by Robert Evans
“Well, you have now.”
“Are you from England?”
“No . . . not quite.”
“Your diction! It’s extraordinary! What a luxury to hear the King’s English spoken in this city of refugees.”
Moving a step closer, I eyed him and half whispered, “You’re right, I speak the King’s English . . . King of the Streets, motherfucker.” Leaving him with his mouth open, eyes poppin’, and face on red alert, I quickly U-turned it to the john for a long-overdue piss. Mr. Oyster Bay? In one big hurry he scooted from the luncheon.
Big mistake, pal . . .
A couple of minutes later, the luncheon’s guest of honor arrived. What a shocker! He was No. 1 on America’s Most Wanted List—to shack up with, that is. His name: Congressman Jack Kennedy, from Massachusetts. He was top honcho on every lady’s “heat list.” The more he broad-smiled, the wetter them panties got. He knew it, and they knew he knew it!
Me, I was by far the youngest guy there. Miss Society quickly introduced us, but the congressman had little interest in talking with an aging teenager. Don’t blame him.
Meanwhile, the eyes of every “debu-tramp” were on putter-putter, vying for his attention. The congressman didn’t have to ask for any of their phone numbers. They were all given to him before he arrived. Not at his request, but rather by each and every one of them wet panties, all of whom had given up an extended weekend at a summer resort for a shot at being seven digits away from the congressman’s call.
Of the twenty-five or so invited guests, seventeen were debu-tramps. The rest, including myself, were invited as shills, so it wouldn’t look embarrassing for the debu-tramps or the congressman. Damn it! My first invite to Miss Society’s home . . . and I’m a “plant”!
The clock struck three. Desserts were being served. The good congressman stood and thanked Miss Society for the fun lunch.
Then, wide-smiling all, he begged an early exit: “It’s not easy keeping a seat anywhere these days, much less in Congress. If I weren’t running for re-election, I’d take up residence right here on East 73rd Street. But I have to be on the road before the sun goes down, and I promised His Excellency, Bishop Donahue, I’d spend a bit of time with him before I left for Boston.” The congressman had them words down cold. He knew what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.
Wishing everyone good-bye as he was leaving, he took me by total surprise . . . he actually remembered my name! Impressed? Big! Yeah, but dumb me, I must have been itchin’ for trouble.
“When you see His Excellency, would you give him my regards?”
A dead-ass silence hit the patio. Miss Society closed her eyes, thinkin’, This ain’t Harlem. I knew I shouldn’t have invited him!
The congressman, he gave me a triple take.
“You know His Excellency?”
“Very well.” He didn’t believe me. His face showed it.
“Very well, huh?”
“That’s correct, Congressman. Very well.”
He was enjoying the confrontation, certain I was lying.
“Join me then. We’ll pay him a visit together.”
“Is that an invite?”
“Absolutely!” Then, with a wide smile: “I’m sure he’ll take great pleasure in seeing you again!”
We left together . . . by far the best exit of my young life. Them debu-tramps? Their open mouths matched their turned-up noses. What they didn’t know was that the actor from the West Side was not showboating! He did know His Excellency. He knew him well. Well enough to put him right smack in the slammer!
For the record, I was never invited back to East 73rd Street.
As he drove us across the park to West 96th Street, the congressman threw me a look. “Why did you say that you knew Bishop Donahue?”
“I’m an actor. I like getting reactions.”
“I was right! You don’t know him.”
“You are wrong, Congressman! I do now him. I know him well . . . It’s a story you don’t want to hear.”
The congressman’s street smarts matched his Harvard diploma. He didn’t ask another question.
I had been introduced to His Excellency by my close friend Dino Cerutti, whom I had met through a dime-a-dance girl. I was eighteen then. He was twenty-six—a handsome, dashing ex-Army Air Force pilot who was studying at Harvard Law School. While I probed the streets of Broadway . . . he probed them “halls of ivy.” Strange casting for a friendship, huh? Not really. We both shared one thing big-time . . . pussy on the brain!
The kid from Broadway gave his elder from Harvard a new life. Not one that helps pass the bar exam, but one that opens your eyes to the fact that there is more to life than law—the lawless!
Nicknaming me “Ripley’s Believe It or Not Kid,” Dino’s prestigious family looked upon his new “shaveless” friend with, let’s say, more than a bit of skepticism. Poor Dino . . . from the moment our friendship began, he became an almost daily visitor to the church’s confessional booth. Blame me if you want, but I sure rocked his Ivy League world. Dino tried to rock mine, and rock it he did. He invited me to Bishop Stephen Donahue’s domicile. His Excellency was a close friend to the Cerutti family, who, naturally, were large contributors to the church.
“This ain’t no domicile. It’s a fuckin’ palace on West 96th Street!” I told Dino. I thought I was at the Vatican, visiting the Pope! Though he wasn’t the Pope, His Excellency was considered the second-highest-ranking Catholic in America, under Cardinal Spellman. What followed was, without equivocation, the most bizarre experience of my bizarre young life.
For propriety’s sake, I won’t delve into the details of what happened, except to say that what started out as a “religious experience” ended up a cause célébre within my family. Stopping my father from having His Excellency arrested and put behind bars posthaste was no easy task.
Back in the young congressman’s car, he, quick on the pickup, knew that the kid sitting next to him was one hot ticket.
“You know, Bob, I think it best I visit His Excellency alone. Don’t you?”
“If I were you, Congressman, I would.”
Pulling out of the 96th Street Transverse onto Central Park West, he stopped his car at the corner. I think he felt somewhat guilty. “You know, the visit won’t take me more than an hour. How about a hot dog afterwards at McGuinness’s?”
“Sounds great to me.”
Putting in his clutch, he waved. “See you at five.”
At 5:15, the congressman and the actor were driving down Broadway on our way to McGuinness’s, on the corner of 47th Street.
I couldn’t help it, had to say it: “Congressman, did you give His Excellency my regards?”
“You like trouble, don’t you?”
“Yeah! I do.”
“So do I.”
For the next hour it was first names all the way.
Over grilled hot dogs splashed with mustard McGuinness-style, and chilled draft beer, the young congressman passed a bit of wisdom my way that all but changed the course of my life. Trying to recall verbatim words and thoughts expressed more than half a century ago would be remiss not only to the reader but to the writer and to the wisdom itself. What I specifically do remember is that I filled three paper napkins writing down, word for word, a brain exercise that the congressman explained to me in minute detail. And then, as we were walking through the revolving doors toward the street, saying our good-byes, he told me something to the effect that “word power is far stronger than muscle power. Stick with it. It could change your life.” It did!
I’d like to say the congressman and the wannabe became good pals.
We didn’t. More than a decade passed before our eyes met again. What a decade! He went from congressman to president. Me? I went from screen virgin to the next Valentino. Not quite as meteoric, though. Valentino died at thirty-one . . . and my career did as well. Couldn’t help it. I wasn’t that good.
It was now the spring of ’62. Alan Jay Lerner invited me to a post-theater supper on
upper Fifth Avenue honoring the Camelot couple. A Harvard classmate of Kennedy’s, Alan knew my passion for wanting to be eye-to-eye with the then president once again. Arranging an invitation was no easy task. The soiree was hosted by Flo Smith, an intimate—and I mean intimate—friend of the president’s. It was supposed to be restricted to ex-Harvard classmates only.
Them Secret Service guys, they knew their service well. They warned the awaiting guests that the president and the First Lady would be arriving at exactly 11:40 P.M. Big Ben couldn’t have been more accurate!
Earlier that evening, the two of them had enjoyed a rare night out, taking in New York’s top comedy revue—a London import, Beyond the Fringe. Then, at exactly 11:40, the most glamorous couple in the world made their entrance. Everyone stood. The president and his “fair lady” shook hands with all. Our eyes met. Our hands shook. Would he remember me? The last time we eyed each other, I had yet to shave. At best, a trivial incident on his historic climb to the top step of the world’s ladder.
But that’s why he was standing on it: he remembered well! “Did you take my advice?”
“I did, Mr. President.”
Smiling Jack got in the final lick. “You must have. I’ve followed your career closely. Congratulations.”
And before I could utter another syllable, the president was off shaking the hand of another he knew far better.
Copyright
FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATED IN 1994 BY HYPERION
A REVISED PAPERBACK EDITION WAS FIRST PUBLISHED BY NEW MILLENNIUM PRESS IN 2003
THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE. Copyright © 2013, 1994 by Robert Evans. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Evans, Robert, 1930–
The kid stays in the picture / Robert Evans.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-06-222832-1—ISBN 978-0-06-222833-8—ISBN 978-0-06-225416-0—ISBN 978-0-06-226317-9 1. Evans, Robert, 1930- 2. Motion picture producers and directors—United States—Biography. 3. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States—Biography. I. Title.
PN1998.3.E98A3 2013
791.4302’33092—dc23
[B]
2013005274
ISBN 978-0-06-222832-1
Epub Edition APRIL 2013 ISBN 9780062228338
13 14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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