And Peter and I said, “We really, really do. That's really what the picture's about.”
Laddie said, “Okay, let's keep it in.” Laddie knew that it was important to the movie and important to us, and that was his movie. A stupider studio head would say, “Guys, I'm afraid I really have to insist. It's our three million dollars, and let's just say that Bruce Davison disappears and we throw in a line that he's on vacation and we just go on.” But Laddie was a wonderful studio head. The first two pictures he green-lit were The Omen, directed by Dick Donner, and Mother, Jugs & Speed. We were a little hit, and The Omen was huge. But if you made it for $3 million and you grossed $17 million and you sold it to ABC for $3 million more—if they could invest $3 million and get $20 million back—it was almost seven times your money. Later, Scorsese did Bringing Out the Dead, but it didn't work. Marty is no good at comedy, and I'm saying that about a guy who's one of the best directors. Every time he tries to do an elegant film or a funny film, God bless him. But Raging Bull is one of the best films ever made. He finally won an Oscar for The Departed. This guy didn't win for Mean Streets, for Raging Bull, for Goodfellas. Just one after the other. I would say The Departed, which is a perfectly good film, is probably his fifth or sixth best.
Jerry Oppenheimer, who is Jule Styne's adopted son, is married to an old friend of mine named Gail Oppenheimer. They were having a small dinner party and Tony Martin was there. He got up during dinner to relieve himself, and as he came out of the bathroom, he suddenly slumped and hit his head, and was down. It was scary. Gail said, “We have to call 9-1-1.”
Blake Edwards was there with Julie Andrews, and Blake was in a crotchety mood that night, which he can be at times. He's wheelchair-bound now. He said, “Don't call 9-1-1. They don't know what they're doing.” Someone called 9-1-1. Those guys were there in ninety seconds. It was unbelievable. Beverly Hills. They were hooking Tony up, and Blake was saying, “They don't know what the fuck they're doing.”
I said, “Blake, they know what they're doing. These people are lifesavers. I did a whole movie about this once.”
The guy who was hooking Tony up asked, “What was the movie?”
I said, “Mother, Jugs & Speed.”
He said, “Are you kidding?” He turned around and said, “Hey, this guy did Mother, Jugs & Speed! What'd you do?”
I said, “Well, I wrote it and produced it.”
He said, “Jeez, every EMT in the city knows that movie. Every ambulance driver knows that movie.” As he looked past me, he said, “I'm sorry, are you Julie Andrews?”
She said, “Yes, I am.”
He said, “And it's Julie Andrews and the guy who wrote Mother, Jugs & Speed!”
Tony's vital signs were good, and to show that he was fine, he started singing! So Tony Martin's on the floor singing, Mother, Jugs & Speed is a hit with the EMTs, guy wants Julie Andrews's autograph. I said, “This is a medical emergency in Beverly Hills. This could never happen in Omaha.”
The EMT, as he was leaving, said, “I'm serious. Every EMT in the city knows Mother, Jugs & Speed. Every ambulance driver knows Mother, Jugs & Speed. That's our movie.”
These kinds of films were my corner of the sky. Dad couldn't give me advice on Mother, Jugs & Speed. He loved the movie, but the streets of L.A. with ambulances at night, it was nothing he knew. The kinds of movies I was doing weren't up his alley. The only movie I ever did that he said, “Now, there's a movie I might have made” was Ladyhawke. He thought it was so sophisticated, and he loved it. There was no, “I'm so proud of you.” But to other people my dad would say, “Well, I can't even keep up with Tom anymore; I don't know what movie he's on, and they all seem to be doing very well.” Peter Yates and I gave a screening of Mother, Jugs & Speed for the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live. They all wanted to see it. Later on I did Dragnet with Danny Aykroyd, and he remembered that screening. My dad didn't say so, but he was so impressed that these hip people on television loved this movie and his son wrote it. But we were not a family like that.
American Germs
This was the age of the disaster movie: Earthquake, The Towering Inferno. Two producers who became very famous, Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar, later Carolco, put together a package and a script called The Cassandra Crossing. American germs—germ warfare—were on a train and suddenly got loose, and the whole train was quarantined but it kept moving. It was kind of anti-American: the implication at the end was that the Americans sent it over a faulty bridge for everybody to die. So it was a fight against time with everybody trying to save themselves. And they couldn't get off the train. The script needed a rewrite, and Peter Guber (the wunderkind head of Columbia) said, “There's only a couple of people who could do this, but you've got to do this quick.”
The director was George Cosmatos, who would later direct Rambo. George smoked four packs a day. This picture was his whole life. They had signed Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Ava Gardner, and Burt Lancaster. Sophia said, “We want top writers here. This script isn't right.” So they gave her a list, and she said, “Tom Mankiewicz. He was here ten years ago. Get him, I love him.”
I received a cable I still have from Carlo Ponti saying, “Sophia and I are wondering, could you come over for a few weeks and do some work?”
I said, “Absolutely. Why don't I send you pages right now, because I'm producing a picture”—Mother, Jugs & Speed. “I will also call Burt Lancaster, who's in L.A.”
Although he's only in the first twenty minutes of the movie, Burt hated his part. I'd written some pages and sent them to his agent. My assistant very breathlessly came into my office and said, “Burt Lancaster's on the phone!”
I was almost as impressed as she was. I'd grown up with Trapeze, Brute Force, Elmer Gantry, and From Here to Eternity. I mean, he's Burt Lancaster. I got on the phone. He talked just like Burt Lancaster. “These pages are good, kid. They're very good. Much better. I have a few suggestions.”
I said, “Please, anything.”
“Could I stop by your office at Fox?”
“Absolutely, any time.”
“Say about ten in the morning.”
“I could come down to you.”
He said, “No, no, I'll be in town. I'll come to you. Ten o'clock. Oh, and Tom, don't forget to leave a pass at the gate.” I thought, God, Burt Lancaster driving up to any studio, you don't need a pass; you're fucking Burt Lancaster!
So he arrived the next morning for our meeting. And he was wonderful. He said, “I'm going off to Europe now, but you'll send the pages to me.”
I said, “Absolutely.”
He said, “It's very nice to meet you.”
I said, “Could you do me a favor before you leave?”
“What is that?”
“Some people today are being brought up on Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, but I was brought up on Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Before you leave, could you just laugh for me?”
He said, “You mean like ha, ha, ha?” And he went, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” like in his movies, and I started laughing. He went louder, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” And he backed out of my office going, “Ha, ha, ha, ha!” It was just wonderful. I was in hysterics. The only time I ever met him. I don't care whether my father was in the movies or not, when you run into one of your heroes, it elicits the same reaction every time like when I was seventeen and turned around and there was John Wayne. You're a movie fan. I was so thrilled to be in the same room with Burt Lancaster. If he had said about the script, “No, here I think I should rape five people,” I would have said, “Yeah, good idea, good idea!” because I'm with Burt Lancaster.
So during Mother, Jugs & Speed, over six or seven weeks, I did some work on the Cassandra script. It had an all-star cast: Ingrid Thulin, who was one of Ingmar Bergman's leading ladies; Ava Gardner, who'd done The Barefoot Contessa for my father; Lionel Stander, who was a blacklisted actor at the time and later wound up playing Max for me in Hart to Hart; and the first part for O.J. Simpson. This is how silly the
movie was, O.J. Simpson played a priest. George Cosmatos was so thrilled. He said, “I got O.J. Simpson.” Richard Harris was the male lead (they wanted Peter O'Toole, who sensibly turned it down), and Sophia. I never visited the set. I was never in Europe. I just kept sending pages, and then I would get notes and I'd get on the phone with Sophia. I was getting a nice piece of change for this. Carlo Ponti called me and said, “Listen, tell your agent to make the deal for half the amount of money. And I'll put the other half in a Swiss bank for you, and no one will know about it. Tax free. Be drawing interest for the rest of your life.”
I said, “Jesus, Carlo, that's illegal, isn't it?”
I've often thought that if I'd put that money in a Swiss bank, which would now be over thirty-five years ago—and it was a nice chunk of money—what it might be worth today. But then, you have to go get it. That's how a lot of business was done on European films. It was a huge hit in Europe. Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna made a pile off it. It was toward the end of the disaster cycle. Everybody had destroyed everything.
The Eagle Has Landed
The Eagle Has Landed was a big bestseller by Jack Higgins. It was going to be a Paramount movie. Lew Grade was the executive producer. It was produced by a guy named Jack Wiener, very bright, smart, and British. His partner was David Niven Jr., who's the most charming guy in the world but knows absolutely nothing about producing movies. He was just hanging on. And I did the screenplay. I was so excited because they got John Sturges to direct it. Bad Day at Black Rock. The Magnificent Seven. The Great Escape. I met with him. He had a patch over one eye. A tough old guy. He liked the script a lot. It was about a plot to kidnap Churchill in World War II. The best part was the undercover IRA agent, which Donald Sutherland played. We offered that part to Michael Caine. Michael called me and said, “Listen, I love the script. I'd like to be in this movie.” He said, “I'm forty-two years old. I had my first child only four years ago. I'm happily married. I don't want to play an IRA agent. There are so many crazy people, and if they think I'm playing it wrong or somebody takes offence…”
I said, “It was in the Second World War.”
He said, “But still, it's the IRA. On the other hand, I'd love to play the German colonel.”
I said, “I'm sure we'd love for you to do it. Let me talk to John Sturges.”
Michael said, “Isn't it amazing? Here we are only thirty years after the Second World War, and a British actor would rather play a Nazi colonel than an Irishman.”
So he played the colonel. Donald Sutherland said, “What are they going to do to me? I'm fuckin' Canadian!” So Donald played the IRA agent.
There were some wonderful actors: Robert Duvall; Judy Geeson; that terrific woman from Upstairs, Downstairs, Jean Marsh; Larry Hagman. It was, in many ways, easily the best script I'd ever written. But John Sturges, for some reason, had given up. Michael said on the set, sometimes, if he was behind, he would say, “We don't have to shoot that scene.” This was a heartbreak for me. It's my cousin Ben Mankiewicz's favorite movie, and it gets a great review in Leonard Maltin's book, another Mother, Jugs & Speed. My new favorite critic. But there were scenes missing. I wasn't there for most of the shooting. I was just there for the beginning, and everything was fine and everybody was happy. Donald and Michael were wonderful. But when it was over, John Sturges didn't even edit it. He got on a boat and went to the Mediterranean.
The picture is as good as it is because Anne V. Coates was our editor. She edited Lawrence of Arabia. She was David Lean's editor. I didn't know her. She was screening a rough cut for some executives in a big theater. I was invited. Rough cuts are always difficult. Francis Coppola said, “No movie is ever as good as the rushes or as bad as the rough cut.” You watch the rushes every day and say, “Boy, we nailed that. They're gonna love that.” Then, you put the whole film together and you say, “Oh, boy, are we in trouble.” Every time. I sat there, and I was frankly a little disappointed. Some of my favorite scenes or little moments weren't even there. The executives liked it a lot.
Anne Coates came over to me and introduced herself. “You're Tom Mankiewicz, right?”
I said, “Yes.”
She said, “Are you terribly disappointed?”
“Just a little.”
“I thought you would be. I read your script.”
She said some of it was unexplainable. In the picture, Michael goes around recruiting with a letter from Hitler authorizing him to do whatever he wants in terms of getting into England. There's a scene with Donald Pleasence, who plays Himmler, where Michael finds out that the letter he's been carrying is a fake. Hitler knows nothing about it. You've got to cut to Michael's face when he finds out. There was no close-up of him. I said to Anne, “You've got to cut to his close-up.”
She said, “There isn't one.”
I said, “That's impossible.”
She said, “There isn't one.”
Sturges never directed again. Some of the actors told me he was drinking very heavily on the movie and would sometimes come in in the morning hung over, and then he would start to drink in the afternoon. I don't mean to vilify him in any way, because he's one of my heroes as a director. I was so thrilled he was going to be on it. But he never directed again. That was his last movie. He took off on a boat, and Anne Coates said that's the last she saw of him. He just gave up.
But the actors were so good. John Standing, who played a priest in the film, said, “You know the thing about Michael Caine? We were all in that church in the movie, and there's all of these wonderful actors, and we're all acting up a storm. And Michael Caine is doing nothing. I'm thinking, poor sod. I watched the rushes the next day, and he's doing everything. He knows how to act on film. He doesn't overact, he just listens.”
Rosa Stradner (mother) and Tom Mankiewicz (age one year), Los Angeles, 1943
Chris Mankiewicz (brother), Joe Mankiewicz (father), and Tom Mankiewicz (age two years) at home in Los Angeles, 1944
Unless otherwise noted, photos are from the collection of Tom Mankiewicz.
Tom, Timber, and Chris at home in Los Angeles, 1940s
Rosa, Tom, Chris, and Joe, movie premiere, New York City, 1953
Tom, Rosa, Joe, and Chris at home in New York City, 1950s
Tom and Joe, Yale graduation, 1963
Tom and Mia Farrow, 1960s (courtesy Dominick Dunne)
Tom in his twenties
Joe, Chris, and Tom, 1970
Harry Saltzman and Tom on location in Jamaica for Live and Let Die, 1972 (courtesy United Artists)
Tom and Roger Moore on location in Jamaica for Live and Let Die, 1972 (courtesy United Artists)
Tom, Peter Yates, and Bill Cosby on the set of Mother, Jugs & Speed, 1975 (courtesy 20th Century Fox)
Tom and Liza Minnelli, 1975
Marlon Brando, Richard Donner, and Tom watching video playback on the set of Superman, 1977 (courtesy Warner Brothers)
Jackie Cooper, Margot Kidder, Richard Donner, Tom, and Sarah Douglas in the makeup room of Superman, 1977 (courtesy Warner Brothers)
Margot Kidder and Tom at Superman premiere, 1978
Tom, 1979 (courtesy Broadcast Week)
Natalie Wood and Tom at Wood's home, 1979
Jack Haley Jr. and Tom, 1980s (courtesy Nate Cutler)
Don Hunt and Tom, Kenya Game Ranch Club, Kenya, 1985
Christopher Plummer, Tom, and Dabney Coleman on the set of Dragnet, 1986 (courtesy Universal City Studios, Inc.)
Tom and friend, Kenya Game Ranch, Kenya, 1985
John Candy and Tom on the set of Delirious, New York City, 1990 (courtesy MGM/UA)
Tom, John Candy, and Joe L. Mankiewicz on the set of Delirious, West Fifty-Seventh Street, New York City, 1990 (courtesy MGM/UA)
Tom and Jerry Moss, 1990s
Ben Mankiewicz, Sidney Poitier, Martin Landau, Sid Ganis, Tom, John Mankiewicz, and (bottom left) Rosemary Mankiewicz, C. O. “Doc” Erickson, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tribute to Joe Mankiewicz, Beverly Hills, California, 2
009 (courtesy AMPAS)
Tom at sixty-eight, 2010
Tom's ashes, over Kenya Game Ranch, Kenya, 2010 (courtesy Ron Mardigian)
My cousin Ben, who is the weekend host on Turner Classic Movies, ran The Eagle Has Landed once. He asked, “Did you write that line for Duvall about the girl at the party?”
I said, “Yes, I did.”
He said, “That's the greatest, most complicated line.”
All of a sudden, they find out that Churchill's going to be spending the night in the country at this little house in two weeks. Duvall starts thinking. His lieutenant says to him, “Surely, Oberst, you don't think this can be carried out.” And Duvall says, “A wink from a pretty girl at a party rarely results in climax, Carl. But a man is a fool not to push the suggestion as far as it can go.” Duvall said, “I love this line.” Newsweek, which didn't like the movie, picked it out as stilted dialogue. Richard Schickel in Time, who really liked the movie, picked that line out as the level of sophistication that was so wonderful.
Actually, the best line in that piece I waited a long time to write. The IRA agent played by Donald Sutherland pretends to be a game warden. Jenny Agutter, a very good British actress, is much younger than him and has a huge crush on him. She doesn't know he's IRA. They're about to sleep together for the first time, and he's on top of her. She looks up at him. He looks down and says, “I'm no good for you, dear girl. That's not to make you want me more; that's the truth.” And he fucks her. Women always swoon when the man says, “I'm no good for you.” But it was the truth. He was an IRA agent who was going to fuck her and leave town. As I wrote the screenplay, I would have said both those lines out loud, especially the Duvall one, because it's almost a tongue twister. You say to yourself, “Is this too complicated now?” A lot of times you write a line that's too complicated, and you really have to simplify it. Larry Hagman always played assholes better than anybody. He's an asshole colonel. Treat Williams plays a captain who is supposed to intercept Churchill on the Walsingham Road. He says, “But, sir, I don't think he's on the Walsingham Road. I think we're being sent on a wild goose chase.” And Hagman says, “Captain, if you're not out there on Walsingham Road to meet Churchill in exactly one hour, this country is going to hang you from Big Ben by your balls.” It went over great opening night in London.
My Life as a Mankiewicz Page 24