When I Stop Talking You (22 page)

No matter how old you are, everything changes when your parents die. The wall between you and death collapses; suddenly gone are the only people who could speak with true authority. My life has been spent chasing mentors, each of them being like a substitute parent, but when your real parents die, you realize certain things are irreplaceable. They go and never come back. It's a blow. This is what it means to be an orphan.

My mother got sick first. By this time, I'd been sick myself, with prostate cancer. I won't go into detail, except to say it reminded me of the fragility of life. We are all walking on a wire. The key is to behave as if you will live forever. Her first symptoms presented themselves as anxiety or forgetfulness. This was in the late 1980s. She was still my mother, still the same woman with the same face and hands, but the curtain was coming down. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Each day was a little worse than the day before. She got lost in her own neighborhood, then her own house, then her own mind. She couldn't recognize friends and family. It was very hard on my father. Here was this woman, the great love of his life, sitting next to him as always, but already gone. It was obvious to me that something had to be done; the situation could not go on. My father could not make that decision because it was too painful. My brother could not do it because he was too close. Distance allowed me to see the situation more clearly. I flew to New York, went to the apartment, took my mother to the Riverdale Home for the Aged. When my father objected, I said, "This is what we're doing." It was the most painful day of my life. My father went over there every morning, did what he could, watched her fade-God knows what he was thinking.

She died on April 30, 2000. I stood at her graveside, said the prayers, and cried. A man without a mother is a man without a country, an exile. You never recover from it. My mother was the Bronx and the family and the streets at sundown and the merchants in the shops and the smoke and the smell of cooking and the train rattling over Jerome Avenue, the safety and love of family, everyone at the table, the world when the world was whole.

My father was now alone for the first time in more than fifty years. He did not talk about what was going on inside him, how he felt, any of that. That was his generation-they worked for us, gave up their lives and bodies for us, without a whisper of regret or complaint. My brother and I went on with our lives, too. It's the way with the titanic events, a death in the family, the loss of an indispensable person. The world should end, but it does not. It goes on, and carries you with it.

About eight weeks after the funeral, I was in Kennebunkport with Jane. I tend to get bored in Maine, and spend most of the time driving around. One morning, as we passed a Ford dealership, I said to Jane, "I want to buy a new car."

"Why?" she said. "You already have two other cars and a truck."

"It's an urge," I said.

We went in. They had just come out with On-Star, the service that tells you where gas stations and restaurants are, gives directions and the rest. I was impressed, saw a future in which no one gets lost and everyone eats just what they want to eat. I left with a new Ford. That night, my father called me. "What are you up to?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "Just hanging around."

He said, "Well, why don't you come down to New York and see me?"

"Is anything wrong?"

"No," he said. "Everything is fine. Just take a ride."

"Well, I just bought a new car," I said. "I think I will go for a ride."

Jane and I left for New York in the morning. We were on the road for two hours when my brother called and told us, "Dad is going into the hospital."

"What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know. The doctor says he's fine, but he's insisting he be admitted to the hospital."

It was strange.

We drove on, passed little towns and diners, the road stretching before us. We took a wrong turn in the Bronx and somehow ended up on the streets where I grew up. It was as if something was leading us there, showing us all the settings of my childhood-where my father taught me the value of work, where we hugged in the street after his return from Ceylon. Jane wanted to see everything, all of it. I took her to the old shops and corners. I took her to P.S. 70 and the apartment on the Grand Concourse. We knocked on the door. A woman answered. There were thirty, forty people inside. I think it was a crack house.

Everyone was at the hospital-my nephews and nieces-sitting in the hall, waiting. My brother took me aside.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Melvyn. "Dad wants to see us in his room alone."

He was sitting up in bed. No tubes, no wires, none of that. He waved us over, brought us close to him. He was lucid and calm. "I want you two guys to know something," he said. "You've been great sons. I love you both very, very much. And I am very proud of you. Now, both of you, give me a hug."

We bent over and hugged him. I could feel his fingers clasping my back. "Now go," he said. "I need to rest."

Later, when we were sitting in the hall, the sirens went off. The nurses and doctors ran into the room, and he died. Lay down and died.

This was June 30, 2000-exactly two months after my mother went.

When my mother was laid out before her funeral she had a pained look on her face. She had gone through hell before she passed. But my father had a peaceful look on his face when he died. He was ninety-three or ninety-four. We never really knew their exact ages. He wasn't in pain, he was just ready. That's how I'd like to die.

Until a few years ago, I was terrified of death. It occupied a lot of my time. Then my friends started to die, contemporaries, like Sydney Pollack, Bernie Brillstein, Guy McElwaine. I went to see Guy at his house, at the end, when he knew he was dying. And you know what? He was smiling.

"What are you smiling at, crazy man?" I asked.

"You," he said, "because I can see that you are afraid of what's happening to me. But I'm not afraid, so why should you be? It's just another journey."

I thought about this again and again. It bothered me. Finally, one night, I sat down with a glass of wine and sort of interrogated myself. "What are you scared of?" I asked. "It's the natural progression, part of the journey. Besides, you can't get out of it. No matter how much you worry, it is going to happen. So why not just face it like you've tried to face everything else?"

The next morning, I went out and bought a cemetery plot. I have come to terms, made peace. Not because of religion, or because of anything I've been told, but because I've lost friends and I've lost family. Maybe this is what happens if you live a long life. Maybe it's the gift of survival. When more of the people who really mattered are gone than remain, the balance tilts to the next world. Your parents go, your friends go, and you realize you will go, too, and it's okay. Death makes the rope taut-without it, we would have no stories, no meaning.

I do not want to leave. I have a nice house and a nice pool and it's a beautiful day and my cellar is filled with wine and my humidor is filled with cigars. I don't want to go anywhere. But when God calls, I will go, and I won't be crying.

Hollywood has changed. There was a golden age and an age of rebellion, and we are now in an age of post-glamour. The stars are faded, the pictures are abbreviated, and the screens are small.

Well, that's what some people tell you-that Hollywood was never the same after the old system was broken-but don't believe it. I have seen era give way to era, can compare epoch to epoch. The stars now are exactly the same as the stars then: The hot spots and clubs have changed, the styles and fashions, but the underlying motivations, the human drives, which are to be discovered and lauded and respected, never change.

Look at the young stars. They go into crazy clubs, get whacked up and whatever, but when the Macombo and Ciro's and Romanoff's were open in the forties and fifties, it was no different. The booze was flowing, Desi Arnaz was singing "Babaloo," and Joan Crawford was dancing on the tables. The media is what changed. The amount of attention, the size of the lens. In the old days, the problem could always be taken care of. The accident was followed by the phone call and the stars were back on the set in the morning. Nowadays, everything is shown on live TV.

Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen, which together grossed over a billion dollars, have been a capstone on my career. I did not produce the 1960 original but was around when it was made and had long wanted to do a remake; it was the perfect vehicle for young Hollywood, a way to put a handful of actors in a frame built for the original Rat Pack-to show that, though times have changed, there are still those who can shed Sinatra-size wattage. Ocean's Eleven screamed to be back on the marquee.

In 1998, I sent the script to Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, who had a production deal with Warner's. We met at the Smoke House restaurant for one of those legendary meals, after which you know things will be more fun. These guys made the whole thing work. The feat of a project like this is casting, getting huge stars, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Elliott Gould, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle to appear and mesh on the same set. Soderbergh and Clooney had everything to do with pulling this off. They contacted the actors and explained the beauty of the project-this is as close as you can get to old Sinatra days. It was important that Clooney made the calls because he got people to take less money and less back end because it was an ensemble piece. When we sent the script to Julia Roberts we attached a twenty-dollar-bill and a note that said, "We know you get twenty for a movie, but you will have to work for a little less on this one."

We had a great time making Ocean's. For the actors, this joy was often expressed in pranks, most of them directed at me. There was the time that, on a long flight back from Europe, Brad and George, knowing that I am a big vodka drinker, challenged me to a contest. I said, "Look, you're making a mistake. You'll end up with your luggage under your seat." They persisted, so we went shot for shot. I passed out after fifteen. The boys then took the opportunity to fill my clothes, pockets, socks, and shoes with M &M's, thousands of them. Candy was coming out of my ears for weeks. I found out later that, as I had been downing Stolichnaya, they had been drinking water. Nice friends. Then there was the time that George Clooney, after a late night, had a huge breakfast delivered to my room at 5:00 A.M. I got so angry, but the room-service operator kept insisting that I had placed the order myself. When I finally asked where the call had come from, she said, "Matt Damon's room, but it was you calling, Mr. Weintraub."

George Clooney and all those guys can do spot-on Jerry Weintraub imitations.

All that fun we had making Ocean's is captured in the film. You can feel it. It's on the screen. When the movie opened in the summer of 2001, it was a smash, the biggest hit of my career. More important, it started my friendship with a group of actors, Pitt, Clooney, Damon, whom I've come to regard as family. These men are just as important to me as Sinatra and the Colonel were. I travel with them, sit with them, listen to them, love them. They are like my children. I learn from them, and I hope they learn from me, and have fun-developing true friendships, later in life, well, it's one of the great things that can happen to a person. It's like a third act when the third act works. It's a blessing. (I should also mention Bruce Willis here. He did not star in these movies, but he is a feature player in my life, a great artist and friend, another one of Jerry's kids.)

Life is strange. I used to be a kid, sitting at the feet of giants, hanging out with the last of the old-timers. Now, all of a sudden, I am the old-timer, the alter cocker who's been around forever, has known everyone and seen everything. When I look back, I see key moments. Because I did not want to go into the jewelry business. Because I would not wear tights. Because I did not want to return the messages on the call sheet. I see patterns, too. Whenever I felt the urge to obfuscate, as when Lew Wasserman asked, "Were you on the WATS line last night?" I told the truth instead. I asked if I did not know. I listened when someone else was talking. I sold with joy, so my products were fun to buy. Most important, I was never afraid to fail, which meant I was never afraid to try. I was never afraid to look silly, which meant I was never threatened by a new idea. I see the road ahead, too, a stretch that bends into the undergrowth. I do not know what will happen there, but I do know, whatever it is, I will rush to meet it with joy. This is, after all, a Jerry Weintraub Production.

If there were true justice in the world, I would be saying thank you every day, from the moment I get up till the moment I lie down-that's how lucky I've been, how many great people I've known, how much goodness I've experienced. In place of that-I would like to say thanks for several years, but I have dinner reservations-I have listed some of the people who have meant the most to me:

Key Friends and Players, People So Unusual They Fit

in No Category or Box; I Was Lucky to Walk the Earth

at the Same Time as All of Them

Bryan Lourd: He's a friend and confidant. There has never been another agent like him. He is one of a kind, and truly important in my life and in the lives of Hollywood 's biggest stars.

Bernie Yuman: We talk every day, and it's the part of the day I look forward to most. There is, in fact, not a moment when I am confused about who Bernie is-my friend, one of the best, and a man who I know loves me, and who knows I love him, dearly.

Mike Meldman: I was never interested in development until I visited Mike's golf courses-he builds the best in the world. He's a friend who makes it fun, and is the reason I am in the real estate business.

Steve Roth: This kid, this friend, this talented agent and businessman, lives around the corner, which keeps my life interesting. I want to thank him for use of his lawn-he knows what I mean.

Gerald Parsky: He saw me through the toughest time in my career, and got me away not just whole, but with a huge settlement. Thank you!

Paul Bloch: I have worked with him and admired him for more years than can be counted… He handles all the press and PR that I get credit for. He is one of the great ones.

Steven Soderbergh: I know he's in the book, on one of those pages where I recount some adventure, but he's been so important in my life I wanted to mention him again. And there-I just did.

Diane Sawyer: If I owned a TV station, this is who I would hire first. She is what owners in the sports world call a franchise player, an absolutely stellar talent.

Ken Ziffren: My lawyer, my confidant, my friend. Thanks for keeping me out of jail (that's a joke).

Harvey Gettleson: He can read a deal like Gretzky reads the ice: Thanks for your guidance, expertise, and friendship.

George Schlatter: George produced some of the most important shows and television events ever, many with me. I admired him long before we met. I appreciate everything he's done.

Leonard Goldberg: We had a film company together for a time, but imagine what would have happened if we started together when we were kids. We would have made billions!

Rich Cohen: Without him, no book. We had lots of fun, and will have lots more. Thank you.

Tommy Armour, who has been like a son to me. I love him. Some of my best times in life are on the golf course with him.

Jonathan Karp, Cary Goldstein, and the team at Twelve: For helping me share my journey with the world.

Jessica Goodman, Dan Fellman, and the rest of the team at Warner Bros., and of course Kim Pinkstaff, who help me get it done.

Diana Jenkins: When I met Diana she was in her thirties, very young and beautiful, and still, I felt as if I was meeting Auntie Mame. She is wonderful. I hope I know her forever.

Lisa G.: You know who you are, and you know how much I love you.

Of course I want to thank my brother, Melvyn; his wife, Linda; and their family: Abby, Matt, Sofia, Richard, Meredith, and Jack. My children: Michael and his wife, Maria; Julie; Jamie and her husband, Jacoby; and Jody. My grandchildren, all of whom have names that come right out of the Bible, just like they do: Sarah, Rachel, Joseph, and Ari. My nieces, Keira and Kyla, and their parents, Mitchell and Donna. I love you all, and I am proud of you. Every generation bigger and stronger than the last, that's what I say.

Actors I Have Worked With

Casey Affleck

Karen Allen

Dan Aykroyd

Kevin Bacon

Ellen Barkin

Kim Basinger

Ned Beatty

Ralph Bellamy

Joey Bishop

Karen Black

Ronee Blakley

Jim Broadbent

George Burns

James Caan

Scott Caan

Sid Caesar

Mickey Callan

Keith Carradine

Vincent Cassell

Jackie Chan

Kyle Chandler

Geraldine Chaplin

Chevy Chase

Don Cheadle

Michael Chiklis

Julie Christie

George Clooney

Robbie Coltrane

Sean Connery

Tom Courtenay

Tom Cruise

Timothy Daly

Matt Damon

Beverly D'Angelo

Tony Danza

John Denver

Michael Douglas

Charles Durning

Shelley Duvall

Bob Einstein

Ethan Embry

Peter Falk

Ralph Fiennes

Albert Finney

Josh Flitter

Andy Garcia

Teri Garr

Henry Gibson

Isabel Glasser

Scott Glenn

Jeff Goldblum

Elliott Gould

Steve Guttenberg

Gene Hackman

Thomas Hulce

Eddie Izzard

Eddie Jemison

Martin Kove

Shelley Long

Jon Lovitz

Bernie Mac

Ralph Macchio

Lee Majors

Noriyuki "Pat" Morita

Michael Murphy

Craig T. Nelson

Wayne Newton

Marisol Nichols

Al Pacino

Brad Pitt

Donald Pleasence

Shaobo Qin

Randy Quaid

Carl Reiner

Paul Reiser

Molly Ringwald

Emma Roberts

Eric Roberts

Julia Roberts

Mickey Rourke

Jaden Smith

Elisabeth Shue

Henry Silva

Paul Sorvino

Sylvester Stallone

Rod Steiger

Daniel Stern

Sharon Stone

George Strait

Barbra Streisand

Hilary Swank

Richard Thomas

Uma Thurman

Lily Tomlin

Susan Tyrell

Lesley Ann Warren

Bruce Willis

Oprah Winfrey

James Woods

Joanne Woodward

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Clients and People I Promoted in the Management

and Music Years

Paul Anka

Charles Aznavour

Shelley Berman

Joey Bishop

Pat Boone

Jackson Browne

Jimmy Buffett

George Burns

Harry Chapin

Eric Clapton

Joe Cocker

Alice Cooper

Charlie Daniels

Tony Danza

John Davidson

Mac Davis

John Denver

Neil Diamond

Bob Dylan

Dan Fogelberg

Peter Frampton

Connie Francis

Kinky Friedman

Jerry Garcia

Bobby Goldsboro

Dorothy Hamill

Uriah Heep

Florence Henderson

Don Imus

Waylon Jennings

Elton John

Shari Lewis & Lambchop

Gordon Lightfoot

Ed McMahon

Jimmy McNichols

Lee Majors

Barry Manilow

Bob Marley

Ian Matthews

Curtis Mayfield

Roger Miller

Joni Mitchell

Jane Morgan

Muppets

Michael Murphy

Wayne Newton

Ted Nugent

Robert Palmer

Tom Paxton

Robert Plant

Elvis Presley

Richard Pryor

Phil Ramone

Kenny Rogers

Mort Sahl

Boz Scaggs

Bob Seger

Frank Sinatra

Phoebe Snow

Rod Stewart

Steven Stills

Mary Travers

Frankie Valli

Sylvie Vartan

Joe Walsh

Barry White

Paul Williams

Edgar Winter

Chuck Woolery

Neil Young

Frank Zappa

Movies I Produced

1975 Nashville

1977 September 30, 1955

1977 Oh, God!

1980 Cruising

1981 All Night Long

1982 Diner

1984 The Karate Kid

1986 The Karate Kid, Part II

1987 Happy New Year

1988 My Stepmother Is an Alien

1989 The Karate Kid, Part III

1992 Pure Country

1994 The Specialist

1994 The Next Karate Kid

1997 Vegas Vacation

1998 The Avengers

1998 Soldier

2001 Ocean's Eleven

2004 Ocean's Twelve

2007 Ocean's Thirteen

2007 Nancy Drew

2010 The Karate Kid

Movies I Acted In

1993 The Firm, as Sonny Capps

1997 Vegas Vacation, as Jilly

2001 Ocean's Eleven, as High Roller

2002 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, as Larry Goldberg

2004 Full Frontal, as Jerry

2004 Ocean's Twelve, as American Businessman

2007 Ocean's Thirteen, as Denny Shields

Directors and Writers I've Worked With

Robert Altman

Paul W.S. Anderson

Paul Attanasio

John G. Avildsen

Richard Benjamin

James Bridges

Christopher Cain

Jeremiah S. Chechik

George Clooney

Avery Corman

Andrew Fleming

William Friedkin

Larry Gelbart

Ted Griffin

Robert Mark Kamen

Stephen Kessler

Brian Koppelman

Alex Kurtzman

Richard LaGravenese

David Levien

Barry Levinson

Luis Llosa

Doug McGrath

Don MacPherson

Aline Brosh McKenna

George Nolfi

Robert Orci

David Webb Peoples

Sydney Pollack

Billy Ray

Carl Reiner

Gary Ross

Michael Soccio

Steven Soderbergh

Stephen Sommers

Joan Tewkesbury

Harald Zwart