The Kid Stays in the Picture

I listen to it often on audible. This book is nothing short of perfection.

Read the book. Watch the documentary. But above all listen to the audio book on tape. Bob Evans' voice is magic. A few years ago he did ads for the NFL, talking about how "Broadway Joe" Namath popularized the league by beating Baltimore in Super Bowl III. It was one of the best commercials ever. When Evans speaks, there is a richness and storytelling quality to his voice that cannot be taught. It is a combination of God-given talent and years of stories so wild, so crazy that no matter how outrageous they are, one still feels Evans is holding back because the real truth is just beyond the pale.Evans' life is beyond comprehension. Luck above and beyond all belief, combined with talent and drive. The son of a Jewish New York dentist, Evans was a film buff and teenage stage actor. His older bro Charles started Evans-Piccone, the lucrative clothier, and Bob hitched along for the ride, wealthy in his early 20s and acting a part of his past. He travels to L.A. on business, and a famous actress sees him and decides he is the man to play the role of her ex-husband, Irving Thalberg, in an upcomng film, which he stars in.Back in New York, he is discovered a second time, this time by Daryl Zanuck, who sees him in a club and says he is the man to play Pedro Romero in "The Sun Also Rises". Pictures of Evans reveal that these discoveries are no accident. The dude was so handsome that words cannot do him justice. Ernie Hemingway was non-plussed by Evans, as were his famous co-stars who conspired against him to get him off the movie. Zanuck arrives, sees Evans play the bullfighter, and says "The kid stays in the picture." The story of his life.Stardom follows? Not so fast. Old footage reveals that despite his looks his acting talent was, in Evans' words, "half-assed." So now what? Evans decides to become a producer. He buys rights to a book to film with Frank Sinatra in the lead and a promising producing career lies ahead. In 1966-67, he is hired to take over the failing Paramount. This is portrayed as an accident, luck, a fluke, but Evans does not give himself credit. He had brains, creative genius, charisma, looks and all the tools for Hollywood success, so his ascension is less remarkable than it would seem for a guy who is only about 30.It immediately becomes apparent, though, he was hired to fail. The suits in New York just want a young face to deflect criticism of them as they fold Paramount. But Evans wins them over with a short of the upcoming "Love Story" and "Rosemary's Baby". Reprieve. In the '60s, Evans produces gems. Add to the above "True Grit", "Odd Couple" and other classics. Money rolls in, but Evans does not get super rich and is always on the hot seat.He marries the beautiful Ali McGraw and has the world by the tail. "The Godfather" is given to him, and he decides Sicilian mob pictures fail because they lack Italian authenticy."I want to smell the spaghetti," he says.Francis Ford Coppola, is the only Italian director at the time. It is tempest

In "The Kid Stays in the Picture", legendary movie producer Robert Evans tells the story of his tumultuous but undeniably exciting life. The son of a Harlem dentist, a teenaged playboy, Evans was the man who put women in pants -Evan Piccone pants- before he ever set foot in Hollywood. A chance meeting by the pool at the Beverly Hill Hotel in 1956 made him a hot young actor. 10 years later, the failed actor without even a high school diploma was head of production at Paramount Pictures. Under Evans' reign, Paramount went from dead last number nine to the top studio in Hollywood, producing some of the 1970s most memorable films: "Rosemary's Baby", "Chinatown", and "The Godfather", and "The Odd Couple". Then things got bad. Then things got worse. But Robert Evans remains in the picture in Hollywood. Robert Evans' account of his personal and professional up and downs strikes me as an honest one. He certainly doesn't spare himself criticism or hide his faults. He was a good producer and a terrible businessman. He was blessed with extraordinary luck, a lot of talent, and a gambler's lack of discipline. Like most autobiographers, Evans takes this opportunity to blast his enemies and praise his friends. Francis Ford Coppola is on the receiving end of Evans' wrath. Considering that Evans knew everybody who was anybody in Hollywood at one time, and considering the length of this book, I'm surprised he doesn't blast more people. -Well, he does, but not as thoroughly. The only criticism I have of Evans' writing style is that he doesn't include many dates. Evans doesn't tell his life story in chronological order. It reads well and is easy to understand. But trying to place the events in order in one's mind can be difficult. If he mentioned the year every time he changed subjects, it would have been helpful. As he states in the book's preface, "There are three sides to every story: yours...mine...and the truth." "The Kid Stays in the Picture" is Robert Evans' life as he experienced it. It's entertaining, enlightening, and a must-read for anyone interested in Hollywood of the 1970s.

Robert Evans is the baddest boy in Hollywood, and if there's a shred of reticence or shame in his personality, he's keeping it well-hidden. If you like celebrity dish and are not offended by the flagrant vulgarity of Evans' self-told tales, there isn't a Tinseltown story better than this one.If Evans was assigned a copy editor to work over the manuscript, he or she must have simply thrown up their hands and let him rip. This stream-of-semi-consciousness story runs away like an eighteen-wheeler with no brakes.Unlike Julia Phillips, whose memoir, "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again," spits acid in the faces in practically everyone but herself, Evans isn't particularly nasty about other people. His most unspeakable stories are told about himself, as though he can't bear to share the spotlight--not surprising, considering how tiny and unremarkable his career as an actor turned out to be. (Life most closely imitates art when Evans plays the caddish Dexter Key in the film version of Rona Jaffe's "The Best of Everything." In the book--though not in the movie, heavens, not in the '50s!--Dexter takes his bewildered small-town sweetheart to a New Jersey abortionist in a limousine. He's just that Evansy kind of guy.)Evans is unabashedly proud of his many, many lapses from grace, both professional and personal. The only tedium in "The Kid Stays in the Picture" comes from his (yawn) innumerable sexual conquests, which all sound the same after awhile. Leaf past those and focus on Evans' rise to preeminence as a producer in the film industry in the '70s, making some of its very best movies, including "Chinatown" and "The Godfather."In Dominick Dunne's novel, "An Inconvenient Woman," the coke-snorting, career-in-a-tailspin producer Casper Stieglitz is reportedly based on Evans. However, Evans didn't really have a toupee for each day of the month, with lengths ranging from just-barbered to needs-a-haircut. "I made that part up," Dunne said. But after reading "The Kid Stays in the Picture," Evans' excesses appear so legendary that one is forced to admit that Dunne's little fib might just as well have been true. Part of my weakness for this lusciously tacky book comes from the fact that the copy I own used to belong to Peter Bogdanovich. His name is rubber-stamped all over it, and the flyleaf bears Evans' lavish inscription, "Peter-- Let's make magic together!" The dealer who sold it to me said that Bogdanovich unloaded his library during one of the many times that he ran short of ready cash.Just another Hollywood story. But even in paperback, this book is a substance-free indulgence, unless you're in a twelve-step program declaring that you are powerless against the temptation to read trash. "The Kid Stays in the Picture" is a no-cal, fat-free, smokeless treat.

This recounting of an amazing life story reads like fiction - and Evans has the voice for it. Every anecdote has you wide eyed in amazement - the tapes last 6 hours and not for a minute are you bored.