Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N' Roll Starring the Fabulous Allan Carr (39 page)

Sometime that winter, Lorna Luft also received a breathless phone call from Hilhaven Lodge. “Come over to the house. I’ve got an exciting project I want you to be a part of,” Allan told her. She, of course, wanted to know more, but Allan enjoyed the suspense. “I have to tell you face-to-face.”

The phone call intrigued Luft. She had landed her two film gigs,
Grease 2
and
Where the Boys Are ’84
, thanks to her producer friend, and she hoped there would be a third. “Bring your husband,” Allan added. “We can make a fun day of it!”

When Luft and her husband, Jesse Hooker, arrived at Hilhaven, Allan appeared ready to give birth to an epic endeavor. He introduced her to a pianist,
already seated at the Lucite grand, then showed Luft a number of easels, each of which held a sketch of a colorful stage set. It sure looked like a movie. “As you probably know, I’m producing the Oscar telecast,” Allan began. “It’s a dream come true for me. And I’d like you to be a part of it.”

Although not quite the movie offer she wanted, the Oscars is not a shabby second option with its worldwide audience of over 1 billion people. Lorna Luft had never appeared on the Oscars. She listened attentively.

“I want you to play Snow White in the opening number for the Oscars this year,” Allan continued. “It is going to be an extravagant, big number. Like something you would only see on Broadway but much, much grander. And you’ll be singing Tina Turner’s song ‘Proud Mary,’ but with new lyrics and it will be a duet. You will be singing with Prince Charming.”

Allan paused to check her reaction.

Luft paused, too, to take a breath. “And who will be playing Prince Charming?” she wanted to know.

“Rob Lowe. You wouldn’t believe it, but he has a great voice.”

Luft glanced at her husband, who was seated behind Allan and looking a little nonplussed.

“Now here’s the best part,” Allan said. “You will be wearing a wig and dressed up like Snow White, and no one will know it’s you!”

Luft shot her husband another look. “Can I hear the song I will be singing?”

Allan motioned to the pianist, who in turn broke into song: “Keep those cameras rollin’, rollin’ rollin’. Used to work a lot for Walt Disney starring in cartoons every night and day. Late nights keep on burnin’ . . . keep the cameras rollin’.” Yes, she thought, it sure sounded like Tina Turner’s anthem “Proud Mary.”

Even though Luft hadn’t sung a note, she cleared her throat. “What is Snow White doing at the Oscars?” she asked.

Allan tossed the question aside with a flip of his fingers. Instead, he talked about Steve Silver’s revue in San Francisco. Had she seen it? he wanted to know.

No, she hadn’t.

“Well, you should. We can fly you up there,” he offered. Regarding Snow White, “She can’t find her way into the theater,” Allan explained. “So we’ll have Army Archerd from
Variety
show her the way. And then Merv Griffin will be singing at the Cocoanut Grove and onstage we’ll have some of the great stars who used to go to the Cocoanut Grove—Alice Faye, Lana Turner—and then Merv will introduce you to your blind date, Rob Lowe. He’s Prince Charming. And then you sing the ‘Proud Mary’ song together, which leads into this fabulous
number with the ushers of Grauman’s Chinese doing a chorus-line kick right out of
A Chorus Line
—Marvin Hamlisch is conducting the orchestra—and then the Chinese Theater turns into a big box of popcorn and Bette Midler pops out of it all!” Allan jumped off the sofa. “Let me show you the sketches. The sets are fabulous too.”

Luft tried to match Allan’s level of excitement—never an easy feat. Granted, Ray Klausen’s sketches looked impressive, but she had serious doubts about the number Allan wanted her to perform. “There’s a lot to think about here,” she said.

It wasn’t what Allan wanted to hear. “People have never seen an Oscar show like this. It will be the most exciting, the biggest, the most glamorous ever,” he promised.

Luft repeated herself. “There’s a lot to think about.”

When she didn’t phone the next day, Allan took it upon himself to call her. His voice was major key, hers minor. “I’m sorry, Allan, I can’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“I just can’t. I’m so sorry.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to do the Oscars? No one will know it’s you. We’ll put you in a wig, lots of makeup.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

The conversation digressed from there until he let her have it. “I made you!” he screamed, referring to
Grease 2
and
Where the Boys Are ’84
. Many four-letter words colored what Luft considered one of the worst telephone calls of her life. “I finally hung up the phone sobbing,” she says.

If Lorna Luft wasn’t going to cooperate, Allan put out the word to Lucie Arnaz, Ellen Greene, and others. Steve Silver thought it better to go with an unknown and suggested a girl who played Snow White in his Las Vegas production of
Beach Blanket Babylon
. If one of the celebs didn’t want to do it, Eileen Bowman would. The challenge excited Allan. “We’ll make her a star!” he promised.

While Allan fretted over his Snow White, the first-ever Oscar fashion show began to take shape in Fred Hayman’s imagination. He agreed with Allan that the actresses didn’t dress well enough for the telecast. But it was a problem: How do you tell the most fussed-over, catered-to beautiful women in the world that their taste in fashion sucks?

Mr. Rodeo Drive put out the call, and while many designers were phoned, not many answered. “The designers weren’t eager to loan,” Hayman recalls. “This was before all the top designers fought to get an actress to wear their fashions at
the Oscars. There’s been a whole evolution, and it began with Allan Carr.” That first year, most of the clothes came from Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Sant’Angelo, and Halston, whom Hayman had championed early in their careers. “We had to promise to return the clothes,” says Hayman. “A few of the actresses bought the clothes. This was before the designers
gave
the actresses the clothes.”

Allan envisioned a full-scale fashion show, but like so many first steps, the 1989 event was something less than grand. It took place in the restaurant at the tony L’Ermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills, and at 9:30 a.m. movie-musical legend Cyd Charisse found herself leaning against the bar, sipping coffee, with a tray of desserts ready at her elbow if she wanted to indulge. Wanting to look svelte, she ignored the sweets.

Allan stressed to Charisse his concept of using this press event to goose up the fashion quotient of the Oscars, and he’d seduced her into attending his dog-and-pony show by promising her an appearance, together with husband Tony Martin, in the show’s opening number at the Cocoanut Grove. It was important to Allan that Charisse look great that morning, and he personally approved her outfit that day: a pale pastel silk dress with a gold necklace and medallion, which, in his estimate, weighed a ton and cost something more. “Angie isn’t here yet?” asked Charisse.

No sooner had that complaint taken wing than Angie Dickinson materialized, bringing a somewhat more business-like tone to the affair in her subdued white blazer. “Joe Namath would approve,” Allan said, patting Dickinson’s padded shoulders. He kissed her hello, and then the two actresses, likewise, greeted each other.

Where the Hollywood press corps had been accustomed to getting their meager Oscar news via printed releases, Allan initiated the more showy route of a series of press conferences, complete with Cyd, Angie, and a free breakfast buffet. On March 8 at 10 a.m., he welcomed the reporters, all three dozen of them, from a small makeshift stage. He didn’t mess around when it came to making promises about the 61st Academy Awards. “It’s a Hollywood industry party and Broadway show! Everything’s bigger than life. It’ll be very much like a Broadway musical. It will be the most glamorous, fun, funniest, and shortest Academy Awards in years,” he bragged.

To show just how big Allan dreamed, Ray Klausen unveiled his sketches and talked up the “thirty-foot-high curtain” he’d designed for the Shrine Auditorium stage. “Enough to cover one whole side of the Empire State Building. I’ve designed it with more than 50,000 beads and sequins, to be hand applied.”

“There will be 11 sets and 106 stagehands,” Allan added. “A red carpet will cover the street in front of the Shrine Auditorium. The second largest banner ever made will hang outside the auditorium.” Allan even gave names to Klausen’s sets, names like “Stars and Diamonds,” “Tiffany Jewels with Crystal Beads and Chiffon Swags,” “Beaded Victorian Flowers,” and “The Grand Drape.”

Off in the wings, one of the models for Hayman’s fashion show wisecracked, “It sounds like planning an invasion.”

“There will be sparkling drapes,” said Klausen.

“But we have to have beautiful people in front of them,” said Allan, cutting him off. It was time for the fashion show. Allan could tell the reporters were already starting to crash from their pastry-coffee rush, and he quickly introduced Fred Hayman, who, in turn, brought out three models who wore a white form-fitting gown by Bill Travilla, a shimmering silver and bugle bead number by Oscar de la Renta, and a Bob Mackie ensemble that appeared to have been constructed with whatever drapes Klausen had left over from the Empire State Building.

Most members of the press didn’t know a Givenchy from a Valentino, but if they were impressed or simply waiting to get back to the donut tray, Hayman promised that designs by Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld, Donna Karan, Giorgio Armani, and others would be seen on the telecast.

Most journalists bolted L’Ermitage’s press conference to make an early deadline. Others dove for the remaining croissants and wondered if they could possibly turn this breakfast buffet into lunch. Some reporters groused that Allan’s ego had exploded, but his publicist saw the logic behind the ambition. “He wanted to do something every day, every week to hype the awards. He wanted the biggest ratings ever,” says Linda Dozoretz.

If Allan couldn’t micromanage every detail of the event, such as who actually received the Oscars, he would personally pick who handed them out and man the phones himself, afraid to leave any of the big presenters to a flunky booker. Occasionally, he left Hilhaven to spend the day at ABC’s rented second-floor offices on La Cienega and Santa Monica Boulevards in West Hollywood. A few white sterile rooms formed a horseshoe of offices around an assistants’ area. Allan called it Oscar Ground Zero, even if he made few visits there. It was the kind of mundane workaday office that made him happy he never held a nine-to-five job in his life. Leo’s Flowers did business under Oscar Ground Zero. Allan would gaze up from the florist’s shop at the one flight of stairs and complain, “Couldn’t ABC afford a place with an elevator?” In addition to his hip
replacement, he had recently torn his knee cartilage and needed a cane to walk. As he fought his way up the stairs, Oscar’s worker bees could hear him coming, his cane stabbing at each difficult step.

When Allan first visited the rented ABC offices, he laughed out loud at Bruce Vilanch’s office door. It read MISS GRABLE’S DRESSING ROOM. Vilanch worked the phones to try and explain his material to a recalcitrant star’s publicist. “So she’s not gonna shoot you; blame me,” he said. “And point out to her that he may have the most lines but she has the big joke.” As Vilanch explained to Allan, “A lot of people are afraid to give their clients the material,” the “material” being his patter for the various presenters.

Allan had his own problems with celebrity wrangling. He loved to bask in the presence of the legends—but only
if
they cooperated. When their ego got in his way, he had to wonder what else they had to do “except change their Depends” on a Wednesday night. Case in point: Loretta Young. She adamantly refused to be paired with anyone. “I stand on my own two feet,” she told Allan during their fierce negotiations. Better yet, she liked the idea of repeating her 1982 performance at the Oscars when she capped the show by warning against “smutty” pictures, and presented the best-picture award to
Chariots of Fire
.

“But dear, you would be presenting an award with Nureyev!” Allan replied.

If Loretta could play hardball, so could Allan, who declined her services altogether. “And I was offering her Rudolf Nureyev!” he fumed.

The logistics had gotten awfully convoluted. For some reason, Lana Turner wasn’t responding to his calls, even after Allan enlisted her daughter, Cheryl Crane. He wanted Lana for the big opening Cocoanut Grove spectacular, to appear alongside Dale Evans and Roy Rogers and Alice Faye. “Lana doesn’t want to take part in the program. I don’t know what her problem is, but I’m working on it,” he informed Vilanch. (Perhaps Allan had forgotten that, ten years earlier, when he booked talent for the Oscars, he told the
Los Angeles Times,
“Lana Turner will not take my calls. I think that should be printed. How dare she?”)

Movie couples were even tougher. Whom did he call first: Demi or Bruce? Ryan or Farrah? Melanie or Don? Geena or Jeff? “Can’t these people use the same publicist?” Allan wanted to know.

Allan had talked to Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell about a possible on-air joke regarding their wedding announcement, even though they had no plans to get married. The couple was mulling the gag. There was also the good news that Brigitte Bardot wanted to be on the show. But the bad news: “She wants to talk about animal rights?!” screamed Allan. He assured her long-distance that
there would be no furs on the show. “But also no speeches. We are not planning on Sacheen Littlefeather—or a speech on animal rights.”

Word had already gotten back to Allan that Gregory Peck was pissed that no one asked him to present an Oscar. Allan rolled his eyes. The American Film Institute tribute to Peck had aired recently—and even worse than being overexposed, Peck pulled in no ratings for the NBC telecast. In any other year, Allan would have done pliés to get Elizabeth Taylor to present. Unfortunately, a week before the Oscars, ABC was scheduled to air its tribute to the star. So no Liz. Paul Newman loomed as a possibility, but Allan wanted him to appear with Joanne Woodward, and since she wasn’t flying to Los Angeles, Allan didn’t re-extend an invite to her willing husband. Also not flying was a very pregnant Susan Sarandon, who looked forward to popping her first kid any minute.