Bill, of course, never put it into writing.
But Sharon walked into studio head Stanley Jaffe’s office and told him what Bill had told Guy … and added that she was afraid for her life.
Stanley Jaffe knew, too, that Evans wasn’t a murderer … knew better than anyone probably because Bob was the godfather of one of his children.
But Stanley called Bob in to tell him what Sharon had said Bill had told her about him.
Evans collapsed and was rushed to Cedars Sinai. It seemed at first to be a massive coronary, but it wasn’t … only Bob’s blood pressure, sky-high, out of control.
Naomi, meanwhile, started talking to the press. She talked about how she had lost her baby. She talked about how Sharon had gone to a psychic to learn that she and Bill were lovers in a past life … about how Sharon had given Bill the ultimatum about not sleeping with him until they had broken up … about Bill asking her to “get their stories straight” for the press so Sharon wouldn’t be embarrassed.
The tabloids went bonkers, her story blew up around the world, and Sharon Stone was an international home wrecker.
The headlines said, “SHARON STONE STOLE MY HUBBY … HEART OF STONE … STONE-COLD … JILTED BRIDE CASTS A STONE … ANGUISH OF BRIDE JILTED FOR SEX SIREN.” The Boston Herald headlined, “NEWLYWED SAYS SHE MISCARRIED AFTER STONE STOLE HUBBY” and USA Today said, “FIANCE’S EX ON THE HEART OF STONE.” The London Sun used an old nude photo of Sharon on her hands and knees on the front page and bannered: “SHARON STONE COST ME MY BABY!”
· · ·
I was in my last Sliver meeting at Paramount with a roomful of executives and they were talking about the new ending to the movie.
Someone suggested that the villain go down in a bloody hail of bullets and then someone mentioned Naomi and the potential damage of Sharon being known worldwide as a “home wrecker.”
“That’s it,” Stanley Jaffe said sardonically. “We’ve got our new ending. Sharon’s career is over anyway. We shoot the bitch.”
Word of the film’s problems had leaked to the press, as evidenced by a Richard Johnson column from the New York Daily News. Talking about her interview with Barbara Walters, Johnson wrote: “Stone talks about her affair with Macdonald in the interview she taped for the Oscar night special. Why would she go public? Word in Hollywood is that Sliver isn’t doing too well with test audiences and that the decision was made to help it out with even this kind of publicity.”
When I got back to Tiburon, only a few days away from leaving for Maui, I saw that my hope that Gerri’s condition was improving was false.
I was sitting in my downstairs den, reading. Gerri had gone out for a walk. She came bursting through the door, sweated and hysterical, and threw the car keys at me.
She was yelling … she was sorry she’d ever met me … I’d ruined her life … she had nothing in her life, I had all the friends and all the glory. She hated … California … Hollywood … herself … me.
She started knocking things off desks and counters, taking books off shelves and throwing them at me. She was crying, in a blind and furious rage. I tried to calm her down. I talked about Steve and Suzi, our two beautiful kids (who, luckily, were out of the house), about the good times we had shared in our twenty-four years of marriage.
I was crying now, too, trying to calm her, but nothing worked. She was laying waste to the den, which contained the mementos of thirty years of writing.
As she was going through the bookshelves, ripping and tearing at the books I had collected and loved so much, I ran upstairs to find Naomi, who was somewhere in the house.
I asked her if she could try to help Gerri and ran to the phone to call a doctor friend. He was at the house ten minutes later and found Gerri sobbing and hysterical, holding on to Naomi.
He forced Gerri to take two Valiums and she drifted off to sleep in the den.
I went up to the kitchen, poured myself a stiff drink, and sat at our hammered wooden monk’s table, not able to stop my tears.
Naomi came up after a while, poured herself a drink, too, and I noticed she was also crying.
We sat there for a long time sipping our drinks, not saying anything. She asked me if I was hungry and she made fried bologna sandwiches with pickles and mayonnaise, the kind I used to eat when I was a kid growing up in Cleveland.
We ate our sandwiches in silence and I suddenly turned and looked at her and said, “Do you want to come to Mars with me and play?”
She smiled at me and I put my hand on hers. She took my hand and held it. It was the first time that I’d touched her.
We didn’t look at each other; we stared out the big picture window at the bay.
We sipped another drink, holding hands in the kitchen, saying nothing to each other.
She got up and went upstairs and I sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window.
I knew my marriage was over. It had been over for a long time and Gerri and I had swept its death under the rug for the sake of Steve and Suzi. We had dodged the truth for too many years, but Steve and Suzi were grown now, leading their own lives, mostly gone from the house. Gerri and I were left there, alone, with the death of our relationship between us.
Gerri came up from the den as I sat at the kitchen table. She was still crying, but they were tears of heart-wrenching sadness, no longer tears of rage.
“I’m so sorry,” she kept saying, “I’m so sorry, Joseph. It’s my fault. I know it’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not,” I said as I held her. “It’s not, Gerri. It’s my fault, forgive me.”
That night, as we were falling asleep, Gerri said to me, “Naomi’s the perfect woman for you. She’s the one you should have married.”
I said, “Please stop this,” then I put my arm around her, pulled Gerri close to me, and kissed her forehead.
She turned away from me.
I turned the other way and fell asleep listening to my wife crying.
[Voice-over]
The Girlie Girl
MICHI WAS TWENTY-TWO years old. I met her at Bob Evans’s house in Beverly Hills. She lived either at Bob’s or at an apartment she sometimes shared with her mother in West Hollywood. She was an “actress-model.”
I knew it was going to be such a good day. Bob was at the Carlyle in New York talking to Liz Smith and there wasn’t anybody in the house except for Ali, who was in the guesthouse sleeping in.
Mom called and said Ferdy was giving her the limo. Ferdy was another big mucky-muck producer. Mom said she was going to take me out to lunch at the Grille so I did some girlie things and painted myself up for the longest time and by the time Mom showed up in Ferdy’s big white stretch I was ready. I had that little red skirt on that Bob got me from Fred Heyman’s for my birthday with the sparklers on it. Nothing tacky, not Vegas or even Palm Springs sparklers, just little ones. Cool. Retro.
We went to the Grille but first we stopped off on Melrose because Mom wanted to get Alan an old tie. Alan is the maître d’ there and he always gives Mom and me a great table and he collects old ties.
Mom looked great. Honest to God, you can’t tell she’s forty—you can’t even tell she’s my mom, a lot of people think she’s my older sister. She was wearing a little nothing of a sunflower dress from Chanel and she had the Chanel backpack that Ferdy gave her for Christmas and the Cellini Rolex that was inside the backpack when she got it.
She was in a great mood. She said Ferdy was going to take her to the Hôtel du Cap for a month because he was down in the dumps and had to get away. David’s suicide really got to Ferdy, the way David did it and all, just checking into the Century Plaza and doing it. The Century Plaza! Not even a bungalow at the Beverly Hills or the Chateau Marmont, the Chateau would have been the really cool place for it, but the Century Plaza with all those Japanese tourists—tacky!
We had the steak tartare at the Grille with their cucumber salad and three margaritas. The only other place I’d ever have the tartare is at Le Dome, but t
he one at the Grille is spicier, I think they use more mustard. Alan loved his tie and we saw a bunch of people. Don Johnson was there with this amazing tan and smoking a big cigar and he gave me the eye and a wink when he was leaving. Anytime! Any-old-time! Mom saw him wink but didn’t say anything, probably because there was no doubt he was winking at me. I wish Bob would have Don over to the house instead of the old guys, but Warren would probably have a coronary. Don looks way too good.
Mike Ovitz was there. I’ve never met him and neither has Mom but I think he’s pretty cool. People sort of stop talking when he walks by and watch him. He’ll never come over to the house, though, that’s for sure. I hear he’s not like that … the word gets out sooner or later on everybody … and he doesn’t like Bob, at least that’s what Bob says.
It has something to do with some money that Bob owes him on a commission that Bob didn’t pay him a long time ago. Last year Bob got all nervous about Mike Ovitz not liking him so he sent him a letter apologizing for not having paid him … with the money he owed him enclosed in the letter. Mike Ovitz sent the check back torn up in little pieces. Bob was sitting there in the screening room with this torn-up check in his hand, bawling like a baby. I sort of think on the one hand it’s cool to send a check back torn up like that, but on the other hand Bob has enough problems without having Mike Ovitz do him like that.
Pretty soon Mom got a little high on the margaritas and started crying about how she could have been a really good actress—not crying with her eyes, she wouldn’t ever want to ruin her makeup, but crying with her mouth—and that led her into crying about how Ferdy was never going to marry her. She was afraid she was going to find him dead in bed next to her one morning or out on the bathroom floor wearing his glasses like Don Simpson. And she was afraid she’d kill him in bed, although I know they don’t hardly ever do anything directly together. If that happened, Mom said, we’d be back living at the Sunset Hyatt like we did after we got here from England.
I said to Mom that wasn’t so bad … I remember the Sunset Hyatt and all the speed … I was thirteen then … and she said it wasn’t so bad for you because it was so bad for me. I said what does that mean? And she said well, because it was so bad for me made it possible for it not to be so bad for you. And I said—Oh, you mean that record company guy you were seeing who was always putting his hands on me? She said—He was just one aspect of it.
That made me laugh. Mom sometimes has this English accent she picked up from the time we were in England after we left Crete and the way she said “Ass-pect” was funny.
She asked me about how the party was with Helmut. Ferdy decided at the last minute that he wasn’t strong enough for it so poor Mom couldn’t come. I told her Helmut took some more pictures of me and Mom said—Like what? And I said—You know. Mom didn’t like that. She didn’t say anything for a while and then she said what I should do is see Ferdy’s attorney, she could fix it up for me, and see if I can get a piece of the money Helmut makes off the pictures.
If he gets a piece of you, at least you should get a piece of him, Mom said and I said—All he does is take my picture.
Sometimes I think about Helmut’s pictures of me, though, and I think—Jeez, some guy somewhere is using up a lot of Kleenex and getting off on me big time and I’m not getting off and I’m not getting paid for it, I’m just ordering more candles for Bob’s bedroom or doing the other stuff Bob likes me to do.
We were both starting to get a little down from talking like that, blue, or at least chartreuse, so it was either sitting there slugging more margaritas or doing something so we decided to do something and get our hair done. The limo took us down the block to Christophe—José Eber was closer, but nobody goes there anymore—and we were lucky, Cici squeezed us in and made poor Joanna Pacula wait. (That’s all she’s doing these days anyway, waiting, she even waits around at Bob’s house a lot.)
Cici is so great! Both Mom and I got more highlights, but the thing that’s greatest about Cici is that she doesn’t use that tinfoil stuff that takes hours and makes you feel like a geek. She’s an artist, Cici, she paints you the way a famous painter would with these little brushes and when you leave you look like you’ve just spent a week on Maui.
Cici is so cute, I just love her! She’s got a friend who’s dating one of the guys in Mötley Crüe and her friend met Pamela Lee and Cici says Pamela Lee gave her friend a pair of plastic pants that are unreal and Mom and I went “Plastic pants!” And we all decided we’ve got to get some. Cici knows everybody and she said Keanu was in the other day for a trim with Barret.
Mom and I walked out of there feeling great! I just love my hair when I’ve been out in the sun and Mom told the driver to take us over to Neiman’s because she wanted to get a surprise for me. She took me over to Kieselstein-Cord inside and picked out this amazing cross in black gold that is so cool. It’s a regular cross, but it’s got all these like African or Egyptian women on it instead of any bleeding body. She bought herself one, too, and gave the guy Ferdy’s platinum card.
She wanted me to go over with her to say hi to Ferdy and I didn’t want to for the usual reason but she said nothing was going to happen and Ferdy was asking about me and maybe I could cheer him up a little. I said—Oh, God, Mom … but we’d had such a great day and it was such a cool cross that I said okay.
When we got to Ferdy’s I had my cross on but Mom had hers in her purse and said she’d put it on later. Ferdy was sitting in the living room with about six monstro lines of coke laid out in front of him and wearing his pajamas. He looked terrible, the way he always does—fat, pale, sweaty, his hair gone, jowls gray and like sunken down.
Hazel was sitting there doing the lines with him. I could see right away how Mom was pissed off when she saw Hazel there with him. Hazel is younger than Mom but I don’t think she’s as pretty.
Ferdy is trying to be cool with the whole thing—“Michelle, sweetheart! Aren’t you looking beautiful!” And his usual jive. All Hazel does is wet her lips with her tongue and sniffle her nose. I’ve never liked Hazel. Every time she comes to Bob’s all she wants are downers and she acts so high and mighty hippity hop. Give me a break! She used to be in Khashoggi’s harem turning tricks with Arabs.
Pretty soon Mom and I do some of the lines and pretty soon Ferdy starts what he always starts but I’m not into it, I’m certainly not into it with Hazel, which is what Ferdy’s got in mind. But we snort a couple more lines and Ferdy pops a bottle of Dom and Hazel is telling me how much she likes my cross and I start to go with it a little but then I think … I just can’t.
Ferdy’s a little pissed off at me but he’s too high to be really pissed off, besides that Mom is here with Hazel so it won’t be a total loss for him. I give Ferdy a hug and I let him cop his usual feel and I give Hazel a hug—she looks disappointed, she really does.
I give Mom a big kiss and I thank her for the day and I tell her how much I love my cross.
I head out for the limo and Mom goes over and sits down close to Hazel.
CHAPTER 22
[Flashback]
I Live with Priests
GUS
It must be something, being a writer, making stuff up all the time.
CATHERINE
It teaches you to lie.
GUS
How’s that?
CATHERINE
You make it up, but it has to be believable. They call it suspension of disbelief.
Basic Instinct
MY MOTHER DECIDED that she was going to speak French. She went down to the library, brought home Berlitz recordings, and listened to them. “Why are you learning French, Nana,” I asked her, “and not English?”
She said, “That’s my business.”
“Why is she learning French and not English?” I asked my father.
My father said, “Be thankful it’s not Russian.”
Jack Russell was the city’s political boss, the president of the City Council. He was Hungarian. He had come from Hungary as a bo
y at the turn of the century. He had been a junkman in the city’s East Side Hungarian community, working the alleys with a horse and buggy. One day he realized he knew just about every Hungarian on the East Side and decided to run for the council.
He was a fat man with a pale complexion and slicked-back, greasy hair. He smoked a big cigar.
“What do we need an interview for?” he said in Hungarian to my father. “I already sent the check for the ad. I send the check, you give me the endorsement—that’s the way it works, isn’t it? The priest I talked to didn’t say anything about any interview. You’ve got the money, so don’t waste my time.”
My father said, “Fein, Mr. Rusnyak,” and we started heading back out. He thought Rusnyak was Russell’s real name.
“Russell,” Jack Russell said. “Don’t give me any of that old-country bullshit.”
Many years later, when I was a reporter for the Plain Dealer, I wrote a story about Jack Russell that characterized him as an old-style Tammany boss, not much different from Jake Arvey, the Hungarian in Chicago who had engineered the Kelly and Daley machines. Jack Russell was offended by my story and asked me to come see him at his Buckeye Road office.
He was a sick old man then, the weight hanging off of him, pale as a frog’s belly, the cigar unlighted in his mouth, his eyes so bad he had to wear sunglasses all the time.
He had recently been deposed as the president of the City Council but he was still a councilman. He of course didn’t remember the sixteen-year-old Hungarian boy he had met with his father. He spoke to me in English.
“You can call me a fuckin’ political hack or whatever other names you wanna call me in your paper,” Jack Russell said, “but remember this. When I first ran for council, they pissed on us Hungarians. The Union Club assholes and the Shaker Heights crowd. We were the niggers then.
“And it was guys like me and Arvey in Chicago that changed all that. Because we looked these high-class phonies in the eye and said—‘No more!’ You play ball with us—you give me what I need for my people … a community hall, street repairs, cops that don’t shake you down … or I’m gonna make sure you don’t get what you need for your people!
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