"I love this," he said. "We're making this movie."
We met with Frank Wells, who was then vice chairman of Warners. We pitched the movie. He signed off on it without understanding what he was signing off on. He probably thought it was about cars. Billy and I were so hot at that moment-Oh, God!, The Exorcist-that he just said "Yeah, yeah, do it." Then, just before we were to begin shooting, Wells suddenly figured out the movie was not about cars. There would be controversy, noise. He told us Warners could not make the movie. I was in a fury. We had already begun to rehearse, but Wells did not care. It was a bad moment, but in the end we managed to set up the movie at Lorimar Pictures.
A few years had passed since the book was published, and in those few years, the world had changed. The gay community had begun its liberation. People were coming out of the closet. In hopes of getting it right, Billy and I hit all the leather bars of the West Village, then shot the movie in these locations. A reporter from the Village Voice got the script early, then infiltrated the set, where he heard wild rumors, the result being a hysterical article that denounced the film, denounced Billy, and denounced me. It said we were exploiting the gay community, that lives would be put in danger. That it was all bullshit was beside the point. Being in the newspaper made it true. As I said, the job of the producer is solving problems, and this was a big one: Just like that, our sleepy set had turned into a riot scene. Thousands of people came out to protest. They stomped their feet, flashed lights, and blew whistles when we were trying to shoot. We burned up thousands of dollars in film. Then the letters came: You're dead. We're going to kill you, Weintraub. Garbage like that. I did not mind the threats. In this case, my job was to be the loudmouth, the target, take the hit and let the fury of the mob break over my head, giving the actors room to perform. I mean, we had Al Pacino, and it's hard to do the Method while you're being filmed for the five-o'clock news.
In the end, the press was good for the movie. The articles sold the product. One day, Steve Ross, who was the CEO of Warner Bros.' parent company, Warner Communications, and also a friend, said to me, "Wow, Jerry, you are getting so much attention with the picture. Why aren't we doing it?"
I told him the whole story.
He said something like, Well, whatever you want to make next, we want to be involved.
Cruising came out in 1980. It did well at the box office, pushed along by all that coverage. Of course, the movie, in many ways, came too early. If it was released today, when people have opened their minds to lifestyles that differ from their own, it would do gangbusters. As I always say, "Better too late than too early." Too late means you look slow but still make a bundle. Too early means you look like you've lost your mind, and you get people shouting, "Kill that idiot." But it also means there is a chance for rediscovery. In the end, that strange little picture we made in the seventies became a cult classic.
Soon after that, Friedkin said, "That was so much fun, let's do it again."
"Do what again?" I asked.
"Make another picture."
"Do you have anything in mind?"
"Yeah," he said. "Let's make a sequel to The Exorcist."
As an idea, this was automatic. He could have made it with any producer, but if you need a person to deal with studio executives and budgets and marketers and minutiae, well, I'm not a bad choice. Directors know I'm on their side of the table. I will fight for them, make their case, protect them. William Peter Blatty was a partner, as he owned the rights. And he would, of course, write the sequel. He had done such a brilliant job with the original as well as the novel it was based on.
Frank Wells got word of the project. He called and said, "Look, Jerry, I want it."
"After what you did to me on Cruising?" I said. "No way."
"You've got to let me have it," he said. "If we don't get it, it will kill my career with Steve Ross."
Frank Wells and I were actually friends-I did not want to hurt the guy.
He said, "Go to your office in the morning. There will be an envelope waiting. Look inside, then call me."
"What is it?"
"Just get the envelope, then call me."
I went in and there was the envelope. Inside was a check for five hundred thousand dollars.
I called Wells.
"What's it for?" I asked.
"Just to be the first to hear the pitch," he said.
"And what happens if you hate the pitch?" I asked.
"Tell me the budget," he said.
"Fifteen million," I said, pulling the number out of thin air.
"Good," he said. "Come in and tell us the story. If we approve, the five hundred thousand is against the budget. If we don't approve, you keep the money."
How can you beat that?
I scheduled a meeting for New York three weeks hence, where we would sit with the heads of Warner Bros. and pitch. I call it the five-hundred-thousand-dollar lunch, because that's all they got for their money-lunch with me and Billy and Blatty.
It's interesting that no one questioned my decision to have that lunch in New York. We all lived in LA-writer, director, producer, all the executives-so why were we flying across the country for a meeting? Well, the fact is, I could not get these guys to agree on a scenario for the movie, so I figured, okay, we'll be stuck together for five hours on the plane. That is when Friedkin and Blatty will work it out. In fact, they did not work it out, and could never agree. By the time we landed, I knew we were in serious trouble.
When we got to Warner Bros., the receptionist told me that Mr. Ross wanted to see me right away. I went in, we spoke. He said, "Jerry, we're buying this movie."
I said, "Buying what? There's no story."
He said, "Well, go and make one up. We're doing this movie."
We went into the meeting, sat at the big table with the food piled in front of us. Ted Ashley and Frank Wells, the chairman and vice chairman of the company, were both in the room. For the first thirty minutes, it was just me, telling Sinatra stories, telling Elvis stories, telling Dean Martin stories, the whole routine.
Frank Wells finally turned to Billy and said, "Okay, Billy, why don't you tell us about your movie?"
Billy bumbled around a bit, then said, "We open in the hills of West Virginia, and the camera comes over the hills and we see a field of dead cows. The camera continues over a hill, and we see Washington, D.C., Georgetown, go up the steps and into a church, then we see a head, severed and bloody, roll out of the confessional."
He turned to Blatty, then said, "Take it, Bill."
"Well, yes," said Blatty, "but I am not sure about the cows."
Then it was over. As we were getting ready to leave, Frank Wells helped me on with my coat. "We're excited," he told me. "We can't wait to make this movie."
"What movie?" I asked him. "There is no movie. That was bullshit."
"No, no, we love it," he said. "We want to do it."
"There is nothing to do," I said. "I'm going to give back your money."
"No, hang on to it," he said. "Think about it."
Well, I did think about it, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew there was no movie. I sent back the money with a note: "Next time." Taking money for a movie you know you will never make is a bad habit. It's cocaine, it revs you up, and you have some fun, but in the end, you're in a worse place than you were when you started.
Around this time, my parents visited Beverly Hills. This was rare, as my mother did not like to fly. Usually I visited them in New York. The trip was therefore a big deal, a chance to show off what I had accomplished. I picked them up at LAX in my chauffer-driven Rolls-Royce. My mother slid in slowly, beaming, but my father looked skeptical. He stared out the window as we drove, now and then asking things like, "How long have you had this car, Jerry?" "What's the miles per gallon?" We finally reached the house, the mansion in Beverly Hills, with the swimming pool and tennis court and gardens and flowers. We sat in the living room. Out came the champagne. Out came the caviar. My mother was enjoyi
ng every minute. My father was reserved, pensive. He was a warm and beautiful man. I handed him a Cuban cigar, a Cohiba, his favorite. He puffed at it, looking at the smoke.
"Go get ready," I said. "I have a dinner planned. I am taking you to the best place in town, where the stars hang out."
This went on for a few days-me giving my parents the business, ushering them to the front of lines, through crowds, to the best tables and shows, and so on-until my father finally said, "Okay, listen, Jerry, I want to talk to you. Let's go outside."
Before we got halfway down the front steps, he tapped my chest with his finger and said, "I want to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth, no bullshit from you. Are you in the Mafia? How did you get all this? You were never that smart.' "
I stammered. "Uh, no, Dad, I'm creative. I did it."
"Well, where's your inventory?" he asked. "How can you have this much money and not have an inventory? It doesn't make sense to me."
I laughed and pointed at my head. "It's up here," I said. "All the inventory is right up here."
Then he laughed, too, saying, "Well, I guess there was always a lot of space for it, anyway."
That trip was mostly about impressing my mother, showing her a good time, thanking her. It was my mother who instilled the confidence and belief that made my success possible. My mother had two great passions in her life (other than her family, I mean): Cary Grant and horse races. So one afternoon, a week into the trip, I tell her to get ready, we're going somewhere-I won't say where. Thirty minutes later, the Rolls drops us off at the Hollywood Park Race Track. As we're getting out, who does she spot but Cary Grant, elegant as always, standing in front of the ticket window. "Oh, my," says my mother, grabbing my sleeve. "Look who it is." Before she can get his name out, Cary hurries over and slips his hand through my mother's arm and says, "Hello, Rose, will you be my date this afternoon?"
By then, Cary and I had become friends. I must have told my parents this on the phone, but they probably did not believe me. My mother was walking on air. They sat together in the clubhouse, reading through the racing form. Cary made her bets. They watched the ponies through binoculars.
I threw a dinner party that night at the house. I was sitting at the bar, having a drink with my mother, when Sinatra came in. There was always a stir, a happy little party, whenever Frank entered a room. He threw off his coat and came up, smiling, with his arms outstretched. "Hi ya, Rose," he said, "I heard you had a great date for lunch today."
"Yes, I did," she told him-and this part chokes me up, because my parents, well, that was a real love affair, "but I like my Sammy better."
My mother, as I said, was one of those ladies you would see weeping in a dark theater on the Grand Concourse. She loved the movies. In 1986, I actually had a chance to take her out of the seats and put her up on screen. My parents had come to visit me in Florida, where I was making a movie called Happy New Year with Peter Falk, Tom Courtenay, and Charles Durning.
After the director, John Avildsen, met my mother, he said, "Hey, Jerry, why don't you put her in the movie?"
The picture was about a jewelry store robbery, and I built the store on set. Avildsen thought I should have her in the scene in which Falk cases the joint. She would be a customer, walking by with Courtenay, the store manager.
"Not a good idea," I told Avildsen.
"Why?"
"It's my mother," I said. "Believe me. It's not a good idea."
"Come on, Jerry, she'll enjoy herself."
Falk and Avildsen kidded me into it.
So I went over and said, "Mom, do you want to be in the scene, you could be an extra."
"No," she said. "I'm no actress."
"Okay," I said, "understood." And I walked away.
A minute later, she called me back.
"What is it, Ma?
"Jerry," she said, "if you need me, I'll do it."
(She was a real Jewish mother.)
I said, "No, no, it's okay."
She said, "Just look at you. I can tell you need me. Fine. I'll do it. But I don't have a dress, look at what I'm wearing. And my hair…"
I said, "Ma, I got a wardrobe truck, I got hairdressers, I got makeup people. You'll be fine."
"Oh, you're going to do all that?"
Yes.
She said, "All right, I'll do it for you."
So she goes in, is treated like a queen, like she's Julia Roberts or Marilyn Monroe. The hairdresser, the makeup people, they're all working on her. Now comes time for her scene. She comes out in the background and is supposed to walk out the door. So Avildsen says to me, "Why don't you direct it? It's your mother."
I said, "No, don't be crazy."
He said, "What do you have to do? Say 'action'? Say 'cut'? Everything is set up, don't worry. It'll be fun for her."
I said, "Okay, okay."
Then: "Action!"
My mother and Tom Courtenay start walking. She's supposed to go from here to there. But as she passes, she turns to Courtenay and says, "I don't like that piece of jewelry."
I yelled, "Cut! Cut! Cut!"
I said, "Ma, what are you doing? There's no lines. You just walk."
"Well that's stupid," she said. "If your father was showing some jewelry to somebody and she didn't like it, she'd tell him."
"Well, in this case, you don't tell him anything," I said. "You just walk."
"It's stupid," she told me. "I wouldn't do it that way."
"But it's not about you, Ma. It's about Peter Falk."
Meanwhile, Peter Falk and John Avildsen, and all the Teamsters, are standing around, watching me, laughing their asses off.
So I went back, and said, "Okay, let's do it again. Action."
She started walking, then, just as she passed the camera, she turned, looked right into the lens, and smiled like a bandit.
"Cut! Cut! Cut!"
"What's the matter now?" she asked.
I said, "Ma, you're embarrassing me."
I'm talking quietly because I don't want everybody to hear. They are all looking, and they know I'm screwed. No way I'm getting out of this without pain.
I said, "Ma, listen to me, please. I feel like I'm back in sixth grade. You're killing me. I'm supposed to be in charge and you're making me a child. My mother, standing on the set, telling me I'm stupid, telling me what to do. You can't do that."
She said, "Well, it doesn't make sense."
I said, "Ma, do me a favor, please? Just walk from there to there. Don't look at the camera, don't say anything, just walk."
"Fine," she said, "I was doing this for you but it's not right.
We finally finished. I was exhausted. It took all day. We got back to the hotel. Jane said, "You know, you should invite your mom to the dailies."
"No, not a good idea."
"Oh, come on," said Jane. "Let her see herself. It will be a thrill."
So I called. "Ma, do you want to watch the dailies in the morning?"
"What's dailies?"
"It's everything we shot today," I told her. "We take a look at it. Your film will be on the screen. You want to see it?"
"You want me to come to dailies?" she said. "No. I don't want to see myself, I don't care about that, it's silly."
I said, "Okay, good night."
Hung up.
A minute later, the phone rang. "All right, if you need me to come, I'll come," she said. "And I can see that you need me."
She brought my father. Peter Falk found out and he came, too. Same with John Avildsen, Tom Courtenay, and Charlie Durning-they were all there. My mother was sitting next to me. When she came on screen, she yelled out, "I look great!"
In the end, she loved it, mostly because she got residual checks from the film-$3, $27, $41-for years and years.
Leaving on a Jet Plane
By 1977, John Denver was the biggest star in the world. This was no accident. It was, in fact, the result of a carefully orchestrated campaign to package and sell him, as I had packaged and so
ld weekend getaways in the window of the Sachs Men's Shop in Fairbanks. I tried everything with John, sold him in every way I knew how. One year, for example, he was late with an album, had missed a deadline for Christmas, which infuriated the executives at RCA. They wanted their record or their money. It was John's ass. "Jerry," he said, "what can we do?"
"Don't worry," I told him. "We'll fix it."
I designed an album cover, pasted it on envelopes, and sent it to record stores. You bought the envelope, which could be traded for the album, making you an inside player, an investor in Denver 's career. It was a gimmick that worked. The envelopes sold like mad-a perfect gift for the John Denver fan in your life. The record went gold before it even existed. I went to RCA and said, "Look, you've had your Christmas, now where's our money?"
And yet, for various reasons, John began to lose his bearings. It's a danger of success: You're a kid, and want only to be heard; then you are heard, by everybody, all the time, but your thought is, either, "Well, yeah, great, but now what?" or "Yes, they hear me, but it's not the real me, not the voice I have in my head, or the person I want to be."
There were portents and signs. John started talking about ditching his glasses, his earnest and trustworthy glasses. He wanted to change his hair, too, which would be like Nike ditching its swoop. His hair and his glasses were known and loved everywhere on earth. Probably even the Bushmen of Africa could hum a few bars of "Rocky Mountain High." Then, coming off the huge success of Oh, God!, which set him up for a major career in film, I developed a follow-up, An Officer and a Gentleman, which John turned down. He said it was a B movie, and not good enough for him with its seedy backdrop of desolate airstrips and Panhandle bars. Of course, An Officer and a Gentleman was not only a great film, but also the movie that really launched the career of Richard Gere.
Much of this confusion had to do with problems in his own life, ways in which, so it seemed to him, everything was coming apart. First of all, his marriage had ended. He had split with Annie, who wasn't just his childhood sweetheart, but his muse. Much of his desire for her, the chase and courtship, could be heard, sublimated, in his best songs. The end of the marriage was the end of his life, the first life he lived from the time he left home. Then his father died. He had trouble with his father, but they had been close at the end. These losses hit him hard. In fact, the only person left from his old life was me. Which explains a lot. The man was trying to reinvent himself, start again by forgetting. This is when I began to hear rumors: John is upset. John is unhappy. John wants to leave you.
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