DIARY OF URBAN COWBOY

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20^TH

Jim and I had a really good writing day. We seem to have big Wednesdays. Jim spent the day going through the script looking for scenes that were too long and pruning them. I went through looking for scenes that were too short and expanding them. Really, for example, we had a scene where Boy bugs a hat. I decided he should also buy boots and Jesus. Now the scene has been expanded from the hatting of the Urban Cowboy to the dressing of the urban cowboy. As Jim wrote and re-wrote, he would occasionally laugh out loud.

At lunchtime I went over to Fox to meet my other studio. The entrance onto the lot is spectacular. You pass a western town... A Greek temple.... the New York Public Library with the lions out front.... all sets.

I had lunch with Paula Weinstein who evidently started out as a secretary at the William Morris Agency and worked her way up to head of production at Fox. She is about thirty...dark..and beautiful in an ethic way.

We had lunch in the Fox commissary which is suppose to be about the best in town. Actually, we had lunch in the commissary's executive dining room. I liked Paula a lot. We began by talking about how exciting it would be if Brown and Kennedy and Carter all ran for president in 1980. she had read my Kennedy piece. Maybe that was why I liked her. Politically, she is very liberal.

We finally got around to talking about "The Deal." She said Irv had done a lot to protect me in putting this thing together. It had been Irv's idea to make me the executive producer. She thought it was a good idea. Paula asked me if I knew what an executive producer did. I said: NO.

After lunch, Paula took me over to a big round table and introduced me to "Laddie." Most of the other people at the table seemed to be named Ladd, too. Laddie told me he had met with Clay. She said it had been prompted by Fox's purchase of my article. Ladd wants some official relationship with Esquire. Which I hope makes Clay happy. I would really hate for him to get irritated at me. Maybe it'll be okay for me to "go Hollywood" a little if he "goes Hollywood" a little, too.

Now it is time to leave 20^th Century Fox. We bid a fond farewell to the western town.... the Greek temple.... the New York Public Library. I drove back to my other studio.

Jim and I kept up the good work in the afternoon. As he says: we were really cooking. Then Jim began having sugar withdrawal symptoms. So we walked over to Oblattt's to have pumpkin pie a la mode.

That evening, Jack came home to Jim. And I went to bed without any supper. Good for Jim. Good for me.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21^ST

Lesley called to tell me that Gilley's was going to be on the "Today Show ." I tuned in. and sure enough there it was...the black hats...the punching bag...the mechanical bull..the cotton-eyed Joe....and Tom Brokaw. He said he had never had so much fun. And he tagged the piece by mentioning the movie and my article. It all made me homesick.

Jim and I met briefly at the office. Then he went off to yet another screening of "China Syndrome." And I went off to lunch with Tom Plate. We had margaritas the size of milk shakes. Not too much work was done that afternoon.

Jim and I collaborated on our Christmas shopping. I bought Lesley a present which cost $250. I put this in my diary so she'll read it. When she sees it, she'll never believe it cost that much. It certainly doesn't look it. Anyway, Jim liked it..and he liked "Moment by Moment" which Lesley liked, too. So..

After dinner at the palm, we went to a small party at the home of Richard Thomas, who plays John- Boy on TV. The collection of people was unusual. We were all men except for John-Boy's wife. She is Mexican. The John-Boys have a cute two-year-old boy with a complete vocabulary who kept saying: "You want some cash?" then he would give me a penny.

Richard Thomas starred in Jim's movie "9/30/55" which did not do much business. So that's how Jim knows John-Boy. If "9/30/55" had worked, Jim planned to do an Arkansas trilogy. But it didn't.

Richard Thomas has just finished playing a role in the New Roots. So the guest of honor was the New-Roots director. He told us about directing Marlon Brando who had evidently asked to play a cameo role. Brando, of course, has the reputation of being the worst actor in the world to work with. So the New-Roots director was surprised at how relatively well-behaved he was. Brando asked for two days of rehearsal and they shot it "just like Ethyl Merman- just came on and did it."

Well, as it turned out, that was the considerably abridged version of the story. Under questioning, the director admitted that Brando had spent two days rehearsing just one scene. And he still couldn't remember his lines. They had to put up idiot cards. He put cotton in his ears so he would not have to listen to the others actors say their lines. Evidently he has nothing but contempt for actors. In one take, the actor opposite Marlon just moved his lips without making a sound. Marlon went right ahead with the scene oblivious of the joke.

Moreover, Brando now weighs over 300 pounds. The New-Roots director said it was such a shame "because Marlon had the most beautiful body I had ever seen." Jim said that for years Brando used to over-eat and then throw up. But then he started vomiting blood. He got scared and stopped throwing up but kept on eating. And eating.

Richard Thomas said he hoped Brando watched all of the New Roots instead of just his one scene. Clearly Thomas wanted Brando to see his work. Acting is called work out here.

The New-Roots director asked to see the fur coats that John-Boy and his wife had recently brought back from Canada. So two coats were carried into the living room which was dominated by a giant Christmas tree. The New-Roots director picked one of them up and put it on. " what's this?" he wanted to know. "Unshorn beaver," John-Boy said. Then the New- Roots director tried on the other coat. A raccoon.

John-Boy said: "that's a woman's coat." The New-Roots director said: " that's never stopped me before."

All the other men laughed to a fault. Jim laughed himself blue in the face.

Jack said he had spent an evening with John Ashbury, the poet, in New York. He went on to explain that he had given Ashbury a lecture about stopping drinking. He pointed out that he had given Ashbury's friend, poet Frank O'Hara, would be alive today if he had given up drink. A jeep hit O'Hara one night when he was drunk.

Jack said someone named David was indifferent to Ashbury's drinking...because when Ashbury was drunk David was in charge..

John-Boy explained; "Ashbury calls David àÓmy diminutive consort,'" jack smiled a diminutive smile.

As the party was breaking up, John-Boy and Jim walked out to the cars arm-in-arm hugging each other, they may have even kissed. Or is that just my imagination.

FRIDAY, DECEMDER 22^ND

I flew home to Washington. Another "big welcome" at the airport. Lesley wasn't there. She finally arrived after I had been on the ground about half an hour.

We went home and picked up Taylor. She was still cute. We took her over to the Cohens so she could give a gift to seven-year-old Alexander. The present she had picked out was a battery-operated racing car. The dining-room floor was transformed into a combination Indianapolis and Monte Carlo. Alex loved his present. And I have never seen Taylor so excited. She ran around with her hands in the air squealing.

A curious reversal has taken place in Taylor's and Alex relationship. When they first met, Taylor was totally infatuated with Alex. She literally couldn't keep her hands off him. Now she pays little attention to him. So now he follows her around saying: "she still likes me."

After we left the Cohens, I dropped off Taylor and Lesley and went to pick up my parents at the airport. Lesley and Taylor couldn't come because our Datsun is about the size of the car Taylor gave Alex.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23^RD

We put up the Christmas tree. Which wasn't easy. I had bought the tree a week ago. When we started to decorate it, it started losing more needles than an absent-minded addict.

So I went out and bought a new tree. We decorated it with decorations my mother-in-law had sent down. I felt myself mellowing toward her in spite of myself. The ornaments were all unique and lovely. There were glass stars.. and snowmen..and elves..and Charlie Brown...

CHRISTMAS EVE

We had a brunch. Judge Bazelou and his wife Mickey came. (Taylor liked her name.) so did Milton Kronheim and several others. The quests were our friends but my parents' generation. What I liked best was my parents' getting to meet the judge who had married us.

As the judge was leaving, he told us how furious he was at the Washington Star. It seems a reporter at the star had called up the judge's psychiatrist and lied to her. The reporter said the judge had given permission for the shrink to talk to him. So the shrink spilled all the judge's psychiatric secrets. And they wound up in the paper. Judge Bazelou is one of the most liberal judges in the country, but I had the feeling he would like to try living without the First Amendment...

Meanwhile, Taylor grows crazier and crazier about her grandfather. She is basically a mother's and a grandfather's girl. He bounces her on his knee the way I remember my grandfather bouncing me.

Taylor has now added "boom" to her two-word vocabulary. The other word is "uh-oh." So when she drops something, she says: "boom... Uh-oh." She says parts of other words. Like "ne" for "necklace" "me" for "merry Christmas"... "boo" for "book"..

In the evening, we went to a party given by David and Chloe Aaron. He is a Mondale aide; she is head of programming for PBS. At this Georgetown gathering, I found myself talking to Joseph Kraft. I, of course, recalled that he had written a bad review of my novel. But I found that I just didn't care. I guess I don't care what he thinks.

Lesley told everyone that I was writing a movie. And some unlikely people were very interested. Polly Kraft, who practically hasn't talked to me since my Sally Quinn story, was anxious to hear all about Hollywood. And Martin Agrousky, who makes his living being grave on public TV, talked on and on about movieland. Washington may be the new Hollywood but it is still interested in the old Hollywood. We left at 7:30 so Lesley could be in bed by 8.

CHRISTMAS

Lesley got up at 3a.m. She left for work at 3:45. She did the morning news from 7 to 8. And she was home by 8:30. we ate a family breakfast..Lesley..me...mom..dad...Taylor. And then we opened the present. Christmas mornings are not exactly the way they used to be.

I really enjoyed the unwrapping .Taylor is now old enough to be curious about what is inside the boxes. And she is big enough to react to the contents as boxes were opened. Last year, she was essentially a Christmas tree ornament. She was beautiful as a glass ball and just about as animated. This year she came alive like the Nutcracker.

The presents she seemed to enjoy most was a xylophone. Actually, she got two. One from each set of grandparents. She played Christmas music for us.

There was a theme to the grown-up presents: belt buckles. I gave the Ralph-Loren belt to Lesley. And Lesley and I gave a lone-star belt buckle to my dad. And my parents gave me a silver belt buckle with a polished picture agate mounted on it

Next year: Spurs!

Lesley gave me records. Country and Western record, Records by Irving Azoff clients. A Linda Roustadt record. The Roustadt record has one of my favorite songs on it:

All I wanted are black roses, white rhythm and blues, And somebody who cares when you lose..

Lesley also gave me a Burberry trench coat. Now I can look like a foreign correspondent while I do my screenwriting.

Thank you, Lesley.

We had a big Christmas party. All the people who had- for one reason or another-no place to go for Christmas. We took people in the way America herself used to do in the early days.

Give us your Jewish,

Your rich,

Your divorced masses,

Yearning to breathe the aroma

of Christmas dinner.

I lift my xmas lights

Beside the Condominium door.

My father was the most impressed with Bob Woodward. He talked a lot about his little girl who was clearly spending Christmas with her mother, Bob's ex-wife.

Sheilah Weidenfeld was worried about the reaction to her kiss-and-tell book about Mrs. Ford. Bob cheered her up by telling her there was a backlash in the country against such books. And Bob Barnett told the person sitting next to him not to let him say anything. Because he was sure if he did he would be unveil.

Fred and Linda Wertheimer, whose marriage is in trouble, dispensed Christmas gloom. At one point, they had a kicking fight under the table which bore our festival meal.

Linda told Fred: "I told you the next time you kicked me I was going to kick you back."

This description of dinner must make it sound like a disaster movie, but it wasn't. It was a lot of fun. In fact, people had such a good time we practically had to make them leave so Lesley could go to bed. As it was, they stayed way after Lesley's bedtime.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 26

Lesley flew to New York to meet with her bosses. They told her some people did not want her to get the white house job. I had been concerned about this day-after-Christmas meeting. People always wait till after Christmas to give you bad news.

When she got home, we all made a delicious meal of Christmas dinner left over.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 27^th

Judy Daniels came by for a drink. She told about a magazine for executive women she is trying to start. In talking to her, my father opened up more than he had the whole trip. He told her about crossing the country...well, from spur to Carlsbad... In a covered wagon in1919. I asked if there were any cars in that part of the country back then. He said: Oh, sure. That covered wagon probably created a traffic jam. That evening, we went to a birthday party for Coki Roberts given by her mother, Congresswoman Lindy Bogg (D-La) . It was held in a plantation of an apartment on Connecticut Avenue. It was a terrific party cause of the mixing of the two Washington generations, Coki's and her mothers. Her mother's generation was represented by FDR wanderkind Tommy "the Cork" Corcoran... And his law partner Jim Rowe...Fred Dutton.. and congressmen and senators thick as field hands...

I like the party because a couple of people had read my book. And said they liked it. One was Congressman Les Aspen. The other was Senator Floyd Haskel of Colorado whom Jimmy Carter called a "national treasure." The voters of Colorado disagreed..they elected somebody else in November. But I now agree with Carter. I should have known he wouldn't lie to me.

Also, a kid I met there had read my Kennedy story all the way through to the end. This kid was a obviously a national (bauble). We left at about 8 p.m.to get Lesley to bed.

THURSDAY,DECEMBER 28^TH

My parents were invited to lunch out at Milton Kronheim's liquor warehouse. Lesley and I went along. Milton's office, corridor, and cafeteria are papered with photographs. A lot of the pictures have Truman in them. Milton told us about sneaking in the back door of the White House to see Harry. I think my parents were very impressed.

In the evening, Lesley and I went to the ballet. We sat in the President's Box. The tickets said: Box #1. It had a ring to it. We were the guests of Ann Wexler, the most important woman in the White House, and Joe Duffy, the head of the national endowment for the arts. Joe and Ann had invited a couple of other couples as well. Lloyd Cutler, one of Washington's leading lawyers, and his boring wife. And Sol Linowitz, who gave away the Panama Canal, and his boring wife. Cutler passed around opera glasses that were so strong they made me feel I was spying on the dancers.

At half-time, we moved into the foyer of the presidential box for Champaign and other spirits. We discussed Ann's new assignment: planning the entertainment for the Chinese when they visit here at the end of the month. I suggested that the first night they do an all-American night with country music people...folks like Waylon and Willie... The second night I suggested a Russian defectors' evening. Rostropovich could play the cello. Barishnikov could dance. Drive the Russians crazy.

Then the Washington establishment wanted to know all about Hollywood. It occurred to me that we could use the name of the ballet as the title for our movie: "The Nutcracker." Our bull-like the nutcracker in the ballet- id a piece of machinery which seems to come to life.

FRIDAY,DECEMBER 29^TH

I took my parents to see Lesley's show put on live. We had to get up early to be at the studio a little before 7 a.m. It was a good show in the sense that everything went wrong. Thank heavens. The backstage show is always best when the on-air show is worst. That morning, they lost the sound at one point, so Lesley's lips were moving but she wasn't saying anything. at another point, they lost the picture. It was wonderful.

Then we went to breakfast at the bread oven with the crew. I had a chocolate croissant which was as good and as messy as Lesley's show had been.

I was suppose to drive my parents out to see some old friends. I tried to get them to take the car, but they wouldn't. they ended up taking a taxi. I don't think I am terrible son, but sometimes I am better than other times. I'm sorry.

I worked on the screen play all afternoon. I wrote a scene where the villain busted the hero's balls. Lesley and I and Taylor took my parents to the Palm for dinner. The waiters took Taylor back in the kitchen and pretended they had sold her as a lobster. In the night, Taylor got sick and threw up her Palm steak.

SATURDAY,DECEMBER 30^TH

I took my parents to the airport and spent the rest of the day watching football. Taylor kept throwing up. We gave her Coca Cola syrup.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

We went to our standard moveable New Year's Eve party. it moves back and forth between the Cohen's' and the Bernstein's'. this year it was Dick and Barbara Cohen's turn to entertain us all. Only the hostess could not make it to her own party. the star had threatened to go bankrupt at midnight on the new year's eve unless all the unions agreed to new contracts. So Barbara stayed at the star until well after 1979 began.

New Years have been hard on our little band. Two years ago at the same party, the suspense was over whether Rupert Murdoch would be able to but New York magazine. Most of us already knew that we would leave New York if we did. At that bygone party, I wished the Post's Robert Kaiser a happy new year. And he told me: "it'll be happier than yours."

Any way, Lesley and I arrives a little late. Nora Ephron and Carl Bernstein were already there. So were Bob Woodward and his girlfriend Emily. They had not seen each other in sometime, so it was interesting to see them trying to re-adjust to each other. They were an ex-couple meeting at a party after a long separation. They were Martin and Lewis trying to see if they could still be funny together. And they were.

Woodward's best line came at the end of a conversation I started. Someone asked me about Hollywood. And I told about Jim and Jack and the homosexual establishment. Carl said he had noticed that the gay world was having a disproportionate effect on the heterosexual world. Gays used to pretend to be straight. Now it is almost as though straight were pretending to be gays. Carl said he had noticed a whole lot of men kissing him recently.

Somehow the conversation hopped form the gay life to parental life. We are getting closer to Woodward's line now. Somebody asked whether those of us with children left the number where we were going with babysitters. Woodward said: No. Bernstein said: Yes. Then Woodward said: " if something happens, the babysitter calls the accountant, who calls the lawyer, who kisses Carl."

All evening long, the conversation kept coming back to Hollywood and the gay world. Nora said she had gone to high school with Barry Diller, the gay head of paramount pictures. She said Barry was now living with Diane von Furstenberg, the clothes designer. He is evidently trying to go straight. If it works, someone says she should bottle the cure and sell it. Nora said: " Don't think she won't."

Emily knew more about Hollywood gossip that I ever would have imagined. I thought maybe she gave away too much. She is obviously crazy about gossip. Which just might be why she is crazy about much-gossiped-about Bob.

At midnight, all the couples kissed. But Fred and Linda Wertheimer wouldn't have if Lesley had not embarrassed them into it. She told a reluctant Fred: " Get over there."

After midnight, bad- news Bob Kaiser showed up with his wife. So did Peter Osnos with his wife. And finally Barbara Cohen came to her own party.

Barbara said the star had gotten agreements from all the unions. So it wasn't going bankrupt that night. But it was not going to publish either. Because they wanted to wait one more day to let the rank-and-file vote on the agreements the union leaders had made. Time, which owns the Star, did not seem to mind missing an issue. But we all minded. A newspaper's missing an edition is like missing a heartbeat. New Years are hard on our band.

NEWS YEARS DAY

We got home from the party at about 2 a.m. Taylor was crying. She cried until 3:45 when Lesley left for work. Lesley got no sleep at all that night.

Shortly after Lesley left, Taylor finally settled down. And I got a couple of hours sleep. I got up early and fed Taylor. She was as delighted at breakfast as she had been impossible at 3 am. While she was in her high-chair, I started playing a game with her. I got out a sesame street book and as I named the characters, she pointed them out. We were both excited.

" Where's Oscar?"

she would point to the grouch in the garbage can.

"Where's Grover?"

she would point to the purple Muppet.

"Where in the count who loves to count..ah..ah..ah..ah"

she would point and imitate me.

After playing with Taylor, I played football the rest of the day. I watched all the bowl games on TV. I fell asleep during the Oklahoma-Nebraska game in the Orange Bowl.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 2^ND

I flew out to Los Angeles to continue my Quixotic screenwriting career. I got to the office around 3:30. Jim was already there. He was working away. Over Christmas, he had had and idea how to handle the Pam in our script. She would be the opposite of Wes. He is our outlaw. She should be our schoolmarm. It sounded good.

I went to bed without any dinner.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3^RD

Jim and I met at the Beverly Hills Hotel for breakfast. At the next table, there was a woman dressed up in high- heeled boots and spurs. The western influence is everywhere...even at the highest and kindest stratum.

Over breakfast, I showed Jim a scene I had written he night before. I had borrowed an office at the hotel and typed on hotel stationery on an electric typewriter. In the scene, Sissy busts Boys balls. Lesley is sure to love the scene. Jim liked it, too.

After breakfast, we pushed off to the office. In the Paramount parking lot, I looked up and saw a man looking back at me in a cowboy hat. At first, I thought I was looking in a mirror. You know how movie companies love optical illusions. Then I realized I was looking at ....Jim!

Jim's hat is brown. And it has a feather in the band. He looks pretty convincing in it. He had brought the hat back from Arkansas where he had gone for Christmas.

" I drove my mother crazy over Christmas," Jim told me later inside the office. He went on to explain that he had found an old black bull rider's hat at home with a crown as high as a dunce cap and a brim as wide as dumbo's ears. When he put it on, his mother told him: " you look like an idiot." So he naturally wore it everywhere driving his poor mother to the brink of idiocy herself. She finally hid it. She wouldn't even give it back to him when he was ready to leave. She was afraid he would wear it to the plane. And people who knew her would see him. As Waylon Jennings sings: "Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys."

We did not have a good writing day. It was really terrible there for a while. We got to page 79 and just couldn't get past it. Our troubles had to do with our indecision over just who should bust boy's balls as he rides the bull. Should Sissy? Or should Wes? Or should no one? We just couldn't make up our minds and we went crazy.

Then somehow it just got better. Jim asked me to try to outline the rest of the piece. I sat down with a legal pad and made a list of all elements we needed in the back end of our movie. Then I numbered in the order I thought they should come. They were all jumbled up. Then I rewrote them in the correct order. Suddenly we had an outline and everything looked better. I went to bed early without any supper.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 4^TH

We put in another day at the dream factory. I spent much of it rewriting early scenes. The day went much better than the day before. The cavalry seemed to have come to the rescue. We uncircled our wagons and went on.

I had lunch with Irv Azoff and Boss Skaggs who is a rock star. We went to a place called Moustache on Melrose which is a greasy French spoon. Boss was in his slate thirties and worried. What he was worried about was his kid brother. The rock star was convinced that his kid brother wasn't serious and was never going to amount to anything. all he wanted to do was party.

Boss was always worried about his investments. He owns a building in San Francisco that needs tenants, but he was pleased to tell us that they have a new renter ready to move in: the Crocker Bank. The Crocker bank was described as a "good tenant." The sixties, when we all wanted to burn the banks down, seemed long dean and forgotten.

Somebody wrote a book about the generation of the 20s in Paris which was called " Being Geniuses Together." I always loved that title. More and more, I think a book about Los Angeles in the 70s or 80s might be called "Being Rich Together."

After lunch, Irv drove me back to the studio in his Ferrari. I almost got whiplash from the acceleration on Melrose Ave.

When I got back I found Jim hard at work. We put in a pretty good afternoon. And then we went to dinner and a screening. We had dinner at a wonderful Mexican restaurant that is one of Jim's favorites. I forget the name. the woman who owns it is the widow of the film editor who taught Jim much of what he knows. The film editor was a newspaper reporter before he went Hollywood.

We were joined at dinner by Jack Larcon. And Gordon Hoban! Gordon is the young man whom Jim went to see "Superman" with when Jack was in New York. We all naturally thought Jim was cheating on Jack. And maybe he was. So now into the restaurant walks Jack with Gordon. And naturally I wanted to know: does jack know? Does Gordon fuck Jack, too? Is it some sort of m¨Ènage a trois? Did Jack bring Gordon for Jim?

Jim and I had margaritas, Jack and Gordon had 7-ups. I ended up drinking most of Jim's drink for him. Jim, Gordon, and I had "drunk lamb"- lamb chops cooked in whiskey. Jack had red snapper.

Jack talked just like a "wife," going on and on and on. Somehow he is both fascinating and boring. He is full of great stories which he brags out too long. The old Jimmy Olsen has this in common with the new "Superman" movie which does exactly the same thing.

One story he told was about visiting George Reeve's home shortly after the "real" superman killed himself. He went with superman's wife or mistress. (I'm not sure which she was.) this wife-or-mistress had been deserted shortly before the suicide. And superman had taken up with a younger woman. Jack said superman and his lady had been a kind of aunt and uncle to him. After all, Jack was just 17 when he started on the show.

So it was a rather poignant moment when Jack entered the death house with the woman superman had deserted in the end. Actually, it was worse that poignant. It was frightening and goolish. The house had been sealed up and nothing had been touched since the suicide, actually Jack's "aunt" wasn't convinced it was a suicide. Because the woman superman had taken up with had connection to the mob. So the scorned woman figured the mob killed superman. And she was always going around crying: murder, murder, murder. But if the scorned woman was right....if it was suicide....then the scorned woman would have been the leading suspect. It was a kind of catch. 22 caliber.

In the death bedroom, Jack saw bloody sheets and bullet holes in the walls. His "aunt," a sometime devout catholic, posted prayer cards over the bullet holes. Then she went downstairs and found the mob moll's douch bag. She held it up and said of the superman estate: " this is all she's going to get." She later mailed this part of the estate to the moll.

Jack couldn't stand it any longer. He said, "I've got to get out of here. And I'm never coming back." She said, "You mean you aren't going to help me paint."

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The screening was of "The Corn Is Green," starring Katherine Hepburn, directed by George Cukor. Their combined ages are roughly 160. She wasn't there. He was. The screening was held on the MGM lot where I researched my Fitzgerald-in-Hollywood book. It was like a weird homecoming for me. The last picture I had seen in that theatre was the horrible " Ice Station Zebra." I had just walked in. And now I was back making the mistake my hero had made. Since Cukor worked on some of the same movies Fitzgerald did- "The Woman" and "Gone With The Wind"- I felt especially haunted.

We got there a little late so we had to seat in the second row. Jim Sat down. Then Jack. Then me. We left a seat on the end for Gordon. But he awkwardly and obviously climbed over all three of us so he could sir....by Jim! He didn't even say excuse me. He simply made a rather desperate lunge.

The movie was w-u-u-u-u-nderful.

**********************************************

Afterwards, Jim introduced me to George Cukor. I told him I liked his movie...actually, it was a TV movie for CBS...and this stooped old 80-year-old director smiled at me and asked: "Do you think it's a gold mine?"

Jack introduced me to Cukor's more-or-less permanent house guest. He was a fat, short, stooped, red-faced man in a brown pin-striped suit. I have forgotten his name but not Jack description of him. Jack told me he used to be the late Summerset Maughin's house guest. Maughin left all his gaugins to this little red-faced-man. There were apparently lawsuits but red-face got the paintings.

Jack told this story: somehow maughin (pg.209) managed to beat a daughter who somehow managed to get married. When maughin was quit old, his son-in-law came to him. The son-in-law suggested that maughin give his daughter the estate now to avoid inheritance taxes.

Maughin said: "that's a very interesting idea. And I would do it...if I hadn't read King Lear."

************************************************

There was a party for Cukor in the MGM commissary where I used to eat every day. It was like going back to the old school cafeteria. Jack pointed out a weird-looking, white-haired man named Samson, whom he described as the famous Warlock of California. Evidently a disciple of old Alistair Crowley, "the most evil man in the world." Jack said Esquire had done a story on Samson.

Jim and Gordon and I left the party, but Jack stayed inside. We waited outside the door for him. And while we waited we got to talking about the bull at Gilley's that busts your nuts. Gordon wanted to know if any of the cowboys wore cups to protect themselves, we doubted it. But we both admitted we had not had the nerve to ask.

Gordon said: "well, you could just go..." The sentence was completed with a gesture. Gordon pretended to grab Jim by the sexual organ. He came very close.

Jim said he did not think that would be a good idea in Gilley's. not part of the cowboy ethic.

Jack came out at last. And Jim, jack, and Gordon rode off into the triangular night.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 5^TH

Another morning at the movie factory.

Then Jim and I had lunch at the paramount commissary for the first time. At a table near the door, we encountered Ramona, the receptionist in the casting building. She was having lunch there with her teenage daughter for the express purpose of introducing her child to directors. The daughter spells her name: "Deb E." Here is this woman who sees everyday what happens to kids who wants to get in the movies..how they are humiliated because there are just too many of them..and yet there mamma was trying to help her daughter get through the door she herself guards.

*********************************************

That afternoon, Irv and I drove over to Fox for a 3 p.m. meeting. On the way, we both remarked upon to each other afterwards. Paula is extremely nice (so far) with equally frontal lobes above and below her neck. I also met her assistant, Lucy, who asked me: "what did you do before you became history?"

During the meeting, Paula got simultaneous calls from super-agent Sue Mengers and agent Steve Roth. She took the call from Mengers so Irv picked up the extension and told Roth: "she's talking to Sue Mengers because she's more important than you."

During this meeting, Irv and I were asked to be sponsors of the benefit premier of Jim's movie " The China Syndrome." Columbia made the movie but Fox's Paula is doing the opening because she is a good friend of Jan Fonda's. After I had agreed to be a sponsor, I asked what a sponsor did...just as I had asked earlier what an executive producer did. I was told that a sponsor buys a $125 ticket. So my trip over to Fox only cost me $125.

The heart of our meeting was spent going over long lists of writers and directors, Paula kept saying things like: "he's no good".. " he doesn't have any talent"... "he's awful"...we finally decided to approach Donner who did "superman"..my friend Bob Beuton who did "Bonnie and Clyde".. and Norman Wexler who did "Saturday night Fever." Lucy said Wexler was difficult to work with. The last time they worked together Wexler threatened her life with a gun.

********************************************

Jim and Jack and I had dinner that night at Musso Frank's. jack was late. Jim pouted. We ran into Edward Burns, who played "cookie, cookie, Lend me your comb," and who has not aged well. I would not have recognized him. He was a red face, a double chin, and is on his way to looking like Summerset Maughins consort. Jim said Burns had begged him not long ago to use him in a movie.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 6^TH

Jim and I worked all day at the office. I wrote 17 pages which is some sort of record. We took time out to have lunch at Hampton's. I ate a peanut-butter burger and felt like I needed a bath. Later in the afternoon, we went out and bought two pints of Hagen-Daas ice cream. We already had the cokes. Then we went back to the office and had frosted cokes Southern style made by pouring coke over ice cream. ( some Yankees lower the ice cream into the cokes.) we only had four a piece.

That evening, I met Irv and Shelley at the theatre showing California Suite. The theatre is on Westwood near its intersection with Wilshire. Where these two streets meet turns out to be where most of the world meets. While we were standing in line (at 8) to buy tickets for 10 O'clock show- the movie is a big hit- we ran into Jean Vallely, she was with a blind date who looked and talked like the rush chairman in "Animal House." Only he didn't know that he was playing a role or that "Animal House" was a costume drama.

We all joined up and went to eat at Chuck's steak house up the street. We were joined by Irv's little brother Ron. He says he majored in recreational pharmacology. Irv is worried that his little brother is not serious. He just want to party all the time.

Irv told us what he got Joe Walsh for Christmas: a chain saw.

************************************************

On the way back to the theatre, Shelley was holding hands with her brother-in-law Ron. Irv said: " take her, she's yours." Ron said: "okay, she rich."

On the street- near the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood- we ran into Gail Sheeky and Maura. She had come out to talk to ABC about turning "Passages" into another "Roots." This scene- with all the Easterners running into each other on the West Coast- really belonged in the movie we were going to see: " California Suite."

The line was incredibly long. So shelley cut in the front of the line and then proceeded to save seven seats. Against all odds and all comers. She guarded those seats like a mother bear with seven cubs.

I am beginning to worry about myself. Not only do I meet people I know in California. But I liked "California Suite."

SUNDAY, JANUARY 7^TH

We worked all day at the office. But I also watched the NFL playoff games on TV. I had borrowed a color set from Irv the night before for just this purpose.

The Houston-Pittsburgh game was so bad that Jim and I went out to lunch during the second half. We went back to Hampton's, because it was open. The Dallas- Los Angeles game was better. I finished the screenplay before they finished the game. Actually, what I finished was a very rough draft of the end. There is lots more to be done. But at least I got to write: FADE OUT.

**********************************************

then I had a late dinner with Gail Sheeky at Papone's. naturally, they made us wait an hour. When we were finally seated, I found that we were seating next to John Bueg. I introduced John to Gail as the man who had produced the movie her daughter had seen eleven times.. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

This was just terrible. Not only had I become a person who met Easterners he knew on the west coast. I had also become the kind of person who met Westerners he knew on the west coast.

After a few drinks, things got worse. I had the presumption to try to explain Clay to Gail. I did this because I knew they were fighting and I thought I could help. She said Clay had been "brutal" about her work over the past year. He has not liked anything she has written, especially her most recent piece on Sadat. I said I thought Clay believed he had fallen under her spell during the months he didn't have a magazine. ( I didn't tell her that he had told me this.) he reached a point where he felt her point-of-view was his point-of-view, she seemed to be doing his thinking for him. So now he is trying to fight free from her point of view. He is trying to think for himself again. And he believes the fate of his magazine depends upon the outcome of this battle.

Gail seemed to find all this fascinating. By the way, Gail is much more interesting away from Clay. She does not talk as compulsively.

I slept poorly and felt I was getting sick.

MONDAY, JANUARY 8^TH

" this has been our worst day," Jim said at one point. And it was. we got hung up right at page 80 again. Which is where boys turn from Sissy to Pam. The transition from the one woman to the other seemed clear enough to me but not to Jim. Every time we would write it...every time we would talk it through...Jim would say it wasn't working. This knot in the story was driving Jim crazy and he was driving me crazy.

I felt terrible. I seemed to be feverish with frustration and doubt. But maybe I was just feverish. I was coming down with the flu. So I am sure I was more delirious with despair than our script trouble warranted.

Jim and I went to lunch at Lucy's across the street. I had a burrito Verde and a cheese enchilada. The spicy food seemed to add fuel to my fever. It seemed to me we were never going to be able to finish our script.

As we were walking back to our office, I wanted to just pass it and keep right on walking. And I was a little short with Jim. He asked me once if I saw the problem the way he did. I said: NO! I just wanted to get out of there. I almost said I was going for a ride. But I didn't.

We went back to our offices, but they weren't fun anymore. Not that day. I started to say I was going for a walk. I had to get away. I felt the movie slipping away. In the end I just sat there feeling worse and worse.

While I was burning up with fear and fever, Jim was flipping through the script from the beginning. And it made him feel better. He liked it. he thought we had something. And it gave him the confidence to go on.

He cheered me up some. I needed something to hold onto. So I picked up a toy snake off Jim's side of the desk and held onto it. the snake became my worry beads...my prayer beads.

We sat there and outlined the rest of the script. We realized that our climax could be triggered by a bill with a love letter on the back. As that old honky-tonk song says:

Something's got a hold on me.

It's cheap

But it ain't free.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9^TH

It was a short day. I went down to the office, but I felt sick. My throat hurt and I was nauseous. I sat across from Jim feeling I was going to throw up all over the script.

I went back to the hotel and went to bed. And I went right to sleep. I woke up briefly that evening and then passed out again.

WENESDAY, JANUARY 10^TH

I stayed in bed all day sick.

Then in the evening I went out to dinner with Jim at the Palm. We went from the restaurant to the Roxy to see Tanya Tucker sing. We wanted to see if we thought she could play Sissy in our movie.

The Roxy is a fairly small theatres packed with bar tables. The joint's really too small for a concert hall and too big for a saloon. Jean Vallely was there with Amy Ephron, Nora's little sister. John Bueg was there, too. This Hollywood hobgoblin is beginning to haunt me. I said hello to jerry who is producing American gigolo. Wally nessita, the paramount casting director, was there with her husband. They are a strikingly handsome pair: she is petite and blond while he is tall and dark. They are so perfect..and yet so different..that their marriage seems to have been cast by someone with flair.

Irving was there with Shelley. And at another table across the room was Leslie Caron with her boyfriend Petro. And there I was with..my germs. The sickness came in waves. I would be all right, and then I would feel like I was going to throw up on Hollywood, and then I would be all right again.

The first act was a comic who was terrible. His idea of humor was to say "coke" over and over. Which made the coked-out audience laugh every time. I felt the sickest while he was on.

Irving at a concert was like a bee at a flower show. He rushed from table to table, saying hello, doing business. I saw him kidding around, arm in arm, with Don Simpson, the head of production at paramount. He was never in his seat.

Finally, Tanya Tucker came on stage. She looked just like a Sissy to me. She had on a black jump suit which reminded me of the clothes Elvis used to wear on stage. She even moved like a female Elvis. At one point, she hung a guitar around her neck and sang and Elvis song. She also sang " Delta Dawn" which was her first big hit..recorded seven years ago...when she was 13.

Tanya sings her old country hits a lot better that her more recent rock àÓn' roll numbers. The show ended with the song of hers I like best:

When I die I may not go to heaven.

I don't know if they let cowboys in,

So when I die just

Let me go to Texas.

Texas is as close as I've been.

While she sang, she passed out small Texas flags to the audience. And a platoon of "spear carriers" walked thru the audience carrying parade-size Lone Star flags. That night Texas reached from Houston to L.A.

I kept thinking about how my adventure..which had began in a bar on the tawdry Spencer highway in Pasadena, Texas...had led me to this bar full of movie executives on the sunset strip.

******************************************

after the concert, Jim and had a drink with Leslie Caron, Petro-the-boyfriend, and Helena-the-roller-skate-party-lady. We had this drink at the incredibly exclusive club on top of the Roxy called "On the Rox." It is so exclusive that it is always deserted. Really.

The Roxy is owned by Lou Adler who has made millions in the music business. Lou likes to drink alone. So he opened this club and limited the members to about 50. So the place is always empty. So Lou Adler can be a solitary drinker. Adler is sort of the reverse of Groucho Marx who said he would never join a club with standards so low it would let him in. Adler would never join a club that would let any one besides him in.

Rollerskating Helena dominated our table. She is an old-time girlfriend of Jack Nicholson's. she is probably best known for a role he got her: that of the tough dike in "Five Easy Pieces. Helena and Jack live together in a curious way: he built a house for her next door to his.

Into this house one night came Polansky and the 13-year-old girl he planned to "rape." This "rape"-statutory in nature-took place right there in Helena's house. She says the girl certainly didn't look 13. She claims she would not have let them in if she has know what a baby this pretty baby was.

"this used to be my dressing room," she told me. She went on to say that the Roxy had once been a strip joint...under another name, of course. And "On the Rox," which is so deserted now, had once teamed women in all phases of undress. Where club member now sit in comparative isolation, strippers once were packed tit-to-tit.

Helena told me that when she first came to Hollywood, she got a job pumping gas. The owner of the strip joint came in for a fill up one day and discovered her. Since she is Greek, he hired her as a belly dancer. Soon Helena was stripping on Sunset strip.

I noticed she had a cross tattooed on her shoulder. She had on leater pants and what looked like an old-fashioned man's undershirt with straps. Her body seemed constantly to be trying to crawl out of her clothes.

Helena said she had been working on a script for years. Jim said he had read it and characterized it as good but sexually rough.

"Maybe you could be in it," Helena told Leslie.

"Good," Leslie said.

" I need someone to play an elegant lady," Helena said.

"Oh, hell!" Leslie said.

And we all laughed.

When we left, Jim and I walked down Sunset toward his car. And he told me about the scene with the elegant lady in the script. This elegant lady is riding in a car with a Greek girl who suddenly pulls out a dildo and asks: "know what this is?"

THURSDAY, JANUARY 11^TH

I flew to New York City to meet Lesley. We had planned a festive few days of parties, dinners with friends, and shows. But I was too sick.

All we did the first night was go to dinner at a new restaurant called Claude's. actually, that was enough. Claude's may be the best French restaurant I ever ate in America. I had snails and lamb chips in a pastry shell. Lesley had oysters and the same lamb. It was w-u-u-underful.

Over dinner, Lesley read our diaries aloud. She would read a day from hers, then the same day from mine, repeating the pattern over and over again. It was a lot of fun. The days we spent together were fascinating to read because we remembered different things about the same events. And the days we spent apart were fascination to read so we could each find out in detail what the other did. Lesley is a good talker..and yet I found out more about her days away from me from her diary than I think I ever would from her directly.

We could see that our diaries were turning into extraordinary documents...a remarkable collaborative portrait of a high-powered, modern, two-career, peripatetic marriage. Since we spend so much time apart, these diaries could help us keep from growing apart.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 12^TH

I stayed in bed until noon. I still was not feeling very well. Then I had lunch with Tony Koltz at Pronto's pasta. And I felt worse. He wants a depressing amount of rewriting done. With the first novel, I thought most of his suggestions were quit good. But this time I felt he did not understand the book.

After lunch, I went over to Esquire hoping to see clay. But he wasn't in. I thought about waiting for him, but got to feeling weaker and sicker all the time. So I went back to bed.

That evening we had a date with Betsy Aaron and Richard Threlkeld at the San Martin Caf¨È. The tough part was getting there. I waited in line for a cab for some 45 minutes in front of the hotel in a snow storm. I had on my cowboy hat, but I was not feeling much like a hero. I was cold and sick and miserable. And for a while there I actually hated New York. I wanted it to drop dead.

The city made something of a comeback when three strangers agreed to share their checker cab with us. One of our friends turned out to make novelty items...like bestsellers on toilet paper which is where many of them belong..and soap in the shape of fortune cookies with fortunes inside. He gave us a box of soap fortune cookies which could not taste much worse than the real thing. We dropped this trio at a Chinese restaurant.

I was really too sick to enjoy dinner very much. We had a good paella. And they talked about CBS. And they agreed the "Morning News" was probably being mismanaged into the same grave which has swallowed up "Omnibus" and "Playhouse Ninty" and also "Lucy."

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13^TH

Lesley and I flew home to Washington. In the Eastern Shuttle lounge, Lesley attached Gloria Steinem to our party..as only Lesley can. Gloria said she was going down to Washington to resign from the president's women's commission. She was resigning, of course, because the president had fired Bella Abzug from the commission the day before.

The three of us sat together on the plane. Lesley by the window. Me in the middle. And Gloria on the aisle. I was caught in a soft, feminine vice that threatened to crush me at any moment. I think I may have been seating between the two most over powering women on the planet.

It was kind of fun.

Lesley brought up Ann Wexler. Gloria said having Ann in the White House was worse than having no woman at all. Evidently, in order to qualify to be a woman, you have to have more than a womb. You also have to have the correct set of political beliefs.

Gloria said the white house would not hire a labor leader without consulting labor. But it had hired a woman without consulting the woman's movement. we argued that Ann had not been hired to represent women but to do a job. After all, a lot of men were hired in the white house-Ham, Jody, etc,-without consulting men. It seemed to me Gloria had missed the point of the women's movement.

Gloria gave me a form asking for contributions to a defense fund for a suspected member of the Bader-Meinhof gang. Evidently this maybe terrorist is a woman but the leading woman in the white house isn't.

***********************************************

I slept a sick man's sleep most of the afternoon while Lesley prepared a party for Terry Martin..her editor on the morning news. Now that the show is being revamped he is going back to New York. The guests included high powered people like Fred Graham.

But I thought the two most interesting there were Janet and Max Westmorland. He first noticed her when she was in 7^th grade. She went up on the school stage to get an award...and came back with Max's heart. They started seeing something of each other. And then Janet's mom, who liked Max, hired him to tutor Janet.

Unfortunately, Max went away to military school. The Citadel. While he was away, Janet went off to college and fell in love with a soldier. Her mother disapproved. She told her daughter she would have to stop seeing the soldier or leave school. The nineteen-year-old daughter naturally reacted by deciding to marry the soldier.

The horrified mother prevailed upon Max to call Janet before the ceremony. Attempting to use reverse psychology, Max told Janet he was not going to try to talk her out of marrying the G.I. he simply said he would be waiting for her when the marriage was over.

Janet married the soldier and moved from the warm Carolinas to cold Minnesota. She had had no idea how cold cold could be. Soon she found herself with two children, a playboy husband, and freezing winters. After six years, she decided she had had enough. And so she called Max.

Collect.

He told her they were getting married. He didn't waste time because he was paying for the call by the minute. They've been married ten years.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14^TH

We made an obligatory pilgrimage to Swampscott. Se we flew up and drove out to the in-laws' house. And there was our daughter whom we had come to pick up. When I saw her sitting in her highchair, I felt the way I did when I saw Leslie Caron in the Roxy: I had forgotten just how pretty she was.

Most of our visit to the parental home was spent in the parental bedroom where mrs. Stahl was in bed. She spends as much time in bed as I spend on the road.

I was so exhausted I asked to take a sickly nap. I went downstairs and passed out for an hour and a half. Then we flew home. Taylor wasn't too bad on the plane. We gave her a lot of orange juice. The airline gave us a snack which Taylor used as her playground.

MONDAY, JANUARY 15^TH

I caught the 8 a.m. shuttle to New York City. Yawn. I was at the plaza where Jim is staying by 9:30. I went up to his suite. Number 1001 overlooking the skating rink in the park. It only cost $400 a day. And Jim had made fun of me for the amount of money I spent on Lesley's belt buckle. As I pointed out to him, we could buy almost two a day for the price of his place at the plaza.

We did a little work. Jim typed at a red electric typewriter set up in the sitting room. And I wrote longhand. I worked on polishing the end while he worked on fixing up the middle. Soon jack made an appearance from the bedroom wearing a blue robe, white sox, and slippers. I peaked inside and noticed that they had a double bed. Jack sat down on the couch for a while. When he got up, the robe was glued to his behind. He has a cute little ass.

At noon Jim and I went to lunch at Alfredo's which is right across the street from the paramount offices in the Gulf and western building. I noticed Roger Mudd across the restaurant and introduced him to Jim. We told Roger about our movie. He said Houston was the new frontier. It had been California but it had come back to Texas.

I said, "we're going across the street to look at some actors." Roger said, "what do you mean?" I said, "we're casting." Roger said, "what do you know about casting, Aaron?"

Jim said, "I'm teaching him."

We went across the street and looked at some actors. The casting took place on the sixteenth floor of the Gulf and Western Building. We all gathered in Gretchen Renell's office.

The casting sessions in New York were more interesting because the actors and actresses read our little casting scene. We would call them in pairs...an actor and an actress...and have them play our little seduction scene right there in front of us. It is a funny an yet intimate scene. I felt as though I were spying. Some of the actors would start undressing the actresses. And some of the actresses would start undressing the actors. The scene always works best if one of the readers is really shy and the other isn't at all. Actually, the undressing amounted to no more than unbuttoning a shirt and running a finger through the valley of shadow and cleavage. There was a good bit of kissing and hugging. And some of the actors actually seemed to get a little excited. At the end of the scene, sometimes the actors would ask us if we minded leaving the room.

There were evidently a good many seduction scenes when Bob Evans came back to New York, too. But they weren't played out in the casting office. They were played at his hotel. Evans told the casting people that he wanted to meet the hot models. He added that he knew models had bust schedules during the day. So why didn't they set up appointments for him to meet the actress-models at his hotel after 7. One actress reported back to the casting office that she had had a really bad experience.

The first actress who read for us was Terri Treas. She is a very cute model. Jim asked her if she had met Evans. She laugh and blushed and said, "yes, I had a long talk with Mr. Evans." And then she blushed some more.

The last person we met that day was Eric Roberts who played the lead in "King of the Gypsies" and who may be on his way to being a big star. He reminds Jim of Montgomery Clift. Not his personality. Just his look. Eric is quiet and introspective. Jim says Monty was a clown. He would stand on his head on a bar table to amuse you.

Jim and Marion Dougherty and Eric Roberts and I went up to the bar on top of the Gulf and Western Building for a drink at the end of the day. The view of the New York city lights by night was beautiful. We seemed to really be on top of the town. In many senses of the word. I guess somebody was playing ticks with mirrors.

******************************************

Since I was exhausted again, I went to the Drake Hotel and went to bed. But before I went to sleep I left a wake up call with our office on the paramount lot in California. At 10 p.m., Francesca called from L.A. to wake me up in New York city.

Then I went down to Elaine's where I joined Irv Azoff and Jan Wenner. Soon we were joined by Jim and Jack. There were also a couple of Rolling Stone writers at the table...Charles Young and Laurel Gonzales. Irv and Jim were both first-timers at Elaine's. they were amazed. As Jan Wenner said: " the reason they don't have phones on the tables here is because everybody you want to talk to is here."

Jack was impressed that Jamie Wyeth was there. He was with Andy Warhol. The other inhabitants of Elaine's that night included..Barry Dillar, chairman of the board of Paramount..Art Garfunkel...on second thought I'm not going to do the catalogue.

Jan Wenner turned out to be surprisingly funny. Wenner is getting into the movie business. He has a three-picture deal with paramount, but he is a long way from having anything ready to go. Hunter Thompson is writing a movie about drug smuggling called "Key West." And Charles young is writing a movie about drugs in high schools on Long island. At one point, Art Garfunkel came over and Jan asked him if he would like to play the high school counselor. Art wanted to know what the role was like. So Jan did an elaborate scene where he would ask Young what the role was..Young would whisper to Jan..who would tell Garfunkel. Then Garfunkel would ask another question of Jan..who would ask Young...who would tell Jan..who would tell Garfunkel. Jan Wenner did a pretty convincing portrait of an empty-headed movie producer.

Garfunkel said Jan should give a party with a cornucopia of drugs. As Art Garfunkel put it: " like Truman Capote's party but for us."

Meanwhile, Irv was trying to light Jan's tie on fire. He finally did dip the tip of it in a Pina Colada. Its always fun to come to New York and hear good conversation.

At the end of the evening, around three a.m., we all piled into Irv's limo. The first person we dropped off was Jan. his parting words were to the chauffeur: "next stop. Plato's retreat, driver."

TUESDAY, JANUARY 16^TH

At 10 a.m., I reported for work at Jim's $400-a-day suite. But we did not get much done because Irving came over. He talked and made phone calls and wheeled and dealed. Jim gave him a copy of the script. Shudder.

After lunch at an Italian restaurant on 56^th street, we went over to do a little more casting. Meanwhile, my producer (Irving) was having lunch with my boss (Clay) at the four seasons. To make that circle really complete all they needed was my wife. Then I would really have wondered what they were saying.

The first actress who came in to read was Cynthia Milstead. She is 20 years old and from Houston. She had actually gone back to Texas to go to Gilley's to prepare for this audition. She has short brown hair that looks like she cut it herself. And she has huge eyes that are more mobile than the mechanical bull. We all like her enormously .She read the scene. Then Jim asked her to read it again a different way. He wanted to see if she could take direction..if she had more than one reading in her. And she passed the test. When she left the room, we all said she could be Jan.

As she was leaving..really right after she left, Irving arrived. And from that moment on most of the actresses were rather plain. Poor Irv. The producer missed all the pretty girls. One of the actresses who came through he already knew. Her name is Ellen Foley and she is the female voice on the Meatloaf album. She was a pretty good actress but really not attractive enough. At the end of the casting day, Irv complained to me about the lack of beauty. Irv makes fun of Bob Evans and yet he wants a little of what Bob wants a lot of.

In the evening, I went down to second street and second avenue with Jim and Jack. There was a little party at the east village apartment of Joe LeSueur who was Frank O'Hara's "wife." Jack and Jim said that Joe was a writer until he met Frank. But Frank so dazzled him with his writing and his personality...that Joe couldn't write any more.

Joe said that if he had had a childàÎ" a little clone of me"àÎhe was sure he would have messed it up. Thank god I'm queer," he said, " and don't have any kids." I could not imagine Jim and Jack saying a word like "queer."

Jim and Jack were invited over to Leonard Bernstein's later on, so we naturally got to talking about him. It turns out he is gay, too. Joe said that Bernstein won't come out of the closet because he is afraid of the affect the news would have on his daughter. She is at Harvard now. Joe said he told Bernstein: " if your daughter's smart enough to go to Harvard, she's smart enough to know you're queer."

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17^TH

We had a date to have breakfast with Richard Dreyfus. I met Irv in his suite at the Sherry Netherland--number 2204--at ten to nine. Irv's room looks out on the park and the Plaza. I pointed out to him that he could look through Jim and Jack's window if he was so inclined.

We got in the limo and went to pick up Dreyfus who lives at 300 Central Park West. That's at 90^th street. ( he lived in the Ansonia Hotel until he won the academy award.) Dreyfus wasn't up yet. We waited in the limo for maybe half an hour for him to get up, shower, and get dressed. I read the paper about the Shah leaving Iran. And Irv read a couple of pages of our script. He did not get a chance to read it last night.

Finally Dreyfus came out. He looked just like I expected except maybe a little older. He said he had read my writing. Soon the limo was echoing with his distinctive laugh. The difference between Azoff and Dreyfus id this: Dreyfus is embarrassed by all the money he makes but Azoff isn't.

"You'd better put away four to six million for Jennifer," Dreyfus said. "After all. She's going to have Siounook on one side and the Shah on the other. She is going to need a lot of money to compete." We all laughed and then talked about real estate prices. Dreyfus had just backed out of a deal to buy a million dollar house in Los Angeles. He suggested that Irving buy it for his growing family. Then Dreyfus said: "do you realize we're talking about big bucks. Millions of dollars. And I'm 31 years old."

As we were getting out of the limo in front of the plaza, Dreyfus pointed to a headline in the Times which said: "Iran's not adrift. It got just what it wanted. Goodbye shah."

We had breakfast in the Edwardian Room. Dreyfus got funnier and funnier. Jim mentioned Marlon for some reason. Dreyfus said: "Marlon who? I always need last names." He went on to say: " I've never met him and never want to. He's the greatest actor in the world. Goodbye and good luck," he waved goodbye to Marlon.

Dreyfus said he had bought a Howard Fast novel about the revolutionary War. He explained that he was going to turn the novel into a chain of discoth¨Ëque up and down Route One. I suggested a slogan: "George Washington danced here."

Irv and I had agreed not to mention Garp. We knew Dreyfus wanted to play the role. And we wanted to see how long it would take him to bring it up with Jim who plans to do "The World According to Garp" after my movie. It did not take Dreyfus long to mention it. He just asked Jim how he was doing with his project. And Jim said well enough or something equally non-committal. Dreyfus said he was half-way through it. he obviously wanted the part. But unlike Joe Bottoms, he didn't try to seduce Jim.

Dreyfus said he needed a job. He is between movies. Suddenly he stuffed a pink napkin in his mouth, started breathing hard, took his pulse, and mumbled through the napkin that he needed a valium. He said if he didn't find a job soon he was going to have to go to Atlanta and play Iago. Again he stuffed the napkin in his mouth, breathed hard, took his pulse...

*********************************************

I went off to see Clay at Esquire. Naturally, he kept me waiting for an hour. I was putting on my coat to leave without seeing him when he found time to see me. And then we had a good talk. I told him about the "Gay chic" idea which had come up at our New Years's Eve party. I was about to say that the Bee Gees were a part of the phenomenon since they sing so high...actually, Lesley pointed this out to me..when clay said it first. We are going to try to get somebody like Richard Goldman to write it. and I am going to rewrite my Jester Hall piece.

At some point I explained my theory of Hollywood to Binki. Which is that the producers are heterosexual while the directors are gay. So the actors sleep with the producers. Binki pointed out to me that our own Andy Tobias has been having an affair for years with Barry Dillar. I'm not quite sure how this fits into my scheme. But they say that studio heads just care about money and not show business anyway. So maybe it makes sense that the chairman of the board of Paramount would sleep with business writer instead of a star or starlet.

***********************************************

after a warm lunch of oyster stew in the oyster bar at the plaza..while it was snowing outside..we did more casting. We saw Lisa Pelican, who played in "Julia," and who made a point of wearing a blouse you could see through with nothing but knockers underneath. She played a very convincing seduction scene. She could be a possible Sissy if Tanya did not work out.

Also Cynthia Milstead came back and read again. She is still good. I was afraid we might feel differently about her on second look, but we didn't. Jim told her that we liked her the best of all the girls we have seen in New York. And she was so happy. Which showed me another side of casting. On the one hand, you sort of humiliate a lot of actors. But on the other hand, you have the power to make a few real cheerful. I really liked making anybody that happy.

Then at the end of the day Jim and I met Mick Jagger's girlfriend. We had really been dreading this encounter. After all, who wants to play that game? Seeing someone's girlfriend. We were just going through with it because we couldn't think of any way to get out of it. Then she walked in and was worth the whole trip to New York.

Mick's girl's name is something like Jerry Hall. She brought her sister with her. They are from Mesquite, Texas. And they are great. Jerry is a beautiful blonde vogue model. Her sister is a tough, black haired champion bull-rider. They are both real big girls. They both came in cowboy hats and boots. The blonde had a transparent top for two obvious reasons. Anyway, they sang the cotton-eyed-Joe and danced it together. They hollered. They told stories. They sang songs. One was about making love in an apple tree.

The tree split

Sally shit and I didn't

Get but a little bit.

Their parents had five girls who all grew up dating cowboys, they kept saying that my story was their story. And they were full of phrases that we might be able to get in the movie. Like they called rodeo cowboys eight-second cowboys. W-u-u-u-u-u-u-uderful. We thought we might fly the whole family down to Houston, mom and all.

***************************************************

Jim and jack and I went to dinner at Luchow's. the Linden-berry pancakes were w-u-u-u-u-uderful. And Jack and Jim told about their night at Leonard Bernstein's. some composer played a tape recording of his latest composition. And Bernstein directed the tape. Everyone was amazed. He flung his arms around. He flung his hair around. He was dramatic and full of passion. Bravo, he directed a great tape.

*******************************************************

P.S. I forgot to mention that Irv's coat looked like when I picked him up this morning. He had been over to Jan's last night. And Jan had decorated his sheep skin jacket without his knowing it. There was a name tag that said: "Jan Wenner, Rolling Stone." There was a small telephone pinned to the coat lapel. And there was a rubber pinned to the back of the coat. Unused.

P.S.S. I also forgot something about the sisters from Mesquite. They said that cowboys always gave their best girls coon pricks...the way fraternity boys give their fraternity pins to their girls. Evidently, the raccoon is the only animal with a bone in its prick. Since the cowboys love to hunt coons, they get these bones and give them to their girls. When a cowgirl has a wish, she rubs her coon prick.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 18^TH

I called Irv at 9a.m. He told me he loved the script. He was very excited about it. He said he would not be afraid to show it to anyone at the studio. He compared this draft of the script to a "demo record" which is just an early trial run without all the tracks laid in. Irv said of our script: "It's the best fucking demo I ever read."

I caught the ten o'clock shuttle to Washington. We waited on the snow covered runway for over half an hour before we could take off.

When I got home, I had a hugging reunion with my daughter. She had a couple of her friends over. Nicholas and May. When I went in the kitchen to get something to drink, I heard Taylor saying: "Dada, Dada..." She wasn't calling me. It was conversational. She must have been explaining to her friends who I am.

I took a nap. Then in the late afternoon, Taylor, Marion Lord (the new lady), and I played together. Taylor and I danced to a mother goose record. When she wanted me to go somewhere, she would grab me by the finger and lead me.

Lesley came home at seven. We had our family back together again. We played ring around the Rosie until mom and dad were exhausted. The three of us had a nice dinner together. Taylor ran around the house gnawing on a chicken leg.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 19^TH

I spent the day reporting. Imagine that. I called college shrinks all over the country to ask them to characterize the current generation of college students. They gave me the idea that maybe the Me decade is just about over. The students seem to be less interested in looking at themselves and more interested in looking for a job.

In the evening, we went to the movies with Dick and Barbara Cohen. We saw "Invitation of the Body Snatchers." It was okay. What struck me was how many times you saw the Transamerica building in the movie. In the old days, a director like Hitchcock would make a vanity appearance in his films. Now the corporate headquarters makes a vanity appearance.

After the movie, we went to dinner at the Mikado. I had some sort of Japanese stew which was good. Cohen told us about making a vanity appearance in "The Senator," the movie on which he was a consultant.

Lesley and I argued about whether inviting Nixon to the White House would hurt Carter. I said it would. She said it wouldn't.

I was too tired to really enjoy dinner. My body has been snatched by the flu. And it just won't let go.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20^TH

We woke up to a blizzard. I took care of Taylor while Lesley went off to a briefing on the budget. Father and daughter had a pretty good time together. We danced. We played her Christmas records. Taylor is a full-time hobby.

In the early afternoon, the Wheatones came over. Their name makes them sound like crackers but they are actually a singing group from Wheaton college. Lesley invited them over to make up for having forgotten that she had invited them over to make up for having forgotten that she had invited them over to see the Morning News on Friday. They showed up but she didn't. she wasn't working that day. The folks at CBS let them see the Morning News anyway. They didn't look like terrorists.

Anyway, these dozen college girls came pouring into our home. We gave them beer and wine and cokes in the den. And they sang us a nice song about cheeseburgers.

In the evening, we went to a party given by Cokie Roberts to celebrate the engagement of Nina Totenberg and Floyd Haskel. Someone offered a toast to: "Nine Jealous old men." He meant, of course, the supreme court. Nina, who used to cover the highest court in the land, is generally believed to have had an affair with it. Do you suppose an occasional impotent justice used his gavel as a dildo?

I heard a great story from Frank Mankiewicz who got it from senator Gary Hart. It seems that while Hart in Hollywood he had dinner with Linda Ronstadt. They were expecting Governor Jerry brown to join them after dinner, so naturally the conversation turned to him. There was something Linda was curious about.

The singer asked the senator: "You've known Jerry a long time, do you think he's gay?"

I rushed away to tell Lesley the story. And I found her coming to tell me the story. She had gotten it from Nina. Later on, Steve Roberts told a story about another engagement party held right there in the same house. That earlier engagement party was for Linda Bird Johnson and Chuck Rob. The president had gotten up and made a toast. It began as a very moving paean to the three most important women in his life..Lady Bird...Lucy and Linda Bird..it was such a nice moment.

Then Johnson leaned forward, smiled, and said: "Of course, I have more than three women in my life."

In one toast, he had shown himself at his best and at his worst.

It was a nice party, but once again I got so tired I thought I couldn't stand it. You're tired of reading this, but I'm even tireder of feeling it.

PS. Jim called to say that Bob Evans has read the script and liked it. Jim said Evans was very excited about it. Of course, our super-producer had a couple of ideas. He didn't like the liquor store robbery at the end. And he agreed with me that our hero and villain should compete against each other on the bull at the end. Jim was ecstatic. Bob was ecstatic. And I felt pretty good.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 21^ST

We went to Jim Flug's fortieth birthday party. it was called for all day. We got there around noon. Lesley and I took Taylor up to the attic which had been done over as a playroom. Taylor played on a creative-playthings slide. She climbed up the steps and slid down all by herself. Taylor also played in a swing hung from the ceiling. She played with blocks. And she sort of played with the other little kids.

Taylor does not throw herself at other kids quite the way she used to. She has changed. So the kids played together by themselves.

As we were leaving, Lesley said to me that Taylor was the cutest kid at the party. I had been thinking exactly the same thing. She really is cute.

And she really is big for her age.

Then I watched the Super Bowl. When the cowboys lost, I got drunk and passed out. At 10 p.m., Lesley led me from the library into the bedroom and put me to bed. When I woke up at 3 a.m., I couldn't remember going to bed. I didn't know how I had gotten there.

All I could remember was that the cowboys lost.

MONDAY, JANUARY 22^ND

Binki called in the morning to say that Esquire needed the rewrite of my college story by Wednesday. I wrote hard all day. My best line: "Gertrude Stein is dead is dead is dead." Jim called to say that John Travolta has pulled out of the movie "American Gigolo." This does two things to "Urban Cowboy." First of all, it will probably make "Urban Cowboy" Paramount's big Christmas movie this year, replacing "Gigolo." And second, it means we will have to think about Travolta as the Urban Cowboy. So we are going to show him the script. We don't think he is right. And we don't think he will do it. But we are going to show him the script anyway. After all, as Jim says: "He's the most important star in the world."

After this call, I went back to my writing. I wrote long into the night. And I think I worked myself into a flu relapse.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 23^RD

I woke up with almost no voice. I was really sick. It was my worst day. But I kept writing because I had to. And I finished a first draft of rewrite.

Jim called to say he had had lunch with Irving who had some good music ideas. He wants about a 50-50 mix of new and old songs. Which sounds like about the right ratio to me. We will begin and end with original material.

Irv brought along Glenn Fry of the Eagles who will be helping to write some of the music. And Glenn brought along his girlfriend who wants to be in the movie. She was once Evans' girlfriend. Oh, my. And she is from Houston.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24^TH

I sent in my college story to Esquire.

And I generally felt pretty bad. I'm tired of wallowing in flu.

In the afternoon, a college girl from Georgetown University came over to apply for the job as Taylor's late afternoon babysitter. We hired her. She will take care of Taylor from 5 p.m., when Carmen leaves, until 7:30 or so, when Lesley gets home.

I triedàÎand failedàÎto write from 1 to 4 a.m.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25^TH

Clay called in the morning to tell me to rewrite the story again. A third time. And I felt incredibly sick and discouraged. Later on, when I told this story to Jim, he said Clay was punishing me for going to Hollywood and making all that money.

Anyway, I went to work re-writing. But it was slow going. It seemed to me there was just no way to solve the story the way he wanted it solved. So I just kind of picked at it the way Taylor picks at yogurt.

Meanwhile, Lesley called to say she was working on a pretty good story. Someone had told her that Teng would not be allowed to visit Massachusetts or California during his trip to the US for....political reasons. Carter did not want Teng posing for pictures with Kennedy so no side trip to Massachusetts. And he did not want the Chinese leader smiling at the camera with the Zen governor of California so no trip to the Golden State. In fact, the reason Nixon was invited to the White House..rather than meeting with the Chinese leader at San Clemente..was that Carter wanted to keep Teng out of Jerry Brown's state. Cute, huh? The only problem was that Lesley only had one source. So she went to work trying to find another one.

Back in the den, I was still in trouble. Then I talked to Lesley by phone. And she had an idea. It had to do with how to handle the presentation of a girl who dyed her hair purple. The idea was simply to call her the girl with purple hair but not to name her. It may not sound like much but it solved the structuring of picking. It was working.

Lesley did her first white house piece that evening, four days before she was supposed to start at the white house. She could not get the story she had originally heard confirmed, but her phone calls made another story happen. It seem a furious debate had been raging inside the Carter administration about whether to invite Kennedy to have dinner at the White House with Teng. The state department thought Kennedy should be invited, but the white house didn't want him. So once Lesley started making phone calls, the white house got embarrassed. And Kennedy got his invitation.

That was the story Lesley put on the air that night. She said the white house had had more trouble trying to decide whether to invite Kennedy than it had had deciding to invite Nixon. Good story. She did the story standing in front of the white house in a fur coat. Lesley and the Shah both have a common touch.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26^TH

I finished re-writing the college story for a third time. And this time I phoned in the changes. I was on the telephone for over an hour and a half. With a flu-weakened voice.

But I was told that my story was probably not even going to be in the next issue. Because we have a story by Shana Alexander on Patty Hearst. And Shana had called to say that Patty was about to have her sentence commuted. So Patty was bouncing my story...after all that work. So I decided to put the story aside for a couple of weeks. Dammit.

It was Lesley's last day doing the morning news..her last day doing the morning news..her last day having to get up at 3 a.m...we celebrated by staying home, watching television, and going to sleep early.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27

Lesley was really sick. We asked Carmen to come in and take care of Taylor even though it was her day off. She had offered. We pretty much spent the day in bed.

Clay called at one point. I thought he wanted to talk about the college story. But he didn't. he hadn't even read the story. He just wanted to talk.

Clay and I had not talked like that on the phone for a long time. I guess Hollywood sort of came between us. Anyway, now that I had done my penance by rewriting my story three times, he seemed to be allowing me back into the fold.

We talked about everything. Clay said that Reagan's chances had been buried with Rockefeller. I asked what he meant. He said that Rocky had reminded the country what 70-year-old politicians do.

Clay also said he was going out to Hollywood in a couple of days. He has some sort f deal cooking with fox. So pretty soon he will be in no position to cast the first stone. He will have gone Hollywood, too.

In spite of Lesley's germs, we went out in the evening. I gave a little party at a local restaurant to celebrate Lesley's liberation from the morning news. Lesley shamed me into it. She only asked me a dozen times why I didn't give her a party. in 35 years of live, I had never given a party. not all by my self. But I decided to try it. With trepidation.

I called everyone at the last minute. Many of our closest friends already had plans, but I still managed to put together a pretty good group. There was Dick Cohen of the Post and Barbara Cohen of the star...and Bob Barnett of Ed Bennett Williams' law firm and Rita Braver of CBS....and Jim Lehrer of PBS and Kate Lehrer of their home..and then there were Jane Frank and Sidney Harman.

Jane and Sidney are something of a scandalous couple here in Washington. Jane used to work in the white house and Sid used to be the under secretary of commerce. Jane Frank is married to Dick Frank but she left him for Sidney. Which was awkward because Sidney was Frank's boss at the time of the split up. In other words, the wife was having an affair with the husband's boss. I know this is complicated but nobody ever said Washington was simple.

Jane and Dick Frank-Dick & Jane- used to be a fairly prominent Carter Couple. She worked at the white house. He ran something called NOAH in the commerce department. People thought it was sort of cute that both husband and wife had jobs with the new administration.

Dick &Jane's best friend was Sidney Harman. In the good old days, Sidney used to date Barbara Walters. They would double date. Dick & Jane and Sidney & Barbara. Sometimes they would go sailing. Then Barbara disappeared from the scene. It was just Dick & Jane & Sidney. And then it was only Jane & Sidney.

Jane Frank quit her white house job and made every working woman in Washington mad by saying she was doing so to spend more time with her kids. She said the look in their eyes made up all she was giving up in terms of career. She did not mention that this was all just a ploy to win custody of the kids. Jane does not have a lot of women friends left in Washington.

All this scandal has been sumptuously retailed in the Washington Star's Ear column. So at our party table, Jane Frank was about as friendly to star managing Editor Barbara Cohen as..well, Teng would have been to Brezhnev. Jane said she never read Barbara's paper. All very cherry. Actually, I thought it did enliven the party. What's a good party without a good feud. And since Sally Quinn and I couldn't be the feud at this party, then Jane and Barbara would have to do.

I only remember one good line from the party. Bob Barnett's firm defended John Connally. So I asked him what he thought of Connally's entry into the presidential campaign. Bob said: "I think he'll milk the campaign for all it's worth."

SUNDAY, JANUARY 28^TH

Lesley was still sick. Again we spent most of the day in bed. I was worried about how a person this sick would handle the white house.

MONDAY, JANUARY 29^TH

I learned that my story had definitely been bumped by Patty Hearst.

And Lesley did her first official day's work at the whit house. She covered Teng's official welcome there.

Here is the ironical party.

Now Lesley had this new job which meant that she did not have to get up early to do the morning news. So on her first day at the white house she got up early and did the morning news. Of course, she didn't get up at 3 a.m. she got up at 5:30 a.m. And she didn't anchor the morning news. She just did a live report from the white house for the morning news. But still...

Then she did another piece for the evening news. And then she taped another piece which was to run the next day. She did not get home until about 9:30 p.m.

And she was sick. Real sick.

Jim called to tell me about casting call they had had at Gilley's. It was run by Sherry Roads. Dew showed up to audition. He was hurt that no one called him personally to tell him about the auditions and to ask him to come. Then he was given a copy of the audition scene..the one where the girl keeps asking the boy why he said that...and he says what..and she says that he said when you going to take me home and rape me..and then they talk about whether his balls are too sore..remember?

Well, Dew remembered too. But he didn't remember it just that way.

At the casting call, poor dumb Dew kept complaining: "This ain't right. It didn't happen that way at all. I didn't take her home to a trailer. It was an apartment." Etc etc...

Betty, Dew's first wife, showed up to audition. And Dew kept saying: "I've got it in my contract that she can't hang around here." Sherry thought Betty was pretty good. She called her sweet.

And then there was Jessie. She had worked out this scam. She told all the people who came for the auditions that they would have to ride the bull. And she offered to teach them for five dollars. Good old Jessie. She was also put in charge of crowd control at one point. And she got mad at the crowd for getting drunk.

Jessie put her head in the door of Gilley's and yelled: "Is it okay if I whoop ass!"

TUESDAY, JANUARY 30^TH

I took Lesley to the doctor in the morning. Then I took her over to CBS where she told them she was too sick to work. At least, she tried to tell them. Actually, she hardly had any voice at all so it was hard for them to hear her say that she couldn't talk.

When a television correspondent loses her voice, she is not much good to her employers. So they let her take the day off.

Lesley spent the day in bed. She was really really sick. Her skin felt like wet clay. She was miserable.

I spent the day writing a speech which I was scheduled to give the next day at the Tuckahoe Women's Club in Richmond, Virginia.

Late in the afternoon, I got a call from Clay. He said my story was back on the cover. Then he put Byron Dobelle on the phone..

BYRON DOBELLE!!!!!

It seems that Clay had finally persuaded him to come back to Esquire. This would be Byron's third time at Esquire. He was managing editor of Esquire back in the sixties. Then he left to work for several outfits, finally ending up at New York Magazine. When we all quit New York, Byron went back to Esquire, this time as the editor. When Clay bought Esquire, Byron left because he could not bear to serve in a kingdom where he had once been king. So he took a job reviving Life Magazine. But Life turned out to be so bad that he finally...

....CAME BACK TO ESQUIRE!!

Welcome back.

Byron was not supposed to start till Wednesday, but he came in on Tuesday to say hello and look the place over. And Clay immediately put him to work. Byron was given my piece to whip into shape. The night before he started work for Esquire, Byron looked forward to spending the night staying up all night working for Esquire.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31^ST

I got up early to drive to my speech. I left the house at 8:20àÎabout twenty minutes late. Naturally, the day I gave my speech was the only day all winter it snowed ion Richmond.

I got to the Tuckahoe Women's Club twenty minutes late. They forgave me because it was snowing.

In spite of the snow, there was a good crowd. Something like four hundred people. I was interviewed briefly by a local reporter and then went on stage.

The woman who introduced me said something like the following: the role of women in changing in society.... women are doing more...which means men have to help out more..but how many of your husbands would do this for you?...how many of them would give a speech for you?

Well, that's what I was doing. I was giving a speech for Lesley. She had agreed to give the speech before she knew she was going to be the white house correspondent. When she got the new job, she called and asked them if they would take me. She said if they wouldn't she would try to find someone else for them. They took me.

I talked about the coming 1980 presidential campaign. The only time the crowd burst into sustained applauseàÎas opposed to sustained Debra which happened more oftenàÎwas when I mentioned Carter. I said: "Now it's time to talk about Jimmy Carter. Ho hum." They just clapped and clapped and clapped. I would say that Carter has an image problem.

I predicted that two years from now Teddy Kennedy would be president. I don't necessarily believe that. But I wanted to sound provocative and get their attention. My prediction brought a sustained groan from the conservative blue-haired audience.

But they gave me a gig hand anyway.

After the speech, three of the ladies took me to lunch at the Virginia Country Club which looked like it probably still had slaves. It was snowing. And the club buildings were very beautiful. I had to leave before the slave auction took place.

On the way home, I passed the tractor caravan of angry farmers driving towards a protest rally in Washington. I passed them. And I passed them. And I passed them. And I passed them. I passed them for about 70 miles or so.

I found Lesley still feeling to the touch like wet clay. So sick.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1^ST

I got up early and flew to New York to close my college story.

I had more fun in the office than I've had in a long long time. Good old Byron. He seemed to have brought back the good old days with him.

I asked him how my story had gotten back on the cover of this issue. He said because he had insisted on it. It seems that Byron dropped in on Tuesday to say hello. And Clay gave him the Patty Hearst story to read. Byron hated it so much that he wondered if he hadn't made a mistake coming back to Esquire. Well, Clay listened to him.

Byron asked: what else do you have?

Clay said: Aaron's story.

Byron read it and loved it he was a drowning man loves a life-saver. So Clay listened to Byron. And he put my story back on the cover.

Clay wasn't in the office. He was in California dabbling in the movie business. He called the office and I happened to answer the phone. Now there was a turn-about. Clay going Hollywood and me holding down the front office back in New York.

At Byron's direction, I wrote captions and subheads. They were the first captions and subheads I had written since I left New York Magazine. It was hard work and fun.

Sometime in the afternoon, I took off and went over to Scribner's book store. And I found three Trollope novels I haven't read. It really was a worthwhile trip to New York city.

I caught the 8 o'clock shuttle home. And I found Lesley sick, sick, sick. I'm still sick too, but she is definitely upstaging my act.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2^ND

Tony Koltz came down to Washington to talk about my novel writing career. Mainly we talked about what my next step should be. Should I work on turning the "Urban Cowboy" script into a novel? Or should I start reworking the Nixon novel?

We discussed the question over prime rib at the Palm. And then we discussed it some more back home in my den. But we did not really come to any conclusions. The question is whether we have to say on the cover that this novel is based on a screenplay by Aaron Latham and James Bridges. I don't want it to say that. I want it to look like a real novel.

Anyway, we agreed to have my agents and lawyer look into the matter and try to come up with some answers by next week.

Just before Tony left, we finally got around to talking about the Nixon novel, and it became clearer and clearer than Tony simply had not understood what I was trying to do or say in the novel. So I tried to explain it to him. I said I was dealing with sort of a Dostoevsky theme: the concept that total freedom can drive you totally crazy. Dostoevsky always has these characters who believe that they are above the law. They believe that so far as they are concerned "everything is allowed." And they always end up insane.

Well, in my novel Nixon is suppose to be such a Dostoevskian character..and so is Howard Hughes..and so is Dedalus the son.

Tony tried to tell me that he disagreed. That is, he disagreed with the philosophy. I said that didn't matter. It was my philosophy. Not his. And my book. Not his. I worked myself into a pretty bad mood.

I said something like: well, I think maybe I should take my book to another...

...and then Lesley walked in before I could finish my treat. I got rid of her somewhat curtly because I was upset.

Then I went on...

...maybe I should take my book to another house. We were still on pretty bad terms when it came time for Tony to catch his plane. He couldn't stay any longer but we clearly needed to keep talking. So I offered to drive him to the airport.

But Lesley did not want me to drive him to the airport. She had no idea what was going on. She did her best to make me feel like a terrible human being.

Then I left.

On the way to the airport, Tony and I sort of made up. He said I had persuaded him that I was right about what the novel should be about. I may be overstating his surrender, but any way I felt much better by the time Tony got out of the car and ran for his plane.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3^RD

Saturday was another slow sick day. Carmen came in to take care of Taylor. And the invalids stayed in bed.

I called Jim and he told me that Michael Eisner, the president of Paramount, liked our script. On Friday, there was a meeting in Bob Evans' office. Evans was there. Eisner was there. And Jim was there. Eisner said he had to congratulate Jim and I on writing the script so fast. Then he said he did not know how we could have improved it even if we had taken much longer. All good to hear.

Eisner would naturally like to have John travolta in the picture if Travolta will do it. (I have my reservations about JT.) So Eisner asked Jim to play down the business about our hero clutching his balls after riding the bull. Maybe Eisner thinks Travolta would not want to play someone who busts his balls. Hurt his sexy image.

Travolta was on the lot the other day, according to Jim. And the star ran into our film editor. Since they worked together on "Saturday Night Fever," the editor and the star are old friends. John asked the editor what he was doing these days. And the editor said he was working on "Urban Cowboy." Then the editor said he hoped he would be working with Travolta on this movie, too. Travolta said he didn't know. Said he hadn't read the script. Then he winked. Whatever that means.

Jim said we will start filming around February 22. That's because we want to shoot the trail drive which goes right through downtown Houston. All covered wagons and skyscrapers..stage coaches and Buicks..cowboys and millionaires.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4^TH

Lesley felt better this morning. So we took care of Taylor all by ourselves. Here vocabulary continues to increase. One of her best words is "down." Some words she just says to be cute, but this word she says to communicate. When she is in her high-chair, she says: "Down." And it means that she wants to get down on the floor. And she usually gets her way.

She also says "nighty-night." And then she puts her head down as if she were going to sleep. She says "brrrr" for "bird." She says "Meh" for "Meredith," her friend who lives on the third floor. Sometimes she even says "Tay" for "Taylor." But rarely.

Taylor has also developed the trick of grabbing you by the finger and pulling you out of your chair..or out of your bed..and then she holds up her arms to show that she wants to be picked up..and then she points the direction she wants you to carry her. She often wants you to carry her to the window where she can look for "brrr" (birds) or "play" (planes).

At 1p.m., we went down to the third floor where "Meh" lives with her parents, Bob Barnett and Rita Braver. They were having a party. The party was in honor of judge Minor Wisdom (great name). I had gone to see judge Wisdom when he was in the hospital for an operation in Houston. I went to see him but his wife almost didn't let me in. she didn't know I knew the judge. And it was early in the morning. Anyway, I finally got in. and Mrs. Wisdom was embarrassed about being a little rude to someone who had come on an errand of mercy.

So at the party, Mrs. Wisdom went out of her way to sit by me and be nice to me.

Taylor wore her urban cowgirl clothes to the party. Bib overalls with a bucking bronc sewed on them. And my cowboy hat. She was incredibly cute and pretty much upstaged all the powerful Washington people who had come to meet the judge. I found that I could only keep about half of my attention on the party because the other half of my mind was wondering if Taylor was going to break something or get into trouble.

She didn't.

In the evening we watched "Rocky" on television.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5^TH

Jim called with more news. John Travolta read the script and likes it. He only had two questions: (1) is "Urban Cowboy" too much like "Saturday Night Fever?" (2) and how bad can you get hurt on that bull?

Travolta liked the script well enough to want to see Jim's as-yet-unreleased movie "China Syndrome." A screening has been set up for four o'clock today. Seeing Jim's last movie should want to make him be in Jim's next movie.

Another meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. Travolta's people are supposed to meet with Jim again. So our trip to Texas has been postponed.

I still feel uneasy about Travolta. I'm afraid he would make "Urban Cowboy" seem like a clone of "Saturday Night Fever." I'm worried the critics will clobber us. Because I think Travolta is about due some bad press. He was discovered in "Saturday Night Fever"..got the benefit of the doubt in "Grease"..allowed everyone to hate him in "Moment By Moment"..and now writers will want to dislike him. You know how the press is. The press finds you..builds you up..and then tears you down. I think he is ripe to be torn down.

And here I am ready to be discovered.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6^TH

Jim called again. The travolta situation is getting more and more complicated. Ah, Hollywood!

For some reason, Travolta did not see "China Syndrome" yesterday the way he was suppose to. But his sycophants saw it. And as Jim reported to me: "Of course, they loved it." So now Jim says that the Travolta gang are 75 per cent sure that he should do "Urban Cowboy." The world's Biggest Star is supposed to see "China Syndrome" today or tomorrow. And then of course he will like it.

But there are problems..

Jim said that one of Travolta's henchmen talked to Azoff and had some reservations about the script. Supposedly, Travolta wants Boy to be smarter. As Jim put it: "After playing so many dumb kids." Well, I think he probably should play somebody smart for a change. But instead of us changing our movie, he should find a movie with a smart guy in it. That's what a smart guy would do.

Also, Travolta reportedly does not like Pam. He wants her cut out completely. Well, there are obvious problems with Pam. We have to fix her. But if we cut her out I am afraid we will cut out the meaning of the movie. We are trying to dramatize a collision of values. And Pam is half of that collision. She is the antithesis of cowboy values. So I want to keep her and meaning in the movie.

So Jim and I are worried. We don't want some egomaniac star taking over our movie and re-writing it. It's ours. He can be in it if he wants to. But it's ours.

Jim said: "he can take his suggestions and shove them. After all, he's just a kid who has never done anything but trash. "Saturday Night Fever" was trash. "Grease" was trash. And no matter how much I said I liked it, "Moment By Moment" is still trash. And he plays trash on television." (I guess I liked "Saturday Night Fever" better than Jim did.)

And that's not all.

Jim reported that Travolta's people laid down one absolute condition. Travolta is never to be alone in a room with Bob Evans.

Jesus!

Holy Super Stars!

Meanwhile, Irving is in shock because the Eagles gave him a little piece of news. They say they will not write music for John Travolta.

Jesus!

Holy Super Stars!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7^TH

I flew out to Hollywood to meet with John Travolta.

I left Washington in a blizzard. About a foot of snow fell on the marble city. The trip to the airport, which usually takes half an hour, took and hour and five minutes. The George Washington Memorial Parkway was dotted with stranded cars their hazard lights blinking. We had to keep dodging these flashing obstacles. The parkway seemed to have been transformed into a long, narrow pin-ball machine. Dodge, flash, dodge, flash.

By the time we reached Dallas airport, visibility was down to about nothing. I was sure the planes weren't flying, so I asked the driver to wait while I went inside and checked. But the big jets were not ready to give up. So I rushed to catch my flight. I had ten minutes.

Somehow I made it. Before we could taxi into position for take-off, men in cherry-pickers worked for half an hour washing the snow off our wings. Then we started rolling across the tundra. The runways had disappeared completely. Everything was white. The air was white. The ground was white. And the wings were white again.

I really couldn't see anything out the window. And I don't suppose the pilot could see much more. Still he stepped on the accelerator..but the wheels just spun..so he gunned the jets..and we went fishtailing down the alleged runway. Our blind plane took out its cane and tapped its way down the tarmack. Then we were up.

We bumped our was through the clouds. Then the air smoothed out. And we flew on to Hollywood.

***************************************************

a little after 2 p.m.àÎpretty much on timeàÎJohn Travolta walked into the Urban-Cowboy offices. I like a super star who is punctual.

"If I have to audition," John Travolta said, "I won't do the movie."

He had a beard which hid the billion-dollar-dimple in the middle of his chin. His beard was the kind you shape by shaving your neck and a little bit of your cheeks. Only he had not shaved anything for about a week. In other words, his beard needed a shave.

He was incredibly thin. And his pants were incredibly tight. He wore brown, lace-up shoes which seemed somehow throwbacks to another age. So I suppose they will be the future fad. He was dressed from head-to-foot in my favorite color.

Brown.

The only parts of him that weren't brown were his eyes. They are kind of an ice blue green. You keep looking to see exactly what color they are. But you can't quite tell. That is a part of their fascination.

It was a crowded meeting.

John Travolta had brought along an entourage of sycophants. There was an ugly, fat, middle-aged woman named Lois Zetter. And there was a balding, prissy man in a down ski vest whose name whose name turned out to be Bob Lamont. And there was a fairly young man whose first name was Jerry and whose last name I don't remember. But I will always think of him as Jerry Hairtransplant. You would have thought that a friend of Travolta's could have afforded a better one. Clumps of hair grew on his scalp like crab-grass.

Zetter & Lamont are some sort of advisors. But Jerry Hairtransplant is the old friend. He is the one who knew him before. They were teenage friends way back in the B.C.years.

Before Cotter.

Evidently Travolta brought Jerry out here from New Jersey or somewhere...to fill the position of the old friend. I gathered that Jerry lives with John and takes care of the house. But I don't think they live together in the same way that Jim & Jack do.

Travolta had his gang, but we had our Urban-Cowboy gang, too. There was Jim. There was me. And there was Irv. The Indians (them) had the cowboys (us) outnumbered. I sat beneath the longhorns which we have mounted on the walls. My cowboy hat...which hung on the horns..was suspended above my head like a Texas halo.

We started out talking about Jim's last movie.. "China Syndrome." Zetter said she loved it. Lamont said he loved it. I said I loved it. And Travolta said he wished he had seen it.

Bridges and Travolta got started talking about Jane Fonda. They are both crazy about her. They reminisced about the time Travolta came to lunch on the set of "China Syndrome."

John Travolta kissed Jane Fonda's hand. He kissed it. And kissed it. And kissed it.

Travolta explained: "My etiquette teacher on "American Gigolo" had been teaching me how European men kiss hands. So I told Jane, àÓsome kiss them this way..'"

( And John travolta demonstrated how hw kissed Jane Fonda's hand the first time. He demonstrated by kissing his own hand. Travolta kissed Travolta. He was the perfect couple. Surely it was true love, and yet he did not seem too narcissistic. Anyway, the first time, Travolta kissed the back of his hand.)

And then Travolta told Fond: "Others kiss them this way."

( The world's Biggest Male Star kissed his knuckles..the way he had kissed the World's Biggest Female Star.)

And then John told Jane: "Still others do it this way...."

(This time he kissed his fingers. He had said he would not audition and yet he played a great love scene in our office.)

They talked on and on about how much Travolta and Fonda want to make a movie together. John would say: "I really want to make a picture with her." And Jim would say: "She really wants to make a movie with you." It was a mutual admiration society by proxy. Or at least half by proxy.

Finally John Travolta said: "I probably shouldn't make a movie with her. Because if I do I'll just fall in love with her."

**************************************************

Later on, Jim told me that John Travolta and Jane Fonda really do have an extraordinary effect upon each other. As Jim put it: "Her ovaries start clanking. And his prick start wagging."

******************************************************

my wife's name came up daring the meeting. Jim said he was most nervous about the screening of "China Syndrome" which Lesley attended. He was afraid she would hate the movie. Which would have been bad enough. But he was even more worried that she would say it wasn't accurate. That female reporters did not go about their jobs that way. That television stations didn't work like that.

But Lesley had given the movie her stamp of approval. Everyone in the room was glad.

*****************************************************

Eventually someone said that we should stop talking about Jim's last movie and start talking about his next one. And so he did.

Travolta said: " I'm notorious for not reading scripts. But I sat down and read this one all the way through without stopping. It took me three hours but I read it."

And he said he liked it.

Then Lamont asked Jim and me to bring them up to date in terms of changes and projected changes..

...At which point, Jim did something very smart. He said he understood that Lamont had suggested a lot of changes to Azoff. Travolta sort of sat up in his chair. Lamont said why don't we forget about what I said to Azoff.

But Travolta said: "No, I'd like to hear it. So I'll know what part of it came from me and what part of it came from you."

All these alter-ego types like to pass themselves off as speaking for their stars. When actually they are usually speaking for themselves. Of course, you can understand this. Who cares what Bob Lamont thinks? And who doesn't care what John Travolta thinks?

(Sorry. Evidently the guys name is Lamous. Or something like that. Not Lamont. But that's the point. Who knows or cares what his name is?)

anyway, Jim Bridges had exposed Bob Lamous. Exposed him as a man who spoke for Travolta whether or not he was authorized to do so. Exposed him in front of travolta. It was as though God had suddenly discovered that Moses was passing out commandments of his own. An eleventh commandment. A twelfth commandment. And so on. Just to get attention.

When Travolta asked Lamous what his comments had been, the sycophant naturally stammered a good bit. But Jim drew out of him that he wanted to cut "Pam" out of the movie.

Well, as it turned out Pam was practically Travolta's favorite character in the whole script. In fact, he liked her so much that..rather than cutting her..he thought she should get the boy in the end. The way the story ends now, Sissy rides off into the sunset with our hero.

Of course, in real life ...and in my story is Esquire..the Pam-Jan character did get the boy-Dew character. She got him. She tamed him. She married him. And she still has him. So Travolta seemed to be trying to push our movie even closer to the original magazine article. Which was all right with me.

Good old Lamous also said that he thought Boy was too dumb in our script. Jim and I pointed out that Gilley's is not a salon where intellectuals gather to see who is the smartest. They don't punch the punching bag with their IQs. Gilley's is about something else. Almost none of the honky-tonk cowboys ever finished high school.

I asked: "Just how smart do you think he should be?"

Lamous did not have a ready answer. I wonder just how smart he is.

Travolta did not seem too upset that Boy is not too bright. I think he likes playing dumb kids. Because he talked about the look a dumb kid gets on his face when he finally understands something.

And Travolta demonstrated. There he went auditioning again. He plays a dumb kid very convincingly.

Travolta said: " They look sort of like a dog."

He did the look again..a dumb guy finally catching on..out he did look like a dog. Terrier Travolta. He was man's best friend at the moment when he hears the newspaper land in the front yard.

***************************************************

Travolta had the most intelligent comment. He said that Boy should not solve all his problems at the end simply by turning into an old-fashioned macho hero. Which is exactly right. And I said so. At the end, Boy should finally learn to be a cowboy. But that should mean more than simply being macho. Boy should embrace all the cowboy virtues. Bravery. Openness. Strength. Forthrightness. The whole cowboy code.

Travolta agreed with all this. And he seemed relieved.

We got to talking about what riding the bull really meant. About how the guys risked their manhood to prove their manhood. And about how the test of their manhood was riding the bull as well as a girl. You prove you have balls..by risking your balls..in an effort to ride as well as if you didn't have any balls.

Lamous said that when Zetter first read the story in Esquire, she said: "This is about balls. Who has them. And who doesn't."

I couldn't help noticing that John Travolta did have them. His pants were very tight. He had big ones.

I said that I had told Jim from the beginning that the movie was about balls. And what balls really mean.

Lamous said he did not think the bull should hurt our hero's balls quite so often. I guess he figured you couldn't be too careful with the balls of the world's leading male sex idol. Lamous wanted neither his actual maleness nor his reputation for maleness injured. It was as though he were afraid all the teenage girls in America would think that John Travolta really had been half castrated by our movie.

Travolta was less interested in what might happen to his reputation than what could happen to his body. He wanted to know just how rough the bull was on you. Since I was the only one who had ridden the bull, I was one of the best witness on this subject. I tried to reassure him. I said the first time I rode it I got hurt because I didn't know what I was doing. But then I studied the bull and the bull riders. When I got on the bull the second time, I stayed on and I didn't get hurt too bad.

Jim said the most dangerous thing was the rigging. The rigging was the sledge hammer that pounded away at your balls. So Jim promised we would take off the original wooden rigging and replace it with one made of foam rubber. Turn the hammer into a pillow. Again John seemed relieved.

Travolta said he would like to do all his bull riders- if he does the movie-in Hollywood.

Why?

"They'll laugh at me," he explained.

********************************************************

I suggested that he should see Gilley's before he made up his mind.

"When?" Travolta asked.

"Anytime," said somebody on our side.

"Tonight?" asked the biggest star in the world.

"Sure," said our side.

Irving got on the telephone to Michael Eisner office. Phoning is to Azoff what dancing is to Travolta. They are both masters. Eisner said we could have the Gulf-and àÍWestern jet to take us down to Houston if the Biggest Star in the world wanted to go.

"I can't go without security," Travolta said.

"Those old cowboys won't give you any trouble," I said.

"Sure they will," John said. "Everywhere I goàÎguys want to fight me. I don't know what it was that those two movies projected. àÓSaturday Night Fever' and àÓGrease.' But whatever it wasàÎguys always want to fight me."

"That's nothing," said Jim. "Remember George Reeves. He played superman on television. And he was a friend of mine. Well, people used to shoot at him because he was supposed to be the Man of Iron."

IrvingàÎwho moves rock stars around the worldàÎsaid he could take care of security. We wouldn't tell anybody at Gilley's we were coming. And we would take the three best bodyguards in town with us.

"Wait a minute," said Lois Zetter. This was the first time she had talked. Up til now, all she done was sit there, taking notes in a stenographer's notebook. The Madame La Farge of Travolta's entourage. She continued: "Going to Gilley's tonight wouldn't be very smart. Not from a business point of view. The word's already gotten out that you're interested in this movie. Going to Gilley's would just make it worse."

It really didn't make much sense. This woman, who thinks Boy should be smarter, is not necessarily all that bright herself. Anyway, intelligent or not, she killed our spur of the moment trip to Houston.

(Jim told me later that if we made the movie with Travotla...it would be my job to make love to Lois Zetter..just to keep her out of the way.)

**************************************************

We started talking schedule. Travolta wanted to know when we planned to start shooting. We said Michael Eisner wanted "Urban Cowboy" for Christmas. Travolta laughed.

" I'll tell you when Eisner wants the picture," he said.

Then the Biggest Star in the world got to his feet. He evidently knows he acts best on his feet. Walking. Dancing. And in this case doing an imitation. He portrayed Michael Eisner on the phone to John Travolta. The big star pretended to hold the receiver to his ear.

Travolta as Travolta: "When do you want the movie, Michael?"

Travolta as Eisner: "When do you want the movie, John?"

T as T: " Really, when would you like to have it, Michael?"

T as E: "When you would like to do it, John. Really."

John Travolta only made Paramount Picture a quarter of a billion dollars last year.

*****************************************************

well, the Super Star had done another audition scene for us. He did a classic Eisner. His Travolta was only so-so. Anyway, the boy can act.

************************************************

Jim told Travolta that we planned to start shooting in the middle to late march. The star said he could not begin that soon. He said he needed some time off. He said he could start preparing his role about April 1^st ...but he couldn't go in front of the cameras before the 1^st of May.

Lamous said Travolta needed a rest. He said John had not taken any time off for four years. Evidently he has worked straight through since he started Welcome Back, Cotter four years ago. Lamous said people do not understand what television does to actors. TV makes actors famous, but it does not make them rich enough to afford to be famous. So in his early days John Travolta opened a lot of Super-markets and rode in a lot of parades.

"John needed the money," Lamous explained, "to pay all of us."

I thought Travolta should have fired a couple of people and taken a couple of weeks off.

*****************************************************

of course, one reason John Travolta needs some time off is because he is grieving for his mother. She recently died of cancer. Moreover, his father has been sick. So it really has been the winter of Travolta's discontent. He made that terrible movie, Moment By Moment. And then his parents started getting sick and dying.

Jim asked him how his father was. Travolta said he was doing better.

Anyway, for the past few months, John Travolta really has been a poor little Super Star.

*******************************************************

At some point, good old Bob Lamous started making trouble again. (If we do the film with these people..and if I am assigned to make love to Lois to keep her out of the way..then I think Jim should agree to make love to Bob to keep him in line.)

"Let's not kid ourselves," Lamous said. " If we do this movie, a lot of people are going to call it àÓSaturday Night Fever Goes West.'"

Well, that had occurred to our side, too. Lamous had nicely stated the obvious. His next comments get worse and worse and worse.

He said he didn't much like the people in our story. He said he thought we were making fun of our characters. He more or less said that Sissy was just a little whore. And Pam wasn't much better.

Jim and I took exception. I sat and pouted. And Jim was visibly angry.

But he knew what to do. That's why he is a director. He got up and put a cassette into our fabulous sound system. And suddenly we all heard J.D. Souther singing "The Moon Turned Blue."

Hang up the phone

And lose my number.

The moon just turned blue.

Goodbye, goodbye.

Later on Jim told me:

"You have to know where to put

the music in a scene."

It worked. John Travotla turned out to be a big J.D. Souther fan. The tension was broken. We all sat around tapping our feet to the music. John Travolta tapped best of all.

*******************************************************

Travotla started talking about our characters. And as usual he made considerably more sense than Lamous.

"Maybe Boy and Sissy should have a relationship which is totally sexual," the World's Biggest Sex Symbol said. "You know, you've had those relationships where your prick leads you. And you just follow it."

Jim nodded. Yes, he had had those relationships. Only they hadn't been with Sissy. They had been with Monty's.

Travolta went on to say that perhaps Boy's relationship with Pam should be more rounded. Boy should learn that you can have more with a woman than sex.

In the end, he should be led by his head as well as his prick.

I don't think that is our story. But it's not dumb either. The kid who plays dumb kids so well is not altogether dumb.

**************************************************

I reached up over my head and plucked my cowboy hat off its perch at the end of a long horn.

"This is what a Gilley's hat looks like," I said.

Travolta wanted to try it on. I passed it over. It was a little too big for him. but not much. He looked good in it. We all told him so.

But naturally he wanted to see for himself so we gave him directions to the office bathroom. He got up out of his chair and headed for the bathroom mirror. John walked that walk to the John.

I assume he liked what he saw. Because he came back and said he would like to play a cowboy.

He flipped through a copy of the Esquire magazine with the "Urban Cowboy" on the cover. He looked at all the pictures of Gilley's. And then he carefully studied the picture of Ralph Lauren's collection of cowboy clothes. It shows boots, vests, cowboy hats, and even the belt buckle I got Lesley for Christmas.

"we could start a whole new look," Travolta said. "And these clothes are even more interesting than the àÓSaturday-Night-Fever' clothes."

***************************************************

They were finally leaving. Lamous took Bridges back into the kitchen to tell him something. What he had to say was that John Travolta was a prince. And he should always be treated as a prince. That was supposed to be the key to how to direct Travolta in a movie.

***************************************************

we all walked John Travolta and his entourage out to their cars. It was like when relatives come to visit. We all stood out in Lucy Park in front of our office saying good-bye.

And I could see faces appearing in windows all around the park. And people came and stood in doorways. Hundreds of secret eyes wanted to see John Travolta.

Leaning against a car, Travolta finally talked about "Moment By Moment." We had all been thinking about his flop, but nobody had mentioned it.

" It was the hardest role I ever played," Travolta said. "I had to make up my character. I had to make it all up. Because there was nothing on paper."

As he spoke, the World's Biggest Star seemed somehow vulnerable.

"I thought you were very good in it," I said.

"Thank you," he said.

And he did seem more thankful than I expected. He was looking like a dog again. Not a dumb dog. An injured dog.

It was really time to go now. Travolta hugged Jim and kissed him.

And then drove away.

************************************************

After Travolta left, we sat around telling each other that the meeting had gone pretty well. Jim was feeling so good that he said he was glad he had passed on "Garp." Warner Bros. had been insisting that he turn in a "Garp" script before he stated filming "Urban Cowboy." So he had told them to get themselves another director. In fact, he had passed that very day. But who cared? It looked like we had the world's biggest star in our movie.

Irving got an idea. He had one of the secretaries put through a call to mark Rosenberg at Warner Bros. Irving and Mark have been engaged in a tug of war over Jim's services for months. So the secretary said Irving Azoff was calling. Mark Rosenberg took the call.

And Irving said: "Hello, Mark. Gotcha!" And hung up.

*****************************************************

John Travolta came back at 6:30p.m. to see "China Syndrome." Jim and I tucked him into a plush screening room. And then we left them to enjoy the movie.

As we were walking back to the office, Jim told me about Travolta's first great love. She was Diana Highland. They met when they were doing a show together. They fell in love. She was considerably older than him. He obviously likes older women. Eventually they moved in together. And then she died of cancer before he became a big star.

John Travolta must feel that all the women in his life are dying. Diana Highland, the older woman whom he loved, died. And then his mother, the other older woman whom he loved, died, too. Both of cancer.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8^TH

We spent the day waiting for John Travolta to make up his mind. Then at midnight Irving called me at the hotel. He woke me up out of a deep sleep. And then he told me Travolta wanted to go to Gilley's Saturday night.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9^TH

When I first went out to Hollywood, I expected it to be treacherous, cheap, shallow, and petty. But then I met Jim Bridges. And he persuaded me that I had been wrong about celluloid city. He led me to believe that Hollywood was warm, intelligent, and sometimes even profound.

Well, today I discovered that I was right the first time. Hollywood is just as hollow as I had always imagined. I think it is time to go back and reread Crazy Sundays.

At about 10 o'clock in the morning, I called Jim. And I asked him if he had gotten a call from Irving in the middle of the night. He said he had. I asked if the world's biggest star really wanted to go to Texas with us. Jim assured me that TWBS did. Up until then, I had suspected that Irving was playing a practical joke on me. He wasn't. This time good old Irving wasn't kidding. But what none of us realized at the time was that a joke was being played. A Big Hollywood Joke. Which would produce a hollow Hollywood laugh.

Jim and I agreed to have lunch. He picked me up at my hotel and we drove to Antonio's on Melrose. I ordered a magueritta. And even teettotalling Jim ordered one, too. After all, it was a special occasion. We were toasting getting John Travolta for our movie. We tend to go up and down on whether we want him. But at that moment we wanted him. We congratulated ourselves all through lunch. And Jim got a little bit drunk.

Jim told me about a conversation he had had with Bob Lamous that morning. Bob said that Travolta had had such a bad experience on "Moment By Moment" that he was almost afraid of the camera. Poor little super star.

After a good Mexican lunch, we went on to the studio in a w-u-u-u-u-derful tequila mood. Then we walked into our offices and heard about the Big Hollywood Joke.

Jim talked on the telephone to Bob Lamous who told him what was going on. Paramount had refused to fly the world's Biggest star..who made a quarter of a billion dollars for them last year..down to Houston. The studios position was that they would only pay for the trip if Travolta would agree to do the picture before he got on the plane.

Pause for a moment to reflect upon Hollywood-executive logic. Paramount would fly Travolta to Gilley's..to see if he wanted to be in a movie about Gilley's..but only if he would agree to be in a movie about Gilley's..first. It was as if they were offering to but him a suit of clothes..but only if he would agree to wear the clothes..before he tried them on. Well, I should have known. Movies are by and large so terrible because the people who make them are by and large so terrible.

Paramount's attitude naturally made Travolta's people furious. At which point outer little Irving Azoff playing the role of Solomon. He offered to pay for Travolta's trip to Texas. Of course, he figured he could bleed the money out of the studio later on. But Lamous refused to let Azoff pay for the trip. If paramount did not care enough about John Travolta, who had made them $250 million last year, to fly him to Houston..well, then, Big John wouldn't do the movie. It had come down to this: a test of love. If you loved me, you would send me to Houston.

Of course, more than one ticket tourist-class was involved here. Because John Travolta simply does not fly on commercial airlines. He is too famous. He is afraid of the riots he might cause in airports or even on the plane itself. After all, as he told us, guys are always wanting to fight him. So the world's biggest star wanted a private jet. Which would have been expensive. But not that expensive. I figure it would have cost about $2000. maybe a little more. It would have cost almost as much to fly us all down on a commercial airliner.

So a multi-million dollar deal was coming apart over the price of a plane ride. The studio had already figured out that having Travolta in the movie would $37 million in advance sales. And yet $37 million was made to wait on $2000 plus. It was the studio ideaàÎnot oursàÎthat Travolta would be great for our movie. But they still wouldn't send him to Gilley's. Never mind that we planned to fly rafts of young actors to Houston to screen-test them before we committed to them. Never mind all that. Travolta was supposed to buy a pig in a poke. Maybe he has played so many dumb kids that they began to believe he really was dumb.

The big shouting matches were between Michael Eisner and Bob Lamous. Bob said Travolta had made a quarter billion for the studio last year and should get anything he wants. Michael said that any actor in those movies would have made as much. Bob said it was John, not the vehicles, that had put lines in front of the movie houses. Michael said, no, it was the vehicles, not the star. Then Bob said the unforgivable: he said "Moment By Moment" proved that John Travolta did not have a personal following. Because there are certainly no lines in front of that movie.

Holy Hollywood

Michael Eisner had just stubbed his cigar out in an open wound which caused Bob to raise his voice. Which caused Michael to raise his. Just before Bob hung up, Michael said he wouldn't even buy a ticket on a commercial airline for Travolta. So now $37 million were waiting on $400.

Click!!

Lamous had had enough.

Of course, that was not the last phone call. Everybody called everybody. Irving Azoff was on the phone in Aspen dialing and dialing. Bob Evans was on the phone in Acapulco calling everyone right up to Charlie Bludhorn , who runs Gulf+ Western, which owns Paramount. And Eisner was telling everyone who called that he would not back down.

Finally Bob Lamous got on the phone to issue an ultimatum: Paramount had until five p.m. to agree to fly Travolta to Houston. If they refused, Travolta would refuse to do the movie. In other words, Paramount had until five p.m. to get Big John out of town. If they didn't, Hollywood wouldn't be big enough for both of them.

Jim and I had planned for our movie to end with a kind of shootout. But now the shootout was happening before the movie even got started. Maybe we somehow made the mistake of infecting them all with the spirit of the old west.

I called Lesley at the white house to tell her about our pending shoot=out. It was only ninety minutes until High Five O'clock.

***********************************************

Bob Lamous called Jim. Paramount had refused to back down. Travolta had passed on the phone on the movie. And there were bodies all over the street.

Of course, Lamous and Eisner had yelled at one another again. A part of the fight this time had been over whether or not Bob would give Michael the home telephone number of John Travolta. It surprised all of us that the head of the studio would not already have the phone number of the actor who had starred in Paramount's "Saturday Night Fever" and Paramount's "Grease." Well, naturally, Bob had refused to give Michael the phone number of our poor little superstar. Because Bob knew that Michael planned to call John an try to turn him against Bob. Bob was no dumb kid either.

Meanwhile, I thought just about everybody was crazy. But I thought Michael Eisner was craziest of them all. I could understand that superstars, like small children, might occasionally need to be disciplined. But I thought Eisner should with hold the rod until the baby misbehaved. And I did not think asking to go to Gilley's constituted misbehavior. It simply showed good sense. Eisner was whipping the baby for asking to take its vitamins. I thought the head of the studio was the one who deserved to be spanked.

Jim, who was in a funny mood and a little drunk besides, went over to the record player. He put on Tanya Tucker singing about how when she dies she wants to go to Texas. And then he turned the speed from 33 1/3 up to 45.

WhenIdieImaynotgotoheaven

Idon'tknowiftheyletcowboysin....

We laughed and laughed and laughed. As Jim says, you have to know how to use music in a scene.

I told Jim: "I feel like getting drunk or getting out of town."

I chose the latter which was probably a mistake. Jim had invited me to a party, but I chose instead to check out of my hotel and head for Parker Arizona, to cover the "parker 400" off-road race for Esquire. So while I was driving through the desert night..getting sleepier and sleepier...feeling worse and worse...Jim was gossiping with Jane Fonda.

Jim also spent considerable time observing the mating ritual of Sam Shepherd (who we want to play Wes) and Maria Berenson (who was once on the cover of Newsweek as the personification of the jet set.) Shepherd fortified himself with tumblers of vodka. Then he lay down on the floor in front of the fireplace with Ms. Berenson. They rolled about together and got to know each other better. Warmed by the fire...and the pints of vodka..and her..Sam Shepherd kept trying to persuade Ms. Berenson to go out and make love with him in the back of a pick-up.

This man belongs in our movie.

***********************************************************

Sometime after midnight, I checked into Cockroach Motel in Blythe, California. It was so crummy that I could not stand to get into the bed. So I unrolled a sleeping bagàÎborrowed from the Paramount props department in case there was no room in any of the innsàÎon top of the bedspread. I spent the night camped out on top of my motel bed.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10^TH

Well, I drove out into the middle of the desert. Miles from phones. Miles from anything but sand and snakes. So naturally it was here that I chose to lock the keys in my rented car. I had visions of my bones bleaching slowly in the desert. If I died, I wouldn't go either to Texas or the premier.

I circled the car. I tried to get my fingers into cracks and prize the doors open with my fingernails. I circled the car some more. And I kept thinking..here I am locked out of my car in the middle of the scorching desert..when instead I could have partied with Jane Fonda last night..and flown home to Lesley today. Rarely have I ever been so sure that I had taken the wrong path.

Luckily, I was not alone on the desert. I was surrounded by thousands of people in thousands of four-wheel-drive over-land vehicles. I was the only one who had driven a normal car to this gathering. I had a blue Capri. And now I had compounded this error of taste by an error intelligence. Here I was in a car crowd..and not only did I not know how to get into the carburetor... I didn't even know how to get into the driver's seat. I was embarrassed. It was as though I had worn a blue suit to blue-jeans party and then compounded the mistake by breaking my fly.

Of course, I was too shy and self-conscious to ask for help. I just kept walking around it and around it as if it were Jerico.

*****************************************************

after an hour or more, I finally sought out a cop. I explained my problem, and he lent me a coat hanger and a tire iron. He would have gladly lent me actual burglar's tools if he had had any. He made no attempt to verify that I was actually trying to break into my own car.

I took these tools back to the car. I managed to put some dents in it with the tire iron. But I did not manage to get in.

Since I was surrounded by thousands of mechanics, I picked the one who looked most like a crook and asked him to help. He had long hair and tattoos. I felt sure he would know how to get into a locked car.

This tattooed mechanic agreed to help. He tried a dozen easy things that didn't work. Then he took the tire iron and went to work utterly destroying the lock on the hatchback. He beat up the back of the car pretty bad. Blue paint snowed on the ground. And the whole rear end developed a very sick teenager's complexion..with bumbs and pits and open wounds.

*******************************************************

After about an hour of steady work, the lock gave up. And I drove home to Tucson to see my mom and dad. At least, I didn't have to break a window.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11^TH

My parents and I had breakfast at the Triple T Truck stop. Scrambled eggs. Sausage. Biscuits and gravy. There are still no breakfasts like truck-stop breakfasts.

Then I caught an 8 a.m. flight home to Washington. Lesley was mad at me for not coming home the day before. We had carry-out Chinese food for dinner. Taylor insisted on being equipped with chopsticks- like her mom and dad-even though her dinner consisted of broiled chicken and boiled carrots. During the meal, she kept switching back and forth from spoon to fork to chopsticks. And she did reasonably well with the sticks. She even started poaching on my plate. She would stick a chopstick into my dinner, let some Chinese morsel adhere to it, pull it out..and then suck on the end of the chopstick as though it were a lollipop stick.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12^TH

This was the day of the Big snow storm. Six to ten inches fell on our nation's capital. And Washington was as paralyzed by its white blanket as Pompei was by its black blanket.

Since Kyle, our afternoon babysitter, could not get a bus or cab..I offered to come get her. She said she would meet me on the corner of 35^th and O streets which is only about ten blocks from our home.

I never got there.

I've never seen traffic so snarled in Washington. I did manage to get as far as 35^th and T streets, but then I got bogged down in the frozen rush hour and did not move for over half an hour. Finally I managed to turn around in a snow drift and escape that particles jam. But there was simply to get from where I was to where the baby sitter was waiting on the corner. An unbreachable wall of cars separated us. After an hour, I gave up and went home.

But the babysitter hadn't called. She was obviously still waiting on the corner in the blizzard. So I bundled up to go try again. But this time I only got as far as the elevator. Carmen came running after me. The afternoon babysitter was on the phone. She had called at last.

I told her to forget about babysitter today. To go home and get warm. She had had a bad hour on the frostbitten corner, but at least she had survived to baby sit again another day.

*****************************************************

I still had to go out into the blizzard again. With cabs and buses impossible, I was Lesley's only hope of getting home that night. The ride from our home to the white house and back again usually takes a little over half an hour. This time it took two hours. We spent an eternity on Massachusetts Avenue.

As I mentioned to Lesley: A couple of days earlier, I had been locked out of my car in the middle of the burning desert. And now here I was imprisoned in my car by a raging blizzard.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13^TH

I flew Taylor up to Boston to stay with her distaff grandparents for a few days. They are to keep her while I fly off to Hollywood and Lesley flies off to Mexico with the President.

Carmen was supposed to take Taylor up to Boston. But those plans changed quickly when Carmen told me.. "I'm going to quit unless Mrs. Stahl stops critising me."

I'm condensing what she actually said. But that was the essence of it. Evidently, every time Carmen takes Taylor to Boston, Mrs. Stahl finds fault with everything from the clothes Taylor has on to how dirty she is to...well, you get the point.

I tried to explain to Carmen that Mrs. Stahl is the wicked witch of the north. This wicked woman criticizes and scolds the way others say hello. All this seemed to make Carmen feel a little better.

Anyway, I took Taylor to Boston to spare Carmen any contact with the wicked witch of the north shore. And I was furious that Mrs. Stahl had but me to such an inconvenience..

...But actually the trip with Taylor turned out to be the best part of my day. It is fun to have her all to ones self occasionally. The kindly Delta crew seated Taylor and me and a mother and her child first. Then they allowed the herd to stampede on board. It was at this moment that Taylor said....

"Bebe, bebe, bebe."

I realized that she wanted her raggedy Ann doll. But I couldn't find it. Then I realized what Taylor had known all along. We had left "Bebe" in the lounge. So Taylor and I had to fight our way back up the aisle...against the grain..against the current.. against the odds. We fought our way past dozens of passengers, like two little red blood cells trying to fight our way back up the aorta and back into the heart. I was quite concerned because I knew I had lost my little girl's best friend.

But in the end the doll was found. We were as happy as if Lassie had come home.

On the phone, Taylor and I read a book about a bee. Which is another of Taylor's new words. She kept saying " bee...bee..bee." I held her up to look out the window. And she said "No." which means "Snow." The whole landscape was white. She also kept saying, " Mama mama mama mama," with the accent on the last syllable like a little French girl. I sang "Old McDonald had a farm, Ee-eye-ee-eye-oh," to her. And she pointed to her eye. It took me a moment to figure it out.

When we came into Boston, Taylor really impressed me with her intelligence. The moment the wheels touched the ground, she laughed and cooed and clapped. She understood: we had made it. Yippee! We were back on the ground. My daughter obviously understands airplanes.

*****************************************************

Lesley and I had dinner that night with Judy Crinchton who is a CBS producer. We all met at Il Giardino. Judy is doing a documentary on the CIA and wanted to pick my brain. A couple of Look photographers came along to take some pictures of us for a piece on women in TV news. They snapped and flashed away for almost an hour.

After they left, I went to the pay phone in the restaurant to catch up on my calling. I had a message to call a Look reporter in New York so I did. I suppose he wanted to talk to me in conjunction with the piece the photographer was working on. But he didn't. he wanted to talk to me about a column item he is doing on "Urban Cowboy." Evidently, Look is looking twice at Lesley and me.

I also called Irving Azoff in Hollywood. He said the trip with Travolta was back on for this coming Saturday Night.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14

I flew back out to Los Angeles on TWA's 9 a.m. plane. When I landed shortly before noon, I was met by a paramount driver. He was black and had a big paramount sign on his chest.

The driver wanted to know what project I was working on. I said "Urban Cowboy." Pretty soon we were talking about my producer.

"What do you think of Bob Evans?" I asked.

"He's a little kinky," the driver said.

I asked the driver what he meant. He said that a part of his job was delivering pornographic movies to Bob Evans' home. As soon as the skin flicks come out of the developing soup, the driver picks them up and hustles them over to Bob's panting home projector. The driver left me with the impression that he makes these deliveries at least once a week.

Of course, Evans gets other deliveries, too. Not just girls on reels. Girls on legs are also sent over. And they are usually good legs at that. He orders a pair of breasts delivered the way other people order two quarts of milk.

The driver had gone out to the airport and picked up the Houston Playmate of the Month for Evans. He took her to the Chateau Marmont Hotel. She said she was going to freshen up and then go over to Bob's house that evening.

"Why was she going to his house?" I asked.

"To read for the part," the driver said, "or fuck for the part."

"What's she like?" I asked.

"Oh, she's a player," said the black man.

"What does she look like?" I asked.

"She's beau-u-u-u-u-utiful," he said. " Just beau-u-u-u-u-utiful."

Even so, Bob Evans is s-i-i-i-i-i-ck. He's a nymphomaniac.

*****************************************************

the driver delivered me to Paramount. Not much happened at the office. Jim wasn't there. He was in the air between Houston and Hollywood. He had been down in Texas deciding where to set up the cameras to film the trail ride. We want to show horses and covered wagons and stage coaches winding their way through one of the most modern cities in the world. We're even going to have a helicopter.

At dinnertime, I went over to the Palm to meet...Irving (Little Big Man) Azoff..J.D. (The Moon Just Turned Blue) Souther..Tom Plate..and Andrea Whatshername who is now living with Tom. The restaurant was crowded and noisy.

The first thing J.D. said was: " I heard Travolta liked my music."

So I told him all about how his song seemed to save our meeting. And he just beamed. Still he said he wasn't sure he wanted to be in a movie with Travotla. Of course, I'm sure he was just posing. On the one hand, he wants to appear unimpressed by the world's biggest movie star. But on the other hand, he wants to know how much the world's biggest movie star loved his song.

" If Travolta's in the movie," J.D. said, " I don't want to play just a bank robber. I want to play a Transsexual bank robber."

**************************************************

After dinner, Irv took me out to give me a glimpse of how the rock àÓn' roll business works. We drove out to a recording studio somewhere. We went in Irv's four-wheel-drive jeep. He needs a jeep to climb all them Beverly Hills.

In the recording studio, we listened to tapes of new music created by a new group called airborne. All the members of the band were there. This is a band wholly created by Irving. He found this kid who wrote pretty good songs. And then Irv built the band ground him. He cast it the way you a movie. In the old days, promoters synthesized individual rock-n-roll stars like Fabian. Now they synthesize whole groups.

Several Columbia Records executives had gathered to hear this plastic band's plastic music. One Executive looked and talked like Buster Keaton without a sense of humor. Another was big and fat, gulped down bottles of beer, and danced to the music like a mid-life teeny bopper.

I had always supposed that when you made a record you started with the lead vocal..and then built in other musical elements around it. Not at all. Time after time we heard the same speech: "Everything's finished on this cut except the lead vocal." Many of the lead vocals weren't even written yet. In fact, a kid with long blond hair was scribbling lyrics for these cuts even as we listened to them. He stood in the back of the studio and wrote in a notebook like a reporter.

I couldn't understand the rock-n-roll language these people spoke. It was full of slang which I couldn't translate, musical terms with which I was not familiar, and names of people I had never heard of. In that studio I felt the way Taylor must feel in the world..

*****************************************************

At midnight, Irving took me over to the estate which his wife made him sell. He is obviously still crazy about this place. He haunts it by night. His former estate has tennis courts, a swimming pool, a guest house and a main house. He pointed across the way and said, "Ann Margaret lives over there."

We toured his empty once-upon-a-time home. It was obviously furnished with memories for him, but to me it just looked empty.

"I bought it with my first big rock n roll check," he said. "It was a $4 million Eagles check. My commission was $800,000. I paid the taxes and bought this place."

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15

We didn't get much done. We are pretty much just waiting for Travolta now. Jim got to the office in time for lunch. And then Kim The First Assistant joined us. We ate across the street at Lucy's. I had an oven Burrito Verde.

At 3 o'clock we had a production meeting. It was attended by Jim..me..Kim..Ray Villalobos, the cinematographer..Stu somebody the art director..and Doc Erickson the executive producer. We decided to try to buy a couple of mechanical bulls. And we agreed to try to make this movie without constructing a Gilley's on the Paramount lot. If we can shoot all the Gilley's scenes in the real Gilley's, then the movie should look more authentic. I think that's a good decision.

And we talked a little bit about casting. The conversation turned to who would play Pam's sisters. Doc had a good idea.

"Maybe those girls Bob has been fucking could be Pam's sisters," he said of our illustrious producer. "Pam would have 28 sisters and they would all be about 23."

After the meeting, I went to the Palm with Jim. We were hoping that they would have a television set so I could watch Lesley at the restaurant and then have dinner with Jim. But the Palm didn't have a TV. So I deserted Jim to run off to my hotel to watch my wife in Mexico City. She did a nice piece which opened and closed with Carter's talking about getting Montezuma's revenge. In other words, the President was running at both ends ( of Lesley's piece.)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16

I went over to Gucci's and bought Lesley a silver bracelet for her anniversary. Happy Anniversary.

Then I went to lunch with Dick Reeves and Jean Valleley at Le Serre on Ventura Boulevard. Dick and Jean told me about a dinner they had eaten in the same restaurant with Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt. Linda came over to their table and told them about a birthday present she had bought for Jerry. It was something called Farmer Brown's Ant Farm. Jerry looked at the ant farm and said: "This is going to give me a lot of ideas about how to run the country." I said: " He said that because he knows an ant farm is run by a queen." My audience thought it was a terrible joke.

I told the story about Linda Ronstadt asking Senator Gary Hart if Jerry was Gay. And Dick said that Senator Hart was gay.

******************************************************

I was supposed to be back at the studio at four, but our boozy lunch lasted longer than I thought. I didn't get there till four. When I arrived, Jim was meeting with David Rawlins who is going to be our film editor. Rawlins had originally tried to buy the movie rights to our story, but Azoff out bid him. He said he had tried to get Jim to read the piece when it first came outàÎthey were working together on the "China Syndrome" at the timeàÎbut Jim just tossed it aside.

Rawlins talked about cutting "Saturday Night Fever." He said the director knew so little about dancing that he could not even tap his feet to the music. So the director disappeared when dance scenes had to be cut together. And Travolta took over. He stood behind the film editor in the cutting room and told him how to do it.

" That made Travolta happy," Rawlins said, "and when Travolta was happy, the director was happy."

We also talked about the underwear shots in "Saturday Night Fever." Rawlins said that they were the idea of Robert Stigwood and his Gay Mafia. He said that there were a lot more underwear shotsàÎand a lot more revealing shotsàÎwhich did not make it into the movie. They were simply shot for the amusement of Stigwood's Gay Mafia.

*********************************************************

Jim took me to my first real Hollywood party. It was a birthday party for Marica Berenson given at the home of the man who wrote the music for "Midnight Express." This party had valet parking.

The party was not staged very well which seemed peculiar in as much as it was a Hollywood party. There was no center to it. People just roamed from living room to porch to dining room. Worst of all, the porch was enclosed in transparent plastic. All the guests were like left-overs sealed in saran wrap.

I met Sam Shepard who we have tentatively cast as Wes in our movie. He looked just w-u-u-u-u-underful. In person he was even more like the real Wes- whose real name was Les-than he had been when I first saw him on the screen in "Days of Heaven." Sam said he had once ridden a bull. That was back in his four H days at a county fair.

"That's good," I said. "Because Wes makes his entrance on the back of a bull in this movie. It's good to know we won't have to teach you how to ride one."

He didn't know whether to laugh or shake.

I also met Barry Dillar, the chairman of the board of Paramount Pictures. He is short and bald. He wore a white T-shirt under a sport coat and loafers with no socks. And he was very loose. It was as though he were always dancing to music we couldn't hear. Maybe the music was played by that new group called Coke. I don't know.

"I liked your àÓAnimal House' piece," he said.

Well, Dillar might have looked funny but he made a good first impression.

But then he tarnished that impression somewhat. Because he was so proud of having refused to give John Travolta a plane to fly to Houston in. The little, unattractive businessman obviously loved sticking it to the romantic, handsome movie-star.

What had been his role in the drama of the previous weekend?

"All I did was turn down the plane."

Why?

"By Taking a stand now, I reduced the cost of àÓUrban Cowboy' by 45 per cent."

How so?

"When he was doing àÓAmerican Gigolo,' he used to fly to Rome just to get a pair of shoes. Which was a bad creative choice anyway. An American gigolo in Italian shoes."

So Dillar had made up his mind to take a stand. But I still think it was a dumb stand. The time to say no is when someone ask for something unreasonable. If John wanted to fly to Texas to get a pair of boots, well, that decision could go either way. But he surely should be allowed to see Gilley's because Gilley's is what the movie is about.

"He'll take advantage of you," Dillar said, "If you give him a chance. And in the past we've given him a chance. But we're not going to give him a chance again."

What Dillar did not seem to realize is that what he had given Travolta was a motive. Now the biggest star in the world would want to take advantage of Paramount.

We talked some about the new gang movie "The Warriors" which has been causing gang fights and even murders all over the country. Dillar said he would pull the movie if he could do so legally, but he couldn't. so instead he has pulled all the advertising.

Why was this movie provoking so much violence?

"Instead of meeting on a street corner to rumble," Dillar said, "the gangs are meeting at this movie."

The kids are so deeply into fantasy lives that they cannot tell their own lives for the movies. So they have gang fights at gang-fight movies. Where does the screen stop and the audience start?

While Dillar talked, he chewed on a chicken leg.

I also met Swifty Lazar who is Nixon's agent among others. And I heard a pretty good story about Swifty. The story was told by Ellis Amburn who is an editor at Morrow Books. Ellis said he had once gotten personally involved with one of Swifty's clients. Evidently this was some sort of homosexual relationship. Swifty found out about it and demanded another $5000 for his client. If his client did not get the extra money, Swifty said he would tell Ellis's bosses about the homosexual affair. It was simple blackmail. Obviously, Swifty and Tricky were made for each other. Ellis told Swifty: go ahead and tell them. And Swifty did. The bosses said they didn't care and didn't want to hear any more of Swifty's gossip. "It made me think a lot more of my bosses," Ellis said.

Joe Bottoms was at the party. He spent most of the time on the dance floor. Whenever he would catch my eye across the room, he would do a dance step designed to look like riding a mechanical bull.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17^TH

The telephone woke me up at 8:30. it was Irving. He warned me to dress warmly for Houston. I'll bet this is how he handles his rock n rollers. He calls them in the morning on some pretext just to make sure they are awake. Otherwise they might just sleep right through departure times and miss concerts.

The silver gray limousine picked me up at 9:30 and we headed off down Sunset Boulevard. Our first stop was at Jim's house. On the way to the airport, Jim told me that Bob Evans was back in New York fucking more actresses in the name of "Urban Cowboy." We decided that Evans was a talented producer who reduced himself to a laughing stock by his philandering. His bedroom is as crowded as the state room in the Marx Brothers' movie "A Night at the Opera." Evans thinks he is a Swashbuckler but he is actually a comic figure.

When we stopped at the Continental Terminal, we were met by Irving's press agent Larry Salter's..and a golf cart. We were supposed to be given in the golf cart. It ran against his Democratic sensibilities. If all the other passengers had to walk, then we should have to walk. Besides, if we got in the golf cart, then everyone would look at us. Well, if Jim wasn't going to ride, then I Wasn't going to ride either.

"Come on," Larry Salters said, "Its Hollywood."

Jim and I started walking, but the golf cart was following us. And people stared. This was almost worse than riding.

"Come on, it's Hollywood."

We finally got in. The golf cart whisked us to a VIP lounge where we met Jerry Worms. Jerry is John's Old Friend from Back Home. He told us that John had called him at 2 a.m. the day before he was going to become a cop and told him to come out to Hollywood. "He saved me," Jerry said.

Travolta was flying in from Santa Barbara that morning. When his plane landed, we all left the lounge to rendezvous with him in the lobby. And then we boarded the plane. A 747. They boarded us first, a ritual usually reserved for parents traveling with babies. Maybe there is an analogy here.

Then they let on the riff-raff. The riff-raff included Ed McMahon and Bob Newhart. McMahon came over to say hello to Travolta. I told Jim that I had been on McMahon's show in 1966 but good old Ed had forgotten. And Jim told Ed.

"You're right," Ed said, " I don't remember you. But you'll forgive me. We've done over 4000 shows."

We chatted for a minute. Then Ed took his leave.

"Good to see you again," he said. Jim sat next to John. And Jerry and I sat right behind them. Jerry turned out to be quite a nice guy.

He told me about a problem he has. He has trouble meeting women. Actually, he meets lots of them. Thousands. But they all want to get to know John. Not Jerry. And the ones who do take an interest in him tend to do so on order to get close to John. So he is always worried about his girlfriends' motives.

"I'm really having a hard time," he said.

We all ate Chinese food on the way down to Houston. This is some new gimmick continental has come up with to publicize the airline's new routes to Taiwan.

People kept coming up to Travolta asking for his autograph. One stewardess came up to him about six times and got him to sign something each time. Bob Newhart even motioned me over and asked me if I thought Travolta would mind if a friend of his asked the biggest star in the world for an autograph. I said I didn't know. Newhart took this to mean that it would be all right and dispatched a little girl to get the star's signature. She got it.

When we landed in Houston, there was a smell gang armed with instamatics gathered at the gate to welcome us with flashbulbs. We hurried through the airport to a fleet of waiting limousines. These were black. And we took off.

I had a car all to myself because I wanted to stop at the White Hall Hotel and pick up Lesley. But when I got there she was missing. I had lost my wife...even before she met John Travolta. I Eventually found a note which Lesley had left for me. It said she was out shopping.

I got back in the black Cadillac and was driven out to Gilley's. I found Jim and John and Irv wandering among the half hundred pool tables. It was only about 5 in the afternoon. Usually Gilley's is totally deserted at this hour, but today it contained a hundred or so people who held a hundred or so instamatics. They just watched. No one bothered us. The good old Cowboy Code.

I led our group over to the punching bag and showed them how it worked. I put a quarter in and swung. The needle went all the way up to 100. Most of the cowboys can push the needle up to 100 by blowing on the bag. Then Jerry took a punch at the bag. The needle went up to 200. He did twice as well as I did, but he was still 100 away from making the siren go off.

I blazed a trail over to the bull ring. Jerry jumped up on it and I gave him some instructions. Get as close to the rigging as you can. Lean back. Put your feet more forward. Toes out. Raise one hand over your head. Of course the bull was shot off.

We got Sherwood Cryer to come over and give us a demonstration of the bull in action. The only problem was that there was no one to ride it. My gang said I should ride it.

"Aaron can't ride it," Jim told them.

"It's his anniversary."

But I was afraid I was going to have to ride it. There wasn't anyone else. My main regret was that Lesley wouldn't see me do it.

Then I was saved by Gaitor. He showed up. And he rode the bull. Everyone was impressed by this amazing bucking machine.

Sherwood shut the bull off. And then John Travolta got up on the bull's back. He did so to pose for instamatic pictures. A dozen or so young girls posed standing beside the bull with Travolta on its back while their friends snapped them. Some of them reached up and put their arms around his hips. One girl asked if he sold kisses. He said his cost too much.

On the way out, one of the patrons gave Travolta the belt right out of his pants. It had a Gilley's buckle. The patron actually put the belt on John who stood passively as he was buckled up.

*******************************************************

We got back in our limousine and drove to the palm for dinner. We were shown into a private room. I went to a pay phone and called the hotel again looking for Lesley. She still wasn't there. I went back to Travolta.

" I was impressed," John said of my favorite honky tonk.

Then I went back and called Lesley again.. I finally found her. And I told her that a limousine was coming to pick her up and bring her to the restaurant.

I went back to the table and ordered for myself and my absent wife. She finally arrived about half and hour later and made one hell of a Hollywood entrance! Everyone at the table stood up. She had staged it in such a way that you would have thought she was the star for whom this party was being given and not Travotla.

Lesley Stahl upstaged John Travolta so easily that it was frightening. Star bests star.

When Lesley sat down at the table, Travolta told the CBS white house correspondent that he had been to the white house. He had been invited by Amy Carter to have dinner with her on her birthday. He had sort of been Amy's birthday present. Actually, Lesley had mentioned this dinner on the morning news. The birthday-party dinner had, of course, included the President.

Lesley asked: "Did he say anything dumb?"

Travolta echoed: "Did I say anything dumb?"

He had misunderstood. His mind had listened to his own fears rather than what Lesley had actually said. Which was kind of charming. John Travolta might be the biggest star in the world but he still had his insecurities. So I liked John better. It turns out that we even like Super Stars better for their vulnerabilities.

Lesley explained that she was asking if the president had said anything dumb. And then Travolta told us what the president said. He did a great imitation of Carter, accent and all. The king of Disco somehow transformed himself into the President of the United States.

"Ah certainly hope you keep..uh..on making..uh..those entertainin' movies..uh..ah shore do."

******************************************************

I went to the phone and called Dew. Travolta wanted to meet him. I actually thought Dew might be flattered to meet the Biggest Star in the World. But I was wrong.

"How would you like to meet John Travolta tonight," I asked.

"Is he going to play the part?" Dew wanted to know.

"I don't know. He's interested."

"He's Disco. He'd never go over in a cowboy place."

"Well, would you like to meet him anyway?"

"Where?"

"Can you come over to Gilley's tonight?"

"Just a second." He asked Jan if they could go to Gilley's and then came back on the phone. "Jan says we have to baby sit. But you can come by here if you want."

I went back to the table to report that we could drop by Dew's if we wanted. Travolta liked the idea. I was worried. Real worried.

****************************************************

Jim was sick. He told me so. Then I told him what Dew had said about Travolta being wrong for the role. Jim got sicker.

Jerry's mind was on the mechanical bull. He said he wanted to see me ride it before he rode it. He had seen Gaiter ride the bull, but that had not told him what he wanted to know. Because Gaiter was a cowboy. What he wanted to find out was what the bull would do to a civilian. Me. Then he would know whether he wanted to àÍdared to àÍride it. So there was more pressure on me to ride.

********************************************************

Our caravan of limousines left the Palm and headed for the cheap complex of apartments where Dew lives. I was worried. But Lesley told me I had nothing to be concerned about. Of course, Dew would be civil to the World's Biggest Movie Star.

Our parade of Cadillacs stopped in front of Dew's apartment. I knocked on the door. When Dew opened it, he was clearly amazed. Cowboys used to be attacked by Indians but now they are set upon by limousines. Good old dumb Dew invited us in. And about twenty people poured into his tiny living room. Chairs were moved in from the kitchen to accommodate as many people as possible. Dew didn't turn off his television set. He never does when company comes. "The Rockford Files" were on.

A baby was playing on a blanket in front of the television set. It looked like it was about a year old. Meanwhile, Jan was scurrying about with a baby in her stomach that would not be born for another six months.

"Whose baby's that?" asked Lesley, meaning the one in the blanket.

"Mine!" said Dew indignantly, meaning the one in the stomach.

And everyone laughed. Lesley was having a big evening of provoking revealing misunderstandings. She somehow tapped everyone's insecurities. First John and now Dew.

After the Debra died down, Dew did not waste anytime proving he was a direct forthright cowboy. He told the Biggest Movie Star in the world what he thought of him right off.

"You're disco," Dew Westbrook told John Travolta. "You'd never go over in a cowboy place. Now that's nothing against you."

All the Hollywood people laughed as if Dew had made a joke.

Dew's father was there. And he wasted no time making it worse.

"Remember that guy who played Superman," the father said to Jim of all people..Jim who knew George Reeves personally...Jim who lives with "Jimmy Olson"...ironies within ironies..

"Yes," Jim said, he remembered.

"Well, he got typecast," the father continued. "He could never play another role.

He was always Superman. And he " àÎnodding toward Travolta-" will always be disco. That's just the way it is."

"That's right," Dew said. "Nothing against you. I'm just telling you what's best for you and what's best for me. I'm a very direct person. I always tell people exactly what I think."

That damn cowboy code.

"I almost got in a fight the other day," Dew went on and on, " for telling a guy what I thought."

I guess I had been looking at the floor. When I looked up, I found the once-crowded living room almost deserted. Where twenty had squeezed moments before only four remained now. Dew. John. Jerry. And me. Everyone else had fled into the kitchen. The bathroom. Or the limousines outside.

"Did you hear how Jan and I met?" Dew asked for some unknown reason. "I got sort of drunk one night and I went up to her and I said, àÓwhen you going to take me home and rape me?' we been together ever since."

Dew even passed around an album of photographs of his wedding to Jan. I was in one of the pictures. The atmosphere relaxed a little but not much. People started drifting back into the room.

"We'd better go," said Jim who had come back. "It's almost 10."

"It's twenty minutes to 10," Dew said. "What's your hurry?"

Now that we were leaving, Dew wanted us to stay. He didn't want Travolta in his movie but he wanted him in his living room.

We left anyway?"

*****************************************************

In the car, Irving said, "On the scale from bad to terrible, that was terrible."

And I was the one who had arranged it. I felt about as bad as I could feel. I was embarrassed. And I hate being embarrassed. I didn't particularly care about putting Travolta in the movie but I cared very much about having put him in such an embarrassing position. Hell.

There was hardly any point in going on to Gilley's. It was all over. But we went anyway. We were expected.

The wagon train of limos pulled up to a Gilley's side door. And we all poured inside. I put on my black hat.

We moved over to the dance floor. Pretty soon Lesley was dancing with Bob Lamons, Travolta's agent. Then I danced with her. Jim came up to me on the dance floor to announce: "He's out there dancing up a storm."

The dance floor was so crowded I couldn't see him dancing. I had never seen more people on the dance floor. The band played the Cotton Eyed Joe and Lesley and I made Jim dance with us. She danced in the middle. This dance involves a lot of kicking. And the floor was so crowded people were in danger of getting kicked senseless. I'd never seen so many kickers kicking in my life.

**********************************************************

I suggested that we all go over to the bullring. There was a huge crowd around the bull, too. Steve Strange had come in off the trail ride to run the bull. He invited Travolta to take a seat beside him. Which was a really good idea. John could see how the bull worked and how Steve Strange worked. Both are unparalleled.

Fortunately, a lot of the regulars were there. Betty, Dew's first wife, got up on the bull and practically rode the gears out of it. She jumped back and forth over the rigging. She stood up on it. She did crazy mounts and dismounts. Then she came over and hovered around Travolta. She liked him. Dew might not think that John could play Dew in a movie. But Betty was willing for John to play Dew anytime anywhere.

Debbie and Norman were there, too. They had gotten married since the last time I saw them. They are a couple of the best bull riders in the joint. And they are certainly the best husband and wife bull riding team. Debbie rode it first and very well. She is a cute newlywed and a cute bull riding son of a gun. She has short sandy hair and a nice turned up nose. As Steve Strange would say, she rode the bull "just like makin' a honeymoon."

Then a lot of cowboys I didn't know rode it. Some got thrown in picturesque positions. And a few rode the damn thing. I wanted John to see someone ride it who could really ride it. Some man. He had already seen several women who could really ride it. She did. And he did. He rode it until I thought he would bust its ball bearings.

When he got down, I introduced him to Travolta. And the Biggest Star in the World complemented the best Male Bull rider at Gilley's in his ride.

Jerry kept asking me when I was going to ride it. Because he wasn't going to ride it until I rode it. And he wanted to ride it. Bad.

I said I didn't want to ride it in front of so many people. Jim said I shouldn't ride it on my anniversary. But Jerry kept asking me when I was going to ride it. I was concerned. I knew if Jerry didn't ride the bull then he would think of his visit to Gilley's as a disappointment. And he would communicate his sense of disappointment to Travolta. So Jerry should definately ride the bull. But he wouldn't ride it unless I rode it. And I didn't want to ride it with all those people watching.

"Come on, Aaron," Jerry said, "let's ride it. Let's ride it now."

I hesitated. But then I took off my corduroy jacket. Then I took off my hat and put it on the table next to the bull controls. I walked out to the bull to the amazement of Irv and Jim and LESLEY. I got on and Betty turned the bull down to one for me.

And then suddenly it was bucking. I was stiff the first couple of bucks. But then I started leaning back when the bull's "head" went down and leaning forward when the bull's "head" came up. I got into a rhythm. And I think I rode the bull better than I had even ridden it in my life. When I thought I had ridden it long enough...it seemed like I had been up there about thirty second..I started yelling.

"STEVE! STOP IT! STEVE! STOP!"

Lesley was very amused. Maybe she had never heard me raise my voice before. I slid down off the bull and felt great. In fact, I felt the way a lot of people say they feel when they take cocaine. There was a rush of energy. And exhilaration. And a sense of competence. Really, it was wonderful. I walked over to where Lesley was sitting to collect my praise.

Jerry got on and rode the bull. He seemed to love it, too. And he didn't fall off. I figured we had hooked at least one of the Travolta entourage.

******************************************************

And then suddenly we all left. We went out the side door again. It was about 11 o'clock. Travolta wanted to try to catch an 11:50 train back to California. The Warner Brothers jet that was supposed to take him had gotten hung up in bad weather in the east and would not arrive until after 2 a.m. if at all.

I reached through a limousine window to shake hands with Jerry whom I had really gotten to like. I said "nice ride" to him. Then I shook hands with Travolta. After the hand shake, he stuck his thumb up in the air. So I guessed we hadn't come to Gilley's for nothing, after all.

Three of us were staying in Houston. Lamons. Lesley. And me. So we rode together. At a red light, our limo pulled up next to Travolta's limo. Windows were rolled down. And heads were stuck out.

"What do you think?" Travolta asked his manager.

"Seems like a good idea to me." Lamons said.

"Good," John said, "Seems like a good idea to me , too."

And then our limos parted ways.

As Lamons and Lesley and I drove on into Houston, we were all pretty relaxed and happy. I liked Lamons better than I ever had before.

Lesley asked him how bad the meeting with Dew had been..how bad from Travolta's point of view.

"It didn't bother him" Lamons said. "John never gets mad when you are honest with him. What he doesn't like is when he realizes you are saying something just for his benefit."

Maybe somebody like Travolta hears so few people tell him that he would be no good at something that Dew was..well, refreshing. At least he was fresh. Fresh as the morning Dew. Oh, well.

" I think it was fated that I would work on àÓUrban Cowboy,'" Lamons said. " I read it when it first came out. And I got our people to try to buy it. And I tried to get paramount to try to buy it for us. But they said it was too expensive."

We pulled up at the hotel but Lesley and I didn't get out right away. Lamons was going on to his sister's place. We were a party that refused to break up. Lamons was talking about "Moment By Moment."

"The reason I want John and Jim to spend so much time together ," Bob said. " Is I want to make sure that they are both making the same movie. In àÓMoment By moment' John and Lily were making different movies. She was making a movie about role reversals. And he was making a movie about emotional equality. And whenever you would try to get them to Houston, we werer all dosdzhfsosadfs9ofhgfohrofeofhofgwrfgosdhfo change something they had a dozen good intellectual reasons why they shouldn't. everything was incredibly well thought out. It just didn't work."

"Lily Tomlin was definitely the problem with that movie," Lesley said.

"That's right," Bob said. "She had figured out intellectually that the woman she was playing had been deadened by what had happened to her in her life. And so Lily played the character dead. With no emotion. She played Clint Eastwood."

"Travolta was good in it," Lesley said.

"He thinks it was his best performance," Bob said.

The party in the back of the limousine finally broke up. Lesley and I went upstairs to our incredible silver suite. Silver wallpaper. Stainless steel lamps. Silver pictures in silver frames. Silver mirrors reflecting their silver surroundings. And the place cost a lot of silver. It was huge.

In our silver suite, Lesley gave me my anniversary present. A bush jacket. But the kind of bush jacket you wear to fight your way through the jungles of Beverly Hills. A bush jacket too nice for the bush. This is maybe my favorite kind of fashion. Thank you, Lesley. She also gave me a belt buckle with a bull rider on it. Looked just like me in Gilley's. And I her the Gucci bracelet.

I couldn't go to sleep. Just the way they say people on coke can't go to sleep. So the bull is like the drug in that way, too.

**************************************************

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18^TH

When we got up the next morning, I noticed the message light linking on the phone. It turned out Irving had called at 4 a.m. and left the following message: "Travolta 100 per cent confirmed."

Lesley and I hurried to the airport to catch an 11:25 airplane. It was cancelled because of bad weather in the east. So we had time to make some phone calls.

I called Irving who said, yes, Travolta had announced on the flight home that he wanted to do the movie.

Then I called Jim and got the juicy details. They were flying home and Jim was feeling sick. He lay down in a seat behind Travolta. The biggest star in the world put his hand on the back of his seat. And Jim put his hand on top on John's hand.

Then the biggest star in the world said: "I want to do this movie." And everyone hugged and kissed. "Take care of me, Jim," John said. "You know I will," Jim said.

We managed to catch a 3 o'clock plane home. We wrote our diaries in the air. We landed in the biggest snow storm Washington has had in over fifty years. Somehow we got a taxi. Lots of times I could not see out his windshield. So I don't see how the driver could see.

On the way home we passes a taxi that had skidded off the road and was stuck in a ditch. I recognized the driver as one who had refused to take Lesley and me into Washington a few minutes earlier.

Miraculously we skidded home. As we were going to bed, I felt sicker and sicker. I had diarrhea, fever, and cramps. And I was awake almost all night.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19^TH

When we got up the next morning, it was still snowing. About 2 feet of snow fell in all. A jeep had to come to get Lesley to take her to work.

Around noon my fever broke and I began to feel better.

Jim called in the afternoon. When I told him I had been sick, he said we all had been. Jim. Irv. Me. And probably Travolta. Everyone who had eaten the Chinese food on that flight to Houston. This cuisine was suppose to publicize the airline's new routes to Taiwan. So I guess we had Chang Ki Check's revenge.

A jeep brought Lesley home just long enough to pack to go to a motel for the night. She slept out at Andrew's Air Force Base so she could leave with the President early I the morning to fly to Georgia.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20^TH

I sort of kind of made a novel deal. Sterling Lord, my 24 carat agent, got Bantam to agree to pay $100,000 for the book. Which sounded to me like a pretty good deal. Even though Paramount would get 20% of this. I called Lesley and told her that a deal had been made.

Then in the middle of the night I got a call for Lee Rosenberg, my Hollywood agent. He had just had a call from Steve Roth who is Jim's agent. When Roth called, he had with him in his office good old David Obst. And Obst had just offered $200,000 for the novel.

Which complicated matters.

(a) But there were several reasons why I was not anxious to take advantage of this offer. (1) we already had a deal at Bantam. (2) Obst is flaky. (3) Obst did not want me to write the novel. He wanted to buy the screenplay from us and then hire some hack to write the book.

Well, I told my Hollywood agent that I would talk to Jim and get back to him.

Jesus! $200,000!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21^ST

I talked to Jim in Houston by phone. We agreed not to disagree. We promised each other that we would not allow our respective agents draw us into a feud.

(b) We did not attempt to settle this thing over the telephone. We agreed to talk it over in person in Houston. I was expected in Texas the next day.

After this phone call, I drove Lesley to work at he Whit House. And I took Carmen out to the airport. She flew up to Boston to get Taylor.

There were still a couple of feet of snow on the ground. Driving continued to be tricky although most of the main roads had been ploughed.

In the afternoon, I picked up Taylor and Carmen at the airport. My daughter looked bigger than ever. And she had learned some new tricks. Now she could say: Carmen. Although it came out more like: "come."

In the evening, a photographer from "Look" magazine came to take Lesley's picture "at home."

(c) the photographer's name was Eva Sereny. She lives in Rome and had been flown to Washington to take pictures of all the lady reporters..

... Journal persons.

Als Lesley's cousin Jimmy and his girlfriend came for dinner. And we asked Eva and her assistant to stay for dinner, too.

We cooked a prime-rib roast. Or at least we tried to cook it. Every time we took it out of the oven it mooed

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22^ND

(d) I flew to Houston to meet my movie people. We gathered for a 7 p.m. meeting in Jim suite which was quite impressive. The meeting was attended by three camera men..our cinematographer..several assistant directors.. a transportation coordinator..Doc Erickson..and me...our army keeps growing.

During the meeting, Doe got an urgent call from the production department at Paramount. A storm was building back at the studio because none of the studio executives had known that we were coming to Houston to start shooting our movie. One of the executives had known that we were coming to Houston to start shooting our movie. One of the executives had picked up a trade paper and read that "Urban Cowboy" was going to start shooting second unit footage in Texas on February 23..which was the first the Paramount executive had heard about. The paper knew more than the boss. And the boss was furious! The Paramount executives were threatening "to pull the plug" on the movie if Jim exposed a foot of film.

*******************************************************

A little later, Jim got a call from Bob Evans.

All Evans said was: "I want t wish you good luck on your first day of shooting tomorrow."

Which Jim and I thought was a classy move for him to make. So far as he knew, we didn't even know about the temper tantrums back at the studio. And he was not going to tell us.

He was doing what a producer should do: acting as a buffer between us and the studio executives.

********************************************************

finally, the executives backed down. Jim's agent called to say we had permission to roll our cameras tomorrow.

********************************************************

I had dinner with Jim and a new friend of his at Ninfa's. Jim's new friend is named Jim, too. And this Jim is the special friend of a Houston-based director named Jack of all things. Now this gets pretty complicated so pay attention. The Houston Jack was away on a trip to California. So the Houston Jim was free to have dinner with the Los Angeles Jim who was himself on the road and so away from his own jack. Get it?

So there are two Jims and Jacks. And half of each couple is a director. In the case of the Houston pair, however, the director is Jack. He staged the "Porgy and Bess" revival in Houston which was eventually exported to New York.

After dinner, Jim and Jim and I drove back to the hotel in Jim's car. And Jim asked Jim if he would like to come up for a minute. Jim accepted.

(e) We all got into the elevator together, but I demurely got off at the second floor. I was assigned room 236. Whereas Jim and Jim ascended to the ninth floor and whatever awaited them there.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23^RD

The next morning Jim made a point of telling me that Jim had only stayed fifteen minutes. Sure.

It rained on our parade. We had come to Houston to roll our cameras for the very first time. This would be the real beginning of our movie making. Up until now it had all been words on paper but now it would be images on film.

(f) We had descended upon this city at this time to photograph the annual Houston trail drive which kicks off rodeo week. A half dozen trail drives from all over Texas and even Louisiana converge upon Houston on this day and parade through the concrete trails of one of the most modern urban centers on earth.

Pictures of this trail drive through the skyscrapers would make the point of our movie very nicely: the cowboy would be seen in his new habitat, the city.

But it rained. And the clouds were so low that you couldn't even see the city's skyline. The tops of the buildings disappeared into the mist.

(g) And there we were with a crew of 25 or more. Five cameras. And even a helicopter.

On top of all out other problems, Jim was exhausted. So tired he could hardly stand up. It must have been a very tiring "fifteen minutes."

Thousand and thousands of cowboys filed through the streets of Houston dressed in bright yellow slickers. This parade of the cowboys looked like a parade of the canaries. By chance, Jim and I ran across the other Jim who was standing on the sidelines watching the parade. And he joined our party. we all walked the whole length of the parade. And Jim and I were in boots. Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh!

**********************************************************

in the afternoon, we shot the rodeo in the Astrodome. Jim and I sat up in the stands together. It was the first time since I had arrived in Houston that we had been alone. I was beginning to learn that one is never alone when one is making a movie. At any rate, there we were alone at last in a crowd of 10,000 people.

So I asked Jim what we should do about the novel. We had a nice friendly talk and agreed that Jim should get something but not too much since I was going to do the work after all. He said his agent had told him that my agent (Lee Rosenberg) was an idiot. Well, I think it will work out.

*******************************************************

We took a break back at the hotel. And then we returned for the evening performance of the rodeo. This time Jim and I watched from the television tower which rose directly above the chutes. We looked right down on the backs of the bulls. We could see them slip the rope around the bull's bodies. We watched the bull riders adjust their grip. We saw bulls rear up and try to jump out of the chutes. A couple of them got half-way out. And then the chute gate would open and let out the tornado. We saw one cowboy kicked in the back as he fell. He got hurt but at least it gave him something to talk about. We watched him do just that.

And one clown fell down and a bull came down on his rear with both feet. The footprints were clearly visible. But the clown somehow got up as though nothing had happened. We could hardly believe it. The clown must have bones made out of silly putty.

***************************************************

after the rodeo, we went out to Gilley's. we rode in vans. A movie travels in much the same way that a political campaign does. In van caravans.

Tanya Tucker, the singer, was there. She wasn't singing. She was just in the audience. We joined her table. She still had that great cheap look. As Jim said later: "Tanya wants to be in this movie so bad she even asked the director to dance." She asked him to dance one of the slow, cuddly dances. I don't suppose she knew he was gay.

Jim told her: "The last time I danced was with Rita Heyworth."

The only problem was that Gilley's is such a noisy joint that you can't hear what anybody says.

So Tanya said: "I like Susan Hayward, too."

At about 1:55 a.m.àÎminutes before closing time---Tanya got up on the bandstand and sang a song. We had been putting a lot of pressure on her to do so. She sang "Help me Make It Through The Night." And the crowd gathered around.

After her song, Tanya went to the Women's room. And then she rode the bull. She rode it over and over again. And she had them keep advancing the speed. From one to two. From two to three. It seemed to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

APRIL 16^TH THRU APRIL 23^RD

I spent the above week in Hollywood. Here are some random memories..There was the afternoon when we came out of casting and ran into Jerry Wurms, Travolta's best friend, walking across the lot..He seemed real glad to see us. He said Travolta was over in his office and we should go say hell. So we did. When we walked through the door of Travolta's little bungalow, the Biggest Star in the World rushed over to Jim, jumped up on him, wrapped his legs around him. And then Jim carried him across the room. John said the studio had given him this office when he was working on "American Gigolo." He added: "But I got even." I had no idea what he was talking about. But I sensed that he and the studio weren't buddies...

..Then Jim and I walked over to Bob Evans office. Evans was going crazy trying to arrange the opening of his movie "Players" which is supposed to be just terrible. Tony Harvey, the director of Players, was there. Jim and I had with us an actress who wants to be in Urban Cowboy who happens to be John Voit's girlfriend. So Jim introduced JV's lady to Tony and Bob. Bob disappeared into an inner office to take a call from Don Simpson, the head of production at Paramount. Then Tony Harvey started kidding Jim about all the money he is making on China Syndrome. Tony said Jim should take care of his friends in their old age. He said he had been talking to Katherine Hepburn about Jim that morning. And they had agreed that they both looked to Jim to take care of them. Jim and Tony and Kate share some curious friendship. It hasn't been an easy friendship because Jim did not like one of Tony's movies. It was called Eagles Wing. Tony asked Jim what he thought of it. Jim asked if he wanted an honest answer. Tony said he did. Jim said he hated it. And after that Tony hated Jim. Hated him so much that he protected to Kate. Kate told Jim he was a fool to give an honest answer. Which is right. So there Tony was telling Jim he should take care of him in his old age. So Jim asked JV's lady if she knew who Tony was. She said no. So Jim said, why, he's the director of Lion in Winter, Players, and ..Eagles Wing! Then Jim laughed and laughed. Remember, Tony Harvey is the one who fell and broke his kneecap not too long ago. He was out of the cast, but he had a cane with him. Jim stole the cane, took it out in the yard in front of Evans' office, and started twirling it like a baton. He threw it three stories in the air and caught it. Threw it again and caught it behind his back. Threw it again and caught it reaching under his leg. Every one came out to watch...

..The next day I had lunch over at Columbia with Sherry Lansing, one of the vice presidents, who happens to be real pretty. She was helping me with my story on The China Syndrome. Which meant I had a good reason to see her, but Lesley still got mad. I walked into the Columbia executive commissary with her. And someone called out my name. I couldn't believe it. I was sure nobody at Columbia knew me. It turned out to be Jerry Wurms. I saw him first. Then I saw Bob Lemond. And finally I noticed Travolta. We shook hands all around. Turned out that Travolta has an office on the Columbia lot for some reason. I just can't seem to get away from the Biggest Star in the World...

... I interviewed Jack Lemmon for my China Syndrome piece. He had on Gucci slippers. I liked him and thought he was smart. When we first started talking, before we were comfortable with each other, he used a lot of the mannerisms he uses on the screen. The one Jim kept trying to get him to stop using in The China Syndrome. But the longer we talked the fewer "Lemons"- as he calls himself- got in the way..

...One evening I had dinner with Jean Valleley at the Palm. She talked for hours about her troubles with Clay. She sold a piece to the movies, but Clay wants the magazine to get most of the money. Naturally, she wants the money. And she has hired a lawyer to fight it out. Imagine suing your boss. It was a long evening...

...One evening, I had dinner with Bridges at Chianti. We ordered Fettuccini for firsts. And we liked it so much we had a second order before we allowed them to serve the main courses. Jim had a martini which would later make him sick in the night...and we had a good talk about our story. We agreed that there should be more danger in it...

....we had one rough casting session. It was rough because Lois Zetter, one of Travolta's agents, sat in. And she made herself quite obnoxious. It wasn't personal. That's just her personality. At one point, Jim suggested that a certain actress walk over to see Bob Evans...Lois said: "Not this afternoon." And that was that. It was as though she was running the meeting instead of the director. I didn't like her but at the same time I could see that she couldn't help herself. Wally Nessita, the Paramount casting lady, has a longstanding hatred for Lois. So at one point Wally said what a mistake it would be to pick our people from the casts of TV shows. She said this knowing that Lois represents a lot of TV people. And that Travolta got his start there. Lois knew she had been insulted and showed it. In general, Lois is as unlikable as Jerry Wurms is likable. For some reason, the men around John are all right while the women run the gamut from rude to obnoxious...

At yet another casting session, Jim told a memorable story about Shelly Winters. She was in the road company of the first play Jim ever wrote. It was about a bar in Venice, California. Montgomery Clift used to come to the rehearsals. Sit way in the back of the theater. Just watching. For a long time,, none of the actors on stage knew who he was. He was just the mystery man. Anyway, it was a good play until Shelly Winters got a hold of it. She was always throwing in lines from other plays and movies she had been in. Dialogue for Lolita kept showing up in poor Jim's little work. She totally confused all the other actors. And when the play opened she confused the audience. One morning while they were on the road, she called Jim downstairs in the coffee shop. She wanted him to come right up. He said he was having breakfast. She said she would order him breakfast from room service. He could eat in her room. So she badgered him into coming up. When he got there, she was wrapped in a towel. She had shaved her fat crotch to try to get rid of the crabs. If Jim was not already gay, he became so at that moment...

...when I got home to Washington, I got a call from Jim. He said Travolta's dog had just bitten him on the face. Lord knows what he was doing to the dog. So the movie would have to be pushed back again while the Biggest Star in the World's billion dollar face healed..

..But I'm free-associating ahead of myself. Before I left California, we had some more really good talks about the story. On Friday afternoon, we talked about changing Pam from a schoolteacher to a sales girl at Nieman Marcus. She could be a virtual stranger to Gilley's who goes there once and meets our hero. And she could wind up taking our hero to a bar called Cowboy which is a country-and-western bar for doctors and lawyers and folks with money. Pam could be what I called a "Consumer Cowgirl." She just likes the clothes but not the code. So this would give us a chance to look at what being a cowboy really means. We also talked about having a kind of mating dance where our hero dances with Pam while our heroine dances with the outlaw. The hero and heroine are both trying to make the other jealous. It is a getting-back-at dance...

...On Saturday, we met at Jim's and kept talking. We decided that the new Pam could be sort of the voice of the article. She is smart enough to know that Boy isn't really a cowboy. And she tells him so. She could even be the one to say: "twang twang." Pam seems to be turning into a pretty good character...

...After our talk, we went to a Saturday afternoon party given by Brook Hayward who wrote Haywire. It was the best Hollywood party I have been at yet because it had some writers. Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne (husband and wife) were there. The writers tended to know who I am which I also liked. Whenever Dunne talks, he always says: "we did so and so..." It's not the royal we, it's not the editorial we, it's the married we. Or perhaps it is the we of the lesser writer married to the major writer. The producer of a movie called Resurrection starring Sam Shepard told me that there was no way he could play an outlaw. Not enough energy. So maybe we should rethink who we want to play our outlaw Wes. Jack got to talking to Dunne about Christopher Isherwood and Virgil Thompson. Jack said he could tell from these two men- both close friends of his- that you should never admit publicity that you are gay. Isherwood had made such an admission. So on a recent Dick Cavet Show he was asked about nothing but his sex life. While Virgil Thompson, who keeps it to himself, appeared on the same show and was asked about nothing but music. Jack talks about such matters a lot more than Jim does. Brook Hayward's bathroom was the highlight of the party . jack took Jim and me up to see it. The bathroom walls and ceilings are mirrors. Mirrors everywhere. You look into them and forget which one is you. Jim lay down in the tub and admired the many hims in all the mirrors. I had a good time. Sue Mengers told me she admired my wife..

..Jack told a story standing on the balcony of the house he shares with Jim. He said that George Stevens, who played superman, lived for many years with the wife of Eddie Mannix, an MGM executive. Eddie didn't mind. Now this woman lives in a big house with $200 million and is totally crazy. She sees George flying around her living room in full costume yelling: "mommie, mommie, save me..."

...The next day, Sunday Jim and I met at his house for another story conference. We had one of our best days ever. I had been telling Jim for weeks that at the end of the story Boy should do something for Uncle Bob who has just been killed in a Petro-chemical accident. Well, Jim finally said: why don't I listen to you? Boy's doing something for Uncle Bob now becomes the solution to the back end of the movie. We decided that Uncle Bob was a former rodeo cowboy who got hurt real bad. Now he has plastic parts. When the bull comes to Gilley's, Uncle Bob teach Boy how to bull ride. They work together so that Boy can eventually beat the villain on the bull. And Boy finally does beat him for his dead uncle. Anyway, Uncle Boy is a cowboy gone to seed. He is what boy will turn into if he is not careful. The mechanical bull revives Uncle Bob's interest in life- - through Boy. But just as Uncle Bob is coming back to life, he gets killed. I think it will work...

...At one point we got to talking about whether Uncle Bob kept his money in the bank or in a tin can. Jim said Uncle Bob might be like Charlie Chaplin. He said one of his friends went out one night with Chaplin's wife...and they dug around in a certain studio lot..and they dug up over a million dollars that Chaplin had buried there.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25^TH

I got a call from Binkie at Esquire. She said the magazine might be sold in the next few days. Here we go again. The prospective buyers are a couple of guys from Knoxville, Tenn., who drive pickups. Urban cowboys.

I just don't think I can work myself up to that emotional pitch or a few years ago when New York magazine was sold. Which is sad. It would seem that Clay's career may be ending not with a bang (that was last time) but with a whimper.

I had planned to go to Boston tomorrow to work on a story for Esquire. I'm not going.

THURSDAY, APRIL 26^TH

Clay called to say that it looked like the sale would go through. He predicted that the papers would be signed on Saturday. Which meant that Friday would be his last day. I said I was coming up for that last day. He said maybe some of us could have lunch.

FRIDAY, APRIL 27^TH

I flew to New York City. Clay was busy writing a farewell statement to be passed out to the staff. I helped him edit it.

Then we all went to Giambelli's. we has reserved the room at the top of the restaurant. It was a last supper and felt like it.

Milton was in a funny mood. He was continually making fun of Clay and putting him down. This was some sort of defense mechanism, but I didn't understand it. For example, somebody mentioned all the booksàÎnovels, Romans a ClayàÎhave been written lately with him as a main character. Clay said Tom Wolfe called him recently to say: "You should get a royalty on all the people using your life." Milton said: "They're making better use of it than you are."

FRIDAY, MAY 4^TH

I flew to New York to meet with the new editor of Esquire: Phil Moffit. He made a deceptively good impression. He said he wanted to make Esquire a "Shining institution." He sounded a little like a young Arnold Gingrich. Or maybe that is just what I wanted to hear.

He is short, has curly black hair, and looks disturbingly like Mike Kramer. He asked me to stay on at my current salary for at least six months. And I said I would. So there...

Phil called Byron in and we tried to think up an assignment I could work on. Phil suggested I do a piece on living in the city where my wife has a job rather than the other way around. I said I would think about it. He also suggested I try to interview John Wayne and do a story on the Hero Faces Death. I doubt I will be able to get in to see him. So it probably won't work, but it's not a bad idea. Which makes me think that the new editor might not be dumb.

After the meeting, I went out to lunch with Byron Dobell and Rust Hills. They both seem enthusiastic about their new boss. Their enthusiasm made me feel a lot better. Rust kept saying that Arnold would have liked Phil.

We'll see....

SATURDAY, MAY 5^TH

I flew to Los Angeles with Taylor. It was some experience...five hours on a plane with an almost two- year-old. She walked from one end of the plane to the other about ten times. I followed right behind. She drove the stewardesses crazy, but I didn't mind.

She played with her food instead of eating it. I thought she would never take her nap. But she finally did go to sleep the last hour of the flight. I got off the plane carrying Taylor, about three carry on bags, and my tiny portable TV that runs on batteries. I turned it on just in time to see the Kentucky Derby as I walked through the airport.

I met Lesley at the L'Ermitage Hotel. She had flown to Los Angeles with the President of the United States. He was doing a little politicing.

We went out to dinner that night at Dan Tana's with Jim Bridges and Jack Larson...Irving Azoff and Shelly Azoff..Lesley told some of the stories the President had told at the White House Correspondents' dinner a few days earlier. Like the President said Jerry Brown was taking the year of the Child a little too seriously.

SUNDAY MAY 6^TH

I took Lesley and Taylor for a walk in Venice. It was fun but the crowds along the boardwalk were smaller than usual because nobody in California has any gas. The whole state spent Sunday at home.

Taylor was a little sick.

In the evening, we went out to dinner with Dick Reeves and his girlfriend Cathy at L'Orangerie. It is a very fancy, very expensive, very good place.

Dick wanted to know all about my meeting with Moffit. I said he made a deceptively good impression.

MONDAY, MAY 7^TH

Lesley flew home with Taylor. It was her turn to have the five hours on a plane with an almost-two-year-old.

I met Jim at the office. And we went over the new script which he has been preparing based on our talks. It sounded pretty good, but there were a couple of things I did not like too much. He wants our character Wes to be out on Parole rather than Escaped. And he wants out hero-now called Bud-to win the rodeo at the end of the movie.

We'll see..

That evening about 9:30 I went out for ice cream with Irving. We had Hagen-Daas.

TUESDAY, MAY 8^TH

I got up at 5:30 to catch a 7:30 plane to Houston. Doc picked me up at my hotel. We met Jim and Kim the assistant director at the airport. The 7:30 plane had engine trouble so we switched to an 8:15 plane. The ride was bumpy. Jim, who hates bumpy flights, listened to the stereo all the way down while he watched the in-flight movie with the sound off. It is the only way he can calm himself down in the air.

When we finally got to Houston, we went on what the movie people call Recky, which is short for Reconnaissance. In other words, we went location scouting.

Oh, yes, we had with us Steve Grimes, our new Production Designer who replaces that idiot Stu Campbell who simply did not understand the movie. We took Steve out and showed him Gilley's in the day time. We also drove around a couple of cemeteries.

But when we really knew we had the right man was when we went looking for a trailer court for our hero to live in. we showed him the one Stu liked. Naturally, Steve didn't like it. I suggested he look at the one the real Dew had really lived in. he loved it. And we loved him for loving it.

That evening we were joined by out new wardrobe woman who had just flown in from New York. Her name is Gloria Gresham and she recently worked on a movie with Ali McGraw who liked her so much she persuaded Bob Evans to hire her.

We all went out to dinner at Ninfas and then went to Gilley's.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9^TH

Kim, the assistant director, had us report to the bus for location scouting at 8 a.m., which produced considerable grouching. Our first stop was Charter Oil where we plan to do a lot of filming. On the way, Jim asked Gloria how she got into the business. She said when she was still in high school she worked on a terrible play in her home town, Indianapolis. Oh, it was really an awful evening in the theater. A really rotten drama.

At which point, Jim said I WROTE IT.

Poor Gloria. She tried to make it up all day long. But there was no way.

We walked around the Charter Oil refinery wearing hard hats and safety glasses. We picked out the cracking tower where our hero will have his fall. And our new Production designer found a great place near the actual refinery to build a fake "Hollywood" refinery that we can blow up for our big accident sequence.

Then we went out to The Barn which is this huge beer hall owned by the same guy who owns Gilley's. unlike Gilley's, it stays open 24 hours a day. But at 2 a.m. they have to stop selling beer. For some reason, this sort of beer joint is known as an "ice house."

That night we had dinner at the Palm which had recently been issued a warning by health officials. Afterwards, we went to Cowboy, an uptown version of Gilley's. Gilley's is where refinery workers turn into cowboys. All the bodies are soft. And they wear cream-colored hats instead of black hats. Then we went on to Gilley's. there was a Rock-a-billy band playing mostly Elvis Presley numbers instead of real country, so it was a strange night at Gilley's.

It was also strange because for a couple of hours they put a saddle on the bull. Betty was there and rode it with a saddle. She said she had recently been in L.A. They couldn't find a bus to take them to the L.A. airport. So they walked. Two and a half hours. They found a shopping cart and put their suitcases in it and pushed them along the side of the road.

THURSDAY, MAY 10^TH

The bus left at 9:30 in the morning. Gloria went her own way to do some shopping for wardrobe in the local western stores. So once again the bus was all male. We drove out to a new development and found "Uncle Bob's House." It isn't quite finished but it will be by the time we are ready to start filming. It has a Shell Refinery in the background with a huge flame that burns all the time. Great.

We didn't tell the real estate lady we were a movie company. she was sort of puzzled by all these men looking at a house and talking about buying it. She must have been even more confused when we started talking about knocking walls out.

We had lunch at Wyatt's cafeteria because the director, Jim, wanted to. No one else did. It seems they have a Wyatt's near where he grew up in Arkansas and he was homesick. The banana pudding was great.

In the afternoon we drove out to the Circle 8. this is a really unique institution. It is a covered rodeo. In fact, the building looks a look like Gilley's. But instead of a mechanical bull they have real bulls. On Tuesdays and Thursdays they buck about 60 bulls a night. The high school kids- and a few older folk- come out and ride them. It costs $3 for an easy bull. It costs $20 for the toughest bull. The more you want to get hurt the more it costs.

These kids, like the kids at Gilley's, aren't real cowboys.. but they pretend on real bulls. On weekends, there are regular rodeo at the Circle 8. Red who runs the place told me that more and more kids want to get into rodeoing.

After dinner at Ninfa's, we made a lot of stops. First we went to a private club called Elan which is incredibly fancy. I was driving. I drove our bus up to the front door and a valet parking attendant stepped out to meet us in a tuxedo. He couldn't believe that what looked like a tour bus was stopping here. But I just handed him the keys and told him to take care of our bus. Nonplussed, he did. Onside, the club was fascinating mainly because it exists on five levels with a dance floor on each level. And Jim says levels are fun to film.

We thought our hero's uptown girlfriend àÍwho has now been written into the script-might bring him here. This vertical club in the vertical city might contrast nicely with the horizontal panorama of Gilley's.

Then we moved on to Cowboy where we only stayed a little while.

Then we went to Gilley's for an extraordinary night. David Allen Coe was playing. He dresses like a Hell's Angel in a cowboy hat- and he attracts both crowds, the bikers and the kickers. Usually there are fights between the two groups when he is there, sort of modern range wars.

Coe had a broken arm in a cast which made him somehow look even more menacing. He sings one song which goes: "The bikers are looking at the cowboys who are looking at the hippies who are hopping to get out alive." He really did work the place up into a frenzy.

There was one gang there that I called the Dalton Gang. They were dressed all in black, had long hair, had earrings, some were too fat, and they had on black cowboy hats. Maybe they were Hell's cowboys.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30^TH

I flew out to California to join the casting wars. The battle I came to fight in is over Sissy Spacik. Jim Bridges and Irving Azoff and I want her. John Travolta and his people are not so sure. And Robert Evans says he "would not fuck her with a ten foot pole." Of course, as far as I know, nobody asked him to.

Jim and Irv and I had lunch with Sissy at La Scala in the back room. Her agent, Rick Nicita, came along, too. Evans had complained and complained that she wasn't pretty enough. But I thought she was just beautiful. And her voice and accent were perfection.

She told us that she had gone to the trouble of going to Gilley's to see if she was interested in being in a movie about this place. And it turned out that she was interested. She had a great Gilley's time. She said that when she went in the girl taking admission money at the door said: "You look just like that movie star." To which she replied: "I do? Well, I swun. Which one?

By the time she made it over to the bull, the crowd had figured out that she was that movie star. So they all gathered around to watch The Movie Star ride the bull. She rode it three times. And each time she had them turn up the speed. The old bull never threw her off. She's a cowgirl. She said she used to ride calves through the gullies back home. Back home was a little town in Texas near Longview which is where Dew Westbrook was born. It seemed like destiny. The fates wanted her to play this role.

She met and liked old Steve Strange. He and everyone else wanted to tell her all about the movie.

Sissy's husband, Jack Somebody, wanted to ride the bull. But he was afraid to. So she rode and became a bull riding hero. And he watched. The script was coming to life. They were living our plot.

Sissy Speck thoroughly charmed us all. My one and only doubt had to do with her saying she wanted to talk over her ideas about the script. She said she wanted to put in her "Texas two cents worth." Still I left the lunch incredibly enthusiastic.

Jim did too. As we were driving back to the studio, Jim said: "My agent and my lawyer would kill me, but I would give up two and a half points to get that girl in the movie."

Back at Paramount, Jim and I had an appointment with Bob Lemond and Lois Zetter-Travolta's managers to talk about the script. They wanted to put in their California two cents worth. We were looking forward to this meeting like a dentist's appointment.

Bob Lemond began: "The first thing we thought was that you should...."

Lois Zetter interrupted: "No, the first thing is how much we liked it."

At that moment, I liked Lois better than I ever had. I hoped that she was going to make an effort to behave.

Lemond and Zetter went on to outline their thoughts about the script. They thought that Sissy had lost some of her feistiness in their version of the screenplay. (I didn't say so but I agreed.) They said that Travolta wished that Spur had not been cut out because he wanted everyone to see where the character he was playing had come from. ( I didn't say so but I agreed.) And they said the end did not quite work. They didn't quite believe that out hero could beat our villain on the bull. At least not so easily. ( I didn't say so but I agreed.)

When it was all over and they left, I told Jim: "That was fairly painless as dentists appointments go."

THURSDAY, MAY 31^ST

Four of us went to lunch at Lucy's across the street from Paramount. Jim. Ray Villalobos, out cinematographer. Debbie, Jim's secretary. And me. I had my usual oven Burrito verde. Jim had chicken cooked in chocolate.

Then Jim went off to meet with Travolta. I had to go over to Front Line Management to meet with Gordon Holban who is writing the script for our college move. Gordon and I talked for a few minutes and then Irving came in. So all three of us talked story for a while. I simply repeated to Gordon all the advice which Jim had given me as we worked on "Urban Cowboy." Advice like..try to think of the story in three acts...and be sure you know where each curtain would fall...in the first act, you get your hero up a tree...in the second act, you throw rocks at him...in the third act, you get him down..that line of talk.

I went back to the office at Paramount. People came in and out all afternoon. At one point, Jim went over to Bob Evans office to meet girls who want to play heroine. Jim watched Sissy Spacik..Evans wouldn't fuck her with a ten foot pole...so it was an uneasy casting session. Jim later told me that he just sat in Evans office gazing sadly out the window as one girl after another was brought in. He tried to look as if a tear were about to roll down his cheek.

After work, Jim and I went out o dinner. On the way, he told me that he thought he was playing people off against each other pretty well. I was glad to hear him talk that way. I was afraid that all the casting crises were driving him crazy. I thought he might crack or quit. I did not realize that in the midst of all the anxiety he had a sense of himself as a politician. Not only does he direct fictional conflicts on soundstages..but he also knows how to direct studio conflicts to his own advantage. Good.

We ended up having a mercy dinner with Tony Harvey who had just finished directing Players. That is another Bob Evans production. It was a mercy dinner because Harvey was sure that the critics were going to beat up his movie when it opened in a day or two. He bled allover us as we had a terrible dinner at the Studio Grill. He picked the restaurant.

A long time ago, Tony Harvey made a pretty good movie called Lion In Winter with Katherine Hepburn. She is still a good friend of his as he lets you know right away. But since Lion in Winter he has made a string of failures..culminating with Players. He kept saying that he was afraid he could never work again. He was really hurting. He said the story was not any good. And Al McGraw couldn't act. And Bob Evans had set up a command Performance to show this rotten movie to the Queen of England. Tony Harvey, who is British, was suffering advance embarrassment over what Her Majesty would think of his shitty little movie. "It's all right if you have triumph," all over the table cloth.

FRIDAY, JUNE 1^ST

Jim was sick.

So I decided to interview a couple of casting directors. I drove over to Columbia where I talked to Jennifer Shull who does casting for Ray Stark. This was for a story for Esquire on casting directors. She was nice. She said she thought I was a very warm person but she was not certain I would jump off a movie screen the way a great leading man should. Who asked her.

Then I had lunch with Dianne Crittenden who turns out to be not only the Warner Brothers casting director but also Rhonda Gomez's cousin. Rhonda is one of my agents. We had lunch at the Lake Tennis Club which adjoins the studio.

At one point, I sat in on a casting session in which they were looking for a leading woman for a movie called Honeysuckle Rose (I think). An actress went into a recording studio and sang a country and western song while studio brass watched her through a big indoor picture window. The actress singing was Annie Potts. We had interviewed her for Urban Cowboy. This persuaded me that I really have now met every young actress in town.

I also met Mark Rosenberg at this Warner Bros. casting session. He is now a vice president at Warners. He looked at me very funny. I thought it might be because Jim Bridges had decided to do my movie before doing Rosenberg's movie. Rosenberg bought The World According to Garp for Warners and made a deal with Jim to write, produce, and direct it. But then along came Urban Cowboy. So I figured that Rosenberg was furious at me. But what he said was: "Do you realize I used to be your agent?" well, I didn't realize it. Turned out he used to be at Adams, Ray, Rosenberg which tried to sell Orchids for Mother to the movies. And failed. He said: "I didn't stick around to clean up on Urban Cowboy.

SATURDAY, JUNE 2^ND

I worked on trying to write my story on casting directors all day. It came very slowly. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. Then I did. By the end of the day, I had made a small but pretty good beginning.

In the evening, I went to what was called the Hollywood Wrap Party at Paramount. It was thrown by the studio to celebrate finishing a whole group of movie..Players...Prophecy...Bloodline...Meatballs...North Dallas Forty...The Big Party was held on a movie set known as the New York street, but it didn't look much like New York to me. Thousands of people were there. The party was videotaped because the studio hopes to be able to make a TV show out of it to plug its movies.

I was rather disturbed to discover how many people I knew. I had not expected to know anybody. When I mentioned this to someone later, they said Lesley would lose all respect for me if she ever found out how many Hollywood people I know.

This party was advertised as a midnight supper. It went on very late. There was a disco dance floor set up and full of dancers. This dance floor looked like it was cast by Bob Evans. All the girls had blond hair, cute faces, and big tits. Once you left the dance floor, however, the party looked like it was cast by anybody but Evans. The people not dancing were the ones who had power. And they were ugly. By and large, power is ugly.

I got back to my hotel around 3 a.m.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3^RD

I worked on the casting directors story all day. It was coming a little better.

Then in the evening I went out to dinner with Gordon Holban. Since he is the writer of my college movie..and since I am the executive producer..it seemed the thing to do. And yet I was living a curious role reversal. I was the executive taking a writer to lunch.

We went to L'Orangerie which is about the only Los Angeles restaurant open on a Sunday. It also happens to be the one of the most expensive restaurants in the world. But what choice did we have.

Again I parroted to Gordon the screenwriting advice Jim had given me.

Gordon told me a little bit about himself. He came out to California from the Midwest to go to school at someplace like UCLA. He decided to become an actor. And years ago he was in a play which Jim Bridges directed. I think Isherwood wrote it. We are here right at the heart of the Homosexual Hollywood establishment, you see. Isherwood. Bridges. And surely Holban.

Then Gordon lost track of Jim. But somehow they met again a couple of years ago. By then, Gordon had decided to become a writer. He had figured out that as an actor you kept waiting for other people to give you work to do. But as a writer you could give your self the work to do. So he wrote a screenplay or two which were bought but never produced. He even hung around the set of Grease for a while because he was supposed to write a book about the making of the movie, but that finally fell through. Jim wanted to help him. So Jim got Gordon a job writing a couple of episodes of The Paper Chase which worked out good. And then finally Jim was instrumental in getting Gordon the job writing my college movie...

What a curious combination..Jim & Jack & Gordon..Gordon & Jim & Jack..I wonder what they do.

MONDAY, JUNE 4^TH

Jim and I had lunch at the commissary with somebody named Do Mayer who is one of the dozens of people now working on this movie. It is her job to figure out what should be on the TV in Budy's trailer house when we are doing out little domestic scenes.

Naturally, there was more anxiety over who would play our heroine in the movie. Evans was still saying that he would not fuck Sissy Spacik with a ten foot pole. And we were still saying that he wanted her.

Somehow Sissy Spacik had found out all about what Evans was saying about her. Poor girl. Poor star. And Evans is a poor prick. At least, that is his word-of-mouth reputation.

In the evening, we all went to Players, the Prick's movie. Following a dinner at the Palm, we filed into the Academy theater. We were so late we had to sit way down front.

Players was one of the worst movies I ever saw. And somehow I was glad. I wanted Bob Evans to lose one. Jim kept squirming in his seat and so did I .

After the movie, I noticed Jim acting very peculiarly in the theater lobby. He was sort of running there. Then he came up to me and explained that he was trying to evade an actress named Cathy Lee Crosby who wanted to be the heroine of our movie. She is evidently one of the girls on "The Circuit." She fucks Evans and his friends and thinks she should be in Evans' movie. A screenwriter named Bob Towne had called Jim earlier in the day and asked him to give her a chance. Towne and Evans are practically best friends. Cathy Lee Crosby was pretty enough but too old and the wrong type.

We all decided to go to the Gingerman for an after-movie drink. We got a table in the back corner. Our party included the following cast..me..Irving....Irving's wife Shelley...Jim...Jim's wife Jack...and Don Henley of the rock-n-roll Eagles. And there was an empty chair. It was beside the rock-n-roll star. Some girl would be joining him as soon as she could get there.

I got things started by saying: "I haven't been so tired since I saw Moment By Moment."

Then everybody else jumped in and attacked the movie. Everybody hated it which was just a preview of what the critics would soon be saying.

Then along came the girl for whom Don Henley had been waiting. The girl who was destined to sit between Don Henley and Jim Bridges. It was CATHY LEE CROSBY! Big as life and twice as ambitious. Jim couldn't believe it. He was already depressed from having to sit through Players. He got even more depressed from having to sit beside Cathy Lee Crosby. Pretty soon Jim lived with Jack following after.

But Cathy Lee Crosby discovered that I had written Urban Cowboy, she wanted to talk about Gilley's. she had gone down there. I asked if she had ridden the bull. She said she had ridden it for seven hours. It became an obsession. It was about then that I noticed that she was wearing a Gilley's belt buckle.

But Cathy Lee Crosby got more and more depressed as Irving told her about some of the latest entries in the race to play opposite John Travolta in our movie...

****************************************************

Flashback. Earlier in the day, Jim got a call from super-agent Sue Menges who said that she, Bob Evans, and chairman of the board Barry Dillar had decided who should be heroine.

TATUM O'NEIL!

I figured it was a joke.. during the afternoon, I was disabused of this notion. We did some casting over in Marion Dougherty's office. Girls came in and read a scene with them as a favor as sort of the acting equivalent of a sparring partner. Anyway, in the middle of these auditions the telephone rang. It was Bob Evans for Jim. He wanted to talk about using Tatum O'Neil as John Travolta's co-star/. I couldn't believe it. Evans was serious.

Irving picked up an extension phone and told Evans: "That's the stupidest story I ever heard in my life."

After the phone calls, we went back to the auditions. A redheaded girl named Kakki Hunter read. I sort of liked her. A couple of blond beauties read who won't get the part but it is always pleasant to meet blond beauties. And a girl named Annie McEnroe read. She did not do much for Jim or me, but Marion Dougherty liked her a lot. The casting director said that if it were entirely up to heràÎwhich it isn't-she would cast Annie in the movie.

When the casting session broke up, Jim and I walked back to our office talking of Tatum O'Neil.

****************************************************

Back at the Gingerman, I could see how jealous Cathy Lee Crosby was of Tatum O'Neil. Cathy Lee got real quiet.

And Irving Aloof and Don Henley took over the talking at our table. They told rock-n-roll stories. Irving told about the time Joe Walsh managed to get into the snooty Inn on the Park in London. The Inn does not normally accept rock-n-rollers. But Elton John had some how intervened and gotten Walsh in. Walsh reciprocated by pulling the telephone out of the wall in his room, putting it in the elevator, and sending it down to the lobby. The bell captain brought it back up to him. And Walsh eventually got kicked out of the Inn.

Don Henley told about what happened to one member of the band in Miami. He was in a room making love to a girl when another girl he had been dating knocked on the door just as his wife called on the phone.

And on and on into the night. There was the time they were playing a concert- in Florida again, I think when Glenn Fry motioned his Public Relations man onto the stage. The PR man's name was Larry. And now that I thin of it, he was there at the Gingerman with us too. Anyway Glenn Fry pointed out a girl in the front row of the audience and said: "Her." Poor Larry ended up crawling under the stage to get her. He told her: "Glenn Fry wants you." And Glenn Fry got her. Larry later told Irv: "I'm not a publicist, I'm a pimp."

TUESDAY, JUNE 5^TH

We went up to John Travolta's ranch. I picked Jim up at his house and drove him to Bob Lemond's house. Then we all got in Bob Lemond's car and took off. Jim talked about how much Players had depressed him. The depressing part was that we had the same producer. He wondered aloud if there was any way to get Bob Evans off our movie. Nobody thought so.

On the way, we stopped at Sissy Spacik's house. Actually, it was a little out of the way up in Topango Canyon. She lives in a fairly small house for such a big star. But it is lovely. Her husband is a Hollywood art director/ set designer and it shows. It is very tastefully done with overhead fans and a greyhound from the side of a bus of the same name running across the wall. Jack the husband was the art director on Badlands which was the movie that made Sissy a star. That is when they met. Since then, he art directed Days of Heaven which is one of the most beautiful movies ever made. Literally beautiful. Good-looking.

Jack turned on a brand new sound system which was so big and complicated it looked like it should belong to NASA. Out of it came Sissy Spacik singing a song from her forthcoming movie Coalminer's Daughter which is the story of country-and-western singer Loretta Lynn. Sissy sang real good.

Sissy was all dressed up in her cowboy clothes for our trip up to the ranch. And she did not look quite as pretty as she had in La Scala that day.

We all crowded into a fairly small American car. Maybe a Chevy. Jim and Sissy and Bob sat in the back seat. I sat in the front seat beside the driver whose name was Jim. We had two jims along. This Jim II acts as Bob Lemond's driver, assistant, and possibly ( I thought ) lover. The car was packed. Looking back at Sissy sandwiched between Jim and Bob, I wondered if this was the was a big movie star should be treated.

It was a really long drive. Two hours or more we stopped along the way for egg salad sandwiches an Dos Ecces beer. Then we moved on.

When we finally got there, the ranch was beautiful. It is a seventeen acre avocado ranch with a rambling Mexican style ranch house. We were shown inside. I went into the kitchen just as this incredibly handsome cowboy entered the kitchen from another direction. I was stunned.

It was JOHN TRAVOLTA!

Somehow he had become a cowboy. All along I have been wondering if he would walk on the screen in a cowboy hat and everyone would laugh. Now I think he will walk on the screen in a cowboy hat and everyone will swoon. Somehow he has put on the cowboy essence with the clothes. He walks different. He is different.

Jim took me aside. He said just what I had been thinking. Wasn't the transformation amazing.

Then there came Sissy Spacik. John hugged her. They had been in Carrie together so they already knew each other. But the hug was a big brother to little sister hug. I was disappointed. For the first time, I began to wonder if Sissy was ever going to be in our movie after all.

Lunch was served. John Travolta sat at the head of the table. Jim and Bob sat on one side of the table. Sissy and I sat on the other. For a fleeting instant, I said to myself: Here I am, little me, having lunch with John Travolta and Sissy Spacik. Isn't it wonderful? But that thought quickly faded as I realized that it was not so wonderful. The lunch was not going all that well. Sissy Spacik was nervous. After all, she knew that Travolta had cast approval in his contract. If she was going to get the part, he had to like her. And yet even I could tell that he liked her but not really enough. Again he was nice but brotherly.

When the butler came in to see if anyone wanted anything to drink, Sissy Spacik asked for a glass of wine. Everyone else had iced tea. Poor Sissy was nervous and needed a drink. Then she had another. Then she ever so slightly lightheaded. She said: "I feel like I'm blowing it."

Travolta doesn't drink or take drugs. I don't know if he has always been so pure, but he is pure now. You could see his disapproval of Sissy and her two glasses of wine and yet he never said anything about it and couldn't have been nicer.

Although he never really warmed up to Sissy, Travolta was nevertheless in a great mood. He said: " I think yesterday was the happiest day of my life." Yesterday was the day that he had started working on preparing for the movie. He had started to learn the dances. And he had started to ride the bull. He had ridden it all the way up to four. He said he was so happy because this house finally had a purpose. Before, it had seemed to him to be just a luxury. But it was an empty luxury. An empty luxury in that it had no meaning beyond comfort. And an empty luxury in that it was literally empty a lot of the time. Other than the servants, he had no one with him up there a lot of the time. His less wealthy friends were down in Los Angeles while he was all alone up on his expensive ranch. But now the house had been turned into a dance studio and rodeo school. It had a purpose. And it was full. There was the dance teacher and her son about Travolta's age and the son's wife. And there was the stunt man who was teaching bull riding. And now here came the director and the manager and the writer and the possible co-star. Yesterday had been the happiest day in his life. And he was still pretty happy today, too.

After lunch, John Travolta show Sissy Spacik around the place. The rest of us made a point of letting them go alone. It was like Victorian matchmaking. Let the young couple go off on their own and see if they hit it off. They came back sooner than I had hoped.

Then we went over to the make-shift dance studio set up in one of the ranch house rooms and watched Travolta dance those good old kicker dances. They put on a fast Texas two-step and he did this dance where on of his legs is between the girl's legs and one of her legs is between his. Some times he danced with the dancing teacher. Other times he danced with the dancing teacher's young, pretty, blond daughter in law. It was sexy.

Bob Lemond asked Sissy Spacik if she could do those cowboy dances. She said: "No but I reckon I could learn."

When they put on a polka, Sissy got up and tried dancing with John. But they were mismatched. He had had lessons. She hadn't. he danced. She sort of hopped.

I wished that they had been better partners. And yet I was not too concerned. Not yet. Mostly I was incredibly excited by how well John Travolta did those Gilley's dances. And how good he looked doing them. Sorry to froth at the mouth.

Sissy sat down and John danced the Cottoneyedjoe with his dance instructor and her family. Then he danced the Schotiss. Then he danced the whip. The boy can dance. The cowboy can dance.

Then we went out to the bull ring. The bull is kept in a corral. Just like a real bull. This surreal bull stands there with a high white fence all around him to keep him from getting out. I sat on the fence and was amazed by the tableau: the California Hills, the summer flowers, the crisp white fence, and the mechanical bull in the middle of it all. I felt as if I had somehow gotten lost in a Fellinni western.

John Travolta put on a pair of chaps which supposedly kept his legs from getting more bruised than they would have otherwise. And he looked better than ever.

Travolta joked: " The way we are going to end the movie is I am going to come out wearing nothing but these chaps."

Jim giggled and giggled.

When the Biggest Star in the World got on the bull, you could see that after just one day he was already catching on. This Hollywood cowboy rode the bull better than I had ever ridden it. I was a little jealous.

Then Sissy Spacik got on the bull. She rode a whole lot better than she danced. Which is just like a modern urban cowgirl. It seems to me that at Gilley's the cowboys are better dancers and the women are better bull riders. She was not quite as graceful as he was because she had not had the coaching he had had. But she was still very good.

When she got off, Travolta said that he was jealous of her riding so well. " The script is coming to life," he said.

Then Sissy came over and sat on the fence next to me while John continued to play around the bull. I wished that they had not been quite so ready to separate. I wished that they had felt pulled to each other.

About then, the world's silliest argument developed. Sissy said that she had ridden the new bull which they had just put in at Gilley's. But the dancing teacher who is from Houston said that the new bull had not yet been installed. So the movie star and the dancing teacher got into a fight over which bull the movie star had ridden. Sissy said she rode the new bull. The dancing teacher said that she couldn't have. And neither one of them would back down or let it go. It just went on and on and on and on. We tried to stop it. And I kept thinking: This is no way to treat a Big Movie Star. Sissy's day just wasn't going well.

Jim and John and Sissy retired to the ranch house to talk. And John and Sissy read a scene from the script together.

While they were so occupied, I stayed behind at the bull. The stunt man, whose name is Chris Howell, gave me some instructions. Push down with your right hand when the bull's nose goes down. Pull up when the nose comes up. Tilt your head in the direction that the bull bucks. This coaching helped a lot, but I still almost got bucked off onto the surrounding mattresses. I would have if the stunt man had not stopped the bull at just the right moment.

Then Jerry Wurms taught me how to ride a motorcycle. I rode it very slowly around the front yard. Then I started off down a little road, but I had to push the cycle back. I had killed the engine and had forgotten to ask how to start it. Since I didn't know, I pushed.

Finally, our group piled back into our car and headed home. This time I let Jim have the front seat. I sat in the back with Sissy and Bob. When we got out on the highway, Bob had a big fight with his driver because the driver had forgotten to fill up with gas at Travolta's pump. The Biggest Star in the World has his own gas supply just like a gas station. The fight was so intense over such a relatively small matter that it made me think that they must be sleeping together.

Sissy slumped down in the seat and moaned and groaned. She kept saying: "I blew it. I blew it about three times." Then out of nowhere she reassured us that she really had ridden the new bull. I said: "I believe you implicitly." She leaned her head on my arm and said: "You better."

As we rode along, I kept wondering if I wanted to reach over and touch Sissy. I wanted to want to because that would mean that she had a sex appeal. But I don't really want to. It was not that I was repelled by her. I just wasn't attracted. I was sorry. I began to wonder if she would be in our movie, after all, because I felt sure that Travolta had felt the same way.

After a very long ride, we dropped off Sissy at her art-director-decorated home in Topango Canyon. She said she couldn't wait to smoke a joint. We said pleasant good-byes.

As soon as we were rolling along without her, we all talked about how we thought the day had gone. And we all said what I had been thinking. No one had seen a rush of energy or attraction between them. We were all a little disappointed. And yet we all still said we thought she would be our leading lady.

When we got to Bob Lemond's, we all went inside. Lois Zetter was there. She said I looked depressed. I said I was just sure that it was now going to be much more complicated than I had imagined it would be when we started out that morning.

A call was placed to the ranch. Jim and Bob both talked to Travolta. He said he felt just about the way we imagined he had felt. He simply was not drawn to Sissy Spacik. He did not rule her out but he was not enthusiastic about her.

Irving called and got this news. Pretty soon we got a call from Jim's agent Steve Roth saying that he heard that Travolta had passed on Spacik. Evidently Irving had passed that word to the folks at Paramount. Since it was not strictly true, we were all a little peeved at good old Irving.

Then we all sat down and tried to decide what to do. Jim. Bob. Lois. And me. Bob said he did not think that Jim should go to Texas the next day. Jim planned to take off in the morning for Houston. Of course, when those plans were made he thought that Sissy Spacik would almost unquestionably be our leading lady. But now we were all questioning it. So Jim was practically ordered to stay in Los Angeles. This was done a little high-handedly but not too.

Bob and Lois suggested that we have a casting meeting in the morning. Everybody come. Including Marion Dougherty. Jim took a deep breath and said that there was something that no one was saying. He said he had inherited the feud between Lois and Marion. At which point, Bob went a little bezerk as he attacked Marion in a high, squeaky, bitchy voice. He said she was "not a nice person." But at great length. He hated her because she is reluctant to see Lemond-Zetter clients because she does not like Lemond and Zetter. Their personalities just clash. Bad recently went to worse when Travolta wanted some of his close friends to get a line or two in the movie and she told them that they were not neededàÎall the bit parts would be cast in Texas. Lemond said: " She can mistreat us but SHE CAN'T MISTREAT JOHN TRAVOLTA." Shrieking and carrying on. And it fell to Lois to try to calm him down. I had always supposed that we could look to Bob to keep Lois in check, but I began to realize that it might be the other way around.

Agreeing to meet in the morning, we broke up our little party. Jim said he thought Bob had been cute during his tantrum.

When we got to Jim's place, we called Sissy Spacik. She said she was not sure she wanted to do the movie, after all.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6^TH

I had planned to leave on Wednesday to go home. Just as Jim had planned to go to Texas. We both canceled our plans and stayed in Los Angeles. I don't know how Texas felt about being stood up by Jim, but I do know that Lesley got mad at me.

We all gathered at our office at Paramount at 10 O'clock in the morning. Jim. Lois. Bob. And me. Bob was still in a pretty excitable mood. He kept saying that he was scheduled to leave for Texas in less than ten days and we still did not have a co-star. I thought he was a little overly dramatic but nonetheless had a point.

We started making a list of actresses that any of us thought might be able to do the part. But at the same time we kept on talking about Sissy Spacik. I was assigned the job of finding out how much she got for her last film. So I called Wally Nicita who used to be an assistant casting director at Paramount but recently left. I had worked with her... I had interviewed her for my story on casting directors..and I knew that she was married to Sissy Spacik's agent. She said that Sissy got $350,000 down plus $150 deferred and seven points for her last picture. All of which I duely reported. Our group seemed to consider this a lot of money but not impossible.

Jim went off to a meeting with Don Simpson, who is head of Production. The point of this meeting was to try help Jim get back in control of the movie. With Evans and Azoff and Lemond and Zetter all clamoring, I think he thought he was losing control. So went to one of the studio bosses to complain. He later said that he quit three times during the meeting. In the end, he got a commitment from Don Simpson to help out. That was about it.

While Jim was away, Lemond, Zetter and I went right on compiling our list of actresses we wanted to see. I called up a casting director named Jane Feinberg...whom I had interviewed for my casting directors story...and who had recently been brought in at the 11^th hour on the Urban Cowboy project. She gave me the names of three girls. The only name I happen to remember is Deborah Winger. But at the end of the phone conversation she said that we really should use Sissy Spacik. She was born to play the part. All of which I duely reported.

When Jim finally came back- feeling better actually---we all went to lunch at the studio commissary. Bob. Lois. Jim. And me. Bob is a vegetarian. Lois has a pig's appetite.

Then we went back to the office. There were calls from John up at the ranch. He told Bob that he had been trying to "get it up" for Sissy all night long. But he just couldn't. he didn't want to do it with her.

* * *

Flashback. Up at the ranch the day before, Sissy said to John: "Well, whaddaya think, shall we do it?" To which John replied: "What do you think?" He later told Jim that he wished he could have thrown his arms around her and agreed to do it with her. But he didn't. or couldn't.

* * *

After one of the phone conversations with the ranch, Bob said he thought he knew what was bothering John. He said John was still haunted by Moment By Moment. He thought that America had not found Travolta and Tomlin an appealing couple. And he was afraid America would feel the same way about Travolta and Spacik. I suppose he considered neither Tomlin nor Spacik great beauties. Whereas America had loved John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John together. And she is undeniably real cute.

Bob reported that John had suggested Olivia once again on the telephone. Jim said: "Anyone who suggests Olivia Newton-John can't be taken seriously." It turns out that she has been up at the ranch riding the bull. And she is not bad.

Then there was another call from John. He told Bob that he had just gotten a call from Sue Mengers who was pushing Tatum O'Neil. John was upset because Sue said she had heard that he did not want Tatum. Whereas actually John did not even know that Tatum's name had come up. He did not want Tatum or Sue to get mad at them. Actors want everyone to love them.

So it began to look like Tatum's name would have to go on our list.

Cathy Lee Crosby called. No one returned her call.

Jim and Bob and I rushed over to Universal to look at part of Coal Miner's Daughter starring Sissy Spacik which is still being cut together. I thought she was wonderful. A part of her charm is her great voice. This was the first time Jim had been back on the Universal lot since they more or less dumped his movie 9/30/55. he had promised himself that he would never set foot on the lot again but he was getting desperate.

When we got back to Paramount, we went to another screening room and looked at some more film. This time we saw rushes from a movie called Little Darlings starring Tatum O'Neil and Christie McNicol. The story is about two teenagers who wager on who can lose her virginity first. We wanted to see the film to look at Tatum. She looked moonfaced and boring. But Christie looked wonderful. Quoting Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, Jim said: "Sometimes there's God so quickly." We talked about how much fun it would be if we could call Sue Mengers and tell her that we had seen rushes of Little Darlings and found our star.......Christie McNicol!!!

We dropped in on Don Simpson's office to tell him about our day. Jim asked if he knew me. He said, "Sure.. I had dinner with him and his illustrious wife at Elaine's." We told him what we thought of Christie McNicol. He said he would see if there was any way to get her out of ABC's Family for a while. He doubted that it would work but then ABC had paid $13 million for Urban Cowboy and might want to help.

THURSDAY, JUNE 7^TH

We did casting all day.

The first actress to audition was Deborah Winger. I liked her right away because she looked like a sexy tomboy. She was sort of a Sissy Spacik with big breasts. She wore a flimsy tank top so as not to hide her assets. I have discovered that most actresses display as much tit as possible during auditions. Some wear completely transparent tops and no bra. Others wear cowboy shirts open pretty much all the way down the front and no bra. Some wear T shirts and no bra. They all seem anxious to put their best tit forward.

An actor named Dennis Quade had come in to read with the girls. He is from Houston. He was in Jim's 9/30/55. As Jim said to Bob and Lois at some point during the day: "Dennis would have made a good Urban Cowboy if we hadn't gotten the biggest movie star in the world." After making this observation, Jim dropped to his knees and said: "Thank you, God." He put his hands together as if he were praying.

So Dennis Quade read a couple of scenes from the scriptàÎcalled "sides"---with Deborah Winger. And I thought she was good. I said to myself: Aaron, you're such a push over, you like the first girl that walks through the door.

When she left, Jim said, "That girl is not without interest." Lois said she had just written down those exact words. Marion Dougherty, who came to the session in spite of the ill-will between her and Bob-and-Lois, said she thought Deborah might just be too tough.

Then Marion's candidate came in: Annie McEnroe. She read well, too. When she left, the room was polled. Marion loved her. So did Lois of all people. The two bitter enemies liked the same girl. Bob liked her too. Jim and I were less enthusiastic. I said I didn't find her sexy. Bob said he found her incredibly sexy, but I thought that might be because she is built like a boy.

Another girl came in whose name I can't remember. She was pretty but I thought she had the voice of a stripper. Very high. When she left, Bob Lemond said: " I just wrote down one comment. A.O.D." Jim asked: "What's that mean?" Bob explained: "Ass of death." Jim: "Is that good or bad?" Bob "Good."

And the others came in. a beautiful model from Dallas who looked part Indian and who could not act a lick. This one. That one. Another one. But I liked none of them as well as I had the first girl. I began to console myself by telling myself that I wasn't that easy after all.

At lunchtime, we all decided to walk over to the commissary again. Somehow I ended up walking with Lois. She asked me who my first choice was. I said Deborah Winger. She said hers was Annie McEnroe.

After lunch, there were more girls. One was Anette O'Toole who turned out to be the daughter of Bob Lemonde's old dancing teacher back home in Houston. Bob said his family had artistic pretensions. He was taught to play the piano and dance ballet. (No wonder he turned out the way he did.)

A girl named Joan Prather came in to read for the part of Pam---the rich uptown girl. This Joan really looked the part. Both Bob and I remarked on it. She had that Texas hair which is sometimes the color of honey and sometimes the color of syrup. A kind of caramel. She turned out to be from Dallas. She did not read great but well enough. I was sure we has found our Pam.

Then a girl named Madolynn Smith came in. John Houseman had discovered her at USC and told Jim about her. So Jim had gone down and seen her in a college production of As You Like It. He thought she was great.

Madolynn Smith came to the audition in a black dress. It turned out to be her graduation dress. She had come to her first movie audition directly from her college graduation. And she gave what Jim described as "the best reading I ever heard in an office." She was so good that she moved us and excited us. She took lines which other actresses had made funny and turned them into infinitely sad lines. She read a scene where she said goodbye to her cowboy that broke your heart.

When she left the room, Lois Zetter said it was all she could do to keep her hand from reaching in her pocket at taking out a card. She wanted to sign this girl up to manage her. But even she realized that it would be a little tacky to sign this girl up to manage her. But even she realized that it would be a little tacky to sign her up during an audition. After all, Lois was supposedly there as a production consultant rather than an agent. Anyway, it was a great compliment. Jim was so pleased. Everybody liked his discovery.

I had thought we had found our Pam. I thought she would be Joan. And now this Madolynn had come in and blown her completely out of my mind.

Evans had met her earlier. Naturally, his only comment was that she was not pretty enough. And yet in her own way she is almost beautiful.

When we finally broke up--- and Bob and Lois left---I admitted to Jim that I liked them better than I had ever expected to. I did not explain to Jim what I had figured out about them. Namely, that Bob is the Woman and Lois is the man. They are a very cute couple.

At 4 p.m., Jim and I trooped over to one of the screening rooms to see his lost masterpiece, 9/30/55. he screened it ostensibly because we were looking for actresses and there were a couple of possible ones in the film. I had always been afraid I would not like the film and not know what to say to Jim. He had always described it to me as an art film. And I hat art films. But I loved the movie. It is about two kids who worship James Dean and what happens to them when he is killed. Jim said that is was about being "Scarred by the movies." I said he seemed to be doing all right for a scarred person. He said: "Yes, but I was sick for a long time. I used to go to bed with razor blades and cut open the inside of my thighs and pour alcohol on them just to feel the pain." I was so shocked I stopped walking. I asked if this interest in pain had anything to do with James Dean. Jim said: "Sure. He was called the human ashtray. He used to put cigarettes out in his hand."

FRIDAY, JUNE 8^TH

I flew home to Washington....

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13^TH

I flew back to California and back into the casting wars. We all convened in Travolta's dressing room/office on the lot. John had just come from getting his hair cut. He looked not only much better but much more like a cowboy. Some studio hair stylist had given him his haircut with Jim hovering about saying: "A little more here. A little more there." After the studio barber cut Travolta's hair, stunt man Chris Howell sat down in the chair. Howell's hair had to be cut to match Travolta's so he could double him in stunts.

A picnic was spread out in Travolta's dressing room. A crowd stood around munching sandwiches and lemon cake and plums.

Meanwhile, John Travolta was undergoing a fitting at the hands of Gloria Gresham, our wardrobe lady. Right there in front of everybody he would take off his pants. And he would stand there in his brief jockey shorts until someone handed him another pair of jeans to try on. It made an impression on me to see the Biggest star in the World take off his pants over and over and over again. I suppose it seemed a little undignified. I must have imagined that the biggest star in the world would be allowed more privacy.

At 2 O'clock, we all marched over to Bob Evans' office. It had been decided to hold the auditions at his office because his air conditioning actually works. Our office was an oven. And Travolta's dressing room was almost as bad. In California, where the weather is so nice most of the time, they make the mistake of trusting nature. Air conditioning, when it exists at all, is rudimentary. And we were casting in a heat wave.

Bob Evans had actually come up with a pretty good idea, amazingly enough. He suggested that each actress who came in meet first with Jim Bridges and John Travolta. They would be able to talk to her, read a couple of scenes with her. And then if they thought she had possibilities, they could then call in the rest of us to witness the girl auditioning with John. At first, Lois Zetter was not sure she liked this plan. But finally even she agreed.

So John and Jim took over Evans' big picture-filled office. Evans himself disappeared into auxiliary office. And Bob and Lois and Irving crowded into yet another adjoining office. While we were waiting to be called in, Irving entertained us all by making multi-million dollar record deals on the phone. One multi-million conversation ended with him saying: "I'm bored." He hung up.

The first actress we were called in to see was named Glynnis O'Conner. We came into the office through a side door which looked like a closet door. It must have appeared as if we allàÎBob Lemond, Lois Zetter, Bob Evans, Irving Azoff, and I -- had all been waiting in the closet ready to spring out. I was reminded of the stateroom scene in the Marx Brother A Night At The Opera: when that stateroom door is opened a dozen people came tumbling out.

Sure enough, Glynnis had an almost invisible tank top. It was as though her chest had big eyes that stared at you. She read the scene all right and then we all trooped back into "the closet."

We spent the afternoon waiting in our diminutive office and then doing our Marx Brothers entrance into the big office. We heard a lot of girls read with John. Marila Henner, his girlfriend in real life, who did the cottoneyejoe with him before she read. Annie McEnroe, who for the first time impressed me as being pretty good, perhaps because Bob Lemond had told her agent to tell her to fix her hair and wear tight jeans. Deborah Winger, who is still my favorite. Annie Potts, who probably gave the best reading but looks like his little sister. Anette O'Toole, the daughter of Bob Lemond's dancing teacher, over-acted but was still interesting. A girl named Laura Johnson looked better than she acted.

Besides the would-be "Uncle Bob" and a would-be "Aunt Corene" come in. Barry Corman and Donny Brook Alderson. Jim and I had long ago agreed they should be the ones. But Travolta had cast approval and had to agree. He did. They looked wonderful together.

Meanwhile, in the back room, we were getting along pretty well considering. At one point, Lois Zetter did flip Irving Azoff the finger and ask: "Does this have any meaning to you?" but no wars broke out.

Finally, Jim and John proclaimed that they were hungry. So Irving and I went across the street to Lucy's to pick up some Mexican food. The secretaries in Bob Evans' office were amazed that we would go. Irving explained: "We're not Bob Evans."

At Lucy's, Irving immediately got respect by announcing that he was producing Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta...and pulling out a $100 bill. We carried two huge boxes of Mexican food back to Bob Evans' office.

When we made our delivery, we found Tatum O'Neil in the big office with Jim and John. She was, to use Jim's word "adorable." I didn't want her for the movie but I did want her for a friend. Her breasts were on display, too. Sixteen-year-old breasts. She wore no bra and a loose top. Tatum definitely has something even above and beyond teenage breasts. I practically followed her around the room.

We broke out the Mexican food and all had a great time dripping taco juice on Evans' desk and carpet. He came in and was horrified. The chic-est. office in town had been turned into the town dump. What a perverse pleasure.

Speaking of perverse pleasures, Travolta noticed a nude picture of Jack Nicholson on Evans' wall. It was a derriere shot. John asked: " I wonder how much he could get for that picture?" Tatum and I agreed that he could get a good bit.

Then Tatum left and Bob Evans ushered in his candidate for the part. Her name: Maggie Fahey. Her profession: New York model. What else? The rest of us retired while she met with John and Jim in the big office. When she started to readàÎaccording to reports which I received lateràÎshe started to cry.

It turns out that good old Maggie was staying with Bob at his house during her Hollywood sojourn. He had probably been feeding her coke which was probably why she was so teary. Anyway, here was Evans up to his old trick: fucking models who wanted to be actresses. I have an unexpected Sunday-School reaction to Mr. Evans.

Jim left the big office while John worked with Maggie alone to try to calm her down. In the little office there was some joking about what was going on in the big office. Evans came in where we were and tried to make excuses for his starlet. When he left the room, Jim had a giggling fit.

Finally, John got Maggie calmed down. Jim went in to hear her read. She may not have been great, but at least she didn't cry this time. The Marx Brothers were not called in to hear her read because no one thought she was up to it. But she did come out and say hello to all of us. Then she retreated.

Suddenly Bob Evans, who has never paid much attention to me, cared passionately what I thought. He asked me who my favorite girl was. I said I like Deborah Winger's freckles. Bob Evans said: "Maggie's got freckles. Go look at her." And he dragged me into her hiding place to make sure I saw the spots on her face.

As things were breaking up, Lois Zetter got involved in some long telephone conversation with someone she obviously didn't like. When she hung up the phone, she said to the room at large: " Does turkey mean anything to you?" Bob Evans said: " Yes, I just made one." We were all stunned to hear him say it. Then the phone rang. Evans said: " Oh, no, it's someone else calling to read me a review."

As Jim and I were leaving, he asked me who I liked best. I said Deborah Winger. He thought a moment and said he liked her best, too. I wondered if I had influenced him or if we simply had the same taste.

THURSDAY, JUNE 14^TH

The day got off to a promising start. We had been worried about Tatum O'Neil. She was supposed to come in for a screen test that afternoon. And if the test came out well, Jim was afraid the studio would try to force us to use her in the film. The best thing to do would be to keep her form testing. We were trying to decide how to cancel her test when the phone rang. It was Tatum O'Neil. She said her daddy did not want her to test. He didn't want her to have to go through that ordeal. Tatum solved our problem for us. Good girl.

More girls came in to audition with Travolta. This time the tests were held in our offices in the Lucile Ball dressing room. Evans came over. As far as I know, this was the very first time Bob Evans ever came to the Urban Cowboy offices.

And incredibly beautiful girl named Renee Ruseau came in. I thought I had seen all the beautiful blondes I ever wanted to see. The way I once thought I had eaten the strawberries I ever wanted to eat that summer I worked in the strawberry fields. I thought I was glutted with beautiful blondes. But I was wrong. Renee, a model, was so beautiful that I found it hard to breathe in her presence. We decided to screen test her.

Joan Prather, the beautiful Dallas girl, came in to read for the part of "Pam" with John. And Madolynn Smith came in to read for the same part. Evans had always said that Madolynn was not pretty enough for the part. He had met her before but never seen her read. In fact, right before her audition, he told Jim that he did not think her mouth would photograph well. But when he saw her act, he was completely won over, to his credit. He wanted us to hire her.

But Travolta was not quite so sure. Joan Prather is a friend of his. Besides, she is real pretty. He seemed to be leaning in Joan's direction. He said he thought that Madolynn's reading was too neurotic. He said that if we used her it changed the piece to a story about a girl who likes to fuck cowboys. I'm not sure exactly what he was trying to say. But maybe he was a little afraid Madolynn would upstage him.

During a pause in the action, I went with Azoff and Evans over to the music office. We played Evans some of the music we were planning to use in the movie. He thought it was too country. He wanted us to push the music more in the direction of rock and roll. I stood it as long as I could and then made my speech. I told him that we had an excellent chance to fall between two stools so that we would be neither country nor rock n roll. I said we wouldn't fool anybody. The rock fans would know we weren't really rock and the country fans would know we weren't really country. I really got wound up. At the end of all this, Evans said: The important thing is to be authentic.

Around three in the afternoon, we started shooting screen tests. They were shot on stage one. We used a standing set of a kitchen with a table where our boy and girl could eat dinner. The scene we shot was supposed to take place in a trailer house. This set did not look much like a trailer, but it would do for our purposes. According to the script, the kids ate individual tuna salads, so our script man kept rushing out fresh salads every time we changed actresses.

When Jim arrived at the set, he took one look and decided that the camera was set up in the wrong place. He came over to me and said: "That's always the way it is. Everyone does their. Then you have to come in and change everything."