The Kid Stays in the Picture

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Summary: The Brilliant Accomplishments of the Best Hollywood Madman
Review: Evans tells it all, and it is all true about the inner workings of Hollywood, and his rise, fall, and plateau within the film industry. Evans, a man with virtually no production or business experience, along with the help of Peter Bart, then a New York Times Columnist, saved the Paramount Studio from becoming extinct. Their work persuaded Gulf and Western to keep the studioalive. Under their tenure, such films as Love Story, The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, and the Odd Couple helped tobring Paramount back in business. Evans' account is a great historical romp on his superhero excess and success in Hollywood. As a 'Renaissance Man', he describes how he also started the Evan Picone fashion company with his brother. His life will teach many lessons to youngsters who are 'wet-behind the ears' and desire to work in the film business. Evans doesn't crucify people in his book like Julia Phillips does in hers. Evans tells the truth on how Hollywood can make you a hero for a year, and a vagrant the next. Evans' text indirectly warns readers of the dangers of excess.

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Summary: Gotta Love Bob...
Review: He was kicked many times when he was down, at one point only a few of his loyalists remained, but he didn't skewer his fellow "peers."
The guy is a survivor, a legend in his time, and perhaps in his own mind.
His is a story about not giving up regardless of the hand you are dealt.
The title is appripo.....

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Summary: Justyfies my impression of Hollywood...
Review: Hollywood is a town run by geeks. A famous producer friend told me that once and I believe it. Evans' life story has the potential of being a blockbuster with all the inside looks this man was afforded during his lifetime but ends up being a cover-my-... diatribe of Hollywood proportions.

Occasionally, Evans affords glimpses of the world outsiders covet more than any other world in existence. His patois though, which is a cross between a Jewish Frank Sinatra and a Godfather ..., makes the whole story-telling ludicrous. Like listening to your rabbi recite the Story of O.

What convinced this man that he is responsible for some of the most altering movies of the 70s is beyond me. I guess he thought that he needed canonization after all these years in the "business." Poor Robert Evans. He portrays himself as the Ultimate Victim in a book that is trying so hard to prove the opposite.

In a book dedicated to his son, I think, he should have condensed it to a long letter. But given Evans' propensity for hyperbole, I don't doubt it would have been as disingenuous as the book. If I was Josh I would want to know the actual truth, and not the script of it.

My favorite part is the poem. If you can last through that without needing stitches from laughing, you are better than I.

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Summary: What You'd Expect - 4 Stars, Recommended
Review: Ok. He's a bit self-absorbed. But that's what you expect of Robert Evans. "The Kid Stays In the Picture" is an interesting book about his rise and fall from fame. It is similar to Rikki Lee Travolta's "My Fractured Life" with not quite the same writers flair. It's still interesting though. At times Evans muddles in his self-aggrandizing, but eventually he gets back on path. If you enjoyed "My Fractured Life" "Hollywood Animal" and "Postcards From the Edge" you should enjoy this one too.

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Summary: His Life Is (Amazingly) More Interesting than His Work
Review: Robert Evans is a master storyteller, which means he's a perfect fit for Hollywood. The man who went from Next Big Thing as an actor (after failing spectacularly in that regard) to one of Hollywood's most powerful executives as the head of motion picture development at Paramount, Evans had a hand in some of the biggest films of the '70s, including Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown and The Getaway. Anyone who believes the suits in Hollywood don't have an impact on the pictures they produce will have their world turned upside down by Evans's tell-all.

From his power struggles with Francis Ford Coppola and his tumultuous relationship with Ali MacGraw to his close personal relationship with Henry Kissinger and his downfall due to drugs and dubious family loyalties, Evans's life is the stuff of legend. He couldn't have devised a more cinematic story if he'd been paid to, though one gets the impression he tries -- a master marketer and charismatic manipulator, the truth may never be adequately divulged despite his best efforts. However, his candid recollection of the difficult times in his life, especially the end of his marriage to MacGraw and his strained relationship with Kissinger after his notorious drug bust, are admirable. Whatever he may have done wrong, Evans manages to avoid painting himself as either a saint or a villain, instead allowing us to root for him, envy him, question him, pity him and, in the end, empathize with him.

If all Hollywood lives were as interesting as the business they traffic in, everyone's autobiography would read like Robert Evans's.

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Summary: It's just so awful, it's terrific!
Review: Robert Evans is the baddest boy in Hollywood, and if there's a shred of reticence or shame in his personality, he's keeping it well-hidden. If you like celebrity dish and are not offended by the flagrant vulgarity of Evans' self-told tales, there isn't a Tinseltown story better than this one.

If Evans was assigned a copy editor to work over the manuscript, he or she must have simply thrown up their hands and let him rip. This stream-of-semi-consciousness story runs away like an eighteen-wheeler with no brakes.

Unlike Julia Phillips, whose memoir, "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again," spits acid in the faces in practically everyone but herself, Evans isn't particularly nasty about other people. His most unspeakable stories are told about himself, as though he can't bear to share the spotlight--not surprising, considering how tiny and unremarkable his career as an actor turned out to be. (Life most closely imitates art when Evans plays the caddish Dexter Key in the film version of Rona Jaffe's "The Best of Everything." In the book--though not in the movie, heavens, not in the '50s!--Dexter takes his bewildered small-town sweetheart to a New Jersey abortionist in a limousine. He's just that Evansy kind of guy.)

Evans is unabashedly proud of his many, many lapses from grace, both professional and personal. The only tedium in "The Kid Stays in the Picture" comes from his (yawn) innumerable sexual conquests, which all sound the same after awhile. Leaf past those and focus on Evans' rise to preeminence as a producer in the film industry in the '70s, making some of its very best movies, including "Chinatown" and "The Godfather."

In Dominick Dunne's novel, "An Inconvenient Woman," the coke-snorting, career-in-a-tailspin producer Casper Stieglitz is reportedly based on Evans. However, Evans didn't really have a toupee for each day of the month, with lengths ranging from just-barbered to needs-a-haircut. "I made that part up," Dunne said. But after reading "The Kid Stays in the Picture," Evans' excesses appear so legendary that one is forced to admit that Dunne's little fib might just as well have been true.

Part of my weakness for this lusciously tacky book comes from the fact that the copy I own used to belong to Peter Bogdanovich. His name is rubber-stamped all over it, and the flyleaf bears Evans' lavish inscription, "Peter-- Let's make magic together!" The dealer who sold it to me said that Bogdanovich unloaded his library during one of the many times that he ran short of ready cash.

Just another Hollywood story. But even in paperback, this book is a substance-free indulgence, unless you're in a twelve-step program declaring that you are powerless against the temptation to read trash. "The Kid Stays in the Picture" is a no-cal, fat-free, smokeless treat.

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Summary: cousinpaco bought me this!
Review: Robert Evans is the stuff of legend. A Hollywood icon. An autobiography was a no-brainer, but an audio book of Evans narrating his autobiography -- that's just a stroke of genius.

Evans tells the stories of his many ups and downs during his tenure at Paramount Pictures, and beyond. Some of the stories are funny, some are sad, but all of them are pure Evans. Sure, he's completely self-absorbed, and you're only going to get his side of the story (the truth, right?), but it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining any other way.

His voice, while mildly terrifying, matches the mix of factual and anecdotal information. He speaks in a steady, level and clear recitation, then moves to a more rapid, conversational and enthusiastic expression. This change in tempo keeps the listener both absorbed and informed.

As far as audio books are concerned, "The Kid Stays in the Picture" is the king. Robert Evans wouldn't have it any other way.

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Summary: Hollywood, Designed to be read as Literature
Review: This is a ridiculously entertaining book of Hollywood life and values, occasionally reminiscent of Caligula, more often of the yellowing adventures of the Black Mask. Evans is, despite himself, deathlessly enjoyable. It is clear from the start that he has scores to settle, but to his credit, he starts with himself. Hollywood, by definition, is a crazy place - Charles Bukowski's "Hollywood" cuts it to the bone - but Evans manages to make it beguilingly funny-crazy. Excesses pile on excesses, coke on crime, adultery on tragedy, until you can hardly stand up. I read this between a Henry Miller and a Hunter S Thompson and it made the others seem like choirboys. But it's not all lava-lamp-land. Eloquent and moving is Evans' account of the loss of his favorite home, and Jack Nicholson's kindness in supporting his fight back. And the coda? Can anyone not remain friends with a memoirist who takes his dollar, charges him like a bull, then tells the gallery to ... well, read it and believe it.