CHAPTER 3
The Salon
It was a salon, albeit an idiosyncratic one. Bob Evans presided over it with baronial panache. Even though the estate was modest in size, it reflected, in his mind, an aura of grandeur and elegance. Evans worshipped the traditions of Old Hollywood, and his French Regency home was positioned within walking distance of the residences of movie stars of old like Jimmy Stewart and Fred Astaire, north of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. A loan from Paramount helped Evans acquire the spread for some $290,000 from James Pendleton, an elderly decorator, and he quickly set about to embellish the structure and grounds—it would turn out to be a $500,000 renovation. Evans liked the stately elegance of the main house and hired craftsmen to enhance its features. The small living room exuded a paneled formality. A dining room seated twelve. There were only two bedrooms, but adjoining the master bedroom was a dressing room of equal size. The requisite hot tub, enclosed by tall hedges, adjoined the master suite. Stand-alone structures containing an office suite and two guest bedrooms huddled at the south end of the grounds, all but hidden beneath the tall eucalyptus trees.
Though he greatly admired the property, Evans felt it had been ill-planned. His first stroke was to close the main entrance on traffic-heavy Beverly Drive, building a gated entrance off secluded Woodland Drive at his eastern boundary. This meant that visitors would drive along the full length of the grounds before pulling into a circular driveway at the front of the house. Along the way, they would journey past a tennis court, a screening room (also built with studio subsidy), and a swimming pool and lawn before finally arriving at the newly installed driveway. Hence, guests felt they were arriving at a vast estate rather than facing the usual facade of a garage tucked in behind the house.
Evans was in love with his circular driveway. At its center he installed a graceful fountain, with water spewing onto a large and regal copper cock. It was as though the cock announced the mood of the estate.
From the outset, Evans’s manor conveyed mixed messages, and that was the way he liked it. Though most of his visitors were youthful, the house itself bespoke formality. A butler in suit-and-tie greeted visitors, and the staff of housekeepers were attired as in British upper-class tradition. The screening room, too, reflected disdain for the aggressively contemporary look of other Hollywood home theaters. Again, Evans’s instinct was to emulate Old Hollywood rather than cater to the hippie impulses of the moment.
Once the house became operational, its mood fluctuated radically from one moment to the next. Filmmakers and dealmakers were ushered into the screening room, where they would sit around the elegant card table, re-arraying themselves on the theater seats to screen film tests. If Evans was courting a star—a Jack Nicholson or a Mia Farrow—these encounters would take place at his main house rather than his studio office, which was a mere twenty minutes away.
By early evening, the mood would shift. Tennis players might drop by the screening room or sip drinks at poolside. Young women would arrive to welcome guests. Evans would be on full alert greeting visitors, yet also fielding the unceasing blizzard of phone calls. The house would be at once all business yet all play.
During the occasional formal dinner parties, the guest list would encompass a mix of stars and power players, plus visiting royalty—a member of the Agnelli family or even a sheikh from the Middle East. Almost every evening would conclude with a screening, with regular attendees such as the agent Sue Mengers or Warren Beatty.
As the evening progressed, the mood and subtext of Evans’s salon subtly changed. The phones stopped ringing, the dealmaking ended. The salon would now become a playpen.
The girls kept arriving. They were young and beautiful—aspiring actresses, party girls looking to hook up with a rich guy or movie star.
The ground rules were clear. In this particular playpen, everyone was expected to be on his or her best behavior. There was to be no overt hustling and no drugs were to be in evidence, except for an occasional joint. A girl might end the night with Jack Nicholson, Ted Kennedy, or Alain Delon. Often, one of the bedrooms at the south wing of the house might serve as a way station.
Evans himself liked to watch over the proceedings, always amused by the unfolding melodramas. If he witnessed what he felt was bad behavior, his intervention was prompt. He sharply rebuked his attorney, Greg Bautzer, when he saw him slapping around an actress, and told him to leave. A handsome, hard-drinking man, Bautzer never returned.
While Evans reveled in his role as the grand host, he was sensitive about the community’s perception. When he learned that Freddie Fields, a top agent, had labeled him “the prince of all pimps,” he was genuinely offended. To him, beautiful women were a sort of treasured resource to be cultivated and traded, and the act of introducing them to the rich and famous was an act of graciousness, not of commerce. After all, the girls were willing participants in the roundelay. They were ambitious and they knew what they were getting into.
Before his marriage to Ali MacGraw, Evans indulged his fantasies with energy and finesse. Usually his girls would stay the night. In admiring their beauty, he would often take photographs of the girls in uninhibited poses. On occasion, his friend Helmut Newton, the renowned German photographer, would shoot one of his favored beauties, always in the nude, always smiling.
Evans zealously collected these photos along with other remembrances. One of his prize possessions was a small porcelain jar containing samples of pubic hair from his favored partners. On rare occasions he would display his “pussy pot” to fellow players, like Warren Beatty or Jack Nicholson.
As a connoisseur of sex, Evans felt a sense of accomplishment in enhancing Henry Kissinger’s range of acquaintances and those of other repressed friends. Evans also felt a kinship with other connoisseurs, like Beatty, but also a certain competitiveness. At the end of one production meeting, Evans and Beatty decided to compare their mastery at summoning up phone numbers. “276-8451,” Evans would say, to which Beatty would respond, “Janice.” Beatty would then say “472-9867,” to which Evans would say, “Melanie.” The exchange of phone numbers continued for three or four minutes with neither combatant stumbling, until Evans finally drew a blank. “I made that one up,” Beatty confessed with a grin.
Evans took pride in his salon, and he became resentful if he felt either his home or his services were being taken for granted. He grumbled to me on one occasion when Bluhdorn commandeered his screening room for a high-level corporate meeting to which Evans was not invited. Similarly Evans was infuriated when one of the girls provided for Bluhdorn was hospitalized after a prolonged evening of sexual activities with the chairman. “He’s a savage,” Evans snorted.
Evans was all the more disdainful of Bluhdorn’s vulgarity because Evans had lifted himself from the rough-and-tumble of the “schmatta business.” In dealing with Hollywood’s brand of thugs, Evans felt he had graduated to a different social class. He was a studio chief, and like Irving Thalberg, the icon he had once portrayed, he was a gentleman studio chief. As such, Evans dressed impeccably in custom-made shirts and suits and usually wore a tie to work.
The tennis scene, too, was an important element in the Evans landscape, the games cast as carefully as his movies. Champions like Pancho Gonzales or Jimmy Connors would be on hand to boost the egos of celebrity players like Ted Kennedy or his brother Bobby. The drinks flowed and a movie would follow. To Evans, tennis was a mind game; his backhand was weak but his strategy astute. He would suddenly bet an opposing doubles team $1,000 a point, and then start lobbing balls to throw off their concentration. Evans usually lost money, but his guests relished the contests.
At its zenith, in 1969 to 1971, Evans’s salon was the hottest scene in town. The turnout of guests was dazzling, the dealmaking was incessant, and the undertone of sexual adventure was pervasive. Like the studio itself, it seemed a wonderland of limitless possibility. Everyone who happened by understood both its excitement and its evanescence.
Its moment would quickly pass.