Hollywood Hellraisers (40 page)

Much of the film was shot on Dennis’s home turf of Venice, due to the inordinate amount of gang activity in the area. He also took the gamble of employing real LA gang members to act as extras and technical advisers. The day 140 gang bangers arrived at the studio to audition scared the shit out of the movie executives. The cops said they’d never seen so many gang kids in one location in their lives. ‘We also shot the film right in the real gang territory,’ says Robert H. Solo. ‘We used to get threats and often I needed a bodyguard to see me safe out of the location site and back home. We were in the black gang territory, the Latino, the Hispanic, and they would all come around. So it was a bit frightening at times. But Dennis thrived on it. He absolutely loved it. The more outrageous it was, the more he liked it. But that’s Dennis, that’s his nature, that’s his personality.’

When
Colors
opened it courted huge controversy, particularly in LA, due to its depiction of Latino and black gangs. Protesters marched outside cinemas accusing the film of glorifying violence. Dennis watched on closed-circuit TV as members of the Guardian Angels, the famous community-protection group formed in New York, paraded outside his home calling for his film to be banned. Nervous theatre owners beefed up their security, fearful of gang shoot-’em-ups in the aisles. In the end there was little bloodshed in the stalls, save for a few arrests of wanted gang members attending screenings.

In 1989 Kit Carson invited Dennis to be guest of honour at a film festival he’d organised. After a screening of
The Last Movie
Carson hosted a discussion on stage. ‘Dennis, tell me what method acting is like?’ Dennis looked at Carson, ‘Sure,’ he said and then stared down at the table between the two of them and began moving his fingers around the glass surface. ‘I’m thinking about my father’s death,’ he said. ‘After a while he looked back up at me,’ Carson recalls, ‘and there were tears coming down his face and his voice broke. And the whole audience, about four hundred people, just gasped. That’s how real Dennis is, he can put himself into another reality and be absolutely real there. That’s what making movies is about. It was a stunning moment, that he put himself back in the moment when he learned that his father had died.’

They say a Martini is like a woman’s breast: one ain’t enough and three is too many.

In 1987 Gary Hart looked a shoo-in to claim the Democratic presidential nomination, but his opponents took comfort from the fact that he still consorted with Warren Beatty and sometimes stayed at Mulholland Drive. There were even occasions when Hart used the house when Warren was away, leading to speculation that he was being unfaithful to his wife. Hart and Warren did seem to be spending a lot of time sitting round swimming pools with young ladies. His advisers warned him of getting too entangled with the Hollywood set, but he ignored them and stayed loyal to his backer.

Such criticism obviously hit home, forcing Warren to refute suggestions that his ‘supposed’ lifestyle would hurt his candidate. ‘Maybe twenty years ago, but not today. I don’t believe the majority of people in this country are interested in what your sexual preferences are.’ Warren was soon to be proven very wrong. The public, and most importantly the press, were very interested indeed in Hart’s sex life. And Warren’s naivety on this point made him something of a liability in Hart’s bid for political glory.

Sick and tired of the rumours that he was playing around, Hart challenged the media to follow him 24/7 to check that he was indeed keeping his pants on. It was a stupid tactic, a self-inflicted wound that would prove fatal. Reporters gleefully took up the challenge and three weeks into Hart’s campaign the
Miami Herald
, after camping for days outside his Washington residence, revealed that a woman had stayed overnight while his wife was in Denver. Hart did what all politicians do when faced with such accusations: he denied everything.

What happened next couldn’t be so easily waved away. A photograph appeared showing a very sexy twenty-nine-year-old swimsuit model called Donna Rice sitting on Hart’s lap. Oh dear. That didn’t faze people like Jack, who chipped in helpfully: ‘I’m a Hart supporter because he fucks. Do you know what I mean?’ Clearly, Jack was voicing the minority view. The bulk of the country saw only a liar and a hypocrite and many of Hart’s supporters defected. Warren told him to stand firm but it all went pear-shaped when the
Washington Post
threatened to publish more lurid details. That was it: Hart threw in the towel, his political aspirations apparently over. Charles Manson had more chance of becoming president than he did.

Incredibly, Hart re-entered the presidential race in 1988, his wife loyally by his side. It was a decision, according to the
New York Post
, that Warren had a major hand in, telling Hart that he had every right to keep his private life completely separate from his political career. But no one took Hart’s candidacy seriously and after a few weeks he pulled out yet again.

Looking back, it does seem as if Warren wasted a lot of his time on someone who turned out to be a political also-ran, but screenwriter and friend Tom Mankiewicz isn’t surprised Warren gravitated towards him. ‘I think it was no coincidence that Gary Hart was very good-looking and was the guy that got caught with the girl on the boat. It was just so fitting that that would be the politician that Warren would have a proclivity for; it was perfect. People said at the time, when Gary Hart was running for president, the problem is Gary Hart wants to be Warren Beatty and Warren Beatty wants to be Gary Hart.’

Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Ever since a Batman movie was first mooted in the early eighties Jack Nicholson was favourite to play The Joker. Batman’s own creator Bob Kane envisaged the actor in the role above anyone else, using a doctored photograph of him from
The Shining
to show studio executives, replete with green hair and kabuki-like white face. ‘Get Jack Nicholson,’ he’d roar. ‘He is The Joker. Get the man!’

The project was in limbo for years until producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber picked it up and offered the directorial reins to Tim Burton, who’d recently scored a hit with the wacky comedy
Beetlejuice
. Burton was someone determined to turn the direction of Batman away from the campy TV show of the sixties back to the dark, noirish original DC comics of the forties. It was during the making of
The Witches of Eastwick
that Guber and Peters first asked Jack to play The Joker. It was four o’clock in the morning when they rang and Jack, yawning, heard them make the offer. ‘The Joker!’ he replied. ‘In
Batman
! Babe, you’ve got to be joking. I wouldn’t do that even if the studio paid me fifty mil.’

Warner Brothers, who were already throwing millions at the project and desperate to land Jack – he was their insurance – told Guber and Peters to make the actor an offer he couldn’t refuse. And indeed they did. Jack duly signed on, giving huge momentum to the whole enterprise. ‘It was mainly because of Jack that the adrenaline ran so high on that movie,’ said production designer Anton Furst. ‘His casting was so fucking obvious. I don’t think there was ever a part more tailor-made for him.’ It also turned out to be the shrewdest financial deal Jack ever made. On top of his $6m fee he also negotiated a percentage of the box office and, crucially, a piece of the merchandising action. When
Batman
became the biggest grossing film of 1989, with toys and other spin-offs selling by the bucket load, Jack reportedly benefited to the tune of a whopping $60m. Such colossal remunerations caused commentators to suggest that stars’ salaries were driving up the cost of movies to breaking point. But as Jack helpfully pointed out, ‘They won’t pay it to us if you ain’t worth it. Period.’

Batman
was filmed at Pinewood Studios under a cloak of secrecy with a cast that included Michael Keaton as the dark knight and Kim Basinger, who famously referred to Nicholson as ‘the most highly sexed individual I have ever met’. He had amazing stamina, too. According to his driver, during the making of
Batman
Jack was out gallivanting most nights until four in the morning. Then he’d be up at seven to be picked up for work.

As for Burton and Jack, it was a real melding of minds. When they first met, Jack offered some advice: ‘Don’t do this thing too bright. I’m a fan of Batman – it takes place at night.’ Burton agreed completely. ‘I liked the darkness as a kid,’ said Jack. ‘The wild, deranged complexity of The Joker.’ Burton called Jack one of the most intuitive actors he’d ever worked with, someone who got to know his character inside out and then had fun with it. ‘He’s absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real.’ Jack himself was particularly proud of his performance as The Joker. ‘I considered it a piece of pop art.’

After
Batman
Jack’s marquee value had never been higher, but his personal life was about to take a tumble. His relationship with Karen Mayo-Chandler was becoming increasingly high profile. For years Anjelica had put up with his wanderings just so long as they didn’t make her look foolish in the eyes of the public. Maybe he’d gone too far this time. She walked away, saying that she’d had a wonderful time with Jack but now she needed to find a relationship that gave her what she most wanted in life: to be a wife and, hopefully, a mother, too. Friends said Jack was dreadfully hurt, having lost not only a woman he loved and cared for deeply but also a close friend. He made numerous calls in an effort to patch things up but Anjelica wasn’t budging. More bad news arrived a couple of days later when Karen revealed to the press that she’d broken off her relationship with Jack, too.

The old rascal wasn’t alone for long. During a visit to a nightclub he met Rebecca Broussard, an aspiring actress with just the right qualifications: blonde hair, blue eyes and about half Jack’s years. The only downside was the fact she was married, although in the throes of separating from her record-producer husband. It wasn’t long before a gossip columnist spotted Rebecca driving Jack’s black Range Rover in Aspen. She also jumped at the chance to play a small role in
The Two Jakes
.

The rumour mill began to grind again when Anjelica showed up on the
Two Jakes
set, Rebecca sensibly making herself scarce for the day. Was this a reconciliation? Were all the years of being together, however distant ‘together’ had sometimes been, worth throwing away over the silly romp with Karen Mayo-Chandler? And how much did she know about Rebecca?

But all that became irrelevant after Karen did a kiss-and-tell for the December 1989 issue of
Playboy
. A salacious exposé of his sex life was the last thing Jack needed. ‘He would hold me down,’ Karen gushed, ‘rip off my clothes and make incredible, mad, wild, wonderful love to me.’ At times Karen came over like a lovestuck teenager. ‘We did not sleep a wink that first night. He’s a guaranteed non-stop sex machine,’ who, she said ate peanut butter in bed, ‘to keep his strength up’. She added, ‘He really ought to write a book and call it
How to Make Love to Women
. It would be a best seller.’

Most middle-aged men might feel well chuffed about a very sexy young woman making such complimentary if terribly personal revelations, and, had Karen stopped there, so might Jack. Instead she went on to reveal a kinkier side to their bedroom antics, fun and games including spankings and bondage, whips and Polaroids. She alleged that he also enjoyed ‘chasing me round the room with a ping-pong paddle’. ‘Spanking Jack’ became Karen’s favourite nickname for him. (Jack has confessed that he doesn’t see much wrong with a woman wanting a good spanking, and, gathering up Warren and a bunch of friends one time, Jack announced, with a mischievous grin on his face, ‘How about a night out with Spanking Jack?’)

Angry enough to live up to the nickname, Jack phoned Hugh Hefner to complain. The
Playboy
boss said Jack ought to get over it, that the piece was only a bit of fun. Jack wasn’t laughing and called Hefner a shit. Trying to dismiss the article as a ‘non-event’, Jack did admit that ‘it caused me some problems with Miss Huston’. Indeed, as Anjelica said to friends, ‘An article on Jack’s sexual prowess at Christmas is hardly my idea of a nice present.’

It couldn’t get any worse, could it? Well, yes, when a gossip column printed rumours that Rebecca was pregnant with Jack’s child. On hearing the news Anjelica was incandescent with rage and drove over to Paramount Studios, where she knew Jack was working. As he confessed to
Parade
magazine in 2007, ‘Her first response was, “You have to support this woman.” Her second response was to beat the hell out of me. She really beat me up. I tell you, Anjelica can punch!’

An unwanted child himself, Jack had always been against abortion, and besides, he wanted another kid, middle age and all. Jack and Rebecca’s daughter was born in April 1990, six days before his fifty-third birthday, and christened Lorraine. He was present at the birth and took to the job of being a father again with enthusiasm. Speculation began that maybe Jack’s wild times were over, a debatable point as he was quick to dismiss talk of marriage, his intentions all too obvious when he installed Rebecca and the baby in a separate house not far from Mulholland Drive. It was an unusual arrangement, even by Hollywood standards, one Jack said gave them both their independence. Several times in the past he’d been through periods when he needed to spend time alone, ‘So I can think devilish thoughts.’ And because he has a loner streak in him. And that takes some understanding on the part of any woman. Certainly the last twenty-five years or so had shown Jack that he was no good at cohabitation.