Then we got involved in preproduction, and any preproduction can be very trying. In this case our production was a negative pickup, so we were not going to get actual production money until we started shooting. Naturally, this made everyone nervous in that you-can’t-get-there-from-here state that is the lot of all movies that must run their preproduction tank on empty until the first day of shooting. But everyone involved—the costume people, set designers, and so on—kept us going even though the picture was already running up quite a debt before we officially had our funding on the first day of production.
However, while I was seeing to all the details of preproduction, my two stars decided that they needed to go off for a bit—Jack went skiing in Aspen and Evans too said he needed a little break. I said, “Where are you going?” He said, “Tahiti.” So the planned rehearsals between Jack and Bob were not exactly practical or possible under these conditions. When Evans finally returned from Tahiti some six weeks later, it was immediately evident that he was not looking to give us the charming, self-deprecating schmendrick that we had all come to know and love but the dazzling leading man that he hadn’t been twenty years earlier.
That clearly was not what I was looking for, and I didn’t think it would work—especially since the actual rehearsal time had shrunk from two months to two weeks. One of the things that concerned me most was the rate at which Evans spoke. Not only was it twice as fast as anyone else, but he mumbled—in fact, Dustin Hoffman had Evans very much in mind when he played the character Mumbles in Dick Tracy. Evans, in a word, was difficult to understand and impossible to slow down.
I was kind of beside myself, so, after having done some camera tests to see how he looked on film and trying to rehearse with him, I realized he saw the character as the preening mobster Bugsy Siegel, while I saw the character as much closer to his humorous if thuggish capo, Mickey Cohen. It really came down to the fact that I was going to have to ask the producer to replace one of the leading actors—namely, himself.
So I went over to his house and sat in his bedroom on top of his black mink fur spread (he was sitting in bed under it) and said, “Bob, look: We talked about this a long time ago; we agreed that if there was ever a difficulty the most important thing was the picture and we would agree to make a change. And we need to protect the picture and there’s just no time. We have a tight schedule and there’s so much work for us to do, I don’t know how we can possibly do it in the time we have, and furthermore, I’m going to need a real producer on the film, and you’re the producer, so I don’t see how it’s possible that you can do everything that needs to be done to play this part and produce the picture . . .” I went on and on in this fashion, citing the reasons from every department why this change had to be made. I must have talked nonstop for an hour, and he looked and listened, and after I stopped he said to me, “So what are you saying?”
Well, that was the beginning of the end. The project unraveled in a rather spectacular way and none of us spoke to each other for years.
Now, I have no idea what the movie would have been like having cast someone else as Berman at the beginning, but I finally saw an inkling of the performance I would have liked in The Kid Stays in the Picture, where Evans was relaxed and in high self-deprecating good humor, everything I wanted him to be as Jake Berman. I’m afraid the only person who could get Evans to be Evans was Evans himself.
WHAT I LEARNED
I don’t know that there’s any one lesson that can be taken away from The Two Jakes, partly because the mistakes are so numerous in a situation like this, it’s hard to point to one in particular except for the first one: if I hadn’t suggested Evans to Evans to begin with, it need never have happened. I had revived a nearly forgotten dream that Evans had of being a leading man, one he had been more than willing to forget had I not been foolish enough to say, “Of course you can do it!”
But the thing about a movie is that you have to make mistakes to get a movie made. The question isn’t whether you’re going to make them; you’re going to make them at twenty-four frames a second. The moviemaking process by its very nature is a forgiving one. That’s why you have the capacity for endless numbers of takes; that’s why you have an editor standing by to remake the movie in endless ways. If thirty takes are mistakes, there’s always the thirty-first—that’s what the process is for.
In fact, what makes a movie work best, I think, is how quickly and effectively you can make mistakes, how quickly you can go down wrong paths that can strongly suggest the right path. They say writing is rewriting. Well, it’s the same thing with a movie, only more so. Making good movies is making mistakes fast enough to correct them. If you can’t correct your mistakes on a movie, then you’ve subverted the entire wacky Rube Goldberg process of moviemaking: you’ve made the biggest mistake of all—being in a position that doesn’t allow for mistakes.
In many ways I owe Evans my career for his championing Chinatown at a time when and a place where the studio understood it even less than he did. And fortunately, the one mistake Evans and I never made was losing our friendship. We sure as hell bent it on The Two Jakes, but it was never broken.
KENNETH COLE
Designer
In 1986 I was asked to give a speech about my involvement with the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) at Carnegie Hall in front of more than a thousand members of the arts community. I declined. I’m not a public speaker. It’s just not what I do, or, as with most people, what I’m in any way comfortable doing. I’d just become engaged in the battle against HIV/AIDS (recently running my first public service campaign about the disease) and was still educating myself. I was sure they could find someone more qualified.
But then the event organizer, Fred, came to see me. He was so animated and persuasive that I just couldn’t say no. I asked him what I was supposed to say, and he told me to just tell them what I do and why. It seemed straightforward, and it seemed to be something that would not likely take a lot, if any, preparation, so I reluctantly agreed to make the speech.
Still, I was worried. Should I write a speech or not? I knew this stuff, but would I be too nervous to deliver it well? Maria Cuomo, whom I had recently started dating, suggested I start by acknowledging and thanking Fred for making the night possible. After all, he would not likely get the credit he deserved. It would also give me some time to relax before I actually got into my presentation, or speech, or whatever it was.
So that night I followed Dr. Mathilda Krim, the founder of amfAR, and preceded Ali Gertz, a young woman who had contracted HIV very early on and had shared her story with whomever she could, becoming an icon in the process. I took the stage at Carnegie Hall in front of several thousand people, without notes. Because of the footlights I couldn’t see past five feet in front of me and all I could hear was the ocean of noise, a buzz out there in that vast hall. I started as planned by praising Fred. “Thanks to Fred’s effort this event had become possible,” and so on. I seemed to be getting great feedback. Out there in the haze the room was buzzing, so I said even more about him—“After all, this night was really very much about Fred”—and then more, and with each reference an even more pronounced buzz from the audience. I felt I had hit a home run with my praise of Fred. This gave me the confidence I needed. Now relaxed, I delivered my message, and it seemed to go well.
I finished the speech exhilarated and relieved, and grateful to Maria for her advice. When I returned to my seat somewhere in the middle of the vast hall, Maria passed me a note. “You were great, but his name is not Fred.”
My family had a field day with my error. It was clear they would never let me live this down. My renaming of Fred at Carnegie Hall was the story that was recited at family dinners and all holiday gatherings.
Fred’s actual name was Peter—not even close. I wasn’t sure if Peter had been terribly offended by my blunder or not, but I chose to let it go, knowing that there was not much I could do about it at that point. Peter’s feelings eventually became clear.
All present were urged to fill out a form attached to their programs with their addresses, so they could each receive a video of the event. When it arrived all presentations were beautifully edited, except for one, which was just omitted.
Two years passed after that night at Carnegie Hall, and my sister, Abbie, who had been present for the mishap, called to tell me she had just read in the New York Times that Peter Glen, that evening’s inspiring host, had passed away. I was saddened that this great AIDS advocate had left us.
I used that story for the next several years when I spoke in public. It always helped relax me and ease into my subject, which was usually about the importance of AIDS awareness. I would say, “. . . and Maria passed me the note, and it read . . . ‘but his name is not Fred.’” I would then pause, usually after a laugh, and say, “His name in fact was Peter Glen, and he has since died of AIDS.”
I delivered this message to probably a few thousand people over about a five-to eight-year period, and after having just done it again at the opening of my new store in Los Angeles, I was back in my office in New York. In the middle of a meeting my assistant popped her head into my office and said, “Kenneth, Peter Glen is on the line for you.”
I didn’t take the call. I needed a bit of composure and a lot of research before I could speak to whoever was on the other end of the call.
He hadn’t died after all. It turned out that it was another Peter Glen who in fact had died. It also turned out that this Peter Glen wasn’t particularly happy with his twenty-some-odd premature eulogies. Although he was an inspiring man, he understandably didn’t have a sense of humor that would accept my gaffe.
So the facts are, I didn’t just humiliate myself in front of thousands of people, but I also buried a great man years before he actually passed.
WHAT I LEARNED
Spend more time on preparation.
RICHARD MARTINI
Filmmaker
Nothing prepares you for the cacophony of India. A sea of minicabs, multicolored trucks, water buffaloes, camels, elephants, and an occasional vulture clog its dusty roads with endless bleating and honking. I had flown into India for a trip exploring the former Tibetan state of Ladakh with Sanjay Saxena, tour group leader and native of Delhi, and Robert Thurman, professor of Tibetan philosophy at Columbia University. They were leading us on our journey through Ladakh’s ancient Tibetan monasteries and then up to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama.
While traipsing through a magnificent sixteenth-century monastery outside of Thikse, I bumped my head in a small stupa, or ceremonial burial site. I looked down to find two penny-size painted stones at my feet. I’ve traveled a bit around the planet, and have a habit of taking pocket-size pebbles as souvenirs of my journey, from the pyramids of Giza to the Great Wall of China. So when I reached down and admired these hand-painted pieces of clay, I didn’t think much about pocketing them.
Later, Professor Thurman was taking us through the inner sanctuary of a Buddhist temple, and I saw a painting on the wall depicting humans being tortured, flayed, and devoured by demons. “This painting shows what happens to those who disturb these sacred grounds,” he said. Suddenly my penchant for souvenir grabbing seemed to take on a dark tone; maybe having a pair of souvenir stones wasn’t such a good idea.
After rafting the Indus and camping under glorious skies, we headed for Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama. Driving in India is a driver’s education class nightmare. Animals and owners dart in front of cars at will; roads are littered with the losers of the daily battles. While driving through one of these villages, a boy suddenly darted in front of our Jeep. The driver swerved, saving the young boy’s life, but the boy slammed into my door and crumpled under the car. His foot was badly wounded; with sinew and bone breaking through his ankle, the boy writhed in pain.
Sanjay quickly pulled him into the car and drove us to a nearby hospital. We escorted him to the emergency room and were lucky to find a surgeon on call who went to work immediately. Sanjay and Professor Thurman arranged payments for a year of therapy in advance, as well as compensation to his family. However, I feared the culprit was really me. Ever since I’d picked up those stones, I was waiting for an accident to happen. As I considered pitching them, my Western mind argued with me: Unlucky stones? Stones aren’t unlucky. It was an accident, I thought. I figured we were on our way to Dharamsala, and there must be a temple where I could return them. Back into my pocket they went.
Suddenly there was a loud explosion. A huge main electrical wire that went from the hospital into town exploded overhead in a shower of sparks. The whipping wire flew down from the pole and snaked across the entrance, sending sparks and flames as it went, until it came to rest over the main gate to the hospital. There was no way for us to leave. We quickly assessed what to do, and while the group was trying to figure out what that was, I tiptoed away and reached into my pocket, determined to rid myself of the bad karma of these mystical stones.
I saw a fountain nearby and placed them on the stone edge. I looked around to make sure no one saw me, and felt I had gotten away with ridding myself of what was obviously causing misfortune. Brushing my hands clean of their blue and white dust, I breathed a sigh of relief. Even if they had no power, I was happy to not have them in my pocket. A few minutes later, we searched for a safer, nonelectrified exit. Some group members and I walked back past the fountain, looking for another way out of the hospital entrance, and I casually glanced over to where I’d set the stones down seconds before. They had vanished.
I looked around the grounds to see if anyone could’ve taken them, but the parking lot was empty—there was no way in and no way out. These magical stones had simply disappeared into thin air. I went over to look again. There wasn’t a trace of them having been there. Had they been picked up by a crow? Had they somehow dissolved into the moisture that was on the fountain ledge? Perhaps they’d just flown back to Ladakh. I’ll never know.
We finally made it to our hotel in Dharamsala, where I eagerly took a shower. As I got out and was traversing the damp concrete floor, I turned on a lamp and suddenly was aware my hand was stuck to it. I felt my arm go numb and realized I was being electrocuted. After a few seconds of panic, I swung my free arm around and smashed it against the hand that was unable to let go of the lamp. The resulting flash knocked me off my feet and onto the floor. Celestial payback for having disturbed a shrine? I don’t know, but I had literally gotten the shock of my life, albeit a shock of enlightenment.
WHAT I LEARNED
What I learned—as I lay there on the floor—was that it’s better to leave things undisturbed, in their natural state, than to claim them as souvenirs. As it is with our planet—and its environment—maybe it’s better to leave things as we find them so that others may come and enjoy them after we’re gone. Whether it’s an Alaskan wilderness or two tiny Tibetan stones. As it turns out, this story’s become a better souvenir of my trip to India than any rock, but it also serves as a lamppost for an old Indian maxim: “Never stand on concrete in wet bare feet when turning on a lamp.”
WALLY SCHIRRA
One of the Original Seven
Astronauts, Mercury, Gemini,
and Apollo Missions
I was a naval aviator test pilot at Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center when I was ordered to report to Washington, D.C., with a group of military test pilots. Two engineers and a psychiatrist lectured us about going into space on top of a rocket in a capsule. I immediately thought of the clown who is shot out of a cannon at the circus and thought, No way. Then they continued with the remark that they would send monkeys and chimpanzees first. I wanted out of there. After we returned to the test center, my colleagues pointed out that if I wanted to go higher, farther, and faster, this was the way. I accepted the invitation.
WHAT I LEARNED
First feelings are often misleading.
SCOTT CARPENTER
One of the Original Seven
Astronauts, Mercury Mission
I went
to Los Angeles in the 1960s and I was staying with my friend the comedian and comedy astronaut Bill Dana (José Jiménez). We would stroll down the Sunset Strip and look at the girls and enjoy their looks back. Two decades later I returned to Los Angeles to start a business in oceanography. Again I stayed with my friend Bill, and again we strolled down the Sunset Strip and looked at the girls, but this time they didn’t look back.
WHAT I LEARNED
I was born too long ago.
ANDREW H. TISCH
Chairman, Executive Committee
for Loews Corporation
Until March 12, 1991, I was invincible, or so I thought. I was going through a “let’s go get scared” phase of my life and was willing to try anything.
That is, until I tried helicopter skiing. I went to the Bugaboos in the Canadian Rockies on a one-week trip with Canadian Mountain Holidays, the largest helicopter skiing outfit, and one of the most reputable. I was there to try something new, to push the envelope, and to experience wide-open skiing. All over the brochures were the warnings about how dangerous the sport is and the possible consequences. I ignored every one of them. I ignored the pleas of my family and my then girlfriend (now wife). I ignored my own instincts. I went with some trepidation. But I went—in part because I did not want to disappoint the rest of our group of friends, who were counting on me.
We got there on a Saturday—flying to Calgary, busing five hours to a siding on a back road, and flying twenty-five minutes by helicopter to the lodge. We learned about deep-snow rescue. On Sunday we skied at lower altitudes because it was snowing heavily. We skied among the trees, and I was having some difficulty mastering the concept of deep-powder skiing because the snow was so heavy. I struggled on Sunday and again on Monday, never feeling quite comfortable about how I was skiing or about the way the group was being asked to ski by the expert guide leading us.
If I Only Knew Then... Page 9
