The Kid Stays in the Picture

by Robert Evans

  He’d met the “minutemen” of the William Morris Agency. Abe Lastfogel, who headed William Morris for half a century, was barely over five feet and he didn’t want anyone to look down on him. Only one agent was over five feet two, six-foot Lennie Hirshan. Lennie, who was Jack Lemmon’s agent, stood out like Mr. Everest.

  “I’m doing this for you, Evans, you know that don’t you? You sure you want it?”

  “I can taste it, Charlie . . . please.”

  He really wasn’t doing it for me. He was enjoying every minute of negotiating on a new turf.

  Pacing the floor, his eyes suddenly lit up. “There’s one weak link: Billy Wilder!”

  “They won’t make it without Wilder.”

  He walked over to me. His nose touched mine. He took his glasses off. So close now our eyelashes almost touched.

  “Greed, Evans . . . greed.”

  Bluhdorn was right.

  Lemmon got his deal. A million against 10 percent of the gross. Matthau, who at the time was a far lesser star, got a paltry $300,000 and no percentage. And poor Billy Wilder? He had to buy a ticket to see it. Gene Saks was brought in to direct for a mere salary.

  I got my way. Bluhdorn got his way. The Odd Couple became the studio’s biggest hit since The Ten Commandments.

  Charlie still had Preminger on his agenda. Silently, he paced back and forth in my office. He then took his glasses off, squinting, and standing less than an inch away from me, said in a whisper more intimidating than any scream, “As long as I own Paramount, Preminger will never make another picture here.”

  Half enjoying it, half scared, I told him the truth.

  “Easier said than done, Charlie. Otto’s got three more years on his contract.”

  Putting his glasses back on, he looked at me as if he were an actor playing Iago.

  “I want you to give Mr. Preminger a very slow death, very slow, understand? If you don’t, you’re going to have a very quick one.”

  If ever orders were followed to perfection, Preminger’s demise was. It took three years. His arrogance finally broken, Preminger exited the Paramount gates for good, one shattered kraut.

  James Coburn was a perfect leading man for the late sixties—rugged but irreverent. I thought it was a great coup getting him for an anti-establishment black comedy, The President’s Analyst, in which he would play a White House shrink so besieged to reveal state secrets that he ends up escaping to a hippie commune for privacy. For the next quarter century, The President’s Analyst would cost me my privacy.

  The real heavies of the script were the telephone company and the FBI. One day my secretary buzzed me with the message that two gentlemen were waiting to see me—from the Hoover Agency.

  “It must be a mistake, I’m not looking for a butler,” I buzzed back.

  “No, Mr. Evans, not the Hoover Agency. It’s Mr. Hoover’s agency, the FBI.”

  Was it something I’d done in Havana?

  Starched collars and all, they entered my office. No smiles, just gorilla handshakes and proper identification.

  “I think you’ve got the wrong Bob Evans, gentlemen.”

  “You’re making a picture called The President’s Analyst. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “We don’t like the story.”

  “Then don’t see the picture.”

  “Then don’t make it.”

  “Then get me a Paul Newman picture to take its place.”

  “Mr. Hoover doesn’t appreciate having the FBI being made fun of.”

  “Well, that’s show business, fellas.”

  “Mr. Evans, I don’t think you understand.”

  “No! I don’t think you understand. The picture goes as is. Got it?”

  Within twenty-four hours, a half-crazed Marty Davis was on the phone screaming.

  “Are you crazy? You don’t play games with Hoover. You don’t play games with the FBI.”

  “Fuck ’em. It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  The order was to change it. I did: to the FBE. I refused to compromise further, but I made sure anyone who read a paper knew the story behind the story.

  Smart? Dumb, with a capital D.

  It’s been over a quarter of a century now. Still my thirty-two phones at home and office share one thing—a silver anniversary of bugging. I hope what they’ve heard has made their faces as red as their necks.

  Irving “Swifty” Lazar, in a moment of weakness, promised me a first look at the next important literary property he controlled. I had been in the hot seat less than three months when Little Caesar was on the hot line.

  In a whispered voice, as if I were an idiot, “Vladimir Nabokov just completed the first draft of his new manuscript.”

  He didn’t know that Nabokov was possibly my favorite author. Forget Lolita, which was great, but Laughter in the Dark was one of my five favorite books.

  “You’ll have to move quick, kid. The Nabokovs live in Montreux, Switzerland. Hop a plane, get there quick as you can, read it. You’re getting a look even before me. Did I come through for you?”

  Flying from L.A. to Montreux, Switzerland, wasn’t nearly as romantic as it sounded. Twenty-four hours and many planes later, I arrived at the Palace Hotel in Montreux. It was off-season. I think the Nabokovs were the hotel’s only residents.

  Not having a moment’s sleep in almost two days, I tried to pull myself together. Certainly in awe was I as I walked through the virtually empty two-hundred-foot-long dining room, where sat Vladimir Nabokov, the maestro himself, with his wife. Introducing myself, I joined them for morning coffee.

  Quizzically looking at me, “You’re the Mr. Evans from Paramount?” Mrs. Nabokov asked.

  “Yes.” I smiled.

  “You’re sure?” the maestro asked.

  “Honestly, I am.”

  “You’re a child.” He smiled.

  “You can’t be more than twenty,” interjected Madame Nabokov. “You’re really head of Paramount?”

  “Here’s my passport. See?”

  Both of them looked at it, still not believing me. When you’re that high up the ladder in age, one loses perspective looking at someone half a century younger. Compared to them, I was still an embryo. However, I was certainly not old enough, nor presumptuous enough, to call him Vladimir. To me he was always Mr. Nabokov. To him, I was a boy, not a young man. But so what, I was still getting the first crack.

  After an hour at breakfast, both of them still felt somewhat skeptical handing me the maestro’s new manuscript, as well they should have. Not many people would have the strength to pick it up. It weighed more than my luggage.

  I went to my hotel room, not to sleep, but to read, and read, and read, and read, and read. There was one problem, I didn’t know what I was reading. Maybe it’s jet lag? I took a Dexamil, at that time a popular amphetamine. It didn’t help; I still didn’t know what I was reading. I was too excited to fall asleep, yet too numb to know what was on the page. From throwing cold water on my face, to a gallon of black coffee, I did everything to keep my cerebellum on alert. At ten that evening I finally finished it. I took a cold shower, then looked at myself in the mirror and screamed. “Goddamn it, Evans, you finally got a shot at a big one and you don’t know what you’re reading.”

  Now going into my seventy-second hour of being awake, I read the 900-odd pages yet again. It was torture. I became so angry at my inability to understand it, I got up from my bed and began knocking my head against the door.

  “Goddamn it, Evans, it’s Nabokov. Are you this dumb?”

  Then back to reading. I might as well have stayed in L.A. After twenty-four hours with manuscript in hand, I didn’t understand or remember a fuckin’ thing I’d read. It was now eleven A.M. Time to meet the Nabokovs for breakfast. What the hell am I going to tell them? I told them the truth. In my own way, that is.

  “It’s fascinating, extraordinary. I’ve never read anything like it.” It’s true. I never had.
/>   Fool me once shame on you—fool me twice shame on me. Only seven years before I was the victim of snob appeal. Trying to produce The Umbrella, I read and reread the play, not understanding a word of what it was about. But what the fuck did I know? It was an expensive lesson finding out no one else understood it either. It was then I decided, no matter whose pen it was, if I read something once and then read it again and still couldn’t understand it, it ain’t for me. Let someone else enjoy its success.

  I flew directly to New York from Switzerland where Charlie and Marty were anxiously awaiting the result of my Nabokov coup—possibly the most prestigious piece of material Paramount had been offered in years. What an announcement! I prefaced my critique telling them in detail of The Umbrella experience. Then, taking a deep breath, I told them that I read the book, not once, but twice and didn’t understand one fuckin’ chapter in the entire story. The manuscript to me was one big Rorschach test.

  Both Marty and Charlie gave me a look I didn’t like. I knew my credibility was on the line.

  “Fellas, every success I have had has been for a different reason and every failure for the same—I said yes when I meant no. At the cost of losing my job, I won’t say yes when I feel no.”

  Silence ensued.

  Finally, “The kid’s got balls, Marty.”

  Marty looked at me. “You may have balls, Evans, but if someone else buys it, I’ll have your ass.”

  Two weeks later, Columbia bought Nabokov’s new masterpiece for the unheard-of price of one million dollars. Me . . . I was a hair away from being sent back to makeup.

  A quarter of a century later, Nabokov’s novel not only did not make it to the screen, but was never adapted into a screenplay. Not one screenwriter could understand it. Neither did the most avid Nabokov diehards. Certainly no one at Columbia understood it. They bought it for all the wrong reasons—they wanted an announcement. It’s called star-fucking at its most expensive.

  The name of the novel—Ada. And Allah must have been looking over me.

  Charlie Feldman was more than a close personal friend. In many ways he looked upon me as the son he never had. He was not a bad guy to call your friend. Not only was he a big shot in the industry, but he represented all that was glamorous in the world of film. He was handsome, dashing, self-deprecating. As an independent agent, he had by far the top client list in town and was a successful producer as well. He also had one of the town’s most prestigious art collections.

  I doubt whether there was a handful of people in the entire industry who genuinely wanted me to prove everyone wrong. Luckily for me, he was one of them.

  Behind the desk only four months, I felt like it was four years. But there I was still on top of the mountain.

  “Eat those bananas, motherfuckers.”

  I was awakened on a Sunday morning. It was Charlie Feldman. “Something’s come up. It’s gonna put you over the top, kid. Get your ass over here quick.”

  Mario Andretti couldn’t have made it to his home faster.

  “Meet Ray Stark,” Charlie said to me.

  We shook hands. We had met once before, in France at the world premiere of Is Paris Burning? To say Ray’s relationship with Paramount and Bluhdorn was strained was an understatement. Bluhdorn and Stark shared something—mutual animosity toward each other.

  Is Paris Burning?, which was Ray’s film, broke Bluhdorn’s virginity into the film business. It almost broke Bluhdorn as well. Ray was by far the most entrepreneurial producer in Hollywood. Columbia Pictures was now his playground. Paramount was certainly the last place Ray wanted to be partnered with in the making of his Hope diamond, Funny Girl.

  As producer of the Broadway musical, Ray had discovered the then unknown Barbra Streisand. Whatever Bluhdorn’s feelings were toward Stark, it didn’t stop him from seeing the show more than half a dozen times. How vividly I remember him telling me that Funny Girl was the best entertainment he’d ever been afforded since landing in America as an Austrian refugee.

  Feldman started in. “Bob, Funny Girl just fell out at Columbia. Serge Seminenko is having a tough time with the Banque de Paris. They’re not giving him enough financial leeway to cover the production budget and marketing costs for Ray’s film. Seminenko’s asked Ray for another week to secure the funds. Ray’s not concerned with them coming up with the production money . . . they will. His worry, and he’s right, is that they won’t have enough in the till to promote it the way Ray wants it marketed. He’s got a forty-eight-hour out in his contract. There’s a bank holiday tomorrow. You’ve got forty-eight hours to make it a Paramount film.”

  Stark interrupted. “The kid must mean a lot to you, Charlie. The last place I want to bring it to is Paramount.”

  “It’s for me,” said Charlie.

  “There isn’t a major in town who wouldn’t kiss my ass for it. What’s the kid got on you?”

  “He introduced me to Clotilde. Without him I would never have met her.” Clotilde was the love of Charlie’s life, whom he later married.

  Stark immediately understood that a Feldman chit was as valuable as it was rare.

  “Okay, it’s yours. Don’t trip.”

  Off-limits, taboo, call it what you want, but there were only two hours during the entire week that those words were operative in the life of Chairman Bluhdorn. On Sunday afternoons between two and four, Bluhdorn was incommunicado to the world. Everyone knew it; everyone abided by it. Those hours were reserved for a lengthy hot bath and an hour of uninterrupted discussion with his two kids and Yvette, his wife. At 2:40 Sunday afternoon, the phone rang at the Bluhdorn residence. It was me—an intrusion that could have cost me a quick exit. Since she didn’t believe in servants, Yvette herself picked up the phone.

  “Bob, hang up quickly,” she whispered. “I don’t want him to know it’s you.” Click went her phone.

  Maybe I should wait? No, I can’t. I dialed again. Again Yvette picked up the phone. “Bob,” she whispered. “You’re crazy. You know the rules.”

  “It’s life or death,” I answered back. “Not for me, but for the company.”

  As she gently put the receiver down, I heard yelling in the back. Nervously, I waited for over five minutes. Getting Charlie out of the bathtub on a Sunday afternoon was akin to persuading Ted Kennedy to become a Republican.

  Suddenly, an almost inhuman snarl, “Evans, this better be important!”

  “Funny Girl.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s ours.”

  He hung up. Immediately, I called back. Knowing his M.O., I knew he was getting off on my anxiety. This time it was he who picked the phone up.

  “You’re crazy, Evans. Columbia owns it and it’s the only ticket they have to put them back in the black. You’re crazy, Evans. Ray Stark—he hates me.” Then a long silence. “Do you really have it?”

  “Would ‘Bluhdorn’s Blow Job’ bullshit you, Charlie?”

  “I could kiss you, Evans. I could kiss you! Was it blackmail?”

  “No, loyalty, Charlie. Every so often it comes back to embrace you. It has nothing to do with Ray; it’s Charlie Feldman. To make your bath even hotter, Charlie, Barbra Streisand’s going to star in it too. It all happened this morning. I’ll fill you in later. We’ve got forty-eight hours to say yes, that’s it. I’d like to call ’em back in forty-eight minutes and give ’em a yes. The budget’s not even that high, Charlie. It’s between six and seven.”

  “Stay by the phone, Evans.” He hung up in my ear.

  An hour, then two, then three, then four, no call. What the fuck’s going on. I called him back.

  He picked up.

  “Charlie . . .”

  “Did I say stick by the phone?” Before I could get a word out, he hung up.

  It wasn’t until 11:00 that night, 2:00 A.M. New York time, that he called back. His voice was more subdued than I’d ever heard it, and not because of the lateness of the hour. “We can’t go forward with it.”

  “Did I hear right? Charlie, don
’t tease me; it ain’t funny.”

  “I’m not.”

  “If we don’t make Funny Girl, Charlie, we shouldn’t be in the business. It’s our ticket out of the basement.”

  “Listen carefully, Evans, what do you think I’ve been doing these last twelve hours? From London to Johannesburg to Hong Kong to Rio I’ve been on the phone with all the heads of distribution. They know their territory, Evans, better than we do. Not one of them want the picture. With Shirley MacLaine, maybe. But with Barbra Streisand, there wasn’t one thumbs-up. I even called Charlie Boasberg,” Bluhdorn said, referring to the head of U.S. distribution for Paramount. “He said the same. Outside of New York no one’s gonna want to look at that yenta. Try to sell her in Kansas City. Forget it! That’s Boasberg’s feeling and he’s our top guy in sales. What can I do?”

  “Fuck ’em, that’s what! Charlie, you know it and I know it—they’re wrong. Christ, it’s your favorite and mine too. These are the same guys who put the company in last place. What the hell do they know?”

  A long silence. “Evans, I have no choice. I’ve taken enough heat over you already. If you’d been there four years, not four months, I could make a case. But I can’t go against the entire organization. It’s too big an investment.”

  “Go by your instincts, Charlie. That’s what this business is all about. Take the gamble, back me, please.”

  He didn’t. He never forgave himself. Until that moment, at best, I was always suspect of letting the honchos of distribution have a say in what we were going to make. From that moment on, however, and until this day, suspect turned to disdain concerning distribution’s approval of a creator’s dreams. The distribution mavens not only cost Paramount Funny Girl, but their mistake compounded itself tenfold and all but caused the gates at Paramount to close forever.

  Calling Charlie Feldman back, telling him I didn’t get the go, was as difficult a professional call as I’ve ever had to make. Ray Stark was thrilled. Within a matter of days he got the funds, plus, from Columbia to go forward with Funny Girl full blast. Its international success made it the savior of Columbia Pictures.