My Life as a Mankiewicz (24 page)

Mel Gibson wanted to play Bond. He could have a good British accent. He was a big star. As a matter of fact, the head of United Artists called me and said, “Would you talk to Cubby? Mel Gibson wants to play Bond, and boy, this is going to be wonderful.”

Cubby said, “Let me tell you something. I don't want Mel Gibson.”

Paul Newman even inquired; his agents said he would like to do it once. A lot of actors thought they'd like to do it once. In this case, Mel Gibson had said that if the picture grossed over $100 million—and this was back in the early eighties—he would do another one. Cubby said, “It'll stop being a Bond movie. It'll be a Mel Gibson movie, and I don't want a Mel Gibson movie, I want a James Bond movie.” And that's the difference. And he was absolutely right about that. But Roger finally got his crack on
Live and Let Die.

London Town

The production moved to London. I was the luckiest twenty-seven-year-old. I could fuck my brains out. I was writing James Bond, I was reasonably attractive, I was young and could crack a line or two, and I made many friends. It was during that time when you slept with somebody as a thank-you for a wonderful evening, and in no place more than London. This little country, England, was the cultural leader of the world in everything that mattered. Their actors were Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole and Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney. Models, Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy. The great fashion photographer, David Bailey. The fashion, the miniskirt. Music, the Beatles and the Stones. Theater, John Osborne. That little country suddenly exploded on the cultural scene. In those days, when you had Oscar nominees for the five best actors, three of them were British. It was the center of the world then, the way Rome was when Fellini made
La Dolce Vita.
Everybody who was anybody was there. I could get a table at the White Elephant for lunch because I was the fuckin' James Bond writer. I was so happy. When you're that age, things like that mean a lot to you.

I stayed on
Diamonds
for forty weeks. I was dating up a storm and going out. One day, Cubby said to me, “I'm going to have to let you go. We'll talk about writing the next one.”

I said, “Let me go?”

He said, “United Artists has called me a few times saying, ‘Hasn't that guy finished writing the script yet? Because we're paying his living allowances.'” I had a nice allowance I was living on.

David Picker, who was a very nice guy, said, “Cubby, between you and me, didn't Mankiewicz stop writing like twenty weeks ago?”

Jill St. John, God bless her. She and I were quite friendly. I told her I was going to have to go home. She said, “Oh, don't be silly. Move in with me. I've got a wonderful flat. Don't go. Guy Hamilton wants you here, everybody wants you here. Just move in. I've got a spare bedroom.” Jill and I never had a thing. So now I'm Jill's roommate.

Jill was going out with Michael Caine, and then Frank Sinatra came to London to do concerts and she was going out with Frank. My bedroom was very near the front door. Jill and I only had one key, and we'd leave it under the mat. One night, I'm still up in the bedroom, and she and Frank are coming back to Jill's place. She obviously kneeled down to get the key under the mat, and I heard Frank say, “You leave your key under the mat?”

She said, “Well, that's for my roommate and me.”

“Your roommate?”

“Tom Mankiewicz.”

There was a pause, then Frank said, “I'll break his fuckin' pencil.”

I happen to be going out with—not a huge, passionate affair, but going out with—Diane Cilento, an actress. She played Dirty Molly in
Tom Jones
with Albert Finney. Very attractive. And she's the ex-Mrs. Sean Connery. His first wife. Sean has already married Micheline (Roquebrune) during
Diamonds Are Forever
, and he's still married to her, although he has had every leading lady and some supporting ladies, too. I'm with Miss Cilento over a one-month period, but it's very memorable, because a couple of people heard about it. Ken Adam said to me, “Oh, I wouldn't go out with Sean's ex-wife. One day you're gonna get killed.” Diane and Sean didn't get along at all. I never knew if he knew about it. I ran into Sean in a restaurant in L.A. ten years later, with Micheline and his son by Diane Cilento. I kissed Micheline. Sean said, “And this is my son.” The son said to me, “Oh, I remember you.” I'd spent the night at the house a few times when he was a kid. He must have been five or six. I went, oops!

The Audience Speaks

Cubby was always the voice of the audience. In
Diamonds Are Forever
, I wrote a line in a scene toward the end. Bond is held prisoner by Blofeld on an oil rig. He says, “Well, Blofeld, it looks like you've won.” And Blofeld, played by a very sophisticated actor named Charles Gray, says, “As La Rochefoucauld once observed, Mr. Bond, humility is the worst form of conceit. I do hold the winning hand.” Cubby read this and said, “La what?”

I said, “It's La Rochefoucauld. He's a French writer, sixteenth, seventeenth century. Wrote maxims like Humility is the worst form of conceit.”

He said, “Get it out.”

Guy Hamilton, the director, said, “Oh, no, Cubby, it's wonderful.”

He said, “No, no, get it out.” And every draft would come back and there was still La Rochefoucauld. Eventually, Guy shot the scene in such a way that it could not be cut. The only coverage is Blofeld saying the line. It was shot and there was nobody to cut to. Cubby was just furious. As we started
Live and Let Die
, Guy Hamilton said to him, “Cubby, I want you to know I saw
Diamonds Are Forever
in Paris, and the La Rochefoucauld got a big laugh.”

Cubby said, “France is the only place we didn't make any fuckin' money.”

He was like a foster father in films to me. The other thing in
Diamonds Are Forever
was there's a coffin that arrives via airplane. Sean is pretending to be a guy named Franks, and he's looking at the coffin with the CIA agent, Felix Leiter. The diamonds are being smuggled in in the coffin. Felix Leiter says, “I give up. The diamonds are in there somewhere, but where?” Sean says, “Alimentary, my dear Leiter,” meaning the alimentary canal. The diamonds are stuffed up his ass. Cubby said, “No one is going to know this ‘alimentary.'”

I said, “You know ‘It's elementary, my dear Watson'?”

He said, “Yeah, I get it, but nobody's gonna fuckin' know this.”

So Guy again, who loved all these things, said, “Oh goodness, Cubby, let us have it. Sean likes it.”

He said, “All right, Jesus Christ, alimentary, my dear Leiter.”

Diamonds Are Forever
is playing at Grauman's Chinese, and Cubby and I go, and we're standing in the back. It's a full house. Sean says, “Alimentary, my dear Leiter.” And two people just laugh like hell out of the hundreds. Cubby turns to me and says, “Big deal, two doctors.”

Richard Maibaum wrote a lot of Bonds. He was a great friend of Cubby's. A sweet man to me. Just wonderful. Always very complimentary about me. We shared credit on
Diamonds Are Forever
and
Man with the Golden Gun.
Dick was a good deal older than I was. He has more Bond credits as a writer than anybody. Somebody said, “Well, maybe Dick's written himself out. This is his tenth.” We shared credit, and he gets first credit because it's alphabetical. M-A-I, and M-A-N. We shared credit without ever having met, but later on I met him at Cubby's, and he was a wonderful guy. And a good writer. I felt so lucky to have my name on a James Bond picture at that point in my life.

Live and Let Die:
Presenting the Next James Bond

Thank God, the picture was a hit, and Cubby and Harry were going to ask me back for
Live and Let Die.
They thought, we'll take one last shot at Sean. During 1971, I'd already doped out a lot of the script. Harry produced most of
Live and Let Die.
He called me one day and said, “Here's the scene. Sean's asleep. He thinks he's in bed with Solitaire. He feels something, wakes up, and there's a crocodile in bed with him. Isn't that great?”

I said, “Harry, let me ask you a couple questions. First of all, if the crocodile's in bed with him, why didn't the crocodile eat him? He's asleep, I mean, the crocodile would munch on him.”

He said, “I don't know. You're the writer.”

“And the other thing, they have these tiny little legs. How did he get on the bed? Is there a ramp or something that he walked up?”

“I don't know. You're the writer.” This was Harry.

So I went to lunch with Sean. I told him about ideas for the new script, including the crocodiles and whatnot. Sean leaned toward me. “You know what I hear, boyo, all the time? It's my obligation to play Bond.” He was the only Bond as far as everyone was concerned. Except for George Lazenby, he had been Bond in every movie and the audience loved him. Sean said, “When is my obligation over? After eight Bonds? Ten Bonds? Twelve Bonds? When do I stop having an obligation to play Bond? There's only two things in my life I've ever wanted to own: a golf course and a bank, and I have both.” He had a little Scottish bank, and he owned a golf course in Marbella, Spain. You could understand completely. There were so many different parts that he wanted to play, and he wanted to work with people like Sidney Lumet. But the audience says, “No, you owe it to us.” Like Bobby Darin singing “Simple Song of Freedom” and people are yelling, “Sing ‘Mack the Knife'!” like it's your obligation.

So here comes Roger Moore.
Live and Let Die.
Harry said, “Let me negotiate with Mankiewicz's agent.” Cubby said, “Be my guest, Harry. We want him, Guy Hamilton wants him.”

I had kept company, as they say, with Harry's assistant, Sue Parker, who's just a beautiful girl and a wonderful person. Sue said, “Your agent, Robin French, is calling tomorrow at ten. Why don't you come to the office, and you can listen in to the phone call from outside?”

I said, “I'd like to.”

On the phone, Robin said, “All right, here's the deal, Harry. Tom wants $100,000.” Now, that was a lot of money in 1971 for a screenplay. One hundred thousand dollars for a kid who's twenty-nine years old. All right, I've written
Diamonds Are Forever
, but $100,000 put you in a certain league.

Harry said, “What did we give him on this picture, $1,500 a week or $1,250 a week? Tell you what. We're willing to step forward. We'll guarantee him $50,000.”

Robin said, “No, he's gonna need a hundred, Harry.”

“I'll have to check with Cubby,” Harry said. “We might go as high as sixty, I don't know.”

Robin said, “Here's another way we could do it, Harry. He'll do it for fifty.”

“Oh, good.”

“And he wants 2 percent of the net profits.”

There was a silence. Then Harry said, “Well, let's not talk science fiction. Okay, he'll get one hundred.”

I lived at the beach in Malibu until 1971. When I got
Live and Let Die
, I said, “I'm going to buy a house.” I'd been renting this kind of shack in the Malibu Colony. The heat didn't work, it was tiny, and it made the least use of the little lot. It was forty feet wide. On the beach. To show you I've never been a great businessman, I asked the owner, “If I were to buy this house, what would you charge me?” I'd lived there for seven years.

She said, “I'd make you a good deal, but I'd have to charge you what I think it's worth, $85,000.”

I said, “You must be out of your mind. I'm not paying $85,000 for this house.” I was renting it for $500 a month. I'm pissing away $6,000 a year on this house.

When she said $85,000, I came into the city and looked. I was getting good money for
Live and Let Die
, and I found the house that I'm in now. It was on a dead end with a great view. I could see all the way to the ocean. There was no dining room. It had a tiny little kitchen. I put the office in. Over the years, I've just added and pushed out. When I started to make really big money, a couple of times I said to myself, “I'm going to look for another house.” I'd look around and say, “You know what? I come home and I'm happy here.” I just am. Two minutes away from Sunset. Five minutes away from Beverly Hills. It was not that chic. Now it's very chic. Lots of actors live up here. Forty years ago, we had foxes and snakes, and a couple of mountain lions would come down. It wasn't as built up. Lots of wildlife, which has gradually been pushed out as it has around the world. So I've always been very happy here.

I made a little compound for the cats. I love cats because they're highly affectionate and full of mischief, but they're also independent. They sack out a lot of the day, and they want their own time. They gradually take over the house, and it becomes their place. They can go in and out of their compound all day, and no predator can ever get to them. I have this strange communication with cats. Lenny Bruce, whom I met a few times, just before he died, used to say, “The difference between a dog and a cat is you work all day, your boss is yelling at you. You get home, your wife starts yelling at you. It's just a terrible day. You get in a chair, try to read the paper, and here comes a dog with a rubber ball in his mouth, and you hit him on the head with the newspaper. Five minutes later the dog's back again with the rubber ball in his mouth.” He said, “You hit a cat in the head with a newspaper and you don't see him for six months. Never put up with that shit.”

At this time, Dad was living in Pound Ridge in Westchester County. He had a beautiful thirty-acre estate with a pond. He always wanted to live up there, and he was an easterner. Every time I went to Europe on the Bonds, which was a lot, I would stop by. I would fly to New York and spend the night up in Pound Ridge. Then I'd take the Concorde the next morning, which was just three hours and twenty minutes across the Atlantic to London. It was the most wonderful plane ever. It was
Live and Let Die
time, and by then, instead of renting a car or taking a cab, I had a limo with a driver. United Artists was paying for it. I arrived at the house in a limo to spend the night, and Dad was out in front of the house in this little circular driveway of the estate. I got out of the limo and said to the driver, “Ralph, tomorrow at seven o'clock.”