Francis Ford Coppola
Evans, who has never let anyone forget that he reedited the
disappointing director's cut of The Godfather, thus creating a
classic, says Coppola's cavalier, vindictive, and arrogant ways
sabotaged The Cotton Club (1984): ''The guy went double budget and
gave us half a picture.'' Coppola says: ''There is no vendetta that I
know of. I wish Robert Evans well.''
Sharon Stone
Evans says that the femme fatale of Sliver told others this
damning story: that a friend of hers had been held prisoner at his
house for more than three years and forced to wear a dog collar. In The Kid, Evans offers Stone $250,000 to produce any proof that the
incident took place. ''If you can't, down on your knees you go — only to
apologize, I wouldn't want anything more!'' Stone's publicist did not
respond.
Freddie Fields
Evans claims that the Hollywood mogul's beach house was being used
as the secret love nest of Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen: ''That
no-good, lying piece of s---! Just the year before I'd saved
Freddie's a-- [in a business deal].'' Fields says: ''Perhaps Evans'
recollection has been clouded by certain substances, his abuse of
which is well-known and documented in his own book.''
Phyllis George
Evans speaks warmly of his fourth — and last — wife, to whom he was
married from 1977 to 1978. ''Square? Let's just say she made Mary
Tyler Moore look like Madonna...ego was what motivated my perversity in
wanting to make Miss America Mrs. Evans.'' A spokesperson for George
says she is not available to comment.
Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty
Evans says that even though the infamous womanizers made a
surprising gesture of noblesse oblige by asking permission to date
MacGraw several years after their
divorce, he advised them not to hit on her. ''Who do you think
called [her]? Who do you think passed? Let's just say, Nicholson
called another lass.'' Their spokespersons did not return calls.
Ali MacGraw
When Evans realized that wife No. 3 was having an on-location
affair with McQueen in Mexico during the making of The Getaway (1972), he flew there immediately: ''The last thing she wanted was to
spend the night with me, but she did. It ain't a good feeling being
kissed with a passion you've never felt before — none.'' MacGraw says
she plans to read the book later.
Henry Kissinger
Evans not only lost his luggage on the way to Malta to make Popeye (1980), he lost luggage containing drugs, and he persuaded an
unwitting Kissinger to write a letter to the prime minister on his
behalf. ''I told Henry half of my dilemma, the good half.'' Through a
spokesperson, Kissinger recently told New York Daily News columnist
George Rush, ''This is the first I've ever heard of it.''
Ryan O'Neal
When MacGraw, who was seven months pregnant, was hospitalized for
hemorrhaging, costar Ryan O'Neal refused to cover for her at a 1970
benefit premiere of Love Story, says Evans. ''He never sent flowers.
He never called to see if the baby survived.'' (The baby, Josh Evans,
was fine.) O'Neal never responded to our fax.
Dick Van Patten
Evans writes that as teenagers, he and best buddy Van Patten (Eight Is Enough) often visited the Red Rooster whorehouse in Harlem. ''All the waitresses could do it: You'd hold out a dollar bill, and in
one movement, they'd lift their skirts, squat, and pick up your tip.''
Van Patten says, ''I'm not embarrassed. I like Bob. He's a good
friend. I'm a little mad he didn't put me in The Godfather, though.''
