Conversations With Robert Evans

by Lawrence Grobel

88 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2009

About the author

Lawrence Grobel (www.lawrencegrobel.com) is a novelist, journalist, biographer, poet and teacher. Five of his 31 books have been singled out as Best Books of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly and many have appeared on Best Seller lists. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for his fiction. PEN gave his Conversations with Capote a Special Achievement Award. The Syndicat Francais de la Critique de Cinema awarded his Al Pacino their Prix Litteraire as the Best International Book of 2008. James A. Michener called his biography, The Hustons, “a masterpiece.” His The Art of the Interview is used as a text in many journalism schools. Writer’s Digest called him “a legend among journalists.” Joyce Carol Oates dubbed him “The Mozart of Interviewers” and Playboy singled him out as “The Interviewer’s Interviewer” after publishing his interviews with Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Henry Fonda and Marlon Brando.
He has written for dozens of magazines and has been a Contributing Editor for Playboy, Movieline, World (New Zealand), and Trendy (Poland). He served in the Peace Corps, teaching at the Ghana Institute of Journalism; created the M.F.A. in Professional Writing for Antioch University; and taught in the English Department at UCLA for ten years. Since 2007 he has served as a jury member at the annual Camerimage Film Festival in Poland. He has appeared on CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Charlie Rose Show, NPR’s The Treatment, Marc Maron”s WTF and Adam Carolla’s podcasts, and in two documentaries, Salinger and Al Pacino’s Wilde Salome. His book, You, Talking to Me, highlights the lessons he’s learned from interviewing. His memoir, You Show Me Yours, takes him from the streets of Brooklyn to Marlon Brando’s island in Tahiti. Yoga? No, Shmoga! is his satirical take on staying healthy through stretching. His fiction includes 2 novels (Catch a Fallen Star, Begin Again Finnegan), a novella (The Black Eyes of Akbah), and 3 books of short stories (The Narcissist, Stuck, and Schemers, Dreamers, Cheaters, Believers). His most recent book is a memoir of his three years in the Peace Corps (Turquoise). His books are all available on Amazon and on his website. He is married to the artist Hiromi Oda and they have two daughters.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm on a Lawrence Grobel kick. This being the second book I have read by him - the first was "Conversations with Marlon Brando." This one is "Conversations with Robert Evans," who is a film producer, and one time the main honcho at Paramount Pictures. Evans, at the moment, is an idol of sorts for those who love the idea of Hollywood, especially mixing a certain amount of contempt and adoration. Evans is a superb hustler, who I suspect is not into the money, but more of the lifestyle - and that, he's really good at it. Classically good looking, he strikes one as an iconic figure, who will risk all, to make the movie of his dreams. And perhaps he did. He made a lot of good films, or was involved in a lot of good movies, yet again, it's more of an appreciation of a system than anything else. Throughout the interview or conversation with Grovel, he seems to consistently go into his press files - which seems huge. He's a guy who lives in the public landscape, and will die in the public eye. On the other hand, he has a pretty magnificent life - and I think for us amateur hustlers, this is something that is a goal to reach. Therefore, sadness is right behind us, and walking among us mortals.

[Heather Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re like most people, you’re probably slightly confused about what a producer actually does. Or did. According to Evans, producer of Rosemary’s Baby, The Godfather, Marathon Man, Urban Cowboy, and The Cotton Club, the magic’s all out of it. “There’s no glamour in this business,” Evans says in this riveting interview. “There’re accountants, lawyers, agents. For every bit of magic, you spend a month of misery in negotiations. It’s not glamorous. By the time you start a film, you’re tired out.”


But it was glamorous, once. Evans talks about making a love scene with Faye Dunaway, putting a patch over John Wayne’s eye, his hero Jonas Salk, and why he and Dustin Hoffman stopped talking to each other. Plus, if you really, really want to know how he feels about working with Frances Coppola…