Robert Altman

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  That’s what he did. Of course after the first day he was fine. But he was really nervous. He was so cute, he really was.

  I was supposed to get forty dollars a week for my work. I had left a job making three hundred dollars a week, but Bob was never able to come up with that money.

  LOTUS CORELLI ALTMAN MONROE: At that time I was doing a TV show sponsored by the Presto pressure cooker and GE stoves and refrigerators. He wasn’t working at the Calvin Company, so this was keeping us going at this point.

  JOAN ALTMAN SARAFIAN: Helene was really disappointed with the accommodations. But she lived with it. Tom Laughlin also was really disturbed. He’d just come off something; he thought he was an actor now. I have heard through the grapevine he speaks very highly of me, though I can’t say the same of him. He was going to walk off the show.

  Bob said, “You’ve got to talk him up. Give him lunch and talk him out of it.”

  So I did. He said he couldn’t stand the girl that Bob hired from Kansas City. Pat Stedman, I think. Nice girl. She had been one of the Resident Theatre actresses and she was very good.

  Laughlin said, “I can’t look at her. She looks like a pig.”

  I felt like saying, “You look more like one.” But I was able to talk him into staying.

  TOM LAUGHLIN: I don’t remember her name. Some local kid. She had never acted. She struggled. I felt badly for her and I felt for the picture, but there was nothing I could do about it. She was just very amateurish and very raw.

  ROBERT ALTMAN: That was terrible. He was just arrogant, and he had an idea about how he thought the film should be made, and what the other actors should do. I had a different idea, and we just did not get along.

  TOM LAUGHLIN: He was disorganized. He didn’t have a precise plan to shoot all the time. Sometimes he showed up pretty late. That’s how I started to be a director. Bob would come late and I showed up on time, ahead of time, very professional. One morning, I got rambunctious. The crew, everyone else was there. I said, “Well, the scene is written. Let’s do it. If Bob doesn’t like it he can throw it out. Why sit around wasting time?” It was Elmer Rhoden’s money. I felt guilty. So I directed. I shot a scene. I never heard directly from him, but I understood he was furious.

  I didn’t have much of a relationship with Bob. He was a great party guy. I didn’t party with him. I was very serious about my craft and career. When it was done I went home and got ready for the next day.

  A scene from The Delinquents, with Tom Laughlin at far right

  RICHARD BAKALYAN (actor): Laughlin was a very strange guy. I think he thought he was Marlon Brando and James Dean wrapped together. He was into performing as a Method actor, I guess.

  TOM LAUGHLIN: I don’t consider myself a Method actor. I consider myself a Stanislavsky actor.

  RICHARD BAKALYAN: I loved Bob. I thought he was a very good director. He knew what he wanted and he worked to get it.

  The real conflict was between Laughlin and Peter Miller, who played the other gang leader. Only because Laughlin threw his weight around a lot. He was a karate guy or some crap. You can go around talking about how tough you are, but the real guy is the one who keeps his mouth shut and goes around doing his business. Laughlin wanted to be the main man and that’s the way he behaved.

  TOM LAUGHLIN: In the script I was the hero. Peter was the villain. Bob had a way of having social get-togethers when he looked at the dailies. He and Peter became very close. Peter wanted to change his image from the rapist in Blackboard Jungle and be the hero. So they would come back and make script changes, like I’m supposed to get down and cry and beg for my life, and he’s the hero. I refused. That was totally in contradiction to everything I was hired for and contracted for and was promised. I went to the Guild on it and won, of course.

  RICHARD BAKALYAN: Bob was a gentleman. He never lost his temper, even at times when one could. Like trying to do it on a shoestring and dealing with Laughlin.

  TOM LAUGHLIN: One night we were shooting a night scene and Peter and I were having a verbal confrontation in front of the car and it escalated. He changed the scene and I think I threw Peter over the hood of the car. That ended the night’s shooting.

  I remember that night Joan trying to intervene and trying to stop the tussle. I was pretty hard on Peter. Though he was my size he wasn’t much of a fighter.

  ROBERT ALTMAN: He was just a horror, but there was nothing I could do about it. That experience probably had a lot to do later with me making sure there wasn’t a presence like that around.

  The minute an actor comes into a cast, into a group, it’s like DNA. They’re there. And if you take them out and replace them with someone else it’s a different creature—it’s an elephant instead of a rhinoceros. To think that you can control this animal, you know, you’re wrong. All you can do is assemble it.

  From the movie poster:

  THE DELINQUENTS: THE HOODS OF TOMORROW! THE GUN-MOLLS OF THE FUTURE! THE “BABY FACES” WHO HAVE JUST TAKEN THEIR FIRST STUMBLING STEP DOWN SIN STREET, U.S.A.

  * * *

  REZA BADIYI: Night and day we shot Delinquents. When it was finished, the film was shipped to Hollywood. Bob arranged to edit it there, to get himself there, too. Then Bob threw a big good-bye party. He invites a hundred people to a certain hall and orders the food and booze and then gets the most famous black singer and their band to come over there and perform. It was a hell of a night, a hell of a night. And in the end they bring the bill and he’s writing a check and the guy from the hall says, “Bob, wait a minute. I have three of your bad checks. I don’t want any more checks.” So Bob reaches in his pocket, he brings out twenty dollars. He says, “I pay, everybody pays!” And we did. I mean, I never ever heard of anybody else doing that.

  He had bought himself this brand-new Thunderbird. And for some reason he didn’t like the color of it. He sent it to be painted, because he used it in the movie for one scene or two, and there was a scratch. It was red, and he wanted to change it to be white. Well, it came back and it’s red again. Now he was upset, but that was the last day before we were leaving, so that was that. The plan was that I’d go with him, because I haven’t seen the West. The good-bye party went till almost midnight and everybody drank to his health and he drank to everybody’s health. At the time I wasn’t familiar yet with alcohol. Being born a Muslim it wasn’t something that I was interested in. So Bob came out, and we have our suitcases in the trunk and in the back. He drove us to the turnpike, and then he says, “Reza, I’m not doing well, I’m going to lay down. You drive west.” I said, “Which is west?” And he pointed, “That way.”

  It was after noon that we got to mountains in Colorado. And it is a bright, bright day, but somehow it started snowing a little. I pulled out the camera and I started shooting as Bob is driving. He used to be a flier in World War II, so he had these flier glasses. So he’s wearing his flier glasses and he’s driving and it’s snowing and we have the top down and he said, “Fabulous.”

  When I think about the good part of life, it was that. It was those days. And it was beautiful.

  CHAPTER 7

  California

  *

  REZA BADIYI: The next day we drove all the way to Las Vegas. This is 1956, during the convention of the Republican Party in San Francisco. We were listening to that on the radio, and Bob was analyzing what was happening in the country and reciting the speeches of Winston Churchill. I realized at that moment that Bob is a Democrat. He had such an ear for politics, and such respect for Harry S. Truman. And he was troubled by seeing an Army man in the White House.

  Ahead of time, before Las Vegas, we stopped at a place to eat. Bob called long-distance to a lady that was in our movie, Helene, and a few other friends to meet us in Las Vegas. We went to the hotel that he wanted to stay in, and there wasn’t any room. We went to second hotel, third hotel. He was very unhappy. So we went to a motel and Bob told me to take a shower and get ready—“Get your good suit out and send it to be pressed.” Bob went out and
shopped for a few things that included dark sunglasses for me and a cigarette holder, a black one with a silver end. Then Bob put me in a suit and tie and said, “Reza, let’s see if we can do this.”

  He called the Sahara, and he says, “This is Robert Altman. Is our suite ready? It’s Prince Reza Badiyi from Tehran, from the State Department. Is his suite ready?”

  And they ask, “Who?”

  Bob said it again and they said, “Would you please hold?” They came back and said, “Yes sir, it’s ready.” So he sent the car to be washed and we went over. He told me, “Never talk to anyone but to me.”

  We arrived and I’m having my cigarette holder in my hand and I have my tie and a carnation. And it was just too much. It was like a bad high school play. I was graduated out of the Royal Academy of Drama in Iran. I won the gold medal from the king. And now I’m playing somebody that Bob imagined!

  Working with his first writing partner, George W. George, the son of cartoonist Rube Goldberg

  The elevator door opened and Bob didn’t allow anybody to go in but me and Bob. We went up to our room—fabulous! Champagne, the beautiful fruit baskets and everything. We were not there ten minutes and management called. They say, “You are invited tonight to have dinner and a show.” Bob was in hog heaven. And the call came from his friends, all these guys that he knew from before and Helene. They arrived, so it became an entourage for me.

  Judy Garland was entertaining and her daughter Liza was ten years old. They came on the stage for one end of the show. Then they came down to be introduced to me! I got up and did my impression of being great and I kiss her hand and so forth and then they took pictures of us. Great. Now, of course there wasn’t any bill. Bob tells me, whispers—“Under the table.” With no one seeing, he hands me a one-hundred-dollar bill. He said, “When we get up, drop it for the boys who clean.”

  This is what I did. It was like a bomb—“The man threw a hundred-dollar tip on the table when he left!” So this whole play is being written by Bob, and he is of course starring in it.

  Second day, third day. I’m getting tired. I sit at the gambling table with Bob. Bob is playing craps, and he says, “Push the entire stack on number eight.” And he wins!

  Helene is staying in the suite with Bob, and I have a separate room. She comes to me and says, “Bob is winning so much. You know, Reza, he’s going to lose it all. You know that’s the nature of Bob.” She had started gathering anything that was not a dollar or five dollars—ten dollars, twenty dollars—gathered all of that and put it in one of the drawers. The next night she was going to go back to California. She had one of those heart-shaped hatboxes. It was something like twelve grand in there, and she left.

  Bob came back and now he was losing, and he says, “What happened?” So now we are coming to the end of our drama, and all of a sudden there’s a telephone call from management. And they said, “Prince Gholam-Reza from Iran has arrived. We told him Prince Reza is here, and he is very anxious to meet him.”

  Oh shit, now what? Bob says, “We run for it.” I said, “No, no, no. When I was on my soccer team, he liked me very much. After I became a cameraman for the palace, he was saying to me, ‘Why don’t you play more soccer?’ So maybe he recognizes me.” So I called his room and in very polite Farsi I said, “Hello, I’m Reza Badiyi. I do not know if you remember me from the soccer days. The fact is, we wanted to come stay here, and there was no room and my friend and sponsor said I’m a prince.” He laughed. He says, “You’re kidding me! This is good, I like those things. I like those things.” He says, “Tonight, you come with me.” So we went down with his entourage. The two princes, arm in arm, we walk in and the cameras are taking pictures. I didn’t know it, but he paid for our room, without me asking for anything.

  And Bob lost everything that he had. We got back to our car and started driving. When we got very close to L.A. we were out of money, out of gas. I find something like five dollars and that put gas in it, just enough to get there. We went to Helene and she had a dinner for us. After dinner, Helene went and brought the hatbox and put it in front of Bob. Bob says, “What’s that?” She says, “Let’s open it.” He opened it, sees all the money, and says, “Where did that come from?” She explains and he says, “Goddammit, that’s why I was losing! You took my seed money away.”

  He picked up the money and flew back to Vegas from Burbank. He lost it all that night and came back. That’s how Bob and I came to Hollywood.

  LOTUS CORELLI ALTMAN MONROE: When we went back to California, Bob’s with Helene, so he finds an apartment for me in Brentwood. Bought all this furniture and for about two months couldn’t decide between me and Helene. He’d go back and forth.

  I told him once, “You should get a large apartment building for all your women.” He laughed and said, “But you have to remember, seniority doesn’t count.”

  Lotus Corelli Altman with her sons, Michael (left) and Stephen Altman

  One night I got a babysitter and when I got back Bob was with the kids and he’s in a rage—“Where have you been?” I said, “I’ve been to the movies.” He was so furious. This was the first time he was violent. He pulled the phone out of the wall, and this was one with a heavy base. He swung it and hit me in the back and broke two ribs. I called the police and the doctor, and I was running out in the driveway and he realized he’d better get out of there. When the police called him, he said, “You woke me up. I haven’t been anywhere.”

  JOAN ALTMAN SARAFIAN: Bob was in California, editing The Delinquents. I had to go to California with him. I did not want to. I had to go with him.

  I called his apartment the largest ashtray in L.A., and I was the only one who did the cleaning. All the young Hollywood kids would come over. Reza’s friend would fix a pilaf that would melt in your mouth. I’ve never been able to match it. And who was in Easy Rider? Dennis Hopper, yeah, he would be there. He would come and all these girls who were really, really ultra, little shiksas, I call them, wandering around. Every night there was a party. One day I was upstairs cleaning the floor, a red-and-white linoleum floor, and Reza came in. He sat down and he always thought he was in love with me. I said, “If you really cared about me, Reza, you’d pick up a mop and help me!” He was always so cute, though. He was sweet.

  B.C. kept sending me tickets to come back, but Bob needed to cash those in and use them, which he did. The last one, I said, “No, I’m not going to give it to you.” He stood at the door, and I can see him today. I said, “You know, Bob, you have a red hue around you. It’s like looking at the devil. I’m not giving you the ticket. I’m going to go home. I’m in love with Dick Sarafian.”

  Bob did not like Dick. He told me, “Don’t marry him, he’s”—what was the word? Not a user, but some word like that. I was pregnant, but I didn’t marry him because I was pregnant. I didn’t know I was pregnant.

  Anyway, I went back to Kansas City and Bob stayed in California.

  HARVEY FRIED (friend): After Bob left Kansas City, SuEllen and I saw him a handful of times in those early years in California. Bob was always a very generous guy, even when he was down on his luck. Trying to take us out to dinner, have us up to dinner, that sort of thing. He was frequently short, financially.

  He insisted we go one evening to a small stadium to see tennis matches, because Pancho Gonzales was playing. He didn’t have the tickets when he got there. So I got tickets and we saw the tennis. I kind of felt sorry for Bob at that time because I think he was having financial difficulties.

  SUELLEN FRIED: One time we went to a tennis match with them, in California. The marriage was kind of coming apart at this point. Lotus confided to me that evening when the guys were into the tennis that she was very concerned about their relationship. They got divorced, and the next time we saw him he still hadn’t become famous yet. He was living off the Hollywood strip. He was sharing a place with two other men, and so we offered to take Bob to lunch. He suggested the Brown Derby. Harvey can tell you how many martinis Bob had, which was kin
d of shocking to us.

  HARVEY FRIED: He just had a series of martinis for lunch. Four or six martinis and that was all. “Is this the way Hollywood types have lunch?” I asked him. He chuckled. I thought it was strange. It didn’t seem like a wholesome lunch.

  SUELLEN FRIED: Then he said, “Why don’t you have dinner on me?” We said, “That sounds great.” He told us to be back and meet him at this little place that he was sharing. He went to a delicatessen and got a roast chicken and some pickles, and this was dinner. These were the days when he was trying to find his place in the sun, and it hadn’t happened yet.

  We were living here in the middle of the world in Kansas City and here was Bob out in Hollywood, with all these irons in the fire, and it was very exciting to us. For us, it was worth the cost of the thirteen martinis or whatever it was.

  CHRISTINE ALTMAN (daughter): When he went to California, I missed him a lot. He would send me things on my birthday. And he would, I imagine, try to get me out there as much as he could in the ragged lifestyle that he lived at that time. He was getting divorced here and married there and having kids here and having kids there and not knowing how to pay child support. It was really kind of a mess. I’ll give everybody ninety percent credit for at least trying to make it work. There were a lot of people involved to deal with when he was young.

  DR. MARTIN GOLDFARB (friend): I was at a poker game up in the Hollywood Hills. I knew a few of the people there, mostly just Bobby Altman. I had met him a few times but I didn’t really know him. So about two in the morning I’m home in bed. I had a little house right at the top of King’s Road, toward the end up in the mountains, so it was pretty quiet. Suddenly somebody threw pebbles at my window. I’m thinking, “Who in the hell is doing this?” We were too dumb in those days to become afraid of anything. So I walked outside and there was Bobby Altman throwing pebbles at my window.