by Robert Evans
From the rock I took the longest plane ride of my life, landing at JFK that Sunday. My brother was there to meet me and drove me back to his apartment. Charles was friendly with New York Senator Jacob Javits, who had recommended the presidential appointment of John Martin as federal prosecuting attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Though it was a holiday weekend, Charlie miraculously tracked Javits down at a country club in Long Island. The senator was kind enough to drive back to the city to meet us at my brother’s apartment. Charles told Javits the story.
I interjected. “I’m not concerned for myself, Senator, as much as I am for Henry Kissinger. He did me a great favor, against his better judgment; he wrote a letter of introduction to Prime Minister Mintoff on my behalf. The effects of Martin’s far-fetched indictment against me could not only be ruinous to Henry, but an embarrassment for our country.”
Charlie interrupted, “Jack, there must be something you can do.”
Javits’s face went red with anger. “Absolutely not.” He then pointed at me. “Your deportment is shameful.”
“But I didn’t—”
He cut me off. “I don’t wish to hear any more. I’m leaving.” Turning back to me, he added, “Call Henry immediately. Warn him.” Not giving my brother a second glance, he stared through me. “I’m ashamed of you.” Then he slammed the door behind him.
I did not take the senator’s advice. I was too ashamed, too scared to call Kissinger. I had too much respect for him, too much disdain for myself. There I stood knowing that my actions could tarnish a man who for a decade had been one of my closest friends, one whom I’d stop a bullet for; but now I’d left him naked to take one. For the next decade, I purposely refused his embrace, never telling him why.
Only once, at Lowell Guiness’s 1985 New Year’s Eve party in Acapulco, did we exchange words. Seeing Kissinger across a very crowded room, I had turned the other way. Without asking me, Denise Beaumont, the lady I was with, walked to Kissinger’s side, took him by his arm, and brought him over to me. Our eyes met.
“Bobby, why haven’t you returned my calls?”
Kissing him on the cheek, I said, “Because I love you, Henry. Don’t ask any more questions. Happy New Year.”
Six more years would pass before another word was said between us. Thus I lost a friendship I cherished as dearly as any in my life.
The indictment was scheduled to be handed down June 11, 1980. Pleading that our attorneys had not had sufficient time to prepare our case, we got a stay of execution until July 31. I cried with joy. It was more than a stay; as long as lips stayed sealed, Popeye and crew would not have to jump the rock.
“Let me call Korshak, please!” I begged.
“We’ll tape your mouth” were the words of the unholy three.
Bad news travels fast. The buzz that something was awry spread west.
Korshak called. “I hear you’re in trouble. What’s going on?”
Intimidated so by the three wise men, I did the unthinkable: I lied to my lifelong protector. “Nothing’s wrong,” I mumbled.
“If I find out different, I’ll break your head,” he barked back.
As I turned fifty at the end of June, instead of basking in the glory of achievements past, I was a rat cornered, my carcass lay naked for the locust’s ink. My fiftieth birthday present? A lie detector test. On a Saturday morning I found myself in one of life’s more demeaning positions—fingers wired as I answered yes or no to a dozen questions concerning the felony counts. No was my answer to every question. I didn’t know it at the time, but my every move was being watched by a dozen people behind a two-way mirror. A polygraph expert had been flown in from Denver especially for the test. Rarely does the expert evoke absolute innocence, rather some degree of equivocation. Call it self-protection, but not this time. The conclusion: total truth.
It didn’t matter. Unfortunately, the name Evans with the given name of Bob, blasts whomever the accuser may be to prominence. Whether it be slight or fright it happened to me before, and it sure in hell has happened to me since. It’s called INK, in bold letters, usually in red, taking first billing over the masthead of the newspaper itself.
Knowing this outrage was soon to blow sky-high, I was faced with the intolerable pain of bringing it to the attention of my mentor, friend, and boss, Charlie Bluhdorn. Silently, he listened as I unraveled the entire nightmare. He asked for all the legal documents, and any and every paper that had to do with the case concerning any of the three defendants. The following Sunday, I received a call from him to drive to his home in Connecticut to review what could be a catastrophic situation. From early afternoon through late evening, we carefully evaluated each allegation.
Was Bluhdorn angry? Foaming at the mouth! Not about the deed I was being charged with, but about the stupidity of not involving the man himself, my protector, Mr. K. Taking off his glasses, Bluhdorn looked at me in silence, squinting. He walked over, our noses almost touching. “You dumb idiot, Korshak could settle this sitting on the toilet. The entire legal staff of Simpson. Thatcher reviewed each and every charge. Do you know their opinion? Guilty of usage, that’s it. You may be crazy, but you’re not insane. You can’t plead guilty—you’re innocent. If you do, it’s over—not for your brother, or brother-in-law, but for you. You’re not a private citizen, chopped liver is what they’ll make out of you. I’m not asking, I’m demanding that you change your plea to innocent. It’s the truth. If you don’t, I’ll never forgive you.”
He never did. Neither did Korshak. Gone now were the sacred embrace of Kissinger, Korshak, and Bluhdorn, three of the five fingers that made my life singular. Never to return again.
On July 31, 1980, before Judge Vincent Broderick, Charles, Mike, and I pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession. Brought up to the DEA office by two of their toughest, I was fingerprinted, photographed, and arrested. For the sake of anonymity, the pricks snuck me out the back door, knowing the press corp were there waiting in full. No movie star ever had more flashbulbs go off in his face. Throwing myself into the backseat of the car and onto the floor, I thought it was a nightmare. It was, but it wasn’t a dream, it was for real, and it was only the beginning.
From New York to Los Angeles, above the name of the papers themselves, headlines blared:
PRODUCER BOB EVANS PLEADS GUILTY TO COKE BUST.
FILM MOGUL EVANS PLEADS GUILTY TO COCAINE BUST.
BOB EVANS, TWO OTHERS, PLEAD GUILTY TO COCAINE BUST. And on and on they read from Los Angeles to Istanbul.
Is it possible to be busted when you’re three thousand miles away from the bust? Mae West’s measurements never spread that distance.
On the morning of October 7, 1980, Judge Broderick was more than fair in his sentencing. Newsweek magazine reported:
The judge could have thrown him in jail for a year, but instead Hollywood producer Robert Evans (Love Story, The Godfather) got a year’s probation. In a Manhattan federal court, Evans, his brother Charles, and brother-in-law Michael Shure pleaded guilty to possession of three ounces of cocaine. The court deferred judgment and ordered Evans to use his program for young people. That could mean only one thing—a movie. After a year, if the probation is not violated, the charges will be expunged, the case dismissed.
Rather than cop a plea, let me quote from Aljean Harmetz, the chief New York Times entertainment writer:
Charles Evans and Michael Shure purchased five ounces of cocaine for $19,000 from undercover narcotics agents in New York on May 2.
Although Robert Evans was 3,000 miles away in California at the time of the sale, he pleaded guilty on July 31, in New York to possession of cocaine.
Bluhdorn’s prediction was on the nose. Like a plague, front-page headlines blasted out, such as JUDGE GIVES EVANS ONE YEAR TO PRODUCE (New York Post); FILMMAKER EVANS OFFERED CHANCE TO CLEAR DRUG RECORD (Los Angeles Times); and JUDGE ORDERS PRODUCER ROBERT EVANS TO DEVELOP YOUTH ANTI-DRUG PROJECT (New York Daily News).
W
hen I arrived back in Los Angeles, Greg Bautzer, my longtime friend, mentor, and marriage broker to Bluhdorn, was waiting for me at home. Hours earlier he had read the headlines. Before I could bring in my luggage, he grabbed my arm.
“How did Korshak let you get into this mess?”
“I didn’t call him.”
He didn’t believe me.
“Don’t try to protect him.”
I cut him off.
“You’ve got it wrong, Greg. I didn’t let him protect me.”
His face reddened, his nostrils widened.
“You didn’t bring in Korshak? I’m not hearing right. Do you know who his closest friend is? A top guy at the DEA. They go back more than thirty years. Went to college together, schmuck!”
Holding back steam was not a Bautzer trait. Pointing his finger right in my face, he ranted.
“Eight months ago, two brothers, both performers [he told me who], were appearing at Anaheim. A broad called the police, told them her ex was pocketing an ounce of cocaine. Right smack in the middle of their show the police busted in, took them offstage, cuffed both of them. The broad was right—one of the brothers was pocketing it. They took him to Anaheim jail. They allowed him one call. It was to Korshak. Twenty minutes later he was out and the big man hardly knew him. And you didn’t call him?”
I shook my head no.
He grabbed both my shoulders, shook me. “Don’t zipper your mouth to me. I’ve got too big an investment in you—I was the one who introduced you to Bluhdorn . . . to Paramount. Give it to me straight.”
“My brother wouldn’t let me.”
“Your brother? What the fuck does he have to do with it? You’re dirty in usage—that’s it! Even I know that. Don’t bullshit me, I know you too well, your brother can’t bully you.”
I didn’t answer.
“Tell me I’m right.”
Again I didn’t answer. Greg knew then it was true: I had danced to my brother’s music.
“And you’re the guy who made Paramount number one.”
He stormed out. I ran into my bedroom, crying uncontrollably until the sun came up the next day.
Paramount, the company I’d saved from the graveyard, gave a statement to the press concerning my new infamy:
Evans is not an employee of Paramount and has not been an employee of Paramount for four years. He is an independent contractor producing pictures for us.
Suddenly the media coined a new middle name for me, Bob “Cocaine” Evans. Nothing travels faster than raunchy gossip. Going to dinner was a hassle, as was taking a piss. Going to the john was taboo in public. If I did, gossip would spread like a brushfire. “He was tooting, not peeing.” By necessity, my home became my sanctuary more and more.
Popeye was Paramount’s Christmas entry. A few days before its New York opening, Bob Altman was sitting in Elaine’s restaurant with his agent, Sam Cohn, when Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and a young lady walked over to say hello.
The lady was introduced to Altman, who looked up and asked her, “Are you the columnist with the Daily News?”
“Yes,” she smiled.
Altman stood, a carafe of red wine in hand, and then slowly poured the entire pitcher on her head. Suddenly she was a redhead with a red face, wearing a red dress, red stockings, and red shoes.
“Been reading your column for the past month, my dear. ‘Cocaine’ Evans is my partner! Next time call him Bob.”
Elaine’s was abuzz. Altman . . . he couldn’t care less. Gotta love a guy with them cojones. Altman’s drenching the fourth estate in red wine far from helped Popeye’s reviews. But who the fuck cared.
Popeye’s spinach filled my pockets with green, his muscles bulged bigger around the world than they did in America. No blockbuster, but no black eye, Popeye ended up as the fifth largest grossing cartoon character brought to the big screen.
Vincent Canby called Urban Cowboy the best American film of the year when it opened and it opened big. The residual income from the flick, and from the 6 million albums at seventeen bucks a pop, helped me survive a decade of unemployment. During the entire gold rush of the 1980s Diamond Jim Evans didn’t earn a single buckaroo.
May 2, 1980! What a difference a day makes.
Charles and I differ in our opinions concerning my legal guilt. Though it was his hand caught in the cookie jar, it was me who said, “Let’s buy it, put it in the vault.” But it was he who broke his promise—no personal contact. The most expensive broken promise of my life.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who knows? It’s conjecture.
What’s not conjecture, they were caught, I was not.
What’s not conjecture is that my own family denied me my inalienable constitutional rights of counsel. What’s not conjecture is that my brother’s and brother-in-law’s names faded into the background, while mine became part of drug folklore. What’s not conjecture is that they went from rich to richer as I went from famous to infamous. What’s not conjecture: they thrived, I starved. They traveled five star, I traveled from in-law to outlaw. While they granded, I was branded Bob “Cocaine” Evans. What’s not conjecture: like the misdemeanor itself, the incident was erased from their future forever. Yet no matter what my accomplishments, the second paragraph of my obituary is already chiseled in granite: “In 1980 Robert Evans pleaded guilty to a cocaine bust.” It doesn’t matter that I was never busted. It doesn’t matter that I was totally exonerated by Judge Broderick, or that the misdemeanor was erased from my record. What does matter is that it will never be erased from that second paragraph.
I’ve been guilty of many things in my life. But my arm ain’t three thousand miles long.
In the spirit of love . . . Forgive? Sure! . . .
Forget? Yeah, with senility. . . .
Judge Broderick’s dictate was to produce a thirty-second anti-drug message that would be aired within the year as a public service commercial on television. If it was accomplished, not only would we be exonerated, but the charges against us would be erased from our records.
Imagine, a court dictate ended up making television history.
My sister, Alice, excited Steve Karmen, the composer of the “I Love New York” campaign to come up with an anti-drug lyric targeted at America’s youth. He created the lyric “Get high on yourself.” The response was more than high, it was explosive.
My brother, Charles, was to pay the cost of making the commercial. I was to make it happen.
What started out as a month’s endeavor ended up taking a year and a half of my life. Why? Our sixty-second commercial became the embryo that ignited the largest anti-drug media blitz in television history.
Getting our foot in the door to get the commercial produced, however, was another story.
I realized scare tactics hadn’t worked, so “Get High on Yourself” had a different message, accentuating the positive. But why should anyone help me spread the spirit? It was a penance cure, not a cure for heart disease, AIDS, or cancer.
“Who’s gonna show? Why should they?” Everyone laughed.
Luckily, Cathy Lee Crosby came to my aid. Her never-ending enthusiasm helped make it all happen. Her vision was to corral a huge assemblage of celebrated peer images, intertwine them with street kids of every color—united as one voice, they would blast out in song “Get High on Yourself.”
I said it. Everyone said it. It’s impossible! Nothing is impossible. It happened!
Bob Hope, Paul Newman, Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson. . . . Cheryl Tiegs, Carol Burnett, Kate Jackson. . . . Ninety-three international celebrities were asked to contribute their time and effort. Ninety-three out of ninety-three showed.
I’m the wrong guy to tell “Tinseltown has no loyalty.”
Two weeks after we shot our sixty-second commercial, Bob Hope saw my first cut of it. Impressed? Immediately he picked up the phone and called the White House wanting to speak to the President himself, Ronald Reagan.
Within seventy-two hours, Cathy Lee Crosby and myself, joined by
Brad and Susan O’Leary (whose influence in D.C. carried much weight), were ushered to the White House. There we showed the “Get High on Yourself” commercial to America’s first lady, Nancy Reagan. Strange, huh? My penance lyric gave the first lady the hook she needed to perpetuate a new cause: “Just say no to drugs” became hers.
Brad O’Leary then carried the ball. Within two weeks, every important media giant was aware of the White House’s enthusiasm of a new positive spirit toward kids.
Were we hot? No, historic.
What started out as a public service message became the core of NBC’s new fall season. The Sunday before Bob Hope kicked off the first of NBC’s fall specials on “Get High on Yourself,” Brandon Tartikoff, the network’s entertainment president, commented to anchorwoman Sue Simmons:
This is a historic event, even for network television, to devote an entire week for the purpose of focusing on a single subject and gearing all the programming toward that. . . . We’re not only doing the prime-time playing of those public service messages, but we have the “Today” and “Tomorrow” shows participating, . . . and also the radio division of NBC will be doing an audio version of “Get High on Yourself” all week long. . . .
I think there might have been . . . skepticism when Bob Evans did his term of sentence, which was to produce these public service messages. . . . What has sort of emanated from all this is far beyond his commitment or promise to any judges. He has been up for ninety-six hours editing this special; even as we speak they’re putting in final pieces and everything. It is a giant effort and he has literally pushed back his movie projects one year to devote himself to this. And I think if people knew that, that sort of skepticism would disappear because it is very altruistic on his part to make this happen. . . .
What happened was I went over on a Sunday afternoon to take a look at this public service message. . . . Usually in television people come to you with ideas to do shows and they always want to do more than what you’re willing to give them. In the case of “Get High on Yourself,” I preempted them by starting first after I saw the spot. I said, “If what you’re looking for is a special, I don’t think that does justice to what you’re about here.” This is a very important and crucial situation in this country, which is youth and drugs. And a special, I mean, you know, George Burns does a special, or Lynda Carter does a special. I said I would love to see if my management would give me the whole week on NBC, to use the power of what networks have, which is so rarely used for these purposes, and see if we can put a dent into this problem.