Power!

Bob Evans was asked into movies twice, the second time by Darryl Zanuck. He didn't make it as an actor but liked the industry enough to sell his interest in a fashion business for a few million and take an office at 20th Century-Fox. A few years later, he was named head of Paramount. He made more enemies than pictures in Hollywood at first, but then he had a good run of movies. He also has a big house and drives nice cars. His most recent picture is "The Godfather."

When i got this job six years ago, there was a lot of talk about my being "power hungry"--that my motivation was power. You want to know the truth? My motivation was survival in a town that can be the most vicious in the world. The rumors gave me six months before I'd be fired. That didn't bother me much; I don't lack confidence. But my immediate goal was to survive in a business where many people expected me to fall.

By nature, I'm not a corporate animal driven to build an empire. But I am terribly competitive, so I went all out. I was striving for success. I hadn't achieved it. I had achieved a successful position, but I hadn't proved myself in it. Now I have--at least to my own satisfaction. Starting with Rosemary's Baby, The Odd (continued on page 256)Power!/Robert Evans(continued from page 189) Couple, Goodbye, Columbus and Romeo and Juliet, we've had more than our share of successful pictures. Last year, we had Love Story, and this year, The Godfather. They were great thrills for me. We've become the number-one company in the industry and managed to do it by running it as a small business, a swinging company without a bureaucracy. Please understand, there were many contributors to these successes. I was only one of them.

The last six years have been like a lifetime of learning. It was tremendously satisfying participating in Love Story and in The Godfather. We developed both those pictures from the beginning. It wasn't like going out and buying a big best seller, a sure smash. We bought Love Story as a screenplay, then it was turned into a book; we bought The Godfather from a 30-page outline and paid Puzo to finish it. Watching those films come out the way they did was probably as satisfying an experience as a person can have.

So if asked whether I have enjoyed the power trip, I would have to say yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't stay in my job. But people change, and I think I've matured a lot in the last six years, maybe because of the success. Now I'm not looking for more power; I'm looking for just the opposite. I want more privacy and greater personal freedom. Power works in a self-perpetuating way: The more you have, the more you want, like a snowball rolling down a hill, gaining momentum and losing control. But that's not me at all; I'm not concerned with increasing or perpetuating my power, and I'll tell you why. It's the position that gives you the power, not the man. All the people who play up to you, who work with you obediently, who extend themselves in every way, do it for your position, not for you. I realize that. I'm still just a cog in a corporation, a corporate head who, I think, does his job well. If it weren't for all I owe to Charles Bluhdorn, the chairman of Gulf & Western, who had so much faith in me from the start, and for my personal relationships with him and Frank Yablans, the president of Paramount, who has backed me all the way, and we work as real partners, I'd be happy to become just an independent film producer, making my own films as well as I could and living a private life all my own.

I come home and I have 64 messages, or 48 messages. You can't live that way forever. Most of those calls deserve answers, but when do I find the time to build any real relationships? Everyone says, "Jesus, you're set up great. Great house. Head of Paramount Studios. All the dames you must have!" Not true at all. I am very lonely. I never go to parties. I never go out. I am working all the time.

So people who see only the glamor are missing what it's really all about. There's terrible tension all the time. My work hours destroy any kind of family life. I can't get off the phone unless I shut it off and get away. And the business itself is one of constant rejection. Constant rejection of bright people, people who are friends, who've put whole careers into films and who genuinely believe in what they want to do. My job is to reject them. Our company is offered 1000 projects a year and we make 12 to 15. By nature, I'm compassionate to people's problems, and I'll tell you, I haven't grown any calluses. It becomes more painful, not less painful, to turn people down.

The other problem is that power can be stifling. It can demand so much of you that you don't grow. You become a boring person. It makes you egoistic, self-concerned and a bore, and I've felt that happening to me. I haven't really opened my brain to the world outside my own business. I've been consumed by motion pictures. I see almost every picture that's made and that takes an awful lot of time. I haven't been interested in other people. I've been selfish, by which I mean totally involved in my own work, for my own benefit and the benefit of the corporation.

Maybe you caught me on a melancholy morning, but I'm ready for freedom rather than power. I could be satisfied just going on doing what I've already done, trying to top myself, but I want to explore some other interests. Sometimes I think I'd love to go away for a year and be really private. I could do that today. I couldn't have last year. I'd enjoy traveling to places I haven't seen, perhaps living anonymously in the French countryside, experiencing things I haven't experienced. In a way, my experience has been limited and narrow. I've been constantly motivated by ambition since I was 16 years old. But I've been through some personal crises in the last six months, and I realize that ambition and power don't matter that much. You've got to find happiness outside that. I've seen too many men enthralled by their own power who were basically unhappy. Sometimes it takes a personal awakening, a crisis or maybe a tragedy, to make them realize there's more in life.

When my contract with Paramount, which has five years to go, is completed, I'd like to go into independent production. I had the power trip very young in my life, and now it just does not excite me very much anymore. I'd like to use whatever talents I have in a much more unselfish manner. I don't mean politics. I'm really not involved with politics. To me, it's become like show business--a performance, and I've lived through too many performances already. But nothing would give me greater pleasure than if someone like Dr. Salk, who I think is one of the heroic figures of the 20th Century, said to me: "Bob, come and devote as much time as you can to helping me." I'm no scientist, but maybe I could raise funds and publicize his work.

Really, I want to begin taking back my own life, which I haven't had much of in the last decade. Though I'm twice their age and it's taken me a long time to get there, I'm very sympathetic to the youth of the country who feel that gaining power over their own lives is most important. They may not have the ambition of my generation, but I think they have a lesson for us all. There are very few powerful, influential men I've met who have peace of mind. I don't think there's any reason you can't have both, but if power starts to take your peace of mind and your human feelings away from you, it's not worth it. Power is a trip. I've taken the trip. I've enjoyed the trip. I've learned from the trip. Now to use what I've learned to be a better man and I hope that I can help others.