Fire and Rain (44 page)

As if he'd already received the meeting's subliminal message, Mike Curb, the young Republican head of MGM Records, announced he was dropping eighteen acts who supposedly promoted hard drugs in their songs. “I'm tired of hearing about these drugged-up acts who don't show up for a television appearance,” Curb griped to a reporter. Curb didn't name the specific artists whose contracts were being terminated, only saying he'd retained Roy Orbison, former Righteous Brother Bill Medley, and, strangely, hard-living former Animals frontman Eric Burdon (whose “Spill the Wine” just happened to be a major MGM hit that summer). Given Curb's well-known political ambitions, many wondered if the move was his first step in running for office. (In fact, he would later be elected California's lieutenant governor.) Davis was the first label head to denounce Curb, publicly chiding him for what Davis called “artistic witch hunts.”

Relative to this string of disquieting news, a phone call from Paul Simon was a stroll in the park, Central or otherwise. At the start, their relationship had been a little frosty. Simon seemed wary of Davis and his background in accounting. He and Garfunkel had bonded far better with Davis' predecessor, Goddard Lieberson; over their first lunch together, all three talked about classic fiction and poetry. But after Davis made the right call with the soundtrack to
The Graduate
and allowed Simon however much time he needed to craft his music, the two gradually grew tighter. Over the occasional meal, Davis listened as Simon let down his notorious guard. Despite a string of hit singles, Simon told Davis he felt he wasn't taken as seriously as some of his peers. “If you were viewed as a pop tunesmith, a hit songwriter, someone
who didn't move the social frontiers forward, you were relegated to secondary consideration,” Davis recalled. “Paul felt Dylan was getting more respect than him. He was keenly aware of that.” An avid reader of the rock press, Davis listened, nodded, and coddled. He told Simon he was one of the great songwriters of his era, his work equal to that of Lennon and McCartney.

Even though he was in tune with Simon's neuroses, Davis wasn't prepared for the topic of conversation when Simon arrived at his office at CBS headquarters in the Black Rock building on Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. After a bit of small talk, Simon told Davis he and Garfunkel were no more and that he'd be making records on his own.

The head of Columbia Records was taken aback, both by the news and the straightforwardness of Simon's declaration of independence. “It wasn't, ‘What's your advice?'” Davis recalled. “He wasn't coming to ask my advice. He was coming to tell me a fact.”

Davis' first impulse was to argue. It was almost impossible to imagine the two men apart (they, not CSNY, were “the American Beatles,” in Davis' words) or to imagine where Simon would go as a solo artist. Garfunkel's voice was such an integral part of the duo's sound and identity. But he knew Simon too well to take such an argumentative approach, so he merely listened to Simon's reasons. “He didn't want a partner,” Davis said. “Artie was a very articulate partner, but that process had worn thin with Paul. He wanted to chart his own career without having to defer to another person.”

Davis wasn't happy, especially now that some of his label's biggest acts were on rocky ground. (In June, Dylan had released
Self-Portrait
, a self-destructive double LP weighed down with soggy cover versions, including Simon's “The Boxer.”) Now Simon and Garfunkel looked to be history as well. “If you have kids, and they're getting a divorce, you don't applaud and say, ‘Great!'” Davis said. “Divorce isn't happy news.” Davis tried, instead, to gently discourage him. Would Simon sell as
many records on his own as the duo? Maybe, maybe not. Simon flinched but didn't say much. By the end of the conversation, Davis sensed he couldn't alter Simon's decision. All he could do was hope the break was temporary.

By then, Garfunkel was gone again. In September, Mike Nichols' screen adaptation of the Jules Feiffer play
True Confessions
, now retitled
Carnal Knowledge
, began filming in Vancouver, then later in Massachusetts and Manhattan. Feiffer's biting, razor-sharp-tongued script followed the sexual adventures of two close friends from their saddle-shoed college years in the '40s through facial hair and middle age in the '70s. If
Catch-22
was a seriocomic look at war,
Carnal Knowledge
would be a bleak depiction of male-female relationships in the new, sexually open era of the '70s—which, in the film, would be depicted as a soul-depleting morass of lust, infidelity, communication breakdowns, and sexual frustration.

As with
Catch-22
, Garfunkel would be taking his place alongside established actors: Jack Nicholson, fresh off
Easy Rider
and
Five Easy Pieces
, and sex-kitten pinup Ann-Margret. But there was one crucial, defining difference from the previous film. No longer just a member of an ensemble, Garfunkel would now be a costar, playing Sandy next to Nicholson's Jonathan. Thanks to Nichols' casting, he was no longer an aspiring actor;
Carnal Knowledge
would announce to the world that Art Garfunkel was a marquee name.

In Simon and Garfunkel circles, the timing raised many an eyebrow.
Catch-22
had been a difficult experience, especially for Simon. Before filming began, screenwriter Buck Henry, feeling the script had too many characters, eliminated several parts, including a small role written for Simon. Simon wasn't happy, especially once he learned that Garfunkel's part remained. To many close to them, Simon being cut from the film—
combined with the way it ate up so much of Garfunkel's time throughout 1969—was one of the principal reasons for their rift. In casting Garfunkel in another film so quickly after
Catch-22
, was Nichols, perhaps unintentionally, helping drive a wedge between the two? Some in their circle wondered—even, it turned out, Simon himself. “There was sort of vaguely the presence of Mike Nichols around, which was disconcerting to me,” he admitted to the
New York Times
, albeit two years later.

“I never brought it up with either of them,” said their mutual friend Charles Grodin. “But if it was me, and my partner went off to do a movie, I wouldn't appreciate it. ‘We're a team and we're doing great.' But that's me.”

The net result was clear enough: With Nichols' support, Garfunkel would finally be on Simon's level. Filming
Carnal Knowledge
in Canada (for its scenes set on a campus in the '40s), Garfunkel again found himself in heady, non-rock-and-roll company. While shooting at Victoria College, the cast, particularly Nicholson and Garfunkel, became pals when they shared a house. Nichols asked the cast to refrain from smoking pot, which they did—except for the night when Garfunkel, Nicholson, co-star Candice Bergen, and others got high and watched Peter O'Toole in
Lawrence of Arabia
, mocking the decade-old desert classic with stoned giggles. Feiffer took Garfunkel and Nicholson to a party on the nearby set of
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
, where Garfunkel wound up in the same room as Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Robert Altman.

Sandy's pensive, understated personality proved a perfect match for Garfunkel's own. (“Artie was just playing himself,” recalled a friend of the time.) Sandy, who winds up a doctor, was another variation of the soft-spoken, pure-of-heart Nately he'd played in
Catch-22
—and, by association, the winsome characters Garfunkel embodied in Simon's songs. To Garfunkel, the combination of Jonathan and Sandy felt familiar, as if Nichols and Feiffer had based the two characters on the idea of a longtime
friendship like his and Simon's. Much like Simon and Garfunkel over the years, Jonathan and Sandy were close but competitive, chummy but hard on each other. Early in the film, Nicholson's Jonathan, a rapacious, sexually driven rogue, sleeps with Susan (Bergen), the modelbeautiful girl of Sandy's dreams. As
New York Times
critic Vincent Canby would comment, “It is, in effect, a series of slightly mad dialogues between two people . . . that almost always lead to new plateaus of psychic misunderstanding and emotional hurt.” Those words also summed up Simon and Garfunkel in 1970.

Among those who knew Simon and Garfunkel, the breakup shouldn't have been news; even their lifestyles pointed to separate paths. Garfunkel loved nothing more than traveling, exploring, and spending time with his new Hollywood contingent. Settling down wasn't anywhere near the agenda. Simon was friends with some of the same people; like Garfunkel, he spent more time with writers, directors, and actors than with fellow musicians or pop stars. But thanks to his new marriage, Simon was more homebound. Peggy Harper was smart, witty, and attractive but, as Lewis had discovered during their brief marriage, averse to social gatherings. As a result, Simon seemed to spend more time with her at their Upper East Side apartment—which would soon give way to a brownstone—and their house in Pennsylvania.

Another sign of an impending Simon and Garfunkel divorce should have been Simon's ever-expanding tastes, particularly his fascination with rhythms and world music—a world apart from Garfunkel's attachment to more opulent, romantic pop. “Cuba Sí, Nixon No,” Simon's Chuck Berry homage, wasn't the only song dropped from
Bridge Over Troubled Water
. Garfunkel had argued for a Bach choral piece Simon rejected; they also took a pass at “Feuilles-O,” a Haitian
ode to the powers of marijuana. All three, along with a fourth song, “Groundhog,” were relegated to tape canisters.

Despite all those forewarnings, though, Clive Davis wasn't the only one caught way off guard by news of their split. Mort Lewis, their manager, knew well how each got on the other's nerves, sometimes intentionally. But when they walked offstage at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium that summer, Lewis had no idea it would be their last show. Increasingly, it was obvious what had happened: They'd effectively dissolved during the making of
Bridge Over Troubled Water
but hadn't bothered to tell anyone who handled the business of Simon and Garfunkel.

Now everything, from their strained interactions to the paucity of live concerts during the year, made sense. When he heard the news, Robert Drew, executive producer of their
Songs of America
special, flashed back to its filming. In meetings, Simon did the majority of the talking; Garfunkel mostly sat and observed. Simon wound up editing the film himself, without his partner. Most strikingly, Drew recalled how the two made subtle jokes between themselves about disbanding. “They obviously had a plan, and the plan was to separate,” he recalled. “But it wasn't announced and not spoken of in that way.”

Drew thought the story of their dissolution would make a riveting follow-up film, but they expressed no interest in making it. A planned live album for Columbia, culled from their fall 1969 concerts, was shelved. No press release or public statement about their dissolution would be forthcoming. (Despite his formidable ego, fanfare never appealed to Simon: That fall, he quietly donated $25,000 to the City College of New York, for what became known as its “Mrs. Robinson Fund” for teachers.) Simon and Garfunkel would recede as gently and nonaggressively as the decade.