Culture
21 Feb 03

The Kid Stays In The Picture

n this stylish documentary, utilising footage and animated photographs, Evans recounts the extraordinary circumstances of his turbulent existence – and bloody hell! – he is one hugely accomplished and entertaining racounteur.

From fairytale beginnings and palaces with rose gardens to public cuckoldings and cocaine-inspired failure, the astonishing true life story of Hollywood producer Robert Evans has ‘tabloid headline’ written all over it.

In this stylish documentary, utilising footage and animated photographs, he recounts the extraordinary circumstances of his turbulent existence – and bloody hell! – he is one hugely accomplished and entertaining racounteur.

Having been discovered in a Beverly Hills swimming pool in 1956, Evans was groomed as Warren Beatty mark two, but quickly decided that he wasn’t much of an actor and would much prefer to be the bloke in charge.

By sheer chance, miraculous circumstance and the greatest bullshitting skills this side of Tony Blair, Evans became god-like in stature overnight. Suddenly, he found himself running a studio, riding the crest of the Hollywood new wave and producing such classics as The Godfather and Chinatown. And lest we forget, there were all the trappings of wealth – the house he always wanted, the private jet lifestyle, and a wife (Ali McGraw) widely considered to be the most beautiful starlet in town.

Fortune though, is a fickle bird, as indeed was Evans’ missus. She very publicly ran off with Steve McQueen, and in no time Evans, like so many of his contemporaries, found himself on the scrapheap, having sucuumbed to cocaine addiction.

The supporting characters touched on in this tale – Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly – would alone make this essential viewing for fans of dish-the-dirt Hollywood insider epics as Final Cut or Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, but The Kid Stays In The Picture is more than just a great car-crash to slow down and gawp at.

Evans has an intoxicating warmth and charm, and to offset any jaundiced edge, there is, when he speaks of McGraw, a deeply moving air of deluded bliss that one might more readily associate with The Boatman’s Call or Blood on the Tracks, than the memoirs of a Hollywood shark.

A compelling tale, brilliantly told.