My Life as a Mankiewicz

by Tom Mankiewicz

  In stages, my relationship with my father became much, much better. While we weren't equal professionally—he was the four-time Oscar winner and a legend—we became equal in the sense that I didn't need anything from him and he didn't need anything from me. We were just father and son. We could have a different kind of dialogue. Being the “son or the daughter of” is a tremendous advantage, but there are compensating disadvantages like, number one, are you ever going to measure up? Number two, when you first start, snotty reviewers will say, well, Tom Mankiewicz is clearly no Joe Mankiewicz. Also, as I've said, you have that group of people who are rooting against you in the beginning because you're Joe Mankiewicz's kid and if you were Joe Schwartz's kid, you wouldn't even be there, they think.

  I concentrated heavily on writing. The most important moment in my life was when I was finished rewriting Diamonds Are Forever and there was no question I was writing the next one. They were making the deal already. Cubby and Harry knew who my father was, but they didn't know him socially. They were about to make another fucking James Bond film, and they figured, out of all the writers, I was the one that they wanted to have write it. That was an inner satisfaction. That's when you stopped being Joe Mankiewicz's kid and you became Tom Mankiewicz. As I've said, nobody makes your script because you're Joe Mankiewicz's kid; they make it because they want to make the film. Writing is very important in that way. Nobody is going to let you direct a film because you're somebody's son, either. When Jane Fonda first started acting, she was in a movie called Tall Story with Tony Perkins. Everybody said she got the part because she was Hank Fonda's daughter, and she wasn't that good in it. She learned how to act. You watch her in Klute, and this is a real serious actress. She's a wonderful actress. She overcame being Henry Fonda's daughter. Conversely, one of Gregory Peck's children killed himself. Ray Stark had a son who threw himself off a balcony.

  Being the “son or daughter of” is an added burden, if you let it be. But on the whole, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages if you can perform. If you can do it, you do have an in. When I wrote that original called Please, which got optioned five times by different studios and was never made, the fact that it said Tom Mankiewicz may have caused somebody to pick it up and read it, where, if it had said Tom Schwartz, they might not have. That's how I got my rewrite on Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre for $500, because they said, “Get Joe's kid, he writes terrific dialogue.” The original title, as I mentioned, was Everything the Traffic Will Allow, which is from “There's No Business Like Show Business,” and it was about the last ninety minutes of a young actress's life in between the time she takes pills and the time she dies, with flashbacks. (Our family is full of flashbacks: Citizen Kane, Letter to Three Wives, All About Eve, The Barefoot Contessa, all flashbacks.) It was based on Bridget Hayward and later Tuesday Weld, who was one of the first people that I was crazy about after coming out to L.A., and who was in a lot of trouble. At one point, Carroll Baker, who was a big star after The Carpetbaggers, was going to do it. Shirley MacLaine was going to do it. People were always optioning this thing. But in the meantime, it was a wonderful exhibition of my work, or at least my dialogue.

  In the early 1980s, Aaron Spelling called me one day and asked, “Tommy, what was that script, the suicide script?”

  I said, “Oh, Jesus, Aaron, back then it was called Please.”

  He said, “I remember reading that thing fifteen years ago. God, it was good. Why don't we make it?”

  I said, “Aaron, let me pull it out.”

  So I read it, and it wasn't any good. The dialogue was very flashy. It was immature. It didn't really hold. But the part for the actress was so good. I would have had to start rewriting it, and I thought, no, I'm just gonna let a sleeping dog lie.

  I told Aaron. He said, “It isn't as good as we remember from fifteen years ago?”

  I said, “No, it's not.”

  It's the Real Thing

  In 1982 Columbia and Coca-Cola were forming a new studio called TriStar, a subsidiary of Columbia. Sean Connery's lawyer and one of the producers of Never Say Never Again, Jack Schwartzman, was involved. The job of studio head was offered to Leonard Goldberg. Leonard had so many things going on that he suggested me. This was a no-lose proposition. TriStar had five commitments including Places in the Heart, which Bob Benton was going to make, Tootsie, which Sidney Pollack was going to make, and The Natural, which Barry Levinson was going to make. These things were already lined up. They needed somebody to run the studio. Bob Benton was asked, “What do you think of Tom Mankiewicz?” and Benton said, “He would be ideal. The guy's produced. He's directed. He's written. It would be such a help to have a studio head that creative. What is he famous for? Fixing pictures. He also knows people, and everybody likes him, and he's not a suit.” So I got a call, would I be interested? My agent at the time was cool on it because he thought he could make more money off me if I stayed in movies than if I was an executive. He'd make one deal and that's the end of it. You sort of lost a client.

  I met with Robert Goizueta, the head of Coca-Cola. We went to a dinner at the Bistro. Ray Stark was there because he was a big stockholder in Columbia. Ray had passed on me and said, “This is not such a good idea.” I thought, boy, this is a complete change of life. I sat down with my assistant/associate producer/confidant Annie Stevens and said, “What do we want to do? We would have to go to Century City every morning. It's probably more like a seven-day-a-week job than a five-day-a-week job because things happen all the time. We'd probably have to get to work a little earlier because it's already nine o'clock in New York when it's six o'clock in L.A. We'll have to go to previews around the country. If I do something wonderful to fix a movie, they'll say, ‘Boy, can that Barry Levinson make a good movie.’ And if I do something terrible, they'll blame it on me and say, ‘What a lousy studio head, he didn't make any money. How could he green-light that?’” So I was really making a negative case. I said, “On the other hand, it's awfully tough to fire a studio head for at least the first two or three years, and we can always go back to what we're doing.” Annie was like a full partner. She was my alter ego and somebody who could really take the mickey out of me, as the British would say.

  We decided we didn't want to do it. Most executives know nothing. There was a quote of writer-director Richard Brooks, “A fired executive trying to make a motion picture is like a turtle on his back in the sun. They all know everything except how to make one.” To be with the president of Coca-Cola and Ray Stark, I mean, talk about a fish out of water. I'm fairly glib. I thought, this is not my crowd, either. The job is seven days a week and you are serving everybody else. If Barry Levinson or Bob Benton or Sidney Pollack has a problem, they pick up the phone and call you. And you've got to solve it. Son of a bitch, if Dick Donner has a problem, he picks up the phone and calls you, and if it's two in the morning, it's two in the morning. He's really pissed about something and you've got to do something about it. If you're creative, it's difficult to be on that side of the line, fixing all these problems for all these people. Whereas, when you're fixing your own movie, you're diving into an individual project with a director, and actors, and locations, and it is your project too. You're in it. You're creatively contributing to it.

  But that was one brush with the executives, and it was there for the taking. No question about it. I would have gone on to produce Oscar telecasts after that. Jack Haley Jr. directed several Oscar telecasts. I helped him out. They were nightmares. But in those days, it was much more freewheeling. People were drinking. Henry Mancini, one of the great guys in the world, always led the orchestra in those days in the pit. When there was a commercial break, Hank would jump onto the stage and he and Jack and I would smoke a joint backstage. It was absolutely insane. I'm sure it's much worse today.

  This Is War

  In 1982 Leonard Goldberg was producing a movie called War Games with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. Dabney Coleman was in it, and Marty Brest was the director. He later did Be
verly Hills Cop. This was his first movie, and they were shooting in Seattle. Leonard said to me, “You know, there are some problems with the script, but Marty thinks it's wonderful. How did I ever get into this?” Three days' rushes came in, and Leonard didn't like them at all. Marty Brest was not that adept with a camera. Even in Beverly Hills Cop, they had a television director, Don Medford, on the set with him at all times. Leonard said, “Marty, I think we've got to reshoot some of this. I'm flying up to Seattle tomorrow. If you think these rushes need a little work, let's sit down and see what we can redo. If you think they're great, we may have a problem.”

  Leonard got to Seattle, and Marty Brest said, “I think they're great.”

  Leonard said, “Then we have a problem.”

  Marty Brest said, “You can't fire me. I quit.”

  Leonard said, “All right, you can quit.” Later on, Leonard said, “He'll learn. Never quit because, if you get fired, you get paid. That's a good lesson for him to learn.”

  So he hired John Badham, who had directed Saturday Night Fever and Dracula. John was an old friend of mine from Yale. As I've mentioned, when I was rewriting the Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre episode, John was working in the casting department at Universal, and they finally gave him a shot to direct episodic television. His very first movie was with Richard Pryor about black ballplayers called The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. It was a wonderful little film. He now took over War Games, and Leonard and John said to me, “It just needs three or four scenes, and you'll see where they are.”

  We all agreed on the scenes. Nobody was supposed to know that I was on the picture. Leonard and I were walking on the MGM back lot, and here comes Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick on a bicycle built for two, heading to the set. They stopped to say hello to Leonard, and Leonard introduced me to them. Ally Sheedy said, “By the way, Leonard, we know who's writing those scenes; we loved those scenes.” I'm just standing there. She said, “Matthew and I figured it out.”

  Leonard asked, “Who's writing them?”

  She said, “Neil Simon.”

  Leonard said, “Close.” And they went off.

  By the way, it was a very good script. The movie came out, and it was a big hit. I was sitting at a table with Ally Sheedy at a party four months later. I said, “By the way, I didn't congratulate you on your performance in War Games. You were wonderful.”

  She said, “Oh, thank you.”

  And I said, “I particularly liked the scene on the beach the night before you think the world's going to end, when you say you were going to be on local television doing calisthenics the next day. It's just a lousy little show, but it really did mean something. It was so touching and sweet.”

  Ally said, “Yeah, it was a wonderful scene.”

  I said, “I wrote that scene.”

  She said, “You were the one.”

  A Tablet, a Pencil, and Thou

  Dad used to write in longhand on a yellow pad. And I started that way. If you were to ask me to write a screenplay today, the first thing I'd do is get into bed with no clothes on with a yellow legal tablet and pencil and write. It's womblike. When I was doing Superman in London, one of the reasons I always had a suite was that I would write in the bedroom. I had so many chicken scratchings on the pages with arrows and so on, nobody could ever decipher it. Not even Annie. I would write the scene in longhand, and then I would play it to myself and I would make changes. Then I would go in and type it up. Then I'd look at it and make more changes, then I'd give it to Annie. She would type it, put it in the computer. I could never do that. I can write letters on a computer, e-mail, but I can't write a screenplay on a computer. I'm the last guy in the world to still be typing on an IBM Selectric. That's as high-tech as I got. It's still the same process. It's three times. Longhand, typing with changes, and then the clean copy.

  Unfortunately, I smoke when I write. My hero was Scott Fitzgerald. I loved Gatsby and Tender Is the Night. He was a big drinker. And Hemingway. They were always drinking and writing. I can't drink and write. I write about four hours, nine to one, or eight to noon. I get up very early, around four thirty or five in the morning. I didn't always, but I do now. I read the paper, and then go write. I have to do it when my mind is relatively blank, and, hopefully, before the phone starts to ring. If you're writing, you don't answer the phone. There are some days when it just comes, and it's wonderful. And some days when it just doesn't, and it's painful to write two pages. And they're not good. Other days, six pages are easy. It just flows. One thing I notice is at night, if I have a couple of Jack Daniel's and I suddenly think of a wonderful line—I'm almost laughing out loud it's so good—and I write it down, in the morning, when I get up and look at the line, it's not so wonderful. When you've had a few drinks, everything looks fabulous. But as a writer, with a couple of drinks in me, I'm nowhere near as funny as I am stone-cold sober at nine in the morning.

  When I'm really writing for four or five hours, I am exhausted at the end. I haven't gotten out of bed, except to pee. But I'm exhausted. My mind has been working and characters have been talking and things have been going on. I might as well have been on a treadmill for an hour, in terms of how tired I am. Then I get a good boozy lunch with some wine, followed by a nap. I'm a great believer in the Mediterranean lifestyle. Everybody has a big lunch and takes a nap, and they open the stores again at four. Then they're open from four to eight, and then they go out to dinner. It's such a sensible lifestyle, and they live longer than we do. Obviously, when you're shooting, you can't take naps. Any day I could take a nap, I thought was the greatest day. My old expression is, “My cats and I go pawsup for an hour and a half.” They know naptime is coming when I return from the Palm. Everybody onto the bed. I love that, and I think it's a wonderful way to live.

  By the way, with the European filming schedule, you get twice as much done. I'm used to the American system. In Europe, you shoot eight hours straight, like eleven to seven. There's a rolling buffet on the set. You can go get a sandwich while you're waiting for them to light. In America, the minute you go to lunch—which is supposed to last one hour—people dribble back onto the set, and some are five minutes late, ten minutes late. It's never an hour. When I was shooting, especially in television, I used to work late. I would say to Aaron and Leonard, “Let me work two hours' worth of gold time as opposed to breaking for dinner and coming back. Once you break for dinner, Jesus, it takes you forever, so let's just work straight through.” I'm a great believer of if you're there, do it. It's like writing. I could not write for forty-five minutes in bed on a yellow pad, get up, and go to a dental appointment, come back, and start writing again. I can't do that.

  Brandon, Leonard, and Gavilan

  Next, another everything-done-for-the-wrong-reason project, though it didn't take much out of my life. In 1982 Hart to Hart was a big hit. NBC was being run at the time by Brandon Tartikoff. He was the nicest guy in the world and really bright. He was putting on wonderful shows. He said to me one night at a party, “Why don't you guys come over and do a series with NBC?”

  I said to Leonard Goldberg, “This is too good to pass up. We've got to do this.” I thought of a premise—an ex-Navy Seal who lives at the beach and works with an older guy who's a conman. I called him Gavilan because there was a fighter named Kid Gavilan and I thought it was a great name. Robert Urich, who was a big television star at the time on Vega$, was available. Vega$ had run out, and that had been an Aaron Spelling show. Leonard may have had extra joy in taking him from Aaron. Anyway, I wrote a premise, we went down to Brandon Tartikoff's office, we pitched the show, and Brandon said, “Okay, you guys have thirteen on the air. You don't have to do a pilot or anything. Goldberg and Mankiewicz.”

  Again, this was done for all the wrong reasons. I wasn't burning to do a series about a Navy Seal. I was just trying to think of what can we do so we can get a show on the air. I met Bob Urich, who's a very nice guy, but very scared about doing a new thing because he had done Veg
a$ for five or six years and just settled into it. He kept calling me day and night as I'm starting to write the script, asking, “Do you really think I should drive a Porsche? I don't know about a Porsche. You mean an old Porsche, not a new Porsche.”

  I said to Leonard, “Listen, I don't want to stand in the way of this, but it's getting crazy here.” I realized that my heart wasn't in it. So they got some guy Urich really liked from Vega$, and Leonard said, “It'll say created by Tom Mankiewicz and let this guy go ahead and write the script. Bob loves him, and it won't cause you any problems.”

  The one joy was Fernando Lamas, who played the old conman and was an absolute hoot. I just loved him. He came from the era of MGM as the Latin lover from the forties and fifties. He was married to Esther Williams. He would say, “You know, Tom, there was Esther, so beautiful, so wonderful. And you know, in America, you have such beautiful women, but they're not fucked properly.”

  I had to suck it in, call Brandon, and say, “My eyes were too big for my stomach. I have a movie to do.” Gavilan came out, created by Tom Mankiewicz. Single card to start the show, and was off in six episodes. I got a check for eleven dollars from the Philippines for the six episodes. I don't think anybody's heart was in it. I don't know that Bob Urich really wanted to do it. Leonard probably thought, I got thirteen on the air, Bob Urich and Fernando Lamas, maybe this is gonna be a hit.