Staying in the Picture with Robert Evans

In Hollywood, it never hurts to have a gift of the gab. Robert Evans, who’s certainly had his share of showbiz ups and downs, started out as a handsome young actor, detoured into a stint in women’s pants (his brother was a founder of Evan-Picone), ran Paramount Pictures during its glory days, got into serious legal hot water, got canned, then eventually wrote a memoir that got better reviews than any of his films, including The Godfather and Chinatown. Evans’ book is called The Kid Stays in the Picture, in tribute to Darryl F. Zanuck, who insisted that Evans not be booted from the unlikely role of a Spanish bullfighter in the film adaptation of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1957). So successful was The Kid Stays in the Picture, which came out in 1994, that it eventually was made into a 2012 documentary that was a hit at Cannes.

 Evans’ book has clearly not been massaged by a ghost writer and then vetted by a conscientious publicist. He explains his modus operandi right off the bat (these quotes are taken from the intro to the 2013 edition): “To tell the truth . . . and nothin’ but the truth . . . yet stick a bit of lightnin’ up the reader’s ass—that’s one mean hat trick. Don’t care how talented you are, or think you are. If you meant to make truth jump from the page, you need a hook!” Talk about finding your voice as a writer!  He goes on to say, directly contradicting the values of ardent grammar cops like me, “Forget grammatical perfection. Leave that to the pens of the more talented. Who the fuck wants to go toe-to-toe with George Bernard Shaw, anyway? Shock ‘em with the unexpected! . . .  Let ‘em laugh at you. But be you. Be an original!”

And here’s the book’s much-quoted epigraph: “There are three sides to every story: yours . . . mine . . . and the truth. No one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently.”

Much later in the book, Evans pauses to sum up his highly original life, which has included pursuing Grace Kelly, tangoing with Ava Gardner, feuding with Frances Ford Coppola, plucking Jack Nicholson out of the Roger Corman ghetto, and marrying Ali MacGraw. Not to mention staging a impromptu Passover seder intended to convince Roman Polanski to direct Chinatown: guests included Walter Matthau, Sue Mengers, Warren Beatty, and Kirk Douglas, who presided in perfect Hebrew. Here’s his take on two key decades in his life: “As the fifties aged, so did I. Made it to the big screen! Beaten up by Errol Flynn, kissed by Ava Gardner, slapped by Joan Crawford, toe-to-toe in close-ups with Jimmy Cagney. Not bad, huh? Not good either. By decade’s end, I was sure of one thing: I was a half-assed actor.”

“The sixties? That’s a different story. No back door this time – front door all the way. ‘Run the joint,’ was the order of the decade. Run it I did, for more than a decade. First and only actor ever to make the jump. Don’t understand it. This world of fickle flicks? It’s been well over thirty years now and I’m still  here, still standing behind them same gates. Bet your house, it isn’t dull. I’ve either done it, or gotten it. You name ‘em, I’ve met ‘em—well, almost. Either worked with ‘em, fought with ‘em, hired ‘em, laughed with ‘em, cried with ‘em, been figuratively fucked by ‘em, or literally fucked ‘em. It’s been one helluva ride!”

And one helluva read.

Deflate-Gate, Hollywood-Style

In the world of sports, the big story right now is “Deflate-Gate.” The strong probability that footballs were illegally deflated in an NFL playoff game at the behest of  Tom Brady and the New England Patriots has now resulted in some stiff penalties, not to mention major embarrassment. Hollywood, by contrast, has never been accused of deflating anything. Instead, daily life in the movie capital can fairly be called “Inflate-Gate.” Many starlets, for one thing, still feel they’ll have a better chance of success if they buy themselves a bigger set of bazooms. And then there’s something that goes on daily, the constant scramble to give oneself sole credit for accomplishments that more fairly belong to a group.

In my Roger Corman years, I saw this tendency all around me. (Yes, the breast implants along with the insistence on taking credit where credit was not due.)  Today Roger happily congratulates himself for adding the dark humor to the cult classic, Death Race 2000. Back in 1975, however, he fought hard to remove director Paul Bartel’s comic touches from the finished film. Yet Roger is not alone in taking a solo bow for the accomplishments of others. A fascinating 2008 documentary called Every Little Step is a behind-the-scenes look at the staging of a classic Broadway musical, A Chorus Line. Composer Marvin Hamlisch is shown discussing how the comic thrust of one of the show’s songs was lost on the audience until, during out-of-town tryouts, a key adjustment was made to its title. Hearing Hamlisch tell this amusing story, it’s easy to assume he wrote the song’s words as well as its music. Never once does he stop to acknowledge the show’s gifted lyricist, Edward Kleban.  

Producer Robert Evans, the 1970s “boy wonder” of Paramount, has never been accused of false modesty. His rollicking memoir, The Kid Stays in the Picture, makes clear his contributions to such major hits as Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, and Chinatown. But part of Evans’ charm is that he owns up to his failings as readily as his triumphs. There’s one moment when he goes far out of his way to recognize the contribution of an underling. When principal photography on The Godfather was in the can, it was apparently discovered that the film had no real ending.  That’s when “Peter Zinner, one of the film’s two editors, took the task upon himself. He choreographed mayhem with religion, intercut murder with the baptism of Michael Corleone’s newborn child. He saved the day—he saved our ass!” Evans clearly sees the irony: “Coppola went on to become the decade’s maestro, Evans its boy genius . . . but Peter Zinner—who? He silently disappeared, looking for a new gig—saving another producer’s or director’s ass.”

Despite the preening of many producers, directors, and stars, filmmaking is a collaborative effort, toward which everyone’s contribution counts. But, inevitably someone gets overlooked. In 1964 the late Paul Almond directed Seven Up, a documentary that intimately explored the lives of fourteen British schoolchildren. The Up series has continued into the present, returning at seven-year intervals to interview the same subjects. But though Almond conceived the concept, it is his successor, Michael Apted, who now gets the accolades.

Then there’s Sesame Street’s Big Bird. He’s long been a beloved icon, but how many know the name of Caroll Spinney, the man beneath the feathers? This oversight was rectified last year by a documentary called I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story. And Spinney’s hilarious Birdman parody, a YouTube hit, helps give credit where credit is surely due.