American Rhapsody

by Joe Eszterhas

  • While at an airport pay phone, producer Marty Ransohoff learned that Jane Fonda didn’t like my script of Jagged Edge. “The sleazy fucking stupid cunt!” Ransohoff screamed into the phone. “What does she know? Jane Fonda went down on the Vietcong.” His mom used to work for Goldwater.

  • Robert Evans heard that a condition of Sharon Stone’s contract for Sliver was that Evans could never be on the set when Sharon was there. Sharon had a girlfriend who claimed that Evans had kept her in his house, naked and wearing a dog collar, for months. Evans’s response: “Sharon Stone is a lying dumb cunt who’s had all the brains in her head fucked out. I wouldn’t fuck her for all the money that I’ve pissed away. I’ve never kept a girl in a dog collar in my life.” “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss—”

  • When I publicly objected to the “citizen’s arrests” of gay people by Basic Instinct producer Alan Marshall during the filming of the movie in San Francisco, Carolco head Mario Kassar called my agent, Guy McElwaine. Mario was apoplectic.

  “What is Joe doing? He’s making assholes out of us!” Mario yelled.

  “He doesn’t like you arresting protesters,” Guy said.

  “I’m going to sue him!” Mario yelled.

  “If you do that,” my agent said, “you’re going to have every gay person between San Francisco and Paris protesting the movie.”

  “Fuck him!” Mario screamed. “I’m going to put out a contract on him.” Kathleen Willey’s dead cat?

  • Thinking that producer Irwin Winkler had leaked a script before he was ready to sell it, my agent, Guy McElwaine, called him and said, “If you’re walking down the street and you see me driving by, run! Because I’m going to put you through a store window. If you’re in a restaurant and I walk in, run! Because I’m going to drag you out by your neck. If you’re in a rest room and I see you, pray! Because I’m going to stick your head in a toilet.” F-word Linda Tripp!

  • Knowing that he’d conspired against me as I tried to convince Jean-Claude Van Damme to stick to my script, I called his agent, Jack Gilardi. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Jack,” I said. “I’m going to come down there with a baseball bat and bust your knees so you can’t walk. Then I’m going to bust your ribs so you can’t breathe. Then I’m going to bust your ears so you can’t hear. I’d bust your head, but you can’t think anyway. So I’m going to bust your balls so you can’t fuck.” You’d feel at home here, pal.

  I saw him about a year later with his wife and some friends by a pool in Maui. I went over and apologized and we shook hands.

  “It was a helluva speech, though,” Jack said. “I remember it almost word for word. You oughta put it in one of Jean-Claude’s movies.” Camp David Accords?

  Talking Points

  Jagged Edge was about a celebrity figure, the editor of a San Francisco newspaper, Jack Forester, who kills his wife and gets away with it. Don’t even think about it!

  Part of his alibi is the public’s reluctance to believe that a respected figure and husband could kill his wife in such a heinous, vicious way. They’d suspect you immediately.

  Crucial to Jack Forester’s defense is that the murder weapon, a knife with a jagged edge, is never found. The Rose Law Firm billing records?

  In the summer of 1993, Naomi and I spent an afternoon around the pool of the Ritz-Carlton on Maui with O. J. Simpson and his wife, Nicole. O.J. talked about how much he wanted to be in one of my movies and told me how much he admired Basic Instinct and, especially, Jagged Edge.

  A year later, as Naomi and I heard the shocking details of Nicole Simpson’s and Ron Goldman’s killing, we thought about our pleasant afternoon at the Ritz with O.J. and Nicole. We had a peripheral connection to the case. Days before he joined the defense team, attorney Bob Shapiro was representing me in my divorce trial in Marin County.

  As the O.J. trial proceeded, I was struck by the similarities to Jagged Edge. Here was a celebrity figure accused of killing his wife. Those defending him argued that he was a good father and that he loved Nicole—that a husband who loved his wife couldn’t kill her in such a heinous, vicious way. Then there was the murder weapon, a knife, as in Jagged Edge, a knife never found. There was even a spooky coincidence of a knife, not the murder weapon, but like the murder weapon, shown to the court during O.J.’s trial.

  “This thing’s like Jagged Edge,” I kiddingly said to Bob Shapiro.

  He looked me dead in the eye and said, “You have no idea.”

  I hadn’t seen Jagged Edge for a long time—it was released in 1985—and I put it on again. I stopped it suddenly, rewound it, and played it again. I felt chills down my back.

  The date of the murders was the same. The night of June 12 in the movie, the night of June 12 in real life.

  I asked Shapiro later what his international fame meant to him. “It means,” he said, “that I can get a blow job anywhere in the world.” Fire Bob Bennett; hire Bob Shapiro.

  Vernon Jordan Recommended Her

  Charles Evans, Bob’s brother, the executive producer of Showgirls, called director Paul Verhoeven and said he had just auditioned the perfect lead for Showgirls … in his New York hotel room. I told you you’d like show business!

  Verhoeven went ballistic with the mild-mannered Evans. “You don’t audition!” he yelled. “I audition! Are you crazy? You’re auditioning girls in your hotel room? Do you want to get us sued before we roll any film?” It’s okay. Everybody does it. Don’t worry.

  Charlie Evans argued that this girl was striking and talented. “Please,” he said, “just audition her.”

  Paul said, “Forget it! I don’t even want to know her name.”

  Paul continued auditioning actresses in L.A., and one day he auditioned a young woman named Elizabeth Berkley, a minor TV starlet. Those who saw the audition said Elizabeth was uninhibited and visibly impressed Paul with the size and shape of her bared breasts. Maybe you should direct. When the shoot began, Paul and Elizabeth began a steamy and public affair, not unusual behavior for directors during a shoot.

  You would have loved the set of Basic, the movie Paul and I previously did. Paul outdoes most directors, who view their sets during a shoot the way you view your windowless hallway. He told me once that his best sexual experience was with a woman who defecated on the bed when she climaxed. No, not Farrah. His Rabelaisian attitude was perfect for Basic, whose set was a barrel of libido and testosterone squeezed into a sardine can. To get ready for the shoot, Michael Douglas went down to Mexico to lose weight and get some sun “so I can look beautiful.” The shoot began and Michael had a fling with Jeanne Tripplehorn; then Sharon and Michael had a confrontation, which ended with the kind of ego standoff where each insisted the other be the one to move closer before they embraced.

  Then Paul and Sharon developed a fixation on each other. You know how Sharon is: “I’m naked at the drop of a hat,” she told People magazine. But Sharon insisted Paul move out on his wife—which Paul refused to do—before the fixation was consummated. You didn’t have to do that, did you? Then Paul burst an artery in his nose—which was or wasn’t the result of a Michael Douglas punch—I couldn’t ever get it clear. The various accounts at various times were as carefully parsed as your grand jury testimony.

  Anyway, back to Showgirls. … Elizabeth continued her uninhibited antics all through the shoot. “I’m trying to help her get through a scene,” Gina Gershon told me, “and she’s telling me what she’s going to do to Paul’s dick that night.” Elizabeth is your dream girl! Beat your bongo drums! Call her! Send her Leaves of Grass! Now!

  Not until the end of the shoot did Charlie Evans tell Paul that the young woman he’d auditioned in his hotel room that day was Elizabeth Berkley.

  I hope I’ve convinced you, Bubba, and thanks for being a fan. O.J. is a fan, too; the first thing he did after his acquittal was to see Showgirls and Jade back to back.

  I fee
l your pain,

  P.S. Steven’s chickenshit. You’d be great in Sacred Cows, too.

  [12]

  The President’s Piece of Cake

  Goddamn! Talk about a spoiled Jewish American Princess! Shaking me down for her bullshit job! What was wrong with working at the Pentagon anyway? She had a chance to travel, didn’t she? London. Hong Kong. Brussels. Well, okay, maybe she didn’t like damn Brussels . . . .

  And then I work it so she can go to the UN and live in New York, and she doesn’t want to do it. The deal is almost done, and then she decides, she and her Beverly Hills mother, that there are too many Arabs in New York! It’s the Jewish capital of America, and she thinks there are too many Arabs there! Well, what about Beverly Hills? The Arabs have taken over Beverly Hills. Don’t they bother her there?

  Christ, I should have my head examined just for letting her start all this. She had that come-hither look the first time I saw her. Snapping her underwear at me so I could see the crack of her ass. You talk about come hither—mama! Hot little bitch. Big snow-white titties popping out of her dress. Shaking that ass at me every time she walked by, like it had a fun life of its own. Well, maybe it was a little big, yeah, but a little big never bothers me.

  What was I supposed to do? What the hell was I supposed to do? She was putting it right out there like her own oven-warm angel food cake, and I was hungry. I’m always hungry. Was I supposed to say no and deny myself even this little reward?

  I was busting my butt at this job, up till three, four hours of sleep, always on the plane, jet-lagged all the time. My sinuses were driving me nuts. My back hurt. My knee ached. A little reward. Just a little reward. A piece of angel food cake to recharge my batteries. I didn’t even pop her. I didn’t even do that.

  All I did, really, except for a couple times at the end, was let her kiss me there. She wanted more. She always wanted more. She had her hands all over dumb Willard the first time I kissed her. She knew the deal. She told me right away she’d been with that married guy. What did she think was going to happen? I was going to leave Hillary for a piece of cake?

  I made such a mistake! God, oh God, such a mistake! I knew there were dangers right off the top. She had to be a little nuts, following me around, showing up everywhere I went, even on that sidewalk in New York as the car went by. And the chatter, the constant, endless chatter. Motormouth. All those da da da da das. All those blah blah blah blah blahs. I kissed her as soon as I saw her sometimes, just to shut her the fuck up. Trying to stop her motor before she got cranked. Goddamn, didn’t she get it? She was supposed to kiss me there, not talk to me. She was supposed to unbutton herself, not tell me her ideas about education. Even when she wasn’t talking, the noise that she made! When I had my fingers there and she was making those dolphin noises? Can’t she even moan quietly? I was afraid the Secret Service would burst through the door, thinking I’d cardiacked. I had to put my hand over her mouth. My hand got all wet. She was roaring down her track like that steam locomotive I used to watch in Hot Springs.

  Then she started putting her little dramas into play, talking to me about her mother’s dimwit book about Pavarotti, about her father cheating on her mother and marrying his nurse. Was I supposed to care? Why did she think I’d care? I didn’t even know her name the first time. She knew that; she even made a joke about it.

  Now she was telling me about this loser, Andy, up in Oregon, cheating on his wife. I’m the president of the United States and I have to hear about Andy? My head is full of budgets and bills and battle plans and I have to hear about how mean Andy’s been to her?

  What did she think I was? Her friend? Her lover? Her father? Her shrink? Why did she think I gave a shit? How could she not know that she was nothing more than a piece of cake? Is she that stupid? The whole country—the whole world—knows how I feel about cake! Books have been written about it. She had to know whom she was dealing with. That had to be the reason why she’d snapped her underwear at me.

  So why was she acting like she was a human being to me now? Didn’t she know I’m always busy? I’d certainly let her know. I was on the phone, taking care of America’s business even as she was kneeling there. Talking about Bosnia, about the sugar subsidy. Her ears and her mouth were wide open. What is she—deaf and dumb?

  What a drama queen! All those crock-a-shit tears when she lost her job at the White House. It was an election year, for Christ’s sake! I didn’t have any room for any more Gennifer stories. Didn’t she get it? People talked. Nancy and Marsha and Debbie and Cathy watched her like hawks. They know if I have new cake. They know me too well. They get jealous. They don’t want any other cake around. They take my new cake away.

  People talk. The stewards talk and the residence staff talks and the Secret Service agents talk, and Hillary’s damn spies are everywhere, listening to everybody talk. She lost her job so I wouldn’t lose the presidency. She lost her job so Nancy and Marsha and Debbie and Cathy wouldn’t have to compete with her. But no—she didn’t understand that! She didn’t think it was fair that she lost her job because of me. Her focus wasn’t on the presidency, on America—her focus was on herself, on her bullshit job.

  It was as if she took herself seriously when she told me she wanted to be secretary of blow jobs. She had somehow elevated her crummy White House job into a cabinet-level position. She actually expected me to do something about it, to get her White House job back for her. Was she really that self-involved . . . to think that the president of the United States would personally issue an order to bring a twenty-three-year-old former intern back into my work space? After all these people had already talked about her coming in to see me in the Oval Office?

  I could just see the story breaking during the campaign, putting the White House back into the hands of those motherfucking bastards I’ve fought my whole life to take it from. But she didn’t see these things. All she talked about was getting her bullshit job back and how unfair it was that she’d lost it because of me. This little ditz was trying to make me feel guilty?

  Even when I called her from the campaign trail at the end of a long day . . . I’ve got Willard in one hand, the phone in the other. I just want a moment of peace. I’ve got flashes of her tits running through my head. Even then she wants to talk about her job. I couldn’t fucking believe it! She knew I liked her talking dirty to me. All day long, I’m out on the stump, up on the platform with Hillary, sound bites and photo ops . . . and I get back to the privacy of my hotel bedroom and call her, and she badgers me about what I’m doing to get her White House job back.

  I shine her on. I have her see some staff people, including Marsha, who shines her on, too. But that leads to a whole other drama. Now she’s angry that I sent her to Marsha. She knows that Marsha and I . . . And now she’s saying that Marsha’s never going to help her get a job at the White House because Marsha’s jealous. She’s telling me that it isn’t fair that Nancy and Marsha and Debbie and Cathy can see me and she can’t. Come on—I’ve got Willard in my hand at the end of a brutal day and I have to hear this?

  I was getting a little afraid of her, too. I couldn’t afford to make her angry. I couldn’t afford her flipping out somehow. If she told—a young White House intern and dumb Willard in the Oval Office—well that, plain and simple, goddamn it, would be the end of the world. I felt trapped. I couldn’t afford to piss her off or freak her out, but I couldn’t afford to let her back inside the White House, either.

  I was trapped in another way, too. I didn’t want to see her—and I didn’t see her through the whole campaign. But I did want to see her with her mouth there and her tits sticking out of her bra, glowing white in that dark hallway. I was afraid to see her because I knew my hunger was gonna force me to lead her into that hallway or into the bathroom.

  In my more paranoid moments, I wondered if it was possible that this babbling idiot had set me up. Of course she knew about my hunger for cake. That’s why she snapped her damn underwear at me. That’s why she followed me aro
und. That’s why she knelt down before I knew her damn name. She wanted to compromise me. She wanted to have the president of the United States by his willard.

  She kept crying over the phone, telling me how unhappy she was in her Pentagon job, how much she missed me. “I don’t wanna talk about your job tonight!” I finally said to her once. “I wanna talk about other things.” She knew what that meant. She did the dirty talk and that led her to talk about how much she wanted to sleep with me.

  And that sent her on another crying jag, until I asked if she wanted me to stop calling her. She said no. She started showing up again at campaign events. At one of them, I’m reaching across a rope line to grip and grin with somebody, and she reaches out and grabs Willard. Man, that spooked me! I thought she was flipping out. Grabbing Willard in public? Willard shrunk!

  When I saw her damn Valentine’s Day ad in the Washington Post, it spooked me even more. What had I done to myself? How could I have done this to myself? I’d allowed my fate to be held hostage by a piece of cake? Was this Fatal Attraction? I was scared shitless. So I agreed to see her. I hadn’t seen her alone in ten months. Ten months, and she was hanging all over me.

  What could I do? If I dumped her, she could flip and talk. I shined her on. I gave her some Christmas presents and then I took her into the hallway and allowed her, for the first time, to make Willard happy. I’m not sure why I let her do that. Either it was my hunger for cake or it was part of my strategy of shining her on so she wouldn’t flip out or talk. Or it was a combination of the two reasons. Or it was just hardheaded, dumb Willard.

  Then I heard from Marsha that the idiot had told her mother about our “friendship.” Her mother told Walter Kaye, that old moneybags who keeps sending me shirts, who then told Marsha. It was my worst nightmare. Who else had she told? Who else had her gossipy damn mother told? Who else had kiss-ass Walter told? I cursed myself out. How could I have ever trusted Motormouth not to tell anyone? I knew I had to end this and end it now and try to do it as gently and diplomatically as possible, so she wouldn’t turn on me and do the fuck knew what. She’d betrayed me.