Easy the Hard Way

D EASY H Al I The Autobiography off JOE PASTCRNAK As told to David Chandli V EASY THE HARD WAY by JOE PASTERNAK (as told tcftya\iv> chandler) Joe Pasternak began liis career in motion pictures as Gloria Swanson's waiter in the old Long Island City studios. Now, after discovering Deanna Durbin and Mario Lanza, and persuading such famous musical figures as Stokowski, Melchior, and Iturbi to work in films, he is the king producer of big musicals. Pasternak's early life reads like the script of an American dream picture: born in a tiny town in Transylvania, son of the shammas at the local synagogue, at seventeen Joe threw off the shackles and made his way to Philadelphia. He knew no English, knew in fact little of anything, but he had sense enough, he writes, to go to New York, where soon he found himself a dishwasher in a Broadway restaurant next door to a movie palace. The movies fascinated him. On free passes from the ushers he made his first study of the silver screen. He enrolled in a "Movie Star School" which, in ex- change for his total savings, awarded him a gaudy diploma certifying that he was fully qualified to become a movie star. When Joe went out to the Para- mount studio and presented his diploma to the guard at the gate, he took one look at it and allowed his better nature to (Continued on back flap) £Vv r>t* EASY THE HARD WAY EASY THE HARD WAY by Joe Pasternak AS TOLD TO DAVID CHANDLER Illustrated fOUNDlD tE 38 GPPS G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York © 1956 by Joe Pasternak All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be repro- duced in any form without permission. Published on the same day in the Dominion of Canada by Thomas Allen, Ltd., Toronto. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 56-6624 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA VAN REES PRESS • NEW YORK To Michael, Jeffrey, and Peter, who one day might like to know how it was; to Dorothy, at the very heart of it; and to my adopted country, which took in a stranger and made it all possible. Contents ILLUSTRATIONS FOLLOW PAGE 152 i. A Guy Named Joe, 3 2. "Listen to the Music," 9 3. Showman, iy 4. Money and Love, 2j 5. The Superannuated Shammas, 36 6. Champagne and Cops, 44 7. The Making of an American, 50 8. The Back Door, $y 9 . "I Picked Him" 65 10. W. C. Fields, the Marquise and a Girl Named Mary, yy 11. California, pi 12. An Interview with Laemmle, 99 73. "Never Disturb Memories," ioy 14. The Berlin Years, 112 vii Contents 15. Farewell to Berlin, 130 16. The Pearl of the Danube, 135 ij. Goodbye to All That, 151 18. Return to Hollywood, 156 19. Deanna, 165 20. Music for Millions, 184 21. Dietrich Rides Again, 190 22. Fadeout, Fadein, 211 23. The Incomparable Judy, 225 24. Young Actresses: Their Cause and Cure, 235 25. "What's a Producer DoT 248 26. The Breaking Point, 266 2j. The Great Lanza, 2jj 28. Reunion in Hollywood, 291 2p. Easy the Hard Way, 2^p Vlll EASY THE HARD WAY A Guy Named Joe Occasionally, when I'm not too tired after a day on the set, I dream of a huge volume called the Book of Fate. It is like the big old leather book the apothecary used to have in the little town in Hungary where I was born. I re- member he used to refer to it, his nose right against the page, whenever one of the town doctors prescribed some- thing he wasn't sure about. The apothecary always seemed amazed by what he found in the book. "Imagine that! Imagine that!" he would say and, as though against his better judgment, he would go ahead and compound the medicine. So now I dream I find my name in this Book of Fate and learn to my surprise that I have no business whatsoever being where I am today and doing what I'm doing. I dream that it is all someone's stupid clerical error that I spent the day on a sound stage in Culver City, California, or behind a desk fitting together all the elements and temperaments that go into making a motion picture. I dream that someone keeps shouting, "No, he isn't supposed to be a producer. He's supposed to be a shammas. Or is it a Wagnerian tenor? No—that's ridiculous! Some- 3 I Easy the Hard Way one's got this Book all mixed up." Sometimes he just says, "Imagine that! Imagine that!" just like the old apothecary. The effect of this is not to startle me into waking. On the contrary, it's such an old dream that I don't mind it at all. There must be some explanation of how and why but I leave it to better and shrewder brains than mine. I know I broke all the rules. When people took me for a sucker and an easy mark—and a lot of them still do— didn't mind at all. Once, when I was head of motion picture production in Europe for Universal, I had a chauffeur who worked me on a commission basis. He would tele- phone various friends of mine who wanted to borrow money from me and tell them where he had driven me that evening and whether I was in the mood or not for a fast touch, and if so, for how much. "He's at the Ritz," he'd say, "and he's feeling fine. His last two pictures are cleaning up and the boss cabled to say he's doing a great job. He'd go for a hundred easy." Or he'd warn them off. "The last picture grosses just came in. It's dying. He got a letter today from Laemmle that aged him ten years. Lay off." For this service, the chauffeur got a flat ten per cent of the gross of anything borrowed from me. When I heard about it, all my friends thought I ought to fire the man. I gave him a raise. My friends thought I was crazy. Why would I do a thing like that? "I'll tell you," I said. "He kept the pests away when I didn't want to see them and he brought them around when helping a pal made me feel good. Do you think a man like that doesn't deserve a raise?" So I wasn't smart. When I wanted to leave Universal, 4 A Guy Named Joe after I came back to this country and made all those pictures with Deanna Durbin, I ran into Louis B. Mayer, then studio chief at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and one of a number of prospective employers of my soon-to-be-unemployed talents. He challenged me to a game of pinochle. Frank Orsatti, our host, took me aside and whispered: "You're in, Joe. Just play a good game but make him look even better." I tried my level best to follow Frank's advice but every game we played made me look smarter than my opponent. Try as I would, I couldn't lose. Cards will do that to you. Mayer, who was innocent of all this huggermugger going on around him, was amiable when he paid up at the end of the evening and said goodnight. Orsatti, once we were alone, jutted a forefinger in my direction. "What's the matter with you?" he said. "What's the idea trimming a man you'd like to work for?" Well, I don't know. From what I have observed of how to win friends and influence influential people in Holly- wood, I would certainly say that my procedure was hazard- ous. But in my case maybe it wasn't. I know this. I left Universal on a Friday and set up shop at M-G-M the follow- ing Monday. I've always had fun making pictures. They make plenty of jokes about ulcers in Hollywood. Too many nice people I've known there have died too young. Maybe the trouble is they didn't have fun at their work. I've made it a rule never to touch anything unless it amuses me, interests me, one way or the other. I got a chuckle once out of the notion of having Jose Iturbi play a boogie-woogie piano in a picture I made. 5 Easy the Hard Way "Good heavens," one of my friends said, "how can you even suggest such a thing to him! You don't know what snobs these concert people are. They jump on him hard enough as it is for acting in your pictures." So I called Jose, sat him in a chair in my office and approached him undiplomatically. "I'm doing this picture, As Thousands Cheer, and there's a sequence at a camp show and one of the soldiers hollers for you to play some boogie-woogie like Meade Lux Lewis. Will you do it?" "Why not?" Jose said. I had fun, too, when I saw Lauritz Melchior at a party standing next to his charming wife, Kleinschen. Lauritz is a mountain of a man, a true German Heldentenor •, though he's really Danish. I had an actress named Jane Powell, just as tiny and charming as Kleinschen and I thought Lauritz and my little actress would be cute together.

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