The Dark Side of Fame: Robert Evans Pt. II

Q: You and Dustin didn't speak for six months?

A: Longer. And our friendship has never been the same.

Q: Do you think Popeye would have been any different had Hoffman and Ashby done it instead of Robin Williams and Robert Altman?

A: The real problem was it shouldn't have been a musical. The reason it was a musical was because I had tried to buy Annie.

Q: How dark a business is the movie business? Outsiders see the glamour. You're on the inside, what do you see?

A: There's no glamour in this business. There are accountants, lawyers, agents. For every bit of magic you spend a month of misery in negotiations. It's not glamorous, but it's not the agents who hurt the business, it's the lawyers. The agents want to close deals, they pay their light bills that way; the lawyers find reasons to build up bills, so they always find things that are wrong. At my table at home, Bob Towne, Jack Nicholson and I put out our hands and agreed we were going to make The Two Jakes for nothing. I was going to co-star and produce with Jack, and Bob was going to direct and write it.

And no agents and no lawyers were going to fuck it up. And [then] it got fucked up over lawyers and agents [anyway], even when we were working for nothing! We were going to make The Two Jakes for $11 million, with Jack, myself, Bob Towne, Kelly McGillis and Cathy Moriarty.

Q: But it didn't happen. When it was clear that you weren't going to be acting in it, was Dustin Hoffman ever considered to take your role--which was later played by Harvey Keitel--opposite Nicholson?

A: No, we couldn't accommodate both Nicholson and Hoffman. The other part wasn't that big, it was like eight scenes. I didn't want to do it, [but] Bob Towne insisted. It was [based on] his father--it's a true story. And Jack said in front of Bob Towne, Bert Fields, Ned Tanen and Frank Mancuso: "Listen clearly, gentlemen. I will make The Two Jakes for nothing, with Evans. Otherwise I want $6 million without him. And Towne, I'll buy your screenplay for $2 million and you get out. Because you know what's going to make this picture? Our noses [Evans's and Nicholson's] next to each other, that's what's going to make this picture." That's loyalty. Let me show you the pictures we took. [Goes and brings back large photos taken by Helmut Newton of him and Nicholson in profile, their noses almost touching.]

Q: What did you think of the end result when The Two Jakes was finally made?

A: Sad. Bob Towne never turned in a screenplay. He terribly resented Jack directing it. But it was the only way we could do it. Jack didn't want to direct it. We had a $4 million encumbrance against us because we had our own money up for it. There were lawsuits and everything and he wanted to clean the slate. He worked his ass off on it, and I was of no help to him, I was a vegetable at the time. He was so kind. I didn't show up on the set because I was embarrassed and ashamed because of the stuff going on in the papers. It was such a bad time for me because this was right after The Cotton Club. The drug thing happened in 1980. The Cotton Club was '80-'84, then The Two Jakes, then this Roy Radin case blew up in my face, which had absolutely nothing to do with me. I had 10 years of Kafka.

Q: Let's talk about those years. You took a rap for someone who was caught in New York buying cocaine from an undercover cop. You were in California at the time, yet you admitted to buying into that score. Were you guilty?

A: I was totally innocent of the charge. I took a dive. But I don't want to get into it. I was guilty of [cocaine] usage, but innocent of the charge. It was the most costly non-blow in the history of the world. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't do it. I never realized the consequences. Robert Redford, Warren Beatty or Tom Cruise wouldn't have gotten bigger headlines. And I had nothing to do with it! Aljean Harmetz in the The New York Times wrote what happened, and said that I wasn't there. [All the publicity] made me "the cocaine kid" when I wasn't involved.

I never thought it would have the devastating effect it did. To this day, if I'm at The Palm restaurant and I have to take a piss, I'll piss in my pants before I'll go to the John, because if I go people will think I'm taking a snort of coke. And I have pissed in my pants rather than go to the John. That will stay with me for the rest of my life. However, during it, I did something which shows that sometimes good comes from bad. I did a show for NBC called "Get High On Yourself." It became the biggest anti-drug campaign in the history of America. I had every big star in the world go on it.

Q: After that anti-drug campaign you wound up in the headlines again when Roy Radin was killed. It was a sensational case which became known as "The Cotton Club Murder" because Radin was involved with you trying to raise money for your movie, The Cotton Club. And you were supposedly involved with the woman, Laney Jacobs Greenberger, a drug dealer who was imprisoned for her involvement in his death. Why did you refuse to testify at a preliminary hearing?

A: No one thought I was guilty of it. The police knew I wasn't guilty. They were pressing me to talk and I had nothing to say.

Q: Who was guilty in Radin's murder?

A: I don't know. I knew the person [Greenberger], but I don't know if she's guilty or not. But as horrible a person as she's supposed to be, she could have said something about me to cop a plea and she never did. She had nothing to say, but people can lie. And I had nothing to do with it and thank God someone was honest about it. When you're a public figure you're guilty until proven innocent.

Q: What it did seem to show was how one might go to extremes to raise money to make a film.

A: I didn't need the money, I already had the money. [The Cotton Club] was all financed. We were in pre-production.

Q: Wasn't Radin involved in helping you finance it?

A: No, no, not at all. He was trying to form a company of some kind. You know what it was? A media title: "The Cotton Club Murder." It had zero to do with The Cotton Club. None of them put up any money and the movie got made, didn't it? It goes to prove it had nothing to do with The Cotton Club. But it sounded good. It was sexy.

Q: Do you reflect upon it today?

A: It's an ugly story. I don't know what happened. I don't want to know what happened. I don't want to talk about it, because it's not my story.

Q: Did you ever live in fear?

A: Never. I'm not fearful. I only lived in fear for my kid, possibly. I didn't do anything. The police were terrible to me, they tried to frighten me, but I had nothing to be frightened about. I was a sexy guy for them to have. I was meat for them.

Q: How did all of this affect your life?

A: I walked into The Palm restaurant with my son, and Michael Eisner was there and he shouted, "Bob, did you really murder him?" It was a joke to him, but it went through me like cobalt. The whole restaurant heard. I walked over to him and said, "No, I didn't, but watch out, Michael, if you don't make my next picture." I made a joke of it, but my son was with me, you understand?

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