Matthew Robbins: writer, The Sugarland Express.
Robbie Robertson: musician, the Band; housemate of Martin Scorsese.
Fred Roos: casting, the Godfathers, American Graffiti, Apocalypse Now; co-producer, The Godfather, Part II, Apocalypse Now.
Howard Rosen man: producer, Sparkle, The Main Event, Resurrection.
Artie Ross: friend of Bert Schneider.
Albert S. Ruddy: producer, The Godfather.
Jennifer Salt: actress, Midnight Cowboy, Sisters; daughter of writer Waldo Salt; housemate of Margot Kidder.
Geoffrey Sanford: production executive, Warners.
Abe Schneider: CEO, Columbia; father of Bert, Harold, and Stanley.
Bert Schneider: partner, BBS; producer, Days of Heaven, Broken English.
Harold Schneider: associate producer, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show; producer, Days of Heaven.
Judy Schneider: married to Bert Schneider.
Stanley Schneider: president, Columbia.
Leonard Schrader: co-writer, The Yakuza, Blue Collar, Mishima; writer, Kiss of the Spider Woman; brother of Paul.
Paul Schrader: writer, Taxi Driver, Obsession; co-writer, The Yakuza, Raging Bull, Mishima; director, Blue Collar, American Gigolo, Cat People, Mishima; brother of Leonard.
Martin Scorsese: director, Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, The Last Waltz, Raging Bull.
Cybill Shepherd: actress, The Last Picture Show, Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, Taxi Driver.
Sidney Sheinberg: president and COO of MCA.
Don Simpson: president of worldwide production, Paramount.
Mona Skager: assistant and producer for Francis Coppola.
Bud Smith: editor, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, Personal Best.
Steven Spielberg: director, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941.
Jules Stein: founded MCA with Lew Wasserman.
Anthea Sylbert: costume designer, Chinatown, Shampoo; VP of special projects, Warners.
Richard Sylbert: production designer, The Graduate, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Shampoo, The Fortune, Reds; head of production, Paramount.
Ned Tanen: head of motion pictures, Universal.
Jonathan Taplin: producer, Mean Streets.
Joan Tewkesbury: script supervisor, McCabe & Mrs. Miller; screenwriter, Nashville.
Tommy Thompson: first assistant director, associate producer for Robert Altman.
James Toback: director, Fingers, Love and Money.
Robert Towne: writer, The Last Detail, Chinatown, Shampoo, Greystoke; director, Personal Best; married to Julie Payne.
Lew Wasserman: founded MCA with Jules Stein.
Fred Weintraub: VP of creative services, Warners.
Sandra Weintraub: associate producer, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore; relationship with Scorsese; daughter of Fred.
Frank Wells: president, Warners.
Haskell Wexler: director of photography, American Graffiti, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bound for Glory, Coming Home.
Gordon Willis: director of photography, the Godfathers.
Irwin Winkler: producer, New York, New York, Rocky, Raging Bull.
Frank Yablans: president, Paramount.
Richard Zanuck: producer, The Sting, Jaws; partner of David Brown.
Selected Filmography of Directors (1967–1982)
Robert AItman
That Cold Day in the Park (1969)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Brewster McCloud (1970)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
Thieves Like Us (1974)
Nashville (1975)
Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976)
Popeye (1980)
Hal Ashby
Harold and Maude (1972)
The Last Detail (1973)
Shampoo (1975)
Bound for Glory (1976)
Coming Home (1978)
Being There (1979)
Lookin’ to Ger Our (1982)
Warren Beatty
Heaven Can Wait (with Buck Henry) (1978)
Reds (1981)
Peter Bogdanovich
Targets (1968)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
Paper Moon (1973)
Daisy Miller (1974)
At Long Last Love (1975)
Nickelodeon (1976)
Michael Cimino
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
Francis Ford Coppola
You’re a Big Boy Now (1966)
Finian’s Rainbow (1968)
The Rain People (1969)
The Godfather (1972)
The Conversation (1974)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
One from the Heart (1982)
William Friedkin
The French Connection (1971)
The Exorcist (1973)
Sorcerer (1977)
Dennis Hopper
Easy Rider (1969)
The Last Movie (1971)
George Lucas
THX: 1138 (1971)
American Graffiti (1973)
Star Wars (1977)
Terry Malick
Badlands (1973)
Days of Heaven (1978)
Bob Rafelson
Head (1968)
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
Stay Hungry (1976)
Paul Schrader
Blue Collar (1978)
Hardcore (1979)
American Gigolo (1980)
Cat People (1982)
Martin Scorsese
Boxcar Bertha (1972)
Mean Streets (1973)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
Taxi Driver (1976)
New York, New york (1977)
The Last Waltz (1978)
Raging Bull (1980)
Steven Spielberg
Duel (1971)
The Sugarland Express (1974)
Jaws (1975)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
1941 (1979)
Robert Towne
Personal Best (1982)
Notes
A Note on the Research
This book is based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived through the late ’60s and ’70s in Hollywood conducted over a period of five years. I have also availed myself of the voluminous body of secondary material that exists on this period, but I have endeavored to reinterview the sources cited whenever appropriate. Where my account differs from the recollections of one of the principals, I have indicated it, although often I had to choose between several conflicting accounts. Conversations are based on interviews with at least one of the participants. When thoughts are attributed to a principal, they are also derived from interviews.
AI = Author’s interview.
Introduction: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
PAGE
13 Epigraph: Martin Scorsese, AI, 7/13/91.
13 “I jumped out of bed”: Scorsese, AI, 5/23/94.
14 “It was like the ground”: Peter Guber, AI, 11/10/92.
14 “The ’70s was the first time”: Steven Spielberg, AI, 12/9/96.
16 “Reading Sarris”: Robert Benton, AI, 4/26/94.
16 “We were just guys”: Scorsese, AI, 7/18/97.
16 “the last great time”: Peter Bart, AI, 3/17/94.
17 “It was at this specific moment”: Susan Sontag, “The Decay of Cinema,” New York Times Magazine, 2/25/96, p. 61.
18 “If you were these guys”: Ned Tanen, AI, 1/22/93.
18 “Please, sir”: Irwin Winkler, AI, 3/17/92.
19 “Directors weren’t even”: John Calley, AI, 5/15/93.
20 “The first day”: Walter Murch, AI, 11/18/93.
20 “It was not like”: Spielberg, AI, 12/9/96.
20 “The movie industry was”: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.
21 “You saw Battle of
Algiers”: Sean Daniel, AI, 11/13/93.
21 “When the movie factories”: Scorsese, AI, 5/23/94.
22 “ ‘No, no, no’ ”: Paul Williams, AI, 7/23/93.
22 “There was a complete”: John Boorman, AI, 2/22/95.
22 “Because of the catastrophic”: Paul Schrader, AI, 12/3/91.
22 “If you were young”: Guber, AI, 11/10/92.
22 “This group of people”: Leonard Schrader, AI, 11/8/94.
Chapter 1: Before the Revolution
PAGE
23 Epigraph: Arthur Penn, AI, 1/12/93.
23 “He always hated me”: Warren Beatty, AI, n.d.
24 “Colonel!”: Joe Hyams, AI, 4/9/92.
25 “I wanted to do a comedy”: Beatty, AI, 11/2/91.
25 “Charlie taught Warren”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 8/25/92.
25 “Charlie would not be denied”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 4/7/93, 5/26/93.
25 “I want forty”: Beatty, AI, n.d.
26 “Warren said”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 5/12/93.
26 “I finally walked out”: Beatty, AI, 11/2/91.
26 “Warren went back”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 8/25/92.
26 “Woody was very unhappy”: Beatty, AI, 11/2/91.
26 “All the time” and following: Benton, AI, 12/9/92.
27 “Everyone knew somebody”: Benton, AI, 4/26/92.
27 “Being an outlaw”: David Newman, AI, 7/30/92.
27 “The French New Wave” and following: Benton, AI, 12/9/92.
28 “He was walking around”: Robert Towne, AI, 3/3/94.
28 “Some of these clowns”: Letter from Beatty to Benton and Newman, 3/14/66.
28 “Penn was a court”: Towne, AI, 3/3/94.
28 “I don’t know”: Benton, AI, 12/9/92.
29 “I finished shooting”: Penn, AI, 1/12/93.
29 “Beatty and I”: Bernard Weintraub, “Director Arthur Penn Takes on General Custer,” New York Times Magazine, 12/21/69, p. 46.
29 “Look, just give me”: Beatty, AI, 6/11/94.
30 “Warren said, ‘He’s’”: Newman, AI, 2/15/94.
30 “Who wants to see”: Patrick Goldstein, “Blasts from the Past,” Los Angeles Times Calendar, 8/24–25/97.
31 “He had this ability”: Gerald Ayres, AI, 6/14/94.
31 “Bob was a very talented”: David Geffen, AI, 4/18/96.
31 “He set up a meeting” and following: Towne, AI, 3/3/94.
32 “We were trying”: Benton, AI, 12/9/92.
32 “You’re making a mistake”: Newman, AI, 7/30/92.
32 “None of us felt”: Towne, AI, 3/3/94.
33 “When I was a kid”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.
33 “It was like ordering”: Marion Dougherty, AI, 4/11/94.
33 “Most of the casting people”: Nessa Hyams, AI, 4/1/94.
34 “Warren and Arthur”: Estelle Parsons, AI, n.d.
34 “I was this sort of buffer”: Towne, AI, 3/3/94.
35 “It used to be” and following: Penn, AI, 1/12/93.
35 “I’ll tell ya something” and following: Penn, AI, 1/12/93; Beatty, AI, 6/11/94.
35 “He kept running”: Goldstein, “Blasts from the Past”; Beatty, AI, 10/31/97.
36 “Ninety percent of them”: John Ptak, AI, 1/30/92.
36 “Francis was our idol”: Margot Kidder, AI, 4/17/93.
36 “It wasn’t considered”: Willard Huyck, AI, 6/16/94.
36 “We had all gone”: Murch, AI, 11/18/93.
36 “Musical comedy”: Michael Sragow, “Godfatherhood,” New Yorker, 3/24/97, p. 46.
37 “It was really hard”: Marcia Lucas, AI, 3/3/97.
37 “Because of his personality”: Murch, AI, 11/18/93.
37 “What do you mean”: Dale Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, New York, 1983, p. 74.
37 “Francis had this closet”: Milius, AI, 1/31/92.
38 “September, in those days” and following: Dick Lederer, AI, 6/23/92.
38 “In those days”: Beatty, AI, 6/11/94.
39 “You guys are all crazy”: Lederer, AI, 6/23/92.
39 “I remembered”: Joe Hyams, AI, 4/9/92.
39 “What a reaction”: Lederer, AI, 6/23/92.
39 “a cheap piece”: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar, New York, 1986, p. 403.
39 “I was scared to death”: Lederer, AI, 6/23/92.
39 “Look, it’s just another”: Benton, AI, 12/9/92.
40 “Bonnie and Clyde is”: Pauline Kael, New Yorker, 10/26/67.
40 “The Pauline Kael review”: Newman, AI, 7/30/92.
41 “Without her”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.
41 “he came on”: Kael, AI, 8/5/95.
41 “He was always saying”: Lederer, AI, 6/23/92.
41 “Let me pay you” and following: Beatty, AI, 6/11/94.
41 “I really think”: Lederer, 6/23/92.
42 “I’d always wanted”: Peter Fonda, AI, 3/17/97.
42 “I was a little”: Lawrence Linderman, Playboy, 9/70.
42 “Everyone knew that Kael”: Buck Henry, AI, 12/7/94.
42 “Peter, did they say”: Dennis Hopper, AI, 7/15/97.
43 “Heads are going”: Brooke Hayward, AI, 4/24/97.
43 “I was desperate”: Mark Goodman, “Rebel Without a Pause,” New Times, 10/2/78, p. 58.
43 “the son of General Pershing”: Bill Hayward, AI, 11/15/92.
43 “He was an incredibly” and following: Brooke Hayward, AI, 4/24/97.
44 “rips off”: Fonda, AI, 3/17/97.
44 “He was completely crazy” and following: Brooke Hayward, AI, 4/24/97.
44 “It was hard”: Hopper, AI, 7/15/97.
45 “Nobody took”: Brooke Hayward, AI, 4/24/97.
45 “The day I started”: Tom Burke, “Dennis Hopper saves the Movies,” Esquire, 9/70, p. 170.
45 “My wife”: Fonda, AI, 3/17/97.
45 “The audience will never”: Fonda, AI, 3/17/97.
45 “The New Cinema”: Time, December 8, 1967, p. 66.
46 “We have to rethink this.” and following: Beatty, AI, 6/11/94.
46 “Julie was the most beautiful”: Beatty, AI, 6/18/97.
47 “If ever a movie star”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.
47 “You get slapped”: Confidential source.
48 “We were so fucking”: Newman, AI, 7/30/92.
48 “We’re all disappointed”: Michael Pearse, “Faye Dunaway: The Loves of a Passionate Woman,” Modern Screen, 8/68.
48 “There were people”: Benton, AI, 12/9/92.
48 “We didn’t know”: Penn, Jack Mathews, “Rebellious Times,” Los Angeles Times Calendar, 1/24/86.
48 “The Freudian nature”: Curtis Hanson, “Warren Beatty as Producer,” Cinema, Vol. 3, No. 5.
48 “Andy Warhol was giving”: Newman, AI, 7/30/92.
49 “There’s one last thing”: Susanna Moore, AI, 5/5/93.
49 “You couldn’t get”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 5/26/93.
50 “Sharon was the sweetest” and following: Sharmagne Leland-St. John, AI, 6/19/94.
50 “They were crazy”: Fiona Lewis, AI, 1/28/96.
50 “I don’t know”: Dialogue in Film, Robert Towne, American Film, 12/75, p. 38.
50 “I couldn’t have”: Jeremy Larner, AI, n.d.
50 “Bob would love”: Ayres, AI, 6/14/94.
51 “Towne could talk”: Robert Evans, AI, 2/27/94.
51 “Robert had written”: Beatty, AI, 6/11/94.
51 “He would not”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.
51 “Look, I don’t wanna”: Beatty, AI, 6/28/94.
Chapter 2: “Who Made Us Right?”
PAGE
52 Epigraph: Hopper, unpublished interview by Robert Scheer.
52 “The problem in moviemaking”: Based on Bob Rafelson, AI, 11/10/93; Rex Reed, “Bob Rafelson: Director of the year?”, New York Sunday News, 12/6/70, p. 26.
53 “the house of” and following: Toby Rafelson, AI, 6/12/94.
54 “I don’t want to see”: Bob
Rafelson, AI, 11/10/93.
55 “it was all like”: Confidential source.
55 “He was the All-Star”: Henry Jaglom, AI, 7/23/93.
55 “Steve was Harold”: Bruce Dern, AI, 6/17/95.
55 “I kept turning”: Steve Blauner, AI, 6/7/94.
56 “I wasn’t going”: Judy Schneider, AI, 12/15/97.
56 “I was into”: Bo Burlingham, “Politics Under the Palms,” Esquire, 2/77.
56 “Bert and Judy went out”: Toby Rafelson, AI, 6/12/94.
56 “Within three or four”: Henry, AI, 12/7/94.
57 “I want to make”: Blauner, AI, 2/28/94.
57 “This is lame”: William Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.
57 “I want to use”: Donna Greenberg, AI, 2/3/95.
58 “He was always pawing”: Julie Payne, AI, 2/6/95.
58 “They were princes”: Paula Strachan, AI, 12/10/97.
58 “Bob was a role model”: Confidential source.
58 “These were people”: Toby Rafelson, AI, 6/12/94.
58 “Never bring a woman”: Patrick McGilligan, Jack’s Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson, New York, 1994, p. 181.
58 “Bert would fuck”: Confidential source.
59 “One beautiful, sunny Sunday”: Greenberg, AI, 2/3/95.
60 “I think that repudiating”: Toby Rafelson, AI, 6/12/94.
61 “A lot of that stuff’: Henry, AI, 12/7/94.
61 “I wish they’d come”: Confidential source.
61 “You know Dennis”: Rex Reed, “The Man Who Walked Off With Easy Rider,” New York Times, 3/1/70.
61 “This guy is fucking”: Bob Rafelson, AI, 11/10/93.
61 “How’s your bike”: Fonda, AI, 3/17/97.
61 “Get the fuck”: Bob Rafelson, AI, 11/10/93.
62 “What makes us right?”: Blauner, AI, 2/28/94.
62 “All right, man”: Bill Hayward, AI, 11/15/92.
62 “You’re making a big”: Hopper, AI, 7/15/97.
63 “There was disagreement”: Peter Pilafian, AI, 4/22/93.
63 “He went right off’: Bill Hayward, AI, 11/15/92.
63 “Every one of them”: Hopper, AI, 7/15/97.
63 “I was really”: Hopper, AI, 7/15/97.
63 “he just started”: Baird Bryant, AI, 4/21/93.
63 “This is my fucking”: Fonda, AI, 3/17/97.
63 “Jimmy wouldn’t”: Barry Feinstein, AI, 6/23/93.
63 “Everybody was looking”: Fonda, AI, 3/17/97.
63 “On the final day”: Bryant, AI, 4/21/93.
64 “Here’s what I want”: Fonda, AI, 4/24/97.
64 “It may not sound like”: Bill Hayward, AI, 11/15/92.
64 “I don’t trust you”: Hopper, AI, 7/15/97.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls Page 67
