Robert Evans: Glory Days

Q: So why did you choose Coppola?

A: For one reason. He was the only Italian director in Hollywood. And I wanted it told from the viewpoint of a second-generation Italian. I made a very careful study. Even after I developed it from a 30-page treatment into the biggest bestseller of the decade, Paramount did not want to make it. Because there had not been one Mafia film ever made that had made a profit. They had all been written, directed, and/or acted by Jews. That's why I went with Coppola: I wanted to smell the spaghetti.

Q: Coppola claims he was fired three times from the picture.

A: Four. Two weeks into shooting I got a call from the editors who said they couldn't edit the scene where Al Pacino blows away Sterling Hayden in the restaurant. So I had the film sent to me and I edited it over the weekend and it was brilliant. I got on the red-eye, fired the editors, and told Francis he was brilliant. But he was so shaken at the time, he almost had a nervous breakdown. When the picture was finished, and he edited the film and I saw it, I said it was not releasable. He'd taken out all the texture. The picture was supposed to open that Christmas and I went to the Paramount hierarchy and said we couldn't open it then. I almost lost my job over it. They pushed the release back and we added 50 minutes to the picture.

Q: What was your initial reaction to Al Pacino as Michael?

A: I didn't want Pacino, Francis did. He didn't want Jimmy Caan, and I did. So we settled. But you know who talked me into using Pacino? Brando. Pacino didn't test well, and Brando called me. We didn't speak much, but he called me about this. He said, "Listen to me, Bob. He's a brooder. And if he's my son, that's what you need, because I'm a brooder." It was Brando's insight that made me understand why Al would work.

Q: Was Warren Beatty your first choice for Michael?

A: No, I wanted Alain Delon. He was the type, but he couldn't speak English well. Maybe I did want Warren. I may have thought of Jack, too, for it. Jack tells me I did, but I don't remember it. Dustin desperately wanted to do it.

Q: Did you eventually warm up to Pacino?

A: Al did an interview for The Godfather. It was the opening night and a reporter from Time was to talk to him. Al was living in a cellar at the time so he asked to use my suite at the Carlyle. He came up with a little navy pea cap, he looked like a second-story guy, and he said to me, "Can you loan me a fiver? I've got no money for a cab tonight for the opening." And I'm thinking, "This is the lead of The Godfather?" so I gave him two hundred-dollar bills. He put them in his pocket and went to do the interview.

Q: Ever get the money back?

A: Of course not. You ever get anything back from an actor? Uh-uh. [Laughs] Marthe Keller told me, about Al, that she went with him for years--until she couldn't afford him anymore.

Q: Did you consider Laurence Olivier for Don Corleone?

A: No. Marlon hadn't even read the book, but Francis did a silent test of him. Dino De Laurentiis, when he was told that Marlon was going to play the part, said he wouldn't be able to open the picture in Italy, he'd be laughed off the screen. Marlon was as dead as dead could be. Brando did The Godfather for $50,000, and he had one point of the gross after the first $10 million, two points for the second, three, four, and five points up to $60 million. Brando's attorney called me and said Marlon was desperately in need of $100,000. I told Charlie Bluhdorn and Charlie said to give it to him but to "get the points back." That $100,000 cost Brando $11 million.

Q: Did he ever try to renegotiate?

A: When it happened, he went crazy. And I don't blame him. He called me and said, "I'll play the part in The Great Gatsby but I want my deal back." I said one picture had nothing to do with the other.

Q: What was your bonus after the success of The Godfather?

A: A trip to the Virgin Islands.

Q: And did you buy Francis a Mercedes?

A: Yes. I had predicted that the picture would do $50 million. He said if it did, I should buy him a Mercedes. The day it did $50 million he went and bought the most expensive Mercedes he could, 12 cylinders, and charged it to me. He made it up to me 10 years later--he gave me a second asshole like no one has ever given it to me in my life.

Q: You're jumping ahead. We'll get to The Cotton Club in the second part of this interview, but let's stay with the two Godfathers.

A: Let me make it real clear what happened with those. I did The Godfather with Francis and we had horrendous fights. He only became the macho of the industry from that film; then he became a genius. If his cut was shown, it would have been on television. When we made The Godfather, Part II he wanted total autonomy, and he got it. I had nothing to do with it until we went to preview the picture in San Francisco two months before it was to open. When he walked into the theater they stood up and applauded him as if he was a king. By the time the picture was over, half the theater was empty. Here's what he had done: he left out the entire Havana sequence, the Meyer Lansky/Hyman Roth scene, and had more of Sicily-with-sub-titles. It was a bore. We went back and made over a hundred changes. We put back Havana, which was the best part of the movie. He doesn't know how to structure a movie.

Q: And after he received his second Oscar for The Godfather, Part II, he didn't acknowledge you. Was that hurtful?

A: On purpose. We stood at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the back. Chinatown was a 6-5 favorite against the field. And he said, "You're going to win, Evans," and I said, "No, you're going to win, Francis. This is your year." He said, "Isn't it funny? If I win it's because of you." I said, "I know." So he wins. I'm sitting there. He thanks everybody except me. Then, to put the knife in further, he said to me afterwards, "God, I for got to thank you--again!" That's how Machiavellian he is.

Q: Brando followed The Godfather with Last Tango in Paris. Did you have a shot at that?

A: I was going to do Last Tango. The Godfather hadn't come out yet. Everybody turned Last Tango down, Delon, Belmondo, but Brando took it. And I knew how great it was. Yet Paramount wouldn't make the deal because it was an X-rated picture.

Q: Had you ever been involved in an X-rated film?

A: I made Tropic of Cancer, which was X-rated. It was a damn good film. Henry Miller and I were good friends. He said, "You don't have the guts to make Cancer." I got it made and it was so rough, they pulled it after one theater. Ellen Burstyn was in it. She had her pussy showing, lice in her pussy, open legs. When Gulf + Western saw it they said, "Get rid of it." Then I made another picture they had to pull called Medium Cool with Haskell Wexler. It was so controversial that Gulf + Western wanted to get rid of that, too.

So when it came to Last Tango they turned it down. I was sick about it. I was the one who got Marlon in it. Maria Schneider came on at the last minute. Dominique Sanda was supposed to play the part but she got pregnant and Maria was Brigitte Bardot's stand-in.

She was wonderful in that film, as good as Marlon. It was her first movie. I knew her well, used to take her out. What a body she had! But then she got stuck on heroin. When Black Sunday came around she was up for that, but she was a total dyke at that time.

Q: You mentioned that you're also proud of Love Story. But no one wanted to make it, did they?

A: No, no one. Everybody said, "What kind of piece-of-shit, pulp junk is this?"

Q: Love Story was a screenplay before it was a book. How did you know to make it a book first?

A: That's instinct. You can't buy it, you don't learn it, you don't inherit it. You either have it or you don't. I cried when I read the script, so I told Erich Segal to write it as a book first. And then no one wanted to print the book. They printed 6,000 copies, they were going to give it away as a throwaway. I offered them $225,000 for advertising if they printed 25,000 books. So they did, and it became the number one bestseller of the decade.

Q: Love Story starred Ali MacGraw, who became your wife. Did you know her when the studio made Goodbye Columbus?

A: No, but I fell in love with her while watching the dailies. She didn't want to have anything to do with me. She disliked everything I stood for. She was a real bohemian. She was the one who gave me Love Story. I flipped for her. I got her to fly out for one night to look at Arthur Hiller's The Out-of-Towners. She came here, never saw the movie, never left my house. Until she dumped me three years later.

Q: Your obsession with The Godfather cost you that marriage, right? If you could do it over again, would you accept releasing The Godfather as a lesser picture if you could still be married to MacGraw?

A: Of course I would. My priorities were fucked up. When my son was born I was out here editing and fighting with Francis, instead of being in New York with Ali.

Q: You were a very hot couple--what went wrong with the marriage?

A: I fucked up the marriage. She told me before we got married, "I'm a hot lady, Evans, don't leave me for more than two weeks at a time." I left her for four months, without visiting her once. Plus, she was with one of the most attractive men in the world to boot [Steve McQueen, whom she later married], because I was too busy cutting the fucking Godfather. All right?

Q: Let's look at what excited you about some of the other films you gave the okay to. I'll name the picture, you say what comes into your head: The Odd Couple.

A: The Odd Couple was the first confrontation I had with Paramount. They wanted to put Jack Klugman and Tony Randall in the movie, but I wanted Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, who wanted a million dollars. Billy Wilder was locked in; all three were handled by William Morris. And Bluhdorn and Marty Davis didn't want to spend the money--we couldn't afford Lemmon, Matthau and Wilder. So Jack and Walter fucked Billy Wilder over and he was left out of the package.

Q: Barefoot in the Park.

A: That was made as I got there. I had nothing to do with that.

Q: Paint Your Wagon.

A: That was Charlie Bluhdorn's desire.

Q: The Little Prince, which you thought would be The Wizard of Oz of the '70s.

A: It should have been. I brought Lerner and Loewe back together again after they had broken up. Frank Sinatra was ready to come out of retirement to play the lead, but [director] Stanley Donen wouldn't work with him. Then Richard Burton wanted to play it. He sang beautifully, but Stanley didn't want to work with him, either. It was a big disappointment. No one went to see it. It played to empty theaters. But the picture was good. A dream that didn't come true.

Q: Blue, which was supposed to star Robert Redford.

A: Blue was one of the disasters of all time. Redford walked off four days before it was to start, and disappeared. Two years later he was going to do Rosemary's Baby and Roman [Polanski] had a meeting with him--and someone serves Redford with a subpoena because of Blue! We lost Redford because of that.

Q: Barbarella.

A: That was a big picture, very successful. [Roger] Vadim did that with Jane Fonda.

Q: The Molly Maguires, with Sean Connery and Richard Harris?

A: Disaster! It was about the coal business and it was a big, expensive mistake.

Q: Paper Moon.

A: No one would make it. The only way Peter [Bogdanovich] would make it was if he could use Tatum O'Neal, who had never done a part before. He line-fed her. I'm so proud of that one.

Q: Death Wish.

A: Big picture. Commercial. I didn't have much to do with it.

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