Hollywood’s Raging ‘70s

Though the ‘70s are best remembered for Vietnam, Watergate, bell bottoms and disco, it was also one of Hollywood’s most explosively creative decades.

In 1967, the landmark “Bonnie & Clyde” ushered in a decade of groundbreaking films like “Easy Rider,” “The Godfathers,” “Chinatown,” “Shampoo,” “MASH,” “The Last Picture Show,” “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist” and “Jaws.” But the golden era ended by 1980. Hollywood and the political climate had changed. The studios became more interested in blockbusters than dark, personal films. And drugs, money and sex took their toll.

Peter Biskind’s new book, “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood,” is a fascinating account of this seminal decade. Among the book’s dishy bombshells: Martin Scorsese nearly died from a cocaine overdose; Steven Spielberg was coached by actress Margot Kidder on how to win a girlfriend; Hal Ashby nearly OD’d while shooting his Rolling Stones documentary “Let’s Spend the Night Together”; and Peter Fonda wouldn’t personally fire Dennis Hopper from “Easy Rider” during editing because “I was sure that he would try to kill me.”

Biskind, 57, a former editor of Premiere, talked about this creative, destructive decade during a recent visit to Los Angeles.

Question: Have you had any feedback on the book from the people you wrote about?

Answer: People have asked me for free books, which, given how much money people make out here, is amusing.

I know people are upset; I have heard indirectly. But this is what they did. If they didn’t want anybody to know about it, they shouldn’t have lived it. It is like you blame the messenger for the bad news.

Q: When you decided to write this book over five years ago, did you expect you would focus on the principal players’ private lives?

A: Outside of knowing I wanted to write a book about Hollywood in the ‘70s, I had no idea what shape the book was going to take.

It’s a cliche to say this was a decade of personal filmmaking, but it was. Even those projects like “The Godfather,” that were studio projects, or something like “Raging Bull,” which was generated not by Scorsese but generated by De Niro, directors wouldn’t do them unless they made them their own.

The classic story is Scorsese saying he didn’t want to do “Raging Bull.” He didn’t like boxing, he couldn’t relate to Jake La Motta. It wasn’t until he completely destroyed himself with drugs, became totally paranoid and alienated all of his friends and ended up in the hospital himself thinking, “I am Jake La Motta” [that he could relate to the story].

I discovered that you can’t understand these movies and you can’t understand what happened to all of these people at the end of the decade without investigating their personal lives.

Q: Were you surprised that so many people were willing to talk?

A: A lot of them were willing because these are all big personalities. They were people who were used to saying what they thought and having people listen to them. If you give them an audience and show that you understand what they are saying, they will talk. A lot of these guys started out at the same time and knew each other. There was a lot of collegiality and cooperation. They read each other’s scripts. But when some people’s careers took off and other people’s didn’t, there was a lot of resentment and hostility.

John Milius feels that Spielberg and Lucas didn’t help him when he needed help. Coppola said that he treated Lucas like a brother, and when George became rich and famous after “Star Wars,” George didn’t do the same for him. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda still hate each other. People still feel [these resentments] keenly.

Q: Was it difficult to sift through these often conflicting stories?

A: It was very hard to find the truth. But in some cases, you’ll never get to the bottom of it, like did Terry Southern write a script for “Easy Rider,” and if so, how important was it for the final film? Everyone contradicts everyone else. Finally you throw up your hands. He’s dead and Dennis [Hopper] doesn’t seem to remember anything. What he does remember is mostly wrong. I shouldn’t exaggerate, but he just lost his suit against Rip Torn. The judge ruled him not a credible witness. Many of these people took so many drugs and so much booze, how can you remember?

Q: I bet this book gave your lawyers a few headaches.

A: Simon & Schuster has very good lawyers and the book was edited very carefully. I had to make a lot of unpleasant phone calls. I had to ask Amy Irving if she slept with Dustin Hoffman. It was painful for me as well. I knew they were going to get mad at me, but I had to do it for the lawyers. I talked to everybody, especially around the more sensitive issues.

Q: Do you think part of the reason why so many of these directors unraveled and became involved in drugs and booze was because success came quickly and at a young age?

A: These kids were very young and very naive and very inexperienced. They were nerds in high school. What are they to do when every attractive woman in Hollywood was throwing themselves at them and everyone around was telling them they are geniuses? If this happens when you are 35 or 40 and you have already made 25 movies, like in the old days, you can handle it better. If you are 25 or 30, you just go bonkers.

Billy Friedkin said once [you get successful] and move to Beverly Hills and learn how to play tennis, it’s over for you. Once you learn how to play tennis, you are no longer riding the subways and eating at delicatessens. There’s a lot of truth in that.

Q: Do you think these directors underestimated the need of a strong producer?

A: They threw out producers at the beginning of the decade. That was a big mistake. As Peter Bart [then vice president of production at Paramount] says, these guys couldn’t believe they were getting to make a movie for a studio. But at the end of the decade they took it for granted, and they would break the budget every time.

[Agent] Sue Mengers said that Peter Bogdanovich surrounded himself with yes-men. I think that is true of all of these people. There should have been for every one of these people someone to say, “You’re out of your mind. It’s a stupid idea.”

At that time, people didn’t appreciate what they had. It was just, “I have got to get my next movie made and the studio was full of schmucks.” It is only in retrospect, when you look at the decade as a whole, [you realize] that this was a special era.

Q: Do you think if some of these filmmakers hadn’t self-destructed, the industry would be more creative today?

A: It’s hard to say. Once Spielberg made “Jaws” and Lucas made “Star Wars,” the die was cast. [The studios] wanted every film to be a blockbuster. That having been said, obviously, if these guys had stayed in touch with their creative spark, if Bogdanovich had made wonderful films in the ‘80s, if Friedkin had made wonderful films in the ‘80s, we would have a richer industry than we do have now.

Q: Several of the ‘70s filmmakers, though, are flourishing. Scorsese is still making personal movies.

A: I think of all of these people, Scorsese had the most integrity. He was totally focused on his work and totally dedicated. I think he has still got the juice. Whereas, I think Francis [Coppola] has lost it.

People wrote Warren Beatty off after “Love Affair” and he’s coming back with “Bulworth.” People like Beatty who are so successful and so powerful and so envied, people are very willing to jump on him after he was down with “Love Affair.” But Beatty is very smart. Unlike a lot of these people, he didn’t do any drugs. He is another one of the heroes of this decade. What he did with “Bonnie & Clyde” was completely unprecedented. He not only made a groundbreaking movie, but beat the studio into submission with a hammer.

Q: Then there’s Spielberg.

A: I thought “Schindler’s List” was a brilliant movie. All of these other movies, “The Lost World” movies, he clearly doesn’t care about the script. What made “Jaws” such a brilliant movie was the wonderful performances and the plotting and the script. He doesn’t seem to care about that anymore. I think the jury is still out on Spielberg whether he’s actually a great filmmaker or, as [novelist] Peter Benchley said, the greatest second unit director who ever lived.

Q: Lucas seems to be the only one who really got away from Hollywood’s strings.

A: But he didn’t. The one guy who really got to be financially independent and always said he wanted to make experimental films, carried Hollywood inside of him somehow. He tore up his DGA card, yet, here he is making more “Star Wars” films.

He’s just mining stuff from the ‘70s, which is another indication of both how seminal the ‘70s were and how limited they were at the same time--how these people haven’t grown since then.