The Fat Lady Sang

by Robert Evans

  “A fuckin’ madam with a princely pride. And now she was living in L.A., trying to start a pastry business. Ripley wouldn’t believe it. ‘Los Angeles is not for me,’ she used to say. ‘But you know, Robert, I can’t go back to France.’ And she was right. As soon as she got off the plane, she would have been arrested and put in jail for murder.”

  “Murder?” Wolfgang’s face was ashen.

  “M-U-R-D-E-R. That’s right. She was set up by the government. Knew too much, but they couldn’t kill her. I was having lunch one day with Alain when Claude joined us. God, was she an unhappy madam. ‘Alain, I’ll never be able to go back to France. Here I am in Los Angeles, selling pastry. I hate eating pastry, never mind selling it. I like pussy and I like selling pussy. If only I could change my name . . . but I can’t do that, either.’

  “The sad thing is, without Claude, Paris just ain’t Paris. Forget all the sex—there were more clandestine meetings in her little office than they have at the State Department. She was the hub of the action. It’s amazing how sex brings business to the table. And she sure knows the table. What a waste of talent . . . seeing her sell doughnuts in L.A.”

  We reflected on the bumpy roads of fate. “You and Alain were always in here together.”

  “How about for over a decade we were joined at the hip?”

  “That long?” He shook his head. “And you’re still here to talk about it?”

  “Let’s just say it wouldn’t have made a Disney flick.”

  We got up and I put my arm around him.

  “When you see him, please thank Alain for making Ma Maison the place to be.”

  “I don’t have to tell him, Wolf. He knows it.”

  20

  From the early sixties to the mid-eighties, Alain Delon was the highest-paid actor in the history of France. For more than twenty years, Delon dominated France’s international box office. Having starred in fifty-nine films, making his debut in 1958, he was a god in every country in the world except one . . . the United States. Purple Noon, Rocco and his Brothers, Eclipse, The Leopard, Le Samourai, Borsalino—one classic followed another, vaulting him into the role of the world’s top romantic leading male actor . . . almost.

  Reflect and you’ll realize, shocking as it may be, how few European leading men have became stars in America—at least among those for whom English isn’t their native tongue. That goes for women as well—with the exception of Ingrid Bergman. (Sophia Loren started as a film star, but as an actress she made a great armpiece for a male star.) There’s a reason for this: between New York and Los Angeles there is a huge valley called the United States of America. And since the advent of talking pictures, the populace of that huge valley does not pay highly to hear accents.

  Delon was the man to break the mold—or so the studios thought. Delon himself couldn’t have cared less. Hey, it’s tough living more luxuriously than a king. Half Corsican, half French, he was one tough, smart motherfucker. I mean tough in the physical way, and smart in every way. From art to francs, he mastered them all. At the age of seventeen he arrived in Paris, where he worked as an usher in a cinema. He told people, “In one year, my name will be on the marquee.”

  Well, the impossible happened. Within a year, he was on not one marquee, but three. In forty years, his name never came off.

  In 1961, I got my cinematic romantic break in Twentieth Century Fox’s flick of the year, The Best of Everything, playing King Prick. The picture was hailed by the press, but I sure in hell was no Delon. My publicity far overshadowed my performance . . . and at that time publicity mattered far more than performance. I was press-hot, and Fox cared more about pressing the press than coddling the critics. Off to Europe I went. I was getting more fan mail at the time than anyone at Twentieth, with the exception of Elvis Presley. He could sing and dance. Me? I just had a profile and a reputation . . . not good, but prone to ink wherever I traveled.

  It was a once-in-a-lifetime high and I wanted to suck it all up. And suck it up I did!

  Knowing my penchant for gambling, a friend of mine, Dr. Paul Albou, asked me to join him in a high-stakes poker game. It lasted till six in the morning. There were two people left in the game, Evans . . . and Alain Delon.

  That’s how we met.

  The weeks, months, and years we spent together were exciting, dangerous, cavalier, debaucherous, decadent, and electrifying. If I tried to capture everything that happened in those years in those books, the critics would think I was on an acid trip. The only thing more shocking than those twenty years is that I’m here, alive, to write about it.

  For close to two decades, Delon and I were great pals and confidants to each other’s most private affairs. Our bond of trust was sacrosanct. The adventures we shared, the rules we broke, the secrets we kept, could be told only in the confessional booth. Together we were like two confidence guys, getting that vicarious thrill that can only be gotten by pressing the danger button. Did it work? On all fronts!

  Neither of us was unscathed by our skydiving actions. He, a celebrated film star not only in France but, with the exception of America, throughout the world, was temporarily barred from France for his alleged tangential involvement in a murder. (He was eventually cleared of all charges.) Me, the boy wonder of Paramount, almost ended up in the slammer for cocaine, murder, fraud, and prostitution. That’s for openers.

  From 1963 to 1965 we were both married. Alain married Nathalie Barthélémy, and I got hitched to Camilla Sparv, the sensational Swede. For two years they lived in Los Angeles while he was starring in Universal’s Texas Across the River. Camilla and I occupied a small house in Bel Air. I went from being a half-assed actor into becoming a virgin producer at Twentieth Century Fox. As married couples, all four of us enjoyed gambling. Three or four nights a week we played gin. The stakes were high: One night Camilla and I won close to fifty thousand dollars.

  By the end of two years, Alain and I were on the single path again. He moved back to Paris and started making film after film, and I express-trained it to becoming head honcho of Paramount Pictures. It was a chaotic time for us both.

  In 1966, I found myself in Paris. I hadn’t seen Alain for some time, but when he picked me up at the Plaza Athénée it was as if we’d just seen one another a day before. Ours being friendship treasured, our time apart meant little.

  Alain was so proud to see me, a fellow actor, become head of a major studio that he gave the most elegant party one could give—at the fabled Maxim’s. The next day he picked me up for lunch at the Relais-Plaza, the restaurant in Paris. Money could not buy you entrance. Here we were, the biggest romantic movie star in the world, and me, his pal, Hollywood’s bachelor du jour. Delon always had a table reserved and if he didn’t show, no one could use it.

  The maître d’ met us at the door and escorted us to Delon’s table. Passing the bar, I noticed Jorge Guinle, one of the wealthiest men in Brazil. His family owned the Copacabana Palace Hotel as well as the entire beachfront of Rio. An attractive man, he had only one deficit in life: his height. In stocking feet he touched a bit over five feet tall. He was, in my lingo, a sitting personality—the same height standing as sitting. (Too many times I’ve eyed some beauty across a crowded room, and approached the table with my mouth agape . . . only to discover she was a sitting personality. Hello and good-bye in sixty seconds.)

  Cuddling beside Jorge was a stunning beauty. But she was no sitting personality, she was the real thing, a knockout nearly six feet tall. What a difference a foot makes. Naturally, I greeted him with more friendliness than ever.

  “Hi, Jorge. How good to see you!” But I wasn’t looking at him—rather, above him, at the most striking brunette I’d seen in all of France. Her green eyes matched his bulging pockets. Her smile reminded me of Ava Gardner.

  In our brief conversation, she mentioned that she’d just graduated from the University of Berlin and was in Paris for the first time. I bid them a quick good-bye and sat down with Alain at his table.

  Begrudgingly, I
asked him the $64,000 question. “I can’t eat, Alain. I’m sick. I just don’t understand it. Look at us. Not a bad parlay to know eights, nines, or tens. What I don’t understand is that, between us, we don’t have two girls who equal a ten . . . and here’s this midget, sitting at the bar with a full ten! What’s worse, she seems to be in love with him!”

  Casting his eyes over toward their table, he gave the beauty his Delon look; she noticed but paid no attention. He turned back to me. “Within forty-eight hours she’ll be in my bed.”

  Now that’s chutzpah, French style.

  “Bob, let’s get out of here. Take a walk.” Walk we did, down the Champs-Élysées, toward the Arc de Triomphe. Mind you, not one head failed to turn to see if that was really the macho hero in the flesh. Delon being Delon, he never changed his expression, never turned his head, even when he spoke.

  “Left at the corner.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Number thirteen, rue du Carre.”

  “What’s there?”

  “An elevator.”

  I knew him all too well: Whether it was the press, an associate, a friend, or a lady fair, silence was his answer to curiosity. Well, I’m on his turf, I thought. Might as well play by his rules.

  Across the street from the Herald Tribune building, we arrived at a narrow office building about eight stories high. We walked through a revolving door toward a rickety, tiny gated French elevator. Reaching the top floor, we walked to the end of the hall and opened the door. Behind the desk sat a rather average-looking lady, who jumped up at the sight of Alain, put her arms around him, and kissed him. Then again, who wouldn’t?

  “Claude, I’d like you to meet my closest friend, Bob Evans. He is my host whenever I am in America. When I stay in his home, I’m treated as royalty. Now he is visiting me in my home. The only way I can show my appreciation is to treat him the same.”

  She extended her hand. “Monsieur, Paris is yours.”

  With the deliberate authority of a network news anchor, Alain continued: “Claude travels the world several times a year. Be it Scotland, Ethiopia, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, Morocco, Argentina, she has but one purpose: She seeks out one who has the most panache, charm, beauty, and all the attributes, to be groomed to perfection.”

  Stupidly, I blurted, “Are you the French associate for Eileen Ford or Elite?”

  Cutting me off disdainfully, Claude responded. “Non, monsieur. I am not a modeling agent.” A rare laugh from Delon.

  “Robert, Claude has no partner. She has a mini-monopoly.”

  “Monopoly of what?”

  “Of the world’s most valuable asset.”

  I wasn’t too quick on the uptake.

  “She seeks out women of the world who have the potential of perfection, and if they meet her criteria, and after spending time with them and coming to a mutual understanding, she makes an investment, turning near perfection into the real thing. One thing about Claude, Robert: She puts her money where her mouth is. Each girl she selects is groomed from head to toe, from clothes to cosmetics to manners. It’s a big investment, but the payday by far exceeds the outlay. Many times she has spent one hundred thousand dollars molding—”

  “Alain, many times more!”

  Alain looked at me. “You see? That’s why Claude is a monopoly.” I was both chilled and thrilled at the same time.

  “Close your eyes, Robert, and think. The best-looking girls from throughout the entire world are at Claude’s disposal. All of them are there, waiting for your call. Many a young beauty flies to Paris hopeful of meeting Claude. Some wait weeks, some wait months. The few who are selected are put under Claude’s umbrella, to be groomed to be royal paramours. Many of them have ended up as royalty—figuratively or literally.”

  Claude confirmed his account. “Alain, no one knows better than yourself. To be a Claude girl, you must be totally submissive to the desires of my client’s wishes, no matter what the wishes are. One mistake, and they are no longer with Madame Claude. It doesn’t happen often.”

  Alain smiled. “I want you to know, Robert, you’ve just met the most powerful and influential woman in all of France.”

  Me? I’m thinking to myself, Fuck Italy. France is the place to make films!

  I looked at Claude. “Don’t mean to be nosy, but . . . is that a bed in the next room?”

  Claude answered my stupid question. “Yes, Monsieur. It’s there for . . . call it a patriotic reason. Many a powerful man from the government needs an afternoon siesta. Their schedules are so pressured. All it takes is a call to Claude, the time they wish to have their rest, and a description of the companion or companions they wish to rest with. Naturally, there is a separate entrance to the room; this door is usually closed.”

  “Hmmm. Interesting.”

  A wide smile from Delon. “At last! I have a chance to pay you back for your hospitality. You would think a movie star would be spoiled, but you really spoiled me every time I was at your home.” He laughed. “But you’re more spoiled than me. How can I pay you back for all the pleasures you’ve given me? I offer you Claude, on a silver platter . . . to please whatever your palate may desire.”

  “You must understand, Monsieur Evans, as long as Claude is alive, never shall a Claude girl accept a gratuity from you. If I find out she does, at the end of the day she will not be a Claude girl.”

  I turned to Delon. “Alain, this goes down as the most extraordinary gift I’ve ever received. There ain’t nothin’, and I mean nothin’, that runs a distant second. You sure bull’s-eyed it, you prick.”

  I felt like I’d won the lottery. Alain and I embraced and laughed and laughed. . . .

  Claude escorted us back to the elevator. When the rickety gate opened, four legs began to tremble. It couldn’t be. Was this a trick? The very girl I’d fallen in love with earlier that day was staring right at me!

  Without a word, we descended to Delon’s car. We went back to the Plaza Athénée. The breathtaker? She was one of Claude’s fillies. She could’ve been the next Mrs. Evans. (I guess I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. She went on to become the wife of the second-richest man in Germany, heir to one of the great industrial fortunes.)

  And Claude? In the late 1970s she was forced to flee France, victim of her own notoriety. Seems all them politicians and powerful men let their fear of exposure get the better of them. She was the subject of three movies, many books, and endless investigations before she returned to France in 1986—to arrest, trial, and jail.

  If it be true that the world’s oldest profession competes with any of the world’s oldest commodities—gold, silver, diamonds—then Madame Claude could go toe-to-toe with the world’s most entrepreneurial financial geniuses.

  21

  Three days after things ended with Catherine, a three-page spread appeared in People magazine: “The Nuptial Bliss of the Princess and the Player.” There was a slight problem. Unbeknownst to all, the Princess had already dumped the Player.

  As it was Catherine’s first trip to the altar, gifts from all over the world were arriving at our home. Calls of congratulations were keeping all six lines busy. There was one problem: Catherine wasn’t there to receive them. She was at her lawyer’s office working on her annulment.

  It was Dodge City time. I couldn’t take the heat. I had to get the hell out of there, and quick. An hour later, I was limping down the beaches of Laguna, after checking into a nearby hotel under the alias Tony Lombardo. I was a mental and physical cripple, trying to escape a very public embarrassment.

  All I could think was, This has happened to me before. It was forty years ago—exactly forty, in the summer of ’58. What a long forty years. But suddenly it felt like it was happening all over again.

  I was still a young movie star. Romantically linked with cinema’s top femme fatales—Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Grace Kelly—I was nicknamed “Lover Boy” by the Hollywood press.

  Then it happened. I met the girl of my dreams, Danielle Loder, and she
hit me where it hurt.

  Extraordinarily beautiful. Stylish to the tens. Deep-freeze cool. Hey, what do you expect? She’s a fuckin’ Frenchie. They breed ’em that way!

  Her father, John Loder, a famous English matinee idol; her mother, Micheline Cheirel, a renowned French actress. Strangely, Danielle had zero interest in being an actress. That alone made her one big turn-on. Without trying, she stood tall as one of the world’s top models. From head to toe, she was it! My every fantasy, finally a reality. The future Mrs. Evans, I thought.

  Did I flip for her? Big-time! Did she for me? Who the fuck knows? Did I have all the props? Big-time! A lot of good it did me!

  Danielle was on my arm as we walked down the red carpet at the Paramount Theatre in New York at the premiere of The Best of Everything, Twentieth Century Fox’s big flick of the year. Me? I starred as “Lover Boy.” Not a bad setup for a guy trying to seduce a dame. Them mobs of girls, busting through them ropes, grabbin’ and screamin’ for my autograph . . .

  Did it impress Danielle? Less than zero! Her only emotion was boredom—boredom with the film, with the night . . . with me!

  Did I pick up Frenchie’s vibes? Of course not—I’m a guy!

  A month later, rolling over on one of the silky beaches in the Bahamas, I asked her to marry me.

  “Why not?” she whispered back.

  Don’t let anyone tell you different. Them fuckin’ Frenchies have fuckin’ down to a science!

  Me? I couldn’t take the heat—not from Danielle, from the thermometer. It never went south of 101. Too hot for me! We left two days early. She, to Paris and Milan for the Couturier Collections. Me, I flew in the other direction, having had the luck to cop the second male lead to Yves Montand in Jerry Wald’s production of Let’s Make Love, starring Marilyn Monroe. Playing King Prick in The Best of Everything had jump-started my career back into high gear. Not only did that film set me up for Let’s Make Love; it awakened Darryl Zanuck to the fact that I was still his protégé, the only actor he had under personal contract.