Robert Altman

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  That said, he was one of the most endlessly positive people in the most negative uniform, you know what I mean? He could just keep going.

  PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON: I was asking him advice about something, talking about something that was going on with me in my life. He said, “I will tell you this, whatever you do, you have to do what’s right for yourself. You can’t think about anything else.” It wasn’t as vague or general as it sounds, ‘cause I’m not telling you what we were talking about. But he was very specific in what he was saying. It wasn’t just a broad-stroke comment. I felt like he was relaying to me something that he learned through the course of his life. And perhaps suggesting that you have to be selfish from time to time. Perhaps he had been selfish from time to time. But it would be okay and ultimately it would make me happy.

  JOHN WILLIAMS: He was very much a man of his time. Shaped by the Depression, sculpted by the war. He didn’t look back to earlier times or ahead to other times, but he was showing us how we are right now. He spoke the current vernacular, literally as well as artistically. If he could have been a writer, and I think he could have, he was almost a Sandburg or a Steinbeck kind of character who really knew the people in the middle of this country in the 1930s and ‘40s. He really had an understanding of the people of the Midwest, the blacks, the farmers, the workers. The farmland bowels of this country were in his blood in some ways. He felt like the quintessential midwesterner to me in all these respects.

  Robert Altman, smiling on the set of McCabe & Mrs. Miller

  JULIANNE MOORE (actress): Often I think you find with auteurs or people who are supposedly artists, there’s this idea that they carry around and that the world carries around that they’re somehow different, therefore more special, therefore are supposed to have special treatment. There was none of that. None of that was present in Bob’s personality or his life. Not a moment of it. Not a moment of egomania. I’ve never known anybody who was more aware of what was going on in a set, like everywhere, with the camera operator and the actors and the makeup person, and he was always exceedingly aware of the psychological temperature of the set. And of everybody on it. And was careful of how he talked to people, how he interacted.

  There was a script that somebody had approached him about for me, and he wanted to talk to me alone. He was like, “What do you think, honey?” I remember he was lying down. He was in the last year of his life and he was lying down on the couch and I had come in for a meeting and sat next to him on the couch and he was like, “Tell me what you really think. Do you want to do this or do you not want to do this?” He was really trying to assess exactly what my feelings were about the project, privately. He wasn’t somebody who was going to disregard what I felt, ever. And not because it was me, but because that’s how he was with every individual, which is really unusual in a person with that kind of breadth of artistic vision.

  WOLF KROEGER (art director): He said he never gave a shit. Of course he did. Of course he cared. He was always marked as being anti-Hollywood. But if anyone was Hollywood it was him. The real Hollywood. He wanted to be a famous film director. He was a rebel. But he would never admit that. He had the same weaknesses we all do. We all want to be appreciated. You know, “This whole system sucks and this whole system is unprofessional, and I’m the one who is really working very hard on it. They don’t appreciate me, but I’m going to do a good job.” And by being difficult he got a lot of fame out of it, too.

  He was a human being, a guy you could talk to, relate to. He showed all his faults, he showed all his tempers, he was a person you could relate to.

  JOHNNIE PLANCO (agent): One night in Cannes, Bob and Kathryn were having words. Kathryn said, “Oh Bob, get over yourself.” And he stood there sputtering and finally said, “Why don’t you take a flying fuck off the ceiling?” I burst out laughing because it was such a stupid thing to say. Then we all started laughing.

  SUE BARTON (publicist): I had known Bob and Kathryn for years, and I had seen Bob through all kinds of awful things. I was the publicist on Nashville, and we used to have these arrangements: if it was somebody’s birthday or anniversary a party would be given following dailies. Everybody would stay and have some drinks.

  Early that afternoon Bob’s secretary said to me, “It’s Bob and Kathryn’s fifteenth wedding anniversary. Should we do something?”

  We got a cake. We did this and it was very unpleasant. We didn’t realize how far gone he was, drinking and smoking at dailies. Kathryn was ever cool—”They’re playing our song.” I was walking toward the office and he was walking away.

  He said, “Who arranged this?”

  I said, “Well, I did.”

  He said, “Well, you’re fired.”

  I said, “You can’t just say that and walk away.”

  So he turned around and walked back to the back room. I said something and then he said, “There’s nothing to celebrate about marriage. Your mother just died, right?” And she had, a couple months before. He said, “Why aren’t we celebrating that?”

  At which point Kathryn picked up this great big fruit basket and threw it at him. He walked out.

  She said, “He doesn’t mean anything by it. Be there in the morning and it’ll all be fine.”

  I thought he was never going to do that to me. I thought, “Fuck, I don’t want to do that.” I promptly left and went to Nova Scotia. I didn’t see him for a long time after that.

  Then one night at Elaine’s, Kathryn was giving a kind of surprise birthday party for Bob. As the evening progressed Bob came over to me and said, “You’ve been a wonderful friend.”

  “That’s because I love you and I love Kathryn.”

  And from that moment on we were fine.

  GARRY TRUDEAU: I’ve done some soul-searching on this because of the whole issue of exceptionalism. Do you excuse bad behavior in some people and not in others? Do you write it off as the price that you pay for doing the work with somebody who is exceptionally talented? And I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answers I gave myself because there were times when I thought, “This man is not very good to a lot of people a lot of the time.” Although he was always capable of enormous generosity and warmth, is there some sort of complicity in just overlooking it?

  For some reason, I had immunity. He only exploded at me once. I can’t recall what it was over, which is telling. Because it didn’t really matter what it was over. He just needed to explode. Generally he’d be tough on others and not on me. That made it more confusing in a way. A tougher call. You can say, “Well, do you put up with this because it’s not directed at me?” [Laughs] I can imagine myself walking away had I been treated with the kind of cruelty which he was capable of. Just out of self-protection. But I wasn’t.

  MALCOLM MCDOWELL (actor): He was such a maverick and a “fuck you” kind of person and such a complete individual who very much marched to his own beat. It was very refreshing. He didn’t seem to be scared of anybody. He wasn’t intimidated by the suits and all that, which was great.

  I found myself in Rome while he was there talking about some project. And I was there doing a film, a very strange film about a Roman emperor. And it was a strange set. And I was telling Bob about it at dinner.

  At the start of each new film, Altman would ask his wardrobe department for a new hat, which he would wear throughout the shoot. This straw hat with a flower was the choice for The Long Goodbye

  And he said, “You’re all naked, huh?”

  I said, “Yeah, yeah.”

  And he said, “I may come and visit you.”

  Well, actually there was a big party, so he did get to meet the producer, this man called Bob Guccione. And I was telling Bob all about him. And he was going, “Penthouse magazine.”

  And I said, “They told me to treat him like one of the Warner brothers.”

  He said, “I see.”

  And he goes in. He comes in. And there’s this big party—there’s Pets and the actors, on one of the sets, or whatever. And Bob goes ove
r to Bob Guccione and says, “Mr. Gucci, I like your shoes.”

  Beautifully put away. Beautifully.

  HARRY BELAFONTE: Early in our relationship, I told a joke and it became the metaphor for everything in our lives. These two musicians decided they were going to the jazz festival in Montreux, but they always flew. One says, “We should take one of these cruises, man, and just get out there and have four days and just lay out and see what that side of life is like.” So they were out in the middle of the Atlantic. And the water was calm and glassy. The moon hung high in the sky. The musicians broke out a spliff, a reefer, and they lit up and took a hit, gazing quietly out at the magic of the moon and the water.

  The first musician said, “Man, look at all that water.”

  And the second musician said, “Yeah, and that’s only the top.”

  Bob went crazy. He went out. So anytime we were someplace and somebody said something, Bob would look at me and say, “That’s only the top.” And when somebody would come and aggravate him, and she ran her mouth or something, as she took a breath, Bob goes, “That’s only the top.”

  LEONARD COHEN (singer and songwriter): He came to a concert that I gave at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, which I think still exists. It was a very popular club at the time. I remember an extremely generous gesture of his. I was onstage and I left the stage with a considerable amount of anxiety about the performance I had just given. I was walking offstage, down the hall to this little dressing room, not feeling very good about things. Bob was standing there—he was a big man and I’m a small chap—he just opened his arms and gave me a big bear hug.

  He was a very, very good example because he just kept doing it regardless of how it was received. And did it with a tremendous grace and tremendous originality. To see him doing that was always impressive and always inspiring. He was only about seven or eight years older than I am but he seemed to be very much more accomplished and very much more in the world, so he was someone who was a shining example of the combination of integrity, originality, and indifference to the winds of change.

  MATTHEW SEIG (producer): The guy had a bad temper and he could explode. And you know it was a long time before he ever yelled at me, a real long time. But I never took it personally. I don’t know, it was just Bob screaming. By that time I was so used to seeing him do it that it just was, you know, not a big deal. I wouldn’t have wanted to put up with that on a regular basis.

  MICHAEL MURPHY: I would have hung out with this guy night and day. He could have been a plumber. That would have been fine with me. He just was that kind of guy. How could you not want to be there? I really did, I wanted to be there regardless of whether I was in the movies or not in the movies or any of it, you know? I loved hanging around with him and ergo I was involved in a lot of things. I was there for a lot of the down stuff and the hard times and I saw a lot of it. I try to be careful with that stuff because you see people at their most vulnerable. That’s why I never have liked those kiss-and-tell books. But this guy was just so remarkable.

  You know, my parents influenced me, obviously, but I don’t know, I was too young to get it, or maybe it was jammed down my throat. But it was something about the way he just let you tag along. You learned by standing there watching it all. I think about this guy, I swear to God, every day. Every day he goes through my mind somehow.

  ALLAN NICHOLLS (actor/music director/screenwriter/associate producer/assistant director): We went on a fishing trip once. Bob, Bob Eggenweiler, myself, Tommy Thompson, and Frank Barhydt. One night, we’re floating around—we were going to go fishing the next day—off the coast of Escondido. It was about an eighty-foot boat, a luxury boat. I had never been fishing on a boat before in my life, and we were sitting around having drinks at the end of the day, and all sunburned and having a cocktail and Eggenweiler was cooking some great fucking meal. And Bob goes, “This is true homosexuality” [laughs].

  RENÉ AUBERJONOIS: He had these offices on Westwood Avenue, Lion’s Gate Films. If you were in town and drove by, you could just drop in and Bob would be in his office. He would be there and you could walk in and just hang out and eat popcorn and smoke a joint. I can’t imagine doing that in any other producer or director’s office on the face of the Earth, but that’s the way it was.

  One time, Henry Gibson was there having a meeting for the film Nashville. I felt very uncomfortable. I felt like Bob was showing me what I was going to be missing. The minute I realized I was in a meeting for a film—I never actually told Henry that, how uncomfortable I felt—I made excuses and left. I remember feeling very hurt. Bob was manipulative. He was devilish. He was tricky. He was slippery. He was McCabe. You could sense that you could get on the wrong side of Bob and that could not be good.

  HENRY GIBSON: René found that as a source of rejection? Did he say I did anything? Because I don’t remember too many meetings there prior to shooting. Oh, what a heartbreak. It could be that he imagined that I was in the room, which is all right.

  JOSH ASTRACHAN (producer): I don’t know, this may be a little easy, but I feel like Bob never saw somebody who was satisfied with himself that he wouldn’t like to pull the rug out from under. But part of it is just this combative guy who couldn’t resist taking a swipe sometimes, even if he ended up being the one who got swiped.

  RICHARD BASKIN (composer): I had a dream where I’m at a cocktail party and we’re at an apartment on the twentieth floor. Everybody’s having a good time and Bob is pretty lit. Scotch in one hand and a joint in the other. We end up out on the balcony arguing. He loses his balance and falls off the balcony. Jesus, I’ve killed Bob. I see Kathryn in the room and say, “How am I going to tell Kathryn?” The door opens and in walks Bob, like a cartoon character. His hair is rumpled and he has a Band-Aid across his nose. That was always the perfect metaphor for who he was. He was indomitable, a force of nature.

  BILL ROBINSON (agent): I met him during The Long Goodbye. I was an agent trying to sell him a client. He didn’t act like he was one of the great filmmakers of our time. Pretty soon we started playing backgammon, and eventually we probably played a few hundred thousand games of backgammon. How was he? Not great. On a ten scale, a ten being a top tournament player, I was probably an eight and he was probably a six. But he had great guts. He was not afraid to make a bet or give you the cube and double you. That was the fun with him. You’d be sitting here, it’s his turn and you’d be in a much better position to him. He’d say, “I’m going to turn the cube to sixteen.” When you’re playing with an opponent not as good as you, you don’t want to have the doubling cube go too high. He wasn’t afraid or intimidated by anybody, just exactly like he was in the business. And he never cared if he lost. He always paid right then. You didn’t wait a day or a week. He got up, got his money, and paid you. Every single time.

  Most of us, when we’re spending or gambling money, we understand how much we can afford to lose. And I’d rather not lose that much. I guess I can, but I’d rather not. He never worried about that. Let’s say he had five hundred dollars in his pocket and he was bringing it home to give to Kathryn to buy something. If on the way home he got in a backgammon game he would just not worry about losing that. He would get in the car and find a way to get what he wanted with that five hundred dollars. And if he didn’t, he had the confidence that he’d get it tomorrow. It was confidence, mainly, but it was more than that. He didn’t have the fears and the insecurities that the rest of us have. If you don’t worry about that, you’re free. Your behavior is free. If you’re a businessperson, your idea of failing would be, “Did the movie make money or not?” His sense of failure would be if people he knew and liked didn’t like his movie. Unless, of course, he really liked it.

  HARRY BELAFONTE: Backgammon? He beat me all the time. I mean, that son of a bitch has beaten me when I had just one off left, and he had all his chips still on. He was amazing. In the face of a clear loss he would turn the cube over, a double. I’d say, “Why are you giving it away, Bob? I got you, man.” He
said, “Let’s play.”

  ALLAN NICHOLLS: There is a sheet of paper somewhere, and I can’t remember if I’m up fifteen points or seven points. But he does owe me. And I can’t remember if it was five dollars a point or twenty dollars a point. If he was winning, he’d make it twenty dollars a point. And if I was winning, five dollars a point.

  STEPHEN ALTMAN: He was a horrible backgammon player. I used to kick his ass regularly. On my nineteenth birthday he bought me this beautiful backgammon board that I still have. And he took two weeks of per diem pay from me that night, gambling. It was like, “If you’re going to play with me you’re playing for five dollars a point.” It was every penny I had, like five hundred dollars or something. At the time that was everything. He really enjoyed that and then enjoyed beating the hell out of me at that game for a long time. But I persevered and at the end I believe I took a lot more from him than he ever took from me. I certainly played by his rules and stuck it to him whenever I could and it was a lot of fun. We had a good time.

  Playing his signature tarot solitaire game

  JOSH ASTRACHAN: One of the great things was the Bob solitaire game, with tarot cards. It’s such a vivid part of who he was on a day-in, day-out basis. It always seemed to me it was kind of the perfect distraction and meditation, because it allowed him to remember whatever he needed to remember. What’d it look like? Oh, the desk was covered. I mean they were oversized cards. He looked like some kind of wizard, you know, with these things. And I didn’t even know what those characters were, let alone what the rules were of how you could assemble one on top of the other. And of course he had those long beautiful hands and he would look so great playing solitaire. So it all seemed inscrutable and kind of magical, as if he were summoning, you know, telling his future. And then he’d know what to do and he’d call out in the middle of it—”Get this thing done.”