Hollywood Animal (101 page)

I recognized him immediately. He was one of the kids at Cathedral Latin who had been ugly to me.

“I remember you, Marty,” I said.

“You do?” he said with a sheepish half smile.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t take pictures with others,” and turned away … to a man named George Gund, who is one of Cleveland’s wealthiest and most famous men … and who was standing there asking if I would have a picture taken with him.

I put my arm around George Gund and smiled as he put an arm around me … as Marty from Cathedral Latin stood there staring at the two of us.

Weeks after
Telling Lies in America
was selected by the New York Film Festival, I got a letter from its director asking me for money.

I didn’t know if this was the way film festivals worked: first they flatter you; then they ask you for money.

The letter explained that they wanted to use my money so that André De Toth, my fellow Hungarian, could attend a festival tribute in his honor.

Bandi Toth was in his nineties now and couldn’t afford the travel fare. He had directed
Ramrod
and
Tanganyika
, movies which the critics said were “noted for their casual attitude toward violence and treachery”—things which had been said about my own movies as well.

A penniless old Hungarian director of violent films would be on his way to a fancy New York tribute if I paid his way.

But there was no way I was paying it.

I disliked Bandi Toth intensely.

Bandi had single-handedly driven the divine Veronica Lake, one of my all-time cinematic loves, off the screen. By marrying her.

When she left him, she had to spend three months alone on a mountain to cool out. And when she came off the mountaintop, Veronica Lake said, “Fuck you, Hollywood, you’re one giant self-contained orgy farm with every male in
the
movie business on the make.”

She never made another movie. She moved to New York and washed dishes in a restaurant. The only time she ever came back to L.A. was to pick up the papers of her divorce from Bandi Toth.

I was grateful that the New York Film Festival had selected
Telling Lies …
but I wasn’t giving a penny to the Hungarian who’d retired Veronica Lake.

The producer Don Simpson told me the best high school revenge story I’ve ever heard: “I was a complete nerd when I was in high school,” Don said, “a fat little kid with his nose always stuck in a book. Never mind getting any pussy, I couldn’t even get a date. I took a lot of shit from a lot of kids. Cut to me as a big-time, star Hollywood producer and it’s time for my twentieth high school reunion. In Anchorage, Alaska. I hired a helicopter and two Penthouse Pets. We choppered onto the football field where the reunion was being held. I got off the chopper with the Pets. I looked skinny and sensational. I hadn’t eaten any solid food for three weeks. I wore a white suit. Man, their jaws dropped. I mean—they shit themselves. I stayed about thirty minutes and then with a Pet on each arm, I got back on the chopper and they watched as I disappeared into the sky.
Motherfucker!
The best moment of my life!”

CHAPTER 31

I Burn Hollywood

JOHNNY BOY

I’m smarter than most. And I’m more vicious. I’m past all the boundaries. Listen to me closely.
Don’t fuck with me!
Please. This is good advice.
Don’t fuck with me!

Gangland
, unproduced

I FELT LIKE
writing something different. I sat down on the Friday before a holiday and finished it Monday night. I wrote it for myself—as a goof.

The original title was
Amok
, although I changed it to
An Alan Smithee Film
before I was finished with the first draft.

It was a Hollywood satire. It incorporated many of the anecdotes and incidents which I had either heard, experienced, or suffered in the course of more than two decades of screenwriting. The style was that of a mock-documentary: talking heads telling their stories to the camera.

It used the names of real Hollywood players and the script called for three industry superstars—Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Sly Stallone to play themselves.

The Directors Guild’s official pseudonym was “Alan Smithee.” It meant that if any director felt that his movie had been ruined by a producer or studio, he could put the name “Alan Smithee” on the credits instead of his own. The credit “Alan Smithee” on a film was an immediate signal to critics and the public that the director felt that the movie had been botched.

While “Alan Smithee” was the Directors Guild’s official pseudonym, the Guild had not bothered to copyright the name.

It meant that any troublemaking screenwriter could kidnap “Alan Smithee” and use him for his own twisted, perhaps even malicious ends.

· · ·

We were sitting in the William Morris Agency’s fanciest conference room and Arnold Rifkin—I’d not yet fired him—my agent and the head of the agency, said: “Put this script in a drawer, forget you wrote it. It’s going to hurt your career and mine. It’s bad for the industry.”

“What are you?” Naomi said to him. “The poster boy for the industry?”

I took the Dogon fighting stick which I sometimes carried and slammed it into the ornate conference table, leaving a big dent.

Arnold Rifkin started waving his arms about, flashing the red and orange Masai bracelet which he had bought on his most recent safari.

We both stormed out of the room. Naomi ran to me and then ran to Arnold and we all went back to the conference room.

“Damage control,” Naomi said to Rifkin, “is what I do.”

Rifkin felt the dent I had left on the table with both hands and said that even though he didn’t believe in the script, he’d try his best to see that someone bought it and made it.

And, since he represented Bruce Willis, he’d send the script to Bruce and to Bruce’s
body double
in the hope that one of them would agree to be in it.

I decided to
Samizdat
the script like Solzhenitsyn.

A friend of mine and I Xeroxed it and sent it all over town. To anyone and everyone. I had to get people to read it. I had to get around my own agent’s fear of it.

The script made its way around town.

The Hollywood trades wrote about it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger got very angry, Arnold’s brother-in-law told me. Arnold didn’t like reading about being in a movie whose script he hadn’t even read.

I wrote Arnold Schwarzenegger a letter:

Dear Arnold
,

You are Austrian. I am Hungarian. There was once an Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1848, the Hungarians revolted against the Austrians. We lost
.

The Austrians were very gracious to the Hungarians after the Hungarians made such fools of themselves in 1848. I guess history repeats itself. Can we get together and discuss changing the course of history?

I signed the letter with my name, and in parentheses put the word “
Forehead
.”

It was Arnold’s personal term, his brother-in-law told me, for people
he
considered fools—as in “Vat ees wrong vit that focking forehead Hungarian?”

Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t amused by my letter or by my foolish “
Forehead
” witticism.

He didn’t answer me.

Sly Stallone got the script through a mutual friend in Miami.

Sly thought the script was hilarious and said he’d do it. “If I can’t laugh at myself after all the good things that have happened to me in this business,” he said, “who can?”

On a personal note, he added, “You’ve certainly gotten crazier through the years.”

Bruce Willis, Arnold Rifkin told me, was “a pass.”

As the script made its way around town in the Solzhenitsyn manner, it started getting positive response from studio heads, producers, and directors.

Steven Spielberg wrote, “I had a chance to read
An Alan Smithee Film
over the weekend and I liked it a lot. It’s funny and very wicked. … For your information, about sixteen years ago I developed a movie with Gary David Goldberg called
Reel to Reel
which was somewhat similar in tone to your film. Sixteen years later, I obviously have not made the movie, so perhaps I’m just a little over-cautious about telling a show business story which I’m too close to.”

Arthur Hiller, in his seventies now but the director of
The Americanization of Emily
and
Love Story
, wrote: “Joe’s done it again. This is an original, brilliant, and tricky satire on our industry … if Joe doesn’t change anything, it’s not to complain. It’s a very clever parody, with wonderful characters and needless to say an original concept. Hollywood at its truest and funniest.”

Bruce Willis’s
body double
, Arnold Rifkin told me, was also “a pass.”

Whoopi Goldberg hadn’t read the script but she read
about
it in the trades.

She called Arnold Rifkin, also her agent, and said, “If I’m not in this movie by the end of the day, you’re fired.”

Knowing what Whoopi said to him … and remembering the dent I’d had to leave in the William Morris conference room table … I made Arnold beg me to put Whoopi into the movie.

I finally agreed to cast her—but only, I said to Arnold, “as a favor to you.”

I told the press Whoopi was replacing Schwarzenegger, who, of course, hadn’t even read the script let alone agreed to be in the movie.

“Whoopi,” I said, “will be much better than Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

Arnold’s brother-in-law called to tell me that Arnold was now “very angry.”

I said, “He was very angry before, wasn’t he?”

“No,” the brother-in-law said, “he was angry before. Now he’s
very
angry.”

My fellow Hungarian Andy Vajna at Cinergi told Arnold Rifkin that he would make the movie on a $10 million budget—my fee would be $250,000—if we were able to find three superstars who would play themselves.

Vajna said he was happy about Sly and Whoopi but disappointed about Arnold and Bruce. (He didn’t mention Bruce’s body double.)

Arnold Rifkin, perhaps feeling a little guilty about his earlier trepidations, promised Andy Vajna that he would personally find the third superstar.

Vajna took Arnold’s word for it.

We had a deal.

We also had a go-movie.

The director I wanted to make it with was Milcho Manchevski. He had directed the critically acclaimed
Before the Rain
and done some visually startling MTV videos.

The choice was fine with Andy Vajna and Milcho started budgeting the script.

After wrangling over the budget with Cinergi, Milcho decided he couldn’t make the movie on a $10 million budget and withdrew.

He also withdrew because I wouldn’t let him dress Whoopi in the nun’s habit she had worn in
Sister Act
. An internationally acclaimed auteur director, Milcho wasn’t used to any screenwriter telling him what to do.

I told Milcho that I wasn’t telling him what to do as the
screenwriter …
I was telling him what to do as a
producer
.

Milcho didn’t buy it and, as his agent at William Morris said, was “a Passadena!”

I sent the script to Bob Rafelson, who came to my house and told me he wanted to direct it.

He wanted to make one change. He wanted to change Smithee, the screwed-over director, to Smithee, the screwed-over screenwriter.

I told Bob that I was tired of hearing about screwed-over screenwriters and that the more screenwriters heard about being screwed over, the more likely it was that they would volunteer to be screwed over in the future.

I said to Bob, “So why should I make this change?”

Bob said, “Because if you make the change, then I will direct the movie.”

I said to Bob, “You’re not worth it.”

· · ·

About a year later I saw Bob at the outdoor patio of the Peninsula Hotel. He saw me and got up from his table and suddenly stopped and said, “I’m only coming halfway.”

I got up from my table and went to where he was standing and we hugged … halfway.

I realized as I was hugging him that, a quarter century earlier, he was the first director I’d ever worked with.

He had been fired by United Artists before he’d ever been hired for
F.I.S.T
., my first movie.

As I hugged him now, I said, “You wanna do the sequel to
F.I.S.T.?
”

Bob laughed.

I told the press that this $10 million production would be “the most expensive home movie in Hollywood history.”

Andy Vajna got angry at me.

“I’m paying ten million dollars for a home movie?” he somewhat heatedly asked me. “How does that make me look?”

I remembered the letter Arthur Hiller had written. I liked Arthur enormously. I called and asked him if he wanted to direct
Smithee
.

He called me back the next day with a yes.

Both Cinergi and I were happy.

I loved the irony of the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences directing a movie that made “very wicked” (Spielberg’s words) fun of Hollywood.

Arthur Hiller had directed not only
The Americanization of Emily
for Paddy Chayefsky, he had also directed
The Hospital
for him.

I figured if Arthur was good enough twice for Paddy Chayefsky, he was good enough for me!

We had our third superstar. Jackie Chan would play himself, replacing Bruce Willis and/or his body double.

As I retailored the script for Jackie (not easy: he couldn’t speak English), Arthur started casting the movie.

Naomi suggested Ryan O’Neal, producer Ben Myron suggested Chuck D. and Coolio, I suggested Sandra Bernhard, and Arthur handled the rest of it. He picked Eric Idle over Mick Jagger and Michael York, Richard Jeni over David Paymer, and Ryan O’Neal over Mickey Rourke.

Ryan O’Neal came over to our house and fawned over my script for two hours.

We drank two bottles of red wine.

When he left, he hugged me and then hugged Naomi.

The heroes of the piece, two street-smart and very cool black filmmakers, were based on Allen and Albert Hughes, who were originally going to play themselves.