Robert Redford - Michael Feeney Callan [81]
Redford listened to Sgt. Pepper’s, grew his hair, explored magic mushrooms as an alternative to hash. “There’s no question that a fresh wind was blowing,” he says. “People were impatient for answers, for newness. But new and good don’t necessarily correspond. This was at the center of my thinking when I saw what Paramount was attempting with Blue.”
After several contentious script meetings at which Redford felt “the wrong sensibilities entirely” were being imposed on a western story, a date was finally agreed for production of Blue to commence. Redford was troubled because he had found Narizzano evasive and he didn’t trust Evans in his promise of a new script. He set out, however, by train from New York to join the production. “Halfway to Arizona,” he says, “I got off and rang Meta. I told her it wasn’t going to happen. I’d been promised sight of a final draft of the script but it was withheld from me. I said, ‘I’m sorry. I think this is going to be a very different movie from the one I signed up for. So I’m out.’ ”
Paramount’s wrath seemed inevitable. The company had just come through a corporate takeover and the biggest reshuffle in its fifty-year existence. The previous October, Gulf + Western Industries, a conglomerate encompassing mining, manufacturing and finance companies and founded by entrepreneur Charles Bluhdorn in 1957, offered Paramount’s embattled shareholders an acquisition deal for 10 percent more than the market price. Since its creation by Adolph Zukor, Paramount’s fortunes had risen and fallen. It was, of course, one of the Big Five that dominated Hollywood, and its star roster was unmatched. Valentino, William S. Hart, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly had all been contract players, and the studio had made classic works like Sunset Boulevard and The Ten Commandments. But in the forties an antitrust initiative required that Zukor sell off his theaters. Then television began making its mark. The record profits of $20 million in 1949 fell to $6 million in 1950. But Bluhdorn envisioned a fusion with other entertainment media and decided to take a chance. His area of specialization was the Caribbean sugar industry, but he was hot for Hollywood. Bluhdorn’s bid for Paramount was accepted by the shareholders, and he quickly proved his worth by establishing the Leisure Time umbrella, comprising Paramount, the publisher Simon and Schuster and New York’s Madison Square Garden. As movie ticket sales, in decline since the mid-fifties, started an upswing in the late sixties, there were those who regarded Bluhdorn as a visionary as well as a good businessman. His passion, he told everyone, was making Paramount the industry leader.
To Redford, Bluhdorn, who was just seven years older than he was, at first seemed fatherly. “He was this nice, silver-haired, big-smile guy who just shook my hand with enthusiasm and said, ‘Gee, this is a great moment for me. You’re the first movie star I’ve ever met.’ ” Three months later, after Redford had balked at Blue, Bluhdorn was launching a $250,000 lawsuit against him.
Redford’s assets amounted to not much more than $100,000, and his personal debts topped $50,000. He had no contracts in hand, and no clear picture of the direction of his acting career. On top of this, Paramount was enjoining him from working until a settlement was reached. Redford’s response was knee-jerk. He changed agents, lawyers and business partners. Meta Rosenberg, who challenged his reasoning on Blue, was replaced by Natalie Wood’s new boyfriend, the former London International Artists’ agent Richard Gregson, who had come to Los Angeles to find talent for new British films. Gregson moved quickly from agent to production partner. The priority, though, was legal advice. Redford felt he had been badly served: “One of the great lessons of