by Robert Evans
I was a big man in the industry, living in a big home, with a big problem—I couldn’t afford to pay my taxes. It wasn’t by mistake—Bluhdorn wanted it that way.
While I was living rich, everyone around me was getting rich. Irving Thalberg had received a percentage of every film made under the MGM banner. With that in mind, I sent for my heavy artillery, Sidney Korshak, and asked him to have a powwow with Bluhdorn.
“My contract’s up. I’ve been throwing sevens too long and I’m still behind the eight ball.”
“I’ll take care of it and quick,” answered Korshak. “You’re gonna get gross. I don’t care if it’s just one percent on every film Paramount makes. Charlie’ll go for it,” he laughed. “It’s still only futures—nothing retroactive. The prick still doesn’t have to write out a check.”
Korshak may have been known as the Myth, but he was no myth to Charlie. His proposal was turned down flatter than Twiggy’s chest. Bluhdorn wasn’t smart, he was brilliant—one of the very few I’ve met who genuinely deserve the adjective. He knew my weak link—ego—and pressed it, knowing it far overshadowed my greed.
“I want Bob to make history,” Bluhdorn told Korshak. “He can make one picture a year, for five years, under his own banner, Robert Evans Productions, and still remain head of Paramount. The last person to have that was Darryl Zanuck, thirty years ago. Paramount and Evans will be fifty-fifty partners, with third parties coming off the top. If the picture’s a hit, he’ll make big money. But he’ll do more. He’ll break a barrier that can’t be done in Hollywood today and I want him to do that. I want to be proud of him.”
Korshak was a negotiator, not an entertainment attorney. He presented Bluhdorn’s deal and, like Simple Simon, I fell for it—hook, line, and sinker. Bluhdorn was quick to get the contracts drawn and signed. For the next five years I’d be Paramount’s head of production, with no bonus and no raise, but a great announcement in the trades and The New York Times. At the height of my career, with the toughest lawyer in America, I ended up with a kiss but no cigar.
The first production of the Robert Evans Productions had its origins over dinner with Bob Towne. Having just read Capote’s disastrous script of Gatsby, I’d asked the best script doctor in the business to meet me for dinner at Dominique’s. Before I could get into Gatsby, Towne began telling me about an original screenplay he was working on.
“It’s about how Los Angeles became a boomtown—incest and water. It’s set in the thirties. A second-rate shamus gets eighty-sixed by a mysterious broad. Instead of solving a case for her, he’s the pigeon. I’m writing it for Nicholson.”
“Sounds perfect for Irish. What’s it called?”
“Chinatown.”
“What’s that got to do with it? You mean it’s set in Chinatown?”
“No. Chinatown is a state of mind—Jake Gittes’s fucked-up state of mind.”
“I see,” I said, not seeing it at all.
Towne was a script doctor who didn’t have enough money to get new soles for his shoes. Yet at the time, his integrity was such that he turned down $175,000 for Gatsby to schreibe Chinatown for $25,000. After an hour of his telling me the story, I understood it less, but how could I turn down the top script doctor in town when he’s willing to work for scale plus change? Whatever he lacked in prosperity, he made up for in industry panache, and I wanted to be A list all the way on the first flick bearing my banner.
Six months later, Towne delivered his first draft. No one understood it—especially me. Just like the title, it was pure Chinese. The more Towne tried to explain, the more frustrating the exercise. I couldn’t take it.
“Don’t explain it, Bob. Write it.”
From Frank Yablans to Norman Whiteman (head of distribution) to Gary Chazan (who had become my assistant), all echoed: “Don’t make this your first picture. The only place it’ll be seen is in your projection room.”
One afternoon, Frank and Gary cornered me in my office.
“It’s your call, Evans,” Yablans said. “If you want to make it, you’ve got my okay. But you’re here alone with Gary and me. Don’t bullshit us. Do you understand the fuckin’ script?”
I couldn’t lie. “Nope.”
“Don’t feel bad about it. No one else does either. Don’t make it, please. I don’t want you to fall on your ass the first time out.”
Gary interrupted. “Frank’s right, Evans. See if you can lock up The Gambler as your first picture.”
With my leg throbbing from sciatic pain, my thumb in my mouth like a newborn sucking a bottle, I paced before them. I knew I had Nicholson locked, and, even though I didn’t understand the script, I knew Towne was a great writer. I felt like a blind gambler wanting to throw back to back sevens.
“Chinatown’s my picture, fellas. That’s it.”
“With everything at your disposal, Evans, you pick this piece of shit,” Yablans chided. “It’s fuckin’ suicide, but what the fuck do I know? I used to pluck chickens. It’s your ass. You’ve done crazier things before. It’s yours, kid.” Then he hugged me, his head still shaking in dismay.
“Polanski from London, Mr. Evans.”
“Roman, I’ve got two houses for you to look at. I think you’ll like them both.”
“I can’t come for two weeks.”
“The script’s a fuckin’ mess, Roman. I need you here yesterday.”
“I’ve got to go to Poland, Bob, for Passover.”
“Fuck Passover, Roman. If you don’t get here, we’re never going to get into shape. I’ll have Passover at my house.”
A first: I’d never held a Passover seder in my home. I didn’t know what to serve, but if it took matzos to get the maestro to America, matzos it was.
Jack was already set for the film. Six months earlier, he had finished The Last Detail, written by Bob Towne. Nicholson and Towne were as close as two guys could be. Towne, the son of a very wealthy realtor in Los Angeles, and Jack, the vagabond with an earth-shaking smile, whose leading-man status had not yet been revealed.
Because Jack was always playing character roles, Chinatown was his first stab at being a romantic lead. My money was on the Irishman. That’s why I wanted to make the picture. The devilish wink of his eye lit up the screen. His devastating smile shook not only the rafters but the limbs of most every woman I knew. His cracked voice did the rest. In person, he was a room-rocker; on screen, he was just himself—a screen-rocker. It’s hard to fathom, but at the time, I was alone at Paramount in my belief that the Irishman had a billion-dollar presence. To them, everything about Chinatown, from Roman Polanski (who hadn’t made a hit since Rosemary’s Baby) to the script no one understood and the leading man and woman, was an “Evans jerk-off.”
“Pal,” said the Irishman, sitting across from me in the projection room, “do you understand the pages?”
I dumbed it, not answering.
“If you do, explain them to me. Roman’s parking here tomorrow. Maybe he’ll understand them.” He picked up the script. “Could Towne have written it in Polish for the Polchick?”
Polanski blew into town, but really blew when he read the script. Yet his resolve was decisive: “I’ll fix it, I’ll fix it. Have I disappointed you yet?”
Feverishly, Roman got into the screenplay with Bob and the fights started. Not unlike Coppola and myself, there wasn’t one nuance in the entire screenplay they agreed on.
Meanwhile, a Chinese acupuncturist had been summoned from Paris to be the thirty-eighth person to work on my sciatic problem. He was taking out the hairlike needles (which hurt like hell by the way) when an urgent call was put through from Polanski.
“What’s the emergency, Roman?”
“Bob, tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“What?”
“Passover. Is everything arranged?”
Passover? I didn’t even know when Passover was.
“You forgot, didn’t you?” Roman snickered. “And you’re my p
roducer! It’s like a Polish movie. I’ve got a script I don’t understand and a producer who’s flirting with senility!”
“When is Passover?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Starts at sundown, huh?”
“It does in Poland.”
“Okay, Polchick. Be here at sundown tomorrow and don’t forget, wear a tie.”
Punctually at sundown, dressed in suit, shirt, and tie, Roman arrived. Greeting him were Anne and Kirk Douglas; Carol and Walter Matthau and their son, Charlie; Audrey and Billy Wilder; Sue Mengers and her husband, Jean-Claude Tramont; the fetching beauties Leigh Taylor-Young and Joanna Cameron; and sporting a yarmulke, Warren Beatty. From the drawing room, we adjourned to the dining room, where my butler and two servants proceeded to serve a Passover meal authentic enough to get the nod from Golda Meir. Only half of the guests at the table were Jewish in faith, but in spirit, it was as festive as joining a kibbutz betrothal.
Star-fuck I did. Who gets Kirk Douglas to be the rabbi? Not dubbed, either; in perfect Hebrew, Spartacus himself recited aloud the prayers. This hunk of Viking male was a better rabbi than actor. Down to the last detail, the evening was perfect. Young Charlie Matthau, at that time no older than ten or eleven, was there to answer “the four questions” from Rabbi Douglas. Without a youth present, that touching moment would have been lost. Out came the camera and I took dozens of pictures of the evening.
When Roman had hung the phone up thirty hours earlier, I was determined to take him at his sarcastic word and show him what a producer really is. First step was to ask Sidney Korshak to call the Hillcrest Country Club and get the head chef to prepare what constitutes the perfect Passover feast. One call from Korshak and the chef was at my home the next day with plates, silverware, every condiment imaginable (including red horseradish), prayer books, and two educated waiters who knew how to serve what at the right time.
My snobbish butler, David, didn’t know the difference between gefilte fish and bluefish. If he did, he pretended not to. But he did look very patrician at the door, black tie and all, greeting my Passover guests.
Thank you, Sidney. I don’t think anyone else in town could have delivered Hillcrest on wheels (and by the way, in deference to Sidney, totally gratis). A myth is a myth is a myth is a myth.
Roman left that night whispering to himself, “Now that’s a producer, that’s a producer, that’s a producer.”
Me, I kept studying the Polaroids, thinking to myself, Is Warren Beatty really Jewish, is Warren Beatty really Jewish, is Warren Beatty really Jewish?
Chapter Thirty-One
Jane Fonda was everybody’s first choice to play opposite Jack. There was one problem—Fonda was hedging, not sure she wanted to play the part. Understandably, she didn’t understand the script. Concurrently giving me heartburn was Sue Mengers, Faye Dunaway’s agent. She pushed her client on me to the point of blackmail. Thank you, Sue—Dunaway’s singular mystery on screen was among the best casting choices of my career. Making her deal, however, was another story.
“Bobbeee, I need an offer by the end of business, Friday. Otherwise, I’m closing a deal with Arthur Penn for my Faye to star in Night Moves.”
“Sue, I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Now leave me alone.”
I immediately called Roman. “I know Jane’s one, two, and three on your list. She’s playing cute with us, Roman. Get her to say yes or tell her to fuck off. Otherwise, I lose Dunaway.”
“I don’t want her anyway. The script’s tough enough to understand. I don’t need her mishegoss.”
“Then settle with Fonda tonight. You’ve romanced her enough; it’s time to make love. Tonight, Roman!”
Fuck her he didn’t. Fucked he got. Fonda didn’t want to play. My first call the next morning was to Sue.
“Sorry, Sue, but the studio wants to go with Jane. You and me talking now. I still want Faye. She’s more mysterious. That’s what the part’s all about. But what can I do?”
Hooked by the bait. “Plenty! It’s your picture. If you want my Faye, tell them all to take a flying fuck.”
“Easy for you to say, Mengela.”
“Convince Nicholson that Dunaway’s more interesting. Then call Bluhdorn, tell him to back you.” A giggle. “Then drop it on the fuckers. It’s Dunaway or no way!”
“It won’t work. Bluhdorn wants Fonda too. Hey, I’ve got an idea. It’s a long shot: dinero . . . not Bobby De Niro . . . dinero dinero.”
With the instinct of a jungle cat, Sue got the message quickly.
“Okay, what’s the deal?”
“Don’t give me your sarcastic shit, Mengela. I’m trying to make something work that no one wants.”
Sharper than a Vegas pit boss, her voice now two octaves lower, “What’s the deal, prick?”
“Fifty thou—”
The phone slammed in my ear before I could finish. I waited for her to call back. She knew I was waiting. She didn’t call. I’m still the buyer though. She’s the seller.
Finally, Mengela made the first move. She had no choice.
“Bobbeee. . . . you don’t want Mengela to lose a client, do you? You know what a prima donna she is. If I mention numbers even close to that, she’ll fire me. They’re all crazy.”
“Mengela, tell Dunaway I’m doing this for you, not for her. You know it. I know it. And she knows it . . . she’s colder than Baskin-Robbins.”
“Arthur Penn doesn’t think so, Bobbeee. Remember Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair—”
I interrupted her role call. “Remember Doc . . . The Deadly Trap . . . Oklahoma Crude? Three in a row. For a dame, I don’t care who she is, three strikes in a row and you’re out. Sue, listen real careful. I love ya. The only shot we have is bargain-basement time. I’ve got a weak link I can play on. They want John Huston to play old man Mulwray. There ain’t no money in the budget for it. That’s my hook. Got it?”
“Got it, prick,” hanging the phone up in my ear.
Again, I waited for her call back. She knew I was waiting. It was her call to make—she had no choice. It was now past 7:00 P.M., I poured myself a scotch, patiently waiting for the phone to ring. It did.
“Bobbeee?”
“Mengela.”
“We’ll take it.”
“I think it could be too late. You should have gotten back to me sooner. Let me get on the horn and try to stop the deal with Fonda.”
“You prick, you no-good bastard. First you make my client spread her legs, then you tell us ‘I’ll get back to you’? You son of a—” Slam went the phone in my ear.
At eight the next morning I called Sue. “I’ve had a tough night with Roman, Sue. He’s scared shitless that Dunaway will be difficult to work with. Thank God, Jack was there, he helped me convince him. Tell Faye she’s got the part.”
Like a Sotheby’s auctioneer, “Closed?” said Mengela.
“Closed,” I said. “Do I at least get a thank you?” I got a giggle.
“Bobbeee . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I fibbed.” Another giggle. “There was no part in Night Moves for Faye.” Mengela was getting off. Her giggling nonstop.
I held the phone, until lack of oxygen made her stop.
“Mengela?”
Hardly able to catch her breath, “What?”
“Fonda passed.”
I lost the hearing in my left ear from the slam of the phone.
Roman: intense, focused, punctual. Towne: lethargic, scattered, perpetually late. Two brutal months of preparations with Roman not knowing whom to kill first; Towne or Hira, Towne’s white, shaggy, and shedding giant hunk of a sheepdog.
“Hira, Hira,” Roman moaned. “Wherever I go there’s hair. I’m scratching where I shouldn’t. His script stinks, his dog smells. I should have stayed in Paris. Wherever I go, there’s dog shit.”
On September 28, 1973, World War III started—Chinatown’s first day of principal photography. The tension so tight, not a word, not even hello, was uttered between its cre
ators. Nicholson was getting his nuts off, his smile on full, sucking up the lunacy of his pals’ mutual disdain.
Autocratic Roman barred Towne not only from the set, but even from seeing the dailies. As referee, I now had to watch dailies with Roman at the studio and again with Bob at home.
“The Polack can’t interpret English,” Towne said.
Poor guy; he only had two ears to vent his anger—mine. Worse for Roman than Towne was Dunaway. Was she difficult? No, “impossible,” said the maestro. A perfectionist. “Silk stockings were a must to be part of being a lady in the thirties,” she declared. Didn’t matter to her that in the seventies they were nowhere to be found. She insisted, and we searched until they were found. Hurrah for you, dear Faye. Roman didn’t share my feelings.
“Tell me, it’s true,” Roman said. “You’re paying me back for Passover. Dunaway’s a menace. Towne’s a mess. Up there someone’s telling me, ‘Schmuck, you should’ve spent Passover in Poland.’ ”
It was a hair that broke the camel’s back. Dunaway dressed to the nines—hat, veil, and all—confronting her newfound shamus, Nicholson, in a clandestine rendezvous at a posh thirties L.A. restaurant. The scene demanded sparks to fly. Sparks did fly, but not on the screen. Through the camera, Roman saw a wire of a hair reeling up from Dunaway’s veil. He went over and plucked it to save the shot—instead of thanks, he got a smack across the face.
“Touch me again, I’ll call in my troops!” screamed Dunaway in full theatrical fury.
The set closed down. A summit was called. Sue Mengers was out of town, so agency boss Freddie Fields took on the challenge.
“Forget Polanski, he’s crazy. I’ll give you Mark Rydell—he’ll make a picture out of this mess.”
“Fuck you, Freddie. Polanski’s my choice, Dunaway’s my star. I’ll handle it.”
First to Dunaway. “The two scenes you’ve shot—spellbinding!” Dunaway was hardly impressed. Then came an offer hard to refuse: “An Oscar nod or a Rolls Corniche—one of the two I personally guarantee is yours.”
By then Coppola’s Mercedes was a legend. How could she refuse? Melt she did. Then I went to Roman.
