The Kid Stays in the Picture: Hollywood's Last Mogul

Dive into the scandalous saga of Robert Evans, the notorious Paramount executive who transformed from a failed actor into Hollywood's most legendary producer. Through cocaine-fueled deals, mob connections, and headline-making romances, discover how this hustler rewrote the rules of Hollywood power. Experience the untold stories behind "The Godfather," "Chinatown," and "Love Story," as Evans' rise and fall epitomizes Tinseltown's darkest excesses. This episode exposes the beauty queen marriages, the Cotton Club murder scandal, and the drug-fueled paranoia that nearly destroyed one of Hollywood's most controversial figures, revealing how one man's determination to stay in the picture changed cinema forever.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
SI's kind seen.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Bobby Day.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
We had a great time.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
I also loved Yeah, we did. We wouldn't know why.
It was getting.

Speaker 5 (01:56):
The kittens here.

Speaker 6 (01:58):
There's no accident.

Speaker 7 (02:01):
There was more oil, take them home, shot them all
the ten years.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
It's a cheap in production er amount of pictures. I've
been lucky or fortunate enough to me. I was thinking,
mom pictures, Rosebrey's Baby. How did you get discovered for

(02:34):
the movies? Well, I got discovered by jumping into a
swimming pool. But I was an actor for many years
as a kid before that. In essence, what happened however,
I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool. I was
a businessman at the time. It was not an actor.
What was your business? I was in parties of my
brother in a company called Evan Picone. We made women's pants.
In other words, I was in women's pats.

Speaker 8 (02:54):
We actually started the fad of women wearing slacks.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
I'll never forget it because it was of the eyes.
It was the fall of nineteen fifty six. I flew
out to Los Angeles instead of Evan Piccoone boutiques. What afternoon,
I decided to play hooky, sit by the pool and
get some son at.

Speaker 9 (03:10):
The devere lygills in town. Suddenly a woman approached me.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
Excuse me, young man, are you an actor here? It
was a long time ago. It was Noma Shier No,
Ma sure. At the time was one of the few
remaining icons of Hollywood aristocracy. A petite blonde in a
stripe short robe. Pardon me for being curious, young man,
But why are you always on the phone? I gotta

(03:38):
pay my bills, That's why. Are you not a bookmaker?
Are you No? I'm not a book maker. Then she
changed the entire cost of my life. Would you like
to play my deceased husband, Irving Thawberg in the film,
mister Evans, I looked at her, looked at her again.
I didn't know what she was talking about. They're making
a film, a universal called Man of a Thousand Faces.

(03:58):
My friend Jimmy Cagey is playing. The time I had
a role of Lon Cheney. Irving was the guy who
discovered him and made him the biggest star in silent film.
Do you know, miss Evans? He was only twenty at
the time. He was even too young to sign the checks,
but not too young to run a studio. I'm thinking
to myself, Wow, this can't be happening to me this year.
It would be not a why not, as Kagni is

(04:20):
the one guy I've always wanted to meet. Two hours later,
I'm on a sound stage at Universal. Here I am
like out of a dream. I'm testing opposite Jimmy Cagney.

Speaker 10 (04:34):
Mind if I come in a minute. I know I
don't look just for the barricades, but I've just come
from a revolution.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
The premiere of the jazz singer Lanja.

Speaker 10 (04:43):
Should have seen that audience. When Joseph's voice came from
the screen eye I could hear the bells. Told him
for silent pictures.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
You haven't heard of what I said. I'm sorry, Irvinge.

Speaker 11 (04:56):
What were you saying?

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Nothing much?

Speaker 10 (04:59):
I was just trying to I tell you about I'm
not a miracle. Pictures have not only moved on, but
they speak.

Speaker 9 (05:04):
Oh yeah, sure, talking pictures.

Speaker 10 (05:06):
It's the hoss and the automobile all over again.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
No use trying to fight it, and it was over.
Caddy gave me a quick look. He did good gig
by the way sick. Forty eight hours later, I made
every newspaper around the country, big splash New York businessman
dives into pool and comes out movie star. Is I lucky?
I think so. If I had stayed just an actor,
no one never would have given me a second look.

(05:30):
I caught her eye as a young go getter, sure
about himself, persuasion, a subliminal reminder of the man who
was once her mentor and her husband the old story. Though,
luck doesn't happen by mistake. Rather, luck is when opportunity
meets preparation. As soon as the picture wrapped, I flew

(05:53):
back to the Big Apple. Evan piccone was on fire,
the showroom packed with them, leggy ladies pressing in the
patrician pats. It was turned on. Plus, my brother Charles
had built the top fashion company of its time for me.
I was lucky to be part of it. Never having
a single thought about returning to Lala Land, why should I?

(06:14):
In New York, I was suddenly a celebrity, from the
debut Tramp to Starlet Tomorrow. There I was on the
most wanted list. As I enjoyed I Pay to your ass.
I was. One night my brother and I took a
few fem Fatalistel Morocco Lee. I didn't feel like conversations
so I hit the dance floor. Well, that knight's own

(06:34):
hat eyes for me, and it wasn't her. It was
Darryl Zannak and honcho of twentyth century Fox. He had
no idea who I was, but just looking at me,
he thought, at kid's right to play the metador opposite
a Vigarda. After years and years of knocking on doors
being turned down, here I am discovered the star in

(06:55):
two pictures within six months. That's what you call incident,
and that's what also known as a sense of discovery.
Thank god, I was a un discovered. I'm sent down

(07:21):
to Mexico to study to be a bullfighter. Mind you,
I have never once seen a bull in my life.
I worked my ass off for three months. Were you
a rubber girdle each day? So I lose widow out
of my big section. There's one big problem. No one
wanted me in the picture or just telling. He was

(07:44):
furious they picked that guy out of the nightclub to
pay Paedro Romero, which a true life story was him.
A telegram goes out to Daryl Zone. It reads it,
Robert Evans playing Pedro Romero the sun also rises will
be a disaster. Sign urd his timing away to Rome Power,
Ava Gardner Eddie Albert. The only one who refuses saw

(08:06):
it was Aero Flint. He just laughed, I know I'm
going to get fired. That gave me the resolve, and
I said, fuck him. And you know when I knew
that telegram went out, I became Paedro Romero. In one week,
Xanik arrives about Eddie Mexico and I'm summoned to show

(08:28):
up in them bull ring to do like he does.
A Veronica is in front of him. I walk into
the bull ring and take off my hat, throw it
to him or you, and then I start going through
my various famous ceo like an idiot. I know I'm
going to get fired.

Speaker 6 (08:43):
Ah.

Speaker 4 (08:50):
Suddenly Xani stands up all five for three of them,
picks up a bullo on the kid stays in the
picture and anybody who doesn't like it can quit, puts
the bullhorn down and walks out. And also it was

(09:12):
then I realized that's what Evans wants to be. That's
the actor sitting in his pants when need to get
a roll, but the guy who can say the kid
stays in the picture.

Speaker 11 (09:22):
Bob Evans is a twenty eight year old New Yorker
who currently is in the enviable position of pursuing two
successful careers on two coasts. Here in the East, Bob
Evans devotes his time and energy to being a vice
president of the Evan Pitcomb sportswear firm. On the West Coast,
Bob Evans devotes his time and energy to being a
movie star, and at last reports he's doing pretty well

(09:45):
at both evening Bob.

Speaker 10 (09:47):
Good evening, Ed, how are you very funny?

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Thank you?

Speaker 11 (09:49):
Well, Now that you're getting established and recognized as a
movie star, how much longer do you think you'll be
able to hold out as a bachelor.

Speaker 10 (09:56):
It's introduced me to the right girl, Ed, and I
can in my bachelorhood right here.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
With all the hullabul and excitement the New Valentino. I
wasn't getting the parts I wanted. Yeah, they're half a
dozen parts, and they offered to me. I was looking
for bigger things. One day, my agent calls George Chason, Bob,
I'm calling with good news. Fox is remaking Kiss of
Death into a Western and we've got you up for

(10:22):
the Woodmark part. It made him a star overnight. Finally
I got my first title role.

Speaker 12 (10:28):
Wow, he's a cookie killer, my most diabolical horror that
ever roamed the earth.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
A fiend. You'll cut out your heart or break.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Your necks and laugh while he's doing.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
My acting career was over and out. It was my
last appearance on the sofa screen for decades, and I
was sure of one thing. He was a half assed
actor and I knew it. I knew I'd never become

(11:04):
the next Paul Newman, maybe the next Troy Donnay, but
do you know who? I really wanted to become? The
next Daryl Zenik. That's was my goal for the sixties,
and I went for it all the way. Sounds easy,
doesn't it.

Speaker 10 (11:24):
It ate.

Speaker 4 (11:26):
Next to winning the Olympics. I don't think that there's
a more difficult thing than a pretty boy actor transforming
himself into producer. Especially in those days, I realized that
I had to own something that nobody else could get.
I met a guy named George Weezer. He worked for
Publishers Weekly. He moonlighted for me for about one hundred

(11:47):
and fifty bucks a week. Comes to me and says,
I just finished a book, Bob. It's called a Detective
Phiss One hot book. I read it, put five thousand
dollars down on it as an option, and going to
see the Brown Who's a palet mine from twenty seventy Fox.
He's a top producer there is David. I think I
have the next big book. He reads it and in

(12:09):
forty eight hours he says, Bob, we're in business. Ah, David,
not so quick. I want to know what kind of
business we're in.

Speaker 10 (12:17):
Now.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
These are my conditions. I want a full spread of offices.
I want a three picture deal, make a very long
story short. I get everything I ask for. By the way.
They would have bought me out for half a million.
But I wanted my foot in the door, and I
got it in the door. But good. I learned a
lot from that. When you own the property, you're king

(12:41):
without a European. If the euphemism you live by the
press and you die by the press never fit anyone,
it fit me. Would have thought a journalist would changed
the entire course of my life and also my career.
On reflection, I don't know whether I should love him

(13:02):
or hate him. Peter Bart, the West Post correspondent for
the New York Times, said he wanted to write a
feature story about me in the arch of Lezza section.
Is this a joke? Peter kme oncause this is not
a joke. I was interested about you, Evans. And while
you're worth writing about, and you're beating all these big
shots at their own game, you know you could become

(13:23):
the guy who played the next Dolbrough.

Speaker 8 (13:26):
That's just what I want the audience to see, mister Cheney,
the soul of the man that God made difference.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
If I was really smart, I should have retired after
Peter's article. Instead, Greg Boutzer, the powerbroker of the town,
calls it says, to pack your bags. Evans were going
to New York. I can't, Greg, I got plans break him.
Charlie Bluton, who displayed paramoun, wants to meet you. You
read the article about you in Sunday's New York Times.

Speaker 6 (13:53):
He's a duo.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
Bob got a talker. Not pack your bags and pack him.
I did within five minutes after meeting Charlie Bludo, And

(14:14):
I know this is no Kibbitzer. Before I finished trying
to answer one question, he was asking me more. With
him was a guy named Marty Davis's top coppo was
the one responsible for the go go con glamor to
go up the Western buying this aging mountain they called Paramount.
There were eight major studios at the time, Paramount, it
was Nice, Ludo and both the Sleeping Giant at Bogging

(14:38):
Basin prices. That's the only way he knew how to buy. Still,
everybody thought he was nuts to get involved in the business.
He knew nothing about much less. The business is crazy
as show business, guys. I gotta deal with the twentieth
and get out of it. You'll be running Paramount in
three months? Is that light body? Davis gives me a look.
He's better run Paramount yet, but be tougher than they

(15:00):
seemed to be. Did I get the message? You bet?
Then blueto and blasted my other ear. Go buy the
CDV past make pictures people of out of Sea, that
fancy sumancy stuff. People don't understand. I want to see
tears laughs. I went pretty girls in the pictures, beautiful
girls pictures. People in Kansas City want a sea. That's
all Evans. What else do we have to go over?

Speaker 11 (15:21):
Being the head a production ahead of a studio is
such as Paramount, and I'm sure you're well aware of it.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
As well.

Speaker 11 (15:27):
I was a tremendous responsibility.

Speaker 13 (15:29):
You are dealing with millions of dollars.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
They sure held great names for me. One was Ludown's
folly by the New York Times. Another word with Ludown's
blow job, I Hollywood close up good feeling.

Speaker 10 (15:41):
Huh.

Speaker 8 (15:42):
There was to foot it mildly h a great deal
of skepticism from people in the industry.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
After all, when is the next actor? And get bad?
When a bad come off running a studio. On the
day I arrived, the rumor mill happ be packing my bags.
Time magazine ran a story saying my firing was eminent. Friends, columns,
agent's lawyers all over let me know that I wasn't
going to be there for Christmas. Then it happened front
page of Variety. Evan's tenure over by end of month.

Speaker 8 (16:13):
I called Charles Budo and West, chairman of the board
of Gulf and Western Woman's Paramount, who had bought Paramount and.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
Put me in there.

Speaker 8 (16:18):
And he was in Spain at the time, and I
got him out of a board of directors meeting in Madrid,
and I said, Charles, is a story in Variety, then
I'm going to get fired, And if it's true, tell me.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
I don't tell me. If it's true, I'll pick laundry.
I ready to go, and just let me tell you something, Bob,
and you're going to get fired. I'll let you know,
stop reading this Hollywood gossip. As long as I'm as
long as I own paramount, you're going to be right.
Way on. I just relaxed them to your job, and
he hung the phone up. My first move was to
hire Peter Board as my right hand man. He's not Hollywood.

(16:52):
He doesn't read synopsis. He reads the entire text. He
can read six books over a weekend, and I'm hot
pressed to finish one and six. And even more important,
it was his article that got me into this fucking mess.
The two of us caucused and palm springs for a
cool week, trying to strategize how an actor and a
journalist we could turn a white elephant into a contender patience.

(17:13):
There was not a quality, not a blue down or
Davis claimed to have, and the clock was already taken.
With the little experience we had, we knew one thing.
The property is the star. Let's go back to basics, Peter.
You can have stars up the ass, but if it's
not on the page, it's not going to be in
the screen. There's no mistake. Paramot's been in ninth place

(17:34):
for five years. It's time to pick up new dice.
Now let's try and do it. Between Peter and myself,
we went through maybe dozens and dozens of scripts, maybe hundreds.
Nothing clicked, The alls felt tired. There was nothing fresh

(17:56):
about it. We were looking for the unexpected, something that
sounded new and what we were going to be about.
Then one day Bill Castle, the veteran producer, walked into
my office with the manuscript he had just optioned tucked
under his arm. It was Rosemary's Baby, and I loved it.

(18:19):
Had one problem, Castle insisted on directing it. I only
had one director in mine for it. I saw brilliants
in his little films. If there was a little Polock
himself rowan Polanskape, not a little Polock, the biggest Polock
I've ever met, and one of the biggest men I've
ever met. Films I saw of is a knife in
the water repulsion cool to sack all off. Pete Thrillers

(18:43):
Roman was a big cinema star over in Europe as
well as director, and he had just finished his first
Hollywood film. Get this title the felis Vampire Killers or
pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck where
no one really wanted to In America, he couldn't care less.
He was a big star in Europe. Where do I

(19:03):
get him? How do I get to him? Ah, he's
snavied Skia. I lured him all the way to America
thinking he was going to direct downhill racer.

Speaker 9 (19:14):
Lask.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
He walks in because there's some character within five minutes.
This Pollock's acting got crazy stories right before me. You
had know there's somewhere between Shakespeare and the theater of
the absurd. Maybe that's why we click so well. We
both come out of the same school of drama, the
drama of life. I didn't want to bullshit him. Roman,
you read this like Chlveley. Galley's a rosemar his baby

(19:38):
across the desk him. Is this the best skim? Read it, Pollock.
If you don't like it, your next key ship is
on me. Anywhere you want to go in the world
and gambled. Sure it paid off. Roman loved it. But
then the fights began. You know, fighting is healthy if

(19:58):
everyone has too much reference each other or for the material,
but leave me and check it out and think about it.
Invariably it turns out underwhelming. By the end of the
first week shooting in New York, Roman was a week
behind schedule. Everyone from Blueto and certainly to Bill Castle,
wanted me to throw them off the picture. Roman's dailies weird.

(20:21):
I touched off anonymous sense of fright when I'd never
seen in film before. At the same time, Bill Castle
was pressing the right buttons, getting the New York brass
unnerved on the Polish discovery. My Polish discovery. We had
ten days into shooting in Roman was already five days
behind schedule. Fire the pollock with the words from New

(20:42):
York fire fuck you. He goes. I go for a moment.
I thought I'd have to pay my own plane fare back.
I grab Roman aside. Listen to me carefully, Roman, My
ass ain't on a line. My ass is out the door,
and so are you not pick up the fucking pace
that we'll both end up and loss. All who Gone

(21:05):
and Company weren't the only one screening about Roman. Another
power entered the scene. My secretary comes in with an
urgent message. Frank Sinatra's on the horn, must speak with you.
I picked the phone up. I'm pulling me here from
your fucking picture, Evans. If she ain't finished by November fourteenth,
he's starting in my picture on the seventeenth. Got it straight.

(21:29):
His picture haven't have been the Detective, the project that
had launched my producing career. Now it was about a
sink it. Frank, you don't understand something. We're not going
to be finished till mid February, and she's quitting. Don't
fuck around with me. Will you go back too far?
She's my old lady. She'll do as I tell her
before I guess anything. He hangs the phone up. Well,

(21:50):
Frank didn't bark. He bits bit me at pretty good.
You stay on Rosamie's baby. You go back to me
a phuer forget the name sin Suddenly this little girl
hysterically runs into my office. I love him, Bob, I
love him so I love him. I don't want to
lose Frank. You're gonna have to leave the movie mee

(22:13):
if you look at him and with this film, you'll
never work again. You don't care. I don't care. I
just love Franke Ifever. My experience of Dames came in handy,
I mean, actress Dames. This is the moment I knew
what makes the head of an actress tick and I
finally found its purpose. Come on with me, me, I

(22:34):
want to show you something. We both walked into the
executive sweeting room and I showed her a full hour
of Rosmie's Baby cut together. Doctor Hill, Doctor Hill, there's
a plot. I know that sounds crazy.

Speaker 6 (22:47):
You're probably thinking, oh my god, this poor girl.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
Is really flip. But I haven't flipped, Doctor Hill.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
I swear by all the saints.

Speaker 11 (22:55):
I haven't.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
Yeah, Ye're brigant. I never thought you had it in
You shock them all. I want you to know something.
You're a shoe into in the Academy Award. Suddenly her
tears are gone, her face flights up. Do you really
think so? The one thing I'm not as prone to
exagarade Maya. You're a shoeing I mean a shoeing kid.

(23:20):
It's Nottra who suddenly a smile. She didn't walk off
the film. Her frank disserved as a horse papers right
on the set, delivered by Mickey Ruton, his attorney. Wow,
it's strange. Women recovered real quick and may have taken
her full week, and then suddenly the only thing she
wanted was that Rosemary's Baby withoutgross the Detective. Do you

(23:41):
want to know about actresses? Me as one satisfaction would
be that the pictures would open on the same day,
and I arranged that The Detective opened a real good
box office. Ah, but Rosemarie's Baby was a smash hit
of the summer overnight. Mea was a full fledged are.
She had one request that couldn't fill. Take a double

(24:04):
page ad out in Daily Variety, in Hollywood Reporter. On
one side, she wanted me to put in bold numbers
the theater grocers of Rosemary's Baby. On the other, the
theater grocers of the Detective. Hell hath no fury, like
a woman scorned a decade before Noma Sieur. It took

(24:38):
me for a short walk within ten minutes of the
Beverly Hills Hotel. We answered the hiden Oasis. If there
was a world away from Beverly Hills, it was protected
by one hundred foot tall eucalyptus trees. Gret A Gobble
used to hide away there whenever she came into town.

(25:00):
I'd never forgotten the day I was there, God, it
must have been one hundred times. I thought one day
I could own that house. God, I'd left him live there.
The grounds, the trees, the acreage, the tower, encalyptus, thousands
of roses. Everything is quiet and the secret behind walls.

(25:26):
Was it for sale? No, huh, but Nella's nothing that
isn't for two hundred and ninety thousand buckaroos. The place
of my dreams was now mine.

Speaker 14 (25:45):
A Sunday, It's uh, let's go again, and we'll all
go about some things, kick masses, all fan will dream
about some dreams.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
You got to get away on the world, get.

Speaker 15 (26:14):
In the barn, don't take around before laughing along with family.
Almost makes me think those times can come again.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
Gets me eating good and gets said the same time
Sunday Star. In the mid to late sixties, movie attendance
was spiraling south outside the gates of Paramount. The cultural
revolution that was taking us. Yeah, so called brass at

(26:54):
the studios didn't know who They cat to their movies
to the old guarden, we thought, in order to see
their favorite aging movie star and lavish productions or the youth,
and no one seemed to understand. In the same year alone,
Paramount or the East medium cool a film catering to
the so called youth market, and paint your wagon the

(27:14):
film that catered to no one. We're losing money every
year and being extravagant productions. What a directors are getting nervous.
We needed a picture that could unite audiences, like all
good films. If we get to stall of the script,

(27:37):
well we found it, should I say, miss McGraw found it?
A simple little film about a boy and a girl
falling in love, because love story. I set up a
lunch staid with love stories, a mentoring star. Miss McGraw,
damn it. By the time dessert was served, I would

(27:58):
have made the phone book with a just say she
got to me. I can tell you this, I sure
in hell didn't get to her. She kept on digging
into me, Olga, and she was loving it. She keeps
on interjecting all during the look how much from love
she was. And she gives me her last a singer.
Peter and I are getting married in the fall. We

(28:19):
plan to spend October in Venice. Ever been there? Nope?
Then wait on you, Goldy, when you're madly in love?

Speaker 11 (28:28):
That was it for me.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
I grabbed her arm never a planned kid. Planning is
for the poor. If anything goes wrong between you and
Blondie between now and post time, take my number. I'm
seven digits away. I hate to admit it, but she
never called. In the spring of nineteen sixty nine holding

(28:50):
love story. Sure as hell, it wasn't Holy Aces. I
couldn't even find a fucking director to do it. You
know what, My batting average was a thousand. Everyone turned
it down. Suddenly, a minor miracle, I get a director,
Arthur Heller. He's willing to direct my angel with a
very dirty face. Well, when they get a first bite,
there's no way you're going to let it go. It

(29:14):
was a Wednesday night. Suddenly Miss Snott knows remembers my
seven digits. There's one angry broad, I say, angry with
the carpital a you audacity you have, mister, im is
a sign of director I have never even heard of.
Without consulting me. It's my property. I'm doing the picture
of slave wages. I'm living up to my option agreement.

(29:34):
Have you forgot the word critesy? I thought I was hyperventilating.
Ali listened to me. Why don't you come out to
Allie tomorrow? Take a look at Hilly's film. If you
don't like it, we'll get someone else. Trust me, I
think you'll enjoy it. Next nine, at five, I picked

(30:01):
up snot Nose McGraw on the lobby of the Beverly
Hills Hotel. Did it bug me? You bet needing a
starless not of approval. I was hoping she wouldn't like
HILLR so I could tell her she was a one
way ticket east. And he flicks over and out canceled.
At least they get my nuts off. I'm saying to myself,

(30:23):
this charm and they going to get to me tonight.
I walked her through my front doors, out and around
my pool through it's my projection room. Well, what I
was thinking didn't quite work out the way I thought.
He looks up to me with the crooked tooth and
all I feel like I'm walking through my own private pocket.

(30:43):
Paris prepared for her bullshit charm. It hardly made it
ripple off of Hills. Audition is ready to roll. It
never did. The stream never came down. Yeah, but this
flowered child, snot Nose soon got wet, very wet, up
into the egg shape pool, totally closed her shoes to

(31:04):
her headband. We are laughing on the inside. We're thinking
for a bohemian. She shures, Hell became comfortable very quickly
behind them, so called Beverly Hills Gates, the two thousand
rows bushes, surrounded by Gaudinia's daisy. You name it. She
called herself a flower child, and now the flowers are hers.

(31:30):
October twenty fourth, nineteen sixty nine, a Friday morning, Miss
Knott Knows is on her way to becoming missus Evans.
Both of us climb into our Mercedes Tusita and head
for the town hall on Riverside. Afterward, we un't caked,

(31:50):
one magnate daughter after the other. Where at the courthouse
log and then we get loaded. We had a long
two day honeymoon and Thomas bring us. I held Ellie
tight in my arms. I love you, Ethens, I love
you forever, epens forever, I whispered back forever, darling, and

(32:16):
promise me, never leave me. I promise you, baby, I won't,
not even for two weeks, not for one yain. I'm
a hot lady, Evans. I hugged her, kissed her. Never change, baby,
never change, and never let anything get between us. Evans promise, promise.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
I forgot my key, Jenny, I'm sorry, don't.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
Love beads.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Never having to say you're sorry.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
God says Hillah. That's it. We've got it. You did
a good job. Ali, You had me in tears. She
runs over to me, smothers. We have kisses, Eavans. Did
you really like it? The tears they were for you?
My eyes thought to swell, actually start crying, crying about happiness,

(33:45):
that feeling that I'm the luckiest guy in the whole world.
Camelot was ours, well, at least I thought it was.
Heaven is a big problem. Want of that because out
of paramount you can't afford it anymore. A cash flowed
to cast froout. They've had it. They want me out too,

(34:07):
out of show business. Get practice when I do best.
They ain't money, not movie. Charlie was not prone to
making practical jokes, and this was no joke. Fucking Charlie
stole him. If you can, with your eyes closed, you
can buy it a quarter. I know you can give
us one more shot at the table. You can do it, Charlie, Heavans.
The board's already decided. They go to an emergency meeting

(34:30):
A week for tomorrow, so you'll be closed by the
end of next week. Damnit. This couldn't be happening to me.
And we were just on our roll and it hit me.
Give me a half hour, Charlie with the board. Just
one half hour, that's all I need. Heavins, the one
person they don't want to seize. You are You're crazy, Evans? Yeah,

(34:51):
I've been crazy. Good Charlie. I've got one ace in
my hand, blood story, because I'm gonna build a hand
around it. All right, Evans, You've got a half hour,
that's all. Just a half hour. Be in New York
next Monday at the board meeting and buy a one
lay ticket and they'll be late. Peter Bodd asked Mike
Nicholas for an afternoon of his time the film a

(35:13):
presentation reel for his boss to deliver to the board
of Directors in the Gulf and Western. Mike directed me,
and I'm sure the best performance of my life. Where
were you, Mike when I needed you? Ten years ago?
And I was an actor that Sunday at six pm,
I caught the Red Eye into the York no luggage

(35:35):
but a can of film under my arm. This is
our one and only chance the film didn't play. The
board of Directors had shut down the studio effective immediately
as I walked into the Gulf and Western Building look
on hand to meet my walking papers, Earl Evans. At
least we tied. I pushed him away holies for another

(35:58):
twenty minutes. With you, Charlie, I walked into the boardroom
one hundred to one shot before me set sixteen. That
the his finest non smile. As gentlemen, I apologize with
not being better dressed, but when you've got a one
way ticket at no hotel, it ain't that easy to

(36:18):
keep up with the style of the room. A laugh,
not a crack, not even a white a bit tooth insight.
Quickly I stepped out of the room and handed the
projectionist Paramount's future. Good afternoon.

Speaker 10 (36:35):
My name is Robert Evans, and I'm senior vice president
of Paramount Pictures.

Speaker 4 (36:40):
By the way, this is not my office.

Speaker 10 (36:44):
We try to shoot this scene in my office. We
walk the cameras up, but there's one problem. My office
was too small to get the cameras in. I came
down to the studio to borrow a set through the
young lawyers, and that's where we are now, as a
matter of fact, even have.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Office at the studio anymore.

Speaker 10 (37:02):
Last year we packed up our gear, cut down our staff,
tightened our belts, moved into small quarters at little offices
in Beverly Hills. They're good enough for us, Believe me,
they are. These past a few years have been rough
for Hollywood.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
We've made a lot of mistakes.

Speaker 10 (37:20):
Some people have learned from them, and some people have it.

Speaker 4 (37:23):
We have.

Speaker 10 (37:24):
The money we spend are not going to be through extravagances.
The money we spend is going to be on the screen.
And speaking of the screen, I think, well.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
Maybe that's the reason we're here today.

Speaker 10 (37:34):
I'd like to have the opportunity of showing you some
of our products for nineteen seventy one. Right now, we
are approaching Christmas, and Paramount's Christmas gift.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
To the world is love story.

Speaker 10 (37:49):
I think love story is going to start a new
trend in movies, the trend towards the romantic, towards love,
towards people towards telling the story, worry about how it
feels rather than where it's at. I think love story
is going to bring the people back into the theater
and drove I could go on for an hour and

(38:15):
tell you about twenty or thirty projects that are in
various stages of development and bore you with it.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
So I won't.

Speaker 10 (38:21):
But I want to bring up one project, and that's
The Godfather. I bring it up for several reasons, One
that it is starting production next month, Two that it's
going to be our next Christmas picture, and three to
bring up the similarity between The Godfather and Love Story,
which are the two biggest books of the last decade.

(38:43):
Paramount owns them both, but Paramount has more than just
owning them both. We didn't sit back in our plush
chairs and write a checkout for a million and a
million and a half dollars for the books, which happens
so often in our industry. We develop both of these books.
If it weren't for Paramount book, Love Story would never
have been written. If it weren't for Paramount, The Godfather

(39:04):
would never have been written, because we were in there
in the beginning, spurring the writers on, working closely with
him to make these books the bestsellers that they are
and what we think will be the great movies are
going to be. We at Paramount don't look at ourselves
as passive backers of film. We look at ourselves as
a creative force and to ourselves, and that is why

(39:26):
Paramount is going to be paramount in the industry in
the seventies.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
I promise you that. Ten minutes later blued On walked in.
Well on fire. Eh yeah, bigger thraw than I thought. Yes,
I'm Selman Evans. You only pull the boll over the eyes,
no kiss on the lips, but a blue on hunger,

(39:51):
and that's worth than an engagement dream. It was a
gold band itself and in typical bluet on fashion, go
back the vit and you need money of lazo. On

(40:13):
December sixteenth, nineteen seventy, Love Story had his world premiere
at the Low's Day Theater in e The lights went down,
Francis lay Is haunting, piano strings started out. Bryan O'Neil
alone and bereft in the snowy Central Park said in
a voiceover, what can you say about a twenty five

(40:33):
year old girl who died? Love Story didn't open? It
exploded all over the world. Boys and girls would walk
out of that theater and love for the night and
why did he do such business? The guy would take
a different girl every night. I think there were more
pregnancies over Love Story than any film ever made. People

(40:54):
went back to see it three, four or five six times.
It was an aphrodisiac. Had either got raised of the critics.
This I couldn't believe. Time magazine said it started a
new Hollywood and Ally ended up on its cover. Me.

(41:17):
I felt like Cassadova must extraordinary lady in the world.
I'm on and in her belly a little evan is
to be.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Hey, Hollie, what's new?

Speaker 4 (41:32):
Don't no, you can say that on television now, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Well I'm gonna have a baby, right, That's that's beautiful.

Speaker 4 (41:42):
Are you excited?

Speaker 11 (41:43):
Oh sure?

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Oh, I know you.

Speaker 13 (41:45):
We're expecting to talk about you're expecting today on Dinah's place.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
I had have to say no, two people in the
entire world are happier than Ally and myself. We had
to pinch ourself each day to leave all this is
happening to us. We had our Joshua, we had ourselves
Ali and Jackie Kennedy. At the moment, we're considered the
two most admired women in America and me, I'm sure
the luckiest motherfucker. For the first time since I became

(42:23):
the head of the studio. I finally had some job security.

Speaker 9 (42:26):
How it's gobge.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
We had put together a string of hits, including Rosemad's Baby,
Harold and Maude, The Odd Couple, True Grit, and The
Love Stories. In nineteen seventy we finally reached the mountaintop
that air is not mighty good up there. Of all
the major studios, Paramount was now in first places. Tr
to believe that just four years earlier we were in ninth,

(42:52):
which was the beginning of what would become the Golden
era of the New Hollywood. Over the next four years,
we would collect one hundred and thirty four Oscar nominations,
stay number one, and go through a streak of hits
that to this day is unprecedented.

Speaker 9 (43:11):
If I had.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
A pick our crowning jewel, I'd say it was a
thirty page treatment to a novel called Mafia, written by
Mario Piso. In turning treatment into novel, Mario asked me
if he could change the name to Godfather. Sure, why not?
I never thought he would finish it anyway, Well, he
finished it. It became the biggest book of the decade.

(43:36):
There I was holding the whole diamond before you m wrong.
Paramount didn't want to make the film, So Sythian mobster
films don't play. That's what these distribution guys have to day.
And when you pat zero, don't make another stuck of
bet I caught up. Peter bought at the studio like
that night, What the fuck do we do? Peter shook

(43:57):
his head, laughed, We've got a problem. No we don't.
You've got to find a solution, Peter. It must have
been after two in the morning and we found it
outside of red Ink. Every one of the films she
had another thing in common. They were written, directed, and
produced and usually starred Jews, not Subicidians. There's a thin line, Peter,

(44:22):
between a Jew and a Sicilian. We're going to make
a picture that's going to be subicidian to the core.
You're going to smell a spaghetti. There was one problem.
It's hard to believe, but in nineteen sixty nine, it
wasn't a singule Italian American director that's with any credibility.
Bart looks at me and he says, what about Coppola?

(44:44):
Are you that's one thing for sure? As he is
or it stops right back at me. Burgenthal, Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
that's your esthetic bullshit coming out. Let's face it, Bart,
this genius has made three pictures. You're a big boy.
Now it's a Marxie fozy kind of picture, but no business.
Findian's Rainbow, which is a top Broadway music though he

(45:06):
made it into a disaster. And now he's got the
rain people out there, which everyone is rained on. There's
gotta be someone else, come on, there wasn't. But then
there was another problem. Copplo didn't want to do it.
This guy couldn't get a cartoon made in town, yet
he didn't want to make The Godfather. I got to
give the guide credit. His convictions are strong. He didn't

(45:29):
want to immortalize the families at Black of his Attalian heritage.
After three long days of discussion with this guy, Peter's
on the horn. Coppola will make the picture on one condition,
and it's not a film about organized gangsters. It's not
about organized gangsters. It ain't a musical. Peter, I told you.
The guy's nuts. He has an idea. Heaven's just not bad.

(45:52):
He wants to make it as a family chronicle of
metaphor for capitalism in America. Fuck him and the horse
he rode in on he is nuts. Get him out
of here, Bob, I will if you want me to
take ten steps first, Let's not forget he's attired in.
I had less than forty eight hours to make the decision,
sell it or shake hands with the devil. Coppola was

(46:14):
announced as The Godfather's maestro.

Speaker 12 (46:19):
The shooting and The Godfather should take several months, and
the pictures schedule for a lease sometime around Christmas nineteen
seventy one. So if in the next few months you
see some old cars dashing around or about New York,
or see a gentleman taking another gentleman somewhere at the
point of a loaded gun, don't raise a hue and cry,

(46:39):
because it's only the filming of The Godfather. But then
New Yorkers don't raise a hue and cry about that
sort of thing, anyway, do they. This is Geene Hebert
Fifth Avenue and thirty first Street.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
It was the unveiling of Francis's cut of The Godfather
in the theater, said Francis. With his quadrilla of assistance
and editors and ascus Is, plus the rest of his
production team, we're all there. The film was to open
in four months Paramount's big Christmas gift to the world.
The lights went down, the picture started. Two hours and

(47:13):
six minutes later, the room began to fill with light. Francis,
I want to speak with you alone. I was on fire,
and the Prince himself took a half hour to get
to my office. Thanks for showing, Francis. I couldn't tell,
but all my boys were telling me how great the

(47:33):
picture is. They tell me not to touch a frame
the picture thinks, Francis, got it. You shot a great film.
Where the fuck is it in your kitchen with your spaghetti?
It sure ain't on the screen. Where's the family? The heart,
the feeling is that left of the kitchen too? Hooded
copper lettle air luck. Name me a studio head that
tells a director to make a picture longer. Only a

(47:56):
nut like me would. But you're going to do it.
You shot a saga, pal which it turned in a trailer.
I'd go back and get me a movie. The next morning,
I told the New York Concours that the picture could
not be ready for Christmas. I didn't need a phone
to hear the screams Coppola. Of course, he agreed to them.

(48:18):
You've got it for Christmas. Don't worry. Evans is crazy.
He wants to change everything. Hear this, He wants me
to make it longer. Then I get my orders and
un ultrable Evans. The picture is to be ready for Christmas.
And that is it. Fine. I quit the year before
they would have booted me out of my ass. Yeah,

(48:41):
but love story save Paramount, and I was their fair
haired boy. And you've only got one shot either. You
have pulled down that beautiful brass ring. They get them
brass nettles and the balls. You've got no sticking time
around to Francis and the entire company's chagrin, bludn Backne
and Batney all the way.

Speaker 11 (49:04):
Once again, the Eastern Seaboard is reminded that winter is
never over until Jack Frost gets a hot foot that
will send him scurrying on his way the Winner.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
Where it was the morning of The Godfather premiere. As
side New York was suffering through the worst March visit
of the decade. I was part of the Carlisle Hotel
making last minute preparations. Now I came in from the
cold against his strong wishes. I'd packed off to Texas
to star with Stephen Queen and the getaway. Two months
had passed and I had once bothered to visit her

(49:34):
on location. Quickly we embraced. Instead of kissing her, I whispered,
wait here and expecting a call. Weeks ago I had
invited Henry kissing her to the premiere. My timing couldn't
have been worse the North Vietnamese offence and had just begun. Naturally,
he begged off. And though this is Robert Evans May,

(49:55):
I pleased beak to doctor kissing her, well, doctor kissing.
He is with the president, mister vision to call you back.
I have him call me as soon as possible, please
as urgent, quicker than a junior agent at the William
Morris Agency within ten minutes, kissing us on the phone. Bob, Bob,
what's the urgency? The Godfather? What tonight is? From me? Henry?

(50:16):
It's the premiere, winn or Louise. It would be worth
it if I could just walk in with you. I
have a seven thirty breakfast that I can't get out of. Bob.
I'm leaving the country tomorrow, Henry. You didn't hear me.
I said I need you to night. Only later did
I learned that is leaving the country was an actuality,
a secret mission to Moscow. The seven thirty breakfast was
of the Joint Chief of Staffs to resolve the mining
of Hyphon Haber. I hung up quickly called blute one, Charlie,

(50:41):
Kissing is coming Kissinger kissing of Evans. I love you,
I love you. That was Charlie Ludon. Not easy, but
not bad either. The door is open enough. Flash bulbs

(51:06):
went off to light up the entire state of New Jersey.
On one arm Ali mcdraw, the ravishing Missus Evans. On
the other, the most charismatic statesman in the world, just
really happening to me.

Speaker 16 (51:18):
We've done all still never do me about on time.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
It was a blast. I have a master's ceremonies, introducing
anyone and everyone. The screaming fights, the threat that never
let up since day one of filming. We're worth it.
Even Francis Coppler, the director whom I had hired over
paramount objections and then fired four different times, came over
to hug me, closing the book on two years of

(52:05):
terrible battles. Ali Well, she never looked more radiant. For
the rest of the night, we danced as one, holding
her tightly in my arms. I felt I was the
luckiest man in the world. Could be the highest moment
of my life? Was I dreaming it? Any man who

(52:28):
thinks he can read the mind of a woman is
a man who knows nothing. And months later I was
in Paris working on the translation of The Godfather. At
the French battalion, Germany and Spanish. They called a bally.
Other said of the getaway, but there was no answer

(52:50):
in the room. Jumping up in a cold sweat for
a bad dream, they called a passo again. No alley, nah,
I said to myself it didn't be Later at that
afternoon they connected. Where the hell have you been? Baby?
I fell asleep in my dressing room here lying alley,

(53:16):
He was the queen. Hearty, that's right, Well, expect me
in a passing tomorrow. It's two late Evans. He missed
the play a long time ago. I flew out that
night to Texas. Joshua and his nanny were at the
airport to greet me, but no alley. I checked into

(53:39):
a hotel twenty miles out of town, Holding back my tears.
I played with my son for the next hours Ellie
arrived at nine that evening, the last thing she wanted
to spend the night with me, but she did the
next evening. She didn't return to my border hide out.
I spit into town, ran up the stairs Tally's Hotel

(53:59):
and banged the door. Anytime to think, Evans, please, please
let me finish the picture and get home. For Josh's sake,
hadn't plane back to LA I checked my watch because
I had been so fucking dumb. It's an hour and
forty minute flight. I never once took it until fidelity
got me off my ass. Hallie and McQueen had been

(54:28):
having an affair for months. Was it her fault? That
was mine? I ignored her one promise never to leave it. Instead,
I buried myself into the Godfather. Hallie filed for divorce.
A few months later, she and McQueen got hitched. Joshua

(54:51):
would live with them. He would only know me now
as a weekend father. It did haunt me. Well, let's
just say, when a woman leaves you with ain't easy.
It never is. But when that woman leaves you for
the biggest movie star in the world, well, let's just
say it makes you feel small. Finally, I turned all

(55:20):
my attention back to my other great line, the Mountain.
Maybe it is my mood, but the more I thought
about it, the angry I became. For the last two years,
I had worked night and day for Paramountain Blun's Golden Boy,
and now wanted some gold of his own. While I

(55:40):
was living rich, everyone around me was getting rich. He's right,
do you have him? An echine? I stepped all over here.
My contract's up. But I'd been throwing sevens too long,
and here I am. I'm still behind the eight ball.
I called on my consickly area and closest friend, Sidney Korshak,
was feared lawyers in the country. I'll take care of it,

(56:03):
and quick said Korshak, you're gonna get gross. I didn't
care of just one percent of every film. Korshak may
have been known as the myth, but he was no
myth to Charlie. His proposal was turned around flat of
in Tiggy's chest. Blue Dawn wasn't smart, he was brilliant.
He knew my weekly ego, and he sure pressed it. Knowingly.

(56:26):
It far overshadowed my greed. Sydney. I want everybody to
get rich, but don't let me, don't lat me. The
real love of Charlie's life was not family, or sex
or even business. It is negotiating. Charlie would negotiate for anything,
when the airline to a potato. I want Bob to
make history. I'm gonna let him make a picture of
his own for five years, under his own banner and

(56:48):
still run Paramount, the last person to have that thusand
dollars on him thirty years ago. I want him to
get rich. I'm so proud of him Sydney uh huh,
proud out at Paramount as head of the studio, and
I would get to produce a picture a year for
five years. But no race.

Speaker 12 (57:20):
You produced Chinatown, right, But when we talk about that movie,
we call it Roman Polanski's Chinatown.

Speaker 8 (57:25):
Does that make a less a possessive credit from a
director's guild point of view, which is very unfair.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
It's that Roman. It is Roman Polanski's Chinatown. It's also
Bob Town's Chinatown.

Speaker 8 (57:34):
But more so, I don't say this from an egotistical way.
It is Bob Evans Chinatown. I was on the picture
for five years, four years, and Romansanna for nine months.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
But it says Roman Polanski's Chinatown, my first independent production,
had its origins over his state dinner with Bob Town
Town unraveled in an original story he was writing. It's
about how Los Angeles became a boomtown, ething this incestant.
It set in the thirties, second rate Seamus gets eighty

(58:04):
six by a mysterious socialite. I'm writing it for Nicholson.
I had met Nicholson a few years back, and we'd
become great pals. Sounds perfect for Irish. What's it called Chinatown? Chinatown?
You mean it takes place in Chinatown? Oh no, No,

(58:25):
it's Chinatown is an estate of mind. I got it.
I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.
Six months later, Town to Live at his first draft
of the script, Just like the title, it was pure Chinese.

(58:46):
Was I alone in my confusion? H Nobody, I mean
nobody understood it. One day I was summoned to a
meeting with Charles Budoor Evans. Don't make this your first picture.
No one at the studio understands a word of it.

(59:08):
The only place the little players in your projection room.
I'm thinking, thinking, thinking, I knew I had Nicholson locked
even though I didn't understand the script, I knew Town
was a brilliant writer. Sorry, Charlie, Chinatown's my next picture.
I'm gonna make it.

Speaker 8 (59:35):
Well.

Speaker 13 (59:37):
Tonight we're honoring for Best Motion Picture Drama, Chinatown, The Conversation, Earthquake,
The Godfather, pat.

Speaker 4 (59:46):
Two, A Woman under the Influence, and the winner is.

Speaker 6 (59:52):
The Winner is.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Chinatown.

Speaker 6 (01:00:00):
You Love Another.

Speaker 12 (01:00:01):
Carolat Vickers will accept the Golden Global Award Board China Die.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
Chinatown. It wins every award you could ever think of
till this day. I believe it's considered the quintessential private
Eye film of its time. The Hell of a Way
to meet Catherine Denov will tell you that as he is.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
This is the second award, and I'm only a small
part of it that I have won in my life.
Same the first one was for the most Promising Newcomer
of the Year, the Photoplay Award nineteen fifty seven.

Speaker 9 (01:00:36):
And are they wrong?

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
The attention the picture got caused uproar was every creative
bit of talent of the studio. Hey, how can Evans
run the studio, be involved with our pictures and make
his own? They were all fucking jealous if the picture
would have flopped, it wouldn't have made a difference. Confrontation time,
I was given two choices, continue running the studio with

(01:01:01):
a much increased deal by the way, or go out
with my own batter and make films. It was a
tough choice, but I was just tired of working eighteen
hours a day, eight days a week to make everyone
else rich with myself. With that in mind, I said
goodbye studio, hello producer, and went out on my own.

(01:02:28):
Though it was in my forties, the entire drug era
passed me by without notice. It was my scene. I
barely ever drank for two years. I had been suffering
from a severe pain, the result of assaiatic nerve problem.
Behind beside me one night was a Hollywood princess, Is
it me? She asked, pain, can't be that bad? Worring

(01:02:50):
only your necklace? She handed it to me, and screwing
the top, she whispered, take a sniff, a sniff of life.
It was my first experience into the world of white
From the Sidisa had been city following, I was working

(01:03:26):
eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, with no
plans to slow down. With six pictures in development and
to in production, I felt Invincible. The first flick to
hit was Marathon Mat and it went straight through the
roof slow. I followed it up with Black Sunday, then

(01:03:49):
Urban Cowboy. Popeye was on a squad. At the age
of fifty, I was on my way to become the
youngest recipient of the Thalberg Award. Goodbye seventies, Hello ladies,
here I.

Speaker 10 (01:04:02):
Come and be fair to say that you live a
lot of people's dream seen in magazines, dating models and
movie skies.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Is it as good as it looks?

Speaker 10 (01:04:12):
I most probably lead as much of a lonely life
as anyone you know. I have no free time for myself.
I have no way of really knowing myself as a
prison I don't like myself.

Speaker 4 (01:04:22):
As a person.

Speaker 10 (01:04:23):
Bye. I keep reading in publications, keep seeing pictures again
with gorgeous women.

Speaker 9 (01:04:28):
Are they important in your life?

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
Women? Yes, women are very important in my life, but
all important.

Speaker 10 (01:04:35):
I haven't had the opportunity of really taking advantage of
life at all.

Speaker 4 (01:04:39):
You say you see pictures of the beautiful women. I
don't go out that much. I don't go with that
many different women. My life is not to be envy.
I envy many other people, not myself. I actually like
to go ten days a week to day. Not anybody
really looks terrible headaches.

Speaker 10 (01:04:52):
And no, are you an.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
Obsessive record keeper?

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Chris?

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
It said you had albums of pictures and things, and
you know I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:04:59):
Not as I wish I had. It was more obsessive
about that is that Jack Nicolson exacted. If he knew
that picture was being shown, he killed me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
I took it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:08):
It was taken in the privacy of a room.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
I had to object her love because Bobby Evans I
we dated and we had a great time.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
I adn't they.

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
And on May two, nineteen eighty, I got a call
from an associated fight in the off the woman who
knew was offering to sell us pharmaceutical cocaine at the
barking basement prices. Pharmaceutical cocaine was mythical, manufactured by only
one company in America. America, so mythical was its lure

(01:05:45):
that became the DEA's most effective date doing trapped schmuck buyers.
Twenty four hours later, my associate was on the horn.
What do I tell her? She's called twice me being
the gambler, and maybe if who said the hell is
by it? The deal was to go down on Friday.

(01:06:06):
I waited by the phone all day. Don't call. At
seven and forty five that evening, I was going out
of the door. My houseband hailed me. Just my associate, Bob,
Mike and I have been arrested. We've been set up
by the DEA. Arrested. What are you talking about. Don't worry.

(01:06:26):
Nothing's going to go wrong. It'll all be taken care
of it. You have nothing to worry about. Your name
was not mentioned. It was the biggest mistake of my life.
How could I have been so fucking dumb? It was

(01:06:54):
due n angry, foaming at the mouth. I'll never forgive you, Evans.
He never did. God now the sacred embrace of Ludon,
never to return again. Paramount, the company I'd saved from

(01:07:16):
the graveyard, gave a terse statement to the press concerning
my new Infamilim. Evans is not an employee of Paramount.
That has not been an employee of Paramount for years.
He has an independent contractor producing pictures for US. May second,
nineteen eighty What a difference a day makes. Judge Broderick's

(01:07:39):
dictate was to produce a thirty second anti drug spot well,
I did a little more than that. I produced a
series of week long specials for NBC entitled Get High
on Yourself. It was a happening. All my friends showed
and it became known as the woodstock of the eighties.

Speaker 13 (01:08:03):
Yourself, whatever you do, you can be somebody, choice and something,
make it up your own night.

Speaker 16 (01:08:15):
Way you stop.

Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
I've never been as highed myself as I am now.
I must have been a month and a half ago.

Speaker 10 (01:08:32):
I had one hundred people here and my kid was here,
and I ran the commercials and when it was over, he.

Speaker 4 (01:08:38):
Came over to the room.

Speaker 10 (01:08:39):
He said, so proud of your daddy, the first time
he's ever said it. I'm so proud of your daddy.
Can I sleep in your bed tonight? And if I
get nothing more out of it? Nothing, I've been really
paid by renumeration for whatever I've done.

Speaker 11 (01:08:54):
That's worth years Bob.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
Aside from Get High on Yourself, what can we look
for from Bob Evans do your future projects?

Speaker 10 (01:09:01):
I have the Cotton Club, which I was supposed to
start in October. I'm pushing it back to June as
a project. I love eight is important as Get High
on Yourself.

Speaker 9 (01:09:08):
Though, paramount you had no interest in my next picture of.

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
The Cotton Club. So in May of eighty two, I
proved in the can Film Festival to secure independent financing.
So that's just alone. At the time, the biggest star
in the world had agreed to play the league and
I was there to announce this tem I was supposed
to meet four hundred distributors on a Monday morning at
nine am at breakfast at the hotel to cap I

(01:09:48):
get a call at two o'clock in the morning that
Monday morning from Hello, Bob is a sly.

Speaker 17 (01:09:54):
And as a yes, sly. You know, Bob, I don't
think I want to do a picture. I don't quite understand.
I mean, we have a contract. You don't understand, Bob.
I don't like the script. He says, you worked on it,
said what it is like? So I'm not getting paid
enough money for it to like A very long story

(01:10:16):
short and a very long conversation rather bitter short.

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
He backed away.

Speaker 17 (01:10:22):
Now Here, I have four hundred of the top buyers
in the world and I have no star, and I
have half a script. I said, ladies and gentlemen, and
I'm going to show you a poster. But when I
show you this poster. I want to tell you that
the film will not be any better than the poster.
So if you don't like the poster, please don't.

Speaker 4 (01:10:42):
Buy the film. And I show I went.

Speaker 17 (01:10:46):
I took unraveled a poster which I had worked on
for eight months with two artists, and I said, this
is the poster, and I passed it around and they
all looked at it, and it says the whole story
is Violin Startled of the world. It was Violin startled
of the nation and his music startled the world. And

(01:11:09):
they all looked at the poster, and I said, that's
the picture, ladies and gentlemen. So one fellow from Switzerland says,
who's going to star on the film?

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
I said, what's your name is? Mister Schmidt? Said, mister Schmidt,
I won't let you have the picture good. On August

(01:11:58):
twenty eighth, nineteen eighty three, principal photography commenced. Francis offered
to direct the film. How could I refuse Francis directing it,
Mario writing it? Me producing it? What a shot of
touching magic. Hey, we didn't do too bad and the
Godfather did me? Was I wrong? The production was a disaster,

(01:12:25):
over budget, overschedule, and me I was bought from the
set by the Prince himself.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
It was the hottest movie drama in Los Angeles today
and it took place in a downtown federal courtroom.

Speaker 11 (01:12:36):
A legal battle was over who would control production of
the film Cotton.

Speaker 4 (01:12:40):
Cloud of the fury he s important these times.

Speaker 17 (01:12:42):
Proby Love has been the subject of the intense interest
and backstairs gossips on one before hitting the screen.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
A Cotton Club, a multi million dollar production of Robert Evans.

Speaker 4 (01:12:51):
And Francis Ford Coppola, has become the subject of a
bot But you were saying that Evans would second guess
you if he was back in command his little name.

Speaker 9 (01:13:00):
That's what he does all these years.

Speaker 12 (01:13:02):
If you think the picture will be a success, to
solve all of these problem.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Frances work on it as Britanton. I hope we'll be
working together. We fought before many times and only it
wasn't caught, And I just hope we had the same
because we're.

Speaker 16 (01:13:13):
Having got our robber together despite what's expected to be
a lengthy for He is expected to open in theaters sometime.

Speaker 4 (01:13:21):
The Cotton Club opened later that month, While some of
the critics praised the film, others just didn't get it
either did the audiences. The picture quickly faded away, thus
ending the first half of the Indies, the good half.

(01:13:41):
I had no idea what I had.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Two days ago, a badly decomposed body was found in
this dry riverbed in Copcoke Canyon near Mormon in northern
Los Angeles County, and autopsy indicated the victim died at
the single gunshot north.

Speaker 4 (01:13:59):
Of Los Angeles.

Speaker 12 (01:14:00):
Love beekeeper Glenn Fisher made a grisly discovery. I crossed
through a drywash and went around a bush, and around
the bush there was a hand sticking up and there
was a body laying there. The body found in the
Gorman area this past Friday has positively been identified as.

Speaker 4 (01:14:18):
Mister Roy raid There's midnight in the phone right, A
bit pissed, I picked up the phone. Yeah, it is
my attorney, Robert Shapiro. Roy Raidin is dead. I lay

(01:14:40):
there and shot totally stunned. I met Roy raid In
a few months earlier through a mutual acquaintance named Lady Jacobs.
Reid and I met and discussed forming a production company.
The Cotton Club might have been one of the films
Under the batter. We shook hands, but nothing ever really
came of it. What does that have to do with me?

(01:15:04):
Nothing at everything. Shapiro told me that the police would
be calling and they'd want to talk to me. Both
of us would sit down with him while I told
them everything that I had remembered about Roy Rade Jacob's.

Speaker 12 (01:15:19):
Roy Wayne.

Speaker 4 (01:15:20):
For the next six years, the name Robert Evans is
making headlines again. No, I wasn't buying the water for
this his time, I was buying infamy began.

Speaker 17 (01:15:32):
Was like trying held now.

Speaker 4 (01:15:34):
And Doris closed on me quietly. Calls made would not return.
So I was to Wisconsin the premier officers at Paramount,
and they as well had been in the shadow. Finally,

(01:15:57):
in the spring of eighty nine, after six long years
of innuendos on my character, the Roy Raiding case went
to trial. Lady Jacobs, the woman who introduced me to Raid,
who was tried for his murder. The prosecutor applied the
case of money and drugs.

Speaker 7 (01:16:17):
Yeah, it's gonna show his job that this when we
hear Lady reader, the two problems remanded.

Speaker 4 (01:16:24):
By the name of Roy Raydon. He told the jewelry
that Lanny had asked Raydon for finest fee for introducing
him to myself. When Reidan refused to pay it, Leaney
became my rate and then two weeks before his murder,
Lenny was a part time coke deal I suspected Reading
of stealing a large amount of cocaine from her. At

(01:16:45):
this point Lendy decided to kill him, her kill her,
driven Lucy with her.

Speaker 14 (01:16:53):
Mister Raydon would Nancy alive again.

Speaker 4 (01:16:57):
Jacob Center accomplices were convict did for the murder of
Roy raiding.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Me.

Speaker 4 (01:17:05):
Well, I wasn't even a suspect.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
I was a.

Speaker 4 (01:17:09):
Tangential character in the proceedings at best. However, the name
Evans get sync. If you live by the sawd no,
damn well, you could die by it. For many a decade,

(01:17:29):
the sword treated me real well, maybe too well. Popeye
at Urban Cowboy at the screens in nineteen eighty and
I was seven years later. The only product Evans was
delivering to the Mountain of Paramount was embarrassment, ending whatever

(01:17:49):
I had left of a legacy to be where I
was paid a rare a visit by Richard Zimbad, the
head honcho of business affairs. He walked into my office.
Not apor we go back too long, Evans. And this
is not me talking, it's orders. I can't help it.
Do you want the truth? Our eyes met. I knew

(01:18:12):
what he was going to say, no, but I got
to hear it. Dick, Shoot Bob. There's not one person
at Paramount that wants to do business review, Vick. The
only surprise is that it's taken you this long to
tell me. I suppose when it's over, it's over. It's
hard for him to say the next words your office, Bobby,

(01:18:35):
we need a date. It's ninety days, okay, Dick, Yeah, sure,
do you want more? Take more? No, ninety days will
be fine. Once king of the mountain, now I was
not even allowed to climate my twenty year home. I

(01:19:11):
had been pulled from under me, from behind the gates
of Darmount, I was now behind the gates of Woodland.
For an entire decade. My kid stood watching his father's
life fall to shambles. Once I was a king, his

(01:19:34):
mother told him, a character, persona, and professional abilities are
now lost. Each month below the belt punches are head
to be older and hotterer in all directions. The effects
of public disgrace the effects of drugs and the effects

(01:19:56):
of continued failure. Never before experience all but shrivel me
into obscurity. So deep was my depression that I wanted
to get into a car and drive south one way. Finally,
I rid myself up to the last bastion of my dignity.
I sold my woodland home to a wealthy French industrialist.

(01:20:22):
The effect was that I all but lost the will
to function. Nightmares were telling me I would never leave
there alive. I had enlightening, struck bad lightning. I had
nowhere to turn vary in the worst suicide, I looked

(01:20:48):
for protection. I committed myself to the Scoop's Memorial Hospital,
Looney Bin. I was put behind bars and stripped of
all my belongs. The claustrophobia alone shop. I blow pressure
up over to the two hundred bark sure now not
wanting to die away on their hands, and there's a
sketching in sedatives down my throat trying to calm me.

(01:21:12):
A horrible mistake. With no way out, I had to
take control of the never ending bad dream that my
life had become. Never having been psychiatrically orientated, I knew
that I actually not therapy. It was my only shout
at survival. Take her time telling me. That night, I

(01:21:36):
snuck out of my cell like room and found my
way to a phone booth in the ward. I called
my limo driver, Jean Paul. Collect Young Paul beat me
tomorrow at noon on the dot and wait. It made
me an hour a day a week. I don't care.
Keep your motor running. Got it. The next morning, when

(01:21:59):
all the attendants were busy, I made my dash and
I made the elevator as it closed behind me. I
made it. I made it, I thought to myself. As
soon as I hit the bottom floor. The door opened,
and there are two goons waiting for me. You have
a very nosy fella. Kid it out.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
Huh You know what happens to nosey fellas?

Speaker 4 (01:22:23):
Huh?

Speaker 5 (01:22:23):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:22:24):
Want I guess? Huh No, Okay, they lose their noses.
I made my dash. The two goodons stare right behind me,
one hundred yards away. My car was waiting. I had
to make that hundred yards before they got me years
older than the two of them put together. But they
lacked one thing hard. I breathlessly made it into the car,

(01:22:48):
slammed the door. It was like a tiny bottle of
jamb Back to Woodland, I said to Shampau. My limo
was pulling into the gates of my once owned Woodland Sanctuary.

(01:23:11):
What had been my garden of Eden for close to
a quarter of a century was mine no more. Even
more painful was that I was now a tenant in
my own home, paying twenty five thousand dollars a month
for the privilege of living there. Could I afford it?
Not by a long shot. I knew that getting my home,

(01:23:32):
my roots of twenty five years back, was vital to
my survival. There was a big problem. The new owner,
a wealthy French industrialist named Tony Murray, had no intention
of selling it back. Without asking. Jack Nicholson did a
Henry kissing her. He flew to Monte Carlo and Big
Tony to sell me back my home. Tony was shot

(01:23:55):
that Jack would fly halfway around the world to plead
on my behalf for what he could say, just a
piece of real estate. Wherever Tony went that summer he
tell this story. Imagine Jack Nicholson on his knees to me,
he's filming people. They're all crazy. The impacer Jack's plea, however,
because Tony J. Waiver. He got me back my home

(01:24:19):
thanks Pal. A year past. It was close to midnight
on a Tuesday evening. The phone kept ringing, it, awaking
me out of a deep sleep. I looked at the
clock and it was overly eleven o'clock. Should I pick

(01:24:40):
it up?

Speaker 10 (01:24:41):
Nah?

Speaker 4 (01:24:42):
I know I didn't win the lottery. Hey, maybe it's
the broad Eye slip my number two last night. Hey,
it's not too late. I'm up. I hope it sir,
disguising my voice to protect me from bad newser bad company.
I englished it Evans residence. Well, I was wrong again.
It wasn't abroad, but I sure won the fucking lottery.

(01:25:05):
It was Stanley Jaffy on the phone, and he was
just made head of Paramount. I'd given Stanley his first
big gig back in nineteen sixty seven on Goodbye Columbus,
call to tell you one thing from this day on
the life of Robert Evans is going to be a
better one. Your way over do kid that sleep well.

(01:25:28):
Stanley Jaffey's loyalty today it was such that it gave
me back by day day back behind the gates of Paramount,
I went and back to my old officers, the best
on the lot. Do you believe in miracles? Well? I do,
now I don't understand that this world of fickle flicks.

(01:25:52):
It's been thirty years now and I'm still here, still
standing behind them gates. Bet your house. It ain't been
dull id that got it or gotten it. You name him.
I've met him, well almost. I've either worked with him
or fought with him, hired and fired him, laughed with him,
cried to them, figured out, fucked by him, literally fucked him.
It's been one hell of a ride. Where is everyone dead?

(01:26:18):
Most wealthy, some destitute? Yeah, many retired. I don't know.
I ain't seen him. One thing I do know. I
ain't dead, I ain't wealthy, I ain't destitute, and I
ain't retired. Can't afford any of them. Got to keep standing,
stay in the picture. My life today more folatile than ever.

(01:26:44):
This last year alone, I've been shot down, bloody, trampled, accused, threatened, disgrace, betrayed,
scandalize MYLND tough. You bet your assid is. But I
ain't complaining. Nothing comes easy. The last question, is it

(01:27:05):
truly worth it? Sure? Know why? I love what I
do and very few people do.

Speaker 10 (01:27:14):
And when you think of most of your work that
you do in life, most of people's lives are spent
in their endeavors, and very few people really enjoy what
they do.

Speaker 4 (01:27:21):
And I love what I do, So yeah, it's worth it, Dad, right,
it's worth it.

Speaker 18 (01:28:12):
Conies the romances that was so divine, it is broken
and can be made.

Speaker 4 (01:28:29):
You must your word, okay. In nineteen ninety six, Robert Evans,
twenty years from now, are we willing rolling?

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
Well?

Speaker 4 (01:28:42):
Why didn't you tell me? I don't know, I don't know.
Thank you very ma. My fellow Americans.

Speaker 6 (01:28:52):
I'm coming to you tonight because I am contemplating in
my life. I have been many years as being head
of Parasitty and then become an independent producer and suffering
a terrible disaster was my first independent adventure marathon and

(01:29:12):
drag something I can't remember twenty years ago. Anyways, what
I would like to do is to ask you all
over the country, if you have a script as a
love story, I'll do it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:22):
I don't care if it's in drag, it could be a.

Speaker 6 (01:29:24):
Monkey fucking elephant, and it's a good script, I'll do it.
And that's Proberts you sounded me, and I just want
to say that I would talk more to you.

Speaker 12 (01:29:33):
I don't.

Speaker 6 (01:29:33):
I don't have a strength at all. I'm in the hospital.
There's a Sony Tavor recorder in and I think it's
a maternity. They kind of just had a baby. I
never knew hear of vagina. There's a vaginant down there.
It came in shocked me. And but I just talked
to my wife sum hangers and and she she says, well,
did I know she had a cock all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:29:52):
I never know it.

Speaker 10 (01:29:53):
I never know.

Speaker 6 (01:29:54):
And I gave you my word, and you came in
yesterday showed it was a terrific cop, the traffic cop,
the big timers. Hey, wait a minute, that phone from me,
I got him recording.

Speaker 4 (01:30:05):
I can't go who's that? I can't get me on
I'm talking on television. I even running. Yeah what is it? Oh,
Joyce Joyce.

Speaker 6 (01:30:14):
Haber, Yeah yeah, I remember, Yeah, Well it was twenty
years ago she died. I can't come to the funeral.
She has anything about it for twenty years. I'm sorry,
I'm too busy. They send uh uh, send the center something.

Speaker 4 (01:30:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:30:28):
Whatever she eats candy. Oh, she's dead now, well she dead,
what do you want to to see her? But I mean,
I'm sorry, no, uh, she's goad have done immediately.

Speaker 4 (01:30:37):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (01:30:38):
I gat me about it, but I'm sorry, I gotta
talking about this.

Speaker 4 (01:30:43):
Yeah, holle.

Speaker 6 (01:30:45):
My wife is Miss mangan is one of the top age,
top top age in the town. Twenty years ago and
today she's the business channel. She's in Las Vegas and
she a croupier there at the dunes. At night she
doubles as a dune.

Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
She's a dune.

Speaker 6 (01:30:59):
Of people go see it. And I said, there's two
angers are doomed to do. She's a good doom though,
best been best doing. She's best doing. I've had fun, yes, yes, anyway,
but I'm sorry to no. I can't go again to
it because I have to go back in my closet
and clean it. I haven't cleaned my closet in a
long time. They put me in the closet. I don't
know why they put me in the closet. They said,
I'd understand, but I'm coming out of the closet very soon.

Speaker 4 (01:31:20):
Yeah soon. The baby.

Speaker 6 (01:31:21):
The delivery was fine. Yeah, it hurt a little, It
was It was wonderful. One of they shaved me. Yeah,
I don't know. Come on, come on, come on, I
can't talk. I beg I go to see dailies. I
want to see dailies and my my delivery. I see
myself getting burried. Yeah, oh yeah, good closer with my
coun Oh that's true. Take you anyway. I want to

(01:31:44):
say I want to thank you very much for it,
for listening. And I want to say you that that
I wish uh all of you a healthy life. My
life is over and I've just been asked. One favorite president,
Warren Beatty, has asked me to ask you about again,
and I I asked you to do it just for me,
just for me, because he has some terrible scal I mean,

(01:32:04):
I don't want to get up, and I'm saying he's
gonna tell its very embarrassing me. So please vote for
one B for a second time as president. And I
wish you were all good evening.

Speaker 10 (01:32:13):
And uh.

Speaker 4 (01:32:18):
What did I do when I.

Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
Am walentering?

Speaker 10 (01:32:26):
Who is k.

Speaker 4 (01:32:32):
What do I do? What will I do with charge
a fall to crowd to terrible? My troubles.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
Too when I'm moving bedtreage of you?

Speaker 4 (01:33:08):
That will.

Speaker 7 (01:33:10):
Come true?

Speaker 4 (01:33:15):
One may do