by Robert Evans
I started to shake, hyperventilate. The doctor grabbed me, and slapped me across the face, thinking I was possibly going into seizure. His voice low. “Snap out of it. You’ve got to be strong. Strong for her.”
Instead, I fell apart. He had no way of knowing the self-contempt I harbored for not paying heed to her obstetrician. He found a room down the hall and gave me a sedative; it must have been a helluva strong one because it put me out for a couple of hours. The sun was coming up. I made it to the john, threw cold water over my face, looked at myself in the mirror, turned and put my fist through the wooden door. My hand was a pool of blood. Strange, I didn’t even feel the pain.
The nurse came into my little cubicle. “Ali’s awake now.”
Wrapping a towel around my bleeding hand, I walked into her room. Immediately her eyes went to my hand. In typical MacGraw fashion.
“Get it caught in a phone booth?”
“Yeah!” That was all the time we had.
Two nurses immediately came in and wheeled her into the emergency room. Again the corridors became my pacing track. Dr. Davids approached me again. Again, no smile.
“Unless the bleeding stops, she’s going to have to undergo a premature cesarean.” He shook his head. “Seventh month, that’s the tough one to get by.”
Quickly the doctor disappeared into the emergency room. My secretary was there by now. Snapping back into reality.
“Call Ryan at the Warwick. Fill him in on Ali’s condition. Tell him he’ll have to cover for her at the premiere. Sumner Redstone, Paramount’s biggest customer, is giving a charity premiere honoring Harvard University at his theater in Boston. Call Stanley, give him an update on Ali’s condition.” I quickly walked away, into the men’s room and again burst into tears. Regaining my composure, I began to pace the corridor floor.
My secretary stopped me. “Mr. Evans, I just spoke with Mr. O’Neal. He said he won’t go unless Ali goes.”
Every attendant’s head jumped up as I screamed out, “Is he crazy? Does he know the shape she’s in? She could die!”
Her voice now quivering, “I told him that, Mr. Evans.”
“Get him on the phone.”
Thinking he misunderstood, I contained my temper. “Ryan, it’s not good. Ali’s in bad shape.” I began to choke. “The kid may not make it.” There was no reaction on the other end. “Cover for me, will ya?” I stuttered.
“If she goes, I go. Otherwise I stay.”
For an instant, I thought it was the Devil himself paying me back. Less than twelve hours earlier the same guy was telling me how he owed his career to me.
“Ryan, maybe you didn’t hear me right. Ali, she’s in bad shape, real bad.” I began to cry. “She could lose the baby. You hear me?”
“I heard you.” He heard my crying as well. “If she doesn’t go, I don’t go, got it? Hey, I don’t own any of the movie, but she does.”
He never sent flowers. He never called to see if she or the baby survived.
The nurses were getting Ali ready for the cesarean when miraculously the bleeding stopped. This time I obeyed doctor’s orders, and they were strict. Ali had to have complete bed rest. A day, a week, a month, bedpan and all, on her back until “pop goes the weasel.”
When word got out of her near fatal mishap, the Sherry had to put another operator on just to fend off the calls. It seemed like half the world were on the call-sheets, but under O there was no O’Neal.
Love Story didn’t open, it exploded, embracing great reviews from Vincent Canby of The New York Times and Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times, to Time magazine itself. Bluhdorn was so ecstatic over the notices, especially Canby’s New York Times review, that he ordered it reprinted in its entirety in half of the newspapers around the country. What a come shot.
Like the Three Musketeers, Bluhdorn, Jaffe, and I drove, from theater to theater. We stood behind the last row. It was magic. By the final scene, the entire audience turned into one big Kleenex.
Christmas Eve now eight days away, I planned a bit of a surprise for my emotional mentor, the Austrian Horatio Alger. From 7:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M., twelve hours a night for eight straight nights, Al Lo Presti and crew rearranged the venetian blinds on twelve floors of the new Gulf + Western building.
It was Christmas Eve. There was Ali lying in bed, back at the Sherry-Netherland. I invited Charlie over to join us for a toast of thanks. He arrived wearing a hand-me-down herringbone overcoat, looking like a refugee just released from Ellis Island. Quickly he walked into the bedroom where my pregnant lady lay in bed. Little did she know Charlie’s Christmas kiss on the cheek was far from fatherly. He was kissing the cheek that saved “the mountain.” Two ginger beers later, he got up to leave.
“I’ll walk you home, boss.”
Again, Charlie gave a kiss to his “flower-child savior” as she waited for a little Evans to pop. Excusing myself to the john, I rushed to the phone, directly dialing magic man Lo Presti, who was on standby anxiously awaiting.
“Count to a hundred, then pull the switch.”
“You got it, boss.”
Down the elevator and out the revolving doors we went. Snow falling heavily in our face, I pointed west to Charlie. Directly parallel, across the park, was the new Gulf + Western building, standing in the snow like no other building in the world. Twelve stories high, magically backlit, the venetian blinds lit up one third of the entire building with two words: “Love Story.”
There he stood. The industrial magnate seeing Santa Claus for the first time. Tears began rolling down his face. He looked at me. Hardly audible he mumbled, “America. Imagine, twelve years ago I was walking the streets selling typewriters door to door. . . .” He threw his arms around me. “That’s my building!”
Suddenly he was my son, not my boss. “It’s the first real Christmas I’ve ever had, Evans.”
“From me to you, Charlie.” Then, pointing back to the building, I said, “Look. ‘The Miracle on Fifty-ninth Street.’ ”
There we stood, tycoon and dreamer, two men standing on Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, heavy snow all but covering us, living out what Christmas is all about.
Chapter Twenty-Four
On Christmas weekend, largely from young couples and families, Love Story grossed more than any film in history at that time. “It has only begun to bring in the money, but it has already altered the ‘new’ Hollywood beyond ready recognition,” Time said in its January 11, 1971, cover story on Ali.
Pulling off the impossible is something you don’t try twice. Not if you enjoy breathing. Was I riding high? You bet. Were my pockets still on empty? You bet. But who the fuck cared! No one was wealthier than Evans; I even smiled in my sleep, dreaming of those shocked faces, with their starched collars, of the boardroom stiffs. Sorry, fellas, one hit and you’re back on top. That’s show biz! Hate to tell ya, but there ain’t gonna be no grave diggin’. Not at Paramount. Makin’ magic for the livin’ is our future. Got it? Hang on if you want or get outta my way. It’s the 1970s and we’re travelin’ one way—straight to the top!
The doctor told Ali and me our bambino wasn’t to hatch until mid-February. Now with the studio to run and plenty of problems with the casting of The Godfather, I rationalized to myself and Ali that it would be wise to spend a good part of January back at the studio protecting the new breath of freedom we were just granted.
Well, the doctors were a little off. Instead of holding Ali’s hand as she was wheeled into the maternity ward in mid-January, I was in a casting session with Francis Coppola. Instead of watching my baby say hello to the world, I was letting Coppola know he was about to say good-bye to The Godfather. My brother, Charles, was awakened in the middle of the night and rushed my wife to the hospital, where, at 5:00 in the morning, little Joshua appeared. I missed what every man has told me is the highest high in a man’s life.
Within twenty-four hours, I was looking into a room filled with incubators. Brought to the window was my little premature runt. After t
hree days, the family snuck out the back exit of the hospital and up the back entrance of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel to avoid the mob of paparazzi. It would remain our temporary home until we moved back to Woodland in Beverly Hills.
The switchboard at the Sherry again had to put on an extra operator to screen calls. Like a schmuck, I picked up the one bad one. The voice on the other end made John Gotti sound like a soprano: “Take some advice. We don’t want to break your pretty face, hurt your newborn. Get the fuck outta town. Don’t shoot no movie about the family here. Got it?”
Never being scared of a threat, “Fuck you, mister. If you got any problems, take it up with the producer, Al Ruddy.”
A silence. Slowly, “Listen carefully, motherfucker. I ain’t gonna say it again. When you wanna kill a snake, pretty boy, there’s only one way to do it—you go for its head.”
Click.
Enter Sidney Korshak.
We flew to London to meet the Queen Mother for the Royal Command Performance of Love Story. We checked into the Connaught with four hours to get ready. Ali, still a bit plump from Joshua’s birth, had had her good friend Halston make a special dress. A simple black silk sheath that was supposed to enhance her new, temporary curves. When Ali put it on, there were two problems: her two breasts—each fell out one side of the dress. Great for a stripper, but not suitable for the royals.
We had forty-five minutes to get dressed and three choices to pick from—jeans and a T-shirt; the chambermaid’s black dress with matching black shoes; or a secondhand, tie-dyed pantsuit, colored brown with white and yellow flowers, perfectly matched with black shoes and black gloves.
The limo was downstairs by now. If I showed one-half my anger, Ali would burst into tears and wouldn’t make it at all.
“You look beautiful, MacGroo. You’ll start a new style,” I said, as we nervously entered the limo.
Though it’s protocol to wear gloves when you meet British royalty, I just couldn’t do it to her. Better dirty fingernails than black gloves with a brown tie-dyed pantsuit.
In Leicester Square, the Queen Mum and Princess Margaret held their hands out for us and every other movie star in town before the premiere. Ali extended her bare fingers and turned on the charm. Nobody sniffed.
All of us stood in a receiving line as Lord Somebody introduced us, one by one, to Her Majesty and her younger daughter. It was a hell of a thrill, abruptly ending when the lovely princess shook my hand.
“Tony saw Love Story in New York.” Tony was Lord Snowdon, her then husband. “Hated it.”
“Fuck you too,” I said to myself, smiling back.
Seated directly behind the Queen Mum, Princess Margaret, and entourage, I whispered to Ali as the lights went down, “A cashmere sweater, the old lady cops a tear.”
The hankies were out, royal as they may have been, with the Queen Mum leading the sniffles. Broomstick Margaret even snuck out her little hanky.
Forget the Royal Command Performance—we never made it to bed. Both of us went back to the Connaught, changed clothes, only to return to the same theater, which was packed with a different audience. The flick was another premiere: the first closed-circuit, satellite telecast of a heavyweight championship bout, the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight. Again, I cried. I lost a £2,000 bet.
Ali made every front-page headline the next morning—not for her performance in Love Story, but for her insult to the Queen Mother. There wasn’t a snide British remark left out concerning Ali’s fashion statement to the Queen Mum, ranging from “LOVE MEANS HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY” to “UNLIKE MUHAMMAD ALI, ALI MACGRAW LEFT HER GLOVES AT HOME.”
On the plane back to the States the next morning, we read them all, laughing. But I wasn’t laughing about that prick Halston fucking up Ali’s night with his lousy tailoring. Almost maniacally, I insisted Ali show up at Halston’s to personally confront him at 9:30 the next morning. Naturally, she obliged. At 9:45 the phone rang.
“Evans,” Ali began, “I don’t know what to say. . . .”
The next voice I heard was that of the effete Halston.
“I thought you were too sophisticated to be such a fool.”
Who the fuck did he think he was talking to?
“Listen you motherf—”
Curtly, he stopped me. “Your wife, Mr. Evans, put the dress on backward.”
Down went the phone and cut down was I as well.
A month later we were back in Europe, this time in Paris for Love Story’s French premiere. Madame Pompidou, wife of the French president, had organized the gala, a benefit for the Red Cross; it was the social event of the season.
Unfortunately, the site for the premiere was not a film theater, rather one used for concerts or plays. The projection and acoustics were all but unusable. Did the elite French care? Not at all. This was the theater; the rest was up to me.
After two days of a classical debate with the Gallic bureaucrats, I was left with two choices: cancel the premiere (which the head of foreign distribution said would be a grave insult to the president of France) or put out an S.O.S. to my out-of-town French connection, Alain Delon, to aid me in my acoustic nightmare. My S.O.S. brought Delon to Paris within twenty-four hours. Together, we worked around the clock putting in new speakers, new projectors, and renting a new sound system for the night, all of which he personally obtained through his own muscle. At 3:00 P.M. on the day of the premiere, we were still hard at work on the finishing touches when I got a call from a George Craven—Mr. Front for the Pompidous. De Gaulle himself couldn’t have been more definite: “Under no circumstance could Alain Delon attend the premiere.”
What was this, a French joke? “Alain is my special guest,” I said. “Without him there would have been no Love Story! Without Alain, Francis Lai wouldn’t have taken my call.”
“With Alain Delon, the Pompidous stay at home.”
Then I got the lowdown. It seems that Alain was embroiled in un grand scandale: a murder no less involving the first family itself. The cast was not only all-star, but so explosive that it could very well topple the presidency.
The white-tie screening went off faultlessly, minus Alain Delon. Even the French succumbed. The super coolness of the French audience melted like ice cream on the beaches of St. Tropez. The night was beautiful. Romance filled the air. How proud my boss Bluhdorn and his French wife were. After all, it was their Love Story that brought the Mecca of France together. In her wildest dreams, Yvette had never thought her husband would be the center of attention in the city of Paris.
At the dinner afterward, the top society and political dignitaries of France sat at their place-carded tables. Violins faded into the background as a sixteen-piece orchestra began to play. After the first course was served, I casually walked over to the conductor and asked him if he would play the major theme to Love Story in five minutes.
Always a believer in fantasy and Cinderella, I made my request not capriciously but purposely. The moment the clock struck twelve, the conductor took his cue. I quickly slipped away to a side entrance. At the door stood the most handsome man in the world, white tie and all. Arm in arm we walked through the room. Suddenly, the buttering of a piece of bread could be heard. With me beside him, Alain walked directly to our table, took Ali by the hand, and asked her for the first dance. The star of Love Story rose and so did the Pompidous, entire entourage and all. As Alain and Ali danced, the president of France and his wife walked—walked out, that is.
For the next week Ali, Alain, and I went from theater to theater. It never failed. Even in so-called sophisticated Paris, boys and girls, men and women, walked out of Love Story arm in arm, misty eyed and mystically in love. For seven nights, we clocked one theater and, in particular, one guy who was there each night at the same time, but with a different girl. Naturally, each girl was crying as they walked out. So was he . . . every time. I wonder where they ended up. Forget Paris. Wherever we went, whether it be a café in Rome, an after-hours joint in Chicago, a calypso club in Jamaica, a
mariachi bar in Mexico, a Spanish tavern in Barcelona, the melody of Love Story was played.
Men and women equally hungry for an all but lost emotion—romance—kept returning to Love Story. More than a film, it was an aphrodisiac, a phenomenon. A first in motion picture history, grossing more than a hundred times its cost.
Who would have thought that a $2 million reject, turned down by every studio in town, would not only awaken an all but dormant emotion but also alter an entire industry’s thinking. A forgotten genre reborn. And just in time. Film attendance was at an all-time low. Was this the answer to bring audiences back to the theaters?
Lew Wasserman, then president of Universal, had his own judgment on Love Story in a January 11, 1971, interview with Time: “The audience that many companies felt was no longer there has been there all the time. I don’t think the romantic interest went away. We went away.”
Even more important, it accomplished a breakthrough. The American film started its ascension as the premiere film in every country in the world. Today, the American film stands alone as the only product manufactured in the U.S. that is number one in every country in the world. Excuse me, except for Coca-Cola. But that’s bottled foreign.
In 1971, the reverence for the American film was far different than it is today. With rare exceptions, each country’s own films dominated the local market—e.g., French-made films took the largest share of the grosses in France and the Italian film was number one in Italy. Why? Think of the foreign films that we Americans have all cringed watching, with out-of-synch dubbing and terrible dialogue delivered by bad actors. This was how our films came across in the foreign lands they played. The American film was then typically dubbed into four different languages—French, German, Italian, and Spanish. In each language, a new script would be written, actors picked to dub the voices, and directors hired to deliver the hybrid picture. It’s hard to believe, but whether it be Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, or Marlon Brando, no one in Italy or Spain had ever heard their voices.
