Hollywood Animal

by Joe Eszterhas

  A penniless old Hungarian director of violent films would be on his way to a fancy New York tribute if I paid his way.

  But there was no way I was paying it.

  I disliked Bandi Toth intensely.

  Bandi had single-handedly driven the divine Veronica Lake, one of my all-time cinematic loves, off the screen. By marrying her.

  When she left him, she had to spend three months alone on a mountain to cool out. And when she came off the mountaintop, Veronica Lake said, “Fuck you, Hollywood, you’re one giant self-contained orgy farm with every male in the movie business on the make.”

  She never made another movie. She moved to New York and washed dishes in a restaurant. The only time she ever came back to L.A. was to pick up the papers of her divorce from Bandi Toth.

  I was grateful that the New York Film Festival had selected Telling Lies … but I wasn’t giving a penny to the Hungarian who’d retired Veronica Lake.

  The producer Don Simpson told me the best high school revenge story I’ve ever heard: “I was a complete nerd when I was in high school,” Don said, “a fat little kid with his nose always stuck in a book. Never mind getting any pussy, I couldn’t even get a date. I took a lot of shit from a lot of kids. Cut to me as a big-time, star Hollywood producer and it’s time for my twentieth high school reunion. In Anchorage, Alaska. I hired a helicopter and two Penthouse Pets. We choppered onto the football field where the reunion was being held. I got off the chopper with the Pets. I looked skinny and sensational. I hadn’t eaten any solid food for three weeks. I wore a white suit. Man, their jaws dropped. I mean—they shit themselves. I stayed about thirty minutes and then with a Pet on each arm, I got back on the chopper and they watched as I disappeared into the sky. Motherfucker! The best moment of my life!”

  CHAPTER 31

  I Burn Hollywood

  JOHNNY BOY

  I’m smarter than most. And I’m more vicious. I’m past all the boundaries. Listen to me closely. Don’t fuck with me! Please. This is good advice. Don’t fuck with me!

  Gangland, unproduced

  I FELT LIKE writing something different. I sat down on the Friday before a holiday and finished it Monday night. I wrote it for myself—as a goof.

  The original title was Amok, although I changed it to An Alan Smithee Film before I was finished with the first draft.

  It was a Hollywood satire. It incorporated many of the anecdotes and incidents which I had either heard, experienced, or suffered in the course of more than two decades of screenwriting. The style was that of a mock-documentary: talking heads telling their stories to the camera.

  It used the names of real Hollywood players and the script called for three industry superstars—Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Sly Stallone to play themselves.

  The Directors Guild’s official pseudonym was “Alan Smithee.” It meant that if any director felt that his movie had been ruined by a producer or studio, he could put the name “Alan Smithee” on the credits instead of his own. The credit “Alan Smithee” on a film was an immediate signal to critics and the public that the director felt that the movie had been botched.

  While “Alan Smithee” was the Directors Guild’s official pseudonym, the Guild had not bothered to copyright the name.

  It meant that any troublemaking screenwriter could kidnap “Alan Smithee” and use him for his own twisted, perhaps even malicious ends.

  · · ·

  We were sitting in the William Morris Agency’s fanciest conference room and Arnold Rifkin—I’d not yet fired him—my agent and the head of the agency, said: “Put this script in a drawer, forget you wrote it. It’s going to hurt your career and mine. It’s bad for the industry.”

  “What are you?” Naomi said to him. “The poster boy for the industry?”

  I took the Dogon fighting stick which I sometimes carried and slammed it into the ornate conference table, leaving a big dent.

  Arnold Rifkin started waving his arms about, flashing the red and orange Masai bracelet which he had bought on his most recent safari.

  We both stormed out of the room. Naomi ran to me and then ran to Arnold and we all went back to the conference room.

  “Damage control,” Naomi said to Rifkin, “is what I do.”

  Rifkin felt the dent I had left on the table with both hands and said that even though he didn’t believe in the script, he’d try his best to see that someone bought it and made it.

  And, since he represented Bruce Willis, he’d send the script to Bruce and to Bruce’s body double in the hope that one of them would agree to be in it.

  I decided to Samizdat the script like Solzhenitsyn.

  A friend of mine and I Xeroxed it and sent it all over town. To anyone and everyone. I had to get people to read it. I had to get around my own agent’s fear of it.

  The script made its way around town.

  The Hollywood trades wrote about it.

  Arnold Schwarzenegger got very angry, Arnold’s brother-in-law told me. Arnold didn’t like reading about being in a movie whose script he hadn’t even read.

  I wrote Arnold Schwarzenegger a letter:

  Dear Arnold,

  You are Austrian. I am Hungarian. There was once an Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1848, the Hungarians revolted against the Austrians. We lost.

  The Austrians were very gracious to the Hungarians after the Hungarians made such fools of themselves in 1848. I guess history repeats itself. Can we get together and discuss changing the course of history?

  I signed the letter with my name, and in parentheses put the word “Forehead.”

  It was Arnold’s personal term, his brother-in-law told me, for people he considered fools—as in “Vat ees wrong vit that focking forehead Hungarian?”

  Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t amused by my letter or by my foolish “Forehead” witticism.

  He didn’t answer me.

  Sly Stallone got the script through a mutual friend in Miami.

  Sly thought the script was hilarious and said he’d do it. “If I can’t laugh at myself after all the good things that have happened to me in this business,” he said, “who can?”

  On a personal note, he added, “You’ve certainly gotten crazier through the years.”

  Bruce Willis, Arnold Rifkin told me, was “a pass.”

  As the script made its way around town in the Solzhenitsyn manner, it started getting positive response from studio heads, producers, and directors.

  Steven Spielberg wrote, “I had a chance to read An Alan Smithee Film over the weekend and I liked it a lot. It’s funny and very wicked. … For your information, about sixteen years ago I developed a movie with Gary David Goldberg called Reel to Reel which was somewhat similar in tone to your film. Sixteen years later, I obviously have not made the movie, so perhaps I’m just a little over-cautious about telling a show business story which I’m too close to.”

  Arthur Hiller, in his seventies now but the director of The Americanization of Emily and Love Story, wrote: “Joe’s done it again. This is an original, brilliant, and tricky satire on our industry … if Joe doesn’t change anything, it’s not to complain. It’s a very clever parody, with wonderful characters and needless to say an original concept. Hollywood at its truest and funniest.”

  Bruce Willis’s body double, Arnold Rifkin told me, was also “a pass.”

  Whoopi Goldberg hadn’t read the script but she read about it in the trades.

  She called Arnold Rifkin, also her agent, and said, “If I’m not in this movie by the end of the day, you’re fired.”

  Knowing what Whoopi said to him … and remembering the dent I’d had to leave in the William Morris conference room table … I made Arnold beg me to put Whoopi into the movie.

  I finally agreed to cast her—but only, I said to Arnold, “as a favor to you.”

  I told the press Whoopi was replacing Schwarzenegger, who, of course, hadn’t even read the script let alone agreed to be in the movie.

  “Whoopi,” I said, “will
be much better than Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

  Arnold’s brother-in-law called to tell me that Arnold was now “very angry.”

  I said, “He was very angry before, wasn’t he?”

  “No,” the brother-in-law said, “he was angry before. Now he’s very angry.”

  My fellow Hungarian Andy Vajna at Cinergi told Arnold Rifkin that he would make the movie on a $10 million budget—my fee would be $250,000—if we were able to find three superstars who would play themselves.

  Vajna said he was happy about Sly and Whoopi but disappointed about Arnold and Bruce. (He didn’t mention Bruce’s body double.)

  Arnold Rifkin, perhaps feeling a little guilty about his earlier trepidations, promised Andy Vajna that he would personally find the third superstar.

  Vajna took Arnold’s word for it.

  We had a deal.

  We also had a go-movie.

  The director I wanted to make it with was Milcho Manchevski. He had directed the critically acclaimed Before the Rain and done some visually startling MTV videos.

  The choice was fine with Andy Vajna and Milcho started budgeting the script.

  After wrangling over the budget with Cinergi, Milcho decided he couldn’t make the movie on a $10 million budget and withdrew.

  He also withdrew because I wouldn’t let him dress Whoopi in the nun’s habit she had worn in Sister Act. An internationally acclaimed auteur director, Milcho wasn’t used to any screenwriter telling him what to do.

  I told Milcho that I wasn’t telling him what to do as the screenwriter … I was telling him what to do as a producer.

  Milcho didn’t buy it and, as his agent at William Morris said, was “a Passadena!”

  I sent the script to Bob Rafelson, who came to my house and told me he wanted to direct it.

  He wanted to make one change. He wanted to change Smithee, the screwed-over director, to Smithee, the screwed-over screenwriter.

  I told Bob that I was tired of hearing about screwed-over screenwriters and that the more screenwriters heard about being screwed over, the more likely it was that they would volunteer to be screwed over in the future.

  I said to Bob, “So why should I make this change?”

  Bob said, “Because if you make the change, then I will direct the movie.”

  I said to Bob, “You’re not worth it.”

  · · ·

  About a year later I saw Bob at the outdoor patio of the Peninsula Hotel. He saw me and got up from his table and suddenly stopped and said, “I’m only coming halfway.”

  I got up from my table and went to where he was standing and we hugged … halfway.

  I realized as I was hugging him that, a quarter century earlier, he was the first director I’d ever worked with.

  He had been fired by United Artists before he’d ever been hired for F.I.S.T., my first movie.

  As I hugged him now, I said, “You wanna do the sequel to F.I.S.T.?”

  Bob laughed.

  I told the press that this $10 million production would be “the most expensive home movie in Hollywood history.”

  Andy Vajna got angry at me.

  “I’m paying ten million dollars for a home movie?” he somewhat heatedly asked me. “How does that make me look?”

  I remembered the letter Arthur Hiller had written. I liked Arthur enormously. I called and asked him if he wanted to direct Smithee.

  He called me back the next day with a yes.

  Both Cinergi and I were happy.

  I loved the irony of the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences directing a movie that made “very wicked” (Spielberg’s words) fun of Hollywood.

  Arthur Hiller had directed not only The Americanization of Emily for Paddy Chayefsky, he had also directed The Hospital for him.

  I figured if Arthur was good enough twice for Paddy Chayefsky, he was good enough for me!

  We had our third superstar. Jackie Chan would play himself, replacing Bruce Willis and/or his body double.

  As I retailored the script for Jackie (not easy: he couldn’t speak English), Arthur started casting the movie.

  Naomi suggested Ryan O’Neal, producer Ben Myron suggested Chuck D. and Coolio, I suggested Sandra Bernhard, and Arthur handled the rest of it. He picked Eric Idle over Mick Jagger and Michael York, Richard Jeni over David Paymer, and Ryan O’Neal over Mickey Rourke.

  Ryan O’Neal came over to our house and fawned over my script for two hours.

  We drank two bottles of red wine.

  When he left, he hugged me and then hugged Naomi.

  The heroes of the piece, two street-smart and very cool black filmmakers, were based on Allen and Albert Hughes, who were originally going to play themselves.

  The Hughes brothers, two of my Hollywood heroes, directors of Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, had even worked on their dialogue with me. But at the last minute, they decided they weren’t comfortable playing themselves.

  “Naw, man,” Allen said. “Come on, dude. We’re not actors.”

  The Hughes brothers became the fictional “Brothers Brothers.”

  The character Sam Rizzo, a fictional private eye, was based on the real-life Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano.

  In the original draft, Sam Rizzo’s name was even Anthony Pellicano and Tony was going to play himself.

  When Sylvester Stallone agreed to play himself and discovered that Anthony Pellicano was going to be in Smithee, Sly threatened to back out of the movie. He and Pellicano had been on opposite sides in a lawsuit.

  I had to inform Tony that I had to fire him (from playing himself) because of Sly.

  “Then who’s gonna play me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Jesus,” he said, “you write a part that’s me, you have me playing me and using my own name, and now it’s all gone?”

  I called him back a couple of weeks later and told him that the head of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, had volunteered to play the part.

  “You’re going to cast Harvey Weinstein as me?” Tony said in disbelief. “Harvey Weinstein? You take my persona, you take my name, and now you’re going to turn me into Harvey Weinstein? I didn’t do anything to deserve this!”

  I changed the character’s name from Anthony Pellicano to Sam Rizzo.

  We needed to find an interesting-looking bartender for a scene.

  I suggested Michael Ovitz to Arthur Hiller.

  I thought Michael would make a sensational bartender.

  Arthur thought it was a great idea and got in touch with him. Michael thanked Arthur but said he was busy.

  Michael said he had also turned Albert Brooks down on another film.

  Sly Stallone came out to our Malibu house a few days before the shoot began.

  · · ·

  I wasn’t sure what Sly wanted, although Arnold warned me that Sly hadn’t yet signed his Smithee deal.

  What Sly wanted, I quickly discovered in my living room, was for me to write a script for him where he could play a televangelist.

  Since he hadn’t signed his Smithee deal yet, I said I would … if he could get a deal from a studio.

  Sly and I went to see Ronnie Meyer and a roomful of executives at Universal a few days later and tried to talk him into financing a script where Sly would play a televangelist.

  Ronnie Meyer was Sly’s former agent, but he fell asleep during the meeting.

  Shortly after I tried to talk Universal into letting me write the script for Sly, Sly signed his Smithee deal.

  On the way over to that Universal meeting, Sly and I had a heart-to-heart about writing.

  He hadn’t written a script for a long time and wondered why.

  “Probably because you’ve had your head in pussy for the past thirty years,” I said.

  Sly laughed and said, “You know what? You’re probably right.”

  Sly only had one day to shoot.

  He hadn’t memorized any of his scenes, it turned out.

  He imp
rovised all of it—every line of every scene.

  More than twenty years ago, I had threatened to punch him out for changing my script in F.I.S.T.

  Now, he and I were pals and he was changing my script of Smithee.

  Chuck D. asked me to introduce him to Jackie Chan, who was his hero.

  Chuck asked Jackie for his autograph.

  I introduced Chuck to Whoopi Goldberg, too.

  Whoopi’s daughter was there and she asked Chuck for his autograph. He was her hero.

  Bob Shapiro, my friend and lawyer and now, thanks to O. J. Simpson, one of the most famous men in the world, was on the set and asked me to introduce him to Sly.

  Sly saw us coming toward him, got up, and started walking away.

  I hurried after him.

  “Hey, Sly,” I said, “I wanted to introduce you to—”

  “Get that motherfucker away from me!” Sly said. “I don’t even want to look at him.”

  Bob Shapiro overheard him and turned away.

  I went after him and said, “I’m sorry, Bob.”

  “Forget it,” Bob Shapiro said. There were tears in his eyes.

  Robert Evans had a love scene with the young and sultry Leslie Stefanson in Bob’s pool.

  He asked me for Leslie’s phone number afterward.

  I refused to give it to him.

  Evans said, “You cocksucker, you’re just a screenwriter, remember?”

  Ryan O’Neal met Leslie Stefanson on the set, dumped Farrah Fawcett, his longtime love, and began living with Leslie.

  Now Evans was really angry.

  Ryan O’Neal had “stolen” the young woman whose phone number I wouldn’t give him.

  Evans and Ryan had “history together” as they say in Hollywood. While Evans was married to Ali MacGraw, Ali had an affair with Ryan.

  So this was the second time Ryan had “robbed” Bob.

  Deep into the shoot, Fred Leopold, the former mayor of Beverly Hills, an esteemed and venerable libel lawyer hired by Cinergi, raised objections to some lines in the script.