My, How Fast They Learn

Two years ago, when I was a graduate playwright at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, I sat down and wrote an original screenplay about three young women who are literally seducing to death a guy named Paxton Quigley, whom they have locked in the attic of their college dormitory. I wrote it out of venomous contempt for all the Hollywood claptrap I'd ever seen that presumed to examine the sex life of young Americans and succeeded only in vilifying our lower regions. During one flashback, an outraged mother screams, "Young man, my daughter better not be pregnant!" Quigley looks at her and says:."Lady, where you been the past five years, at the movies?"

As a final gesture of disrespect, I entered that arrogant screenplay into a contest sponsored by the Hollywood screenwriters' guild. The guild members turned around and awarded my screenplay a $1000 first prize. They flew me out to receive the award, they wined me, they dined me, they showered me with accolades. But through it all they sighed and said, It's too bad your screenplay could never be made into a film; not in this country, anyway.

Of course, they were correct, those Hollywood savants. For months my agent and I tried to peddle the Quigley script to America's most respected producers and directors. They wrote back courteous and charming letters, all of them, saying things like, "We're growing, but that grown we ain't..."

Those letters managed to confirm my previous suspicions about Fantasyland.

One of the moguls who'd read the script was producer Harold Hecht, now producing on his own at Columbia since the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster partnership dissolved several years ago. Hecht is a small man with an elfin grin, manicured fingernails and custom-tailored suits; he has his monogrammed shirts made in Paris. I knew nothing of his tailor or his grin until September 1965, when he phoned me in Seattle, Washington, where I was working for a television station. "We've read your Paxton Quigley script," Hecht said, "and we thought it was very funny. Could you come down here for a few days, we'd like to talk with you."

"About Quigley?"

"No. But a college-based story, though. Could you be in my office the day after tomorrow? In the morning, at nine-thirty? We'll of course reimburse your plane fare."

"Well, what's it concern, Mr. Hecht?"

"We'll discuss it. See you then. Goodbye."

"Goodbye." Click click zzzzzzzzzzz...

Hey, wait a minute, pal, I mean----But there was I, flying United down to Los Angeles the next afternoon, trying to recall what I'd either read or heard about Harold Hecht, a man of 58 who'd garnered $2,000,000 during his 15 years with Burt Lancaster and then proceeded to drop $3,000,000 on his own until 1965, when he produced Cat Ballou. I knew that Hecht-Hill-Lancaster had produced one of the few recent American films of lasting significance, Sweet Smell of Success. I didn't know that at the time Harold Hecht deeply regretted making the film. I speculated that any producer of Hecht's repute who would take the trouble to call in an unpublished, untested writer of 24 must be quite dedicated and courageous. I was correct. But what I did not foresee was the muck and mire that traps many a well-intentioned Hollywood producer and hinders his noblest efforts--the slime of yesteryear, wherein a producer yanks after four or five simultaneous projects, hoping that one of them will rise to the surface.

Hecht Productions booked me into the Hollywood Knickerbocker. That night, I hung around its dismal lobby watching old people sit on long worn couches, facing each other, waiting for the end like passengers in a musty bus terminal. When I walked by, they discussed me for a while to pass the time.

Eventually I made my way to Sunset Strip, in search of diversion. Cars bumper to bumper; but unlike New York, the drivers don't honk their horns and the sidewalk crowds are strangely silent. You listen not to voices but to the shuffling of shoes on warm cement. The Strip itself is now a block-long procession of glowing pastel marquees over red and green ornate portals. Behind some portals girls of 18 jerk up and down to the thudding drone of a Beatlesesque combo. The girls are 18 whether they are 12 or 36; the strands of their hair twitch a separate pattern over peaked shoulders. With luck and a prayer, they could all be Cher, their dates Sonny. With more luck, they could accomplish their ultimate design, to watusi themselves into such a frenzy that snap snap snap off pop the buttons on their capris and eureka! they have finally shed themselves of silk and Dacron and cotton, free now at last to gyrate stark-raving naked in ecstatic defiance of old age.

Behind other portals on The Strip, these fabrics have been shed for a price and the girl on the midget bandstand, a sad pastiche of something alive and vibrant, jangles her bared breasts in rhythm with a thumbing bass guitar. If she were doing the burlesque houses, she would perhaps toss a smile or two into her act. But she is a topless go-go girl, and because the clientele is hip, she caters to its New Morality. As a consequence, she attempts no expression of any sort, stares blankly at a baby-pink spot, transforms her breasts into an extension of the zinc and plastic decor, working her audience into a comatose state that parallels her own puppetlike insouciance.

Although the young infiltrate these watusi joints, most teenagers and postteens who choose to make their own groovy scene cluster either at Fred C Dobbs or at Ben Franks, both located at the east end of The Strip. I discovered Fred C Dobbs around midnight. It is a coffeehouse tucked in a courtyard behind a realty office. A late Billy Holiday was playing on the jukebox when I entered. At the counter, one girl told her date, "I ask people if they like late Billy Holiday. If they say no, I can tell I won't care for them."

There was a Negro in a beret and shades standing behind the girl. He tapped her on the collarbone and said, "I dig early Marvin Rainwater." She turned away, I laughed. The Negro engaged me in conversation, introduced the blonde next to him. Both were 19. "She's just come down from a trip," he explained. Later he inquired if I'd be interested, too. "Half the cats in here are takin' trips daily. Man, what'd them mothers do before LSD?"

"LSD's a big thing around here, huh?"

The Negro hugged the blonde and they began to giggle.

"What'll you do for kicks, then, when you grow up?" I persisted. They contemplated this. The girl came close and whispered: "We'll die." The Negro hummed. I left.

• • •

My agent, Hal Landers, and I agreed to meet in front of Columbia Studios the next morning, so that he might introduce me properly to Harold Hecht. Landers, a dapper, owlish agent of about 36, speaks in honeyed tones and he persuades so softly that he is known at the studios as The Candy Man. At 9:50 I was still waiting: no Candy Man. I decided to go to Hecht's office alone. It happened that Jack Lemmon and friends were also riding up to the fifth floor. Jack rolled a thick green panatela between his teeth as I stared fast, noting his deep tan, his exotic foulard. Good barber, I thought. Then suddenly he, a Superstar, was gesturing directly at me.

"Go ahead, go," he commanded, firm but polite.

Go? Go where?

I turned to the front, realized we'd reached the fifth floor, that the automatic door had opened and that Jack Lemmon was merely suggesting I walk out of this elevator in order that he and his friends might also depart.

"No, after you." Out of respect to his being Jack Lemmon, it seemed only fair that he should exit before me.

"No, no, go," he repeated, gesticulating now with both hands.

"No, please . . ."

"No, go ahead." Emphatically, he pulled the cigar from his teeth.

"No, really, after you . . ."

At length, quite guiltily, I exited first. Jack did a slight take to the men beside him, mostly a grimace. Several weeks hence, after many such imbroglios, I finally concluded that in the peculiar etiquette of Hollywood, a male star will not step from an elevator until every underling has fled. If, however, you should leave a party before the stars have left, you will have left your last party.

Still smarting, I made my way down empty gray-tiled corridors around three corners to Harold Hecht Productions. It was renovation day in the small outer office, where carpenters were hammering together a huge wooden storage closet designed to replace numerous metal file cabinets. The large blonde secretary on the left greeted me, apologized for the noise and confusion. The short black-haired secretary on the right brought me a cup of instant coffee. "If there's one thing I refuse to drink, it's instant coffee," she said, handing me the cup.

Hal Landers entered. With the intensity of a football coach before the big game, he counseled me on Hollywood protocol. "Be sure to always wait for your agent," he confided, "the agent is always the heavy. If you're late, it's his fault; he was late. Right?" I nodded. "Just relax, Hecht's a great guy to work for. He knows his business and he'll put you down when you should be put down. He's great." I nodded again.

The intercom buzzed.

"You can go in now," the secretary on the right informed us. These secretaries, I soon came to discover, never giggle or titter: They do their work straight-faced, with a cold efficiency that astounds.

Landers opened the door to Hecht's private office for me. Impeccably tailored, Hecht stood up, walked all the way around his mahogany desk, shook hands warmly and motioned me to a seat facing his. Hecht does not smile, exactly, he beams: His eyes widen and glint, his mouth blossoms into the shape of a new moon, his cheeks knot and you are suddenly confronted by a 58-year-old cherub.

Hecht's diminutive stature furthers the illusion of defenselessness. When he repositioned himself in his massive black-leather chair, I was reminded of a small boy flopping about in his father's shoes. My mistake.

Landers, standing across from Hecht at the desk, extended his hand palm upward toward me: "He's all yours now, Harold," my agent smiled. Hecht grinned. I took inventory: four phones, two Sicilian grape gatherers cast in bronze as lamps, one on either end table straddling a tufted fuchsia couch set against a wall papered in fake brick. We might have been in a realtor's office. Hollywood producers, I was thinking, should at least make some effort to preserve their image of gauche and lavish decadence. Not Hecht, however, not these days. His previous headquarters in the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster building did convey such garish splendor: On its walls hung originals by Modigliani, Dubuffet and Matisse, and Life even featured it once in a pictorial. But Hecht like his present office because it looks like an office.

"Most of the other offices around here look like bedrooms," he says. "How can you work in a bedroom?"

As I gazed about the room, Landers massaged my shoulder muscles. Film-industry people touch each other a lot. "Treat my boy well, Harold," he cautioned Hecht. We laughed. Landers waved goodbye and left.

Producer Hecht tilted far back in his chair and perched his feet toe to toe, as if joined in prayer, on the edge of his (continued on page 108) My, How Fast (continued from page 86) desk. "Good flight?" he inquired.

"Very smooth, thanks."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

"It must be wonderful to be that young." ("He doesn't look old enough to sharpen my pencils," Hecht quipped to his associate producer moments after this interview.)

Hecht said, "You're probably wondering why we brought you down here," and I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact."

"We'd love to do Paxton Quigley, but----"

"But?"

"But I don't see how we could make it into a film without ruining it, do you?"

Mr. Hecht, go to the back of the class...

"I never thought it was particularly dirty, to begin with," I informed him. No reaction. He picked up a thick scarlet folder before him on the desk, lowered his legs, stretched horizontally across the desk and handed the folder to me, saying:

"I want you to read this outline of a college story we're thinking about. It's been loosely adapted from a novel called Stacy Tower. Ever read it?"

"I started it once."

"We bought the property a while back, but...well, I've always wanted to do a university picture, you see. The time is especially ripe for one now, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's why----"

"I think so," Hecht said, explaining that he had reserved an office for me downstairs, that the blonde secretary on the left would give me the key, that I should read the outline and meet with him in the afternoon: "How's that sound?"

"Well----"

"Good. See you when you're finished. Take your time." Then he was on the phone answering one of four calls his secretaries had held. Hecht is not a man to mince words, to dally or filibuster.

The "revised treatment" he asked me to read ran 89 pages, the collaborative effort of two writers whose last names merged with the euphonious lilt of a vaudeville team: Writing in collaboration has always puzzled me; it's like inviting a stranger into your bathroom with you. What I read valiantly attempted to work 15 principal characters into a Grand Hotel panorama of contemporary university life and failed abysmally. It failed for the same reasons a Frankie Avalon picture resembles nothing in the real world, except that beach-party bingos are not intended to suggest reality, and the Stacy outline did indeed effect a pious tone of That's how it is, that's how it really is.

After reading the first three pages of this outline, I'd already cast the film: young Dick Powell as Paul, Joan Blon-dell as Tish, and Eddie Cantor in blackface as Gene The Negro.

• • •

It was almost dusk when I reseated myself across from Hecht, laying the scarlet folder on his desk. I knew, even at 24, that you can say just about anything to anybody if you suffix it with a "sir" or a "ma'am," and Hecht, huddled in that mammoth chair, seemed particularly receptive. With bemused detachment, he studied me for a while, wondering, perhaps, what the hell I was doing in his office. Then he asked:

"Did you have any reaction to the outline, Stephen?"

"Yes, sir. This thing's horrendous," I replied flatly, quite certain that within an hour I'd be on a return flight to Seattle.

But producer Hecht's face evidenced no rage. Instead, slowly and compassionately he nodded, lips drawn tight. His hands fanned up behind his head, butterfly wings, and as he gazed at the ceiling, he inquired: "If you think the outline is unsatisfactory, how would you go about improving it?"

How? I'd burn it, that's how.

"I'd burn it, sir."

No wince, not even a blink: "All of it?"

"Yeah, probably."

"And what would you do instead?"

"Start all over again, I guess. I haven't thought about it. The idea of students revolting, Mr. Hecht... the part of that treatment where those writers tried to bring in the Berkeley bit--situation--maybe..."

"Yes?"

"That could be a possibility. Otherwise, I don't----"

"It's not very jazzy, is it?"

"What, sir?"

"This Stacy outline."

You must be kidding. "No, sir, I don't find it particularly jazzy. How long were they working on that, if I may ask?"

"Five months," muttered Hecht like a man admitting that his dog has fleas, and suddenly he was frowning. His is a profoundly candid frown that speaks of the past and present frustrations of one producer who, surrounded by schlock merchants, has on occasion risked his livelihood to transcend kitsch. However, Hecht learned his profession among these merchants and, as I soon came to discover, adopted much of their filmmaking technique as his own. Schlock tactics dictate that the Hollywood producer summon forth the talents and non-talents of many to do the job of one, for there is security in numbers, if not artistry. And Hecht also adheres to an atavistic belief that the producer is king, not a quiet moneylender but a powerful creative force in the cinematic process. Fortunately, Hecht possesses a strong distaste for sentimentality that makes him a kind of visionary Dr. Schweitzer in this primitive society plagued by artistic softening of the brain. I discovered the Schweitzer in Hecht only after my own brain had begun to soften and Hecht, noticing my swift deterioration into a Hollywood hack, sat me down for the cure.

But both the cure and the disease were unanticipated by me at the outset, sitting and watching him in that late September dusk as he sullenly reflected upon five months of time, money and labor squandered on the Stacy outline. Nor was I aware that three other projects were currently occupying his attention and that they would ultimately render him inaccessible; nor that Harold Hecht maintains a certain notoriety among film-industry personnel for his shrewd and frugal ways. He is, according to one who knows, "the toughest man in this town to get money out of." I was about to learn the latter truth firsthand.

After his lengthy reflective silence, Hecht abruptly stopped frowning: "I understand you're working for a television station in Seattle."

"Yes."

He wanted to know how much they were paying me, and I told him: the salary of a bad plumber. He drew a doodle on his jot paper, then inquired, How would I like to come to work for him down here, where I could spend all my time writing?

"For what sort of salary, sir?" I asked, thinking, Two grand a month, pal, nothing less.

"About the same salary they're paying you in Seattle," Hecht replied. You're putting me on. But I heard nothing of a practical joker in Hecht's voice, rather the laconic monotone of a seasoned gambler. "Of course," he added, "I don't want to take advantage of a starving young writer, Stephen."

You just did, Mr. Hecht, you just... "No, sir."

"Therefore, if we can use what you write, then I'll pay you a substantial bonus. How does that sound?"

"Well, frankly----"

"Why don't you think about what you might want to do on this story and we'll meet again tomorrow afternoon. No, let's meet for lunch. Drop in tomorrow morning and introduce yourself to Mitch, my associate producer: the next office down the corridor."

Hecht, offering me that ingratiating grin, pushed his intercom buttons and began to arrange a time for our luncheon date. I walked out.

• • •

Mitch Lindemann, liaison between Hecht and his writers, is a puffy man in his mid-40s with a grainy voice and crocodilian eyes that open and shut quite (continued on page 188) My, How Fast (continued from page 108) leisurely. He worked for Hecht years ago when Hecht-Lancaster was called Norma Productions, during the days of Ten Tall Men and Flame and the Arrow, rejoined Hecht after a decade to assist on Cat Ballou. The next morning, Lindemann took me on a tour of the Columbia executive building, introducing me as a young writer whom Hecht had the chutzpah to bring down from Seattle.

It turned out that he, among many, Harold Hecht included, shared my reservations concerning the Stacy Tower outline.

"What are you going to do instead?" he inquired at one point.

"I don't know yet," I told him.

"There's a real film to be made about student unrest--the problem is to make that picture."

"Yes."

"Want some advice? Get out of this town while you still have a chance."

Shortly after our tour, I was taken to lunch by Hecht in Columbia's executive dining room, a Florentine-wallpapered suite where waiters sport El Morocco uniforms.

Hecht, slicing a blood-rare steak, asked if I'd had any recent thoughts about the college story. "Usually when I start on something long, it's been fermenting in my mind for a few months, sir. If I were to do another college script, I'd like to try one about the recent Berkeley scene."

"That's what part of the Stacy outline's about, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

Hecht chuckled. When he is in a good mood, he will sometimes chuckle throughout an entire conversation. But even when angered, should you suddenly decide to tell him where it's at, he will not in response slap you down with a Listen, you young smart ass, I was handling Chayefsky and Odets before you could even hold a crayon. Once he would have, and did during the early years with Lancaster. If you tell people who knew Hecht ten years ago that he strikes you as a gentleman of style, they cough into their fists.

On our way back from lunch, Hecht deposited me in Lindemann's office, then disappeared.

"Come in," said Lindemann, "and meet a friend."

The friend is Lee Marvin, thin and tall and sunburned, dressed casually in white denims, a bandage covering his left ear. He stands, gawking forward slightly, and shakes my hand. I sit down and say nothing as Marvin and Lindemann continue their discussion of Marvin's future acting plans. Lindemann sees Marvin as a new Bogart, now at the peak of his career after Cat Ballou and Ship of Fools. Marvin, lounging in his chair as if seated on a horse, seems bored by any mention of his career. He has stories to tell and they interest him more. Lindemann--in earthy terms-- informs Marvin of the Paxton Quigley plot. Marvin looks at me, one hand rising spiderlike to mask his face.

"Now that, Steve," he says, "is a concept. Revenge, right? Right. Chicks, they're too much." Marvin is out of his chair, he swoops about the office like a giraffe, his arms flailing as he gets the image into focus. Then he's off, he's each of the three girls sneaking up the attic stairs to ravish Quigley. He stops. Then suddenly he's Quigley listening to their footsteps. "Now dig," he keeps saying, but it's unnecessary; Lindemann and I are both right there in the attic. Marvin reseats himself and lights a Tareyton, sucking in the air with a hiss. The cigarette goes into an ashtray and he's off again, this time acting out an anecdote that concerns a certain director's party at which there's a gauche loudmouth. Marvin is the loudmouth and we hate him, then instantly he's the object of the loudmouth's abuse and we cringe in sympathy for him. The anecdote is over; Marvin, arms outstretched, balls his hands into two fists, then lets the fingers float out. "Wheeeeeee..." he says, and we watch an airplane take off.

For an hour Marvin continues these vignettes; they are sometimes coherent, sometimes not, but unanimously brilliant. "It's time for a touch of spirits," he decides finally, and the three of us head down the corridor to Hecht's private office. Marvin says to me confidentially as we're about to enter: "Don't get caught up in this town, Steve. Bad news. The cruds."

A moment later, Hecht is on his phone telling his secretaries he's not taking any calls. Marvin stoops before Hecht's refrigerator, comes up with a bottle of vodka.

"They asked Bob Mitchum in an interview if he followed the Stanislavsky Method, dig? Mitchum looks 'em in the eye and says, 'Stanislavsky hell, I follow the Smirnoff Method.' Too much..."

The vodka bottle is cracked, Marvin and Lindemann begin several toasts. Hecht this afternoon has no time for such diversions: Impatiently he fidgets behind his desk, slyly eying the clock over the door. But Hecht makes no move to hurry things along, merely refuses the bottle with a curt smile. I sit to one side, now watching Marvin as he goes into his bits, his mind a series of Technicolor shorts, now watching Hecht play finger games, forming tepees and isosceles triangles. At times Hecht brings the back of one hand to his mouth to smother a yawn.

Three hours later, we are still in Hecht's office. Outside, the sun is setting. Through it all, Hecht has sat brooding, and I realize now that he is too well versed in the subtleties of his profession to voice any vexation. Marvin remembers a doctor's appointment. Today he has the stitches taken out of his ear. He pulls the bandage from the ear--a thin stream of blood trickles down his cheek-- then he tiptoes toward the door, saying, "Don't wake the baby," with Lindemann and me in close pursuit.

"One second," Hecht says to me. I turn and go toward the chair as a secretary's arm reaches in to close the door. Hecht recaps the vodka bottle, returns it to his refrigerator. "I must apologize for this."

For what? "Don't, I enjoyed it."

"Did you?" Hecht studies me, then takes that same bottle out of the refrigerator and says, "Let's have a drink."

• • •

By unspoken agreement, from that afternoon on, Hecht and I accepted each other on a listen-now, laugh-later basis. During the next two days we engaged in a delicate fencing match, Hecht thrusting at me lightly with his "thoughts" about the college story--"I see kids running all around, from here to there, with nobody to listen to them because these universities have just become too large. Don't you?"--while I parried with a few concepts of my own--"I'd like to do a Strangelove kind of thing about these monster multiversities, I think. How does that sound?"

"Fine," said Hecht, "Strangelove was a brilliant movie, didn't you think?"

"Yes, sir."

"I only hope we don't wind up with anything too special," Hecht added.

It came down at last to a matter of aesthetics. I would have much preferred to sell out for money, but Hecht eliminated that possibility, and so I was left to debate between drizzle or sunshine, Douglas firs or sheltering palms, Theodore Roethke or Nathanael West. And, alas, the locusts won.

• • •

I returned to Seattle Saturday night. Monday morning, my 1957 Volvo loaded with books, ashtrays, record albums and myriad manuscripts, I was driving down through Oregon orchards toward Berkeley, where I spent ten days taking notes.

• • •

Arriving in Hollywood during the first days of October, I found an apartment one block below Sunset, not more than a mile from Columbia Studios. The landlord kept calling me Pete:

"You won't find another place like this, Pete, on the whole street. Look, see?"

"What?"

"Out in front, see? No lights. It's a class building. You think I'd put in them red and orange floods under the bushes to make 'em look like Christmas trees? Never, Pete, this ain't no whorehouse, you should pardon the expression. No, no, you'll love it."

It came up in the course of introductions that I was about to start writing at a studio.

"A writer, huh? Listen, Pete, you couldn't believe who died in an apartment just four blocks from here."

"No idea."

"F. Scott Fitzgerald. You hearda him, right? Over on Laurel Avenue, 1403. You should take a walk by there sometime."

• • •

Hecht and I met early the following week, our first reunion since my return. He wore a monogrammed crimson pinstripe (shirts by Lanvin in Paris) under a worsted pewter sports coat (Dominic Pinaro, the tailor). Hecht was sitting on the tufted couch drinking an Alka-Seltzer when I entered. I sat myself at the opposite end of it.

"Don't sit there. Sit across from me in one of those chairs, where I can see you."

After inquiring where I'd settled, Hecht handed me a filmscript that he wanted me to read. The conversation drifted to writers whom he'd employed throughout his career.

"I'll tell you something about writers," Hecht said: "They hate me, most of them."

Try paying them, Mr. Hecht. "Why's that, sir?"

"A writer's script is all he has. If you take it out of his hands, he's got nothing left." A pause, then:

"You'll hate me, too, someday. All writers do."

The air was getting a bit thin. Hecht quickly changed subjects.

"Did you bring in an outline with you?"

"No. I've got a bag of notes I took at Berkeley, but I'm not too good at outlines."

"Do you want to talk about the script you have in mind, or would you prefer to show us your notes?"

"Why don't I type up what I have?"

"Why don't you, Stephen."

As I walked to the door, I thought maybe I should reassure him: "Have a little faith in me, Mr. Hecht. I think I might have something going."

"Faith? You have to earn my faith, the money is deductible."

His mouth opened and puckish laughter erupted without warning from somewhere deep within, crackling against the air like kernels of popcorn.

• • •

For three days, working at my apartment, I rearranged those Berkeley notes into a fragmented "outline." My characters, however, were still adrift in plotless limbo.

Hecht telephoned, finally. "Where've you been hiding? We're anxious to see what you're doing."

"Well, I write things out in longhand, Mr. Hecht, and I don't type too fast, so it'll take me another day to type it all up."

"That shouldn't be necessary. We have secretaries here. One of them will be able to read your handwriting, don't you think? Why not bring it in now and we'll read it overnight, then we'll meet tomorrow afternoon. What about four-thirty?"

"Well----"

"See you then."

What I handed in to be typed concerned a campus agitator named Zino Street and two undergraduate lovers, Trina and Adam, who are cohabiting mainly as a result of their belief that by living together they may actually be able to mature despite four years of transistorized education under the guidance of faceless administrators. Zino the activist lives at home with Mom; Adam the folk guitarist cuts and cleans his fingernails, and Trina, his woman, keeps a tidy apartment. The 27-page synopsis seemed to me to have only one attribute: It offered nothing for a young Dick Powell.

Yet.

• • •

When I went into Hecht's private office the following afternoon, he and Lindemann were mumbling to each other. Hecht saw me, catapulted from his leather chair and strode to the couch, a dancer's stride. I was ready for anything except for what happened. Hecht grinned in my direction, apple-cheeked, and said:

"We've read your notes and we're delighted. Just delighted."

I blinked. Hecht, gleeful and buoyant, continued:

"You've created some real characters. I think there's a good chance that we'll be able to do this film. Do you have any questions?"

"Well, I--ah, I'm glad you liked it. I mean, it doesn't have much plot yet. I'm not such a great plotter."

"You've got enough: The administration doesn't want to get involved in trying to keep students from being together. But Zino puts them in a position where they're forced to make an issue of separating Adam and Trina. Then Zino forms the Free Sex Movement. That's marvelous, making the leader of the Free Sex Movement a virgin who lives with his mother. We think that's marvelous."

"Thank you."

Lindemann smiled: "You've got more story than you'll need here."

"This Zino Street, what's his nationality?" Hecht asked.

"Italian."

Remembering something, he laughed: "We made Marty Italian. We were going to make him Jewish, but I said it's better for everybody concerned if we make our Marty Italian instead of Jewish. Keep Zino Italian, that's fine."

"Is there anything here we can help you with?" Lindemann asked me.

I mentioned a point in the outline where my story seemed too contrived. Lindemann came up with an alternate course of action that neither of us bought. Hecht made his suggestion and Lindemann, slapping the chair arm, said:

"Great, beautiful! You're really cooking today, Harold." Then, to me: "Harold's given you the answer. Perfect. You're on your way----"

"There's no objection to my having Adam and Trina shacking up together?"

Hecht shook his head. "No, I see no reason why they can't be living together, if that's the way it is. Do you, Mitch?"

"No, Harold. Kids do these things."

We were all smiling. How did I want to proceed, Hecht asked? No more outlines, sir, I told him; let me go right into the screenplay itself. Fine, Hecht agreed, if you get stuck at all, come to Mitch or me; that's what we're here for. Thank you, Mr. Hecht, is there any chance now I might be able to get a permanent place to work around here, my apartment's a little noisy? Of course, said Hecht, picking up the phone.

There were no offices available in the executive building, but they could put me in a dressing room on the back lot. I was sent to a man who led me outside past several sound stages, through a doorway bordered by a small infirmary and the studio Automat, up a tiny elevator to the third floor, down a butterscotch-rugged corridor to dressing room 306. The man unlocked the door.

"This is Steve McQueen's former dressing room," he told me. "We might have to move you out of it into another if Casting wants to reclaim it. But until then ..."

The man handed me the key and left. I entered what looked like a large bed-less motel room, adjacent to a mirror-walled area where an elaborate dressing table stretched the length of the room. A white-tiled bathroom, complete with shower and infrared heater, was visible through an opened door at the opposite end. There were also three closets, a leatherine couch, two stuffed lounge chairs, a built-in bar and a refrigerator. I searched everywhere for some trace of Steve. Nothing, it seemed. But opening the refrigerator door, I spotted one can of vanilla Metrecal, alone on the bottom shelf. It was time to write home: "Dear Mom and Dad: Here's something to tell your friends about Steve McQueen. You're probably wondering how I happen to know this. Well ..."

The beige telephone rang. Hecht's blonde secretary was calling for Mr. Hecht to inquire did I own a car? Yes. Would it be possible for me to give Mr. Hecht a ride home, his wife has his automobile and he dislikes taxis?

An hour later, in my '57 Volvo, Hecht and I were driving down Sunset Strip through the haze of a smoggy autumn twilight toward Coldwater Canyon. We passed It's Boss--only night club in America Where You Can be Admitted at 15--continuing west: Sneaky Pete's, the Body Shop, Gazzarri's, Hollywood-à-Go-Go, The Trip, Pandora's Box; they all blurred by, their marquees splashing forth The Lovin' Spoonful, The Byrds, The Kinks, The Chosen Few ...

"You know, Mr. Hecht, I get the feeling one hot day this'll all just melt into a great styrene glob."

"No, it used to be that way," Hecht corrected me, looking straight ahead. "But the town's changed lately. For instance, until two years ago, you had to kill yourself to do a good film. But now it's easier, it's more open, there's a real possibility."

"Yes, but----"

"You're a young writer. You came down here to do something good, didn't you?"

"Yes, but----"

"Three years ago, it would have been much more difficult. Things are changing. This year is the year of the writer. His receptivity has enlarged. Films have become a respectable art form."

"But if writers out here are generally treated like--I mean, if others are still brought in to work on their material without their having any say in the matter----"

"Yes?"

"The thought of that might scare off a lot of young writers, no?"

"No, I don't think so."

And that was that. Neither of us spoke until we'd turned onto Coldwater Canyon Drive. Hecht, glancing at the dashboard, said: "The main reason that I'm interested in doing this university picture is, I never had a chance to go to college myself."

"Places like Berkeley, Mr. Hecht, they're really ripe for a satire."

Hecht nodded: "I don't think anyone would mind us poking fun at universities --the faculty and the administration and the students--do you? If we make a fun picture that everyone can enjoy. Do you?"

"No."

"I think we can do it." A pause. "You shouldn't be overawed by any of this, Stephen. We're very delighted with what you've done and we have real confidence in you now."

"Thank you."

• • •

That was the last time I spoke to Hecht privately for two months. He suddenly etherealized into a phantom producer, dashing here, flying there, negotiating deals for this and that property: Within weeks after I'd arrived, Hecht had managed to outmaneuver all other interested parties for the rights to Finian's Rainbow and had also--after more than a decade--succeeded in raising capital for The Way West, based on a novel by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. Aside from these two current projects, Hecht was also occupied with the sequel to Cat Ballou, having hired and fired six writers thus far in an attempt to "come up with the right story." As Lindemann explained it: "We're not satisfied with anything less than the best."

On occasion, I'd spy the back of Hecht's left ear as he entered his office, or the corner of his suit lapel as he exited. He'd smile and say, "Hello, Stephen, how's everything going?"

"Pretty well, but----"

"Good."

Each morning I rode up the automatic elevator to Steve McQueen's former dressing room, did a few hours of research on Berkeley, then settled down to write. Superstars were everywhere. I soon learned to distinguish among them by ear. Jerry Lewis, for example, opens his dressing-room door with a brisk click, while Richard Widmark will turn the handle slowly and methodically, like a man who's appeared in one too many gangster movies. They never dropped by, they said only, "Go ahead, go ..." when we'd ride the elevator together.

I found myself, meanwhile, writing a very static screenplay: Dialog was doing all the work, my characters weren't being pushed into action. In short, I blew this opportunity Hecht had afforded me to write a hip film free from outside pressures. No one stood over my shoulder muttering, "Tut-tut, you mustn't do that ..." No one browbeat me with threats of instantaneous dismissal, and I was left with only myself to blame for treading water when I should have been racing ahead with a wild, frenzied satiric side stroke. Lindemann repeatedly informed me that while he usually stays very close to Hecht's writers, the subject of my screenplay remained outside his realm of experience, and therefore, "If I get too close right now, I might cramp your style." He did not cramp my style." He did not cramp my style. I cramped my own. After three weeks of laissez faire, which I'd sorely abused, it seemed time to either seek help or chuck the whole enterprise. One afternoon I called Lindemann and told him of my dissatisfaction. "Let us see what you've done so far," he advised, and I handed in the first 40 pages of my screenplay.

"That's the worst mistake a Hollywood writer can make, you never hand anything in," said a friend. But since Hecht and Lindemann were not maligning me in typical Hollywood fashion, I saw no reason to play possum. They read my material over the weekend and Lindemann scheduled the first of many story conferences with me for Monday morning in his office.

"Harold and I have looked over this screenplay," he began, "and we don't really know what the hell you're trying to do. It's all over everywhere. But Harold thinks it shows great talent."

"It's a mess, if you ask me, Mitch. I still haven't found any action for my characters. I'm treading water."

"The scene you have between Adam and Trina in their apartment, we like. But what I want to know right away is why I should take these kids seriously. Here's a line of dialog I wrote that you might decide to add. Suppose Trina says, before she turns out the light: 'That's all we are, crummy pieces of lettuce with nowhere to go'? How does that sound?"

"Well----"

"I want to care about your characters. I've got to know by page five what are their hopes, their dreams and their aspirations. Because, if I don't care about these kids, then why should I care what happens to them?"

"Why don't you care about Adam and Trina?"

"They're just bored, irresponsible kids shacking up together, as far as I'm concerned."

"I see."

"Harold and I don't understand what you're trying to do."

"I think I know what I'm trying to do, Mitch, but my hang-up is that I'm not doing it yet."

"What should I advise you, Stephen?"

"Suppose I threw out most of that preliminary stuff and went right into the scene where those deans issue the directive."

"That's an idea."

"Most of what I've done so far is for my own benefit, anyway: to find out about the characters."

Lindemann encouraged me to begin with the issuing of the directive. "I don't care if it takes you a whole year to write this film, take as long as you want, but do a good job." I told him I appreciated his willingness to let me have my head. "Harold and I believe you can make it," he said.

I sat down and wrote a new opening. Lindemann read the material--Hecht Productions always types up eight copies on yellow onionskin--and said:

"I don't know what the hell you're trying to do here. This is smart-alecky and silly, making fun of the administration. Besides, your story's with the students."

"Maybe, Mitch, but if----"

"I could do in three pages what it's taken you fifteen pages to do. The whole thing's a definite regression."

Wait a second, pal. "But----"

Lindemann's tone then changed: "Harold and I won't let you go any further without an outline. We've got a secretary free. Dictate to her just about five pages or so and we'll meet again tomorrow. Tell us why we should care about the kids in this film, that's the main thing."

I should have called Hecht himself at this point, I should have refused to dictate a word, I should have demanded complete autonomy. But instead, like Kafka's ever-suppliant K, I did as they asked.

The next day Lindemann conferred with me about my dictated outline: "I don't know what the hell you're trying to do here. This is smart-alecky. The real story you have is a love affair between Zino and Trina. The first time they meet each other they hate each other, but we can tell there's something between them right away. Now, I see a very funny movie to be made out of all this. But how can we tell the story of what's happening in American universities today if we base this screenplay on something like that Free Sex Movement of yours? Is that an important issue?"

"You both seemed to like it before, Mitch."

"It won't work."

Lindemann intended to help, as he'd successfully assisted Walter Newman and many others in Hecht's stable. Newman, responsible for creating Marvin's boozing gunfighter, Kid Shelleen, in Cat Ballou, considers Hecht and Lindemann "the two most tolerant and patient men I've ever written under."

And yet, in the process of revising the opening section of my screenplay under Lindemann's tutelage, through the five drafts and numerous outlines that I kept churning out until Thanksgiving, strange things happened. Lindemann would read my latest draft and call me in for a story conference that reiterated yesterday's, anticipated tomorrow's session.

"Stephen," he'd say, "you still haven't told Harold and me yet why we should care for your characters."

"I don't mean to be hard on you," he'd add. We both understood there was no malice in his criticisms.

"What's the matter with them now?" I'd ask.

"Trina's a despicable human being, Adam's a lump, Zino's stupid," he'd reply, then add: "They're nowhere."

Lindemann often reminded me that this film would be seen by the peoples of France and Spain--all over the world, in fact--and that we didn't want to tell them the universities in our country were run by a bunch of nincompoops, did we?

Eventually, Lindemann maneuvered to his basic grievance: "You can't expect to focus on two kids living together and have your audience accept this as the way it is in college. Our morality is different than that."

"Why didn't you tell me so when I handed in my original notes?"

"We thought something might spark. An explosion. After a lot of years in this business, I've come to realize it's the clichés that work best: A princess falls in love with a commoner and you're in business. Trina's the daughter of the governor, she falls in love with Zino, the son of an Italian worker who lives with his widowed mother and you're on your way."

A princess meets a commoner--Jesus! "Didn't you bring me down here because you wanted something a little newer?"

"We brought you down here to write a good college script. And so far, all you've done is putz around."

"That's nobody's fault but my own. However----"

"New, schmew, the New Wave you can have. What does Darling say? It says nothing. There's no warmth, no identification."

Mostly I just shrugged and said: "Well..." Sometimes I gazed out the window. But one afternoon Lindemann caught me by surprise. After the usual preliminaries, he asked:

"What are you trying to tell us? That Adam and Trina are two kids without any real purpose in their lives, so they live together because this might be a way to get something meaningful from their education?"

Startled, I looked up: "Exactly, Mitch."

Lindemann rubbed his earlobe thoughtfully: "That's no good," he said, "that's a smart-alecky approach."

At Thanksgiving, Adam and Trina were still cohabiting and my days at Columbia seemed numbered. Lindemann, who wanted to keep me on the college story, strongly urged that I start all over again from scratch. Otherwise--"Producers can be flighty men," Lindemann confided, an oblique reference to Hecht's philosophy of film making, wherein the writer is sufficiently expendable that he may no longer be around by sunset. Ah, well.

In despair, I phoned Landers: "Either a princess meets a commoner or I perish, Hal."

My agent softly cautioned me not to panic: "Have you spoken to Hecht himself?"

"No, I haven't seen him in a long time."

"Call Harold and tell him you're stuck."

"Will he remember my name?"

"Call him."

Calling Hecht at home, I explained that I was experiencing difficulties with my script. It was more of an evasion than an understatement.

"But that's what Mitch is there for, to work with our writers," was Hecht's terse reply.

"Oh," I said, and nothing more. Hecht agreed to meet me the following Monday morning. Monday, that's four days away, suppose in those four days you wired together a princess and a commoner. Just suppose. My mind was functioning like that of a glass-jawed fighter on one knee, grasping for the middle rope.

It's your secret that you finally sold out, gave up, capitulated--yours alone. Hit 'em where they live. And thus, in a frenzy of self-preservation, during the Thanksgiving weekend I spewed forth the story of Trina, daughter of the chancellor, who lives in a sorority house and is about to marry an upstanding WASP headed for Yale Law. By accident she meets Zino Street, scholarship student, low-life campus rebel. WHAMO! POW! Sparks fly, they hate each other's guts at first sight, but deep down, where it really counts, look out, it's love. OK. Mr. Hecht, here's what you wanted, here's what you got. Paxton Quigley, where are you now? Hecht listened patiently to my synopsis, then gave me the very fishy look of a man who's sure he's being put on. "I'll have to read it to make an opinion," he said dryly.

One week later, on December 3, he called me into his office. I remember the particular date because after the third of December, I was no longer a salaried employee of Hecht Productions.

Directly over Hecht's quarters they were installing a steam bath for Columbia Studio executives. In order to facilitate the operation, many squares of cork tile had been jimmied loose from the ceiling. However, during past weeks, torrential rains had flooded the unfinished steam room upstairs and now, walking into Hecht's office, I bumped against huge buckets that were scattered over the rug like helmets on a battlefield, to catch water as it poured down from black gaps in the ceiling.

"I know a good plumber," I said. He laughed expansively. Then he picked up my princess-commoner outline.

"I've looked this over," Hecht said, "and I'm not happy with it at all, frankly."

What? Come on, don't say that, I wrote it especially for you. At the greatest expense...

"Why not, sir?"

"It's a story for the Roosevelt era, Stephen. I'm way ahead of it. I've seen it a million times: The rich girl and the poor boy; it's not very jazzy, I'm afraid----" Hecht seemed to be making a gallant effort to smother his indignation. I sat and listened without comment as Hecht then proceeded to fire me.

My agent received the news calmly: "Where's the major problem?" he asked.

"I don't know anymore, Hal. When I finally succumbed to writing the kind of tripe they seemed to want, Hecht let me have it. Five minutes ago."

"Did you level with him, Stephen?"

"No, I've forgotten how to level with anyone, it's been so long."

"You should have."

"I didn't."

"Let me call Harold and get this settled. Now, what's the hang-up? Be precise."

"Well, Hal, I assumed Hecht and Lindemann were demanding the same thing. But----"

"Never assume anything in this business, Stephen. I'll get you an appointment with Harold tomorrow. Tell him exactly what's on your mind, understand?"

"I've really screwed up."

"You're not the first. Just relax."

Early the next morning, I was again in Hecht's office, both of us conversing amidst buckets. As I closed the door, he unbuttoned his blue-cashmere double-breasted ("I don't have a good tailor, I have a good alterer. He alters my old clothes, I can't afford new suits these days.") and sighed:

"What seems to be the difficulty, Stephen?"

That princess-commoner outline, I told him, was an act of desperation on my part.

Hecht listened, then sat me down for the cure: "Most writers out here become secretaries for their producers," he said. "A writer doesn't follow, a writer leads the way. You weren't happy with what you were turning out, so you leaned on Mitch. Mitch works very well with some writers, but any producer or associate producer will have you writing his script if you let him. I always try to interfere, and after twenty-two years, I'm finally learning not to write somebody else's script for him. I've messed up too many in the past."

"But my characters were despicable, they couldn't cohabitate, the Free Sex Movement was out----"

"I don't see why Adam and Trina shouldn't live together," Hecht mused. "It avoids the sentimentality of that last outline you handed in. Sentimentality hurt many of the best pictures Burt and I made--Birdman of Alcatraz, for example."

At length, I muttered: "There's been some confusion."

Hecht nodded. "It happens," he said. "You're just getting your feet wet. This has been a good experience for you."

"If I may ask, why did you bring me down here?"

"Why? I'm a fool, that's why," Hecht replied, and laughed.

Lindemann was laughing, too, several days later, when he stopped me in the corridor.

"I understand you told Harold your producers were confusing you."

"That's right, Mitch."

"Whenever a writer out here gets into trouble, he does just what you did."

"He does?"

"Of course he does. That's the first cop-out for a hack. When you left Harold's office, he sighed and said, 'My, how fast they learn.' And then we shook our heads.."