Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [66]
To direct the film, he and producer Martin Ransohoff agreed on Sam Peckinpah, a veteran TV screenwriter/director with two impressive feature westerns under his belt—1961’s The Deadly Companions and 1962’s Ride the High Country. The suggestion to hire Peckinpah had originated with Don Siegel, who told Steve he thought Peckinpah could do a great job. Siegel had mentored the director during the latter’s heady days of scriptwriting for hit TV westerns, including ten episodes of Gunsmoke, one Have Gun—Will Travel, six episodes of The Rifleman (several of which he also directed), seventeen episodes of Klondike (all of which he directed), and Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre. Siegel was high on him, but Steve had serious misgivings, including Peckinpah’s well-known alcoholism and fits of delusion, both of which had slowed his career. Also, The Cincinnati Kid had a contemporary setting and at the same time an Old West feel, while Peckinpah’s two westerns had an Old West setting and a contemporary feel. Yet Steve trusted Siegel enough to agree to let him hire Peckinpah to direct The Cincinnati Kid, a script by Richard Jessup adapted from his own novel.
Production began in November 1964 and after only four days was shut down when Ransohoff discovered that Peckinpah had already shot a couple of unauthorized nude scenes with an unnamed African American actress and actor Rip Torn. Peckinpah later claimed he thought the film needed a sex scene or two to get foreign audiences interested in it; never mind that he had the most popular American star in the world in the title role.4
Another problem was the casting of aspiring actress Sharon Tate in the small but sexy part of Christian Rudd, the Kid’s (Steve’s) girlfriend in the film. It was well known in Hollywood at the time (but never confirmed by any of the three) that Jay Sebring and Steve were both physically into Tate and had, on more than one occasion, shared her sexual favors at the same time and in the same bed while at Sebring’s pad, fueled by alcohol, cocaine, grass, acid, and amyl nitrate.
Steve had all but assured her she was going to play Christian, but Peckinpah decided she was wrong for the part and, over Steve’s and Ransohoff’s vehement objections (it appeared he too had something going with Tate, referring to her on this film as his “protégée”), insisted the part should go to Tuesday Weld (another Ransohoff “protégée”). Steve, as it happened, also liked Weld for the part, having worked with her on Soldier in the Rain. Knowing what she could do on-screen and despite his personal involvement with Tate, he knew Peckinpah was right. Weld was better for the part, and, despite his other misgivings, he supported his director’s preference this time.
But when Peckinpah hired three hundred extras to film a riot scene that had little to do with the film, Ransohoff had had enough: he fired him and shut down the production until a new director could be found. To keep Steve from walking, MGM gave him a free trip to Las Vegas, along with $25,000 to play poker. The studio wrote it off as “acting preparation” for the role. According to Dave Resnick, one of Steve’s posse, “Next thing I know I’m called in to Rogers & Cowan’s office. MGM wants to hire me out to go with Steve to Las Vegas for two weeks. Now they paid me $1,500 a day … we bought a lot of coke … We went to Vegas and partied for two weeks.”
With Steve safely on ice, wholesale changes were made to the production, beginning with Stan Kamen pushing one of his director clients, Norman Jewison, on Ransohoff. Jewison was a veteran of 1950s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation live TV, comedies and musicals. His direction of the 1961 Judy Garland comeback special, done in America for CBS in Hollywood with