by Kirk Douglas
The next three hours went by far more quickly than they had the week before. As we approached the ending, where Peter Ustinov’s character of Batiatus helps Varinia escape to freedom along with Spartacus’ newborn son, I was relieved. Stanley and his editorial team—Irving Lerner and Bob Lawrence—had made some smart fixes.
One glaring problem remained. Again, Stanley was right—we needed more money to shoot additional battle sequences. For Dalton’s vision of the Large Spartacus to work—a vision Stanley, Eddie, and I all shared—the audience had to actually witness his military prowess; it couldn’t just be implied. They had to see Spartacus defeat legion after legion of Rome’s finest soldiers, and the final battle scene had to be powerful enough to convey how close he had come to toppling the Roman Empire itself.
The last reel unspooled. Varinia impulsively kisses Gracchus (Charles Laughton) in gratitude for guaranteeing her safe passage out of Rome.
As Charles feared, his reply was cut out. His original line, written by Trumbo, was remarkably tender: “My dear young woman, I’m somewhat startled. You see, I’ve never had love. And I’m naturally chagrined to discover so late in my life that the having of love . . . is to set it free.” The scene was still beautiful, despite the omission.
I watched, rapt, as Varinia spots her beloved Spartacus among the endless rows of crucified slaves along Appian Way. Ignoring Batiatus’ warning that she shouldn’t even look at him, Varinia, carrying the baby, rushes up to Spartacus on the cross. She looks up at him, tears in her eyes. The camera goes tight on her face and she holds the baby boy up for Spartacus to see.
Cut to: Varinia and the baby get in Batiatus’ wagon and ride off into the sunset. We never see Spartacus on the cross! WHAT?!!
What is really happening in this scene?
CHAPTER TEN
“Do my choices displease you?”
—Nina Foch as Helena Glabrus
“YOU BASTARD!” THE PERSON NEAREST to me was Bob Lawrence, the assistant editor. I grabbed him in a choke hold and began screaming at him.
“Do you know how much time I spent strung up on that fucking cross? And you cut it out completely?!! You’re fired!”
Eddie Lewis tried to pull me away. I shook him off. Lawrence broke free of my hold, ripping his shirt in the process. I picked up one of the folding chairs and hurled it at the rapidly retreating Stanley Kubrick.
“Goddamn it, Kubrick, you better run!”
Back up to the surface. These trips down into the dark waters of memory are getting harder and harder for me. I’m ashamed to remember a lot of my behavior then. Looking back, I am astounded at how much anger there was in me when I was making Spartacus. I never wanted to be like my father, yet my rage was so much like his. I started seeing a psychiatrist to deal with my demons. They frightened even me.
Perhaps it’s possible to outlive your own anger. I think I have. My son Michael says, “Dad, you were always a softy. You just show it more now.” Maybe he’s right. That was the part of me that I never wanted anyone to see. I played tough guys—on- and off-camera.
The next day I sent Bob Lawrence a note of apology along with three new shirts, monogrammed with his initials.
I learned later that Stanley personally decided to remove me from the crucifixion scene, without warning me in advance. Bob Lawrence told him he was crazy—“Are you trying to get us killed?!”
That was Stanley.
The close-up of my crucifixion was cut back into the film, although like a number of other scenes, it caused us significant battles with both the studio and the censors at the Production Code Administration of the Motion Picture Association.
The correspondence back and forth with them seems laughable now. At that juncture, it was time-consuming, infuriating, and creatively destructive. Some lowlights:
Page 1: The costumes of the slaves will have to offer adequate covering.
Page 2: The whipping is in danger of proving excessively brutal.
Page 8: We ask that you eliminate this particular use of the word “damn.”
Page 23: We ask that you eliminate the use of the word “damn.”
Page 24: The loincloth costumes must prove adequate.
Page 27: The following line seems unduly bold and we ask that it be changed: “It’s a waste of money training eunuchs.”
Page 31: We recommend that you reconsider the line, “I’ve never had a woman . . .”
Page 45: The details of Draba’s death seem excessively gruesome.
Page 72: Scenes of the men and women swimming in the nude will be unacceptable.
Page 78: The following dialogue suggests that Crassus is a sex pervert, and cannot be approved.
Page 85: The dialogue on this page clearly suggests that Crassus is sexually attracted to women and men. This flavor should be completely removed. Any suggestion that Crassus finds sexual attraction in Antoninus will have to be avoided.
Page 86: The subject of sex perversion seems to be touched on in this scene. Specifically, we note Crassus putting his hand on the boy and the boy’s reaction to the gesture.
Pages 93 and 94: Any implication that Crassus is a sex pervert is unacceptable.
Page 142: The following dialogue is unacceptable: “And when this child comes out of your sweet sweet belly, I want him to be free too!”
Page 168: We cannot approve the reference to the milk stains on Varinia’s gown. This includes the related dialogue by Crassus and Varinia.
Pages 200 and 201: This scene seems to suggest the danger of over-exposing Varinia while nursing her child.
Page 207: The following line suggests that Crassus is a homosexual: “Or rather, least of all, a woman.”
Page 210: It would be well to avoid the nursing action, in any event, it will require most careful handling.
Page 215: We suggest you drop the use of the word “damned.”
Of all these, the references to “sex perversion” were by far the most contentious. The so-called “snails and oysters scene” was where Crassus asks his body slave, Antoninus, if he has a taste for each of these culinary delicacies. The implication was that if he liked them both, he might like men as well as women.
Both Larry and Tony were intrigued and eager to play this scene, as it was a breakthrough for its time. Tony said, “The one scene with Olivier was a scene which was undoubtedly a homosexual implication . . . I liked that because that had never been done on the screen. . . .”
Here’s how crazy it got. Eddie Lewis sent me a memo describing his battles with the morality police:
Dear Kirk:
I have taken one more crack at the censors on the “oysters and snails” scene. Unfortunately, their objection to this scene is based upon the one remaining strong hold of their department which is an absolute taboo against portrayal of homosexuality.
I believe they are honestly unsure that this is or is not a scene of homosexuality, but I have been unable to overcome their nervousness in this behalf. It is possible (although they will not say for certain) that they would pass the scene if we substituted “artichokes” and “truffles” for “oysters” and “snails” . . .
Artichokes and truffles?! These ridiculous disagreements were not only about moral standards regarding nudity, sex, and violence. They were also about politics—and they would come back to haunt me later, when we finally finished the film.
In the end, despite his initial objections, Stanley wound up shooting the “I am Spartacus” scene. We had only one problem. To create the impression that thousands of men were shouting “I am Spartacus!” we actually needed thousands of voices. Someone came up with the inspired idea of recording them during a nationally televised football game. Publicity and production in one play.
Young John Gavin, who played Caesar, was dispatched to Michigan State, where the Spartans (who else?) were playing the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame in front of 73,450 screaming fans. Somehow, between hot dogs and beers, he persuaded them to chant the now-iconic line—“I am Spartacus!”—
into our studio-quality tape recorders. Today, it would have just been dubbed in with the stroke of a computer key.
PS: The underdog Spartans won the game, 19–0. It was a good omen.
Eddie Muhl must have had money down on the game. Just after our crew came back from Michigan, Universal approved my request to double our budget for battle sequences, for which we had secured the use of the Spanish army. They gave us an extra half million (at $11 million, our picture alone was now worth almost exactly what Lew Wasserman paid for the entire studio lot), and we added eighteen more shooting days. Stanley and his team would spend almost the entire month of November in Spain.
Although I didn’t travel to Spain, the regular reports I received were alternately alarming and encouraging. Right out of the gate, the whole thing almost fell apart. Fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco directed his minister of the army to pull the plug, after our crew arrived in Madrid. Following a series of frantic negotiations (which I later heard involved a cash payment made directly to Franco’s wife’s “charity”), the shoot was back on. We hired 8,500 Spanish soldiers, paying them $8 a day, to portray both Roman warriors and rebel slaves.
The only absolute order Franco issued was that none of his soldiers be allowed to die on film. Not that he was concerned with their safety—he just didn’t want us to make it appear as if they died. Spanish pride.
We agreed to Franco’s self-glorifying condition, and Kubrick shot some extraordinary footage.
One of the most powerful scenes shot in Spain was the memorable moment when Spartacus orders his men to unleash a series of flaming brushwood cylinders down a sloping hill, directly into an advancing Roman legion. It was a vivid, amazing sequence, executed brilliantly.
To capture the scope of the battle, Stanley positioned his camera on giant, specially built towers. Many of the sequences were shot from as much as half a mile away from the actors. No one before had ever placed the camera at such a great distance from the action.
All of us—Universal included—were dazzled. Everybody agreed that the extra money was well spent. I also believe this was the moment where Stanley Kubrick came into his own as a great director. From that point on, people stopped calling him “Stanley Hubris” behind his back.
We were getting close to the end. Most of the film had been edited together, although there were still some reshoots remaining with Larry, Charles, Peter, Jean, and Tony. We would do them after the New Year.
I couldn’t put off any longer the issue of who would receive screen credit for writing Spartacus.
In December, I called an early evening meeting with Stanley and Eddie. I knew what I intended to do and I had no doubt that Eddie would support me 100 percent. Although Dalton had pledged to tell no one about our conversation back in June, I thought it was possible that he had confided my decision to Eddie. I didn’t know for certain—Eddie and I never talked about it. I didn’t want to put him on the spot if someone asked him directly what my intentions were.
I opened the meeting—“So whose name are we going to put on this picture?”
Eddie responded immediately, as I knew he would, “Not mine!”
“Well, that leaves us with a problem,” I said. “If your name isn’t on it, we have to use Sam Jackson’s name alone, and he doesn’t exist. That’s what happened last year with ‘Robert Rich’ and nobody was fooled.”
“So what are you going to do?” asked Eddie.
Stanley, who so far had remained quiet, spoke up, “Why don’t you use my name?”
Eddie and I looked at each other incredulously.
Stanley went on, not noticing our exchange of glances. “Why take the risk? If we put my name on it, no one will question it. I directed it, I wrote it, end of story.”
I looked at Stanley. “Wouldn’t you feel embarrassed putting your name on a script that someone else wrote?”
“No,” said Stanley, simply. “I’m just trying to help you out.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Eddie was furious. I knew how deeply he felt about the injustice of the blacklist and how he hated having to play the role of the fake writer. Eddie was a man of conviction. Stanley was a man of calculation.
I adjourned the meeting. “It’s late. Why don’t we all just sleep on it and pick this up again in the morning?”
I went home and called Trumbo.
“Dalton, what are you doing for lunch tomorrow?”
He hesitated. It was a question I’d never asked him before. “Uh . . . I don’t know. What do you have in mind?”
“If you’re free, why don’t you meet me at twelve thirty tomorrow at the Universal commissary?”
Silence at the other end. Dalton immediately understood the significance of my invitation.
“Be on time,” I added, “and don’t wear a hat.”
The next day Eddie Lewis, Stanley Kubrick, and I entered the studio commissary. Walking right beside us was Dalton Trumbo. Heads were turning. People were whispering, “Is that Dalton Trumbo?” I even noticed a few people pointing as we were shown to our table.
The waiter came over to us immediately. “Good afternoon, Mr. Douglas. What will you gentlemen be having today?”
I said, “Let’s start with my friend. What would you like, Mr. Trumbo?”
Holding the menu unsteadily in his hand, Dalton said, “You’ll have to give me a minute.” Then, looking down, he softly murmured, “I haven’t been here in a long time.”
Jean Simmons keeps the cast and crew engaged as we begin the second year of shooting Spartacus.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Forbid me ever to leave you.”
—Jean Simmons as Varinia
JEAN SIMMONS UNWRAPPED THE MAGNUM of champagne in her dressing room. She opened the small note attached to it:
Dear Jean, I hope our second year will be as happy as our first.
Love, Kirk
It was February 19, 1960. Exactly a year before, Jean had flown in for the first time from her ranch in Arizona for her costume fitting as Varinia, leaving behind her husband, Stewart Granger, and their young daughter. A year into the picture, Jean and the rest of the cast were getting very weary. In her slave costume, she had taken to playing baseball or football with the crew, just to relieve the interminable waiting.
Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, and Peter Ustinov had also been required to return to Hollywood for some additional footage, or “pickups,” which we needed to complete the film. Larry was once more fitted with what he self-deprecatingly described as his “Heroic Nose #137,” in order to match exactly the prosthetic Roman profile he’d displayed in the scenes we shot almost twelve months earlier.
As I’d expected, there was some fallout from my decision to use Dalton’s name on the picture, but the first criticism I received came from a surprising and volatile source.
Within hours of my now-widely-talked-about lunch with Trumbo in the Universal commissary, the phone rang insistently in my office.
The first call I took was from the director Otto Preminger. He was in New York preparing to make Exodus for United Artists. Preminger’s screenwriter was Albert Maltz, another of the Unfriendly Ten who, like Trumbo, hadn’t worked under his own name in more than a dozen years.
“Keerk?!” He was shouting to be understood through both the long-distance connection and his heavy German accent.
“Hello, Otto. How are you?”
“Terrible. Because of you!”
“Why is that, Otto?” I was calm. I knew Preminger well enough to know that he was, by his nature, a screamer. The more you yelled back, the louder he got. I was already holding the phone away from my ear and he was three thousand miles away.
“Vat are you doing?! You know who my writer is? It’s Maltz! If you put Trumbo’s name on Spartacus, this will kill both pictures. You cannot do this thing!”
“Otto, it’s already done.”
And he slammed the phone down in my ear.
But I had told Otto the truth. What was done
was done. Dalton Trumbo’s name would be on Spartacus.
Only a few weeks later, I was stunned to learn that Trumbo was going to be writing Exodus as well!
Not long after calling to scream at me about giving Dalton Trumbo screen credit for Spartacus, Preminger fired Maltz and hired Dalton as the new writer on Exodus.
The only problem was that Trumbo was under contract to write my next picture too, a western with Rock Hudson called The Last Sunset. Exodus was a huge project. Even for the prolific Dalton, it would be hard for him to juggle both.
I called him up immediately. “Dalton, what the hell . . . you’re supposed to be writing The Last Sunset now, not Exodus for Preminger!”
“Kirk, Kirk, Kirk . . .” He was chuckling. “Remember when you fucked Otto by telling him you were using my name on Spartacus? Now it’s your turn to get fucked.”
I was speechless for a moment. Then I started roaring, laughing uncontrollably. Trumbo was the only man alive who could make me laugh so hard.
I shouted into the phone, “Trumbo, you two-timing, double-dealing sonofabitch—all I can say is that Exodus had better be good for the Jews!”
Now we were both laughing hysterically.
Otto Preminger, a talented director, had a savvy ability to use any controversy to his own advantage. In an interview with a New York Times reporter on January 20, two months before Exodus even started filming, Preminger “broke the news” that he would be using Dalton Trumbo’s real name on the screen.
I remember saying to Anne, “You’ve got to hand it to Otto. He saw that the train had already left the station with Spartacus breaking the blacklist. Not only did he run to catch up with it, he jumped into the front car and claimed to be the engineer!”
Like doomed dinosaurs, the few remaining supporters of the blacklist lashed out with one final vicious blow. And their dying tail was aimed directly at one of my best friends in the business—Frank Sinatra.
In early 1960, Frank announced, brashly and publicly, that he had hired Maltz to write the screenplay of William Bradford Huie’s novel The Execution of Private Slovik, a true story of the only American soldier to be executed for desertion since the Civil War.
