by Kirk Douglas
Within the hour, I walked out of Rosenthal & Norton, free from any further rape of my income. I never spoke to Sam again. We could only make Sam liable for $200,000 of what he’d stolen. It was a fraction of our loss, but it was the only money we could prove he had used to buy things for himself and his family. The rest of his assets—which I had paid for—he put in his wife’s name.
ANNE:
We used the profits from The Vikings to pay off the IRS. Our fortunes now depended on Spartacus. It was budgeted at $4 million. The final cost was $12 million—about $750,000 more than Lew Wasserman’s MCA had paid for the whole of Universal’s 367 acres. If Spartacus had bombed, Lew might have turned the studio into tract housing the way, decades later, Century City resulted from Marvin Davis’s sale of Twentieth Century-Fox’s huge back lot.
Kirk was still trying to cast Spartacus. He was thrilled that Ustinov and even Charles Laughton—who was disdainful of the script when he first saw it in London—had signed their contracts. Lew had been right when he said Laughton needed the money. There was still no final commitment from Olivier, however. Kirk had mixed feelings about Sir Laurence. He wanted him to direct, but certainly didn’t want him to take the title role. Finally, the letter from London arrived at the office. Kirk came home that day, all smiles, waving Larry’s letter in front of me. He read me the salient information:
… I have now contracted myself to go to Stratford-on-Avon for the fourth play of the season next year, which is Coriolanus and to start rehearsing in June. I imagine this decision will fairly knock me out for any further consideration as director of the film. If, however, you can still see your way to improving the part of Crassus in relation to the other three roles, then I should be more than happy to look at it again as it is such a gallant enterprise and one I should be extremely proud to be part of. Could you be so kind as to let me see something just as soon as you possibly can?
KIRK:
Now all I had to worry about was getting a director acceptable to both the studio and me; casting Spartacus’s love, Varinia; and getting a finished script. We would start filming in late January 1959—a new year.
I certainly wasn’t sorry to turn the page on the old one. I had escaped Mike Todd’s fate in March only to be brought low six months later by the betrayal of Sam Norton and my precarious financial position. But the gods weren’t through punishing me yet. My beloved Ma, the namesake of the Bryna Company, died in mid-December. Her last wish was not to be buried with Pa.
I had no time to feel sorry for myself. I had too much on my plate. By mid-January my British actors and I were at Universal for costume fittings and to meet the director approved by Universal and Lew Wasserman, Anthony Mann. I didn’t think he was right for the project, but I didn’t have any better suggestions. We had more than a hundred people on payroll, and already the budget had risen to $5 million. We needed to forge ahead. For the role of Varinia, I went with Sabine Bethmann, a young actress unknown outside of Germany. Her English was on a par with Elsa Martinelli’s when I put her in The Indian Fighter.
We shot the first scenes in Death Valley. Within three weeks, it became apparent that Anthony Mann had lost control of the production. All of my English superstars had directed films, and they all had their own ideas. Within that short framework of time, the budget had risen still another million dollars. Universal’s production chief Eddie Muhl told me to fire Tony Mann. I felt bad as Tony was a good man, but he had never been right for this picture. I think he was actually relieved when I let him go on Friday the 13th of February.
Bad luck for the budget if I couldn’t find a new director quickly. Luckily, Stanley Kubrick found himself unexpectedly at liberty. He was in L.A. to direct Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks, but after waffling for a few months, Brando decided to direct the film himself. I tracked down Stanley, who was playing poker at Marty Ritt’s house. Marty, too, was unemployed after United Artists pulled the plug on The Gladiators. I made Stanley an offer he couldn’t refuse: $150,000—the biggest payday of his career and the biggest budget of any film he had ever directed. I messengered the script to his hotel and told him to be at Universal on Monday.
I should have had cameras rolling to capture the cast’s expressions when I introduced the boy from the Bronx—ill-dressed and ill at ease, not looking anywhere near his thirty years. But Stanley and his supreme ego would be more than a match for all of them. We went back to work.
That is, all of us but Sabine Bethmann. Stanley said she couldn’t act and proved it to me in a rather cruel fashion. Again, I was faced with one of my least favorite parts of being the boss: letting someone go. I called Jean Simmons, who lived with her husband, Stewart Granger, on a ranch in Arizona, and asked if she was still interested in the role. (I had rejected her earlier because of my stubborn belief that the Romans should be English, the slaves anything but.)
After this rocky and costly beginning, I breathed a sigh of relief. We used Anthony Mann’s footage, even though Stanley wanted to shoot everything again. Then real life intruded on our tight schedule: Jean had an operation that kept her away for six weeks; Tony Curtis snapped his Achilles heel playing tennis with me in Palm Springs; and I finally collapsed from exhaustion and was ordered to rest for ten days.
I called these setbacks the “Curse of Spartacus.” The budget was now at $7 million and rising. It didn’t help that Stanley was proving even more difficult than he had been on Paths of Glory. I had to keep him in line without dampening his creative genius or letting my annoyance with him disrupt the picture.
In the midst of all this, media speculation escalated about who was really writing Spartacus. Walter Winchell and the Hollywood Reporter printed that Dalton Trumbo was Sam Jackson. It was becoming the worst-kept secret in Hollywood. I had to deny the rumors to Universal’s production head, Eddie Muhl, while secretly promising Dalton I would tell the studio when it was too late for them to pull the plug. When it came time to discuss screenplay credit, Stanley volunteered that he would “help us out by letting us use his name.” I was appalled that he would want to take credit for another man’s work. I swore to “Sam” he would see the words Dalton Trumbo on the screen in large letters when the picture opened.
ANNE:
Although Eddie Lewis was doing his best to relieve Kirk of day-to-day problems, when it came down to the crunch, the buck stopped with Kirk. He was constantly putting out fires as well as performing the most dangerous stunts of his career. My job was to calm him down, to listen, and reassure. But his worry was contagious. After all, I knew too well how precarious our financial position was and how much depended on the success of Spartacus.
Kirk would vent to me at night about the problems and the ego clashes. Charles Laughton threatened to sue Kirk personally because he thought his part had been reduced. Stanley’s arrogance was intolerable. Kirk worried if he would still have a career if he admitted that Dalton Trumbo was his screenwriter. Did Hedda Hopper really have the power to destroy him? Neither of us was sleeping well.
KIRK:
Stanley continued to squander money on retakes and experimental shots. We had now spent over $8 million and Stanley didn’t care. It became easier to communicate with him by memo. In my files at the University of Wisconsin are myriad examples of this sometimes contentious correspondence. Here’s one I sent him with the outline of a scene I thought would have a great dramatic impact when the Roman army conquered the Spartacus troops:
… The battle is over and in a gully near the battlefield, all the prisoners are being rounded up; a large group of them are already chained and are sitting around, waiting for the next move…
At a distance, on a rise, sits the noble Crassus on his white horse. He is surveying the assembly of prisoners… next to him is one of his generals. At a signal from Crassus, his subordinate general rides down with a group of slaves.
In a loud voice, he announces to them that whoever identifies the living or dead body of Spartacus will be set free.
There is a s
udden, silent hush over all the prisoners. Spartacus gets up…
Suddenly, Antoninus jumps up with his arm waving, “I am Spartacus!” In short order, the hundreds and hundreds of slaves are all jumping up, yelling in a happy vein, “I am Spartacus!”
Crassus stands alone, surveying this mockery of his victory by a group of doomed men. He whirls away on his horse, in his ears the crescendo of exultant slaves all yelling in unison… “Spartacus… Spartacus… Spartacus!”
I waited to hear what Stanley thought, but he didn’t bother to reply. I seethed. I confronted him. First, I castigated him on his lack of respect for the crew and cast. In those days, directors dressed formally when they were working. Stanley had worn an ill-fitting and none-too-pristine blazer with baggy khaki pants every day since he came on board.
“It would help if you changed your clothes now and then,” I said, staring down at him from atop a huge stallion. “The crew doesn’t think you respect them.”
Woody Strode, Stanley Kubrick, and Kirk prior to the Spartacus gladiator fight
“I don’t,” he replied.
Now I really blew up. “You’re going to wear new clothes tomorrow. Understand me?” By this time, my horse had backed him up against a wall.
I continued. “There’s something else I want you to understand. When I send you a memo about shooting a scene, I at least expect an answer. You haven’t bothered to respond about the ‘I am Spartacus’ scene I suggested.”
Stanley had no charm. He said bluntly, “I don’t want to do it. It’s a stupid idea.”
I exploded. Using a lot of expletives, I said, “This may be a stupid idea but we’re going to shoot it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll cut it out.”
I hated acting like a bully, but Stanley needed to learn how things were done when so much money was on the line. Sometimes he forgot that making a film was a collaborative effort and that all of us were experienced professionals.
We had budgeted for five months—but that was before Stanley insisted we create battle scenes to be shot in Spain using Generalissimo Franco’s armies. Universal approved the additional money—bringing the cost up to $11 million—and Stanley spent the month of November 1959 in Iberia. I stayed in California.
ANNE:
Kirk was enjoying that break from Stanley. It was amazing how much tension this talented young man added to our lives. At one point, Kirk was so irritated with him that I suggested they both air their grievances to a neutral party. Kirk made an appointment for them with Dr. Herbert Kupper, our starstruck psychiatrist.
Kirk wasn’t sure it helped the situation, but Dr. Kupper gave Stanley a gift. He recommended a German novella by Arthur Schnitzler to him, saying it would make a good movie. It took forty years, but that 1926 story became the basis for Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley’s last film. It was a flop.
KIRK:
I lived with Spartacus for some three years, and it is still the film most associated with me. I was crucified in the movie and I was crucified by the far right extremists, like Hedda Hopper, who believed the blacklist should go on forever. Despite Universal’s forty-four unauthorized cuts to the print that was released, it still was a financial and critical success, thanks to Stanley’s extraordinary talent as a filmmaker. Neither of us wanted to work together ever again, but despite all, I credit him with launching Spartacus into film immortality.
Spartacus opened at the DeMille Theater in New York on October 6, 1960. It premiered at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood two weeks later. Anne organized the event as a benefit for the Women’s Guild of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, a group she had been involved with since she became my wife. The studios were used to free tickets. Anne changed all that. She insisted they pay $100 for each seat, as well as make a contribution to the Guild. She raised more than $100,000 for the hospital’s free bed program. I was, as always, very proud of her.
Spartacus premiere party, Rome, with Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor
Hedda Hopper became a paper tiger. Her campaign to boycott my film fizzled. A few American Legion diehards made a half-hearted attempt to picket. The public ignored them. Then the popular new president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, slipped into the Warner Theater in Washington on Wednesday, February 3, 1961, a few weeks after moving into the White House. He hoped no one would notice his arrival with his old navy buddy Paul B. (Red) Fay, the new undersecretary of the navy. But his days of going anywhere unnoticed were gone forever. When asked how he liked Spartacus, he declared it a fine film. The box office continued to boom.
ANNE:
Kirk kept his word to me. We went to many countries to promote the film. In Rome, Elizabeth Taylor hosted the Spartacus premiere party for us. She was making Cleopatra and was the biggest publicity magnet in the world because of her torrid love affair with Richard Burton. Her poor husband Eddie Fisher was trying to make the best of what was, undoubtedly, an uncomfortable evening for him.
I hoped our lives would calm down a bit before Kirk left in May to make The Last Sunset in Mexico. Dalton Trumbo, now able to use his name again, had written the script, although he still called himself Sam when he phoned us. He went down to Mexico with Kirk, now that he had delivered the script of Exodus to Otto Preminger.
Always the publicity hound, Otto fired his original blacklisted writer Albert Maltz and hired Dalton as soon as his brother, Ingo, who was Trumbo’s agent, told him Kirk was going to put Dalton’s given name on Spartacus. Otto couldn’t resist the opportunity to grab credit by announcing Dalton Trumbo was writing Exodus. He loved telling people he broke the blacklist and Kirk was only following his lead.
Kirk felt the script for The Last Sunset would have been better if Dalton hadn’t been writing Otto’s script at the same time. He had become very fond of “Sam,” who was also turning the book of The Last Cowboy into a screenplay for what would become Kirk’s favorite of all his films, Lonely Are the Brave.
I was still dealing with the fallout from the other Sam we had banished from our lives. For a while, Sam Norton paid us $2,500 a month, trying all the while to worm his way back into our good graces. He dogged me at the SHARE Boomtown party, an annual charity event still going strong after all these years. I mentioned it in my letter to Kirk:
Friday the 13th
God, you lucky, lucky man! Here it is 2:30 a.m. I just got home from the Share party. I sat at the table between Cantinflas and Yves Montand. I looked at Frank, Dean, Sammy Davis, Duke Wayne, Tony [Curtis] and Vic Damone on the stage—and who do you think I was thinking of?—you, you silly idiot!
The whole evening, no matter where I looked or went there was Sam Norton! As we were all waiting at the valet stand, he came towards me just as my car arrived. Sam opened the door for me and closed it after I was inside. I said to myself: “This is the most expensive car boy I have ever had!”
The show was great and at the beginning they gave 12 beautiful diplomas to Life Members and you were one of them. I had to go onstage to pick it up—I nearly died!!
Cantinflas was most charming and insists you call him as soon as you get to Mexico City. He would like to give a party for us when I join you.
Merle [Oberon] insists that we should stay at her house in Mexico City. She says she left her chef there and at least six servants. But then she says quite a lot of things.
Peter’s teacher called me to school. Apparently since the last two weeks he was fighting with the children again, pounding them in the face. We talked it out and he made big promises. When I drove him and Kelly [Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh’s daughter] home from school, he said to her, “Kelly, look at me” and pow—a right pound in her mouth!! I told him he could not watch T.V. So far so good.
As for Eric, he comes out of his room and says, “Daddy, my Daddy.” Then I say Daddy bye bye. Then he seems satisfied. But not me!! I miss you so! During the day not so much but after 5:30 p.m. then it starts and by 2:30 a.m. it’s unbearable!
—I love you. Stolz.
CHAPTER NINE
Our Hollywood Life
ANNE:
I was in love with America years before I fell in love with Kirk. Through some kindly turn of fate, I was living the American dream with the man of my dreams. How lucky I was.
This really was the New World. In 1954, the United States was only 178 years old; Beverly Hills a mere forty. After living through war and fending for myself in the ancient cities of Europe, I was happy to move to a place where people could shed their old identities and embrace new possibilities. I was enchanted with the warm welcome I received from Kirk’s friends. The women were particularly helpful in making me feel at home.
The elegant Fran Stark was my first guardian angel. We had bonded during the visits she and Ray made to Italy and France. Fran was the daughter of Fanny Brice, the beloved comedienne of the Ziegfeld Follies. She and her brother Bill, an artist, were raised in Beverly Hills, where Fanny appeared in films and starred as Baby Snooks in America’s favorite radio sitcom until her death in 1951.
My official welcome was a large party Kirk organized at the San Ysidro house Fran had decorated so beautifully in tones of black and white. She had purposely left the walls bare, assuming Kirk would want the pleasure of choosing his own artwork. However, with guests coming to appraise both me and the surroundings, I wanted those empty spaces to be warmed with color.
“Take me to a good gallery, Fran. I’ll tell the dealer Kirk Douglas is interested in buying a few paintings, but he wants to try them in the house before deciding. You and I can return them after the party.”