Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N' Roll Starring the Fabulous Allan Carr (19 page)

The costumes were the least of it.

On Saturday, June 9, 1979, with a few more weeks left on their national tour, the Village People opened in Los Angeles at the Greek Theater, an open-air venue plunked down among the chaparral and pine trees in one of the most spectacularly scenic ravines of Griffith Park. If Henri Belolo and Jacques Morali had traveled to Griffith Park rather than Fire Island Pines, it might have been “the bushes” of this wooded glen that inspired them to write an ode to the splendiferous dangers of cruising al fresco.

Just as Allan used the Madison Garden gig to introduce
Discoland
to the Village People’s fans, he worked the Greek Theater engagement to advertise it to his closest hundred friends in the Hollywood press corps. Allan was in L.A. The Village People were in L.A. What did it matter that the movie’s release date loomed a year away? From a publicity point of view, Allan wanted to celebrate
Discoland
’s “pre-first-anniversary,” as he put it, with a series of bashes that would effectively promote the film’s new tag line, “Where the Music Never Ends.” Those words were the theme of his West Coast kickoff, as duly noted in the
Los Angeles Times,
which obliged with a headline, “Hollywood’s Party Champion Defends His Crown,” that Allan himself could not have bettered.

The local journalists’ biggest query was whether Hollywood’s ultimate party-giver had planned four or five fetes that evening or just one long affair, which took them from a 6:30 p.m. cocktail party at the Bistro Garden to the Greek Theater concert to Hilhaven Lodge, where festivities ended at around 1 a.m. for the heterosexual crowd and about 3 a.m. for everybody else. That was three parties right there. And that didn’t count the party on wheels (complete with box dinners and the ubiquitous Cristal) that whisked dozens of reporters on two buses (one marked “Y.M.C.A.,” the other “In the Navy”) between the Bistro, the Greek, and Hilhaven. Entertainment journalists are always in search of a hook, an angle, or a twist to help make their breathless words coalesce into a cogent thought. Allan was there, ready as ever, with his “where the party never ends” line.

For his
Discoland
launch, he played it casual—blue jeans, blue blazer, and white shirt with an AC monogrammed on the breast pocket. His only ostentatious touch was a rather humongous diamond pin on his lapel. “A gift from Ann-Margret,” he said whenever asked—or not asked. There would be no theatrical changes of his outfit tonight. It was 6:30 p.m., and he wasn’t getting home before
midnight. He also sported a beard, which prompted him to proclaim, repeatedly, “I’m in my Francis Coppola period!” The
Godfather
director was very much on everyone’s mind as he readied his much-anticipated
Apocalypse Now
for release later that summer.

At the evening’s first party, at the Bistro, Allan described his
Discoland
as, alternately, “
Singin’ in the Rain
for the disco crowd” and “It’s a 1950s musical. It’s
My Sister Eileen
. It’s New York the way you wish it were. No dog do-do, no garbage, no killings.” He also billed
Discoland
as the first in an ongoing musical trilogy, which would soon put Goldie Hawn in
Chicago
and Diana Ross in a Josephine Baker biopic.

Was it any wonder Allan got quoted more than, say, Robert De Niro or Diane Keaton? On the red-tile patio of the Bistro, shaded by a dozen colorful umbrellas, Allan repeated his comments with minor variations. Two tuxedoed violinists serenaded, and a hundred reporters wrote down what he said as they were catered to by no fewer than ten waiters, six press agents, and ten security types, led by Gavin de Becker, who liked to flaunt his business card, which advertised the “International Terrorist Research Center in El Paso, Tex.”

Beyond the overabundance of liquor and hors d’oeuvres, Allan plied his reporter friends with other goodies as well. He especially prided himself in the makeover he’d achieved with newcomer Steve Guttenberg, who’d been cast in the Morali/Morell role. While some of the movie’s participants would call his attention to the twenty-year-old actor’s body “obsessive,” Allan made no apologies. “I worked with Steve for two months to prepare him physically and mentally for playing a starring role. He’s lost a lot of baby fat, and his face now, it lights up the screen.”

Guttenberg was but the first of many young actors whom Allan, as a producer, lusted after. “He had a lot of little crushes,” says Kathy Berlin, who did publicity chores on every Allan Carr film. “‘I’m going to make you a star, boy!’”

At the Bistro Garden, Allan lavished only a little less hyperbole on his director, Nancy Walker, calling her “the next Alfred Hitchcock,” and his choreographer, Arlene Phillips, who he claimed would be “the next Michael Bennett,” which left it to Bruce Jenner to give the reporters the only other line worth reprinting.

“Bruce, why are you making this movie?” asked one journalist.

“You can’t live on Wheaties alone,” said Jenner.

Even before the cameras rolled on
Discoland,
a slight freeze had already chilled the working relationship between male star and producer. Jenner had
recently received a script from producer Howard Koch, who was making a new comedy. “You’d be perfect to play the pilot,” Koch told him.

“I love the script,” said Jenner.

But before he committed, Jenner wanted to inform Allan that this other film would be coming out next summer at about the same time as
Discoland
. It was such a small request. Jenner thought that Allan wouldn’t mind.

“Fuck no!” Allan screamed. “I don’t want you in another movie! You can’t do that!”

Jenner felt he had no choice, “out of loyalty” to Allan, but to refuse the other offer. Disappointed, Koch cast another athlete-turned-actor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Still, Jenner had to wonder as he did press chores for
Discoland
at the Bistro, “Did I make the right choice? Would this other film—
Airplane!
—be a big success?”

As the revelers left the Bistro to go to the Greek Theater, each of them received either a blue lapel dot or a yellow lapel dot. Yellow meant they were relegated to the “Y.M.C.A.” bus; blue translated into a seat on the “In the Navy” bus. The latter bus qualified as the preferred mode of transportation since it carried Allan, who, after renditions of “Red River Valley” and “The Irish Washer Woman,” gave the assembled reporters even more grist for their newspapers when he brayed at the lone violinist onboard to play something else. “Could we please have some Strauss waltzes?” he insisted, pointing a diamond-encrusted finger at the offending fiddler.

When the two buses unloaded their cargo in front of the Greek Theater, more alcohol and more hors d’oeuvres awaited everyone in yet another hospitality suite. In concert, the Village People were the Village People, singing the same rotation of “Best of Hits,” from “San Francisco” to “Fire Island,” that they had performed in forty-five other cities. Then it was back on the buses to the night’s final party, at Allan’s house.

A few partygoers—Robin Williams, Candy Clark, and Sam Bottoms, among others—chose to forgo the live entertainment in favor of a late-night dip in Allan’s disco basement. The Village People were thrilled nonetheless that the movie celebs made at least one appearance in their honor that evening.

“Wow! Our very own Hollywood party!” exclaimed David Hodo, who had his hardhat wired to pulse visually to the beat coming from Don Blanton’s DJ booth. Allan insisted that all six Village People stay in costume for his party. “Makes for better photos,” he believed. And photos galore were taken in the
poolside tent, its ceiling festooned with multicolored balloons like a children’s birthday party on triple-sugar-overload.

Marvin Hamlisch thought it was all a bit too costumey, especially when the party population threatened to violate fire regulations. “Take off your headdress!” he told Felipe Rose. “It’s in my way.”

Rose growled back, “It’s my party!”

“There was a Hawaiian theme thing,” recalls Steve Guttenberg. “Man, Allan made it like heaven. He knew how to treat people—spectacular food, incredible music, pretty people. There was something for everybody, every sexual orientation, you could get what you wanted at that party.” And that included, on the buffet table, a scantily clad boy and girl whose bodies were otherwise covered with edible tidbits.

Even the claustrophobic basement disco impressed Guttenberg. “Yeah, it was small, the disco. But it was cool. It was like getting on a private jet—they’re small but cool.”

If there was any restriction on indulging yourself sexually or pharmaceutically, it came courtesy of Allan’s one hundred friends in the Fourth Estate. “Allan always made sure the press was there,” says Guttenberg. “There was a reason for the madness. He was crazy like a fox.”

At 2 a.m., Felipe Rose let out a series of war signals as his long feather earrings began to droop in the early morning mist, otherwise known as June gloom. Rose’s cry was a call of the wild, as if to announce that there was not a movie star or a heterosexual to be found on the premises, and that included Steve Guttenberg. As if on cue, what happened is what always happened at a certain hour at Allan’s parties.

As producer Craig Zadan explained the general scene, “It would be late at night and when the movie stars had left, you would look around the living room and think, ‘Where has everyone gone?’ And then out there in the hot tub, the guys were having sex.”

Sometimes hetero stragglers got caught in the gay melee. “Robin Williams came into the DJ booth to hide,” says Don Blanton.

Tired as they were, the Village People booked one more gig before filming began. At the request of the U.S. Navy, they performed their hit song “In the Navy” on the USS
San Diego
in front of an audience that included Bob Hope, Henry Kissinger, and over 2,000 sailors. “They gave us everything we wanted,” says Henri Belolo, who, in return, requested that the Navy pick up the cost of
filming the music video. “They were going to use it as a recruiting advertisement.”

The brief concert went off without a hitch. Bob Hope even joined the Village People onstage to reprise “In the Navy.” All that free publicity was for naught, however, as soon as conservative pundits chastised the armed services for consorting with homosexuals. The Village People’s military promo never left the cutting room.

It was a minor blip, and filming on
Discoland
began, only a few days late, on August 20, 1979, in New York City. A major bump, however, took form in the person of Victor Willis, who never got around to making his film debut in
Discoland
. He unexpectedly quit the Village People, tired of performing with them. Allan wasn’t unhappy to see him go. After Willis nodded off during a reading of his
Discoland
script, Allan wanted him fired, but the singer beat him to it and left the group. Allan did get to indulge his urge to ax somebody, however. When Ray Simpson replaced Willis, Allan saw no reason to indulge Mrs. Willis and unceremoniously dumped Phylicia Rashad from
Discoland
. She was replaced by Sammy Davis Jr.’s wife, Altovise Davis.

The streets of Manhattan were hotter than normal that August, not because of the usual summer-in-the-city temps but because of the sociopolitical climate in Greenwich Village. Director William Friedkin preceded Allan in taking to the Gotham streets to film his crime story
Cruising,
and the
Village Voice
’s gay journalist Arthur Bell used his column, “Bell Tells,” to rally the homosexual community against the production. Having secured a purloined copy of the
Cruising
script, Bell proclaimed it wildly homophobic for its portrayal of an undercover cop, played by Al Pacino, who infiltrates the gay underworld of S&M clubs to solve a series of murders. Gay activists, spurred on by Bell, papered Greenwich Village with leaflets protesting the movie, and threatened boycotts of any bars or businesses that cooperated with Friedkin. Busloads of leather-encrusted movie extras were brought to the street scene, only to be splattered with eggs and epithets of “traitors” and “sellouts.” The production called in extra cops for protection, and when the police barricades kept the public out of eyeshot of the filming, the protesters quickly adopted a technique that made it impossible for the filmmakers to acquire any usable sound recording: They distributed hundreds of plastic whistles, and from dusk to dawn, a collective high-pitched squeal turned the streets of Barrow, Bleecker, and Washington into an aural hell for Friedkin and company, as well as anyone living there.

Into this cauldron of unrest and provocation dropped Allan Carr’s sweet, innocuous, and quasi-gay celluloid marshmallow,
Discoland
. On the first day of filming, which happened to be on Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place (only a few
blocks east of Friedkin’s camp), the police cautioned Allan, “You’d better be out of here before dark. We’ve got this
Cruising
movie going on, and it might not be safe for you.”

It didn’t matter that
Cruising
was primarily a night shoot and sunny
Discoland
filmed most of its exteriors during the day. Even at twelve noon, protesters often confused the two productions. More than once, Allan felt compelled to hoist his chubby frame unto a crane, and through a bullhorn, he politely chastised the activists, “No, we’re the good guys. We’re the good gay movie.
Cruising
is filming three blocks that way!” And he would point in the direction of the meatpacking district and the Hudson River.

Gotham’s denizens rarely got to see many movie people, so it was understandable that some pissed-off homosexuals never understood the difference. On the second day of shooting, one man found his way past the police cordon surrounding the
Discoland
production, and confronted Valerie Perrine. “You should be ashamed of yourself for making a film like
Cruising
!” he screamed. “Shame on you!” He spit a big wet wad of gunk in her face.