by Robert Evans
Before he could take a pen out from his inside pocket, a still photo was placed before him by my secretary—an 8-x-10 glossy from Indiscreet, a film made a decade before opposite Ingrid Bergman.
“Dear, dear. Where did you find this one?”
“From the film library—it’s my favorite film.”
Looking closely at the picture, he flashed it to me, “How young I looked. No wine has ever aged as well. It was such fun with Ingrid. Own the negative, you know.”
With pen in hand, Cary looked up, flashing his cleft-chin smile again.
“My dear, what is your name?”
“J-J-Jennifer.”
He stood up. “It can’t be!”
She stuttered back, “D-D-Did I say anything wrong?”
“My favorite name. It’s my daughter’s name. Jennifer, Jennifer. Isn’t that something!”
He wrote across the 8-x-10 glossy, “Jennifer, my favorite name of all . . . Cary.”
No fireworks could have matched the glow of Jennifer’s face. Fireworks? Forget it. The most colorful firecracker of her life had just splashed across her world.
Was Cary here to tell me that he wanted to work again, come out of retirement, do his first gig at Paramount? Would that be a coup!
“Isn’t it marvelous? One of us running a studio,” referring back to a decade before when we met as fellow actors at Universal. He, the most glamorous star in the world. Me, a contract player at $175 a week. Most every day we’d pass each other on the lot. Though at the time we had never met, I couldn’t help myself, staring at him in awe.
What was the connective tissue that caused the most glamorous star in the world to become friends with a fledgling young actor?
A Yugoslavian basketball player. A guy? Uh-uh, a girl. Luba Otashavich by name, later changed to Luba Bodine. Cary met her while making The Pride and the Passion in Spain with Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra. Cary fell madly in love with Sophia. Sophia, who was married to Carlo Ponti, broke off the relationship. Her marriage came first.
Sophia’s stand-in and double was Luba. Not quite a carbon copy, but who could be? Yet she was a lovely remembrance who could match Sophia’s spark, energy, and charisma better than anyone. She was put under contract to Cary’s company at Universal. At first, I had no idea of her relationship with Cary. In my eyes Luba was a young Sophia Loren—a knockout. To Cary, Luba was but a shadow, a remembrance of a lost love. To me, she was what love could be all about. Because Cary was her mentor, it was important to her that he approve of me. Our kinship started almost the moment we met. For more than a year, several nights a week, the three of us would go out together. A drive-in movie, with sandwiches to go from Nate ’n Al’s, a night ball game, an industry function, there we were—Luba, Cary, and myself.
For two or three years Luba played a very important part of my life. Her relationship with Cary stayed the same—not platonic. All three knew what the action was. All three wanted one thing—to make one another’s lives a bit more fun, with no questions asked.
Now, a decade later, Luba’s married to one of the world’s wealthiest men. Cary’s married to dynamic Dyan Cannon. I’m between gigs, a momentary bachelor. Cary and I were more than friends, we were close friends. Sipping our tea, I couldn’t help but think how exciting it would be to get Cary out of retirement and back on to the Paramount lot. When you’re an original, you owe it to the world—you can’t retire simply because you can’t be duplicated. Everything about Cary was stamped “original.”
How many times had Cary chuckled “As an actor, I don’t know how good I am. I just play myself to perfection.”
Katharine Hepburn jokingly said, “Cary? He’s just Cary. He’s a personality functioning.”
Fashion is temporary. Style lasts forever. Till this day, Cary’s the only man I’ve ever met who could walk into a room backward with more grace than anyone walking forward.
Suddenly, dead serious, he said, “Need some advice, dear Robert.”
Great! He’s going to ask me what picture he should do.
“Why doesn’t Dyan love me?”
He’s asking me? I don’t even know her. Being overly aggressive, “Would making a picture together help?”
“I’d be on my knees in broken glass if I thought it would help.” Sadly, he shook his head.
My first and only look-see at a crack in Mr. Grant’s sterling armor.
“Does she like you, Cary? Do you like her? Are you pals? Don’t answer me, please. Think about it. Answer it, but only to yourself. That’s what it’s all about.”
With full aplomb, changing the subject beautifully, Grant cleft-smiled me, “Dinner tonight?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Chasen’s—nine P.M.?”
“Woodland—got a great duck in the oven, give you a sneak peek of Rosemary’s Baby. It’s the final print.”
“Is it as good as they say?”
“We’ll find out tonight.”
“Can I bring Dougie? He’s in town.”
That night of July 3, 1968, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Cary Grant, and I finished off two ducks, wild rice with plum sauce, followed by a lemon soufflé. Rosemary’s Baby? We never saw it. We talked, laughed, talked, laughed, about every imaginable subject regarding relationships between men and women, except—a big except—the one Cary and I had discussed earlier at our clandestine meeting at Paramount.
The afternoon of July 4, an envelope marked “Personal and Confidential” was delivered to the front door by special messenger. Inside was a three-page handwritten poem, not from Cary, but from Dougie, about the magic of Grant, Evans, and Fairbanks bringing in the July 4 fireworks together.
What I had tried to get across to Cary that afternoon about like, about friendship, conditional and unconditional, was answered not by his words, but rather by Dyan’s action. A few months later, poor Cary was sued for divorce, Dyan claiming he used to beat her—in front of the servants, no less. Me, like a schmuck, was asking the same guy “Do you like your wife?” Apparently, her like for him was minimal at best. A bitter child-custody fight ensued. The most valuable jewel of Cary’s life—his daughter, Jennifer—was now his only to visit, not to have.
When I was first put into the catbird seat to run Paramount, the one thing I knew for sure was that every eye in the joint was on alert to see how “the womanizer” operated.
Knowing that, my deportment was conservative. With purpose, at my daily lunches at the studio commissary my chair, without fail, always faced the wall. I knew full well that if I sat facing out into the room and gave a smile here or a hello there, the gossip windmill would start turning a smile into a romantic interlude.
Hollywood is a town where most people are looking for work, rather than working. It propels gossip into a major industry. By the way, gossip is never good. Why should it be, who would listen? By the time an eighth of a truth gets back to you, it is so exaggerated it is laughable or even harmful.
I don’t know why but before my first shave, I already landed right smack in the center of gossip. After a while it doesn’t matter. It’s been said that when people stop talking about you, that’s the time to worry. I wouldn’t know—it’s never happened.
For three years, from 1966 to 1969, I had a lover, a mistress. I was obsessed with her: the Paramount mountain. It was a seven-day-a-week, eighteen-hour-a-day affair. It got worse. From obsessed, I became possessed. I doubt whether there was one night a week for three years that I left the studio before midnight. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to fail.
Every so often, between the time the sun went down and the time I left the studio, a director, actor, writer, or producer pal would drop by the office, many a time with a beautiful girl by his side. Whether it be for twenty minutes or an hour, they’d have a drink, talk, and a laugh. During those three years, almost every woman who dropped by with a pal shared a connective tissue. All of them came from different parts of the country, all dreamed of becoming actresses, all were studying. All had legi
timate jobs—salesgirl, waitress, or dental hygienist—all shared the same dilemma: no wheels.
Without exception, all of them were given an ultimatum by their parents: “Stay at home—anything you want that we can afford, you can have. But if you leave and go out to Hollywood, you’re going to have to make it on your own. We will not support you.”
How dumb and shortsighted parental decisions can be. A son is one thing, a daughter another. If it meant taking a night job, I’d make certain my daughter was covered no matter where she wandered. When things get tough, rent not paid, electricity turned off, little or no food to eat, and too scared to ask her judgmental parents for help, sadly, no matter how decent a girl is, she ends up spreading her legs in the world’s oldest profession.
Not having a car in Los Angeles is tantamount to not having shoes in New York. One has to drive, not walk their way up the ladder to success.
From time to time, even if it was a casual hello, I’d pick up a magnetic quality of a car-less wannabe actress. With no strings attached, I’d rent her a Mustang convertible. Cost—$148 bucks a month from my pal, David Shane, who owned Hollywood-U-Drive-It. Was I looking for reciprocity? No, I didn’t have the time. Was I propositioned? By some, because they thought it was necessary. Did I have liaisons with any? A few. Was my gesture altruistic? No, selfish. What greater turn-on is there than knowing that at a moment in time in another’s life your presence made the difference between growth or compromise?
Ali MacGraw and I were getting married in October 1969. How could I tell her that I was renting cars for fourteen girls? Try to explain it! I couldn’t. Instead I called David Shane.
“Get the cars back—I’m getting married.”
“You can’t,” David shrieked. “You’re my biggest customer.”
“I may be eccentric, David, but I ain’t crazy. I’m marrying Ali, and I don’t need no front-page tabloid shit.”
Why do I tell the story? Today, of the fourteen girls, six have become internationally famous stars, none earn less than a million bucks a year. Four married men whose wealth is such that their state tax is more than I make a year. The others I’ve lost track of. Yet back then, a $148-a-month car made the difference in the paths their lives took.
Chapter Nineteen
“Sign her. Make a multiple picture deal,” I told Andrea Eastman, my head of casting and talent.
Andrea agreed, “She has a shot at being the next Julie Andrews.”
I had just seen a new Disney picture, The Happiest Millionaire. Lesley Ann Warren was the first girl I had put under contract. My nose told me she could go all the way. She sang, she danced, she was beautiful and had a flair for comedy that was very difficult to find. Immediately I thought of a piece of material sent to me by a young producer, Stanley Jaffe—a terrific screenplay by Arnold Schulman, adapted from a Philip Roth novel, Goodbye, Columbus. We closed the deal with Stanley in a matter of days and Stanley then attached a brilliant young director, Larry Peerce, to helm it. In less than a week, the package was put together, with Lesley Ann set to star.
Two months before filming, Lesley visited me at the studio. It was good news for her, bad news for me. She was four months pregnant. My first discovery, a mother-to-be.
Next!
Wisely, Stanley began looking for unknowns. Me, I went the Hollywood route. The script was submitted to every star and half-assed star in the business. All of them turned it down. Maybe they didn’t want to play Brenda Patimkin, a Jewish American Princess. Or maybe because it was just good. No one seems to know the difference out here. The best proof being that every actress who turned it down went on to make a picture that turned out to be a disaster or near disaster.
Still, it was getting close to post time and we hadn’t found our star.
Jaffe and Larry Peerce called me from New York, and they were excited. They had found their Brenda.
Was it Susan Strasberg? I thought to myself.
No, they said it was Ali MacGraw.
I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.
“Stanley, are you nuts? Ali MacGraw, an eighteen-year-old, spoiled Jewish American Princess? She’s a twenty-eight-year-old over-the-hill shiksa.”
“We’ve read her, Bob. We think she’s dead on.”
“Dead on wrong, unless we’re thinking of two different pictures. Nat Goldstone brought in some sexy Jew broad who’s on ‘Peyton Place,’ Michelle something, I forgot her name, but she read really good. That’s someone we should test.”
“Why don’t you test her out there,” Stanley said, “and we’ll test MacGraw here?”
“Okay, Stanley, but you’re wasting your time.”
I remembered this MacGraw broad—vividly. Ten years earlier I’d spotted her while she was being photographed for an ad. It was on a terrace, directly across from my terrace at 36 Sutton Place South. Though it was in the middle of August and 95 degrees in the shade, she was modeling a white mink coat. Great-looking chick; I gave my elevator man ten bucks to go over and get her name.
Eileen Ford, her agent, was a good friend of mine, so she arranged a luncheon date for us at the Harwyn Club. Ali was a coed from Wellesley, the Mademoiselle girl of the year, and a star snot-nose. All she could talk about was how vulgar the Harwyn was. I remembered her saying “Look at all those fat assess lined up at the bar.” Not wanting to get into a fight with her, I had a phone brought over to the table and started making calls. Her look said it all: Talk about vulgar!
She dropped me off in a cab. Before I slammed the door, I said, “You sure have big feet.” I was sure she’d never speak to me again.
Ali MacGraw as Brenda? Are they nuts? First, we looked at the test of the girl from “Peyton Place” whom I thought was right. Then we looked at MacGraw.
Before her test was even over, Peter Bart stood up. “Thank God, we found a real nineteen-year-old for the part.”
“No wonder Paramount’s in last place,” I said to myself.
But there I was, standing alone. From the secretaries to the top brass, everyone agreed. Ali was Brenda.
Never wanting to be in a position to be prey to the scavengers, those agents and managers who are constantly at your door exaggerating their client’s talent, I knew I had to take a crash course in knowing the turf, and not in synopsis style. There’s only one way to do it. It’s called “doing your homework.” It became a ritual. Every night after an early dinner, I would go out to my projection room, watch dailies of the pictures we were shooting, then watch two films currently playing the circuit. No phones, no interruptions, but concentration with a capital C. After studying the work of everyone—from the cinematographer to the costume and set designers, to certainly the director and the actors, from bit character players to above-the-line stars—I felt sure that no carpetbagger would pull the rug from under me.
Watching the dailies of Goodbye, Columbus, sitting beside me most every night was my consigliere, the man himself, Sidney Korshak. He was getting a kick out of his Bobby running a studio. He was also getting a kick watching take after take of Ali disrobing on the lawn outside a country club, running across the lawn, bare-ass naked, to jump into a pool and swim across it. Whatever dailies I had to watch, or films set up to run later, each night we’d run those takes of Ali in the buff. There we sat like two horny kids—the Myth and me.
After about the tenth night of watching the same takes, Sidney grabbed my arm.
“You’re gonna end up marrying the broad, Bobby.”
“She’s a hippie; lives in New York with some male model. Forget it, Sidney.”
His grip was now all but breaking the veins in my arm. “She’s the first broad I’ve seen you turned on to since I’ve known you. You’ll see—you’ll end up with her.”
Charlie Bluhdorn couldn’t get enough of Goodbye, Columbus, which was the first picture Paramount shot in New York since he bought it. He was always on the set. Afterward he’d call me in L.A.
“I was on the set today. I watched some kind of Jewish dan
ce. I got so excited, I wanted to join in myself.”
Both in New York and at the studio, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t flip over Goodbye, Columbus, yet nobody knew how to sell it. This was 1969. It was protest time against the war, against the establishment, against parents. How could we interest anyone to pay two bucks to watch a contemporary story of family set in the world of nouveau riche Jews?
For months now, we had tried and failed to come up with a hook to sell the picture, to interest an audience to watch two unknown actors play a Yiddish Romeo and Juliet.
With hardly any money left in our advertising budget to hire an outside agency, Stanley Jaffe and I paid a visit to Steve Frankfurt, the youngest and most brilliant hotshot on Madison Avenue. At thirty, he was the president of Young and Rubicam, the largest advertising agency in the country. We told Frankfurt we had no budget to fail again.
“Fine,” Frankfurt said. “I’ll do it for nothing. It’s my gamble. If you want to use it, though, it’s a hundred Gs.”
Stanley’s face turned beet red.
“A hundred Gs. Are you nuts? That’s more than five percent of the film budget!”
“I’m taking the gamble, Stanley,” said Steve. “I get zip if it’s not used. What’s the percentage—one in a hundred?”
Nudging Stanley, I whispered to him, “What the fuck do we have to lose!”
Plenty!
Frankfurt’s campaign was right on—a saintlike profile of Ali, holding a single rose. Calligraphed across the page, the caption read, “Every father’s daughter is a virgin.” In 1969, every father thought his daughter was a virgin.
“Are you crazy, Evans?” Bluhdorn screamed. “A hundred Gs for one line. I won’t pay it. That’s it. I won’t even look at it.”
He looked at it; he paid the two bucks (a hundred thousand). Frankfurt’s extraordinary one line hit a nerve of moviegoing America. Extraordinary too were the reviews and the business. Suddenly, Ali MacGraw, whom I had astutely pegged an “over-the-hill shiksa,” became the “new fashionable girl” on the silver screen.
