night of triumph had turned into a night of terror. Though past midnight, my sister’s obstetrician, Dr. Davids, raced to Ali’s bedside. I paced the corridor, waiting, waiting, a half hour, an hour. A very sober doctor slowly approached me. Before he said a word, I began to cry.
“Ali will be okay”—his head down—“the baby, I don’t know.”