The Kid Stays in the Picture

by Robert Evans

  My first acting stint on film was opposite Jimmy Cagney. Day after day, the director, producer, cast, and crew would watch the dailies together. It was a new experience for me, watching everyone’s enthusiasm for what had just been shot. What a high! I couldn’t help but notice that Cagney was expressionless. Curiosity pressed.

  “Mr. Cagney, pardon me for asking. We’ve all been watching dailies together for the past week. Me, I’ve been watching you. Everyone seems to be on cloud ten but you. Don’t you like ’em?”

  “You’re new in this racket, kid. Dailies are like brides. How come there’s so many beautiful brides . . . and ugly wives?” A Cagney wink, and off he strutted.

  Francis and I had a perfect record; we didn’t agree on anything—from editing to music and sound. The nine-month pain was worse than giving birth to Rosemary’s baby. The pain also put my sciatic nerve on fire, ricocheting up and down my leg with the intensity of a burning sword.

  Ali kept saying, “It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie.”

  She was right, but my priorities were too fucked up to pay heed.

  David Gilruth, my butler, wheeled me into one of Paramount’s projection rooms for the unveiling of Francis’s cut of The Godfather. In the theater sat Francis with his quadrille of assistants and editors (film, sound, and music), plus the rest of his production team. Also present was Al Ruddy, the film’s producer. Peter Bart and I were representing the studio. Before the picture started, Coppola introduced me to Robert Towne, who then was Hollywood’s top script doctor. Francis had brought him in to write Brando’s death scene.

  I was feeling like a cartoon character having various hands turn me over from one orthopedic bed to another. This had been my M.O. for over a month—from bedroom, to home screening room, to Paramount’s screening room, to a bed on wheels, going from soundstage to soundstage, there I was, the “sciatic kid.” The victim of a pain that makes a thousand toothaches a kiss to build a dream on.

  The film was to open in four months—Paramount’s Christmas gift to the world. The lights went down; the picture started. Two hours and six minutes later, the screen turned to black and the room began to fill with light.

  Pain does not make you more charming. “David, wheel me back to my office. Francis, I want to speak with you—alone.” The pain was now throbbing more in my head than my back as I impatiently waited for Francis. A half hour later the Prince arrived. “You’re late,” I growled.

  “Couldn’t help it. All my boys are telling me the picture’s great. Don’t touch it.”

  “The picture stinks. Got it? ‘The Untouchables’ is better. You shot a great film. Where the fuck is it—in the kitchen with your spaghetti? It sure ain’t on the screen. Where’s the family, the heart, the feeling—left in the kitchen too?”

  Francis glared. “Al, Fred, Greg, Walter—they think it’s my best work.”

  “What the fuck do I care what they think! It stinks!”

  “Let’s get Towne’s opinion,” said Francis.

  “He’s your friend, not mine. But he doesn’t get a weekly paycheck. Bring him in.”

  To Francis’s shock, Towne agreed with virtually every criticism I vented regarding the underwhelming result to an overwhelming canvas.

  I limped over to him. “Schmuck! You shortchanged yourself. What studio head tells a director to make a picture longer? Only a nut like me. You shot a saga, and you turned in a trailer. Now give me a movie.”

  The next morning, I told the New York honchos that the picture could not be ready for Christmas. I didn’t need a phone to hear their screams. Coppola, of course, was on their side.

  “You’ve got it for Christmas. Evans is crazy. He wants to change everything,” shrieked Coppola. “Hear this. He wants me to make it longer.”

  When the opening of a high-profile film is postponed, it brings with it an immediate stink, spelling “suicide” to the world of exhibition. What was thought of as an anticipated event now became the buzz of a potential white elephant.

  “This guy, Evans, must be on acid making the picture longer” was the crux of the exhibitors’ uproar. “Even if the picture’s better, who gives a shit? How are we going to get turnover, sell popcorn?” was the unanimous cry.

  The order came down—unalterable in its dictate: “Evans, the picture is to be ready for Christmas.”

  “I quit.” I meant it too.

  Pain gives off strange vibes. You just don’t give a shit.

  A year before, they would have booted me out on my ass. But Love Story had saved Paramount. I was their fair-haired boy. If I couldn’t press my instinct now, I might as well go back to acting.

  “Evans, you’re killing the morale of the company,” screeched Bluhdorn.

  “Fuck ’em, Charlie. They’re only as good as the product they have to sell, and what we’ve got now ain’t good enough. No, that’s not fair. I’ve bent over too many times on this flick to take gaff from any of your suits. I’ll bottom-line it to you—it’s ‘The Untouchables’ in 70mm. The fat fuck shot a great film, but it ain’t on the screen. It’s either in his kitchen or on the cutting room floor. Is it more important to make Christmas or have a shot at making it great? If you want Paint Your Wagon, you’ve got it. Let the robots in sales bring big numbers in on that. The Monday after it opens, watch them run for the hills.”

  “Everyone in distribution’s seen it,” Bluhdorn snapped back. “They all think you’re wrong.”

  “Really.”

  Here’s where an acting career comes in handy.

  “Charlie, think of that Sunday afternoon I forced you out of your bath. ‘We’ve got Funny Girl,’ I said. God, you were excited. It was you and I against the rest of the Paramount world. You said to me then, ‘You’re right, Evans. I agree with you. But you haven’t been in the seat long enough to back you against the entire company.’ I’ve made my bones, Charlie. I’ve been in the catbird seat long enough. Open for Christmas and take me off your Christmas bonus list. I won’t be here.” I put the phone down.

  Through the industry, word spread like leprosy: “Godfather—a bomb!”

  With his bearish looks, great smile, and operatic manner, Francis had more bravado than P. T. Barnum. At the core, however, he was a scared, prepubescent kid. One day, leaving the editing rooms at Goldwyn Studios, Francis angrily muttered, “You’re making this picture so long, Evans, half the people will be asleep before it’s over.”

  “Just keep adding texture, Francis.”

  “Evans, you’re ruining the picture!”

  “You don’t know what you’ve got, Francis. Give me the whole nine yards. We’ve got a shot at being remembered.”

  “I’m tired of listening to your hype, Evans.”

  “Fuck you! We got a shot to break fifty million in America alone, if you don’t compromise.”

  “Are you on LSD? Only Gone With the Wind and Sound of Music hit those numbers.”

  “Yeah, and we will too, if you don’t fuck it up.”

  “And you’ll buy me a Mercedes, too, if it does, huh?”

  “You’re damn right I will.”

  The day The Godfather passed $50 million, Francis bought a Mercedes 600, the most expensive on the market. The bill wasn’t sent to Paramount, but personally to Robert Evans.

  The Hollywood Foreign Press Association had voted Ali “World Film Favorite.” The annual Golden Globes Awards presentation was a televised dinner scheduled for a Sunday night in mid-January 1972. It dovetailed with Ali taking off the next morning to start The Getaway in El Paso, Texas. It was to be our last night together. I wanted it to be festive.

  At three that afternoon Francis and his ass-kissing quartet arrived in my projection room. For hours we went at it. Finally Ali pulled me out of the fray.

  “We have to leave, Evans, please. We’re supposed to be there in a half hour—”

  I cut her off. “I got a crisis with this motherfucker. You’ll have to go without me. Your presentation is last. I’ll get there before, I promise.�
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  Angry with myself for allowing The Godfather again to fuck up my life with my lady fair, I went back to the projection room.

  “Let me make it real clear, Francis. It’s my way or no way.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that if it ain’t my way, you’re off the picture. Could I be more clear?”

  Up he got, as did his quartet and on to the tennis court they went. I was so pissed that this one film was screwing up my whole life that I was hoping he would take me up on my threat and walk. He didn’t.

  When he returned, he said, with disdain written clearly across his face, “Okay, it’s your way.”

  The tension of the day put my sciatic nerve on full-speed pain. Trying to dress myself for the black-tie affair, I managed to put my black tie on, but I couldn’t bend over to put on the black socks. Pulling my pants lower, I rationalized, who’ll notice anyway. Lying in the backseat, I was driven to the Beverly Hilton, hoping against hope I wouldn’t have a stroke and take the spotlight from Ali.

  Arriving in the ballroom, I made my way to her table. Seeing me approach, she jumped up, far more concerned over my crisis than her award.

  “How did it go?”

  “My way.”

  “That’s my Evans.”

  I made it just in time. Charlton Heston was center stage in a celebrity-packed ballroom talking of Ali’s meteoric rise.

  “In three years,” said Heston, “Ali MacGraw has gone from being the Most Promising Newcomer of the Year, to the Best Actress of the Year, to the World Film Favorite of the Year.”

  With that, came a standing ovation. The only one who couldn’t stand was me. She bent down to kiss me.

  I whispered in her ear, “Do the unexpected. Just say ‘Thank you very much, now I’m making my getaway’ and walk off.”

  I waited for the one-liner. It never came.

  On the way home I asked her, “How come you didn’t use the getaway line?”

  She just smiled.

  I had won the battle, but dear Francis had won the war. The Godfather propelled him to legendary status—the maestro of the decade. However, because it was a studio-produced film, not a package deal, Paramount controlled 84 of the 100 points—unheard-of in today’s world of film. The bottom line was that its profits back to the company had to be the most lucrative amount in cinema history.

  Me? I was half crippled. Did I get a bonus? No. Did I get a raise? No. A kiss from Bluhdorn? Yes. But not one from Ali. Instead she dumped me, because The Godfather was my obsession, not hers. And my one and only son, Joshua? He too would be lost, to be seen only two weekends a month.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The combination of Bluhdorn, Jaffe, and me was too perfect. If I were jealous, which I’m not, I would have resented the relationship between my boss and his new twenty-nine-year-old president—that’s how nuts Charlie was about Stanley. Stanley felt the same about Charlie. How could things go wrong? Over a woman, that’s how.

  Charlie liked to think of himself as a talent scout, always complaining, “Evans, why don’t you have more beautiful girls under contract like the old days? There’s no glamour anymore in this business!”

  One day over lunch, at the Bistro, Charlie met a girl named Joanna Cameron. He thought she could be the next Natalie Wood. No one enjoyed the vicarious thrill of sense of discovery more than Charlie. What better example of that than me, or for that matter, Jaffe?

  Stanley and I were casting Star Spangled Girl, one of Doc Simon’s less memorable efforts. No major female star in town wanted to touch it.

  “Why not Joanna Cameron?” said Charlie.

  “We’re running this company,” Stanley exploded. “Stay out of casting!”

  “Hey, Stanley, he’s chairman of the board.”

  “You said it, I didn’t, it’s beneath him.”

  What Stanley didn’t understand was that nothing was beneath Charlie. His closest friend was Owen, his chauffeur. For him, finding the next Natalie Wood was a bigger turn-on than finding his next company to gobble.

  Unlike me, both Stanley and Charlie were confrontational; that Friday, they locked horns. Stanley told Charlie to stay out of our ballpark. We were running Paramount. The last thing we needed was capricious casting ideas. Stanley got so angry, he slammed down the phone before Charlie could even get in his screams.

  “Hey, Stanley, this is no way to end the week. Call him back . . . settle the goddamn thing . . . friendly style.”

  I was talking to the wrong guy. I’ve never met anyone more intransigent when it comes to principle. Later that night, Charlie called me.

  “Please, Bob, speak to Stanley. He’s like a son. But I would never let my son talk to me that way. Call him. I can’t. Tell him to apologize.”

  “No problem, Charlie.” Wrong again, Evans. Jaffe was one strange cat.

  “The film business to Bluhdorn is an avocation; to us, it’s life,” said the twenty-nine-year-old. “I’m not testing this bimbo.”

  “Hey, it’s his store too. Fuck it! Who gives a shit?”

  “I do.”

  What balls! Not even thirty and he wouldn’t say “I’m sorry” to the chairman of the board. For the next forty-eight hours my shuttle diplomacy bombed. The last thing Charlie wanted was to fire him, but Stanley refused to say two words. Imagine, two fuckin’ words: “I’m sorry.”

  Three days passed, Charlie gave me the bad news. He was left no choice, he had to fire Stanley. If he didn’t, he’d lose face to the fifteen thousand people working for him.

  “Make Stanley a terrific production deal. I want him here forever.”

  I did. From The Bad News Bears alone, Stanley’s first picture as an independent producer, he made more money than he would have made as president of Paramount in five years. Me? I lost the best partner I ever had. Who could we get to replace him? Not me. I didn’t want to move to New York—I didn’t even want to work in an office. All I wanted was to make pictures. It came down to two candidates: Young and Rubicam’s Steve Frankfurt, whose advertising vision catapulted a throwaway flick, Goodbye, Columbus, into a blockbuster hit. A year earlier he had saved our ass on Rosemary’s Baby, a flick on the then taboo subject witchcraft that no one knew how to sell. A minute to post time and Frankfurt saves the day with the slogan “Pray for Rosemary’s Baby”—only one line, but it turned a doubtful entry into Paramount’s largest grossing picture of the year. No mistake he was labeled Madison Avenue’s Creative Godfather.

  Second choice was Frank Yablans, the tenacious, tough, no-nonsense lightning rod who was running Paramount’s sales. Within three years, Yablans had worked his way up from assistant sales manager to head of distribution. He was a dynamo who knew the size and shape of every movie house in the country. Frank wore his ambition on his sleeve. As he would later tell Time magazine, “It’s easy to be humble if you were born a prince. I came from a ghetto.” The son of a Brooklyn taxi driver, a guy whose first job was plucking chickens, Frank had more chutzpah by mistake than anyone had on purpose. Balls? Jimmy Hoffa took a backseat.

  We had to make a quick decision.

  “Do you think Yablans is too crazy?”

  “No, Charlie, too hungry! Remember Christmas?”

  The previous Christmas Day, Frank and I had been going over the box-office returns on Love Story. The only place it wasn’t breaking records was Washington, D.C. On the spot, Frank called his district sales manager, ordered him to leave his family feast and drive around Washington to check the theaters. An hour later the poor guy called back. He’d found a theater where the exhibitor was charging only a dollar a matinee. Yablans screamed, “Get him on the phone!”

  “Frank, I can’t. He just came out of intensive care—cardiac arrest.”

  “What hospital is he in?” A minute later Frank had his victim on the horn. “You’re denigrating Love Story! I don’t want to hear excuses. If you don’t take action immediately and rectify the situation, I’m gonna open the picture in two thea
ters across the street! Merry Christmas.”

  By sundown the exhibitor had gone back into intensive care, but the price of a tear, in his theater, had gone up.

  “Can you live with him?”

  Cocky Evans: “Sure I can.”

  “Then put Yablans in as president. . . . I’ll buy Young and Rubicam. We’ll have ’em both.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Beside my bed was Ali’s wedding gift to me: a leather-bound book containing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Winter Dreams,” each word calligraphed by Ali herself. Its postscript: “24 October 1969. Forever.”

  My wedding gift to her was Daisy Buchanan.

  She was a Fitzgerald freak, constantly reciting The Great Gatsby from memory. Paramount had filmed Fitzgerald’s novel twice, and had failed twice. The rights had reverted to the author’s daughter, Scottie Lanahan Smith, who said she never again wanted to see her father’s masterpiece as a movie. Sam Spiegel, Ray Stark, Sydney Pollack, and Robert Redford were among the many trying to change her mind.

  There’s no motive stronger than wanting to surprise the lady you love. Her only fantasy since childhood was to play Gatsby’s femme fatale, Daisy Buchanan.

  Again cutting to the chase, the impossible became the possible. I got the rights from Fitzgerald’s daughter and Daisy was Ali’s to play. When I surprised her with the news, she smothered me with kisses and whispered, “Evans, you really are Gatsby.”

  Who could be more chic than Truman Capote to write the screenplay? He was desperate to do it. “I know just the way to bring all that purple prose to the screen!” he cooed.

  On weekend nights, Ali and I ran a film festival for the toughest audience in town. Among the mainstays were Warren, Dustin, Jack, Roman, Mike Nichols, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Roman Polanski, Sue Mengers and her husband, director Jean-Claude Tramont.