Robert Altman

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  That’s when our grandson Christian said, “It’s a wrap.”

  Then Konni, over on the side of the group, used Bob’s favorite exit line: “See you in the next reel.”

  The timing was just … it gives me chills to think about it. It was so Altman. It was such an Altman gathering there. It was like he’d set this scene, you know?

  * * *

  Rick Lyman, story headlined “Robert Altman, Iconoclastic Director, Dies at 81,” The New York Times, November 21, 2006: Robert Altman, one of the most adventurous and influential American directors of the late 20th century, a filmmaker whose iconoclastic career spanned more than five decades but whose stamp was felt most forcefully in one, the 1970s, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 81.

  * * *

  MARTIN SCORSESE: His legacy? His spirit. His spirit was to make pictures, to say what the hell he wanted to say on film. It may have angered people, it may have unsettled people, but he did it. He made independent pictures in Hollywood, with Hollywood money, ultimately. And he had an individual point of view and a personal statement with every picture. Every one.

  On the set of A Prairie Home Companion

  Hollywood’s become kind of at peace with the independent film as long as it knows its place, you know? And that means a certain level of money, a certain type of production value. With Altman, it didn’t know its place. That’s the beauty of it.

  He’s an inspiration. I don’t think there’s any career like that in the history of Hollywood.

  * * *

  Tim Robbins, New York memorial for Robert Altman, Majestic Theater, February 20, 2007: There’s a hilarious new movie in preproduction up in heaven. Bob has gotten the financing together for his new film, called “The Memorial.” And we are making the film as we speak. He’s watching the people onstage, yes. But there are other cameras looking around the theater today, at the subplots, the subterfuge, the silliness, the whispered comments, the backstage preening. Kathryn, you have a beautiful close-up and a camera dedicated to you. But everyone else, beware. He’s going to find us out, and God will laugh.

  * * *

  MATTHEW ALTMAN: It was my mom’s idea to scatter the ashes from the beach to the ocean, and to divide up his personal things between us. Some Popeye memorabilia and clothes and that kind of stuff. She thought it was time. So all the boys and Konni and my mom got together in Malibu in August 2007.

  We went out with Dad’s ashes, the four of us boys—Michael, Steve, Bobby, and me. It was definitely an Altmanesque moment—four grown men in their underwear and shirts on the beach with ashes of their dad. We divided up the ashes and walked into the water. We went up to our knees and the waves were breaking and it was a beautiful night. We just let his ashes go, and my mom and Konni were on the deck. Steve had brought some white lilies, and my mom threw those in the water. And we all said good-bye.

  * * *

  PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON: Oh, I didn’t figure on this making me sad. I thought, “Oh great, I get to talk about Bob.” But it’s making me feel like I’m sure everybody feels—they really wish they could call him up. Yeah, fuck! Horrible, sad. He was so indestructible for so long.

  SUSAN DAVIS (actress and cousin): It seems like everyone I talk to has dreamed about Bob since he passed. He was that kind of huge presence. I went to Italy in January or February, and the first night I’m there I had this dream. It was as real as sitting here with you. I walked up the stairway, and there was Bob in the room.

  I said, “What in the hell are you doing here?”

  He said, “What are you doing here?”

  I said, “Bob… you’re—”

  And he said, “No, I’m not. I’m getting ready to do a film, and I can’t get the money. Will you get it out of their heads that I’m dead? I’m just trying to get the money to make this film.”

  * * *

  Dialogue from A Prairie Home Companion:

  (LUNCH LADY, played by Marylouise Burke, has just found her lover dead in his dressing room. The angel of death, called DANGEROUS WOMAN, played by Virginia Madsen, embraces her.)

  DANGEROUS WOMAN: The death of an old man is not a tragedy.

  LUNCH LADY (weeping): I—don’t—want him to—go.

  DANGEROUS WOMAN: Forgive him his shortcomings, and thank him for all his love and care. Tell him he will be remembered, and turn away and live your life.

  LUNCH LADY (Crying—to her lover’s body): Good-bye, baby. [To Dangerous Woman] You got anything to drink? Like a rum and Coke?

  * * *

  ROBERT ALTMAN: Things never end. There are no ends. There are stopping places. So, you really choose a stopping place.

  “Giggle and give in.”

  A NOTE ON METHODS

  UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, all of Robert Altman’s comments are from the recorded talks we had about everything from his upbringing to his next planned film, sadly never completed. Our last conversations took place less than three weeks before his death, making them his final sustained interviews.

  For the sake of clarity, I omitted false starts and rhetorical dead ends while doing my best to preserve idiosyncrasies of his speech. I followed the same approach with the nearly two hundred other people I interviewed, some on multiple occasions. The guiding principle was to publish what people said, as close as possible to how they said it, in the context they meant it. Although not all the interview subjects are quoted, all their comments shaped the narrative and enriched my understanding of the man.

  When necessary, I reinterviewed sources to untangle word knots in especially awkward quotes. A majority of the initial interviews were done in person, while follow-ups were mostly done by phone. Most interviews were recorded, then transcribed by me, by one of my graduate assistants, or by ace transcriptionist Steve Wylie of Pat Casteel Transcripts in New York.

  Entire books have been written on individual Altman films, which means that by design this biography could never cover every one of his filmmaking experiences, collaborators, relationships—or nemeses, for that matter. I apologize to any individual who feels overlooked, and to any reader who feels an anecdote was left untold. The goal was to satisfy the epigram that opens this book.

  I worked closely and cooperatively with Kathryn Reed Altman, who was uninterested in hagiography and set no limits on subjects that could be broached or the way they were told.

  One challenge of an oral biography is that the form is limited by the availability of sources. Some of Bob’s longtime collaborators predeceased him, among them Tommy Thompson, Bob Eggenweiler, Scotty Bushnell, Lou Lombardo, and Geri Peroni, all of whom would have enriched this book. Several others made themselves unavailable, for reasons of their own.

  Bob’s death also prevented me from seeking his reaction to the comments of others, some of which he might have disputed, dismissed, disdained, or all three. On the other hand, he might well have followed his own oft-repeated advice: “Giggle and give in.”

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  The following are brief, Altman-centric biographies of people whose interviews are included in this book. Not included are journalists, reviewers, authors, and others whose writings and comments are excerpted throughout.

  JANE ADAMS is an actress who played Junior League do-gooder Nettie Bolt in Kansas City and director Emily Shapiro in Robert Altman’s stage production of Arthur Miller’s Resurrection Blues.

  LOU ADLER is a legendary music producer who coproduced the 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival. The documentary of the event led him into the film business and to his role as producer of Brewster McCloud.

  ANOUK AIMéE is an award-winning French film actress who became an international star from her role in A Man and a Woman, directed by Claude Lelouch. She played the character Simone Lowenthal in Prêt-à-Porter.

  CHRISTINE ALTMAN is Robert Altman’s eldest child. Her mother is the late LaVonne Elmer, Robert Altman’s first wife, to whom he was married from 1946 to 1949.

  JOHN ALTMAN is a first cousin of Robert Altman. His father, F
rank Altman, was the brother of Robert Altman’s father, Bernard “B.C.” Altman. He is a filmmaker in Kansas City.

  KATHRYN REED ALTMAN is the third wife and widow of Robert Altman. They met in 1959 when he was directing an episode of the television series Whirly-birds, and were married soon after. She is the mother of two of his sons, Robert Reed Altman and Matthew Altman, and his stepdaughter, Konni Corriere.

  MATTHEW ALTMAN is the fourth son of Robert Altman. He was adopted as an infant. He worked on several of his father’s movies as a crew member or in the art department as a set dresser, and appeared uncredited in Thieves Like Us, as “boy getting free soda.”

  MICHAEL ALTMAN is the eldest son of Robert Altman. His mother is Lotus Corelli Altman Monroe. At fourteen, he wrote the lyrics to the theme song from M*A*S*H, “Suicide Is Painless.” He is a film projectionist in Los Angeles.

  ROBERT ALTMAN was born in Kansas City on February 20, 1925, and died in Los Angeles on November 20, 2006. His motto was “Giggle and give in.”

  ROBERT REED ALTMAN is the third son of Robert Altman. He began working with his father on Nashville, worked on a half dozen of his father’s movies as a camera operator, and was director of photography on Tanner on Tanner. He has also been a camera operator on television series including Lost, The O.C., The Wonder Years, and Chuck.

  STEPHEN ALTMAN is the second son of Robert Altman. His mother is Lotus Corelli Altman Monroe. He was the production designer on more than a dozen of his father’s movies and television projects, including The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park, and worked on a dozen others in the art or editorial departments.

  PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON credits the films of Robert Altman with helping him to learn to be a director. Anderson served as the standby director for insurance purposes on Altman’s last film, A Prairie Home Companion.

  ANNE ARCHER appeared in Short Cuts as Claire Kane, a woman horrified to learn that her husband left a young woman’s body in a river while he fished with his buddies.

  WREN ARTHUR worked as an assistant to Robert Altman in the late 1990s and rose to the position of producer on Tanner on Tanner and A Prairie Home Companion. She acted in Dr. T & the Women as a member of the doctor’s staff.

  JOSH ASTRACHAN was associate producer of Dr. T & the Women, coproducer of Gosford Park, and a producer of The Company and A Prairie Home Companion.

  RENÉ AUBERJONOIS appeared as sweet-natured Father “Dago Red” Mulcahy in M*A*S*H, the man-turning-into-a-bird character called the Lecturer in Brewster McCloud, the bar owner/busybody Sheehan in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the unfaithful husband Hugh in Images, and as himself in The Player.

  LAUREN BACALL played presidential candidate Esther Brill in HealtH and fashion doyenne Slim Chrysler in Prêt-à-Porter. The name Slim was a nod to her role as Marie “Slim” Browning opposite Humphrey Bogart in the 1944 Howard Hawks film To Have and Have Not.

  REZA BADIYI was Robert Altman’s intern and protégé at the Calvin Company and rose to a career as a television director on dozens of shows, including Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, Cagney & Lacey, Falcon Crest, and Baywatch.

  RICHARD BAKALYAN is a veteran character actor who played gang leader Eddy in The Delinquents.

  BOB BALABAN is an actor, writer, producer, and director. He produced Gosford Park and played the role of the American film producer Morris Weissman.

  FRANK W. BARHYDT met Robert Altman as a boy when Altman was working for Barhydt’s father at the Calvin Company. Barhydt cowrote the screenplays for Quintet, HealtH, Short Cuts, and Kansas City, and had acting roles in Tanner ‘88 and The Player.

  SUE BARTON was the publicist on Nashville and appears as herself in the scene where Elliott Gould drops by.

  RICHARD BASKIN was music supervisor on Nashville and played the role of the studio musician Frog. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Original Score. He was also a composer for Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson.

  WARREN BEATTY had already been nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Picture, as producer, for Bonnie and Clyde, when he played doomed entrepreneur John McCabe in McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

  HARRY BELAFONTE played himself in The Player, Prêt-à-Porter, and Tanner on Tanner, and the gangster Seldom Seen in Kansas City, for which he won a New York Film Critics Circle Award. He and Robert Altman worked for years on an unfinished project on blackface, tentatively called Cork. When asked by Vanity Fair magazine to name the living person he most admired, Altman said, “Harry Belafonte.”

  ROBERT BENTON is a writer and director whose 1977 film The Late Show, starring Lily Tomlin and Art Carney, was produced by Robert Altman at Lion’s Gate Films.

  ROBERT BLEES produced the infamous Bus Stop episode directed by Robert Altman and starring Fabian, and also produced episodes of Combat! directed by Altman.

  JIM BOUTON was a pitcher for the New York Yankees who made an indelible mark on baseball with his book Ball Four. He played Terry Lennox in The Long Goodbye.

  KENNETH BRANAGH starred as hotshot lawyer Rick Magruder in The Gingerbread Man.

  DENISE BRETON met Robert Altman when she was the European publicist for M*A*S*H. She remained his European publicist, as well as being a friend and supporter, for the rest of his life.

  DAVID BROWN was an executive at Twentieth Century Fox during the making of M*A*S*H, after which he formed a production company with Richard Zanuck. After that partnership disbanded, he was a producer on The Player.

  CAROL BURNETT played mother-of-the-bride Katherine “Tulip” Brenner in A Wedding, presidential adviser Gloria Burbank in HealtH, and schoolteacher Alberta Johnson in the television production The Laundromat.

  BILL BUSHNELL was the first managing director of the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where Robert Altman found several actors for M*A*S*H. Bushnell introduced Robert Altman to the play Secret Honor, and also to his wife, Scotty Bushnell, who subsequently became Bushnell’s ex-wife and Altman’s longtime producer.

  JAMES CAAN starred as the lunar astronaut Lee Stegler in Countdown.

  NEVE CAMPBELL produced and starred in The Company, playing the poised-for-greatness ballet dancer Loretta “Ry” Ryan.

  KEITH CARRADINE played the naive, doomed Cowboy in McCabe & Mrs. Miller; starred as the naive, doomed bank robber Bowie in Thieves Like Us; and played a conflicted lothario, pop star Tom Frank, in Nashville. His song “I’m Easy” won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

  GERALDINE CHAPLIN played the impostor BBC correspondent Opal in Nashville; sharpshooter Annie Oakley in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson; and wedding-planner-with-a-secret Rita Billingsley in A Wedding.

  CHER played sharp-tongued waitress Sissy in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. She played herself in The Player and Prêt-à-Porter.

  JULIE CHRISTIE starred as the canny whorehouse madam Constance Miller in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She appeared as herself in a cameo in Nashville.

  GRAEME CLIFFORD was assistant director on That Cold Day in the Park, casting director on McCabe & Mrs. Miller, an assistant on M*A*S*H, and editor of Images. He later became a director in his own right, with credits including Frances.

  LEONARD COHEN wrote “The Stranger Song,” “Sisters of Mercy,” and “Winter Lady,” which together created the haunting score for McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

  SAM COHN was Robert Altman’s agent off and on for large portions of his career.

  JOHN CONSIDINE played Annie Oakley’s husband, Frank Butler, in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson. He cowrote the screenplay and played security chief Jeff Kuykendall in A Wedding, and appeared in episodes of Combat!, Tanner’88, and Gun directed by Robert Altman.

  KONNI CORRIERE is the daughter of Kathryn Reed Altman and the stepdaughter of Robert Altman. She was his assistant on Prêt-à-Porter.

  BUD CORT played timid Private Lorenzo Boo
ne in M*A*S*H, then starred as the boy-who-would-fly title character in Brewster McCloud.

  NORMAN CORWIN has been called “America’s Poet Laureate of Radio.” His program On a Note of Triumph, broadcast upon the surrender of Nazi Germany, is considered his masterpiece.

  SUSAN DAVIS was Robert Altman’s cousin by marriage (his aunt married her uncle) and an actress who appeared in his Calvin Company films and early television work.

  DALE DENNISON was the pilot on the B-24 Liberator bomber on which Robert Altman was copilot during World War II.

  PAUL DOOLEY played pompous father of the bride Liam “Snooks” Brenner in A Wedding, unlikely suitor Alex Theodopoulos in A Perfect Couple, burger fiend Wimpy in Popeye, “little guy” candidate Gil Gainey in HealtH—for which he also cowrote the screenplay—and torture target Randall Schwab in O.C. and Stiggs.

  ROBERT DORNHELM is an Austrian director who was nominated for an Oscar for his documentary The Children of Theatre Street, and a longtime friend of Robert and Kathryn Altman’s.

  DAVID DORTORT was the creator and producer of one of television’s most successful series, Bonanza.

  FAYE DUNAWAY knew Robert Altman but never worked with him.

  ROBERT DUVALL played astronaut Chiz in Countdown, the supercilious Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H, and the psychotic Dixon Doss in The Gingerbread Man.

  SHELLEY DUVALL was “discovered” by Robert Altman during the casting of Brewster McCloud, in which she played Brewster’s down-to-earth girlfriend, Suzanne Davis. She then played reluctant prostitute Ida Coyle in McCabe & Mrs. Miller; innocent gun moll Keechie in Thieves Like Us; boy-crazy Marthe (aka L.A. Joan) in Nashville; Grover Cleveland’s wife in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson; self-deluding Millie Lammoreaux in 3 Women (for which she shared Best Actress honors at the Cannes Film Festival); and Olive Oyl in Popeye.