Hollywood Animal (19 page)

CHAPTER 4

Michael Ovitz Fondles My Knife

DAVID

You’re in charge here.

CUFFORD

You know, when I met you I didn’t know what a pain in the ass you’d be.

Jade

UNITED ARTISTS, FEELING
, I think, that I’d worked nearly three years on a screenplay for not very much money, threw me a bone. It was an adaptation of Brian Moore’s novel
The Doctor’s Wife
.

I loved Brian Moore’s novels and my idea of an adaptation was to stick as close to the book as I could, using as much of the novel’s dialogue as possible. That was not, however, the producer’s idea.

His name was Frank Rosenberg. He was in his early seventies and he had begun working as legendary studio boss Harry Cohn’s publicity man in New York in the thirties. Harry Cohn was legendary not just because he’d run Columbia for many years but because he had a thick white shag rug in his office and an elevated desk.

Frank Rosenberg wore a very ill-fitting toupee and arrived at his office each morning with a fresh bag of Winchell’s donuts which he offered no one else. I asked him the first time we met about Robert Mitchum pissing on Harry Cohn’s rug but for some reason Frank took offense at the question and launched into a diatribe about the changes we’d have to make on Brian Moore’s novel.

I disagreed with everything he said. Then he launched into a harangue about the manner in which we’d work.

“You’ll sit here,” Frank Rosenberg said, pointing to a small desk in his office, “and I’ll sit here,” pointing to his desk, “and when you finish a page you’ll hand it to me.”

“You mean I’ll work in your office and hand you the pages as I write them?”

“You got it,” he said, munching a chocolate donut.

I went to see Marcia Nasatir.

“This guy is some kind of moron,” I said. “I can’t do this.”

Marcia did two things: 1. She called Frank Rosenberg and told him that it was “unreasonable” that I be asked to work that way. 2. She brought in a director to put some distance between Rosenberg and me.

The director was Karel Reisz. Even though UA had thought his last movie was so “unwatchable” they wouldn’t let him direct
F.I.S.T
., it was evidently not so “unwatchable” that they wouldn’t bring him in to direct
The Doctor’s Wife
.

Karel and I met, scrupulously avoiding any mention of
F.I.S.T
., and we agreed to take a crack at Moore’s novel. Then Karel met Frank Rosenberg, listened to his ideas, observed his style, and went to Marcia and said: “This man and I are not in accord in any way. I can’t do this.”

Marcia convinced him that my presence put some distance between them, so the three of us, Karel, Frank, and I, sat down to discuss the adaptation.

The book was set mostly in Belfast and in Villefranche, in the South of France. I had never been in those places and a few hours into our discussion, it became obvious that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

“How could they give me a screenwriter who’s never even been in the South of France?” Frank asked.

He called Marcia and asked for a new screenwriter and, instead of bringing one in, Marcia had a better idea. I would go to Belfast and I would go to Villefranche before we resumed our discussions.

And so I did. I had to do, not factual research, but as Marcia called it, “emotional research.” I had to get a “feel” for those places.

I went to Belfast and did a lot of walking about, stayed at a great hotel, and ate at the best places. Belfast was a singularly barren and threatening place and after about three days, I felt I had “the feel” down just right.

Then I went to Villefranche, a luxurious resort location not far from Nice. I walked about, stayed at a great hotel overlooking the marina, and ate at the best places. There were a great many “best” places here, though, and the sun was out—and while I had gotten “the feel” in Belfast after three days … it took me nearly three weeks to get “the feel” in Villefranche.

I came back to L.A. tanned and refreshed and Karel, Frank, and I resumed our discussions. Karel and I quickly allied forces and all we did was argue with Frank.

Finally, Karel, as the director, spoke up and said: “Perhaps we should just let Joe go back to Marin County and write his script.”

“I’m not gonna like what he writes,” Frank said.

“Oh, you never know.” Karel chuckled. “He might surprise us.”

“I know he’s not going to surprise me,” Frank said.

But Marcia supported Karel’s suggestion and I was quickly back in Marin, still throwing up every morning, adapting Brian Moore’s novel.

I hated doing it. I had a reverence for the novelist’s words, didn’t want to change any of them, and felt like I was doing nothing but a translation of form—putting Brian Moore’s words into a scripted format.

When I turned the script in, Frank Rosenberg hated it and wanted me to start from scratch.

I wasn’t about to start from scratch and wasn’t about to napalm Brian Moore’s novel and so I quit.

When Karel Reisz heard that I’d quit, he quit, too.

When UA heard that Karel Reisz quit, UA quit.

Frank Rosenberg had a problem: he had no screenwriter, no director, and no studio. He was out in the cold, starting all over again with a project that only a few months ago had looked like a movie.

Marcia was right
. Never mind
F.I.S.T.’s
abject critical and commercial failure, Sly was already booked two movies ahead and Norman was mounting his next movie. And I was the newest “hot” screenwriter in town.

I got two offers that were particularly intriguing:

1. David Obst and Peter Guber were setting up a new publishing company and wanted to sign me up to write a novel. David was the founder of the Dispatch News Service, which had broken the Seymour Hersh stories of the My Lai massacre, and Peter, already the former head of Columbia Pictures, now the head of Casablanca Film Works, was an industry wunderkind.

2. The director Alan Pakula (
The Sterile Cuckoo, The Parallax View
), respected by both the critics and the industry, wanted me to write a script about the Alaska pipeline.

I met with Obst and Guber and decided to do the novel.

They put an ad in
Daily Variety
, full-page, that I framed: “David Obst and Peter Guber take pride in announcing the signing of Joe Eszterhas for his new novel.”

I called Pakula and told him that I hoped he understood, I’d always wanted to write novels, this was a particularly good offer, blah blah blah.

“What do you mean you expect me to understand?” Pakula said. “Understand? I thought we had an understanding that you’d do this script.”

“I hadn’t agreed to do it,” I said, “we don’t have anything in writing.”

“
Writing?
” Pakula said. “How dare you talk to me about what’s in writing?”

My agent called me that night and summoned me to a hasty meeting in L.A. “Pakula called me,” he said.

“I told him we didn’t have anything in writing.”

“Nobody has anything in writing,” he said. “Most directors don’t even sign their contracts until they finish shooting the movie.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “I thought having something in writing means something.”

“Not in this town, not unless it’s a shooting script that’s been green-lighted and cast.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He said,” my agent told me, “that
you’ll never work in this town again
if you don’t do this script for him.”

“
Alan Pakula said that to you?
He’s got a reputation for being a sensitive, caring guy.”

“He
is
a sensitive, caring guy,” my agent said. “He is sensitive about you not doing his script and cares about it maybe being his next movie.”

“Can he sue me?” I asked.

“How could he sue you? There’s nothing in writing.”

“Well,” I said, “does he really have the power to stop me doing screenplays if I want to do one again?”

My agent shrugged. “He’s a very respected part of this community. This is the smallest town in the world, you know.”

“Well
what the hell are we gonna do?
” I said. “Obst and Guber have already run their ad in
Variety
.”

“A lot of people run ads in
Variety
announcing new projects,” my agent said, “half of them never happen. Everyone who reads
Variety
knows that.”

“You mean they ran an ad and nobody paid attention to it anyway?”

My agent shrugged again.

“Did you sign your contract with Obst and Guber?” he asked.

“No.”

“Well,” my agent said, smiling, “then
they
can’t sue you.”

I didn’t know what to do. I went back to the Beverly Wilshire where I was staying, compliments of Obst and Guber, of course, and sat down at the bar and asked for a double Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.

A woman was sitting down the bar from me. She was in her fifties, coiffed, manicured, and wearing tasteful gold jewelry with a mink coat. She kept staring at me.

I was aware of her presence but I wasn’t interested. I looked into the bottom of my Jack Daniel’s and thought about Todd’s painting in Nathanael West’s
Day of the Locust: The Burning of Los Angeles
.

“Excuse me, do you mind if I speak to you?” she asked.

I said, “Sort of.”

She laughed and came over to sit next to me. She spoke with what sounded like a British accent. Her perfume was subtle and meadowy.

“I have to tell you this,” she said. “I read auras. You have an amazing aura.”

She went into it: She was from South Africa. She was a diamond merchant with offices in Johannesburg and Tokyo. But what she really did was auras. She could also “read” people.

“Would you like me to tell you about yourself?”

I thought:
This screwy town. It really is lalaland
.

Within thirty seconds, she told me these things: I was a writer. I had recently made a lot of money. She told me the exact figure—$240,000. I would be rich and world-famous. The key was to continue doing what I was doing
now
. I should not be tempted by doing anything else. She gave me her card, listing her offices in Johannesburg and Tokyo, wished me luck, and left.

I thought about it that night as I fell asleep. She was clearly a complete wacko. I came from good hunkie peasant stock, my feet on the ground, far from auras.

But she did tell me the
exact amount of money
I had recently made. She did tell me I was a writer—most people thought I was a Hells Angel.

She told me I would be world-famous—but screenwriters not only weren’t world-famous, most people didn’t know what it was they did. And she said I had to continue doing what I was doing right
now
.

But what was I doing right now? Yes, I’d written two screenplays, but on the other hand I had agreed to do a novel.

Was I screenwriting right now or planning the novel right now?

The next morning I called my agent and told him I was doing the script for Alan Pakula.

“I think you made a really good decision,” he said.

“You won’t believe how I made it.”

“Try me.”

“Well, I was sitting at the bar at the Wilshire—”

“Right.”

“And this woman was sitting near me—”

“Right.”

“And she was a diamond merchant—”

“Got it. And you figured it’d be easier buying diamonds with screenplays than novels. See ya later.”

He hung up on me.

· · ·

Alan Pakula certainly seemed like a sensitive and caring man, not the kind of street punk who’d tell you you’d never work again. He was literate and literary, charming and friendly. His reputation was that he was always involved in many projects and had some difficulty deciding to commit himself to actually directing one of them.

His offices were in New York, high up in the Gulf + Western Building, and his offices swayed while we spoke—there was a gusty wind that day. He didn’t deny that he often worked on a project that wound up in his drawer.

“There’s always the fear that one day my phone will stop ringing,” he said. “And that day I’ll know that I have some good scripts in my drawer ready to go. I’ve got a Pat Resnick script in there and an Alvin Sargent script and maybe there’ll be a Joe Eszterhas script in there, too. But that’s not so bad, is it? You’d be in good company.”

His idea was to do a story about the heroic construction of the Alaska pipeline. He wanted me to research it extensively and then capture a kind of old-timey frontier spirit within a modern-day context.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” he said, “go do it.”

Alan’s nephew by marriage, a young man named Jon Boorstin, was to be the co-producer of the project. He would travel with me. Jon was the son of Daniel J. Boorstin, the historian. He was very intellectual and prone to abstractions and by the time we got to our first stop on the research trip—Tulsa, Oklahoma—I knew we were not ideal traveling companions.

But the pipeliners were wild, larger-than-life characters. They’d worked on pipe all over the world. A union in Tulsa had a lock on the welders—so if pipe was being laid anywhere in the world by any American company, these guys from Tulsa had to be the ones doing the work. They’d been everywhere—Abu Dhabi and Singapore and Kuwait—sported gold, diamond-encrusted Rolexes and thick gold chains, and were never without a beer can nearby.

They were a raw-meat, no-bullshit, fuck-’em-if-they-can’t-take-a-joke group very much like a lot of the guys I’d grown up with on Lorain Avenue in Cleveland.

We found an entire colony of them in a place called Grand Isle, Louisiana, down on the bayou two hours out of New Orleans at the tip of the Gulf of Mexico, deep in Cajun country where the stop signs looked like swiss cheese from all the target practice everybody took as soon as the sun went down.

There was one motel in town and one bar where all the pipeliners hung out—it was a vast U-shaped bar decorated with hardhats. There was one bartender and she was the only beautiful woman in town.