Everything Is Everything and Anyone Is Anyone

I was teaching creative writing and literature at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y., where Dick Diver goes to die at the end of “Tender Is the Night.” After spewing my 27-year-old wisdom to frozen students, I’d traipse through 40 or 50 inches of snow to my little apartment, where I was writing a script from my yet-to-be-published novel, “Cattle Annie and Little Britches.”

The reason for this was that a sharp guy I knew in New York had told me that Hollywood and the publishing industry were into synergy, and that if you sold a script, you could use the leverage to sell the novel for “big bucks.” This was appealing. So I picked up a copy of the “Citizen Kane” screenplay, figured out what EXT. and INT. meant and started writing. When I was done, the sharp guy in New York told me to send it to his agent pal, Bernie, in L.A.

“Hey Bobby,” Bernie said. “Loved your script. It’s different. Girl outlaws.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s great. Think we can get somebody to make it?”

“Whoa, Big Bob,” Bernie said. “We got a few things to address first, kiddo.”

“No problem,” I said. I picked up a pen to take notes.

“First, I have a little problem telling the various gang members apart. I mean Bittercreek Newcomb sounds like Dynamite Dick and so on. . . . Gotta individuate the voices more, Bobby.”

“Right,” I said, jotting ‘individuate’ on my note pad.

“Second is a little tougher, Bobby,” Bernie said. “We gotta lose the Old West.”

“There must be snow on the line. I thought you said, ‘Lose the Old West.’”

“Think outer space, Bobby. “It’s the Old West of today.”

“But wait,” I said. “These girls actually rode with the Doolin-Dalton Gang.”

“Oh, man,” Bernie said. “You’re not gonna get hung up on history, are you?”

“OK. Lose the Old West,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Only one more thing. And this is a deal-breaker.”

“What is it?” I said, gritting my teeth.

“Lose the chicks,” Bernie said.

“Lose the chicks? But that’s the whole story!”

“Bobby, baby, listen to me,” Bernie said. “Nobody wants to see two teenage broads in outer space. You need two guys. Lovable rogues who join a crew of space rebels and, you know, save Earth. My way, I can get this script to all kinds of people. As is, we can use it for trash-can liner.”

I looked down at my script, at my novel, at two years of my life. I felt as if I had to take a stand, and mumbled something about integrity and reality.

Bernie set me straight. “Out here in movieland, everything is everything. You keep that in mind and you’ll never go wrong.”

I worked for two weeks trying to change my horse opera into a space opera. But I just couldn’t do it. I drank some Pepto-Bismol and called Bernie.

A woman answered. “Mr. Simon’s office.”

“I want to speak to Bernie,” I said.

“He’s not here,” she said.

“This is Bob Ward,” I said. “Please have him call me when he gets back.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Bernie’s not coming back.”

“What?” It was then I remembered that Bernie’s last name wasn’t Simon.

“He’s retired. Moved to Palm Springs,” she said. “Can I give you someone else? You could talk to Jim. He’s the ‘new Bernie.’”

A chill shot through me. “Everything is everything,” I thought. “And in Hollywood, anyone is anyone.”

In the years since, I’ve skinned more than one cat using Bernie’s everything-is-everything formula. I’ve rewritten old westerns and turned them into plots for “Miami Vice.” I’ve used contemporary stories I heard from guys in bars and turned them into shootouts in westerns. I’ve turned men into women at the last minute because an actor got sick.

By the way, two weeks after I learned that Bernie had split, I sold my screenplay, and a month later I sold the novel. Eventually, the movie was made with Diane Lane, Amanda Plummer, Burt Lancaster, Rod Steiger, Scott Glenn and John Savage. It died at the box office. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if they had been wearing spacesuits instead of six-guns.