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  Jacobs seemed relatively unconcerned that the delays and the problems had run Dolittle up to nearly $18 million, or approximately $6 million over budget. “Everyone wants to be identified with this picture,” he said. “Everyone. All the big companies, they want to do some kind of tie-in promotion. You won’t be able to go into a store without seeing Dr. Dolittle advertising something. You got to figure that’s going to bring people into the theater. I mean, these are big companies. They don’t do this just for any picture.”

  Saying it seemed to reassure him further, and he walked out into the anteroom of his office in buoyant spirits. “Who’s got the keys to my car?” he asked. He had just bought a new Dual Ghia, one of Hollywood’s most favored automobiles. “I sent them out to get another set made.”

  A secretary handed him the keys. “You ought to get a gold one,” she said.

  “They send you one,” Jacobs said. “They really do.”

  He examined himself quickly in a mirror and walked outside. The Dual Ghia was parked in his space outside the bungalow. Jacobs circled the car. “Someone left a fingerprint on the windshield,” he said. He buffed it off with the sleeve of his black alpaca sweater and then stepped back and studied the automobile.

  “I like it better than Frank’s,” he said finally.

  “Frank who?” the secretary said.

  Jacobs looked pained. “Sinatra,” he said.

  3

  “You’ll get the music lovers, no doubt about that, none at all,”

  Richard Zanuck said

  Several days later, Arthur Jacobs sent me a preliminary list of the companies with licensing arrangements with the Studio for tie-in advertising and promotion on Dr. Dolittle. There were approximately fifty licensees who would spend $12 million on consumer advertising featuring the picture. The Studio was making arrangements for Dolittle displays in 10,000 retail stores throughout the country, a food company had ordered 20,000 eight-foot displays featuring Rex Harrison, and another food company had 15,000 Harrison displays. A soft-drink company was introducing “Dr. Dolittle Chocolate Soda” and a national bakery concern a special box of animal crackers featuring all the animals used in the picture. Over 200 million cereal boxes were being distributed with allied Dolittle promotion. In all, some 300 items, with an estimated retail value of $200 million, were involved in the promotion. Among the items were pet foods, cereals, a Dolittle medicine kit, a Dolittle hat, a Pushmi-Pullyu toy, a television record player for children, a Polynesia doll, clocks and watches, a singing doll, knitted T-shirts, greeting cards, sweatshirts, children’s card game sets, children’s luggage, pencil boxes, plastic inflatable toys, novelty hats, balloons, wrist watches, combs, brushes, sunglasses, place mats, ceramic ware, notebooks, tumblers, billfolds, change purses, color slides and viewers, night lights, toy musical instruments, yo-yos, flashlight novelty items, board games, model kits, jigsaw puzzles, novelty savings banks, storybooks, activity books, buttons, play money, children’s coloring books, doctors’ kits, nurses’ kits, animal toys, children’s schoolbags, lunch kits, puppets, charm bracelets, scrapbooks, diaries, robes, coloring sets, sewing sets, 3D film cards, magic slates and costumes.

  Mary Ann McGowan, Richard Zanuck’s secretary, came into his office and announced that director Henry Koster, producer Robert Buckner and three William Morris agents were waiting outside.

  “What’s Buckner’s first name?” Zanuck asked.

  “Robert,” Mary Ann McGowan said, as she disappeared out the door. “They call him Bob.”

  The five visitors filed into Zanuck’s office. Zanuck rose and shook the hand of each. “Hello, Bob,” he said to Buckner.

  Koster, Buckner and two of the agents arranged themselves in chairs in front of Zanuck’s desk. The third agent slid onto a couch in the corner of the office. Koster cleared his throat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He is a portly man with thinning hair slicked down on the top of his head and a thick middle-European accent. At one time he had directed a number of pictures for the Studio. “I have a story for you, Dick,” he said.

  Zanuck nodded. No one spoke for a moment. Koster wiped his forehead again and mashed the handkerchief in his hand.

  “I have wanted to bring to the screen a story of great music,” he said, “ever since I first came to this country and made A Hundred Men and a Girl.” He looked to Zanuck for encouragement. “With Deanna Durbin,” he added.

  Zanuck picked up the bronzed baby shoe behind his desk and began to turn it around in his hands. His eyes did not catch Koster’s.

  “We fade in on Moscow,” Koster said. “Behind the credits, we hear one of the world’s great symphony orchestras playing—Shostakovich would be good for Moscow. The orchestra has a flamboyant, tempestuous conductor—I think Lenny Bernstein will love this idea. As we finish the credits, we come on on the orchestra and then we close on the cymbals. It is obvious that the cymbal player is sick. The orchestra is supposed to leave Moscow that night for a charity concert in New York.” Koster paused for effect. He was sweating profusely. “For crippled children.”

  One of the Morris agents was examining his fingernails. The head of the agent on the couch began to nod.

  “When the concert is over, we find that the cymbal player has a contagious disease,” Koster said. He wound the handkerchief around his palms. “We can work out the disease later. The orchestra must be quarantined in Moscow. All except the Lenny Bernstein character. I think we can work out that he had the right shots. Anyway we can get Lenny out of Moscow and back to New York. Now here is your problem, Dick. The charity concert must be canceled.”

  The agent on the couch had now fallen asleep. An abortive snore jolted him awake.

  “Unless,” Koster continued. He smiled benignly. “There is a youth orchestra in New York and they can take the place of the symphony at the concert. We have, of course, tried to get the Philadelphia and the Cleveland and Ormandy and George Szell would love to do it, but they have commitments. So the Lenny Bernstein character goes to hear the youth symphony and he says, ‘No, I cannot conduct them, they are not good enough.’ He will not yield, the concert must be canceled, there will be no money for the crippled children.” Koster’s voice softened. “But then the president of the charity comes to plead with him against cancellation.” Koster’s head swiveled around, taking in everyone in the room. “In his arms, he is carrying a small boy—with braces on his legs.”

  Buckner seemed to sense that Zanuck’s attention was wavering. “We have a love story, too, Dick,” he said.

  Koster picked up the cue. “Yes, we have a love story,” he said. “There is a beautiful Chinese cellist who does not speak a word of English and a beatnik kook who plays the violin.” The words rolled over his tongue. “They communicate through the international language of music.”

  “Don’t forget the jazz,” Buckner said.

  “We can get jazz into our story, Dick,” Koster said. “You see, the concert is only five days away and there are not enough players in the youth orchestra, so the conductor—the Lenny Bernstein character—goes out and hunts them up in a bunch of weird joints.”

  “Jazz joints,” Buckner said.

  The top of Koster’s head was slick with perspiration. His voice began to quicken. “Working day and night, the conductor molds these untutored players into a symphony orchestra. In just five days.” Koster’s face grew somber. “Then we get word from Moscow. The quarantine has been lifted. The orchestra can get back to New York in time for the concert.”

  Zanuck gazed evenly, unblinkingly at Koster.

  “Here is the crux of our story, Dick,” Koster said. “Will our conductor use the youth symphony, or will he use his own orchestra, thus destroying by his lack of faith this beautiful instrument”—Koster’s hands moved up and down slowly—“he has created in just five days?”

  Koster sighed and leaned back, gripping both the arms on his chair. There was silence in the office. Zanuck cleared his throat.

  “Very nicely
worked out,” he said carefully. “Very nicely.” His jaw muscles began to work as he considered his thoughts. “But I’m afraid it’s not for us at the moment.” He squared the bronzed baby shoe against the edge of his desk. “We’ve got a lot of musical things on the schedule right now—The Sound of Music is still doing great business, just great, we’ve got Dr. Dolittle and we’re working on Hello, Dolly!—and I don’t think we should take on another.” He paused, seeking the right words. “And quite frankly, I’m just a little afraid of this kind of music. “You’ll get the music lovers, no doubt about that, none at all. But how about the Beatle fans?”

  Koster made a perfunctory objection, but the meeting was over. As if on cue, the dozing agent awoke, and after an exchange of small talk, agents and clients departed Zanuck’s office, hurling pleasantries over their shoulders. For a long time, Zanuck sat chewing on a fingernail, saying nothing.

  “Jesus,” he said finally.

  “You’ve got to be careful about musicals,” David Brown said. “They’re very soft in the foreign market. In the old days, you didn’t have to consider that much. But you do now. We get over fifty per cent of our rentals abroad. You take a massive hit like Sound of Music. Even there two-thirds to three-quarters of the rentals have come from the English-speaking world. In some foreign markets, they take a musical and want to cut the music. That’s why we didn’t bid on Fiddler on the Roof. It’s a lovely show, we were all agreed on that. But we thought it would be very soft in the provinces.”

  Brown ran a pipe cleaner through the stem of his pipe. On his desk was a script from Ruth Gordon, the actress-playwright wife of playwright Garson Kanin. The script was scheduled for a Broadway production and had been submitted to the Studio for a possible preproduction film deal. Brown fingered the script delicately and then asked his secretary to get Kanin on the telephone.

  “How are you, Gar?… Fine … And Ruth?… Fine … Gar, I read Ruth’s play and I think it’s delightful and fabulous as a play. But it worries me as a picture, Gar. You know fifty-five per cent of our revenues come from abroad and I’m just not sure how something delightful and delicate as this will go over outside this country. It’s absurd and it kills us, but that’s how it is. But many thanks, Gar, for letting us see it and I’m sure Ruth’s going to have a big hit in New York.”

  Brown hung up the phone and dabbed at his chin. He had cut himself shaving that morning and the tiny piece of toilet paper on his chin was not stanching the blood. He rang for his secretary.

  “Could you call the dispensary and have a messenger send me over a Band-aid?” Brown said. He touched his chin again. “On second thought, make it two Band-aids.”

  Our town’s most written-about “A” hostess had better realize that there are not only “A” and “B” parties, but “A” and “B” members of the press. She’s been associating indiscriminately with members of the media. And she may just blow her international status.

  Joyce Haber, The Los Angeles Times

  One morning during the second week of July, when the temperature stood at 97 degrees and the Los Angeles basin lay somnolent in the yellow haze, the Studio landscaping department began stripping the trees in Peyton Place Square, outside the commissary, of their autumn foliage. Late that morning, just before the various offices broke for lunch, the prop department scattered the first artificial snows of winter onto the Peyton Place Green. On the steps of the commissary, Robert Fryer stopped for a moment to watch. “It looks like New England in the winter, doesn’t it?” he said to John Bottomly, a tall angular Bostonian who was on a brief flying trip to California.

  Bottomly took off his sunglasses and surveyed the scene. “Not really,” he said slowly.

  Bottomly was the assistant attorney general of Massachusetts who had coordinated the investigation into the Boston Strangler’s thirteen sex murders. It was to Bottomly that Albert DeSalvo, the alleged slayer of the thirteen women, had confessed. After the role of DeSalvo, that of Bottomly was the most important in Edward Anhalt’s script, and Fryer had hired the Boston attorney, who was now back in private practice, as The Boston Strangler’s technical advisor.

  Anhalt was waiting for Fryer and Bottomly in the producers’ dining room, an executive enclave off the barn-like main room in the commissary. Bottomly hung his jacket over the back of his chair and began to fan himself with the menu.

  “We’ve got a nice Valley of the Dolls Salad,” the waitress said.

  Bottomly stared at the waitress and then at the menu. “A Guide to the Married Man Casserole,” he read. “Flim Flam Man Hamburger, Two for the Road Fruit Salad.” He looked across the table at Fryer. “I don’t see a Boston Strangler dish.”

  “We haven’t started shooting,” Fryer said. He looked nonplussed.

  “New England seafood dinner à la Boston Strangler,” Bottomly said. He resumed fanning himself. “You know, the police work on the Strangler was really pretty bad. They never checked to see if there was any semen in the mouth of the first six or seven victims. The thing about most murders is if you don’t catch the guy right away, chances are he’s going to get away.”

  “I wonder if we’re going to run into trouble with this script,” Anhalt said. “I mean, it’s very clinical. We’re dealing with penis and vagina and semen with every murder.”

  “You take out the semen, you don’t have a script,” Bottomly said. He scooped a piece of melon. “You know they’ve got a process now where they can match semen with blood types. They can use it on rape cases if they get it early enough.”

  Anhalt looked down at his steak sandwich. “Jesus,” he said.

  “We’ve got a new problem,” Fryer said. “DeSalvo’s wife. Irmgard’s holding us up on the release.”

  “How much does she want?” Anhalt said.

  “$35,000,” Fryer said.

  Anhalt gave a short laugh. “Being a wife comes high these days.”

  “Maybe we can do without her,” Fryer said.

  “Not if we’re going to show Albert the family man,” Anhalt said. “She’s in two sequences. We’ve got to show the contrast between Albert at home and Albert getting his rocks off. But $35,000 is ridiculous.”

  Fryer smiled wanly. “Maybe we can change her name.”

  “Sure,” Anhalt said. “And call DeSalvo Albert Smith?”

  “It was just a try,” Fryer said. “There’s nothing derogatory about her in the script, is there?”

  “No, she’s just Albert’s wife,” Anhalt said.

  “In the book, in his confession, Albert said she turned him off,” Fryer said.

  “Jesus,” Anhalt said, “I think the script’s already complicated enough sexually without throwing that in.”

  Bottomly reached back into his jacket and pulled out a letter. It was from Irmgard DeSalvo. In the letter, DeSalvo’s wife expressed her distaste for The Boston Strangler book and said that if either she or her children were portrayed in the film, she would be forced to take legal action.

  Fryer pursed his lips. “That’s all we need,” he sighed. He pushed his plate away and buried his face in his hands.

  “She’ll give a release,” Bottomly said quietly. “It’s just a matter of coming up with the right money.”

  “Christ,” Anhalt said. “She sounds like an agent. The letter’s just a ploy.”

  “Exactly,” Bottomly said. “I had to track her down halfway around the world. She’s changed her name a couple of times. She’s remarried. And she’s pregnant. Give her the right money and she won’t cause any trouble.”

  “What about the kids?” Anhalt said.

  “I’d like to see Albert’s waiver on that,” Bottomly said. “He’s not their legal guardian any more, of course, but I would like to see his waiver.”

  Fryer brightened. “It’s over at the William Morris office.” He beckoned the waitress and asked for another glass of iced tea. “I saw Hank Fonda last night,” he said. “I think we can get him to play you.”

  Bottomly brooded for a moment. “Wh
at about Gregory Peck? He’s the one who really looks like me.”

  Fryer shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said.

  Bottomly looked outside the producers’ dining room at the mural of Darryl Zanuck glaring down from the wall in the main room. “Darryl Zanuck lives,” he said. He kept staring at the mural, transfixed. “His eyes follow you around. They actually follow you around.” He shuddered and came back into the conversation. “What about Albert?” he said. “Any ideas about who to play him?”

  “Everyone in town wants to,” Fryer said. “We even got some pictures from Tony Curtis. He went out and got himself made up like the Strangler and had pictures taken.”

  Bottomly did not seem impressed. “How about Stuart Whitman?”

  “Uh uh,” Fryer said. “Dick Fleischer won’t work with him.” He threw his napkin on the table. “And we’ve got to keep our director happy.”

  Richard Fleischer was also scheduled to co-direct Tora, Tora, Tora, a film based on the events leading up to and including the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The picture was being done from both the American and the Japanese points of view. The American part of the film was being directed by Fleischer, the Japanese, with English subtitles, by Akiro Kurosawa, the director of Rashomon and The Seven Samurai, his first American picture after years of being regarded as one of the finest directors in the world. Fleischer was leaving for Honolulu the following Sunday with Tora, Tora, Tora’s producer, Elmo Williams, to meet with Kurosawa and to scout locations. A day or so before they left, I walked over to the art department with Williams to see a storyboard of the first draft script and map sketches of Oahu that he wanted to show Kurosawa. We went into a cubbyhole on the second floor of the art department building. Tacked to the wall, in dramatic sequence, were scores of rough sketches of various scenes in the script—a code room in Washington, a wardroom on a Japanese flagship, Pearl Harbor before the attack, the Japanese planes approaching Oahu. Williams examined each of the sketches and then asked to see the large detail map of Oahu the art department had drawn. An art director put the map on the shelf. Williams took a grease pencil and lightly traced three lines on the overlay—roughly north to south, south to north, and east to west—all converging on Pearl Harbor.