It's all about the balls
26 January 2004. Inspired by .
The great thing about having a blog is that it gets things off your subconscious and lets you carry on with the rest of your life. The itch is scratched and that uneasy sense of something you wanted to remember (if only you could remember what it was) is happily sated.
Here's a tale that's been buzzing around my brain since I saw "The Kid Stays in the Picture" yesterday, a fascinating (one-sided) documentary about the life of Robert Evans, through his own eyes.
Evans was, briefly, a Hollywood actor but he went on to become the Vice President of Paramount and the producer of a few small films that did quite well in their day - The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, Marathon Man... you know, that kind of thing. A drugs bust and a peripheral involvement in a murder trial left him ostracised and in a mental home, but recently he returned to Tinseltown, producing more mediocre hits (Jade, The Saint) but back, at least, where he feels he belongs.
This is a highly paraphrased story from that film, but that's ok, I think he highly paraphrased it too. Even if the quotations aren't accurate, the moral of the story remains as it was.
This anecdote is about a film he was pitching as an independent producer. The script was half-finished, the director unconfirmed... in fact all he had was a mock-up of the poster and a contract with the main star. But the main star, he knew, was enough to sell it to a room full of the world's most powerful distributors - it was Sly Stallone, then the biggest name in Hollywood. So he called the distributors in.
Half an hour before the meeting began, he got a phone call.
"Bob, it's Sly. I don't want to do the picture."
"Why not?"
"Err.. I don't like the script."
"Sly, you've helped write the script."
"Yeah, err.. I don't think you're paying me enough money."
"But we have a contract."
This went on for twenty minutes. Whatever his real reasons were, Sly was not going to do the picture. The conversation ended in some fruity language but that was that - Sly had pulled out. Bob had to gather his thoughts. In five minutes, he was to walk into a meeting with the 40 most powerful international distributors in the world, and all he had to show them was a poster. To a man whose balls were not so clangy, it could have spelled the end of his career. Surely he should claim illness and cancel.
But not Bob. He marched in confidently and smiled at the room.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, let me show you something. I have here in my hand the poster to our next box-office hit. But let me warn you of something: we have worked long and hard over every aspect of this production, and everything this movie is about can be summed up by this poster. If you don't understand the poster, I implore you, please do not buy this movie because it explains everything that we have to offer."
He unveiled the poster - a yellow, abstract design with a tagline - to stunned silence.
"Uh.. Mr Evans..." began one Swiss distributor sat near the back of the room. "Uh.. can you tell us who the main star is?"
"What is your name please?"
"Schmidt."
"Well Mr Schmidt, would you kindly leave the room. You will not be buying this movie."
Silence. Ten seconds later, the bids start flying in.
In the end, the film itself was goddam awful, but that's hardly the point. That jingling sound when Evans walks is not made by his keys.