by Robert Evans
Suddenly it was tennis with Tyrone Power, driving for antiques with Mel and Audrey, playing the guitar with Eddie Albert; but best of all were the nights with Errol. If I were to be reborn, however, I’d like to come back as Tyrone Power. Not for his extraordinary black Irish looks, but for his complete lack of narcissism. Tyrone was a man’s man, a ladies’ man, an adventurer, artist, athlete, compulsive reader; competitive, but never boastful; genuinely, not theatrically, concerned; never afraid to admit his fright. Over dinner one night he told me how scared he was when he appeared on Broadway in John Brown’s Body.
“A movie star on Broadway is suicide.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because, damn it, I’m selfish. I wanted to beat the odds.”
Without knowing it or acting like one, Tyrone Power was a true aristocrat. Conversely, Ava, the world’s most beautiful woman, was a haunted soul—haunted by her poor childhood, stormy romances, fading beauty. She, unlike Tyrone, never inhabited her beauty, always feeling nondeserving of it.
There were two weeks when my ego thought we were in love. In reality, Ava, the professional, was just trying to make our onscreen chemistry more convincing. Not that she lorded it over me. Ava was wide open about Ava, blaming herself for her failed love affairs, telling me the most bizarre stories about how she’d screwed up her marriage to Frank Sinatra. I think she was still madly in love with him. Was I nuts about her? Who wouldn’t be?
Ava had a thing for matadors. They weren’t movie stars, they were gods who played with death. She’d recently ended a torrid romance with one of the supreme bullfighters, Luis Dominguin. We shot our interior scenes together in Mexico City. Afterward we’d go to the bullfighters’ hangouts. When Ava walked in, she got a matador’s cheers.
A great Spanish bullfighter was there one night. Ava recognized him, leapt to her feet, clicked her heels, and with her scarf executed several perfect veronicas. The matador got down, his knees nearly touching the floor, and charged her like a bull. Snorting, laughing, sweating, they did the first two acts of the corrida—everything but the kill. Finally he stood up, faking a terrible pain in his back, and she finished him off with a laugh and a kiss. It was by far the most exciting bullfight I’ve ever seen.
Tossing back her triple vodka, straight, Ava wiped her brow. “Pedro?” she said. “You know who sent the first blast about you to Zanuck? Me. You looked like a fool.” She leaned close, playing with me. “Hate me?” she whispered.
Six months later we celebrated her thirty-sixth birthday at the Harwyn Club in New York. It was sure in hell different from the smelly, steamy matador hangouts. And it sure in hell was a different Ava.
“It’s over, Pedro.”
“It was never really anything to begin with. You were just using me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, I wasn’t even thinking of you.”
I raised my glass. “Happy thirty-six, Lady Brett.”
She closed her eyes. “Happy! I’m over the hill—I know it, you know it, the industry knows it.”
She was right! In 1958, it was over for a leading lady touching her mid-thirties.
Wild! Women have grown into their own in the last thirty years more than they have in the last three hundred. In the mid-sixties I met Faye Dunaway in Miami. She was starring in her first flick, The Happening. No high school cheerleader she, rather a femme fatale. Now thirty years later, still a femme fatale. A working one too. Things do change—today most every top leading lady on the big screen is north of thirty-five.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
“How can I meet Lana Turner?” I pressed Joe Hyams. Both of us were at Universal Studios. Me to do an afternoon of post-production looping with Jimmy Cagney and he to interview the glamour queen herself, who was starring in a flick called The Lady Takes a Flyer with Jeff Chandler.
“After you finish looping with Cagney, come by Stage 7. I’ll be there all afternoon catching her between takes,” said ace Hollywood reporter Hyams.
Three hours later, there I stood beside him watching fake clouds blow into a fake cockpit hooked twenty feet in the air. In it was my fantasy lady since I was a teenager—the Lana Turner. The take now completed, the cameras and clouds stopped rolling. Being helped down the ladder from the cockpit and walking toward us was my fantasy come true. Not to see me, but to pick up with Joe on his interview.
“My name is Lana Turner,” greeting me with her hand.
My legs shook. My voice hardly audible, “Robert Evans.”
“I know.” A seductive smile. “How is Ava?”
Wow, if ever there were cat claws, that was it. But who cared? Certainly not me. She cared as much about me as Ava did—nothing. But she didn’t know how Ava really felt toward me and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her. It was a unique key to a very short-lived romance. Before my first flick’s release, my name was all over the tabloids dating two of Hollywood’s most glamorous legends. Both considerably older. Both considerably infamous. Did it help catapult my newfound career? You bet your ass it didn’t. A gigolo possibly. A playboy for sure. An actor? No way!
Chapter Seven
“The kid, he’s the best birthday gift I’ve ever gotten. How can I thank you, George?” The words were coming from Milton Sperling, behind his desk at Warner Brothers in Hollywood. Sperling was Jack L. Warner’s son-in-law, and putting nepotism aside, naturally, he was Warners’ top producer.
The man he was thanking was George Chasen, my agent and MCA’s top honcho under Lew Wasserman.
Me . . . I was the present!
“He’s perfect, perfect. Wouk must have had him in mind when he wrote it.”
Only three nights earlier, I had been in New York making the rounds, stopping by Bob Taplinger’s cocktail party to check out his new stable of pussy. His being Jack L. Warner’s top lieutenant in New York meant that new talent was always around for the picking.
As soon as I arrived, Taplinger pulled me aside.
“Your Zanuck deal, is it exclusive?”
“No! He gets first crack, that’s all.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Then pack your bags, kid. You’re leaving for the coast tomorrow.”
This guy must be nuts, I thought. But with all the new talent I saw in the room, who cared?
When Taplinger grabbed me by the arm and brought me into his bedroom, I was ready to give him a shot to the jaw. He wasn’t on the make, though, he was on the phone calling his boss, Jack L. Warner in Hollywood.
“J. L.? I found him. The kid, the kid to play Noel Ehrman. He’s perfect. Just finished two flicks, one with Cagney, the other with Gardner. . . . Yeah, Ava Gardner. J. L., the best part is the kid’s still a virgin, no one knows who he is yet. In a year you won’t be able to touch him. . . . J. L., who was the one who discovered Humphrey Bogart? Me, that’s right. My nose tells me this kid could be as big. . . . It’s not that simple, J. L. He’s got some cockamamie contract with D. Z. . . . Checked it out already. No problem, it’s nonexclusive. D. Z.’s no dope, J. L. With Marjorie Morningstar under the kid’s belt, he becomes a big star. . . . Simple arithmetic: we split him down the middle. . . . Right, chief. The kid’ll be in Sperling’s office Monday morning, 10:00 A.M. . . . His name? Oh, it’s Evans. Bob Evans.”
Taplinger hangs up.
“What the fuck’s goin’ on? I drop by for a quick drink to check out the pussy, and—”
“Forget pussy, kid, you’ve just touched platinum. You’ve made the coup of the year: the lead opposite Natalie Wood in Marjorie Morningstar.”
Sixty hours later, there I was—Milton Sperling’s birthday gift.
“George, before we start, let’s get it clear. J. L.’s gonna want to split the kid’s contract with D. Z. Do you see any problems?”
“If there are, Milton, between Lew and I, we’ll straighten them out.”
Pressing the intercom, “Irving. George Chasen will be in your office in about five minute
s. He’s with Noel Ehrman. . . . That’s right, Noel Ehrman. We’ve finally found him.”
Off the intercom now, Sperling gave me a smile.
“That’s the director, kid. The two of you will get along just great. George, mind taking him down to meet Rapper?” With a wink of wisdom, “Make him feel comfortable, you know.”
“Milton, that’s why you’re a great producer. Good idea.”
He cut George short. “Don’t blue sky me, George. J. L. will have my ass if D. Z. won’t split him down the middle.”
“Relax, Milton. Relax. It’s your birthday. We haven’t even started to negotiate.”
Me? I’m standing there thinking, what a fuckin’ crazy business!
Down the hall we went, to the offices of the effete maestro, Irving Rapper, one of Warners’ premiere directors.
After giving me a quick look, he swiveled his chair to George, then back to me, then back to George. Not a word, just looks.
Then he began to laugh.
Chasen looked at me. I looked at him.
“What’s he laughing at?” I demanded.
He didn’t stop laughing. Finally, George cut in.
“Irving, J. L. and Milton think the kid’s perfect.”
Trying to catch his breath from laughing, Rapper choked out the only words he could.
“Who is he?”
I thought I was in a nuthouse.
“If it’s one of J. L.’s jokes, I don’t think it’s funny.” Irving began to rave. “They want me off the picture, don’t they, George? They want me off? Tell me the truth!”
“Irving, stop being paranoid! The kid’s just finished two important roles, one with—”
“The truth, George. They want to get rid of me, don’t they?”
“Irving, will you stop—”
“Don’t Irving me, George. If they want Wilder, they’re going to have to pay me off, plus!”
Then, swirling his chair toward me, “Who are you anyway? A trick? You’re not fooling me, cutie face. I know a trick from a trick.”
Should I break his face, or sit and take it—try to get the part? I chose the latter.
“Nope, I’m just me.”
From his desk, he picked up a script and threw it at me, shaking, not laughing now.
“Go outside, cutie. Scene 83. Find it, read it. Do you know what a scene is, cutie?”
Counting to ten, I took the script and walked out, only to be met by a smiling face—the maestro’s secretary.
With politeness plus, I asked her for two rubber bands. I rolled up the script, putting one band on each end. Then I handed her the script, now cylindrical in shape.
“A favor?”
“Sure.”
“Would you mind returning this to Mr. Rapper? I’d like to write a note, but I have no pen. Could you take it down?”
“Sure,” she smiled.
Slowly, “Thanks Mr. Rapper, but no thanks. It’s better casting to shove Marjorie Morningstar up your ass!”
Then a quick exit and off to LAX. By midnight I was back in my New York apartment at 2 Sutton Place South.
What you don’t know doesn’t hurt? This time it did. George Chasen, up until the previous Friday, had another client already signed to the part. Having big script problems with the director, his other client had told Rapper to shove Marjorie Morningstar up his ass. Who was my agent’s other client? Paul Newman.
Ten years passed. Now I was head of Paramount. Being ushered into the office was the maestro himself with Herb Tobias, his agent, by his side. Certainly he didn’t connect the head of Paramount to the “cutie-face trick” of a decade ago. In typical agent’s style, Tobias started his pitch.
“You’re the first one we brought it to, Bob. Irving’s given three years to it. A labor of love. It’s hot. Your kind of picture. A love triangle. Steamy? It’ll burn up the screen. Scott—George C.—has already committed. I think we’ve got Burton and Dunaway locked up too.”
How could I not embrace it? Scott had just won the Academy Award. Plus Dunaway and Burton? What a package!
And what a negotiation. Eight months. Torturous? It made MacArthur’s signing of surrender in Japan a valentine. Ah! Rapper? Well, he finally got the nod on his “labor of love.” Not to make it, but again, to “shove it up his ass!”
Chapter Eight
It was a long hot summer. Flashbulbs were popping wherever I went. Man of a Thousand Faces and The Sun Also Rises were opening within three weeks of each other. I couldn’t leave my apartment without a camera going off in my face. My presence in the Evan-Picone showroom was a negative. All they wanted to talk about was Ava Gardner or Errol Flynn, not the new fall line.
Man of a Thousand Faces was Universal’s choice to commemorate their fifty years in the film business. How proud I was that night walking into the Palace Theatre with my entire family to its world premiere. On full blast, the klieg lights filled the sky. Cops were brought in to hold back the eager fans from breaking through the ropes. Radio and television were there en masse—from Barry Gray to Jack Eigen; from CBS to WPIX—all to cover Universal’s Golden Jubilee. Best of all, walking in beside me, was Yankee Doodle Dandy himself, Jimmy Cagney.
The lights went down, the screen lit up, and I was Irving Thalberg, driving through the Universal gates on his way to eulogizing the late, great Lon Chaney. For the next two hours, it could have been Groucho Marx or Laurence Olivier up there, I wouldn’t have known the difference.
By far, that night was the highlight of my life. A payback to Mom and Pop, who took so much heat from both family and friends about their offbeat kid.
Why is it that affirmation from your family always remains the one approval you never stop seeking? A mother and father who embraced my idiosyncratic behavior, a brother who was my closest friend, and a sister who looked up to me as if I were the Almighty.
That balmy summer evening of August 6, 1957, was as high a high as one could ever hope for.
From the premiere, off to El Morocco we went, all of us, from the top honchos of Universal to Yankee Doodle Cagney, making one of his rare public appearances. Forget my high! The honchos of Universal were really flying. The picture, both artistically and commercially, was a surefire hit. And did they need it. Universal in the fifties was low man of the majors. Finally, an oasis. Even Cagney seemed to be having a great time.
Being a nervous Jew, I couldn’t sit back and wallow in the night’s joy. The reviews must be on the stands by now. Using the excuse of going to the john, I slipped out the front door and around the corner to a newsstand. All the morning papers had just been delivered. The News, the Mirror, the Herald-Tribune. All of them raves. I was batting three for three, getting very special notice no less.
Picking up The New York Times, I quickly turned to Bosley Crowther, the dean film reviewer in the country. Wow, my picture, not Cagney’s, attached to the review. It must be the best of all.
Robert Evans as Irving Thalberg, the famous producer, is unspeakably poor. It is, indeed, a shame that one of the most professional persons ever to work in Hollywood should be played so amateurishly as Thalberg is by this monotonous actor.
It can’t be. It must be a mistake. It wasn’t. Did it bother me? I wanted to kill myself! Instead, I slid back into El Morocco thinking, Schmuck, you couldn’t wait until tomorrow, could you?
For the rest of the evening, I gave by far the best performance of my life. That is, until I got home. As soon as the door closed behind me . . . I started to cry. Curling up under the covers, I shut the phone off and stayed in a fetal position for seventy-two hours.
A telegram arrived: “Trying to reach you. No reply. Please call. Alan Hall. Time magazine.”
I tore it up. They’re after me—all of them.
The next day, another cable: “You were hung by Crowther. Want to clear the record. Please call.”
Two days later we met for lunch. Alan Hall was Time’s movie reviewer.
“Why did Crowther do it?”
He laughed. “He
just finished writing The Lion’s Share. It’s about Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer. He probably thinks only Orson Welles could play him.”
“The Sun Also Rises opens in three weeks. He’ll kill me again.”
“He’ll probably make it up to you.”
“Sure.”
Close to three weeks later, the Sun premiered at the Roxy. Hall was right. Romero, wrote Crowther, is “perfectly personified by Robert J. Evans.”
The reviews in the News, Mirror, and Trib were mixed to good. Toward me, however, all were an actor’s dream; I was described as everything from “electrifying” to “mesmerizing.”
The following Monday, Time’s review hit the stands. To begin with, the picture accompanying the review was a large picture of Ava Gardner and me in an embrace. The review went on to say,
The difficult role of Brett’s ultimate conquest, young bullfighter Pedro Romero, is played with fierce intensity by handsome newcomer Robert Evans. In the movie’s arena sequence, actor Evans conveys Hemingway’s paradoxical feeling of affection for what he kills (“The bulls are my best friend”), just as Brett always momentarily loves the men she ruins.
Following the review was a two-column feature devoted solely to the bullfighter.
Evans is the most exciting young man since Valentino,
Zanuck was quoted as saying.
But Valentino died at thirty-one!
Chapter Nine
It was Easter Sunday. The temperature, 103 in the shade. I was one of many watching a mixed doubles tennis match at the Racquet Club in Palm Springs, California. Being a guest at the Racquet Club was tantamount to being in Who’s Who in Hollywood. Founded by Charlie Farrell and Ralph Bellamy in the thirties, it attracted the crème de la crème of what was then glamorous Hollywood.
Playing were Pancho Segura and Lew Hoad, two great pros, each partnered with a blonde. The occasion: a celebrity/pro mixed doubles tournament. One lady I knew. Her face was on television every week—Dinah Shore. I had never seen the other lady, but she was a real looker!
