Barry Diller hosted a political get-together for Michael Dukakis. At the time, Dukakis was one of the many hungry hopefuls looking to get the nod to head the Democratic ticket down the line in 1988. A Barry Diller bash gets out all of Tinseltown—everybody who was anybody was there.
I was cornered by Swifty Lazar, who goggled me. “Only Diller gets you out, huh? Two weeks from Saturday I’m giving a dinner for Deborah Kerr and her husband, Peter Viertel. You and Peter go back to the ole Zanuck days, don’t you?”
Nodding my head yes.
“Then this one you’re coming to. I know I’m just an agent, not head of a studio, but no ‘out of town’ excuses this time.”
“An agent? You’re the biggest star here, Swifty. Can’t think of an evening I look forward to more.”
A double goggle take from mighty Swifty. Then he rushed off to meet the evening’s new Democratic hopeless.
The first order of business the next morning was to RSVP. Poor Swifty had no idea that he made me an invitation I “couldn’t refuse.”
Quickly scanning Swifty’s living room, Ray Stark quipped “A-plus all the way! Not a civilian in the joint.”
Except for myself and a few other renegades, the crème de la crème of the establishment was there in full attire. Eight candlelit tables filled the dining room–patio area. Swifty, his wife, Mary, Deborah, and Peter each hosted a table. For supposed sentimental reasons, I was one of the lucky to be seated at the Viertel table, my date, Sue Mengers, at my side. On the other side sat Nicholson with his lady, Anjelica Huston. Completing the rest of the table were Fran and Ray Stark, Felicia and Jack Lemmon, and Carol and Walter Matthau.
When dessert was served, I rose, clicking my glass. “May I make a toast to our guest of honor?”
It was the first—no, the only—toast of the evening. Mengers winced, “Veh iz meer . . .” Surely thinking I was stoned, but she was wrong. I was determined!
“A toast to you, dear Peter, the only man I’ve ever met who shrunk me from six to three feet in less than thirty seconds.”
My eyes slowly panned the room.
“It’s true! Thirty years ago, I met our guest of honor in Morelia, Mexico. Me, a half-assed actor picked to play the bullfighter in The Sun Also Rises. Peter was Hemingway’s choice to write the screenplay. Remember, Peter? You invited me over to your bungalow to meet you. I knocked at your door, you opened it, you looked at me, just looked. Then, you began laughing. ‘You play Pedro Romero? Uh-uh, not in my film.’ Then you slammed the door right smack in my face.”
Picking up my glass.
“To you, dear Peter, the single most intimidating man I’ve ever met.”
Nervous laughter filled the room. Viertel wasn’t laughing. He immediately stood.
“Bob, let’s face it, you were all wrong. We needed the real thing for the part, a bullfighter, not a—”
Interrupting Viertel, Nicholson jumped up.
“Yeah, Peter, but the Keed got all the reviews. Ain’t it the truth?” he roared.
The room roared too. Viertel’s face turned the color of his wine. My toast? Well, I don’t think it went over too well with the Lazars. I was never invited back, even for a fund-raiser.
Lew Wasserman, the patriarch of our industry, invited me to be one of the select group of forty to celebrate his fortieth wedding anniversary to his wife, Edie, at their home. Quite an honor!
What a difference a decade makes. Ten years later, when the Wassermans celebrated their fiftieth anniversary on the back lot of Lew’s studio, Universal Pictures, fifteen hundred people were invited. They must have lost my number, I wasn’t one of them.
The Harmony Club in New York hosted four hundred luminaries, who flew in from around the world to celebrate Henry Kissinger’s fiftieth birthday; I was Tinseltown’s only invitee. It was table and place card only. Me? I was seated at Henry’s table; only one seat separated us.
Ten years later, the same club, with the same aplomb, the same luminaries, toasted Henry’s sixtieth. Damn it! This time my place card wasn’t at his table, it wasn’t at any table. How could it be? I wasn’t invited.
Hurt? Not really. If I were him, I wouldn’t invite me either. Sliding from famous to infamous is not a person who fit the Kissinger agenda of the 1980s and 1990s. I understood it, I respected it.
Love lost between man and man is no different than love lost between man and woman: when it’s over—it’s over. Yet the decade of memories we shared will stay with me forever.
The flip side.
It was the day of the Academy Awards for 1987. Jack Nicholson was nominated for his performance in Ironweed.
Two nights earlier, the two of us finished off a bottle of Cristal at his Mulholland home. We talked about everything and nothing. One thing we did conclude, this wasn’t his year to cop the Oscar.
Six hours before the big night was to start, my butler drove up to Nicholson’s home. His mission? To personally deliver to Jack a locked, leather satchel with the key to open it. Inside, it was filled to the brim with stacks of enlarged one-hundred-dollar bills. On top was a note: “Yeah, you’re a long shot tonight, Irish, but fuck it! By mistake, you’re gonna cop more awards than any actor in film history. Money talks, and my money is on you.”
I was out of breath, in the middle of a tennis workout with my pal and tennis pro, Darryl Goldman. An urgent call interrupted our match.
“The green, is it real?” heckled Nicholson.
Both of us burst out laughing.
“As real as my tennis game.”
“Tell Darryl to let you off easy. Hit the shower, will ya, put on your blacks. You’re my date tonight for the awards.”
“Your date?”
“Yeah, was goin’ alone, there was no one I wanted to walk in with. Lookin’ at them stacks of green, I’m thinkin’, who’s a better armpiece to walk in with than you, Notorious.”
These words were coming from the most respected film star in the world, inviting me—at the time an industry leper—to be his arm piece at the Academy Awards!
My immediate reaction was no. “Not up for it, Irish.”
“Then get up for it. Let all of ’em see us nose to nose. Can’t hurt, Keed.”
“Can I call you back?”
“Call me back! We gotta be there in three hours, doors close at five thirty.”
“I’ll call you right back, promise.”
Hanging up the phone, Darryl looked at me.
“Are you nuts? He’s inviting you to be his date for the Academy Awards and you say no.”
In a cold sweat, I stood there, desperate not to go.
“It’s tough to understand, Daryl, but the last time we went to the awards together, I was top guy in town.”
I called Sue Mengers for her opinion. She quickly cut me off: “If you don’t go, never call me again.”
I dialed Irish.
“You got me, on two conditions.”
“Yeah.”
“You gotta pick me up. Have a bottle of Cristal in the backseat.”
“Yeah, what else?”
“You can’t try to fuck me. It’s our first date!”
Irish kept each promise, and the reluctant debutante enjoyed the best night of his dark decade.
From our klieg-lit entrance and throughout the entire evening, arm in arm we were. In his inimitable style, Nicholson made it clear for all to see that Evans is back, and Irish is with him all the way. Suddenly, people began taking my calls.