The Dark Side of Fame: Robert Evans Pt. II

Q: Before Richard Gere was cast in the leading role of The Cotton Club, wasn't Sylvester Stallone interested in doing it?

A: Stallone wanted desperately to do the film. During that period he was making Rocky III. He used to come over here every day trying on hats to see how he'd look in the picture. [Later] I'm over in Cannes to meet with 300 key exhibitors from around the world to sell The Cotton Club, and at two a.m. I get a call from Sly in Philadelphia:

"Bob, listen, I didn't like the new script."

I said, "What are you talking about, you wrote it."

"I don't think I want to be in the picture."

"Sly, wait a minute, in seven hours I'm going downstairs to announce you starring in The Cotton Club and you're telling me you don't want to do it? We have a contract. What is it, Sly?"

"Well, I got a lousy deal."

"You motherfucker," I said, "you no-good guinea cocksucker! Fuck you!" And I hung the phone up.

I went downstairs. Mario Puzo happened to be there and I asked him to join me at the meeting. I had a huge poster that emphasized the action and the music that startled the world. In front of these 300 men I took up the poster and said, "This is the movie. It's not going to be any better than this poster. If anybody doesn't like the poster, don't buy the movie." There's a guy sitting in the back from Switzerland. He raises his hand and asks who is going to be in the movie. I told him he couldn't have the movie if he paid double his competitor. "Do you know why?" I said. "The man sitting next to me, Mario Puzo, has written five screenplays: The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, Superman, Superman II and Earthquake. They've done over two billion dollars. And you're asking me who's in the movie? You can't have the picture. Any other questions?"

I raised $8 million in 45 minutes, more than has ever been raised in the history of Cannes, with no actor and no script. With a poster. I came back to the U.S. and I'm thinking about that cocksucker Stallone. I wrote him a letter, which I sent to him, his manager Jerry Weintraub, the L.A. Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and "Entertainment Tonight." They thought he was going to kill me when he got this letter.

[Shows me the letter, part of which says: "Your deportment in our relationship both personally and professionally I find repugnant, cowardly, and ill-mannered and, concerning you, most self-destructive. I hope Mr. Weintraub will find for you the magic property that will elevate you to be a bona-fide star without having to wear boxing gloves.... I think your wisest move would be to prepare Rocky IV. This letter is not written in any way to entice you to come home. At this point in my career I have the luxury of not having to heed to the slippery innuendos of carpetbag managers who are looking to prove their worth.... I do have deep respect for your many talents. Personally, however, you are someone who totally lacks moral, ethical, and professional substance. Evans is wrong again. I should have paid heed to all the doubters. You didn't earn your reputation by mistake."]

It appeared in the papers. Saturday night I'm home alone in bed when the phone rings. "Evans, it's Sly. Hey, what the fuck are you crazy with this fucking letter? It's appearing in the papers. You must be fucking crazy!" Stallone starts shouting.

"You deserve worse, you motherfucker," I said. "You don't leave me waiting at the altar when [I've] been there for you to stop a bullet. You don't do it, you cocksucker!"

"I want to do the picture," he said.

"I wouldn't use you," I said.

"I want to do it."

"You want to do it, then come over on your knees tomorrow morning and apologize."

He came over the next morning and apologized. I said, "Listen Sly, no more brother shit anymore. I'm the director and producer and you're the fucking actor. If you don't like it, don't do it. I really don't care. If you're going to ask for one dollar more, then get the fuck out of here now. But if you meet my terms, you're on, because I think you're right for the part, and that's the only reason."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Hey, Sly, don't give me this humble bullshit." So we shake hands and then he calls me three days later.

"You gotta come to my place," he says. He was living in Pacific Palisades at the time. We took a walk and he said, "Bob, I don't think I can do the picture. But you gotta know why. My cunt wife thinks that if I go to New York with you for a year we'll be through more broads than there are in all of Manhattan. She told me she'd divorce me. I don't give a fuck if she divorces me or not, but since Rocky III came out it's going to cost me 15 million bucks for the divorce, and I'm only getting paid two million from you, so it's going to cost me $13 million to make your fucking movie."

He didn't do it because of that reason. [Laughs] Two years later they get divorced and she got $30 million instead of $15 million. True story.

Q: Do you think any actor could have saved that movie?

A: No. [The problem] wasn't the actor, it was Francis Coppola. Richard Gere could have been terrific in it. Film is made in the editing room, In The Cotton Club I had The Godfather with music, but it was [left] on the cutting room floor. Francis shot it--it was there. He spent $1.2 million shooting "Stormy Weather," the most important number in the piece, and he didn't put it in the film! It was the same thing that had happened with The Godfather: Francis's version ran two hours and six minutes and I [went back and] added 50 minutes to it. We should have done the same with The Cotton Club, but I didn't have control. He barred me.

We were in New York and I had given [Francis] a birthday party at Elaine's. In front of all the department heads he stood there and said, "Evans, I'm ready to go back to San Francisco. This is not The Godfather, Evans, do you understand that? You're not the boss here." He had hostility for 10 years he was waiting to vent, and I had no idea. He said, "You're not allowed on the set. You can come out and look at the dailies, but I have final cut." I couldn't do anything about it because we had private financing. If it was [back during my days] at Paramount I would have thrown him out the window. I would have said, "Get the fuck out of here, you fat fuck!" But I couldn't--it was my money, it was other people's money. It was the single biggest error in my career, using Francis Coppola for that movie.

I spent years on it, from 1979 to '84. Sydney Pollack begged to direct it, and I [explained] I wanted to direct it myself. Then I called Francis to ask for help on the rewrite. It was the most expensive call I ever made. I said, "Francis, my kid [the script] needs an operation, and I need you to recommend someone to help me give a rewrite to this screenplay. I want the best doctor in the world." He said, "It's me. I'll do it for nothing." Ha ha ha. Call it the beginning of the end. He oozed his way in and it was brilliant, how he did it. I fell for him like a groupie. After he did the rewrite I thought, Fuck it, let Francis direct it.

He said, "The only way I'll direct it is if we're Siamese twins--we'll work together and never leave each other's side, because this is your picture, Bob." He was as genuine in making that statement as Hitler was in saying he wanted the Jews to live. All the time he knew he wanted to give me a second asshole. And he did.

Q: Did Coppola walk off during the making of the picture?

A: He walked off in the middle of it because his contract wasn't signed, and he went to Paris until the deal was signed. It was costing us $40,000 a day. What he did to us was unconscionable. After I saw the preview, I wrote him a letter.

[Shows me the 15-page letter he sent to Coppola, criticizing his cut of the film. "What you are about to read bears greater consequence to our lives and careers than any decisions we have ever fought over or agreed to in the past," he wrote. Concerned that the previews had all gone badly, Evans wanted to change the movie, putting back scenes Coppola had cut, including 17 musical numbers. "It is your film, Francis," he wrote, "not mine... [But] not having communication [with you] at this very pivotal moment is so very counterproductive. My God, Francis, if Gromyko and Reagan can meet and have an exchange of dialogue, why can't we? You owe it to yourself if no one else to put personal feelings aside. Use me. Use my objectivity..." The suggestions are numerous and detailed. ]

Q: And were any of your suggestions taken?

A: None. After Francis read the letter he said, "This cocksucker is right, but I'd rather see the picture do $300,000 than $300 million and see that prick get credit for it."

Q: In our first interview, you told me that Coppola's early cut of The Godfather, Part II had no structure, and now you say you had that same experience on The Cotton Club. What about The Godfather, Part III, which you had no hand in? It turned out a mess.

A: That's absolutely Francis, totally. End of story. That says it all. Godfather III was a 10th-generation Xerox copy of The Godfather. He's a brilliant director with actors, but he cannot structure a picture. Not just The Cotton Club. It took him years to edit Apocalypse Now, and it took him years to edit The Conversation.

Q: If he had come to you for help on The Godfather, Part III, would you have worked with him?

A: Oh, no. I would never talk to Francis Coppola again, because he's an evil person. I think Al [Pacino] feels that way about him too. Francis is a direct descendent of Machiavelli's prince. He is so seductive, so brilliant [at] bringing people in[to] his web, he makes Elmer Gantry look like Don Knotts. He fooled me.

Q: With all your troubles in the last 10 years, how have you managed to survive?

A: I went broke. In 1979 I was a very wealthy man. The only money I earned during the entire decade of the '80s was as a male model for a cosmetic company from a picture that Scavullo took. I was paid several thousand dollars a month for that picture, selling women's cosmetics. I had to use the money that I saved. I sold my Gulf + Western stock.

Q: Did anyone offer to help you out?

A: Jack [Nicholson] helped me out. Not monetarily, I'm too proud. My brother helped me and I paid him back.

Q: By 1989 you were contemplating suicide and you put yourself in an insane asylum. Why?

A: After this murder stuff came up, which I don't want to get into, I became a media event, just like Roman [Polanski] did. My son could not get a date to his graduation because I was his father. That's how low I got. I was so depressed over it that I was just in a fetal position for months. I had a hundred Nembutal by my bed. If it wasn't for my son I would have taken them. But rather than have that happen, I checked myself into the loony bin. But I couldn't believe I had, and I escaped within 24 hours. I'm not embarrassed to admit it, because if I can come back at my age, anybody can.

Q: Where are you going to be 10 years from now?

A: I hope alive. And healthy. And I want to be busy. I love what I do. I feel I'm a very wealthy man because of that. You know what I would really love, more than anything? Peace of mind. I'd love to hear just crickets instead of phones. I'd love to have some silence in my life. I haven't had three weeks off in 20 years. And it's taken its toll.

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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Robert Evans for the August Movieline.

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