Poking A Dead Frog Part 9

"That swine!" she said. "How dare you mention his name in my presence!"

Apparently, this highly decent man was considered the black sheep of the family-at least by Mary. And that's really saying something.

How many stories did you have to purchase for all of your magazines in a typical month?

Fifty or sixty.

Per month?

Yes. I was an incredibly fast reader-a human scanner. My train commute to work took more than two hours each way, a total of close to five hours. I got a lot of work done on that train-much more than I do now with a whole day free and clear. I wrote most of Stern on that train.

My best move at this job was to hire Mario Puzo, later the author of The G.o.dfather. The candidates for the writing job got winnowed down to Puzo and Arthur Kretchmer, who later became the decades-long editorial director of Playboy. I knew how good Kretchmer was, but I needed someone who could write tons of stories from Day One, so I hired Puzo in 1960 at the princely salary of $150 a week. But there was an opportunity to dash off as many freelance stories as he wanted, thereby boosting his income considerably. He referred to this experience as his first "straight" job. When I called him at home to deliver the news, he kept saying in disbelief, "You mean it? You really mean it?"

Was Puzo capable of writing humor?

He was concerned about it. Now and then, at the height of his fame and prominence and commercial success, he would look off wistfully and ask, "How come Hollywood never calls me for comedy?"

There is some grisly humor in The G.o.dfather. As for setting out consciously to write a funny book-I'm not sure. At the magazines, one of the perks as editor was that I got to choose the cartoons. There was an old cartoon agent, a real old Broadway type who stuttered. He would come stuttering into the office carrying a batch of cartoons, each of which had been rejected eight times already.

Mario insisted he could have done a better job of choosing the cartoons, but I never allowed him to try. It was the only disagreement we ever had.

What sort of stories would Puzo write for you?

You name it-war, women, desert islands, a few mini-G.o.dfathers. At one point we ran out of World War II battles; how many times can you storm Anzio, Italy? So we had to make up a few battles. Puzo wrote one story, about a mythical battle, that drew piles of mail telling him he had misidentified a tank tread-but no one questioned the fictional battle itself.

There has never been a more natural storyteller. I suppose it was mildly s.a.d.i.s.tic of me, but I would show him an ill.u.s.tration for a thirty-thousand-word story that had to be written that night. He'd get a little green around the gills, but he'd show up the next morning with the story in hand-a little choppy, but essentially wonderful. He wrote, literally, millions of words for the magazines. I became a hero to him when I faced down the publisher and got him $750 for a story-a hitherto unheard-of figure.

Do you think this experience later helped when he wrote The G.o.dfather?

He claimed that it did. If you look at his first novel, The Dark Arena [1955], you'll see that the ability is there, but there is little in the way of forward motion. He said more than once that he began to learn about the elements of storytelling and narrative at our company.

I can't resist telling you this: In 1963, Mario approached me and somewhat sheepishly said he was moonlighting on a novel, and he wanted to try out the t.i.tle. He said, "I want to call it The G.o.dfather. What do you think?"

I told him that it didn't do much for me. "Sounds domestic. Who cares? If I were you, I'd take another shot at it."

A look of steel came over his face. He walked off without saying a word. He was usually mild-mannered, but the look was terrifying. Years later, he always denied being "connected," but anyone who saw that look would have to wonder. The thing is, I was right about the t.i.tle. It would have been a poor choice for any book other than The G.o.dfather.

In the mid-sixties, after the sale of the book, I heard him on the phone to his publisher, asking for more money. They said, "Mario, we just gave you two hundred thousand dollars." He said, "Two hundred grand doesn't last forever."

Wonderful man-perhaps not the most intelligent person I've known, but surely the wisest. On one occasion, he saved my life.

How so?

I became friendly with the mobster "Crazy" Joe Gallo when he was released from prison in 1971. The actor Jerry Orbach, who starred [in 1967] in one of my plays, Scuba Duba, was also a pal of Joey's.

Joey had a lot of writer friends-he had read a lot in prison. He loved [Jean-Paul] Sartre but hated [Albert] Camus, whom he called a "p.u.s.s.y." When Joey was released, there were about fifty contracts out on his life. He was trying to soften his image by hanging around artistic types. His "family" would hold weekly Sunday-night parties at the Orbachs' town house in Chelsea. I attended a few of these soirees, and I noticed that every twenty minutes or so Joey would go over to the window, pull back the drapes a bit, and peer outside.

I told Mario that I was attending these parties, and that I wanted to bring my wife and sons along. The food was great-Cuban cigars, everything quite lavish. The actor Ben Gazzara [Husbands] usually showed up, as did Neil Simon, and a great many luminaries. Mario considered what I told him and said, "What you are doing is not intelligent." And that was it. I was invited to join Joey and a group at Umbertos Clam House the very night [April 7, 1972] he was gunned down. Mario played a part in my saying I had a previous engagement.

Let's talk about the characters you create: They are often very likable, even when they shouldn't be. One character, Harry Towns, who's been featured in numerous short stories and in two novels since the early 1970s, is a failed screenwriter and father. He's a drug addict who snorts c.o.ke the very day his mother dies. He sleeps with hookers. He takes his son to Las Vegas and basically forgets about him; he's much more concerned about his own body lice. And yet, in the end, Harry Town remains very funny and likable.

The late Bill Styron [author of Lie Down in Darkness and Sophie's Choice] paid me a compliment that I treasure. He said, "All of your work has great humanity." Maybe he said that to all of his contemporaries, but he seemed to mean it. I tried to make the character of Harry-for all of his flaws-screamingly and hurtfully honest, and that may have provided some of whatever appeal he has. I'm a little smarter than Harry; he's a bit more reckless than I am.

I have about a dozen voices that I can write-my Candide voice, the Nol Coward voice-but I keep coming back to Harry.

One Harry Towns story, "Just Back from the Coast," ends with Harry watching the NASA moon landing in his ex-wife's house, with her overseas and his child off at summer camp. He's alone. Your characters, including Harry, tend to be very lonely, but your life seems like it was anything but.

I'm not sure what other lives are like-but one of my favorite words is adventure. With that said, for a Jewish guy an adventure can be a visit to a strange delicatessen. I have plenty of friends, acquaintances, family, but much of the time I enjoy my own company. Most of writing is thinking, and you can't do much of it in a crowd. Whenever I used to duck out on a dinner with "the guys," Mario would defend me by saying, "Bruce is a loner."

Can the following be verified? That in the 1970s, you were the one-armed push-up champ at Elaine's, the Upper East Side New York restaurant that was a gathering place for writers?

Yes.

How many did you do?

Who knows? I was probably too loaded to count.

Were you surrounded by a crowd of famous authors, cheering you on? Was Woody Allen anxious to compete?

Not really. But we would have various athletic contests, generally beginning at four in the morning. There were sprints down Second Avenue, for example. It got more macho as the evening progressed.

I remember [the film director and screenwriter] James Toback trying to perform some push-ups and running out of steam. The restaurant's owner, Elaine Kaufman, said, "Put a broad under him."

Is it true that, in the late sixties, you got into a fistfight with Norman Mailer?

Yes, at a party he was holding at his town house in Brooklyn Heights. Mailer was looking for a fight. Instead of getting mad, I patted him on his head and said, "Now, now, Norman. Let's behave." We made our way to the street, and a crowd formed. We circled each other and we tussled a bit. Eventually he dropped to the ground. I helped him up and he embraced me-but he then bit me on the shoulder. I saw the bite marks once I got home. I rushed to the hospital for a teta.n.u.s shot. I was afraid I was going to begin to froth at the mouth.

Let's talk about Hollywood.

Must we?

For someone who has a good amount of experience as a screenwriter-you've worked on numerous screenplays over the years, including Stir Crazy and Splash-you seem to have a healthy att.i.tude toward the film industry.

I don't know of anyone who ever had more fun out there than I did. The work was not especially appealing, but I did have a great time. In fact, I would get offended when I was interrupted on the tennis court and asked to do some work. I thought Hollywood was supposed to be about room service and pretty girls, orange juice and champagne. When I was gently asked to write a few scenes, I was annoyed.

I did my work in Hollywood with professionalism and never took any money I hadn't earned. But I could never tap into the same source I did when I wrote my books and stories-or plays, for that matter. Perhaps if I'd had some hunger to make movies at an earlier time, I could have learned the camera, studied the machinery of moviemaking, and it would have been different. But for me, the G.o.ds at the time were Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Faulkner; there were girls in the Village who wouldn't sleep with you if you had anything to do with movies: "You'd actually sell your book to the movies?" This was spoken with horror.

Shortly after I arrived in Hollywood, Joe Levine, the producer of The Graduate, summoned me to his office. He was a fan of my play Scuba Duba. He said, "You will never again have to worry about money." When I left the office, I felt great. I'd never have to worry again about money! But he was wrong. Never a day pa.s.sed that I didn't worry about money. Later, I met Joe at the Beverly Hills Hotel and I reminded him of his prediction. He waved it off and said, "Oh, well, you have so much of it anyway." Not the rapier-like response I'd hoped for.

Screenwriting is the only writing form in which the work is being shot down, so to speak, as you're writing. It's always going to be, "Fine, now call in the next hack." If someone were to submit the shooting script of [1950's] All About Eve-updated, of course-it would only be considered a first draft. And a parade of writers would be called in to improve it. Hollywood doesn't want a singular, unique voice. If F. Scott Fitzgerald, over the course of his career, could only earn one-third of a screenplay credit [on 1938's Three Comrades] then what does that tell you?

Or Joseph h.e.l.ler in Hollywood.

Right. He was there for years, but only had partial credits on two movies [1964's s.e.x and the Single Girl, 1970's Dirty Dingus Magee], and on a few episodes of the [early 1960s] TV show McHale's Navy.

There's an old-fas.h.i.+oned phrase-pride of authors.h.i.+p-that I never felt on the West Coast. I'm sure Woody Allen feels it, and maybe only a few others. Still, for a time, I was delighted as a screenwriter to be a well-paid busboy. And, oh, those good times!

Anything you care to tell me about?

I played tennis on a court alongside the actor Anthony Quinn. Back then, I was actually told that I resembled him. He kept glancing over at me. We both had shaky backhands.

I collided with Steve McQueen in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. A hair dryer fell out of my suitcase. Needless to say, it was embarra.s.sing to have McQueen know that I used one.

And I spent one summer as a "sidekick" of Warren Beatty's. My main function was to console his army of rejected girlfriends.

How did you even come to know Warren Beatty?

He loved Stern, and he was convinced he could play the central role in the film. I had to explain, patiently, that it was a bit of a reach. He was no schlub.

We would go to the clubs in LA, including a place called the Candy Store. I never saw anyone who could bowl over women the way he could. He was a sweet, charming man-gorgeous, of course-and he made you feel that you were the only one in the world that he cared about. I don't mean to be a tease, but there were a few episodes I'd be uncomfortable mentioning-especially now that he's a family man with all those kids. Maybe if we have a drink sometime.

Hollywood is something. The name-dropping that goes on there is incredible. I had a friend who was an actor, and he called me one day. I could tell he had a cough. When I asked if he was okay, he told me that he had caught Pierce Brosnan's cold. Another time, while I was on a movie set, a guy offered me a cigar and bragged that he had gotten it from someone who was close to Cher.

Were you happy with the first version of The Heartbreak Kid, which was released in 1972? It was based on your 1966 story for Esquire "A Change of Plan."

I thought the first version was wonderful. I'm permitted to say that because I didn't write the screenplay-Neil Simon did. It actually sounded like something I might have written. Simon said that in writing it, he pretended he was me-although we'd never met.

What did you think of the 2007 remake, starring Ben Stiller?

I thought the first part-the revelation about the wife-was hysterically funny. The rest, for me, fell off a cliff. There are five screenwriters listed in the credits, including the Farrelly brothers. And Lord knows how many uncredited screenwriters. The budget was north of $60 million. You would have thought that a simple phone call to the fellow who invented the wheel would have been useful. Maybe I knew something. Maybe Neil Simon did. I would have helped out pro bono. But it would never have occurred to someone to make that phone call. I'm not upset about this. Just curious . . . amused.

I read a story about you that I a.s.sume cannot be true: that actress Natalie Wood once worked as your secretary.

No, that's true. It was either my first or second trip to Hollywood. I was working on the movie version for the Broadway play The Owl and the p.u.s.s.ycat, and I needed a secretary. Or, at the very least, it was a.s.sumed I needed one.

The producer Ray Stark [The Suns.h.i.+ne Boys, Smokey and the Bandit] said, "I'll find you a good one. Don't worry." I went over to his beach house and there, sitting by the pool, was Natalie Wood. Stark said, "Here is your new secretary."

As a joke?

I said, "That's very amusing, Ray. But this is Natalie Wood, from Splendor in the Gra.s.s, West Side Story, Rebel Without a Cause. Every boy's fantasy."

She looked up and said, "No, I really am your secretary."

She was between marriages to Robert Wagner and seemed dispirited. I don't think she was being offered major roles, and a shrink might have suggested that she try something different. This is self-serving, but I'd seen her at a party the night before and we had maybe exchanged glances. Who knows, maybe she liked me. What's the lyric-I can dream, can't I? In any case, she was my secretary for about a week.

Each morning, I'd pick her up in Malibu and drive her back to the Beverly Hills Hotel, all the while thinking, I'm sitting here with Natalie f.u.c.king Wood-and she's my secretary. It was difficult staying on the highway.

Can you imagine a Hollywood actress doing that these days?

Unlikely.

What Hollywood project were you working on at the time?

I went out to California to work on The Lenny Bruce Story. Lenny had died a few years earlier. The executives wanted a writer who was crazy and strange, but also wore a suit. They wanted someone who would be presentable at a meeting-I was that guy. But I never worked on the project.

Why not?

I had never seen Lenny Bruce, but I knew of his legend. I really wasn't interested in that type of work, actually. I just didn't know enough about him to be a fan or to not be a fan.

I once heard of a woman at one of Bruce's performances who stood up in the middle of the act and started screaming, "Dirty mouth! Dirty mouth!" I wanted that to be the t.i.tle of the film-Dirty Mouth!, but I didn't realize back then that I, as a screenwriter, was nothing more than a busboy. It was just a different world than what I was familiar with. The most important thing back then was to be a novelist. Now it's the opposite.

You left the Lenny Bruce project?

I did, yes. But only after a truck pulled up to where I was staying, with men hauling boxes and files and every sc.r.a.p of paper related to Lenny Bruce's life-every letter, every deposition, every piece of correspondence. I remember that I hurt my leg carrying some of these boxes up to the attic.

I just got smothered with it all, and I ended up not doing it.

I don't think I've ever discussed this before, but I found aspects of his life troubling. It made me uncomfortable. There were some similarities of his life that brushed up against mine. I was having domestic problems of my own, and the whole story made me uncomfortable.

Plus, I didn't want to be the one to f.u.c.k up the Lenny Bruce story. I knew about his legend, even though I never saw him perform, and I knew how important he was to many people.

There was one piece in particular of Bruce's that I thought was absolutely brilliant. It runs a little over twenty minutes, and it's called "The Palladium." I think it's one of the best twenty minutes of comedy ever.

My friend Jacques Levy, who directed the stage production of Oh! Calcutta! and then later Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, once said that all contemporary comedy springs from that half hour.

In what sense?

Bruce uses a few different voices throughout the piece, which I've often found myself slipping into while writing. It's this "What are you nuts? What are you crazy?" type of att.i.tude; it was a very modern sensibility when he performed it in the mid-sixties.

It's about a minor Vegas comedian named Frank Dell who wants to perform in "cla.s.sy rooms." He just bought a new house with a pool and patio.6 His manager gets him into the Palladium in London. He starts off with his bad shtick: "Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen! You know, I just got back from a place in Nevada called Lost Wages. A funny thing about working Lost Wages . . ." He bombs so badly that he starts to say anything to get a response: "Screw Ireland! Screw the Iris.h.!.+ The IRA really b.u.m-rapped ya." He still bombs and causes a near riot.

What did you make of the Bob Fossedirected movie Lenny when it was finally released in 1974, starring Dustin Hoffman in the t.i.tle role?

I thought Hoffman was miscast. The movie just barely scratched the surface of that man's life. The film didn't work at all for me.

You're credited with writing the screenplay to 1980's Stir Crazy, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. Were you happy with the finished product?

I liked that movie very much; I just liked the way it worked out. I could recognize my voice every once in awhile watching that movie.

The idea wasn't mine-it was a producer's named Hannah Weinstein, who told me about this phenomenon in Texas where prisoners staged a rodeo. That's all I was given. I wrote the screenplay, and Hannah was able to cast Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.

There was one instance where I wasn't happy. At the last minute, another writer was brought in to punch up the script or to add some dialogue. I visited the set during the scene where Gene mounts a mechanical bull. He pats the bull and says, "Nice horsey" a couple of times.

Well, I don't write "Nice horsey." I mean, it's simply something that I would never write for a character. Bed wetters say "nice horsey," but not my characters. I didn't know the rules and I was a little offended, so I started to walk off the set. So Richard-someone I had never met before-came running over and said, "Gee, I never met a writer like you. Take the money; don't take any s.h.i.+t." He said, "I've got fifty in cash. I think I'll get out of here, too."

He then said, "You ever get high?"

I said, "Once, in the spring of '63." I was just teasing, but I was in good form. I said, "Jews rarely tend to become junkies. For one thing, they have to have eight hours of sleep. They have to read The New York Times in the morning. They need fresh orange juice. So, no, I've never gotten high."

We walked into his trailer and, the second we did, I knew I wasn't going to be comfortable. Everything was foreign to me: pipes and wickers and just crazy things. It was all new to me. If we lit a match, we were finished.

My one regret with Stir Crazy is that I didn't do more with Richard's character. I should have fleshed his character out more, and I didn't. I feel bad about that. What's interesting is that Richard treated every word you wrote as if it were scripture. Gene was looser. For Gene, the dialogue was just a starting point.

You knew satirical writer Terry Southern quite well, didn't you?

We were good friends, particularly in his late years.

Do you think Terry's contribution was important to Dr. Strangelove? Terry co-wrote the script with Stanley Kubrick and Peter George, but Kubrick later claimed that Terry's role wasn't as significant as many people thought.