by Robert Evans
Sue was the first woman superagent in town. She had signed Ali and Ryan before Love Story; her clients ranged from Streisand to Gene Hackman. Her manner was outrageous, her tongue more lethal funny than Don Rickles at his best, but her caring and loyalty unmatched. Soon Mengela became our closest friend.
Although I was fond of the two Charlies in my life, both became the bane of our marriage. Charlie, my boss, had a nightly ritual. Before going to sleep in New York, he would take a bath, climb into bed, and call me. Any other time would have been okay, but his bedtime was my dinnertime. Uncannily, he always called just as I was about to put food in my mouth. It didn’t matter whether we were having guests or a romantic tray for two in bed. I was the man who never finished dinner.
My brother, Charlie, was a different story. More my fault than his, as I never confronted it. Wherever we traveled, he was always with us—London, Paris, Monte Carlo, Acapulco, you name it. I know Ali didn’t invite him.
One day after we’d made love, she jumped into the shower. As usual, I quickly got on the horn to my brother. Toweling off, she snidely laughed, “Filling him in?”
The Hotel du Cap was the arc of our marriage. For three years, each July, we paid homage to the rock on the Riviera.
Our first summer, glorious. Ali, three months pregnant. My brother? Sure, he was with us. Was Ali pissed? Sure, she was. Days later, my brother took off for Sardinia. It was the first day Ali could lie nude in our cabana. Enjoying the sun and silence, she rolled on top of me.
“Miss him already, huh?”
The next night we went to the opening of Jimmy’s in Monte Carlo. Joining us were David Niven and his wife, Hjördis, and Dustin and Anne Hoffman. In full splendor, the Eurotrash were out in all their glory. For the first time, Ali was beginning to feel like we were really Mr. and Mrs.
Two nights later, Dino de Laurentiis threw us a bash at Le Pirate, a crazy beachfront restaurant, where naked pirates climbed the netting and the maitre d’ smashed wine bottles against the rocks.
“Evans, it’s starting to feel so good,” Ali whispered.
“The baby?”
“No . . . us.”
It was! My back was even feeling romantic. No tension, no pain.
The following summer, there we were again. What a year! The best production of our lives opened: Joshua! Demanding were the twelve months, but “good demanding.” For the three months preceding our visit, all we could think about was “Oh! To be on the rock again.”
The Hoffmans must have felt the same. They too were there. Together we strolled through the streets of Eze, Beaulieu, or Villefranche, devouring succulent cuisine at some local bistro. It’s the closest one comes to heaven. Making bets, we’d stop people on the street, humming the melody of “Mrs. Robinson” from The Graduate, finishing with Love Story’s melodic theme, and then asking which tune they recognized. Competitiveness was the core to discover which of the two was more memorable. Mighty close: both the Evanses and Hoffmans claimed victory.
Gianni Agnelli was not only the wealthiest and most influential man in Italy, but certainly the most charming and debonair, with looks even more dashing than his wealth. To say he had big eyes for Ali would be an understatement. Gianni was a longtime pal and being in his company was an aphrodisiac in itself.
One afternoon, he brought his sailboat and docked it by the rock on Cap d’Antibes. He swam in to join us at our cabana. After an hour of sun, the three of us dived into the Mediterranean and stroked it back to his sailboat where lunch was waiting. The film Indecent Proposal? Forget it. Gianni would have turned over all of Fiat to get Ali. An Italian is an Italian is an Italian is an Italian . . . tutto italiano! After a marvelous pasta lunch which Gianni personally prepared, we bid him au revoir and back to the rock we swam, laughing about Gianni’s single-focused attention.
Siesta time it was, but it wasn’t. Once back in our high-ceilinged boudoir, it took only a quick glance in the mirror to see a lump on Ali’s cheek grow into the size of a golf ball. Who gets mumps in their thirties? Ali did. As a kid, mumps are not dangerous. As an adult, it’s a different story. There are lots of chefs on the Côte d’Azur, but medical specialists on mumps are not that easy to find. Half of them didn’t even know what the mumps were.
The local French doctor, who had never even seen mumps before, said, “Mumps can be very contagious. If you have children, stay away until it’s totally gone.”
In short, till the infection cleared her system, no going back to L.A. for Mrs. Evans.
The phone rang, S.O.S.—big trouble on The Godfather, “need you back here on the double.” Decision time. Stay with my sick wife or fly back to troubled waters? Troubled waters got the nod.
In the spirit of that bravado, the house of marital bliss came tumbling down by July 1972, though back at Hotel du Cap, we were dealing from a different deck—save-the-marriage time. On to the rock flew Sidney Korshak, my consigliere, for one purpose and one purpose only—to keep our rocky marriage from falling into the sea. Each day Sidney would sit with Ali for hours, trying to persuade her to make the marriage work. Convincing? Momentarily.
The following July, the Evanses didn’t make du Cap. How could we? Mrs. Evans had a different last name.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“My ole lady, we’ve split. Feel like I’m back in the streets. Don’t know where to park my bones.”
“Let’s grab a burger at the Bistro, talk about it.”
“How ’bout the Hamlet.”
“The Bistro—we can walk there.”
“I look like a bum.”
He may have, but so what? McQueen was the hottest male star in the world, the perfect Hollywood cowboy, skintight T-shirt and jeans, not hand-me-down, but tailored to order.
Me, I wanted to talk about The Getaway, a heist film written by Walter Hill that the new boy-wonder director Peter Bogdanovich was directing for Paramount. The Getaway was the furthest thing from Steve’s mind. His ole lady, Nellie, was all he could talk about. Steve was not a happy camper. Always a romantic, I felt for the guy. He seemed totally lost, with no place to go.
“Sunday I’ve got a tennis marathon at the house,” I told him. “But forget the tennis; your dance card will be filled with new talent for a year.”
“Sure I ain’t imposin’?”
“Imposing? If you’re a no-show, I’m not making the flick. Got it?”
A good-bye laugh. “Yeah, see ya.”
The players were all male; the watchers all female. McQueen seemed a bit uncomfortable. Between sets, I rushed into the house and found Ali busy pressing flowers.
“Come out!” I demanded. “Meet McQueen, make him feel at home.”
“In an hour . . . look how beautiful the daisies are pressed in the book.”
“Fuck the daisies, McQueen could be Gatsby.”
Capote’s script was due within a week. Nicholson and Beatty were my first two choices. Ironically, only a few years earlier Warren wanted to buy the rights and produce Gatsby himself, but not star in it.
“The only one to play Gatsby,” he said to me, “is you.”
“You prick. Now that I’m on top, you want me to fall back on my ass?”
“Wrong. You’re the only Gatsby I know. Play yourself; that’s all you gotta do. I’ll line-read you if I have to.”
Neither Nicholson nor Beatty were interested, feeling Ali was wrong for the part.
“Right for the part of Jordan, but not Daisy,” both of them echoed.
“And fuck you too!” was my answer back.
In early December the script arrived. Truman and his companion, an air-conditioner repairman from Palm Springs, came over for dinner. Bruce never said a word all night while Truman had Ali and me in stitches with the story of how he had “improved” Fitzgerald’s “illiterate masterpiece.”
I kept thinking, He better have. I’m in for $300,000, against the strong objections of Bluhdorn and Yablans—neither of whom wanted a third Gatsby.
But, as it turne
d out, Truman’s script was Ada revisited.
“Maybe I’m illiterate, Ali, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m reading. It’s a miscarriage.” A terrible downer to blurt out.
Trying to turn a negative to a positive, I continued, “Fuck Gatsby. Make The Getaway with McQueen. Together, you’ll make it the hottest picture of the year.”
“Bob, drop it. Who’s gonna buy me as a vagrant on the run?”
“It’s not written in granite. Casablanca had seventeen rewrites.”
“What about Gatsby?”
“Fitzgerald ain’t easy to lick. You’ll end up being a character actress before we get a script. We’re back at the starting gate without a jockey.”
“Playing Daisy is the only thing I want to do.”
“Hey, let’s be realistic. You’ve been off the screen for two years. If we’re lucky, it’ll take another year to get a shooting script on Gatsby. Personally I don’t think we’ll ever get one. Fitzgerald writes essences. Not one of his books has worked on screen.”
“My Evans will make it work.”
“I haven’t yet. Use Getaway as a filler. At least you’ll be in action.”
“I’m not like you. I don’t want to be in action. I want to be here. You can hardly walk.”
Paying little heed to her vibes, I took on Peter Bogdanovich.
“If Ali were Helen Hayes, she couldn’t get away with it. It’s written for Cybill.” Cybill Shepherd at the time was Peter’s lady.
“If the Bible can be rewritten, so can The Getaway.”
“Great! We’ll make her a runaway from Wellesley in her Mercedes convertible.”
“Bottom line, Peter, McQueen and MacGraw together is blockbuster time. That’s the business I’m in.”
“You stick to your business, I’ll stick to mine. No Cybill; no Bogdanovich.”
Good-bye, Peter. Hello, Sam Peckinpah.
Helping me out of the bathtub, Ali began massaging my lower back. “I’m not leaving, Evans. Your whole back’s in spasm. I’m worried. Get someone else to play the Texas floozy.”
A Jewish mother was the one thing I didn’t want. Alone, not having to answer to anyone, was my Utopian thought.
The phone rang. It was agent Freddie Fields, who headed First Artists, a production company started by McQueen, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, and Sidney Poitier.
“Steve doesn’t think Ali’s right for the part. He’d rather go with Tuesday Weld or Katharine Ross.”
“Freddie, Ali’s perfect for the part. Have him come over for dinner.”
Steve, Ali, and I were in the middle of dinner when I excused myself. “I’ve got a script to read. You guys get to know each other.”
The next day Ali and I flew to Acapulco for a rest. Some rest. My host, Melchor Perusquia, gave me a phone with a two-hundred-foot extension cord that went from his house, down the cliff to the beach. Before I had a chance to dive into the sea, five calls had come in. It rang again.
It was Sue Mengers. “Bobbee . . . Steve wants a yes or a no from Ali.”
“You talk to her. I’m tired of trying to convince her.”
For twenty minutes Ali stood firm with Sue. The only thing that interested her was playing Daisy.
“Stop talking Daisy! Talk reality. It’s never gonna happen anyway.” I grabbed the phone from her hand. “Sue, she’s doing The Getaway. That’s it. Let’s hear the deal, and it better be good.”
Hanging up, I looked at Ali. Whatever was in her eyes, it sure wasn’t love.
Twenty minutes later, the beach phone rang again. It was Freddie Fields. Steve wanted to meet with Ali before giving his final okay.
I ran to the ocean where Ali was swimming. “McQueen wants to meet you in L.A.”
“But we’re flying to New York tomorrow for Christmas!”
“You fly to L.A. I’ll fly to New York.”
Glaring at me, “Is this really what you want me to do?”
“Yes!” A wave hit me and knocked me over, as well it should have.
Three days later, after flying back to L.A. to meet with McQueen, she joined me at the Sherry-Netherland in New York, different, distant. Did I pay heed? Of course not.
Angrily, she John Hancocked to do the film. Once Ali signed, Freddie Fields proceeded to give me a spiked steel dildo up my ass. With premeditated complicity, he loopholed Paramount’s control of the now hot McQueen/MacGraw Getaway, sliding it into his own First Artists Company, which he personally controlled. Nice guy, huh? Bluhdorn and Yablans were justifiably furious.
“Get Ali out. Freddie Fuckface Fields ain’t gonna fuck Frank Yablans,” he yelled. Frank was tough. He was also right. Me, I made the dumbest decision of my life.
“Ali’s doing the picture. That’s it, Frank.”
It all but cost me my partnership with Frank and my friendship with Charlie. No gray in this altercation. Black and white, they were right; I was wrong. Worse, both of them thought I was losing it. Again, they were right. I was—losing my wife, that is. Were my priorities fucked? What do you say about a guy who wants to get rid of his wife so he can be free to fight full-time with his director? Coppola was my primary thought, not Ali. Pure joy for Prince Coppola—making my life miserable. But no way was he going to slide something by me. Every hour of every day, I was on him like a cheap glove. Not once thinking of taking two days off to visit my wife on location, the very lady who had begged me not to be away from her for more than two weeks at a time. She was now shooting love scenes in El Paso with one of the world’s most attractive men. I never gave it a second thought.
How could she fuck around on me?
Two months passed. At last I was going to see my wife. Fly to see her? No! She was flying to see me, be on my arm for the opening of The Godfather. My ego was so enormous that I never picked up the slightest vibe that her head and heart were thousands of miles away. Worse, I was also the last to find out. That memorable evening, to me and the thousands surrounding us, no two people looked more in love. A picture tells a thousand words. Stop reading and find the picture of the two of us dancing. That was the night. Ask yourself, how can a man ever read a woman? A man who thinks he can is a man who knows nothing.
A month later I was in Paris working with Danny Goldman, Paramount’s head of foreign distribution, choosing top writers, directors, and actors to translate Paramount’s gusher, The Godfather, into French, Italian, German, and Spanish. I had just convinced Louis Malle, one of France’s premier directors, to helm the French version. I was on cloud nine, knowing his unique talent could translate an American The Godfather into Le Parrain.
Not a hybrid, rather a French film made in France. An expensive coup, paying Malle 100 Gs for a French version only.
“Sheer lunacy,” distribution barked.
“A cheap buy,” I answered.
Le Parrain became the highest grossing American film in French cinema history. Bursting with enthusiasm, I dialed El Paso to tell Ali of my coup.
“Sorry, Mr. Evans,” said the operator, “no answer.”
“Ring the nanny’s room.”
Missy, Joshua’s nurse, picked up. “Ali’s not here, Mr. Evans. She should be in shortly. I’ll tell her to call you.”
“Any time tonight, Missy.”
Jumping up in a cold sweat, from a bad dream, I called El Paso again. No Ali. I laid back on the pillow. “Nah,” I said to myself, “it couldn’t be.”
The phone rang at eight. It wasn’t Ali—it was a wake-up call. I called El Paso before breakfast. Awaking Missy.
“Where the hell is Ali?” Silence. I knew she was covering.
I flew to Rome for the Italian dubbing of The Godfather. The moment I reached the Hassler Hotel, I called El Paso where it was now five in the morning. Ali’s room-extension rang and rang.
“Sorry, no answer,” squeaked the operator.
“Ring the nanny’s room.”
“Where’s Ali?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Evans.”
I knew. And
I knew she knew. Suddenly the Italian Godfather wasn’t so urgent. I took a car to Cinecettà, where Alain Delon was shooting a film.
“It’s a location fuck, that’s all,” shrugged Delon. “Happens all the time. When she comes home everything will be fine.” Why couldn’t I be French?
Later that afternoon, I connected.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I fell asleep in my dressing room.”
“You’re lying!”
“You’re right.”
“You’re with McQueen, aren’t you?”
Silence. “Yes.”
“I’m leaving for El Paso.”
“Forget it! You missed the plane months ago.”
I left Rome that night.
Missy and Joshua were at the airport to greet me—no Ali. I was checked into a hotel twenty miles out of town, just over the border in Mexico. Holding back my tears, I played with my son for the next few hours. Ali arrived at nine that evening.
When you ask too many questions, you get answers you don’t want to hear. Alain was wrong—it wasn’t a location fuck, it was full-blown, madly-in-love time. Ali’s affair with McQueen had been going on for months. The last thing she wanted was to spend the night with me, but she did. It ain’t a good feeling being kissed with a passion you’ve never felt before—none.
The next evening, she didn’t return to my border hideout, but Sam Peckinpah did. “We’re old pros, Bob. The situation stinks, but I’ve gotta finish the picture. As long as you’re in town, McQueen’s a no-show.”
“Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. What about Ali?”
“Bad shape. Her eyes are like two balloons; can’t stop crying.”
“I ain’t leaving. I’m going over to see Ali, now.”
“Bob, don’t.”
“Fuck you too, Sam. I hired you to direct the film, not direct me. I’ve been laid, parlayed, and relaid by fuckin’ Freddie Fields. Now his client, McQueen, is fucking me in the ass. Well the fuckin’ is over. If there’s gonna be any fuckin’, it’s gonna be me doin’ it.”
