Speaker 1: In his palatial estate known as Woodland. Robert Evans sits
Speaker 1: up in his bed, he still glued to the screen.
Speaker 1: The movie is ended and the memories begin.
Speaker 2: It's my most supported legacy of life.
Speaker 1: Evans holds firm to the conviction that he saved the movie,
Speaker 1: save the studio, and in many ways elevated the glory
Speaker 1: of American film.
Speaker 2: Who worked out of Godfather lure, You're introduced to a
Speaker 2: different world.
Speaker 1: As I would later write in the book, from this
Speaker 1: bed and from this man and those he appointed the
Speaker 1: Godfather sprang forth. It was a miracle on paper and
Speaker 1: on screen, Created and inspired by the sons and daughters
Speaker 1: of immigrants, Its characters were portrayed by a band of
Speaker 1: mythsfits who based their roles on a gang of miscrants,
Speaker 1: humanized to the point of being honorable. The story endures
Speaker 1: as those who made it received, leaving behind a testament
Speaker 1: to the glory of the American family and the steadfast
Speaker 1: belief in the American dream.
Speaker 3: I'm Mark Seal and I'm Nathan King.
Speaker 1: And this is Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli.
Speaker 3: In our final episode, we're discussing the life, legacy and
Speaker 3: legend of the cast, crew and film. Mark, when you
Speaker 3: walked into Woodland that day, did you know you would
Speaker 3: eventually write the definitive book on the making of The Godfather?
Speaker 1: Not at all. I just thought that I was going
Speaker 1: to do a magazine story, but I had no idea
Speaker 1: that I would later write a book about it, and
Speaker 1: that it would consume my life for so many years.
Speaker 1: After the article was published, I started thinking about writing
Speaker 1: the book, and I was able to meet with Anthony Colombo,
Speaker 1: the son of Joe Colombo, who headed the Italian American
Speaker 1: Civil Rights League, and we drove out to a diner
Speaker 1: in New Jersey and there he was. He comes into
Speaker 1: the diner walking with a cane. By then. I think
Speaker 1: he was in his sixties maybe, and we've talked for
Speaker 1: a long time, and he couldn't have been nicer. And
Speaker 1: I tried to imagine him back in those days in
Speaker 1: the Park Sheridan Hotel with Al Ruddy speaking before the League.
Speaker 3: You've said previously, Mark, when you're writing a magazine article
Speaker 3: like this, that casting a wide net is very important
Speaker 3: and talking to as many people as possible, no matter
Speaker 3: how inconsequential they seem. Did you do that here?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, of course, you know. I tried to talk
Speaker 1: to as many people as I could for the article
Speaker 1: and then later for the book, and it was amazing.
Speaker 1: After the article came out, people would call and tell
Speaker 1: me facts that I couldn't have dug up any other way.
Speaker 1: But it was nothing like after the book came out.
Speaker 1: One man called and said his uncle had delivered the
Speaker 1: horse's head to the set. There were so many unexpected
Speaker 1: but important additions that just came from the story being
Speaker 1: out there in the world.
Speaker 3: Who was the most unexpected character you talked to?
Speaker 1: Well, maybe Marilyn Stewart, because I hadn't really read anything
Speaker 1: about her. There's not one interview that I could find.
Speaker 1: But I called the number that I had found for her,
Speaker 1: and she answered the phone and it was like it
Speaker 1: seemed like she was expecting my call, which of course
Speaker 1: she couldn't have been, but she was just ready to
Speaker 1: tell her story. And what a story she had to tell.
Speaker 1: You know. She came on. She was Paramount's head of
Speaker 1: publicity and promotion, and she just started before the movie
Speaker 1: was even shot, you know, fostering its image, making sure
Speaker 1: that she got the magazine covers and all the television shows.
Speaker 1: And I just thought she was a great window into
Speaker 1: the Godfather Pass and how it became such a sensation worldwide.
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 3: reporting aspect of it. How you sort of organize your
Speaker 3: thoughts and figure out who to talk to someone like
Speaker 3: Janet Snow, for instance. Is that's someone whose name just
Speaker 3: comes up in the course of interviewing someone else, and
Speaker 3: then one thing leads to another.
Speaker 1: That was a great story. So Janet Snow had not
Speaker 1: been interviewed either. I mean maybe she had, but I
Speaker 1: had not seen any interviews with her. And I was
Speaker 1: talking to Graf Frederickson and he goes, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: Mario had an assistant during those days, and he couldn't
Speaker 1: remember her name at first, and he just said, oh,
Speaker 1: Janet Snow. And I called Janet, and she right off
Speaker 1: the bat told me this incredible story about Mario Puzo
Speaker 1: arriving in Hollywood and that story about the white Lincoln Continental,
Speaker 1: and I went, oh, my gosh, it was just like
Speaker 1: too wild to believe. You know, as you're putting together
Speaker 1: a portrait of somebody for a book, you're just trying
Speaker 1: to get as much clay as you can to build
Speaker 1: the character. And Mario had done lots of interviews, so
Speaker 1: there was a lot about him in print. But a
Speaker 1: person like Janet Snow who was there when Mario arrived
Speaker 1: in Hollywood and drove him from Paramount to the Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills Hotel. I mean, you can't get much better than that.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because while they are in very different situations.
Speaker 3: Mario is a huge successful author in Janet's relative nobody,
Speaker 3: they're both neophytes in their own way in this Hollywood world.
Speaker 3: And I think that's enough to bring them together.
Speaker 1: Yes, And they were both fairly young. Mario's in his
Speaker 1: forties and he was new to that world. Plus Janet
Speaker 1: had a magical story to tell about how she got
Speaker 1: the job. You know, you open a door and these
Speaker 1: stories just come flooding out, like I'll never forget going
Speaker 1: to James Conn's home in Beverly Hills when I was
Speaker 1: researching the article, and I walk in and there was
Speaker 1: a huge drawing of the Godfather on his wall. It
Speaker 1: was Don Corleone and his three sons, including Sonny, who
Speaker 1: was played by James Kahn.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, with a lot of those guys,
Speaker 4: not just the Italians obviously, Like I said, you know,
Speaker 4: and immigrants couldn't get a job working three cents, so,
Speaker 4: you know, so they did what they had to do
Speaker 4: out of need.
Speaker 1: And we spent I think three hours that day talking
Speaker 1: about the movie and his role and how you prepared
Speaker 1: for the part, how he got the part.
Speaker 3: What was it like interviewing James Common because he's obviously
Speaker 3: an actor but also sort of a street guy. Did
Speaker 3: you find him very easy to interview and affable?
Speaker 1: Oh? Certainly? And later when I called him for the book,
Speaker 1: he was incredibly forthcoming. I talked to him for another
Speaker 1: I think two hours, and then called him again for
Speaker 1: another hour or so. He was so giving and generous
Speaker 1: with his time.
Speaker 4: Was there somebody that you picked up mannerisms from like
Speaker 4: you did, like the Rickles idea, Well, Andrew was my
Speaker 4: closest friend, you know, and he had certain energy. You know,
Speaker 4: there's a certain energy about Rickles when he was younger,
Speaker 4: you know, which he still has today in his eighties,
Speaker 4: you know, but it's obviously not as sharp.
Speaker 1: None of us are sharp. But I could just see
Speaker 1: that botta ingrain is coming out of Roa.
Speaker 2: Well, that's where it came, you know. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I wish i'd had the foresight to, like.
Speaker 3: What do you call a copyright?
Speaker 2: That thing I could have made money.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't begging.
Speaker 1: Another great thing that I was privileged to do was
Speaker 1: research the life of the actor who played Luca Brozi,
Speaker 1: Lenny Montana, who is one of the most unforgettable characters
Speaker 1: in the movie. He was a former wrestler and some
Speaker 1: say a bodyguard. I was able to dig up some
Speaker 1: really old newspapers about him, and there's one where he
Speaker 1: tells the story of going to visit his mother in
Speaker 1: suburban New York at the same time. They were filming
Speaker 1: The Godfather there and had been looking for the perfect
Speaker 1: actor to play Luca, who had to be a mountain
Speaker 1: of a man, and they had gone through several potential actors,
Speaker 1: all professionals, but none were quite right. Anyway, Lenny is
Speaker 1: visiting his mother and al Ruddy looks out on the
Speaker 1: crowd that's gathered around the set and sees this colossal
Speaker 1: man behind the barricades. He takes Lenny Montana to meet
Speaker 1: Francis Coppola and his trailer. Lenny's head was probably scraping
Speaker 1: the ceiling because he was so big, and Coppola looks
Speaker 1: up at him and says, that's Luca Brotzi.
Speaker 3: We mentioned earlier that Robert Evans passed away in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: just before we started making the show. Sadly, he wasn't
Speaker 3: the only one. There were six or seven other characters
Speaker 3: in The Godfather's Story who died while we were making
Speaker 3: this podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just to name a few. Al Ruddy died this year,
Speaker 1: Eleanor Coppola, Roger Corman, Robert Town, the screenwriter who wrote
Speaker 1: the Majestic Succession scene. Fred Ruse died this year. Ye,
Speaker 1: James con two years ago. I mean, it's amazing time
Speaker 1: takes its toll. This is a movie that was made
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, so a lot of time has passed,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people who gave so much to
Speaker 1: the film have passed along with it.
Speaker 3: One thing we should talk about is the proliferation of
Speaker 3: conflicting accounts, and specifically how you chose who's to believe.
Speaker 1: Well, honestly, I didn't want to choose, and I don't
Speaker 1: really think it's my job to take aside and make
Speaker 1: a choice. All of the stories were so fascinating, and
Speaker 1: in the absence of any conclusive evidence about who was
Speaker 1: right who was wrong, I just decided to present all
Speaker 1: the versions to readers and let them decide. And I
Speaker 1: feel like we've done the same thing with this podcast.
Speaker 1: But it was a pretty chaotic time. And Ira Zuckerman's
Speaker 1: Godfather journal was such a great help because he was
Speaker 1: there every day and documented every single day of filming
Speaker 1: in such detail that you really couldn't quite argue with that,
Speaker 1: because that seemed to be the definitive fly on the
Speaker 1: wall account. I mean, there's very few movies where you
Speaker 1: have someone who's written a day to day diary of
Speaker 1: everything that happened, and so it was a real treasure
Speaker 1: to have that as a resource.
Speaker 3: And what about Gianni's version of events? I like his
Speaker 3: account the best.
Speaker 1: What we you like personality wise? Like this same as
Speaker 1: any never changed.
Speaker 2: Don't care about nothing.
Speaker 1: We gotta leave, jump out the wind that we leave you,
Speaker 1: take a shot, see you later.
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 1: I started from nothing. Well, yeah, of course, because Gianny
Speaker 1: Russo has a way of telling these things that they
Speaker 1: make them come alive, you know, but so many others
Speaker 1: do as well. I mean, how Ruddy is the same way,
Speaker 1: and of course Bob Evans, I mean he's the same way,
Speaker 1: and Francis Kopple is a professional storyteller. They're all amazing storytellers.
Speaker 3: After working on this podcast, it's hard not to feel
Speaker 3: like making a movie is a completely foolish endeavor because
Speaker 3: you have all of these conflicting personalities tossed together in
Speaker 3: one place, and you know you're all working toward a
Speaker 3: common goal, but it seems like things are bound to
Speaker 3: go wrong more often than not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a miracle that any movie gets made, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Because all the personalities, money, logistics, there's so many ways
Speaker 1: for things to go wrong. It's not unusual for a
Speaker 1: movie not to work out, and The Godfather is a
Speaker 1: rare case where the ending was happy and the alchemy
Speaker 1: worked against all odds.
Speaker 3: I think the directors like Francis Ford Koppola get a
Speaker 3: lot of flak for being almost authoritarian in the pursuit
Speaker 3: of getting what they want, But you can kind of
Speaker 3: see where that would be a benefit in making The
Speaker 3: Godfather because you need someone with such a determined vision
Speaker 3: and sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: There has to be a captain of the ship, right Mark.
Speaker 3: We know the movie did well financially, but did the
Speaker 3: people involved well.
Speaker 1: There's conflicting stories once again about this. You know, some
Speaker 1: people said they got rich off of the movie, but
Speaker 1: really the actors were paid minimal salaries. I guess thirty
Speaker 1: five thousand I think for some, and that was for
Speaker 1: the established ones. Al Ruddy said he had points and
Speaker 1: he did well on it. But one thing is clear
Speaker 1: above all is that Paramount made a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Robert Evans told me that Dan Woodland that being the
Speaker 1: head of production, he didn't have any points. So he
Speaker 1: didn't make any money off the movie personally, but you
Speaker 1: know it gave him a springboard to do other things
Speaker 1: when he became a independent producer. So it's another mystery
Speaker 1: of the Godfather about who made what on the movie.
Speaker 1: But here's how al Ruddy described it in our interview.
Speaker 5: You got to understand nobody and for vision success of
Speaker 5: this movie, everyone worked for scale. It's a class.
Speaker 1: That's points, Mary, I had two, and A.
Speaker 5: Had points and I had some points. But they kid
Speaker 5: was that prophet, doesn't you know what they said? Not
Speaker 5: worth the paper which went on right. The profits except
Speaker 5: this went through the roof.
Speaker 3: If there was any doubt about how the movie did
Speaker 3: or was received in Coppola's mind or anyone else's it
Speaker 3: was eradicated when the nineteen seventy three Oscars came around, Mark,
Speaker 3: can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: The Godfather was nominated for ten awards at the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three Oscars Best Picture, Brando as Best Actor, Coppola
Speaker 1: for Best Director, Coppola Empuso for Best Adapted Screenplay, and
Speaker 1: for Best Supporting Actor, three of them Al Pacino, James Cohn,
Speaker 1: and Robert Duval. They also had nominations for Costume, Editing
Speaker 1: and Sound. When the envelopes were open, it was Mario
Speaker 1: Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola for Best Adapted Screenplay, and
Speaker 1: they said that Mario decided not to go because he
Speaker 1: was too worried about having to give a speech, so
Speaker 1: he watched it from home in suburban News New York.
Speaker 1: Brando won Best Actor, but probably in one of the
Speaker 1: most famous events in Oscar history, he didn't attend and
Speaker 1: said he sent an emissary on his behalf, a woman
Speaker 1: named Sasheen Little Feather, who got up and gives a
Speaker 1: speech about what had been happening at wounded Me.
Speaker 6: Hello, my name is Sasheine Little Feather. I'm Apache and
Speaker 6: I'm president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee.
Speaker 6: I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he has asked
Speaker 6: me to tell you in a very long speech which
Speaker 6: I cannot share with you presently because of time, but
Speaker 6: I will be glad to share with the press afterwards,
Speaker 6: that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,
Speaker 6: and the reasons for this being are the treatment of
Speaker 6: American Indians today by the film industry excuse me me,
Speaker 6: and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent
Speaker 6: happenings that wounded me. I beg at this time that
Speaker 6: I have not intruded upon this evening, and that we
Speaker 6: will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will
Speaker 6: meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of
Speaker 6: Marlon Brando.
Speaker 3: It's fair to say that everyone was stunned by Saushy
Speaker 3: and little feathers speech. Another surprise was to come shortly thereafter,
Speaker 3: in the form of the Best Picture, A Lord.
Speaker 1: And the Winner and the Winner the ward.
Speaker 4: Albert is ready God bother.
Speaker 7: Let me do this quickly in two parts, because I
Speaker 7: know it's past midnight New York, and some of my
Speaker 7: relatives want to go to sleep. There are a number
Speaker 7: of people I would like to thank, as everyone else would,
Speaker 7: because they deserve it.
Speaker 1: Bob Edmonds forgiving more.
Speaker 7: Than any studio head should in time and creativity, Frank
Speaker 7: your blond for having the courage and imagination to sell
Speaker 7: this film and make my mother rich. Charlie Bludorn for
Speaker 7: having the courage to finance films, which I guess borders
Speaker 7: on insanity. And Peter Bart who was a friend all.
Speaker 1: The way through.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about legacy. The film sort of eclipses the
Speaker 3: careers of most of the people who made it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like every person who touched the movie has
Speaker 1: this asterisk next to their name that says the Godfather.
Speaker 3: Well, let's start with the obvious. Francis Ford Coppola. Despite
Speaker 3: the success of the first movie, Coppola was so scarred
Speaker 3: that he didn't want to make a sequel, but then
Speaker 3: Charlie Bludorn talked him into it.
Speaker 1: Yes, the story goes that Coppola initially didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it, but then Hurricane Charlie erupted. Francis, you've got
Speaker 1: the recipe for Coca cola, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: manufacturer anymore. Bottles of coke and whatever happened, Coppola ended
Speaker 1: up signing on for Godfather too, and after that Godfather three,
Speaker 1: and of course Charlie Bludorn wanted to make Godfather four, five,
Speaker 1: and six as well.
Speaker 3: This movie changed Copola's life.
Speaker 1: Well, for better and for worse, but mostly for better.
Speaker 1: You know, time hills, all wounds. And recently Coppola told
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone that he saw The Godfather as a gift.
Speaker 1: He said, the movie opened up the world to me.
Speaker 1: Some of the greatest people in the world have wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to me simply because I was a guy
Speaker 1: who made that film.
Speaker 3: What about Mario Puzzo, what happens to him afterwards?
Speaker 1: Well, Mario Puzo became a superstar screenwriter, He became rich,
Speaker 1: he became famous. He could gamble all he wanted. I
Speaker 1: loved what is His son told me via email. He told me,
Speaker 1: now that he had money, look out. He would buy
Speaker 1: books instead of taking him out of the library. He
Speaker 1: rented a house in Malibu. You know, he would eat
Speaker 1: whatever he wanted, He would gamble whenever he wanted. I
Speaker 1: think he still loved the good life of Hollywood and
Speaker 1: of course Las Vegas. He wrote a book about Las
Speaker 1: Vegas that was sort of a love letter to the
Speaker 1: city and what it meant to him. And in addition
Speaker 1: to writing many more novels, he wrote the screenplay to Superman,
Speaker 1: so he maintained his Hollywood ties.
Speaker 3: Another person who went on to have an amazing career
Speaker 3: Robert Town.
Speaker 1: Yes, Robert Town became the Dean of Hollywood screenwriters. He
Speaker 1: wrote Chinatown and so many other movies that became classics.
Speaker 3: And he wasn't famous when Copola brought him in, but
Speaker 3: he had certainly worked on other projects. He'd done Bonnie
Speaker 3: and Clyde and McCabe and Missus Miller, and then The
Speaker 3: Godfather was probably his first big project.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love the story of how he came
Speaker 1: up with that incredible scene, the succession scene. It was
Speaker 1: late in the night in New York and Coppola was
Speaker 1: going to pick him up the next morning to take
Speaker 1: him to the set, and he was looking at the
Speaker 1: cover of Mario Puzo's novel, you know, with the invisible
Speaker 1: puppeteer holding the strings, you know, with those strings dangling down,
Speaker 1: and he said, it was like at four in the morning,
Speaker 1: the line came to him and it was just this
Speaker 1: incredible line that would sum up so much and it
Speaker 1: became one of the most classic scenes in the movie.
Speaker 3: Listen to this list of movies he went on to
Speaker 3: write after that, the Last Detail, Parallax View, Chinatown, Shampoo,
Speaker 3: The Missouri Breaks, Days of Thunder, The Firm, Mission Impossible
Speaker 3: one and two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty incredible list. Robert town once said that he
Speaker 1: was not really interested in writing novels, that he just
Speaker 1: wanted to write movies. And listen to that list of
Speaker 1: movies that he wrote. I mean, he's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest screenwriters in hollywood A history.
Speaker 3: What was Charlie Bludorn's legacy like at Paramount.
Speaker 1: Charlie Bludorn saved the studio in the end with The
Speaker 1: Godfather and other movies later, But sadly Charlie passed away
Speaker 1: at a fairly young age. He lived in the Dominican
Speaker 1: Republic where he built this amazing resort. But he died
Speaker 1: on a they say, on a plane coming home. So
Speaker 1: he missed out on seeing so much. And I would
Speaker 1: have loved to have obviously spoken with him, But he's
Speaker 1: remembered by everyone whose path he crossed.
Speaker 3: What about Al Ruddy? What happens to him?
Speaker 1: Afterwards, so al Ruddy remained vital until the end. He
Speaker 1: produced both The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, winning Best
Speaker 1: Picture Oscars for both, and he died at ninety four
Speaker 1: years old last May. And about two weeks before he
Speaker 1: passed away, I spoke to him again. He was the
Speaker 1: same Al Ruddy as always, you know, talking a mile
Speaker 1: a minute. His memory was sharp, and he was really
Speaker 1: excited about this podcast and wanted to do whatever he
Speaker 1: could to help, which is typical out the quintessential producer,
Speaker 1: the man who gets things done. Well.
Speaker 8: We came back to sicily, I went through New York
Speaker 8: and they said they wanted to do a sequel, and
Speaker 8: I told straight out, I have no interest. Livesen to me,
Speaker 8: no interest in never doing a movie again.
Speaker 1: But this mom I got lucky.
Speaker 4: I got out.
Speaker 1: I'm happy of at one piece. I could never get
Speaker 1: more out of him.
Speaker 3: And regardless of the fact that he didn't work on
Speaker 3: subsequent Godfather movies, he clearly cared about the movie's legacy
Speaker 3: a lot because he worked on the offer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the offer was really molded around his life. It
Speaker 1: was his story. Miles Teller played Al Ruddy, you know,
Speaker 1: he was the central character.
Speaker 3: You didn't get a chance to interview Brando because he
Speaker 3: was dead by the time you started working on this.
Speaker 3: But if you could have, what would you have asked him.
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have known in his own
Speaker 1: words about how he made the transformation into Don Corleone.
Speaker 1: But Alice was able to tell me a lot, and
Speaker 1: also she was able to tell me his reluctance to
Speaker 1: play a mobster. He didn't want to do it at first,
Speaker 1: and he only wanted to do it when he heard
Speaker 1: that they were thinking about Lawrence o Libya, and he goes,
Speaker 1: he can't play a mafia don, And Alice said she
Speaker 1: looked in and he was like using shoe polish to
Speaker 1: create a mustache and dye his eyebrows. And she goes, no,
Speaker 1: that's not right. Do it like Brando. But I would
Speaker 1: have liked to have asked him about that.
Speaker 3: Let's move on to Evans. So you spoke with Evans
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight, which is eleven years before
Speaker 3: his death. What were his reflections on the film and
Speaker 3: his legacy.
Speaker 1: He said it was his greatest legacy, but it was
Speaker 1: also a failure for him personally in many ways because
Speaker 1: he chose the Godfather over his personal life, and that
Speaker 1: was lipping away from him that day in Woodland. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget the line that he said. He said, it's
Speaker 1: so long ago, so many people are dead, and he
Speaker 1: proceeded to rattle off everyone who had died in the interim,
Speaker 1: which at that point was already quite long, Richard Castellano,
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando, John Cassol, and so forth. And so he
Speaker 1: had some regrets, for sure, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: he was really proud of the movie and all that
Speaker 1: the movie had achieved. As I wrote in the book,
Speaker 1: he felt that he had fostered it and much of
Speaker 1: its success was due to him, which you know, as
Speaker 1: the head of the studio, he had the right to believe.
Speaker 3: If the filming process was rough for Robert Evans, it
Speaker 3: got even rougher after The Godfather came out, didn't it? Mark?
Speaker 1: Well? At first it went all right. He produced Chinatown,
Speaker 1: starring his close friend Jack Nicholson, But not long after
Speaker 1: that he left Paramount to become an independent producer, and
Speaker 1: that's when he started to struggle a little bit. As
Speaker 1: I wrote in the book, he descended into darkness for
Speaker 1: a period. There was a misdemeanor cocaine trafficking plea in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty the box office disaster of the Cotton Club
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, his entangment in a murder scandal
Speaker 1: stemming from the film, and the eight torturous years it
Speaker 1: would take him to clear his name. Also, I thought
Speaker 1: it was interesting his wealth, which is, you know, pretty
Speaker 1: much always the ultimate measure of success or failure in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: dropped from eleven million in nineteen seventy nine to thirty
Speaker 1: seven dollars a decade later. He had to sell his
Speaker 1: beloved his home, Woodland, and he was only able to
Speaker 1: buy it back with the help of Jack Nicholson. The
Speaker 1: house of a Hollywood producer is always very important, but
Speaker 1: for Robert Evans this was beyond anything. He had so
Speaker 1: many memories there, and it was a privilege to be
Speaker 1: able to interview him in that storied place, which is
Speaker 1: where he lived until his death in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Okay, so Mark, let's end this on a hol happy note.
Speaker 3: We know that Evans and Coppola eventually made up, were
Speaker 3: supposedly made up at the twenty fifth anniversary of the film.
Speaker 3: Let's hear Evans's recollection of that evening. In San Francisco
Speaker 3: five years ago.
Speaker 2: Ever, it was the twenty fifth anniversary of it.
Speaker 5: In San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Francis walked in there, he's King of San Francisco. As
Speaker 2: he walked down the aisle, I took his sister Tadia
Speaker 2: to the affair. He came over to me for his
Speaker 2: arms around me and kissed me. He said, the messages
Speaker 2: something right. That's good. It's a good line. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: message in something right, and kissed me and then walked on.
Speaker 1: And Evans was really proud of that.
Speaker 2: It's my most important igacy in life.
Speaker 1: This is the Godmother's number number one.
Speaker 2: It broke a whole barrier a film opera. It is
Speaker 2: do filmmakers great ideas and fighting the organization?
Speaker 5: And I look fighting the organization?
Speaker 8: What organization were you?
Speaker 2: By the two of them? The other one was the
Speaker 2: other the boys, but they're all the same. Wow, well
Speaker 2: they're all Everything is monetarily focused. And I was looking
Speaker 2: to touch magic, and magic to me last longer? Why
Speaker 2: is it? At Mozart is remembered far longer, the Napoleon
Speaker 2: world of far long as the world of reed.
Speaker 1: Leave the Gun Take the Canoli as a production of
Speaker 1: Airmail and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3: The podcast is based on the book of the same name,
Speaker 3: written by our very own Mark Seal.
Speaker 1: Our producer is Tina Mullin.
Speaker 3: Research assistants by Jack Sullivan.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Dressler was our development producer.
Speaker 3: Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our executive producers are
Speaker 3: Meet Nathan King, Mark ziel Doan Fagan, and Graydon Carter.
Speaker 1: Special banks to Bridget Arseno and everyone at c DM Studios.
Speaker 3: A comprehensive list of sources and acknowledgments can be found
Speaker 3: in Mark Sieal's book, Leave the Gun, Take the Canolli,
Speaker 3: published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster