Adventures in the Screen Trade (31 page)

Redford said, "I think there might be some stuff in it we can use."

I'm up to here with Walergate, I'm going crazy with when did Haldeman talk to Mitchell and how can we fit Judge Sirica into the story and how can Eriichman be the perfect neighbor everyone described him as being and still do the things he did; I had fretted and drunk too much and stayed up nights because I couldn't make it work until finally I did make it work and I wanted acknowledgment that a terrible breach had been committed.

Redford said, "We all want the best screenplay possible, so why don't you look it over, we're all on the same side, we all want to make as good a movie as we can."

I said I couldn't look at a word of it until I had been told I could by lawyers. And I left as soon as I could.

I can make a case for my producer's behavior. After all, this was now a famous book. Woodward and Bernstein were the media darlings of the moment, and we needed all the help we could get from the Washington Post. A pitched battle with Bernstein wouldn't have been an aid to moving the project forward. I could go on longer and make a better case. Redford was in a bind, no question.

But I still think it was a gutless betrayal, and you know what else? I think I'm right.

Lawyers were called in, and eventually it was decided I could read the Bernslein/Ephron version. One scene from it is in the movie, a really nifty move by Bernstein where he outfakes a secretary to get in to sec someone.

And it didn't happen-they made it up. It was a phony Hollywood moment. I have no aversion to such things, God knows I've written enough of them-but I never would have dreamed of using it in a movie about the fall of the President of the United Slates.

One other thing to note about their screenplay: I don't know about real life, but in what they wrote, Bernstein was sure catnip to the ladies.

One important positive moment came out of that, a moment so meaningful to me I've separated it here. When I next met Woodward to talk about the movie, he said the following, word for word: "I don't know what the six worst things I've ever done in my life arc, but letting that happen, letting them write that, is one of them." I was and am grateful.

The Bernstein/Ephron episode did not stay secret long. God knows I didn't talk about it, but Washington, like Hollywood, thrives on the gossip of its main industry.

It was eventually common knowledge that I had written a dud. Later, after Hoffman had been signed. Time wrote an article about the progress of the movie and mentioned the lack of quality in what I'd done, even though, as they pointed out, it had snared Dustin Hoffman. I wished then for the first and only moment of my life that I subscribed to Time so I could cancel.

I was at CBS once in the news department and Walter Cronkite was walking along a corridor. The guy I was with knew Cronkite and introduced us, which pleased me because during this Watergale time, when everyone was lying, he was among the few Americans you could trust. Following is the entire conversation:

MY FRIEND

Walter, this is Bill Goldman who's writing All the President's Men.

ME How do you do, sir.

CROHKITE

I hear you've got script trouble. (and he continued on his way)

Spring of '75 was the most stomach-churning time I've ever had writing anything. I had been on the movie now for over a year, not as daisy-fresh as I might have been. And by now I was dealing not just with the producer, a director had been signed: Alan Pakula.

Alan is a gentlemen. We had mutual acquaintances in the business and they said nothing but good things about him as a human being. Neither can I. He is well educated (Yale) and serious about his work. He had been a lop producer for years before he became a director-To Kill a Mockingbird, which he produced, was nominated for the Best Picture award for 1962. His biggest success as a director had been Klute, which got Jane Fonda her first Oscar. He's wonderful with actors. But I, alas, was no thespian.

I've only met Warren Beatty once, and that was at a large gathering where everyone was shaking hands with everyone else and there wasn't much time for conversation. Beatty had Just finished working with Pakula on The Parallax View. As Beatty and I shook hands I managed to get out that I was soon to meet and work with Pakula. Novelists are always using the phrase "enigmatic smile." It's a staple. In all my life, I have only seen one such enigmatic smile. It came on Beatty's face and he said this: "Just make sure you've got it before you go on the floor."

I didn't know what he meant then, and although I wanted to pursue it, it wasn't possible in the crowd. Had I known then, as they say, what I know now. Pakula and I began with a series of meetings. Now, when a writer meets with the director of a movie that is gearing up, there is really only one subject: improving the script. Cut it, change it, fix it, add, the whole point is to make it better.

As I've said. I like to think of myself as being very supportive at this time. I don't want to be on the floor, so if you're going to get the best I can give, this is when.

We would meet and discuss a scene, any scene, it doesn't matter, and I would ask if it was okay, and if it wasn't, how did he want it changed, what direction? For example, I might ask, did he want this shorter or longer? He would answer, "Do it both ways, I want to see it all." Both ways? Both ways.

I might ask, did he want me to rewrite a sequence and make it more or less hard-edged.

He would answer, "Do it both ways, I want to see it all." Both ways?

Both ways, absolutely. But why?

And now would come the answer that I always associate with Alan: "Don't deprive me of any riches."

God knows how often I heard that. "Don't deprive me of any riches."

What I didn't know then, of course, was simply this: Alan is notorious for being unable to make up his mind. So here I was, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen months on the Watergate story, and when things should be closing down in terms of script, irising in, if you will, it was going all over the goddam map. I didn't know what the hell he wanted. So I was writing blind. Alan is also genuinely creative. One day he spitballed a wonderful little scene for Bernstein and his ex-wife. He just adlibbed it and I wrote it down and typed it up and felt very good about the whole thing; at least I'd pleased my director.

Mistake.

In doing so, I had also displeased my producer. Redford was very much aware that his two greatest successes had been in "buddy" movies: Butch and The Sting. And here he was, locked in with another male co-star.

He had always wanted a love interest in the movie. I think he always knew a romance didn't belong in the picture and this picture always had a length problem. It wanted to center on the two reporters and there was more than too much for them to do.

But now Hoffman had a scene with a girl and Redford became obsessed. I can't remember at the time whether Woodward was married or not, but he was involved with a lovely girl named Francie.

And now "Francie scenes" entered my life. Redford didn't want (me, he wanted three, to show the growth and eventual deterioration of a relationship under the pressure of the story. It wasn't an incorrect idea, it was just incorrect for this movie. At least I thought it was.

But he was my producer and he would appear again and again with new and different notions for three Francic scenes. I don't know how many I eventually wrote-a dozen, probably closer to two.

And it was miserable, because I didn't believe a goddam word I was writing. And I suspect my belief showed in the quality of my work.

So every day for months I would go to my office to write one of two things: either scenes for the director, who wouldn't tell me what to write, or scenes for the producer, which I didn't have a lot of faith in.

Plus I was dealing with their problems with each other. Redford was disgruntled with Pakula's lack of decision. Pakula could have cared less about the Francie scenes.

I think it was the existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who wrote about man's condition on earth being one of being caught between "insoluble tensions." Soren didn't know it, but he was talking about me. I've never written as many versions for any movie as for President's Men. There was, in addition to all the standard names, the "revised second" version and the "prehearsal" version. God knows how many. And by now the media are really gearing up to cover the film. And I'm fifteen months hacking away and tired of it all but I'm still writing these insane scenes for the star that everyone knew would never see the day and probably wishy-washy stuff for the director, who won't tell me what he wants. I didn't want to deprive anybody of any riches, I just felt impoverished and wondered if it all would ever end. It ended when the phone stopped ringing. When they started shooting, maybe a week after I'd delivered my who-knows-what version, I found out Pakula had brought in someone else to be in Washington with him.

There is a very funny line, attributed to the late Peter Sellers, who was asked to answer the question "What would you change if you had your life to live over?" And Sellers replied, "I would do everything exactly the same except I wouldn't see The Magus."

The Woodward-Bernstein book became a famous and successful film. I saw it at my local neighborhood theatre and it seemed very much to resemble what I'd done; of course there were changes but there are always changes. There was a lot of ad-libbing, scenes were placed in different locations, that kind of thing. But the structure of the piece remained unchanged. And it also seemed, with what objectivity I could bring to it, to be well directed and acted, especially by the stars. It won a bunch of Oscars and numberless other awards besides.

And if you were to ask me "What would you change if you had your movie life to live over?" I'd tell you that I'd have written exactly the screenplays I've written. Only I wouldn't have come new All the President's Men. . . . CHAPTER TEN

Marathon Man

I don't remember much clearly about Marathon Man. I wrote, in a compressed period of time, two versions of the novel and at least four versions of the screenplay, and after that, someone, I suspect Robert Towne, was brought in to write the ending. So all in all, it's pretty much amaze.

What I do remember clearly, as clearly today as then, is Olivier.

The part Olivier wanted to play was that of the Nazi villain, Szell, who is living in considerable luxury in South America. Circumstances force him to come to New York to retrieve a fortune in diamonds.

He wanted the role, obviously we wanted him. The problem was would he be physically able to or, more bluntly, would he even be alive? The man has been dogged by a series of hideous ailments over the past years, killing ones. But the man is also a bull, and each time he somehow survived.

When Marathon Man's director, John Schlesinger, first went to visit him to discuss the possibility, he came away filled with doubt. Olivier, he reported, was then almost totally incapable of movement; one side of his face worked-that was all. Beyond the question of his recovery was this: Would he possibly be able to pass the physical that all leads must take for insurance purposes prior to a Film?

All answers came in positive, and rehearsals began in a large room in what had once been the Huntington Hartford Museum above Columbus Circle. Schlesinger and I and a number of others arrived early. There is always tension at such a time, but now there was more than normal: A new problem had arisen.

The Olivier role called for him to be bald. In his past, the character had been nicknamed "the White Angel" because of his glorious white hair. In the script, in order to help disguise himself, Szell shaves himself bald. Now a delicate moment was at hand: Olivier was old, he had been desperately ill, he didn't look all that terrific anyway-and no one wanted to bring up the subject of having his hair shaved. (There were rumors about his health flying everywhere and this would only add to it; "I just saw Olivier and his hair has fallen out. He looks worse than I've ever seen him. Bald. How much longer can he last?")

A barber was hired for the day, but he was hidden in a room downstairs. For all anybody knew, maybe Olivier didn't even want to play the part bald. Christ, we all have vanity, and this was once one of the world's matinee idols.

Rehearsal lime approached. The barber was waiting below. But who the hell was going to ask this legend about getting disfigured? There were no volunteers.

On time, Olivier moved silently and alone into the large room. We all made our hellos. Olivier carries none of his greatness with him. He is famous for taking directors aside early on and saying, "Please, you must help me. Tell me what you want." Most stars like to be thought of as being private people, being shy. We even grant those attributes to Woody Alien, this in spite of the fact that he must be the most visible celebrity in New York. It's not an act with Olivier. He never has considered himself to be all that much as a film actor. On the stage, obviously, he is Something. In films, he thinks of himself as being just another player.

He also never refers to his great career as a director. No mentions of Henry V. Orson Welles, another great director, reputedly has on more than one occasion, when he first came on the floor to act, looked around, then nailed the director with probably one eyebrow raised and intoned, "Is that where you're going to put the camera?"

Anyway, after we greeted each other there was this very long pause. Broken by Sir Laurence, who said, "Would it be possible for me to be shaved bald now? I think it might be best to get it done." Relief, may I add, abounded.

During lunch break we found ourselves together and I didn't know what to say, so I fumbled something about was his hotel all right, did he like New York? Did he know it well?

"Not all that well," he answered. "I was here I think in *46 and in '51 and '58, but I'm not that familiar with the city."

I nodded, wondering what to say next when suddenly it hit me - Jesus Christ, '46 was his Oedipus, one of the two performances in all my life I wish I'd been able to see. (Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie was the other.) And '51-that was the two Cleopatras, the Shaw, and the Shakespeare he performed in with Vivien Leigh. And '58 was his phenomenal work in 0sbone's The Entertainer. He never referred to the plays, just the years.