The Friedkin Connection: A Memoir

by William Friedkin

  The background track seldom hinted at the melody or the lyrics. When Sonny was satisfied with the orchestral mix and the musicians left, he would sit at a table in the studio with a brown paper bag that once held someone’s lunch, or any odd scrap of paper. He’d borrow a pencil from Stan or Harold and write lyrics that seemed “dictated” to him. This took about an hour. He’d make a few changes, then call Cher at home to tell her he would be sending a car for her. When she arrived, Sonny would show her the lyrics and sing them for her. She’d start to sing, and Sonny would direct her, “add this word, emphasize that.” Cher always said that as a singer she was imitating Sonny, and Sonny told me he used to imitate Frankie Laine. When Cher felt comfortable, they’d go into a sound booth and, wearing headphones through which they could hear the music track, sing together into a single microphone. Sonny didn’t do more than two or three takes, and they were usually finished in about an hour. I remember hearing all the songs from Good Times this way, and later “Bang Bang,” “Laugh at Me,” “The Beat Goes On,” and other hits. The process was amazing—a man trusting his instincts and believing in himself, open to inspiration. Stravinsky described the circumstances under which he wrote The Rite of Spring: “I am the vessel through which The Rite of Spring passed.” Sonny was no Stravinsky, but Stravinsky never sold eighty million records.

  In May 1967, a week before the movie opened, there was a “world premiere” in Austin, Texas. We flew down on a private jet provided by Columbia Pictures, filled with what Alan Greenspan later called “irrational exuberance.” There was a parade from our hotel to the governor’s mansion, where Governor John Connelly was to award Sonny and Cher “the keys to the state.” We rode in open cars to the domed capitol building, Sonny and Cher in the lead car. We quickly got a sense of the fate that awaited our film. Along the entire parade route, about three miles, were no more than a couple hundred people, waving at us with scant enthusiasm. There were a few photographers along the way, and some weren’t even sure who the celebrities were.

  The theater, a large old movie palace, was less than half filled. There was a Sonny and Cher lookalike contest, sponsored by the film’s local distributor, in which about a dozen couples dressed like Sonny and Cher were paraded on and off stage to the boos or cheers of the audience. The prize for the winning couple was a weekend at Sonny and Cher’s house with the dynamic duo themselves. At the screening, the audience was restless. There were no laughs, and the response when it was over was listless. On the plane ride home, we told ourselves it went pretty well, and what do a bunch of hicks from Austin know anyway?

  In Chicago, I took my dear mother, who was in good health and high spirits, still working as a nurse, to the premiere at the Chicago Theater. Of course she loved it and was proud of me, and I promised to bring her to Los Angeles as soon as I could rent a house. I introduced her to Sonny and Cher, one of the highlights of her life, and proof that her faith in me was justified.

  The film tanked. Ironically, the very thing it was about—selling out—is what we did, while convincing ourselves we were doing it on our terms. Only Cher seemed to get what was happening. She continued to do everything asked of her, while never fully committing to the fiasco that was our film. She wanted to make a movie, but not this one.

  I’ve made better films than Good Times, but I’ve never had so much fun. As Sonny and Cher dropped in popularity, my star remarkably continued to rise. The film got good reviews from leading critics, and I was getting more offers. I continued to see Sonny and Cher, DiCarlo and Kresky.

  Every Saturday night we had a poker game at Sonny’s house. One night we were sitting around the kitchen table, playing cards. The doorbell rang at about two in the morning. Joe got up and motioned everyone to be quiet. He pulled a .45 automatic from a holster concealed by his jacket, and cautiously went to the front door. He was away for two minutes when we heard him yell, “Get the fuck out o’ here!” followed by the front door slamming and the sound of a car pulling away. Joe returned to the kitchen, holstering his gun, red-faced and angry.

  “What the hell was that?” Sonny asked.

  “Two assholes came up here in a taxi, said they won some fuckin’ lookalike contest at the premiere in Austin.”

  Everyone laughed, and we continued our poker game. It was the final nail in the coffin of Good Times.

  In September 1966 Fantozzi said Blake Edwards wanted to meet me. Blake was one of the hottest writer-producer-directors, and one of the most talented men in Hollywood. He had made Days of Wine and Roses, The Pink Panther, A Shot in the Dark, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Great Race, and other important films. He had a television series on the air about a private detective entitled Peter Gunn, starring Craig Stevens and featuring a great thumping bass score by Henry Mancini that became a foundation of rock and roll. Stevens’s character, the epitome of cool, was modeled on Cary Grant. He always dressed impeccably and never got his hair mussed. His girlfriend Edie, a nightclub singer played by Lola Albright, was a beautiful West Coast blonde.

  I met Blake for breakfast in his spacious bungalow on the Paramount lot. Blake had a permanent entourage that included his uncle Owen Crump, his associate producer, as well as his set designer and decorator and a corps of assistants. Blake was a karate black belt, wiry, sandy-haired, muscular, wearing tinted glasses that shielded his eyes. He seemed troubled, and I wondered what personal demons afflicted a man who was so successful, but I admired his work and would have been intimidated had he not put me immediately at ease. He was flattering about Good Times and wondered if I had ever seen Peter Gunn. I told him it was my favorite series, which was true. I asked if he was planning to bring it back, and he said, “Maybe, but I want to do it first as a feature film, and I was thinking, because I have a lot on my plate, you might be the guy to direct it, with me producing.”

  I was exhilarated and humbled. I didn’t know what to say, except “it would be an honor to work with you.”

  “I want to get going on it, but I have two problems—you have a little time?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “You know the character Edie?”

  “Of course, Lola Albright.”

  “Well—that’s one problem. I want to use Lola, but Bluhdorn thinks she’s too old.” Bluhdorn was Charlie Bluhdorn, an Austrian billionaire who, with a little capital and a shrewd business sense, cobbled together a bunch of small companies to form one of the biggest of the 1960s conglomerates, the Gulf and Western Corporation. He had recently acquired Paramount Pictures. Charlie loved movies and made it clear he would be a hands-on owner. He told Blake he wanted to show him a screen test that he, Bluhdorn, had commisioned of an unknown actress to play Edie in the movie version of Peter Gunn. The test was directed by Otto Preminger, a fellow Austrian, as a favor to Bluhdorn. Blake asked me to see the test with him. Delighted. We walked to the editorial building to Screening Room 8, an antiquated chamber with no air, furnished with forty old red velvet seats. A slate appeared on the screen identifying the test and its director, then an attractive blond woman appeared, wearing a tight blouse, tight pants—and with a thick German accent. The test was embarrassing; at one point Blake shouted, “Oh, my God!”

  He asked me to accompany him to the office of the outgoing head of the studio, Howard Koch, a warm, likable man who was respected everywhere in Hollywood. President of the Motion Picture Academy at that time, he had produced films before and after he became a studio head. Howard was sympathetic to Blake’s concerns: “This woman can’t act. She has a German accent. Edie has to be an all-American girl. I can’t understand a word she’s saying!”

  “Bluhdorn won’t green-light the film unless she’s in it,” Howard reported sadly.

  “You gotta be kidding.” Blake was pissed off now. “He must be fucking her.”

  Howard smiled. “Welcome to Hollywood, baby.”

  Back in Blake’s office, I joined him in lamenting what we had just seen. He was now storming around the room in front of his staff. “Fuck Bluh
dorn! I’ll take the picture to Warner Bros.! I own Peter Gunn, and I’m not gonna let a Nazi play Edie.”

  Stories about the casting couch are legendary in Hollywood, and early in my career I discovered that sex between producers and actors was common, but I knew of no one who got a leading role in a studio movie because of sexual favors. Stories about Marilyn Monroe early in her career have been widely reported, but she earned her way to stardom after a long apprenticeship.

  At my next breakfast with Blake, I reminded him that he told me he had two problems. What was the other one? I asked.

  “The script,” he said. “I’d like to get your input.”

  This was the first time anyone had actually given me a script that was going to be produced. Blake had evidently won his battle with Bluhdorn, because the Austrian woman was not going to play Edie. I brought the script back to my kitchenette at the Sunset Marquis and began to read Gunn, by Blake Edwards. With each page my depression increased. The story was thin and predictable, the characters wooden. It had “bomb” written all over it, and after Good Times I didn’t think I could survive two in a row.

  Monday morning I went to see Blake, and my breakfast tray was set up across from his.

  “So what do you think?” he asked.

  I chose my words carefully, but I had to say what I felt and accept the consequences. “Blake, I think the script is a piece of shit.”

  He looked up in shock, his English muffin poised in midair. “What?” He set the muffin down and looked at me directly, not so much mad as confused. “What did you just say?” A bitter smile crossed his lips.

  “I don’t like it at all. It’s like you took two old TV scripts and put them together. There’s nothing new here, this is Peter Gunn light. Your worst enemy wouldn’t write you a script this bad.”

  His uncle Owen, who was standing in the back of the room near the door, and who I had come to like, coughed slightly. There was another person sitting in a dark corner of the office. He didn’t say anything, nor did Blake introduce us.

  Blake stood. “Why don’t you tell us what you really think?”

  “I’m sorry, Blake,” I said. “I want to work with you, but not on this. I’d need to start from scratch—”

  “From scratch?” he bellowed. “What the hell do you know? You’re a punk kid with no credits, and you’re telling me ‘from scratch’?”

  We shook hands, and I left. There’s honesty and there’s self-destruction, but I couldn’t continue making films I didn’t want to see, even though my agents at the Morris office were now cautioning me, “You’re only a film director if you’re making films.” But I recalled Lastfogel’s advice when we first met: “Never make a picture you don’t believe in.” I left Blake’s office with mixed feelings and disappointment as I walked toward the Paramount parking lot. The lot was actually in an enormous tank, and the cars were cleared out whenever they needed to fill the tank with water and put a ship’s model on it, or have people swimming in it. It’s where DeMille filmed the parting of the Red Sea.

  Before I reached the lot, I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw a tall, dark-skinned, dark-haired man coming toward me: “I’m Bill Blatty.” We shook hands. “We haven’t met, but I was in Blake’s office just now.” The man in the corner who said nothing. “I wrote the script.”

  “Really? I didn’t see your name on it.”

  He laughed. “Blake does that sometimes.”

  I was embarrassed. “Look, I’m sorry if—”

  “It’s okay.” He smiled. “I know the script doesn’t work. We all do . . . everybody in Blake’s company.” I was confused. “He’s got a lot of things going on right now. Peter Gunn is old news to him; he just wants to get it made.” It wasn’t the image I had of Blake Edwards, but Blatty went on, “You’re the only one who’s told him the truth, and I admire that, because I know it cost you the job.”

  I thanked him, and we went our separate ways.

  During the time I worked at Wolper, and for several years afterward, Dave used to invite me to screenings of new films at his house. One night I met Bud Yorkin, who, with his partner Norman Lear, produced and directed some of television’s most successful variety programs: The Colgate Comedy Hour with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, The George Gobel Show, specials with Fred Astaire and Perry Como. Later they conquered the sitcom world with All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, and others. They started to produce and direct films together, the first one being Neil Simon’s Come Blow Your Horn with Frank Sinatra; then Never Too Late; followed by Divorce American Style with Dick Van Dyke. Bud was one of the best comedy-variety directors in TV, and he became one of my biggest supporters. We liked each other instantly, and we’ve been close friends for forty-five years.

  In 1967, at the newly formed United Artists, David Picker, the studio head, made a two-picture deal with Bud and Norman. The first was to be a zany comedy called Start the Revolution Without Me, starring Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland; the second was The Night They Raided Minsky’s. Bud wanted to go to France to direct Start the Revolution, and he proposed that I direct Minsky’s in New York, with Norman producing. It was an extraordinary opportunity for me—a major studio musical comedy about the last days of burlesque. Bud and Norman were two of the hottest guys around, and United Artists was the distributor of the James Bond films, the Beatles’ movies, Tom Jones, In the Heat of the Night, and Billy Wilder’s The Apartment. They were regularly winning Academy Awards for best picture. Forget for the moment that I knew nothing about burlesque in the 1920s, or how to direct a musical comedy. Forget that I had only the commercial failure of Good Times. Bud believed in me and convinced David Picker that with Norman producing, I’d bring something original and contemporary to an older subject. I was offered $100,000, which was huge.

  Had I paid attention to Lastfogel’s original advice, I would have passed on Minsky’s despite my friendship with Bud. I don’t know whether it was his belief in me or my own hubris and desire to become a studio director that made me accept. Certainly the hundred grand played a part, but it wasn’t a good enough reason. The truth is I hadn’t yet learned how to control the machine. If it had been a subject close to my heart, a smaller, more personal film, it might have been possible. But I had chutzpah, the goodwill of others, and the recklessness of youth.

  Norman didn’t write the script for Minsky’s—it was written first by Sidney Michaels, then Arnold Schulman. When I read the script, I thought it was thin, superficial, not funny, but because it was Bud’s project, I didn’t want to dismiss it with extreme prejudice as I had Gunn. Instead, I told Norman the things that bothered me, and he listened patiently and tried to address them. Bud left for France, and Norman made a few cosmetic changes to the Minsky’s script, but the voices in my conscious mind told me not to do this picture. We started casting before I could even think about switching gears.

  Tony Curtis, the first actor we went to, agreed to do it. He was at the peak of his popularity and good looks, and I met with him to discuss the script at his home on Carolwood Drive, a beautiful mansion that had once been the Keck estate, one of the most impressive homes in the Holmby Hills area. Tony was bright, alert, self-taught; a street-smart kid from the Bronx. He had the largest collection of Joseph Cornell boxes, and he used to make his own boxed collages, which seemed to my untrained eye every bit as good as Cornell’s. Tony was fun to be around.

  He told me he wanted to do Minsky’s, but he felt the script was underwritten. “You gotta tell Norman to put some meat on the bones,” he said.

  Three weeks before Norman and I were to leave for New York to prepare the film, Tony dropped out. He had an offer to play the Boston Strangler, which he felt would bring him more respect than another light comedy. He was right.

  Norman contacted the talent agencies, and in a short period we had interest from two of the brightest stars on Broadway, Alan Alda, who was appearing in The Apple Tree, directed by Mike Nichols; and Joel Grey, who was giving hi
s unforgettable performance as the emcee in Cabaret. Alda and Grey agreed to do the film and were being fitted for costumes by our designer, Anna Hill-Johnstone. It was a real coup to land these guys. They were steeped in theatrical tradition, skilled at musical comedy. I looked forward to working with them; this euphoria lasted less than two weeks, when we got word that neither Alda nor Grey could get out of their plays. They had long-term contracts, and it looked like both shows were going to run for years. When we cast them, we were assured by their agents that they could give a month’s notice to their producers, but this was bullshit.

  Jason Robards had worked with Bud and Norman in Divorce American Style, and he became our lead, the burlesque straight man Raymond Paine. The young dancer whose story is at the center of the film, an Amish girl, was to be played by an up-and-coming Swedish starlet named Britt Ekland, recently married to Peter Sellers. For the third lead, Chick, the comic, we cast Norman Wisdom, a British star of television, small films, and the music hall, who was little known outside of England and was ending a run as the lead in a musical comedy on Broadway called Walking Happy.

  A character called Professor Spats, an old burlesque comic, was to act as a kind of tour guide to burlesque and to the Lower East Side in the 1920s, much as Maurice Chevalier did in Gigi. For this role, God blessed us with the great Bert Lahr. One of the rare pleasures of Minsky’s was working with Bert. He had wonderful stories that spanned his more than fifty years in every medium of show business. He had been in the first American production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and played the entire run without knowing what he was saying or “what the hell the play was about.” The rest of the cast, all assembled by Lear, was excellent: Forrest Tucker, Joseph Wiseman, Harry Andrews, Denholm Elliott, and Elliott Gould in his second movie, as Billy Minsky, heir to Minsky’s Burlesque. Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, who had written Bye Bye Birdie and later It’s a Bird . . . It’s a Plane . . . It’s Superman, wrote original musical numbers for the film.