Hollywood Animal

by Joe Eszterhas

  Naomi: “You said that if you get Dick Cook on the phone the answer will be yes, but you will never get him on the phone. But you said ‘I’m not like that. I will deal straight with you’ … Then you came to lunch with Oren. It was a three-hour lunch. You arrive and I can see again that you are really excited. You were very excited. You were coming out of your seat with excitement. But what you were excited about was the Tommy Lee/Pamela video and the size of Tommy Lee’s organ, which you kept talking about. And then you digressed to the penis file at Fox and about how you’ve got all these photos of all these guys’ penises and how big they are and I’m thinking, ‘You know, you have a meeting with Joe Eszterhas. You’re having a lunch. What’s your agenda. Oh, I know! Maybe if I talk about penises and sex for two hours, it will distract him.’”

  Naomi concludes this way: “I don’t know about Disney. I have never met any of these people. All I know about Disney is that growing up I watched The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. Now I have a peek inside at the people making the magic, and, to me, it’s like lifting up a big rock. All the little bugs immediately scuttle off to the side and you’re left with a big fat worm in the middle doing nothing. And the experience has been disillusioning at best and insulting at worst.”

  I then say, “Let’s cut the shit here today, okay? My shit detector has really gone off. I’ve never really felt you people were allies. I think that I have done this movie myself and will continue to. But for God’s sake, let’s cut the shit. Get your hands off my dick, all of you. Let’s just finally tell the truth.”

  The bottom line of the meeting is that the entire advertising budget—all print—is $300,000. (“You’ll get plenty of print,” Dick Cook had said in October, “don’t worry.”) Three hundred thousand dollars for a nine-city opening! Three hundred thousand dollars for a $10 million budget movie! Three hundred thousand dollars—only $50,000 more than I myself was asked to invest (and did invest) in the movie and $50,000 more than Whoopi’s new Picasso.

  This is the advertising we have: The only full-page ads we have in the nine markets are in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times the Sunday before opening and the day of opening.

  We have a two-line ad running at the bottom of page one of the New York Times which costs $400 a line (my idea). We have no press junket. We have no TV ads. We have no radio buys. We have no magazine advertising. We have an L.A. premiere, but we don’t have one in New York. We have no opinion-maker screenings. We have no plans for any of the movie’s stars to do a press tour. In the nine cities, we have one single billboard—in L.A., on Crescent Heights, partially obscured by a gas station sign.

  On January 12, Terry Curtin, writing under Buena Vista Pictures letterhead, expresses umbrage at my wife’s remarks. She calls Naomi’s remarks “vicious and misdirected.” (Misdirected is, I think, a telling word—What it says to me is that Naomi’s remarks were warranted, but not addressed to Curtin. Equally telling is that she doesn’t deny the veracity of my wife’s remarks at the meeting in her letter.)

  Curtin goes on to express “pity” for our “beautiful young children.”

  In disbelief that an executive of a public company is writing these words about my children, I don’t even respond to her comments about them.

  But her remarks about “having cared” about the movie and “working so hard to convince my co-workers to treat … this project with respect” make me question, once again, why she had to work so hard to convince co-workers if Disney had good-faith intent to distribute the film.

  In the late afternoon of January 12, Dick Cook speaks to my agent, Jeff Berg, and says Curtin’s letter to my wife was “out of line.”

  Cook tells Berg he’s upping the ad budget to $500,000. Maybe, Berg and I think, we’re making the tiniest, incremental progress here. On the 14th of January, Geoff Ammer, senior vice president of Buena Vista Pictures Marketing, tells producer Ben Myron that the $500,000 figure represents no additional advertising to what we discussed at the meeting of January 9. We’ve made, Jeff Berg and I realize, no progress at all: Cook’s “up to $500,000” was a mirage. When Myron asks to see the marketing plan budget, Ammer tells him, “It’s none of your business.”

  I am being asked then, after months of dodging, obfuscation, and disingenuousness, to take Disney’s word for it: A) About the marketing plan itself, B) Its cost and budget, and C) About the alleged additional allotment in the budget allegedly being consumed by the ads already agreed to at the meeting of the 9th.

  Am I really to expect that with this kind of attitude and with open and documented animosity from a high-level Disney executive, Disney is not doing everything it can to put this movie into the ground? Aw, come on, Michael. This is bad stuff, unfair and wrong. I killed myself for this movie. I sold the screenplay for $250,000 instead of my usual $4 million fee, believing in the movie’s commercial potential. I cut it, rounded up the music, did the music edit, supervised the soundstage—without any pay. And then I put my $250,000 writing fee back into it, believing it was all worth it, believing I’d get a fair shake when it was distributed.

  What I am left with in this scenario is a Tommy Lee/Pamela porn video … a naked girl one-sheet on my bathroom wall … a Buena Vista Pictures letter expressing “pity” for my children … and a marketing plan budget which I am told is “none of my business.”

  This, Michael, is your Disney?

  I never got an answer from Michael Eisner.

  Paranoid that Disney wouldn’t release the movie, I asked the production people to strike me my own print.

  I knew that I had now committed a crime, but I had visions of myself, film cans in hand, invading the projection booths of neighborhood theaters for mysterious underground midnight showings.

  We put the film cans in a closet behind the baby’s bassinet.

  I had a frightening thought:

  Was I becoming Alan Smithee, who first steals his own film and then burns it?

  Was this the mad Smithee’s cackling revenge upon me for having created him?

  Ryan O’Neal needed a ride to a research screening of the movie in Beverly Hills.

  He lived a few miles down the Pacific Coast Highway from us and we picked him up in our limo.

  He was telling Naomi and me how happy he was living with Leslie Stefanson and as he spoke he put his hand on Naomi’s bare knee and felt her leg.

  I said, “If you touch her again, I’ll break your fucking hand.”

  He took his hand off Naomi’s knee.

  At the screening, Ryan put his shades on and asked to be whisked into the theater just before the lights went down so no one would recognize him.

  He was whisked in a little early. The lights were still on. People saw a pudgy middle-aged guy with shades.

  From what I could tell, no one recognized him.

  After the screening, when our limo pulled up, Ryan was suddenly there.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to him, “Naomi and I are going out to dinner.”

  “Can I come?” he said.

  I laughed and said no.

  “But I don’t have a ride home,” Ryan said.

  I said, “Take a cab.”

  “I don’t take cabs,” Ryan said.

  I smiled and said, “Yes, you do.”

  Disney ran its first ad for the film on the front page of the New York Times on January 16, 1998.

  There it was, right at the very bottom of the front page, left-hand corner. Two lines: “BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN—‘I’M A PRODUCER NOT A PIMP.’”

  If you had a very strong magnifying glass, you could read it.

  · · ·

  I submitted seventy-two one-liners from the movie to Disney to be used in the New York Times magnifying-glass ad campaign.

  Disney sent my list back to me with the following one-liners crossed out:

  PAGING DR. OVITZ! DR. OVITZ WHERE ARE YOU?

  HOW DO YOU LIKE OUR TRUCK? SPIELBERG’S GOT ONE, GEFFEN’S GOT ONE, KEANU’S GETTING ONE.

&nb
sp; HE SAID ONLY ROBERT EVANS COULD HELP HIM. ROBERT EVANS TRANSCENDED SEX AND DRUGS.

  THEY PROMISED TO GET REDFORD INTO MY NEXT MOVIE. WHEN THEY REALLY WANT SOMETHING, THEY USE CRUISE AS THEIR BAIT. STILL, REDFORD IS ONE STEP UP FROM HOFFMAN.

  MICHAEL OVITZ IS GONE, THAT’S WHAT’S WRONG.

  HE WAS BIGGER ON THE RUSH LIMBAUGH CIRCUIT THAN HUGH GRANT AND HEIDI HAD BEEN.

  WE HAD TWO PEOPLE FROM TOKYO IN THAT CONFERENCE ROOM. THEY UNDERSTOOD EVERY THIRD WORD, BUT STILL …

  During the holidays, Arthur Hiller and I sat down at a small pub in Santa Monica with a fireplace crackling near us. He had just seen the final cut at a nearby screening room.

  “I liked it,” Arthur said. “It’s very funny, but it’s different than the movie I signed on to make. You know I wish you the best of luck with it.”

  We talked about the new projects we were working on.

  “I’d like to work with you again,” Arthur said, “but with certain rules.”

  “I’d love to work with you again, too,” I told him.

  We sat there for a moment, looking at the logs in the fireplace, and I put my hand over his.

  I suggested taking the film to Slamdance, a film festival not to be confused with Sundance, its politically correct big brother.

  Jeff Berg called a Slamdance director and set up a screening of the film for them. The director called back and said Slamdance would love to show Smithee—for a payment of $30,000 which would go, of course, to “developing young talents.”

  “Blow me,” Jeff Berg said and hung up.

  I introduced the movie at its premiere in Westwood.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” I said, “I am the maniac responsible.”

  I began by saying, “First and foremost, with the greatest affection and respect, I want to thank Arthur Hiller, who directed this movie beautifully. I miss you here tonight, Arthur.”

  The critics hated it.

  The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Somewhere along the way, Smithee became a movie about itself. The production was riddled with feuds and finger-pointing, egos and manipulation. The final product was rejected for this year’s New York Film Festival; critics who have seen early screenings have savaged it.”

  In that same article, the Wall Street Journal described me as “a big, bombastic man with long blond hair” who “chews gum and smokes feverishly, frequently embellishing his tale with expletives” sitting in a room “littered with African art, movie artifacts, and lots of ashtrays.”

  Paul Verhoeven, I heard, was not amused at this bit of dialogue from the movie.

  SMITHEE

  If we believe in film—and we do—don’t we have a responsibility to protect the world from bad ones?

  ONE OF THE BROTHERS BROTHERS

  Is the movie really that bad?

  SMITHEE

  It’s fucking horrible. It’s worse than Showgirls.

  I was sorry Paul wasn’t amused.

  I put that line in there just for him.

  I ran an ad in the trades after the movie’s critical and commercial failure that said:

  In what he called “an act of abject cowardice,” screenwriter Joe Eszterhas canceled his appearance this week at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado.

  Eszterhas was scheduled to speak there after a benefit showing of his movie, An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn.

  “Even Hungarians don’t beat bleeding horses,” Eszterhas said, explaining his cancellation.

  This was Eszterhas’s reaction to the opening of Burn Hollywood Burn over the weekend:

  I guess I pushed some people’s buttons.

  I extended a middle finger and the critics returned the gesture.

  My redemption thanks to Telling Lies in America was brief.

  The critical response to Burn Hollywood Burn redeemed Showgirls. I’m happy about that.

  I hope Janet Maslin of the New York Times forgives me for her depiction in the film.

  I am making plans to kiss Arthur Hiller’s posterior in Times Square.

  I will resist Kenneth Starr’s subpoena of my White House script Sacred Cows.

  I accept the Razzies and the Sour Apple awards in advance and will appear in person to accept them.

  I am taking Jack Valenti’s advice and will seek immediate medical attention on Maui.

  I still think it’s a funny movie.

  Perhaps carried away by my promise to accept the award in person, Razzies officials nominated Smithee in a slew of categories, although my favorite nomination came not from the Razzies but from its competitor, the annual Stinkers Award.

  I received a Stinkers nomination for … worst on-screen hairstyle.

  Sharon Stone was nominated in the same category for Sphere.

  The Directors Guild deliberated that the name “Alan Smithee” would no longer be its official pseudonym when a director wanted his name off the credits.

  For some reason, the Los Angeles Times asked me for a comment. My comment was:

  “Who says writers have no power in Hollywood?”

  [Voice-over]

  The Daddy

  ART WAS SEVENTY years old. I met him on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Malibu Colony. He was a longtime and legendary Hollywood publicist:

  My old man was in Minneapolis, working for a paper. He wrote sob sister stuff. Purple prose, that’s what they used to call it. He always drank hard. He was a big guy, half German, half Irish. Tom Mix came into town, promoting something. He was the biggest thing in the world then. He and my old man drank. They liked each other and my old man said fuck Minneapolis and came to Hollywood.

  He became Tom’s publicist and Tom introduced him around and he became one of the biggest publicists in town. I was born in Culver City. We were living in a motel then. We were always living in one motel or another. My mom drank as hard as he did.

  When I was a little kid he’d take me with him when he went to a star’s house. He wanted me to see things. He was representing Crawford and Power and Clark Gable. The biggest names. He took me with him but there was one rule. I couldn’t talk. I wasn’t allowed to talk. My old man was a big guy. I never wanted to piss him off.

  I got into the business through him. He died soon after I started. The bottle killed him. It killed my mom, too. They died six months apart.

  When I was starting out, just a kid really, I met Ginger Rogers. She was more than twenty years older. She liked me. I was with her for about a year. She taught me everything about everything. What did I know? I was a kid from Culver City who grew up in motels. She taught me how to eat in a fine restaurant, how to tip the maître d’, the kind of wine to order. She taught me a lot of things I could never adequately thank her for.

  My favorite client was Judy Garland. She was in Vegas once and she called me in L.A. and said “I want you at the show tonight.” It was like four in the afternoon and she was going on at nine. I said—Christ, Judy, I’m not sure I can make it. She said—“If you’re not here when the show starts, I’m firing your ass.” I about killed myself getting there and I got there late. She was already onstage. I was about pissing my pants. She saw me come in. I had this seat waiting in the front row.

  She stopped the show. She said—Art, get up here! She looked pissed off. I didn’t know if she was loaded or not. I went up there. She said—“Happy Birthday, Art,” and Judy Garland sang “Happy Birthday” for me up onstage in Vegas. I had forgotten it was my birthday. It was probably the greatest moment of my life.

  I’ve never had luck with women. No, that’s not true, I’ve had a lot of luck with women, you know, that way, but I guess with what you’d call relationships, no go.

  It’s probably the zipper that’s the biggest problem. I know it’s not funny, but I just can’t keep the damn thing zipped. I talked to Milton Berle about it once. Miltie just laughed at me.

  The biggest love of my life was … well, I’m not going to tell you her name. You know the name. Everybody knows the name. She was a big st
ar in the sixties. I still can’t get her out of my head. I’m out at the Riviera or I’m out at the point at the Kahala and I think about her. She’s been dead twenty years.

  I met her in between her marriages. She’d been married and then after she and I broke up she remarried. She was the funniest woman I ever knew, the sexiest, too, but she hid it. It wasn’t about a pair of tits in a tight sweater. She was classy. She was a trouper. She was my pal. She was a dame.

  Good Christ we had fun. We’d go down to the beach and walk around by the Colony. Or we’d spend a weekend at Peter Lawford’s house in Santa Monica. One night we closed this joint down. We were drinking tequila. The jukebox kept playing Frank all night. Everybody was gone finally. They knew me there—they gave me the key and said lock the door on the way out. I made love to her on top of a pool table in the back. You know something? I never … fucked her. I made love to her a lot.

  But I fucked her sister. That’s what killed it. She had a sister who was younger. Hot. The pair of tits in the tight sweater. She was always around us. So one night I fucked her. She got pregnant. I took her down to Mexico for an abortion. And she found out about it. That was it. I was such a jerk.

  Almost the same thing happened with my fourth wife, but I think I got set up there. My fourth wife was an actress. You know who she was, you saw her on TV. Things were going a little rocky between us.

  Anyway, my wife had a house guest. She’s a writer. You see her on TV a lot these days, Sunday morning political kind of stuff. She writes columns in the paper. She’s very political now but she wasn’t then. She’s French. Almost matronly now, very Santa Barbara, you know, but she wasn’t then. She’d walk around the house in her nightgown. The nightgown wasn’t Santa Barbara, if you know what I mean.