My Day With Robert Evans (RIP)
Robert Evans passed away this week, at the age of 89, which is pretty impressive for a guy who had a major coke problem in the 70s and 80s. But y'know, after that flurry of young drug deaths in the 70's(Jim, Janis, Jimi)...its like drug fanciers learned how NOT to die from them. Keith Richards, James Taylor, and Jimmy Buffett are still going strong.
And Evans had some strokes, too.
And bankruptcies. And a conviction for cocaine SALES. And a totally unfair linkage to a murder called "The Cotton Club murder" because Evans produced(with Francis "The Godfather" Coppola) directing, that movie and a guy who was going to invest in it got killed.
Plus seven wives. Ali MacGraw left him for Steve McQueen(Evans is perhaps the only guy in Hollywood on record as really HATING McQueen; who tried to get custody of Evans son with Ali, and ended up facing a "dossier" of mysterious info that backed McQueen off.)
I always thought that Evans weirdest marriage was to Phyllis George, a clean-cut girl next door TV star and ex-Miss America. It was like Caligula and Pollyanna.
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Evan's really big contribution to Hollywood is being given -- at a young age and with no experience -- a studio to run: Paramount. And Evans gets credit for greenlighting:
Rosemary's Baby
The Odd Couple
True Grit
Goodbye Columbus
Love Story
Harold and Maude
The Godfather
...and then, Evans was allowed to STAY a studio chief but also to produce:
Chinatown.
What a run.
Evans contended that Chinatown lost all but one of its 1974 Oscars(Original Screenplay) because Hollywood hated his "deal"(studio chief/producer.) Maybe. Personally I liked Chinatown a lot more than Godfather II. But they were BOTH damn good, yes? 1974. That's what I'm talking about.
I note this:
Taking a page from Hitchcock, Evans produced as his first producer films three THRILLERS in a row;
Chinatown(my favorite film of 1974)
Marathon Man(NOT my favorite film of 1976, but not far down the list.)
Black Sunday(my favorite film of 1977)
So, Evans is near and dear to my heart for THOSE three alone.
Evans claimed he forced Coppola to make The Godfather longer...and better. And I believe it. Because Evans was banned from Godfather II, and its slower and more self-indulgent. And then came Apocalyspe Now.
Anyway, that Great Big Bunch of Movies (and a few misfires, like The Great Gatsby) give Robert Evans a place in history.
As does his autobio "The Kid Stays in the Picture" which I found hilarious because everybody he quotes -- Nicholson, Beatty, Hoffman -- all sound like EVANS. They're all saying "I'm on empty. I need green bad" (they're broke before they are stars) -- and that's EVANs phrase.
I like this story: a vacant and mean-looking beauty of the 70's was named Lois Chiles. Like Cybill Shepard, she seemed born to play beyotches. (She's "the other woman" in The Way We Were.")
Well, after some bedroom time, Evans promised her a role in The Great Gatsby and he got her the second female lead -- but not Daisy, the lead(Mia Farrow got that.) Chiles screamed at him "But I wanted DAISY" and he kicked her out. (She kept her role.)
True? Well there's this famous Evans quote: "There's your side, my side, and the truth. And nobody's lying."
Dustin Hoffman famously played the mumbling, deep voiced Evans(under another name) in Wag the Dog and got an Oscar nom for it.
So...what more can I say about Robert Evans?
Well, I got to hang out with him for about an hour one day in the 70's.
I"ve told this story before, but its relevant today, so one more time:
In the 70's I scoured LA for "seminars" (rather like "Actors Studio" gigs) where famous stars and directors would come and talk and we would ask questions, and that's all that happened.
Well, one of them was taught by a music mogul named ...David Geffen. He's superrich now, and makes movies sometimes(or did) but he was hot enough then to bring in these guys, once a week , for an hour to talk with us:
Robert Evans(producer of Chinatown)
Robert Towne(writer of Chinatown)
Jack Nichoslon(star of Chinatown)
so I guess you could say this was my "Chinatown" class. Of course, Jack was the biggest deal. It was 1976, he had just won his Oscar for Cuckoo's Nest and his movie with Brando ("The Missouri Breaks") was coming out, and during the Q/A somebody asked him about Missouri Breaks and he said "I don't think its that good," and some student reporter put that in a college newspaper and Geffen went NUTS. Screamed at all of us the next week and said:
"Well, after one of you bums ratted out Nicholson, you lost today's speaker, who would have been ...Warren Beatty."
(I said to my friend: "Whew, I'm glad we got Nicholson instead!")
Heady times. CONT