Behind the Glitter

IN 1965, when writer William Goldman flew into L.A. for his first Hollywood film, Harper, a chauffeured limousine awaited him. Confounded by the driver's servile attentions Goldman wondered. "What does this have to do with writing." On the road, he saw row upon row of identical, sardine-packed houses and asked. "Is this a housing development?" Laughing, the driver explained that it was in fact, one of the poshest sections of Beverly Hills Goldman took this as a warning, thinking. "Be careful People are strange out here."

Not perhaps the most profound revelation of the twentieth century. But voiced by someone who's been there-and Goldman has, having written eleven produced screenplays and umpteen unproduced others--the pronouncement helps solidify the murky image we outsiders have of the land of tinsel. Goldman's new book, the autobiography/gossip/self-help Adventures in the Screen Trade comes at a strange point in his career. Although he's had a hand in some of the silver screen's finest fun-Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Hot Rock, Marathon Man, for instance-his last critical and commercial hit. All the President's Men appeared seven years ago. Thus much of this insider's view sounds like crybaby bitching from someone who feels like last year's model.

But bitching, or at least Hollywood bitching, makes juicy reading Goldman bares the egos, the money hassles, the politicking and nepotism behind the hallowed arches of studio gates and we eat it up. Though he'll stoop to complaining about airport baggage claim, and paints his calling as the most thankless in a business of thankless tasks, he vividly conveys the soulless jockeying for position that forever keeps Hollywood out of touch with quality, if not reality.

One of Goldman's most virulent critics, the New Yorker's Pauline Kael, hates his scripts for evoking a "boys'-book, rites-of-manhood universe," replete with macho camaraderie and blue-eyed heroics. She's going to hate Adventures too: Goldman just as simplistically divides real-life moviedom into Heroes and Villains.

Actors, or more correctly, "stars," usually fall into the latter category. Goldman realizes how much pressure our dearly idolized must undergo to maintain their prestige; he also realizes that if he's fifteen pages into a script and its star has yet to appear, he'll probably be told that his text is "misstructured." Stars, he asserts, demand that all the witty lines come from their characters' mouths, all the clever ideas from their characters' heads.

The biggest bastard of all turns out to be glamour-boy Robert Redford and Goldman should know, having worked with him on five films. Redford caused one of Goldman's projects to be cancelled because, after the phenomenal success of Butch Cassidy, he felt uneasy playing a character who was "kind of weak." During their fourth collaboration. All the President's Men, Redford refused to entrust Goldman with his home phone number. Then, out of jealousy for co-star Dustin Hoffman's character, he demanded that Goldman write in a love interest for him; and, in what Goldman justifiably terms a "gutless betroyal," Redford allowed Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron to write a completely different draft behind Goldman's back. (P.S., Goldman's was not only the script that was used, but it also won the screenplay Oscar, a fact he neglects to mention.) If this is how Hollywood friends operate, imagine how enemies must.

You want to hear sleazy? One producer okayed a script about New Zealand simply because he'd never been there and wanted a paid vacation. Agent David Begelman lied to Goldman, saying a famous director had had a nervous breakdown, so that Goldman would turn to one of Begelman's clients instead. And director Alan Pakula (Sophiz's Choice, Klute) told Goldman to give him versions of All the President's Men that were both longer and shorter, harder and softer. "Don't deprive me of any riches," Pakula said.

SUCH HORROR stories more than make up for Goldman's glibness, as when he writes off the "world view" of the top-name directors he's worked with in one all-caps assault: "THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF WHAT THEY HAVE TO 'SAY' CANNOT COVER THE BOTTOM OF EVEN A SMALL TEACUP." This blanket statement unravels in the book's last section, in which Goldman describes trying to rewrite his old short story "Da Vinci" as a screenplay and handing it to a respected editor, cinematographer, composer, designer, and director for comments. Not only does the director, George Roy Hill, have a cupful of comments, but he also puts Goldman's hackneyed theme-the impossibility of an artist succeeding in today's world-in proper perspective, something that's sorely needed by page 393, where Hill appears.

Because, careening along in Goldman's "world view," if you will there just isn't time for perspective. Histories of failed projects, cruddy judgements and outright lunacy paint a decidedly one-sided portrait. As the first one in on a project, the writer inevitably feels the dilution of his own vision each step of the way. Adventures's off-the-tongue-and-into-the-tape recorder style attracts and nauseates at the same time, especially when Goldman gets self-effacing about his early years, or misty-eyed about being haunted by his own limitations, or arriving at universal "human truths" from his "own unique angle."

The up-to-date nature of the book doesn't help either; he predicts Annie will do great at the box office, and that E.T wins Best Picture. His examples often rely on such films as The Verdict, Pennies from Heaven, and Chariots of Fire, which may make the book a difficult read 20 years from now. But much of the book's worth comes in its assessment of Hollywood at the time it went to press: Goldman argues that today's preponderance of "comic-book" films is not just said, but actually dangerous; in the old days, money from blockbusters was funnelled back, so that an occasional Citizen Kane might emerge. Now, blockbusters simply breed blockbusters. When an arty, message film scores big, it's written off as a "non-recurring phenomenon."

IN A LAND where executives give writers notes like "Should be 25 percent funnier," it's a wonder films get made at all. As Goldman frequently points out, nobody knows anything, nobody is in control. "Movies are these great elephantine husks that hundreds of people at various times are trying to tug toward a finish line." It's hard to fault his inability to articulate just what makes a "good" screenplay; he can never tell, either.

So why continue to plug away? Well, for one thing, if his short story "Da Vinci" is any indication, none of Goldman's twelve novels will ever become standard high school curriculum. Pauline Kael once said, "If you're hoping for elegance, don't begin with William Goldman." As Adventures makes clear, he even has trouble writing complete sentences. Screenwriting is such a natural for him that he relates important episodes of his life in script format. Besides, boyhood entrenchment, wider audiences-not to mention the pay-keeps luring him out to Hollywood.

But what truly keeps Goldman are the Heroes, people who transcend the crap, who can still impress and awe him the way Tarzan Finds a Son did when he was the only kid Highland Park, Illinois crazy enough to see the same movie twice. For various reasons, among his heroes are Oliver, Robert Wagner, Bob Woodward, Richard Attenborough, but most of all, Paul Newman.

Newman, in sharp contrast to his film buddy Redford, actually wants the best script, the best character, and the best supporting actors around him. During the filming of close-ups of another actor. Newman sticks around to read his off-camera lines rather than leave them to a script girl. What Goldman doesn't mention is that despite (or because of) all Newman's un-starlike heroism, his peers have denied him the Oscar all six times he's been nominated. But this injustice should come as no surprise; it's typical of a town that thrives on slop-pop writers like Goldman and gossipy exposes like Adventures. It merely reinforces what Goldman quickly noticed his first day in Hollywood, riding through its glossy hills in his shiny, embarrassing Cadillac: People are strange out there.