The Kid Stays in the Picture

by Robert Evans

  From nightmare to dream time, all in a week. It can’t be happening. What did I take last night? Being sober, I realized it was not a dream—rather a dream come true.

  Do you believe in miracles? I do now! What do you call getting back your dignity?

  By Christmas 1991, my newly decorated offices had just been completed and, I swear, I thought I was dreaming. A homecoming. I hadn’t had a good Christmas in over a decade—not one. Bring out the champagne, the caviar. I did! It was party time! Sharing my euphoria with everyone—the guards, the Xerox girls, the secretaries, the commissary workers, the chairman of the board, and the junior executives. Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch, and my ex Ali MacGraw mingled with hundreds of others throughout the evening. Oddly, Helmut Newton caused the biggest stir. There wasn’t a star or executive who didn’t want to be introduced to the famed master of the still frame.

  A huge Christmas tree filled the entire corner of the main office. A Christmas thought for all to take home, each hand-wrapped. Each package contained a large hand-molded-globe candle, a cigarette lighter with a painted hundred-dollar bill around it, and a pill box filled with organic herbs labeled “for health only.” Each card said the same, “May the enclosed light up your life with health, love, and a little extra green.”

  Nicholson grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s take a walk.” From the lawn outside, we stood, looking into the bay window of my new offices, watching the celebration of the kid’s return.

  A long silence, then a wide Irish smile. “You know, Keed . . . you were ten thousand to one.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Six months behind the gates, and I’m rolling sevens. Three celebrity projects, three top Shakespeares writing them. All on the burner for a go.

  One of them was Ira Levin’s best-selling novel Sliver. Months earlier, Sue Mengers slipped me the galleys on the sly.

  “You’re the first to read it. Tie it up.” Mengers was right—a terrific book and even better movie. There was one problem. Ira Levin didn’t want to sell it. Not to me, not to anyone. His agent had strict orders not to entertain any offers.

  Industry heat was heavy to acquire the film rights, but every interested studio, director, or producer was stonewalled. I found out why; Roman Polanski was the only filmmaker Levin would trust to bring his new baby, Sliver, to the screen. Roman had directed Rosemary’s Baby, which stood as the only film adaptation that Ira felt had enhanced his written word. Roman’s involvement, however, posed a bit of a problem. The entire story takes place in New York City. If Roman were to helm it, he would end up behind bars rather than behind the camera. Unjust as it is, he still remains persona non grata in the good ole U.S.A.

  “Send Levin Roman’s autobiography,” Warren Beatty said. “He writes about you as if you were Thalberg and Selznick combined. Gives you all the credit for Rosemary’s Baby. Is it true?”

  “Of course not.”

  We both laughed. The laugh turned into a deal. Beatty ain’t called the Pro for nothing.

  Within a month, I was the proud daddy of Levin’s new baby. Within another month, Joe Eszterhas, who penned Basic Instinct and was the most sought-after writer in the business, agreed to break precedent and adapt another writer’s work. What a coup!

  Levin’s instinct in wanting Roman to direct was on the money. The Polanski touch could make Sliver a genre classic. Not unlike Rosemary’s Baby, 80 percent of Sliver took place indoors. Why not have a top second unit director shoot exteriors, entrances, and exits in New York, and then re-create the interiors in Paris rather than Hollywood? A good try, but no cigar. None of the studio honchos would take the chance, even though I had done it many times before. But it was different then—I was head of the studio, not a “dependent” producer.

  Joe Eszterhas’s first draft arrived on the Friday of the long Memorial Day weekend. I was off to Palm Springs with the screenplay under my arm. An hour after the sun went down that day, I didn’t know whether I was drunk or dreaming, or if my luck really had changed. The best fuckin’ screenplay I’d read in a decade (but with the decade I had, I wouldn’t have made too big a bet on it).

  Before the sun came up the next morning, Stanley Jaffe, Brandon Tartikoff, and John Goldwyn called me. I wasn’t losin’ it. They felt the same. The best damn script they had read in years. “Could be the big one, let’s get it on the screen . . . full speed ahead.”

  Was I hearing right? In all my years as head of the studio or as a dependent producer, I’d never been given—or gotten—a quicker or more enthusiastic thumbs-up. What a high! What an idiot. Their exhilaration to get Sliver into production pronto was for all the wrong reasons—not to make it memorable, but to make a 1993 Memorial Day release. They needed a flick to fill an empty spot in their schedule—suddenly Sliver was it. Knowing Levin’s instinct on Polanski was on the money, I took a last shot, begging the studio brass to be inventive, do the unexpected and go with Polanski. I might as well have talked to the trees. Philip Noyce was their choice. He had just completed Patriot Games for them, which hadn’t come out yet—nevertheless, in typical Hollywood fashion, he was momentarily “studio hot.” I couldn’t criticize their choice: I was a big fan of his talent after seeing a film he had made in Australia, Dead Calm. But in my book, there is no one like Roman when it comes to this genre. Since it was my first time at-bat in more than a decade, I couldn’t afford the luxury of my usual intransigence. Though I tasted Polanski, I swallowed Noyce, and digested an M.O.—compromise . . . compromise . . . compromise—that eventually sped me twice to the emergency room of Cedars Sinai Hospital. Not to pump my stomach, but to check my heart.

  The one intransigent stand I did take however was the casting of the female lead, Carly. Sharon Stone was one, two, and three on my dance card. Basic Instinct was well on its way to becoming a worldwide blockbuster; her presence on the screen was pure dynamite. Others at the studio preferred Demi Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Geena Davis, Kim Basinger—name ’er, they preferred ’er.

  “It’s Sharon Stone and that’s it,” I told anyone who tried to question my authority. Again a problem. She didn’t want to do it. She felt it was too close to Basic Instinct. Now she was yearning to do a comedy. Perversely the studio brass enjoyed my frustration in not being able to hook Stone to the flick. Her manager, Chuck Binder, and her new agent, Guy McElwaine, both pressed her to take the part. She refused. Joe Eszterhas, whose Basic Instinct script brought her instant prominence, pressed as well, going so far as doing a complete rewrite just to please her. She disliked the rewrite more than the original. Pleasing a starlet who suddenly becomes a star is one torturous experience. Suddenly they know everything, they’ve written the book. I’ve lived through it too many times. The good news ain’t worth the bad. But when you want something, you want something. The more she turned it down, the more I wanted her.

  On a Monday, the front office dictate came down. By the close of business Friday, if Sharon Stone doesn’t commit, she’s out. I immediately called Chuck Binder, lying that Demi Moore was desperate for the role—so much so that her husband, Bruce Willis, would take on the third lead for scale as a favor.

  “I’ll get back to you tomorrow,” Binder said in a flash. “You know I really want Sharon to do it.”

  “Then move it, Chuck. . . . Moore and Willis ain’t a bad parlay for one paycheck.”

  “I’ll go up and twist her arm until she says yes. Okay, Evans? Speak to you in the morning.”

  The next morning, her answer was no.

  Over breakfast my butler brought in the new Vanity Fair. Geena Davis was on the cover. With only three days left I took my last shot; calling Binder again. “Chuck, are you bullshitting me or do you really want Sharon to do the picture?”

  “I feel like a parrot, Bob, that’s how many times I’ve begged her.”

  “In five minutes you’re gonna have Vanity Fair in front of you. Show it to your client. . . . Tell her the girl on the cover is in makeup starting Monday.”


  “Who’s on the cover?”

  “You’ll see when you get it.”

  Less than an hour later I was getting into my car, studio bound, when my secretary stopped me.

  “Chuck Binder on the horn.”

  “She’s doing it.” At first I wasn’t sure what he meant. Did he mean, is Geena Davis really doing it? No—he meant his client, Sharon Stone, was. Demi Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts wouldn’t have bothered her. Ahh, but Geena Davis . . . that touched her cat claws. Call it dumb luck, call it bad luck, call it what you want, but picking Geena Davis’s name out of a hat was the only reason she committed. Unbeknown to me it was Geena who turned down Basic Instinct, leaving Sharon as the reluctant second choice to fill her shoes. Now staring Sharon in the face was Geena Davis at her most glamorous, on the cover of Vanity Fair, no less, bold print heralding her as “Hollywood’s new femme fatale.” What a come shot for little Miss Muffet stopping Miss Femme Fatale from being in makeup on Monday. Sharon didn’t want the part, but she sure in hell didn’t want Geena to have it. Did I pay for my transgression? In spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts.

  Many actors were considered for her young male lead, Zeke. A rushed start date was creeping up on us. A thirty-million-dollar flick, with two weeks to cast the male lead. Billy Baldwin was chosen. Miss Stone was underwhelmed by our choice.

  Strange vibes were bothering me when meeting after meeting at my house was changed or rescheduled to be held at the studio. Curiosity killed the cat. Well, it almost killed me.

  “Is my house off-limits?” I kidded Eszterhas.

  “Yeah,” he laughed. “The lady made it clear she doesn’t want to meet there.”

  “What lady?”

  “Our leading lady.”

  “She’s a lady?”

  We both laughed.

  “She’s told me—told everyone—she’ll never walk into your house. A girlfriend of hers, she says, was kept captive there for three and a half years, put in a dog collar and chains, drugged up. Now she weighs three hundred and fifty pounds.”

  Laughing in Eszterhas’s face, “For a top writer, you sure are a second-rate storyteller.”

  A long Eszterhas look. “Don’t believe me, huh?”

  “Of course I believe you. Sounds just like me. Not one of my four wives lived with me that long. A dog collar? That’s on the nose, it’s me again. Never had a dog in my life, don’t like ’em. What the hell do you do with a dog collar? Joe, give it to me straight, will ya?”

  It was no laughing matter. Eszterhas didn’t crack a smile. I did.

  “Who’s the broad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How could you? There isn’t one. If every broad who said they knew me . . . knew me . . . I’d have to be at least four hundred years old. If one-tenth of the people who say they’ve been to my home had been here, my house would be LAX. The guys at the studio don’t believe this shit, do they?”

  Eszterhas shrugged. “I’d put a stop to this pronto, Bob. It stinks.”

  “Put a stop to it? I’ll put more than a stop to it.”

  I didn’t. From John Goldwyn to every honcho at Paramount, no one missed out on this one.

  “John, she was my choice, but I’m not gonna live with this shit.”

  “Yes, you are. We’re a week away from shooting. If she walks, we won’t be in deep shit—you will.”

  He was right. I took a deep breath, took a deep swallow, and backed away. My day was gonna come.

  It didn’t—it got worse. Once we started shooting, she let it be known to director Philip Noyce that my presence on the set made her feel uncomfortable. Olivier, Nicholson, Dunaway, Hoffman always wanted Evans near. To Miss Stone, I was an intrusion. Again I swallowed deeply. Not wanting to cramp Miss Stone’s style, each day I’d pay a momentary visit to the set and, like a plague, quickly disappear.

  When filming was completed I wrote a personal check to my star. A quarter-million-dollar bonus, a gift with one condition: that she prove her concocted lie had an iota of truth. If she could, the quarter million was hers. If she couldn’t and was caught with her pants down, she’d have to apologize to me.

  Damn it—again the Paramount honchos strongly pressed me not to do it.

  “Be professional, Evans. We need her to go out and sell the picture. You’ll have your day.”

  Again I bit my tongue, swallowed deep, and stepped back.

  The picture had been shooting on the lot at Paramount for three months. Reminiscent of cheap fiction, it was there Miss Stone put the hit on my then assistant and protégé Bill Macdonald. Macdonald’s loyalty to me was such that I was the last to know. The fact that Macdonald had been married in a religious Catholic ceremony six months earlier must have been a turn-on to our star. She wouldn’t have to break a sweat seducing this new kid on the block. It was his first outing in Hollywood. His first encounter with a femme fatale. He wasn’t the idiot—I was, rehearsing in front of him the way I planned to bring Miss Stone to her knees. Never having the vaguest notion that he had dumped his new bride—a terrific girl he’d gone with for seven years—and was now our star’s new squeeze. Everyone else but me knew, and this was a guy I protected . . . reprotected and reprotected. Every exec at the studio wanted him out, each of them telling me that behind my back Macdonald was knifing my reputation to shreds. I didn’t believe a word. How could he do it? Here was a guy who was with me during my lowest. Now he’s got a shot at reaping the benefits. Learning the film business. His big break, it doesn’t add up. Was I wrong! Instead of paying heed to those who knew better, not only didn’t I fire him, I pressed to get him a credit on the film. Flatly turned down, I sought Joe Eszterhas’s help. Together we took on the front office. Begrudgingly they gifted Macdonald with a co-producer credit. It was the wrong credit. It should have been “off-camera leading man.” The irony being that during this entire escapade I was the one paying his salary.

  Macdonald’s eel-like behavior was a bouquet of gardenias compared to what was to come: he conjured up an outrageous fabrication deserving of nothing less than close psychiatric examination.

  Guy McElwaine was confronted at dinner one evening by Bill and Sharon. Sharon feared for her life. Her fiancé, my protégé, convinced her that if she didn’t go along with my edit of the film, I’d have her knocked off. It was my M.O. Being my right-hand man for three years, he himself knew of at least three people I put away. It was Bill’s way to impress Miss Femme Fatale of his importance to her personal and professional life.

  Not for an instant was McElwaine taken in by Macdonald’s allegations. Yet he had to be respectful to his client.

  “If what you’re saying is true,” McElwaine told Macdonald, “put your allegations in writing. Then I can present it to the FBI and the powers that be at Paramount.”

  Naturally, Macdonald never followed through. If he had, he would be serving time by now. He didn’t have to. The next day Sharon took it upon herself, cornered Stanley Jaffe at the studio, venting her fright concerning her fiancé’s boss. How’s that for a sick story? Why didn’t I use Geena Davis?

  How’s this for timing? The next day, Stanley receives a vituperative fourteen-page letter from me concerning my dissatisfaction with the film’s edit. Suddenly I’m put on ice—quarantined. From camaraderie I became contagious.

  Being sixty-two, not twenty-two, didn’t help. I was rushed to the emergency room of Cedars Sinai Hospital with what seemed to be a heart attack. It wasn’t—it was a heartache, my blood pressure pressing 220 over 115.

  Time passed. Two weeks before the film was to open, Joe Eszterhas and I took a drive to Palm Springs. It was then that the story of my Siberian sentence was unraveled. Eszterhas told me of Macdonald’s insidious fabrication. I didn’t believe him. How could Bill be so dumb? Perpetuate a mistruth so diabolical. Harbor such disdain. I insisted Joe confront McElwaine with me present. He did. McElwaine not only corroborated what Joe told me but embellished it. As ugly as the story was, at least now I understoo
d why I was put on ice. I deserved it too. After all, Brutus was on my payroll, not theirs. Angry? Shaking!

  “Fellas, I’ve had it. I’m gonna clean the air but good.”

  “It’s bad timing, Evans.”

  “Fuck bad timing. I’m tired of hearing the same shit. It’s not your name being dragged through the mud.”

  “Bob, we’ve put our ass on the line telling you this,” McElwaine said. “Joe’s been more than stand-up. Don’t rock the boat. The lady’s doing wall-to-wall interviews around the country. The film opens in two weeks.” Again I bit my tongue, zippered my lips.

  What started out as a platinum project with a solid gold screenplay and seasoned with the flavor of the year’s femme fatale ended up being no more than a silver-plated flick. Its texture still lies on the cutting-room floor. Hunger overpowered passion. A Memorial Day release preempted excellence, leaving Sliver shafted rather than crafted.

  Poor Philip Noyce. He wasn’t given a fair shot. He needed more time. Given the luxury of another week to deliver the international version, he added four minutes of sizzle. What a difference a sizzle makes. Around the world, except in the good ole U.S.A., Sliver was a huge box-office smash, bringing heavy change into Paramount’s coffers. Imagine if it were good. Damn it! It was all there, not on the silver screen, in the editing room vaults.

  Giving the devil her due, however despicable I think Sharon’s deportment, I know she’s a major box-office star. Sliver, without Stone, would have ended up doing a sliver of the business it did. Wherever you are, dear Sharon, that quarter-million-dollar check still awaits you. It’s easy money, even for you—just prove your allegations against me are true. If you can’t, down on your knees you go—only to apologize, I wouldn’t want anything more!

  On reflection, I look upon the making of Sliver as a continuing exercise in frustration. It never changes. Me? I don’t understand it. Fuck being artsy-craftsy, let’s talk down and dirty pragmatic. When you’ve only got one shot—that’s it! Either you pull down that beautiful brass ring, or you get them brass knuckles in the balls. No second time around, pal! That’s the flick business. Everyone in it knows it.