Hollywood Hellraisers (31 page)

That night both actors decided to settle their differences and talked things through until the early hours of the morning. As dawn rose they’d reached an understanding and actually went on to become good friends. Overall, Dennis enjoyed the experience, later calling
The American Friend
‘probably my best film’. He and Wenders discussed making another movie together, and flew to Mexico to scout locations, but the trip ended in chaos when Dennis started shooting guns in a Mexican town and was summarily deported from the nearest airport. It wasn’t until 2008 that the two of them reunited on a picture,
Palermo Shooting
, with Dennis playing, of all things, Death.

For Dennis, taking drugs or drinking like a maniac while working was always about the job at hand, not the drugs or the booze; they just kept him going. When work started to dry up, then the drug taking was about wallowing in self-pity and anger. For a while therapy looked like being a solution, but not for long: Dennis wasn’t the type to sit in a circle for everyone to gawp at his insecurities and problems. ‘Numbers of times through my life I have been asked to be in therapy. Or
demanded
to be in therapy. Or
forced
into therapy, but I just wore them out, I guess.’

Do I . . . play polo?

Somewhere amongst his bedroom-hopping activities Warren Beatty found time to make a movie, a romantic comedy called
Heaven Can Wait
(1978). Originally conceived as a vehicle for Muhammad Ali, a friend whom Warren regarded as a potential movie star, the great sportsman didn’t want to quit fighting so the character was changed from a boxer to a footballer and Warren played it himself. He also tried to cast Hollywood legend Cary Grant as God, dropping by his house to try the personal touch. Grant said no and asked his girlfriend Maureen Donaldson, an entertainment journalist, to see Warren to his car. En route Warren asked Maureen for a date. One thing led to another and poor old Cary was ditched and Maureen moved in with Warren.

On
Heaven Can Wait
Warren again pushed himself to the limit, putting in eighteen-hour days working as star, co-producer, co-writer and director, having finally taken the plunge, calling the difference between directing himself and being directed the difference between making love and masturbation. To be on the safe side, though, he roped in friend Buck Henry to act as co-director and sought advice from the highly seasoned crew he’d assembled. Many in the industry wondered, though, if he’d listen to them. Buck Henry admitted there were plenty of disagreements on set. ‘When Warren wants to do something his way, he has it all figured out, so you goddamn well better be prepared to argue your case if you differ with him.’ David Foster, who produced
McCabe and Mrs Miller
, is the first to acknowledge Warren’s pedigree: ‘Of course he’s a multitalented guy, it’s just hard for him to listen to other people, I guess. He’s such an intense guy. To get an answer he’ll check six different people. If a car drives by and he thinks it’s silver, but he’s not quite sure, he’ll ask six people, “Is that silver or grey?” He’ll question you to death. Intuitive, he’s not. Everything has to be thought out and thought out, it’s overkill. But he’s been very successful, so what the hell.’

A big talking point on the movie was the return of Julie Christie, who was making her third and final film with Warren. Afterwards he graciously declared that he could not have functioned without Julie on
Heaven Can Wait
. What he failed to mention was she at first turned him down flat and he had to fly to London to persuade her to be in it. William Fraker was the cameraman and remembers Beatty arriving back in LA. ‘He said to me, “We’ve got Julie, she’s coming back to Hollywood and, Billy, I want her to be beautiful in this picture. Absolutely beautiful.” I said, “OK, she’s a well-trained actress, disciplined, she’ll hit her marks, but Warren, you’d better hit your marks, too, if you want to look as pretty as Julie.” And he was magnificent. They were both beautiful in that picture. And it was a lot of fun to make; Warren’s a phenomenal guy, very generous.’

Observers couldn’t fail to notice that Warren still carried a torch for Julie, she less so for him (‘cool’ might be the operative word). During one candid moment Julie made her views perfectly clear about the formulaic material Warren was wasting his talents on. ‘I can’t believe you’re still making these fucking dumb movies when there are people all over Europe making fabulous films, about real things, like Fassbinder, and you’re still doing this shit.’

That was unfair;
Heaven Can Wait
is a supremely well-crafted movie. Audiences thought so, too, and made it a smash hit. The poster had Warren in tracksuit pants, trainers and angel’s wings sprouting from his back. Bob Evans, a man whose marketing savvy Warren admired, was invited to comment on the artwork. Evans loved it, except ‘No cojones,’ he said. ‘Your sweat pants, there ain’t no crease. Looks like you’re sporting a pussy.’ Warren scrapped the campaign and ordered a reworking. Half a million dollars down the drain. Evans called it, ‘By far the most expensive crotch retouch in cinema history.’

Warren was still very pally with Evans, but their friendship had an edge. When in a
Rolling Stone
article Warren claimed to be the fastest phone dialler in the world, Evans called him up to say his son Joshua was faster and could easily ‘out-touch-tone’ him. ‘I’ll wipe him off the street.’ Warren said. They arranged to have a dial-off in Evans’s screening room, which had two phones. When Warren arrived at the house he blasted, ‘Where’s the fuckin’ runt?’ Josh appeared and they began their dialling duel. Josh proved to be the fastest finger. Warren went into a huff and didn’t speak to the boy for more than a year.

Most critics seemed to accept the fact that
Heaven Can Wait
was essentially lightweight, but the influential Pauline Kael, a supporter of Warren’s since the beginning of his career, dismissed it out of hand. Warren felt betrayed, so issued a challenge that many a film director has wanted to offer a critic after a particularly foul review. OK, then, he said, see if you can do better, come out to Hollywood and make movies. It was the ultimate dare and Kael foolishly accepted a development deal Warren wrangled out of Paramount. In her rush to rise to Warren’s bait Kael forgot one thing: she was a writer, not a movie maker. She was treated as a joke in Hollywood and soon fled back to New York, her reputation severely damaged. It was an incredible piece of calculated revenge. ‘We’re talking about manipulation on a level unknown to man,’ Buck Henry called it. ‘This is so Machiavellian; even I can’t quite believe it, except that it was Warren.’

I ain’t no slab of meat to be auctioned off, but, what the hell. Fine by me.

Following the aftershocks of the Polanski rape trial, Jack Nicholson set off for Mexico, hoping a change of scenery might do him good. The film was
Goin’ South
(1978), very much a personal project which he intended to both star in and direct. It was a comedy western that couldn’t possibly create any major problems, could it? Enter John Belushi.

A household name in America thanks to his inspired appearances on TV’s
Saturday Night Live
, Belushi had yet to make a movie but was already hooked on the drugs that would eventually kill him. Jack hired Belushi because he’d heard he did a brilliant comedy impression of a Mexican, perfect for the small role of a sleazy local sheriff. People knew the cocktail of drugs Belushi was consuming altered his personality dramatically, but no one was expecting the sight that greeted them when he arrived late for the shoot, looking as if he hadn’t slept for days. Shunning his hotel room, Belushi insisted on staying with Jack in the more luxurious bungalows up in the hills. ‘I’ve gotta get outta here,’ he grumbled. ‘The hotel is suck-o, man,’

Back in the production office producer Harold Schneider had the unenviable job of calming Belushi down. It didn’t work and he continued to talk in an incoherent fashion before picking up a large kitchen knife which Schneider feared he intended to use on himself. Then the other producer arrived. Harry Gittes had hired Belushi on Jack’s instruction and was taking no crap from a TV comic. ‘You are a real asshole,’ he blasted. ‘You’re acting like a complete asshole. You’re going to put us all in deep shit.’ Belushi seemed not to be hearing this. Instead he collapsed in a convenient chair and fell asleep. ‘What’s this?’ snapped Jack, arriving back from the set. ‘A crash pad?’ He didn’t want to hear explanations, he wanted Schneider to get Belushi back to his hotel room. Easier said than done. Stirred from his audible slumber, Belushi became wild and abusive and a pissed-off Schneider would surely have belted him one if he hadn’t been restrained.

It was a coy and still rather hungover Belushi who emerged on the set the next day full of apologies. Jack was having none of it. ‘You asshole,’ he bellowed. ‘Any other producers would write you out. You only stay in because they’re my friends. If Paramount people were here, you’d be kissed off and your career in movies would be totally fucked.’

As filming went on Jack wanted desperately to like the comedian, who was fundamentally a nice guy, someone he could take under his wing, but Belushi remained belligerent on set and had a problem controlling his anger. He also continued to make petty demands and fought with the producers. Partly in response to his behaviour, Belushi’s role seemed to shrink. By the end of production he’d harsh words to say about the experience: ‘Jack treated me like shit on
Goin’ South
. I hate him. If I see him, I’ll punch him.’

Besides the difficult Belushi, Jack found it awkward to balance his twin roles of star and director, setting up shots through the viewfinder one minute, then leaping into the scene and acting the next. ‘I will never direct myself again!’ he was heard to yell at the top of his voice after one particularly difficult shot. Most of the crew, though, seemed to enjoy the experience. Cinematographer Nestor Almendros likened Jack to ‘a force of nature; exuberant, tireless, able to film ceaselessly from dawn to dusk, then go to a party and enjoy himself till daybreak’.

As the seventies drew to a close Jack’s huge personality was threatening to swallow the parts he played. Bizarrely, the more famous Jack got, the more difficult his job as an actor became. Often he found himself having to un-Jack his characters in order to get audiences to separate the public persona from his work; un-Jacking meant toning down the mad eyebrows and cheesy grin and all the other Jackisms. It was a challenge because some directors hired Jack to be, well, Jack. As Bob Rafelson says, ‘Jack is much bigger in all respects than the characters he plays. He would never throw a dog down a disposal chute, as he does in
As Good As It Gets
; he would choke it to death right on the spot.’ Over the next few years Jack faced accusations that he was merely trading on his celebrated wild image, criticism that he couldn’t care less about. ‘I love to put myself somewhere where they can say, “Jeez, he’s overacting again.” Which I am, but damn, that’s why I’m good!’

Your name is Kal-El. You are the only survivor of the planet Krypton.

It was one of the most anticipated movies of the decade:
Superman
(1978). Once the exhaustive search for an actor to play the superhero concluded, with the unknown Christopher Reeve donning the cape, thoughts turned to who would play the pivotal role of Superman’s father Jor-El. Director Richard Donner wanted Marlon Brando, and together with screenwriter and creative consultant on the film Tom Mankiewicz visited the great man at his house on Mulholland Drive.

Once inside they began discussing the script and Brando’s role. What happened next, as Mankiewicz recalls, was bizarre to say the least. ‘Brando looked at me and said, “You know that long speech I have, well maybe on Krypton we don’t speak English, maybe we make electronic sounds you know, beep, beep, and we have subtitles.” I went, “Yeah.” He then turned to Dick and said, “And maybe we don’t even look like people, maybe I look like a green suitcase.” We said, “A green suitcase!” By this point Dick and I are sitting there and our spirits are just dropping so fast, here’s our big legendary star and he’s going to appear on screen as a green suitcase making electronic sounds.’

Donner couldn’t take this nonsense any longer and said in a booming voice, ‘You can’t look like a green suitcase and make electronic sounds because every kid in the world knows that Superman’s dad is a handsome guy.’ Before he could finish Marlon roared with laughter. ‘What was so obvious in that instant,’ says Mankiewicz, ‘he was putting us on. He wanted to know what kind of people he was working with.’

When Marlon signed on his fee of $3.7 million for twelve days’ filming made headlines around the world. ‘But he was a dream to work with,’ recalls Mankiewicz. ‘He gave us eleven free days on that picture that he didn’t have to give us; we just had a ball with him. And he literally saved my life on
Superman
.’ The film was produced by Alexander Salkind, whose wife Berta fancied herself a writer and repeatedly sent Mankiewicz script rewrites, which he ignored. After Brando’s final day on the movie Mankiewicz and Donner took the actor to dinner on the King’s Road. The Salkinds got wind of it and joined them unannounced, Berta squeezing herself into the booth between Mankiewicz and Marlon. ‘She was drunk,’ recalls Mankiewicz. ‘And she turned to me and said, “I keep sending you these rewrites and you never reply to me.” I said, “Mrs Salkind, I apologise, I’m just so busy.” To the whole table she said, “You know how much my husband is paying him.” And then she announced my salary to everyone; it was just awful. “You should get on your hands and knees,” she said to me, “and thank my husband for hiring you.” Well, Alexander Salkind was about four foot eleven, and I said, “Mrs Salkind, I’m always on my hands and knees when I’m talking to your husband so I can look him straight in the eye.” Suddenly she grabbed a steak knife and went right for me — the knife was four inches away from my chest, I swear to God — and Marlon grabbed her hand and shoved her down in the booth saying, “Will you behave?” She nodded, and then came right at me again. You always wonder when something like that happens to you what you’re going to do, and I’m afraid in my case I flunked, because I was so aghast I didn’t try and stop her. So I do owe Marlon one. I tell you what, even at Marlon’s age then, boy his reflexes were awful fast. Got her just in time.’