Director:
Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen
Year: 2002
Rating: 7.0
Year: 2002
Rating: 7.0
This isn't so much a documentary as a remembrance. It is narrated by Robert
Evans from his autobiography of the same name. In his slightly gruff raspy
voice still with a tinge of his New York City accent, he relays the story
of his life in show business. He tells it like a movie script and it is fascinating.
It is a life brought about by chance as much as anything - both his rise
and his fall and his rise. In the 1970s he was one of the most influential
people in Hollywood and married to Ali McGraw. Life doesn't get much better.
Of course, it didn't last. What would be the drama in that. Since this is
his story and he tells it, I have no idea how much is true, how much is embellished
and how much is left out. But it is a great story.
He was in the clothing business in New York with his brother and it was fairly successful. On a trip to Los Angeles he is laying out in the sun by the pool when a lady comes up to him, asks a few questions about him and says would you like to play my husband in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces about the life of Lon Chaney. No, she isn't Mrs. Lon Chaney. James Cagney got that role. She was Norma Shearer and her late husband was Irving Thalberg. He took the role. Hell, why not, He next got a role as a bullfighter in The Sun Also Rises. Everyone wanted him gone but the producer, Darryl Zanuck, liked him in the film and said "The kid stays in the picture". But Evans realized early that he wasn't a good actor and wanted to be the guy who said that.
He starts schmoozing around town, trying to put some deals together when the NY Times publishes an article about him as an up and comer. The head of Paramount which at the time was a disaster, reads the article and hires Evans to run Paramount. What the hell. He had done nothing. At Paramount he saves it with Love Story where he falls in love and marries Ali McGraw, he fights constantly with Coppola but produces Godfather, fights with Sinatra over Mia but ends up with Rosemary's Baby in which he had fought to hire this unknown Pole to direct, Roman Polanski. Then Chinatown which the studio said the script made no sense.
The film spends a lot of time on his marriage to McGraw who he calls Snotnose McGraw. She left him for Steve McQueen while filming The Getaway. He had four other marriages before the film was made that go unmentioned. Two others after this film. But he is honest about his cocaine habit, about being involved in a big buy that got him arrested and later there was a murder in which his name was brought up. It all made him a leper in the movie community. He was hospitalized but once out an old friend brought him back to Paramount and that is where the film ends. He knew everybody and was friends with so many. He had been invited to the party where Sharon Tate was murdered but was unable to go. He passed away in 2019.
He was in the clothing business in New York with his brother and it was fairly successful. On a trip to Los Angeles he is laying out in the sun by the pool when a lady comes up to him, asks a few questions about him and says would you like to play my husband in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces about the life of Lon Chaney. No, she isn't Mrs. Lon Chaney. James Cagney got that role. She was Norma Shearer and her late husband was Irving Thalberg. He took the role. Hell, why not, He next got a role as a bullfighter in The Sun Also Rises. Everyone wanted him gone but the producer, Darryl Zanuck, liked him in the film and said "The kid stays in the picture". But Evans realized early that he wasn't a good actor and wanted to be the guy who said that.
He starts schmoozing around town, trying to put some deals together when the NY Times publishes an article about him as an up and comer. The head of Paramount which at the time was a disaster, reads the article and hires Evans to run Paramount. What the hell. He had done nothing. At Paramount he saves it with Love Story where he falls in love and marries Ali McGraw, he fights constantly with Coppola but produces Godfather, fights with Sinatra over Mia but ends up with Rosemary's Baby in which he had fought to hire this unknown Pole to direct, Roman Polanski. Then Chinatown which the studio said the script made no sense.
The film spends a lot of time on his marriage to McGraw who he calls Snotnose McGraw. She left him for Steve McQueen while filming The Getaway. He had four other marriages before the film was made that go unmentioned. Two others after this film. But he is honest about his cocaine habit, about being involved in a big buy that got him arrested and later there was a murder in which his name was brought up. It all made him a leper in the movie community. He was hospitalized but once out an old friend brought him back to Paramount and that is where the film ends. He knew everybody and was friends with so many. He had been invited to the party where Sharon Tate was murdered but was unable to go. He passed away in 2019.