Who the Hell's in It

by Peter Bogdanovich

  Meanwhile, the other clubs ran only half-filled or empty while the walls of the Whisky A Go Go shook and swelled from five times their comfortable capacity. Was it nicer? Better? Cheaper? No, dude, it was in.

  The Stars Celebrate

  On January 7, 1973, Paramount, the studio Adolph Zukor used to own, turned his hundredth birthday celebration into a glittering gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, a benefit ($125 a plate) for the Variety Clubs of America, a major publicity blast for itself, and a tribute to the oldest founding father of the industry. Twelve hundred and fifty of Hollywood’s finest turned up—a far better showing, in celebrities anyway, than the Oscars had been drawing in recent years. As Bob Hope unkindly put it, “If a bomb fell on this place, Troy Donahue would be back in business!” (In the twenty-first century, hardly anyone would get that joke.) Among the hundred or so on the three-tiered dais: Anne Baxter, Jack Benny, Michael Caine, Frank Capra, Bette Davis, Allan Dwan, Gene Hackman, Charlton Heston, Alfred Hitchcock, Rock Hudson, Danny Kaye, Gene Kelly, Dorothy Lamour, Mervyn LeRoy, Jerry Lewis, Fred MacMurray, Groucho Marx, Walter Matthau, Gregory Peck, George Raft, Buddy Rogers, Diana Ross, Gale Sondergaard, Barbara Stanwyck, George Stevens, Stella Stevens, James Stewart, Liv Ullmann, Jack Warner, William Wyler, not to mention the heads and key executives of all the major studios, and me. “A living wax museum,” Hope called it.

  When he was sixteen, so the story went, Zukor left Hungary and came to New York with $40 sewn into the lining of his coat. He eventually became a successful furrier, began investing in penny arcades and nickelodeons, finally exhibiting two-reelers, then the first feature film, Queen Elizabeth, Sarah Bernhardt’s only movie, her “one chance for immortality,” as she called it. A pretty bad picture then, it’s unwatchable now except to meticulous archivists, but its success helped to promote Zukor’s movie company, Famous Players (launched in 1912), into the big time. The firm’s original formula, “Famous Players in Famous Plays,” was actually not a good idea since it stuck to the idea of pictures as filmed theater—instead of moving in the direction Griffith and others were pointing: to a new art. Later Zukor merged with Jesse Lasky to form Famous Players-Lasky, which evolved, as movie companies did in those days, into the less cumbersomely named Paramount. (“If it’s a Paramount Picture, it’s the Best Show in Town” was the slogan for years.)

  The mood of the evening was, What the hell, Zukor was one hundred years old and no one in pictures had ever made that before, so let’s give him credit for everything! For Mary Pickford and Doug Fairbanks, for Gloria Swanson, Gary Cooper, Clara Bow, Hope and Crosby and Lamour, Dietrich too, and Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, and Maurice Chevalier, and don’t forget William S. Hart. If they didn’t actually say he’d invented the movies, the implication was there, but after all it was for a good charity and no one really got hurt.

  It was a show-biz night. Bob Hope came on with a string of nasty and brutally funny cracks—insults is the right word—but he was in his element. I hadn’t heard him that good for years. No political jokes, no plugs for Vietnam, just a machine-gun barrage of one-liners and jokes that took the mickey out of everyone there, even himself. If he was a little cruel, at least he wasn’t sanctimonious. He got a standing ovation, by the way—the only one of the evening except for Mr. Zukor when they finally wheeled him in at the end of the affair. But Hope’s was spontaneous, while Zukor’s was more or less mandatory. It was also difficult to see Mr. Zukor in that wheelchair behind the dais, so everyone remained standing for quite some time—long after they brought out the fourteen-foot birthday cake which looked plastic.

  Before the start, the dais guests and assorted other VIPs and press assembled first in the Empire Room of the Hilton, surrounded by huge movie stills and a replica of the famous Paramount gates; drinks and canapés passed about by waiters, lots of business talk and gossip, not much real conversation, it was too crowded. Then the word went out for the dais people to gather in the next room for their entrance. I was talking with Jimmy and Gloria Stewart when Howard Koch, the producer of the gala (he also had done the last two Oscar shows), came over and said, pointing, “Hey, would you guys go in there and find your names and sit on them.” He moved quickly away to the next group. Gloria turned to Jimmy. “What’d he say?”

  Jimmy looked whimsical. “He said we should … he said would we find our names and sit on them.”

  “Oh,” said Gloria. “Well, see you later, darling.”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Well, I’m going to go find my name and sit on it.”

  The names were on little cardboard signs on rows of folding chairs. Much amusement and a little chaos in finding them: Stella Stevens browsing absent-mindedly through the B’s; Hitchcock, launching into, for the benefit of Capra, Gene Hackman and Gene Kelly, his story of how he’d first worked for Mr. Zukor in England in 1920, though of course Mr. Zukor didn’t know it at the time, Hitch being a lowly title-writer then. Before anyone could really sit down, we were being pulled to stage left for our entrances. Each of the hundred dais guests was announced separately, but also very quickly. Hardly enough time for a bow even, much less the applause to which some of them were accustomed and, indeed, entitled. But on they came at double time, except when the announcer got things screwed up (he introduced George Stevens, Sr., as George Stevens, Jr., and started to announce Mae West before someone could tell him she hadn’t shown up) or there was a delay in finding someone who obviously hadn’t found his name and sat on it.

  After Hope and Jack Benny, came the “entertainment tribute,” which was staged by Tommy Tune and Michael Stuart. It was an energetic display. Loud and fast and boisterous, lots of balloons, jets of smoke, strings of confetti. But I kept having the feeling—as various dancers came on impersonating Paramount stars Swanson and Bow and Dietrich and Betty Grable (I thought she was a Fox star), Veronica Lake and Mae West—that it was all really meant as a giant put-on. That Tommy Tune—who also starred on his stilt-like legs—had been stuck with this assignment and couldn’t help but send it up in a kind of devilishly intense, almost sadistic fashion. I can’t believe he really waxed sentimental about all those old stars he was “recapturing” for us, and indeed the whole performance—in fact, the whole evening—was strikingly bereft of sentiment or, strangely, even an honest stab at sentimentality. There was something coldly calculating about that stage show, and when, at the end of it, Tommy asked the audience to join him in counting out Mr. Zukor’s one hundred years as the ensemble did a hundred high kicks, no one did. I guess the idea was for the thing to climax in cheering chaos with 1,250 voices blasting “one hundred,” but the crowd didn’t count; they just sat there watching.

  Maybe they too couldn’t help feeling the cold edge of derision behind it all. Otherwise, how to explain the culminating entrance of the real Dorothy Lamour, flanked by two small chimps whom she introduced as Bob and Bing? Add to this bit of weirdness the fact that the animals both misbehaved, shrieking chimp shrieks loudly to the delight of the crowd and the embarrassment of Miss Lamour, who handled it with the humor of a professional caught in a nightmare. I think she had really wanted to celebrate “Papa” Zukor’s birthday—she’s the only one who called him that all night—and felt sincerely warm toward him. Her remarks seemed completely genuine, but by that time it was too late. David Butler, the veteran director who had guided her and Hope and Crosby through one of the Road pictures, was sitting next to me. “Why didn’t they give her a mike?” he said sadly. “She never had the greatest voice, you know, she needs a mike.”

  Oscars

  Years ago, when Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon were getting divorced, a perhaps apocryphal story appeared in the scandal sheets: As an extreme example of Grant’s supposed irrationality, Cannon cited to the judge Cary’s yearly habit of sitting in front of his television during the Academy Award ceremonies and sardonically abusing all the participants. This item, true or not, must have amused nearly everyone in Hollywood, since nearly everyone in Hollywood does pretty much the same thing. In
fact, for those who avoid going to the actual telecast itself, having a TV dinner with friends while lacerating the presenters, winners and losers on the tube has become an almost eagerly awaited ritual.

  The funny thing is that from all accounts, when the Academy Awards began in 1929, they were conducted in a similar spirit of irreverence, something that has practically disappeared from the event itself. “They used to have it down at the old Coconut Grove,” Jimmy Stewart told me in the late seventies. “You’d have dinner and alawta drinks—the whole thing was … it was just … it was a party. Nobody took it all that seriously. I mean, it was swell if ya won because your friends were givin’ it to you, but it didn’t mean this big deal at the bawx office or anything. It was … it was just alawta friends gettin’ together and tellin’ some jokes and gettin’ loaded and givin’ out some little prizes—the things they handed out were a lot smaller those days. My gawsh, it was … there was no pressure or anything like that.”

  Cary Grant corroborated this to me: “It was a private affair, you see—no television, of course, no radio even—just a group of friends giving each other a par-ty. Because, you know, there is something a little embarrassing about all these wealthy people publicly congratulating each other. When it began, we kidded ourselves: ‘All right, Freddie March,’ we’d say, ‘we know you’re making a million dollars—now come on up and get your little medal for it!’”

  The alleged origin of the award’s now official nickname in itself indicates a certain inebriated lightness. Supposedly, the rear end of the statuette (for some reason it’s a naked gent with a sword) reminded Bette Davis of the one on a boyfriend named Oscar, and she didn’t mind loudly mentioning the resemblance. It was hard, therefore, to be entirely serious about a prize named after somebody’s ass.

  A lot of frivolous things have been turned into money, however, so the award that first went to the German star Emil Jannings (received for his performances in two silent films, The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command) has evolved into something not only treasured but deeply coveted. Actually, by the end of World War II, Jannings himself valued it more than when he received it. Having returned to Germany with the coming of sound in 1929, Jannings decided to stay there as part of Hitler’s cultural scene. Evidently, when the Americans marched into Berlin, they encountered a rotund and pathetic figure meekly moving toward them down a bombed-out boulevard, clutching a brass statuette, holding it up to be recognized. “Please,” he said, pointing to it desperately, “don’t shoot—I vin Oscar.”

  Maybe there’s only one place that does it right. Every year in Barcelona they give awards for poetry. The third prize is a silver rose, the second prize is a gold rose, and the first prize—the one for the best poem of all—is a real rose.

  Stars and Politics

  Long before Ronald Reagan became president, it was a commonplace that there was politics in show business and show business in politics. In 2001, Arthur Miller published a book-length essay, expanded from his Jefferson Lecture in Washington, D.C., On Politics and the Art of Acting, in which he dissects, examines and analyzes brilliantly this phenomenon as exemplified in the fractured 2000 election. I was present myself at three or four representative historical moments in the mix of politics and showbiz:

  Nixon at San Clemente

  In mid-1972, about a year before Watergate began to simmer, Mrs. Norman Taurog was on the phone (her husband had won an Oscar in 1931 for directing Skippy); being on the Committee to Re-elect the President, she was calling to find out how I was voting this year and whether I’d endorse Nixon. I told her I wasn’t endorsing anyone.

  “Don’t you like our President?” she said.

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Would you like to meet him?”

  “Sure.”

  That’s how I happened to be invited to the August 27th reception for some four hundred Hollywood folk at the “Western White House” in San Clemente. I had got special permission to bring Cybill Shepherd, though she wasn’t my wife. The check-in point was attended by Secret Service men, uniformed guards with walkie-talkies, and young Presidential aides (each wearing red, white and blue star-spangled ties) presided over by Los Angeles TV personality Johnny Grant, who looked a little overwhelmed by his job today. He leaned in, smilingly pretended to recognize us both but couldn’t quite come up with names. Still, he seemed content to let us go, but the grim-faced official beside him, clipboard in hand, was less enthusiastic. He wanted the names, please. We were cleared and escorted to a receiving line. Debbie Reynolds was right ahead of us, Glen Campbell ahead of her, and Charlton Heston came up behind us, followed by Jim Brown. One of the aides told us the men should kindly precede the women.

  “I thought you were a Democrat,” I said to Heston.

  “I was … well, I’ve always been an Independent,” he answered, and then mumbled something about preferring Nixon this year.

  At the end of the line, in the beam of a floodlight, the President and Mrs. Nixon were greeting their guests. Photographers were snapping away, aides stood around, Secret Service men scanned the line. Heston pointed out that they never look at the President but only at what is going on around him.

  I turned to watch the President as a perspiring man lightly held my arm—I suppose to prevent me from jumping my cue. Mr. Nixon turned to me and the perspiring gentleman gave me a light push forward, at the same time supplying my name. I shook hands with the President and introduced Cybill to him and Mrs. Nixon.

  “I’ve seen your name,” the President said to me, waving one arm to indicate a movie screen, “on many productions.” He made the word sound important.

  I mumbled something or other. There was a pause. Some years before, a mutual friend of the Nixons and of my parents had given them a present of one of my late father’s still lifes. Mrs. Nixon, however, had not liked it. “My mother met you some years back,” I said. “She’d come to your apartment to pick up a painting of my father’s.”

  I’m not at all sure that either the President or Mrs. Nixon remembered the incident, but Mr. Nixon shifted his look momentarily and nodded pleasantly.

  “My father was a painter,” I said.

  “Of course I know your father is a painter,” said Mr. Nixon, a little too genially.

  There was another pause. The perspiring gentleman was not looking any better. We backed off. Mrs. Nixon kept right on smiling at us as the President turned to Heston.

  More star-spangled ties indicated the way to the party where four hundred Hollywood people were talking, drinking, eating. There was Vince Edwards, Red Skelton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lawrence Welk, Jack Benny, Desi Arnaz, and Chuck Connors. Frank Sinatra flashed by, followed by several others, on the way to something urgent, from the look of the exit.

  John Wayne waved and came over, puffing a small cigar. I told him my presence didn’t mean I was a Republican. “That’s OK,” said Duke. Just then the music stopped and there was some applause; President Nixon had stepped onto the bandstand in front of a microphone. He looked smaller and thinner than he had before. “I am not going to impose on you another speech,” he said, “after what many of you had to endure last week [at the convention] in terms of so many speeches.” He then made a speech that lasted fourteen minutes. The emphasis was on movies:

  “I would like to express appreciation as an individual, and also speaking as the President of the United States, for what you, the people of Hollywood, have done for America and have done for the world. I can speak with some feeling on this point. Let me begin by saying that my wife and I like movies. We like them on television. We fortunately now have our own projection set in the White House. [Laughter.] That is one of the reasons I ran again. [Another laugh.] I just can’t stand those commercials on the Late Show. [Laughter.] But we have seen many movies. We haven’t yet shown an X-rated movie in the White House. We had an ‘R’ one night, and I said, ‘That is as far as you can go.’ [Laughter.] But I like my movies made in Hollywood, made in America, and I don’t mean that
I can’t appreciate a good foreign movie, or a foreign movie star or [slight pause, looking for a word] … or starlet…. In all the countries that my wife and I have visited, about eighty, I can assure you that Hollywood, in most of them, has been there before. We go along streets in the cities of Africa and Asia and Latin America, and everyplace, and on that marquee you will see the Hollywood names that we are so familiar with. It makes us feel at home as we see those names….”

  He was closing with an anecdote concerning a Harlem congressman named Charles Rangel; the President had called Rangel on the phone. “The congressman was somewhat overwhelmed by the call, and we talked a bit, and then he said, ‘You know, Mr. President, when I was growing up in Harlem, if I had told my old man that someday I would be talking to the President of the United States, he would have told me I was crazy.’ And I said, ‘Well, Mr. Congressman, if when I was growing up, in Yorba Linda, I had told my old man that someday I would be talking to a congressman on the phone, he would have thought I was crazy.’ [Laughter.] I will simply close my remarks tonight by saying … if I had told my old man when I was growing up in Yorba Linda that someday I would be talking to Jack Benny, he would have said I was crazy!”