The Kid Stays in the Picture

by Robert Evans

  “Thanks, David. Oh, by the way, I own this one.”

  Within a week I was offered a cockamamie deal where I’d get billed as the associate producer. It was understandable. I’d never produced a movie before. But fuck ’em, I owned it; they didn’t. I turned their offer down flatter than any performance I had ever given. California, here I come. Keeping my town house intact, with bride in hand, I rented a romantic hideaway in the hills of Bel Air.

  George Wieser kept sending me book after book. For another five Gs, I bought another option. This time, F. Lee Bailey’s account of his successful defense in the sensational Dr. Sam Sheppard case (after serving nine years for the murder of his pregnant wife, the Ohio osteopath was retried by order of the United States Supreme Court). Was it dumb luck, or was Wieser this bright? First Valley of the Dolls, then The Detective, now the Sam Sheppard murder case. The Detective had already worked its way up to the top of the best-seller list. Who says the writer ain’t the biggest star? Suddenly, every leading actor, director, and writer in town wanted to be part of bringing The Detective to the screen. For the first time, the guy holding the aces was me.

  “David Brown’s on the phone,” said my part-time secretary.

  His charm more lethal than ever, “Twentieth’s been your home, Bob. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Negotiations had started. As a favor to Korshak, Greg Bautzer, Hollywood’s most highly profiled attorney, represented me. What Bautzer thought was an afternoon’s work took close to three months. Fox offered half a mil, but that was to buy me out. I wanted my foot in the door. I told Greg that to get The Detective Fox would have to give me a three-picture development deal, a suite of offices with secretaries located in the select administration building, and two back-page ads in the trade papers with a picture of me signing my deal with the new head of the studio, Dickie Zanuck.

  Ego? You bet! Revenge? Even more so.

  “Is he crazy, this half-assed actor?” screamed Lou Schreiber, Fox’s top business honcho. “He’s lucky to get in the gate! I have to tell Mr. Zanuck he has to pose for an ad in the trades with him? Nothing’s worth that. Forget it!”

  The news was a turndown, but Greg’s flamboyant account of his meeting with Schreiber made us laugh so hard that everyone in the Polo Lounge looked around to see what the joke was. It was no joke. I had no deal.

  One of the scripts collecting dust on my desk was Chevalier, an original screenplay about the life of the French entertainer Maurice Chevalier, centering around his love affair with the legendary cabaret singer Mistinguett. I didn’t think much of it as a script, but for a thousand bucks I’d taken a thirty-day option on it because the writer, Maurice Richlin, had won an Academy Award. From Alain Delon, an old pal, I heard that Chevalier himself was in town for a couple of weeks. When your back’s against the wall, the impossible becomes possible.

  Alain was preparing an American picture, hoping to become the next Charles Boyer. A reclusive loner, he was one of the most unapproachable people in the world. Yet we seemed to share a common bond as brothers.

  He, at the time, was among the world’s biggest film stars. I was a producer who had never produced and was without an office, but it didn’t matter. When I asked him to arrange an introduction with Chevalier, he said of course. Better yet, he said he’d like to play Chevalier himself.

  We went to the great man’s hotel. Only the French could turn on the charm like Alain. He told Chevalier he’d always had a “fascination” with playing him on the screen. Hearing this, Chevalier dropped thirty years. For the first time, he noticed the kid with the script.

  I was rolling sevens. “Mr. Chevalier, do you have any pictures of yourself with Mistinguett? Something startling that would jump off the page?”

  Chevalier looked at me strangely.

  “Chevalier is not going to be just another picture, we’re going to make it an event. Alain, I want to give a press conference—the Bistro would be the perfect backdrop. Mr. Chevalier—and Alain, if you wouldn’t mind—I’d like you both to be there.”

  As showmen, they agreed.

  Two days later at eleven A.M. I walked into the Bistro with the script of Chevalier under my arm. “Hey,” I whispered to Alain, “what if I announce Bardot as Mistinguett?”

  “Why not?”

  All the movie press was there, foreign as well. Not to see me, but Alain Delon and Maurice Chevalier.

  I had hardly got a word out when Walter Winchell’s stringer got up. Grinning sarcastically, he said, “I don’t understand, Mr. Evans. Are you talking as a producer? To the best of my memory, you’re an actor, aren’t you? And also in the dress business?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Mr. Seidman, I sold my dress business for several million dollars—cash. I gave up acting when I turned down parts in The Chapman Report and The Longest Day. Presently I’m in negotiations with a major studio for a multipicture deal. The first picture is The Detective, based on the novel by Roderick Thorp.” I stopped them cold. Call it the unexpected: no one knew I owned the best-selling novel. Then I held up an old picture of Chevalier and Mistinguett, which I’d had blown up and glazed with an antique veneer. “My second project is Chevalier, starring Alain Delon as the great entertainer and Brigitte Bardot as the love of his life, the legendary singer Mistinguett. Unfortunately, Miss Bardot could not be with us because she is filming outside Paris. But Mr. Chevalier and Mr. Delon are here to answer your questions.”

  The response was so explosive, I never announced my third project. Lucky—I didn’t have one.

  The next day, “BARDOT, DELON IN ‘CHEVALIER’ ” was in headlines across the country. Way down in the text were the words “to be produced by Robert Evans.”

  Over at Fox, Lou Schreiber was on the phone to Bautzer. Greg got me everything: three-picture deal, great office, and my picture on the back pages of both trade papers—with my good friend Dickie Zanuck, no less.

  * * *

  Camilla had been one of the most in-demand models in the business, a favorite of Scavullo and the other top fashion photographers. Now she was only “Mrs. Robert Evans,” but she loved it. My skinny Swede was the perfect wife; wonderful around the house, wonderful as a hostess, wonderful as a companion—with a great flair for a raunchy story.

  Everyone saw Camilla as “the next Audrey Hepburn.” She had the same ingenuous smile and coltish grace, the same champagne effervescence, the same innate projection of style.

  “How about doing some acting, baby?”

  She laughed. “Of course, there’s a very big demand for a tall, skinny Swede with no tits.”

  “Let me make some calls.”

  She shrugged.

  Me, Camilla’s Svengali? Not at all. I didn’t care about her becoming a movie star any more than she did. I just wanted her to get some work so she’d be out of the house and I could get my freedom back. Good husband material!

  I invited Billy Gordon, head of talent at Columbia, and his wife over for dinner. To say they were enchanted with Camilla is an understatement. The next day Billy asked if he could test Camilla, using a scene from Sabrina. Camilla would be in the Audrey Hepburn role; Cliff Robertson in the Bogart part. Richard Brooks would direct.

  Camilla’s reaction was “Bob, I’d rather not.” As a lark, she agreed to it. Driving to the Columbia lot, she said, “If you laugh at me I’ll hit you right in your cojones.”

  Maybe it was the fact that she just didn’t give a damn that made her so alive. When Columbia’s hierarchy saw the test, they immediately wanted her for a long-term contract. With luck, I thought, she would get a good long-location picture. And I would get my freedom back.

  Camilla would rather play gin than read scripts. Alain Delon had stayed on to make Texas Across the River with Dean Martin, and almost every night he and his wife, Natalie, would come over with their infant son, Tony, for the high-stakes action. Camilla and I weren’t necessarily better players, but we had an edge because we were playing by home rules. No ace around the cor
ner. After a month, we were up $26,000 in green.

  One night Kurt Frings arrived with Eddie Fisher. Alain and Natalie knew Kurt well and had met Eddie once before. All six of us were there to play gin. The game began. Three against three, Eddie and Kurt switching sides after each set. I bent down to pick up a card that I dropped and thought I was seeing double. Natalie’s hand was on Eddie’s crotch. This dame, married to Europe’s most attractive male star, was making a play for this over-the-hill singer, with more ridges on his face than the Grand Canyon.

  Was I hallucinating, or was it a setup? If it was, it worked. It was the first time Camilla and I had lost—and lost big—about $11,000. But it wasn’t a setup. The next morning a very distressed Alain called. Would I quickly come over to his house? Once there, I listened to one of the most unbelievable stories of my life. Natalie, kid and all, had just taken off for Miami Beach, not to get the sun, but to be with Eddie Fisher, who was appearing at the Hotel Fontainebleau.

  “Let’s get on the next plane to Miami,” Alain urged.

  “You’re on.”

  Off we went—Camilla, Alain, and myself—to bring Natalie back to her senses. We arrived at five in the afternoon. By eight, we were sitting front and center at the Fontainebleau, waiting for Eddie Fisher to come out and perform. He did, spending the entire hour on the stage, crooning to his new lady love, Alain’s wife, Natalie.

  When it’s over, it’s over. Poor Alain. All he kept saying in his broken English on the flight back was “Eddie Fisher, Eddie Fisher, Eddie Fisher.”

  My brother Charles and his wife, Frances, had taken a house in Miami Beach for the winter. I had to be back in L.A. for some meetings. Alain had to return to get on with his flick. I suggested Camilla stay on for a week—spend a bit of time with her new in-laws. She bought it!

  Good, dutiful husband that I was, I promised to call Camilla every night. It’s one of the few promises I kept. I had been home about a week, and I dialed Camilla in Miami. My brother answered.

  “Is Camilla there?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Where will you be tomorrow about noon?”

  “At the Palm Bay Club.”

  “I’ll call you there. Boy, have I got some wild stories for you.”

  When it came to kiss-and-tell, Charlie was my only confidant. On the phone the next day, I rattled off, one by one, the graphic details of my week’s escapades.

  “A cashmere sweater if you can persuade Camilla to stay another week.”

  Laughing, Charlie hung up the phone. So did Camilla, who wasn’t laughing, and certainly wasn’t supposed to be listening. Call it woman’s intuition, but the night before, she had picked up the phone early and heard me tell my brother about the wild stories I had for him. It motivated her to pay a hundred bucks to the hotel operator to be hooked up to our clandestine noon call. What a difference a call makes.

  The skinny Swede was so cool about it. As angry as she was, she kept her secret to herself for nearly a month.

  I’d been invited to play in the amateur/pro tennis tournament at the Palm Springs Racquet Club and I asked Camilla to join me.

  “No,” she said, “I’ll just be a distraction. Be a winner.”

  Wow! A weekend off.

  Disqualified in the first round, I could have gone home that day. But not me. The town was packed. Without a racquet, I was ready for everything.

  When I got back to our love nest late Sunday, the cool Swede was cold.

  I tried for a smile. “Just because I lost, you don’t love me anymore?”

  “Like a drink?” She brought me a mug of ice-cold beer. Then she took my hand. “Let’s sit down and talk.”

  Maybe she wanted a bigger house. . . .

  “How could you do it, Bob?”

  “Lose? Easy, I’m a lousy player.”

  “You’re a loser.”

  What?

  “A loser? That’s one thing you know I ain’t, baby.”

  She looked straight at me. “I should hate you, but I don’t. I pity you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  One by one, she named the friends of hers I’d fucked on the sly.

  “Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

  “How do you think it makes me feel, walking into a room, knowing everyone’s laughing at me because I’m married to the town whore?”

  Early in life, I learned never to cop to a woman, even if she catches you in the act.

  “Are you crazy?” I repeated.

  “I know all about it, Bob. I heard you on the phone with Charles.”

  I could jump out the window and roll down the hill. Or I could be a coward and get to the nearest phone. I was a coward. I made it to the phone booth at the east gate of Bel Air in a minute and a half.

  Charles wasn’t home in New York. His butler said he was dining at The Little Club. Warren Beatty couldn’t have dialed The Little Club’s number any faster.

  “Charles, it’s a bad dream. Remember that phone call to the Palm Bay Club about a month ago?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “Camilla just read me the riot act. She heard the whole thing.”

  “She couldn’t have . . .”

  “If she had three private eyes on my tail, she couldn’t have been as accurate. What the hell’s going on, Charles?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you better know! Ask Frances.”

  “Settle down, will you, Bob!”

  “Thanks for the advice. What do I do now?”

  “Deny everything.”

  I couldn’t. Instead, I copped to everything. What the hell. I’d already told her I wasn’t marriage material. But in truth, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror without total disdain.

  Camilla was the ultimate Swede—a pragmatist. “Bob, I want you to see a psychiatrist. I want this marriage to work.”

  “Psychiatrist? Come on! I’ve never been to one in my life and I’m not going to start now.”

  “You’re sick. You need help!”

  She was right. I was sick, but it wasn’t help I was looking for.

  After three visits to Dr. Hacker, the psychiatrist of Camilla’s choice, he called her.

  “Forget it, Mrs. Evans. It’s a waste of time. He’ll never change. My advice to you is go out and have an affair yourself. You deserve it.”

  Our breakup caused a far deeper depression than I ever imagined. Los Angeles suddenly lost its glamour. Naturally, I blamed the town, not the person, as the culprit.

  Chapter Fourteen

  You live by the press, you die by the press. Who would have thought a journalist would change the entire course of my life and career? On reflection, I don’t know whether I should love him or hate him.

  I met Peter Bart, the West Coast correspondent for The New York Times, through Abby Mann, whom I’d hired to write the screenplay of The Detective. Peter and I hit it off as opposites. I was fascinated by this intellectual straight arrow, who was writing stories about hippies and antiwar demonstrations in California—“Indian country” to the people back east—and getting them printed in the ultrasquare Times. Peter must have been fascinated by a type of guy he’d never met before. We were both new boys in town.

  I couldn’t believe it when Peter said he wanted to write a feature about me for the Arts & Leisure section in the Sunday Times. I had yet to produce my first picture.

  “Is this a joke, Peter?”

  “No, Bob. You’re the first person I’ve met out here who makes things happen.”

  “Okay. If you say so.”

  One night Peter Bart took off his horn-rims after a day of interviews and said, “I started this story about your energy. I’m thinking of changing it.”

  “To what?”

  “The Outsider—you, Bob Evans, the ultimate one. The ex-actor, laughed at, ridiculed by the so-called power players, but as they laughed, you figured out a way to beat them at their own game. You know you have, Evans.”

  “If you’re
right, pal, I’m on my way.”

  “You’re the only one I’ve spent time with since I’ve been in Tinseltown that isn’t tinsel. You know who the real star is—the material. What’s interesting about you, Evans, and why you’re worth writing about, is that you’re beating the so-called big guys at their own game.” Bart laughed. “You could become the guy you played.”

  If I was smart, I would have retired after Peter’s article in The New York Times, calling me the next Thalberg.

  Instead, Greg Bautzer said, “Pack your bags, Bob. We’re going to New York.”

  “I got plans, Greg.”

  “Break ’em. Charlie Bluhdorn, who just bought Paramount, wants to meet you. He read that article about you in Sunday’s New York Times.”

  “What does he want to meet me for?”

  “He’s as tough and bright a guy as I’ve ever known, Bob. He’s a doer, not a talker. He wouldn’t ask me to waste my time if he didn’t have something specific in mind. Now get packed.”

  Within five minutes of meeting Charlie Bluhdorn, I knew this was no kibitzer. Before I finished trying to answer one question, he was asking me another. Strangely, I didn’t have to answer any of them. Before I could open my mouth, he answered the questions himself.

  With him was Martin Davis, his top capo, who was the one responsible for the go-go conglomerate, Gulf + Western, buying the aging “mountain” (Paramount). During the hour’s barrage, Davis never once turned his deadly Doberman eyes away from me. Forget Bobby Evans; the two of them together could have intimidated Bobby Kennedy. After an hour of being a Ping-Pong ball I looked at Greg.

  “Between the two of them, they’ll eat me for breakfast and still be hungry.”

  Was I perceptive? Never more. Except that they also ate me for lunch and dinner.

  There were eight major studios at the time, and Paramount was ninth. Though Bluhdorn had bought it at bargain-basement prices, everybody thought he was nuts to get involved in a business he knew nothing about, much less a business as crazy as show business.

  Secrecy being the M.O., I began to feel like a CIA agent, flying back and forth from New York to Los Angeles for more than a month. Summoned to New York on a Sunday, I was greeted by Marty Davis.