Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

by Peter Biskind

  137 “The Easy Rider period”: Oliver Stone, AI, n.d.

  137 “I saw coming events”: Selznick, AI, 7/12/93.

  137 “We had seen”: Newman, AI, 2/15/94.

  138 “We were pay-or-play” and following: Calley, AI, 3/4/93.

  138 “Using New York actors”: Nessa Hyams, AI, 4/1/94.

  138 “He kept him”: Altman, AI, 5/3/96.

  138 “I can pretty much”: Bruce Williamson, Playboy interview, 8/76.

  138 I slipped another”: Confidential source.

  138 “Are you sitting”: Bogdanovich, AI, 3/2/94.

  139 “the last person”: Scorsese, AI, 5/23/94.

  139 “Are you satisfied”: Sue Mengers, AI, 2/21/95.

  139 “I grew up in Manhattan”: Bogdanovich, AI, 3/2/94.

  Chapter 5: The Man Who Would Be King

  PAGE

  141 Epigraph: Milius, AI, 1/31/92.

  141 “the most exciting”: AIs with Bogdanovich, Platt, Friedkin, Coppola, Burstyn.

  142 I owe eleven Gs”: Evans, AI, 2/27/94.

  142 “idolized gangsters”: Bart, AI, n.d.

  142 “There was no great”: AI Ruddy, AI, 8/26/92.

  142 “That’s your esoteric”: Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture, New York, 1994, p. 220.

  143 “Francis, you’re just a kid”: Bart, AI, 3/11/97.

  143 “He can’t get a cartoon”: Evans, The Kid Stays, p. 220.

  143 “Should I do this?” and following: George Lucas, AI, 5/2/91.

  143 “Look, this kid”: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.

  144 “Vile ve’ve been”: Gordon Weaver, AI, 9/18/96.

  144 “these little white”: Confidential source.

  144 “He was a thug”: Bart, AI, 10/23/95.

  144 “Charlie had these black” and following: Simpson, AI, 7/21/93.

  145 “Brooklyn Street Corner”: Andrew Tobias, “The Apprenticeship of Frank Yablans,” New York, 9/23/74.

  145 “Frank had the biggest”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  145 “a bully, crass, corny”: Ruddy, AI, 8/26/92.

  145 “Nice tits today”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  145 “We were in London”: Bart, AI, 10/23/95.

  145 “Charlie was” and following: Frank Yablans, AI, 6/3/96.

  146 “He’s gorgeous.”: Howard Koch, Sr., AI, 10/16/95.

  146 “ ‘The Paramount caca “: Evans, The Kid Stays, p. 107.

  146 “What a joke”: Blauner, AI, 2/28/94.

  146 “Bob wasn’t egocentric”: Ruddy, AI, 8/26/92.

  147 Evans provided paragraphs: Bart, interviewed by Terri Minsky, 5/89.

  147 “At Bob’s house”: Confidential source.

  147 “Ali was one of”: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.

  147 “You have no idea”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  147 “You were dealing”: Henry, AI, 12/7/94.

  148 “Everybody was looking”: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.

  148 “ ‘Augie’s the bright one’ “: David Breskin, Inner Views, Boston, 1992, p. 44.

  148 “a frustrated man”: Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise, On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola, New York, 1989, p. 18.

  148 “All of us” and following: Talia Shire, AI, 5/11/95.

  149 “I used to go”: Breskin, Inner Views, p. 44.

  149 “All the kids” and following: Coppola, AI, 6/27/96.

  149 “I was called”: Dale Baker, The Movie People, New York, 1973, p. 67.

  150 “The way to come”: Michael Pye and Lynda Myles, The Movie Brats: How the Film Generation Took Over Hollywood, New York, 1979, p. 83.

  150 “You have to set”: Baker, The Movie People, p. 64.

  150 “is one of those”: Goodwin and Wise, On the Edge, p. 70.

  150 “Francis was always”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  151 “I had a really hard time”: Scorsese, AI, 5/23/94.

  151 “I never really got much”: Scorsese, AI, 8/1/91.

  151 “What he was taking”: Simpson, AI, 12/24/92.

  151 “We were all sitting”: Jennifer Salt, AI, 3/14/92.

  152 “We were fighting”: Scorsese, AI, 5/23/94.

  152 “Brian De Palma was”: Calley, AI, 3/4/93.

  152 “I always felt”: Brian De Palma, AI, 11/9/93.

  152 “I was not looking” and following: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  153 “He recorded my”: David Rensin, Playboy interview, 4/91.

  154 “I knew it was” and following: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  154 “Early on, Francis said”: Fred Roos, AI, 5/8/95.

  154 “Evans made Francis’s life”: Bart, interviewed by Terri Minsky, 5/89.

  154 “There weren’t a lot”: Gordon Willis, AI, 4/3/97.

  154 “We talked about”: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97; Peter Biskind, “Making Crime Pay,” Premiere, 8/97.

  155 “Screens were so blitzed”: Sragow, “Godfatherhood,” p. 49.

  155 “I’d always hear”: Willis, AI, 4/3/97.

  155 “Francis’s credentials”: Kesten, AI, 4/6/97.

  155 “It had gone terribly”: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  155 “When that dark stuff’: Willis, AI, 4/3/97.

  155 “They were black”: Shire, AI, 5/11/95.

  155 “What’s on the screen?”: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.

  155 “They hated Brando”: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  155 “Is this movie”: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.

  155 “The scene when” and following: Gray Frederickson, AI, 5/23/90, 5/10/95.

  156 “That was not the way”: Frederickson, AI, 5/10/95.

  156 “If you don’t finish”: Kesten, AI, 4/6/97.

  156 “It was hard for Francis”: Willis, AI, 4/3/97.

  156 “I like to lay out”: Sragow, “Godfatherland,” p. 49; Willis, AI, 4/3/97.

  156 “hates and misuses actors”: Susan Braudy, “Francis Ford Coppola: A Profile,” Atlantic Monthly, 8/76, p. 71.

  157 “Francis just sat down”: David Rensin, Playboy interview, 4/91.

  157 “Okay, but I’ll have”: Fred Gallo, AI, 3/5/97.

  157 “Why won’t they”: Confidential source.

  157 “When I was in New York”: Ruddy, AI, 8/26/92.

  157 “He had a guy”: Bart, interviewed by Terri Minsky, 5/89.

  158 “Do you want”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.

  158 “The picture stinks” and following: Evans, The Kid Stays, p. 227ff.

  158 “The deal was”: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  158 “Evans felt”: Calley, AI, 3/4/93.

  159 “Evans behaved very badly.”: Yablans, AI, 6/3/96.

  159 “Well, I guess” and following: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  159 “I had a great”: Robin French, AI, 6/24/94.

  160 “Evans pushed them”: Yablans, AI, 6/3/96.

  160 “It was just bad”: Roman Polanski, AI, 3/14/94.

  160 “I went through a picture”: Bart, interviewed by Terri Minsky, 5/89.

  161 “I was star fucking”: Evans, AI, 2/27/94.

  161 “I don’t want to hear”: Bart, AI, n.d.

  161 “Lou wanted him”: Payne, AI, 1/19/95.

  161 “What kind of script”: Evans, AI, 2/27/94.

  161 “We said the script”: Polanski, AI, 3/14/94.

  162 “This was the best”: Evans, AI, 2/27/94.

  162 “It was the start”: Ruddy, AI, 8/26/92.

  163 “When the picture had done”: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  163 “the best gangster”: Kael, New Yorker, 10/8/73.

  164 “In the seventies”: Sragow, “Godfatherland,” p. 52.

  165 “Congratulations, Billy”: Bogdanovich, AI, 11/16/93.

  165 “The goddamn dog”: Polanski, AI, 3/14/94; Biskind, “The Long Road to Chinatown,” Premiere, 6/94.

  165 “We fought, every day”: Towne, AI, 3/3/94.

  166 “Maybe it’s enough”: Richard Sylbert, AI, n.d.

  166 “I went to art”: Towne, AI, 3/3/94.

  166 “I thought it was”: Polanski, AI, 3/14/94.

  166 “Roman�
�s argument was”: Towne, AI, 3/3/94.

  166 “For a long time” and following: Breskin, Inner Views.

  166 “In some ways” and following: Sragow, “Godfatherland,” p. 45.

  167 “I think I was just”: Coppola, AI, 6/27/96.

  168 “My motive has been”: Axel Madsen, “The New Hollywood,” New York, 1975, p. 116.

  168 “When You’re Rich”: Robert Hillmann, AI, n.d.

  Chapter 6: Like a Rolling Stone

  PAGE

  169 Epigraph: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.

  169 “Where’s Hal?” and following: Charles Mulvehill, AI, 8/22/94.

  169 “Hal sometimes had”: Ayres, AI, 6/14/94.

  169 “Hal’s in jail” and following: Mulvehill, AI, 8/22/94.

  170 “I’m goin’ to”: Aljean Harmetz, “Gambling on a Film About the Great Depression,” New York Times, 12/15/76.

  172 “I saw what a force”: Wexler, AI, 8/18/95.

  172 “I’d been working”: Harmetz, “Gambling on a Film.”

  172 “There was nothin’ “ and following: Mulvehill, AI, 8/22/94.

  173 “To me, Harold and Maude”: Bart, AI, 4/17/92.

  173 “We felt”: Mulvehill, AI, 8/22/94.

  174 “They’d usually end up”: Wexler, AI, 8/18/95.

  174 “There was this”: Bart, AI, 10/23/95.

  174 “When one’s gone”: Robert Downey, Sr., AI, 1/11/98.

  174 “You couldn’t drag”: Mulvehill, AI, 8/22/94.

  174 “I didn’t want”: John Brady, The Craft of the Screenwriter, New York, 1981, p. 421.

  174 “I thought this was”: Ayres, AI, 6/14/94.

  175 “Oh yeah, white sailor”: Mulvehill, AI, 8/22/94.

  175 “The first seven”: Guber, AI, 11/10/92.

  175 “Now that movies”: Towne, 11/6/97.

  175 “I can get Burt”: Ayres, AI, 6/14/94.

  175 “They were afraid”: Guber, AI, 12/1/92.

  176 “Bob certainly saw himself”: Brackman, AI, 4/30/93.

  176 “take away the audience’s”: Bob Rafelson, AI, 10/29/96.

  176 “She was luminous”: Burstyn, AI, 512196.

  176 “It was open adoration”: Dern, AI, 6/17/95.

  176 “Nobody wanted him” and following: Brackman, AI, 4/30/93.

  176 “Bob was a very cerebral”: Burstyn, AI, 5/2/96.

  177 “On Marvin Gardens”: Brackman, AI, 8/31/95.

  177 “I was watching”: Dern, AI, 6/17/95.

  177 “At one point Bert”: Bob Rafelson, AI, 10/29/96.

  177 “That was a major”: Stephen Farber, “The Man Who Brought Us Greetings from the Vietcong,” New York Times, 5/4/75.

  178 “What do you mean” and following: Candice Bergen, Knock Wood, p. 254.

  178 “Most movie companies”: Harmetz, “Gambling on a Film.”

  178 “A lot of times” and following: Mulvehill, AI, 8/23/94.

  179 “I can get behind”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.

  179 “I’d heard what a” and following: Bob Jones, AI, 10/5/94.

  179 “He would come” and following: Mulvehill, AI, 8/25/94.

  180 “We’re coming up”: Jones, AI, 10/5/94.

  180 “Bob Towne has always been” and following: Ayres, AI, 6/14/94.

  181 “Let’s go over”: Lederer, 6/23/92.

  181 “Jack was always wild”: Gittes, AI, 12/12/94.

  181 “Cocaine is ‘in’”: Richard Warren Lewis, Playboy interview, 4/72.

  181 “In your brain”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 8/25/92.

  181 “What started as”: Evans, The Kid Stays, p. 269.

  182 “The studio was falling”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 8/25/92.

  182 “I felt that he”: Bart, interviewed by Terri Minsky, 5/89.

  182 “If it bombs”: William Murray, Playboy interview, 7/75.

  182 “I got the guy” and following: Coppola, AI, 3/3/97.

  183 “Look, who was the star” and following: Bart, AI, n.d.

  183 “Warners hurt me”: Coppola, AI, 12/5/97.

  184 “Get home immediately” and following: Bergen, Knock Wood, p. 263.

  184 “I knew Begelman” and following: Blauner, AI, 3/1/94.

  185 “Bert’s way of dealing” and following: Bob Rafelson, AI, 11/10/93.

  185 “All these people”: Henry, AI, 12/7/94.

  185 “Olinka would get up”: Mengers, AI, 2/21/95.

  186 “Huey was pretty coked” and following: Brackman, AI, 4/30/93.

  186 “I’ve always thought”: Henry, AI, 12/7/94.

  186 “Bert really put”: Toby Rafelson, AI, 6/12/94.

  186 The bereaved guests: Richard Rutkowski, AI, 11/10/94.

  186 “I’m not going”: Bob Rafelson, AI, 11/10/93.

  187 “Nobody ever recovers”: Henry, AI, 12/7/94.

  187 “None of the women”: Toby Rafelson, AI, 6/12/94.

  188 “That was the beginning”: Richard Sylbert, AI, n.d.

  188 “Roman is Napoleon”: Evans, AI, 2/27/94.

  188 “He’d say, ‘In Poland’ “: Koch, Jr., AI, 3/15/94.

  188 “Jack was always amused.”: Anthea Sylbert, AI, 3/10/94.

  189 Dunaway was in the habit: Anthea Sylbert, AI, 3/10/94; Koch, AI, 3/15/94.

  189 When she did use the John and following: Koch, AI, 3/15/94.

  189 “Every time I shouted” and following: Polanski, AI, 3/14/94.

  189 “There was a scene”: John Alonzo, AI, 3/30/94; Koch, AI, 3/15/94.

  189 “He was so courageous”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 6/12/94.

  190 “Did Warren really”: Confidential source.

  190 “Robert’s failure to deliver”: Beatty, AI, 3/16/95.

  190 “She thinks”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.

  190 “It was very hard-hitting”: Lester Persky, AI, 2/26/95.

  190 “Look, Bob, I’m”: Evans, AI, 2/27/94.

  191 “People thought Columbia” and following: Beatty, AI, 6/28/94.

  192 “He was devastated”: Toby Rafelson, AI, 6/12/94.

  192 “Basically it would” and following: Mulvehill, AI, 8/23/94.

  193 “Warren was a giant”: Hellman, AI, 6/20/94.

  193 “Hal admired the way”: Mulvehill, AI, 8/23/94.

  193 “Both Warren and Jack”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.

  193 “Hal hated authority”: Mulvehill, AI, 8/23/94.

  193 “It was tough”: Jones, AI, 10/5/94.

  193 “I visited the set”: Wexler, AI, 8/18/95.

  193 “Hal walked up”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 5/12/93.

  194 “It was a collaborative”: Anthea Sylbert, AI, 7/22/93.

  194 “There were three of us”: Towne, AI, 11/6/97.

  194 “If the director”: Hank Moonjean, AI, 4/19/96.

  194 “You’re being completely” and following: Don Devlin, AI, 11/22/94.

  195 “He kept cutting”: Platt, AI, 6/29/94.

  195 “Jack always has”: Gittes, AI, 12/12/94.

  195 “didn’t know whose”: Richard Sylbert, AI, 8/25/92.

  195 “He loved that sense”: Mimi Machu Mireille, AI, 2/4/95.

  195 “It’ll be just like” and following: Mulvehill, AI, 8/23/94.

  196 “Hal’s lungs were”: Mireille, AI, 2/4/95.

  196 “Hal was snorting”: Wexler, AI, 8/18/95.

  Chapter 7: Sympathy for the Devil

  PAGE

  197 “There is a darkness”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  197 On December 8: Porter Bibb, “Altamont: The Sixties On Stage,” The Variety History of Show Business, New York, 1993, pp. 133–38.

  198 “I’m not going”: William Peter Blatty, AI, 11/9/94.

  198 “If you don’t”: Bogdanovich, AI, 3/2/94.

  198 “the worst piece”: William Friedkin, Seminar, Dialogue in Film, AFI Vols. 3 and 4, February/March 1974, p. 5.

  198 “Billy was a tough critter.”: Confidential source.

  198 “Someone who could”: Blatty, AI, 11/9/94.

  198 “A good part”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

 
198 “It was all very well”: Blatty, AI, 11/9/94.

  199 “I just want you”: William Friedkin, Seminar, p. 6.

  199 “My grief could”: Nat Segaloff, Hurricane Billy, New York, 1990, p. 137.

  199 “There was a certain” and following: Blatty, AI, 11/9/94.

  199 “Did you read”: Thomas D. Clagett, William Friedkin: Films of Aberration, Obsession and Reality, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1990, p. 111.

  200 “He never threw”: Evan Lottman, AI, 10/24/96.

  200 “Charlie Greenlaw’s on”: Burstyn, AI, 4/10/96.

  200 “A lot of the guys”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  200 “It was a fucking”: Segaloff, Hurricane Billy, p. 22.

  200 “My mother was”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  201 “He had Welles posters” and following: Bill Butler, AI, 10/12/95.

  201 “I remember the day”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  202 “Mr. Friedkin, you’re not”: William Friedkin Seminar, p. 3.

  202 “I don’t give”: Clagett, William Friedkin, p. 28.

  202 “How’d’ya like the tie”: Segaloff, Hurricane Billy, p. 52.

  202 “the plotted film”: Variety, quoted in Segaloff, Hurricane Billy, p. 63.

  202 “aggressiveness and rank-pulling”: Ralph Rosenblum, When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins, New York, 1979, p. 232.

  203 “I’ve got something”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96; Segaloff, Hurricane Billy, p. 99.

  203 “They really stayed”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  204 “American films”: Segaloff, Hurricane Billy, p. 101.

  204 “I got an extra” and following: Chris Chase, “Everyone’s Reading It, Billy’s Filming It,” New York Times, 8/27/72.

  204 “Billy had a kind of”: Moore, AI, 5/5/93.

  204 “a lot of girls” and following: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  205 “I came back”: Segaloff, Hurricane Billy, p. 113.

  205 “In those days”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  205 “My career has ruined”: Gordon Gould and Bob Ellison, “A Devil of a Director,” Chicago Tribune Magazine, 12/23/73.

  205 “I’m a millionaire”: Butler, AI, 10/12/95.

  206 “The next day was”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  206 “I have no image”: Chase, “Everyone’s Reading It.”

  206 “I’m making commercial”: Gould and Ellison, “A Devil of a Director.”

  206 “We’d get a bunch”: Bogdanovich, AI, 3/2/94.

  206 “Friedkin, vat’s dat shit”: Friedkin, AI, 4/19/96.

  207 “Part of my desire”: Goodwin and Wise, On the Edge, p. 150.

  207 “You von’t belief”: Yablans, AI, 6/3/96.