The Unruly Life of Woody Allen by Marion Meade Page A
Authors: Marion Meade
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Performing Arts, Individual Director
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known for high-quality pictures—for example, Billy Wilder s The Seven Year Itchy a tremendous commercial success starring Marilyn Monroe.
That winter in New York, he was seeking a writer for a picture he wanted to make with Beatty, a former client and close friend, who was almost a surrogate son to him. After his debut in Splendor in the Grass, the twenty-sevenyear-old Beatty had suddenly become a star big enough to turn down seventy-five scripts a year. As a result of his virile good looks, he also had the women running after him. Answering his phone, he had a breezy stock greeting for his female callers: "What's new, pussycat?" It was, Feldman decided, the perfect title. Feldman decided to make a movie about a natural Don Juan, like the satyrish Warren, who wanted every woman he spotted, and Beatty had agreed to star, but the project had hit a road bump. Optioning a creaky Don Juan comedy, Lot's Wife by Czech writer Ladislaus Bus-Fekete, Feldman turned over the property to Billy Wilder's frequent collaborator, the top screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond, to turn into a modern farce but Diamond's script proved to be a disappointment.
Several days after Feldman saw Woody perform at the Blue Angel, he delegated the photographer Sam Shaw to make inquiries. The picture of nonchalance, Shaw strolled into Charlie Joffe's office dressed in sneakers and grungy pants. How much, he asked, did Joffe want for his boy Allen to write a film script? Joffe, unimpressed, barely giving Shaw the time of day, answered $35,000. Shaw nodded approvingly (Feldman had authorized $60,000) and said Feldman would be in touch.
In the end, after much haggling, Joffe was able to increase the sum by throwing in Woody’s services as an actor, hardly a deal sweetener because Woody, who had never sold a screenplay, had never acted, either. Meanwhile, an astonished Woody regarded Feldman's offer as nothing less than an unexpected godsend. As his long-suffering friends and managers could attest, he was continually grumbling about how much he hated being a stand-up, bleating that he'd never had any talent for public performance in the first place, that performing comedy was just as indescribably horrible as writing it. Bemoaning his fate, Woody always had a litany of complaints about fame not being everything it is cracked up to be. Unfortunately, success as a stand-up had turned out to be, as he put it, "a ride I couldn't get off." So this emissary from Hollywood's magic kingdom with his Warren Beatty screenplay was nothing short of the answer to his prayers.
In July of 1964, that same summer he dined at the White House, he left for London in a particularly good mood and checked into the Dorchester Hotel. Finishing a screenplay, it turned out, had been unbelievably easy and now he looked forward to the satisfaction of watching his creative efforts translated to the screen. He quickly discovered, however, that the life of a screenwriter is not all blue skies and sunshine, because Feldman asked for rewrite after rewrite. With each draft, Woody revealed his pique by making his own role fatter and funnier and Beatty s tinier, until the actor backed out in disgust. Feldman promptly stuck Peter O'Toole in the part. As the plot goes, the editor of a Parisian fashion magazine (O'Toole) consults a psychiatrist about curing his addiction. With "pussycats" falling all over him, he has more sex than he can handle. Before long, it is the shrink, Dr. Fritz Fassbender (Peter Sellers), who, dying of horniness, is going berserk trying to figure out the secrets of his compulsive patient's success. Woody turns up as O'Tooles buddy Victor Shakapopolis, who dresses and undresses strippers at the Crazy Horse saloon for twenty francs a week.
"Not very much," consoles O'Toole.
"It's all I can afford," replies Woody.
Through the summer of 1964 and into the new year, as production got under way in Paris, the realities of moviemaking came as a painful shock to Woody. Misunderstanding
That winter in New York, he was seeking a writer for a picture he wanted to make with Beatty, a former client and close friend, who was almost a surrogate son to him. After his debut in Splendor in the Grass, the twenty-sevenyear-old Beatty had suddenly become a star big enough to turn down seventy-five scripts a year. As a result of his virile good looks, he also had the women running after him. Answering his phone, he had a breezy stock greeting for his female callers: "What's new, pussycat?" It was, Feldman decided, the perfect title. Feldman decided to make a movie about a natural Don Juan, like the satyrish Warren, who wanted every woman he spotted, and Beatty had agreed to star, but the project had hit a road bump. Optioning a creaky Don Juan comedy, Lot's Wife by Czech writer Ladislaus Bus-Fekete, Feldman turned over the property to Billy Wilder's frequent collaborator, the top screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond, to turn into a modern farce but Diamond's script proved to be a disappointment.
Several days after Feldman saw Woody perform at the Blue Angel, he delegated the photographer Sam Shaw to make inquiries. The picture of nonchalance, Shaw strolled into Charlie Joffe's office dressed in sneakers and grungy pants. How much, he asked, did Joffe want for his boy Allen to write a film script? Joffe, unimpressed, barely giving Shaw the time of day, answered $35,000. Shaw nodded approvingly (Feldman had authorized $60,000) and said Feldman would be in touch.
In the end, after much haggling, Joffe was able to increase the sum by throwing in Woody’s services as an actor, hardly a deal sweetener because Woody, who had never sold a screenplay, had never acted, either. Meanwhile, an astonished Woody regarded Feldman's offer as nothing less than an unexpected godsend. As his long-suffering friends and managers could attest, he was continually grumbling about how much he hated being a stand-up, bleating that he'd never had any talent for public performance in the first place, that performing comedy was just as indescribably horrible as writing it. Bemoaning his fate, Woody always had a litany of complaints about fame not being everything it is cracked up to be. Unfortunately, success as a stand-up had turned out to be, as he put it, "a ride I couldn't get off." So this emissary from Hollywood's magic kingdom with his Warren Beatty screenplay was nothing short of the answer to his prayers.
In July of 1964, that same summer he dined at the White House, he left for London in a particularly good mood and checked into the Dorchester Hotel. Finishing a screenplay, it turned out, had been unbelievably easy and now he looked forward to the satisfaction of watching his creative efforts translated to the screen. He quickly discovered, however, that the life of a screenwriter is not all blue skies and sunshine, because Feldman asked for rewrite after rewrite. With each draft, Woody revealed his pique by making his own role fatter and funnier and Beatty s tinier, until the actor backed out in disgust. Feldman promptly stuck Peter O'Toole in the part. As the plot goes, the editor of a Parisian fashion magazine (O'Toole) consults a psychiatrist about curing his addiction. With "pussycats" falling all over him, he has more sex than he can handle. Before long, it is the shrink, Dr. Fritz Fassbender (Peter Sellers), who, dying of horniness, is going berserk trying to figure out the secrets of his compulsive patient's success. Woody turns up as O'Tooles buddy Victor Shakapopolis, who dresses and undresses strippers at the Crazy Horse saloon for twenty francs a week.
"Not very much," consoles O'Toole.
"It's all I can afford," replies Woody.
Through the summer of 1964 and into the new year, as production got under way in Paris, the realities of moviemaking came as a painful shock to Woody. Misunderstanding
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