Legendary Movie Producer (And Even Legendarier Philanderer!) Dobbie Gentles Spills Tales Of Movie Magic Madness, Mayhem, and Magic!
“You oughta star in the movies!”: Dobbie Gentles today
I was just a kid from the sticks when I landed plum in the middle of Hollywood in 1959. I stepped off that train or boat with just three simple goals: break into the movie business, make a million dollars, and get to first base with as many dames as I could.
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I got my first job in Hollywood working as a hat pin checker at the Blonde Goose, the hottest restaurant in town at the time. Movie stars would flock there every single night like the proverbial rabbit logs down the Red Binge canal. It was the place to see, be seen, be have saw, sawn, and sern.
All the hottest movie biz players would check their coats with the coat checker (a young Robert Wagner), their hats with the hat checker (an old Tallulah Bankhead), and their hat pins with me. It was hard work, and the pay was low ($.09 a night, which wasn’t a lot of money back then), but the benefits were glorious, as I would soon find out.
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It’s my second night on the job, and who comes floating in but Miss Doris Day. She wafts up to me with a sultry smile and a handful of hat pins.
“Boy, see to it you don’t prick yourself,” Miss Day warbles.
“Yes, ma’am,” I reply with my voice.
Before I knew it, we were getting to first base.
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It’s my 48th night on the job, and I’m getting antsy. Nobody comes to Hollywood to hand out hat pins, and I’m starting to feel like the proverbial toe-headed stepchild at a French hooker’s baptism.
Just then, who walks in but Mr. Spyros Skouras.
Old “Spyros Skouras,” they used to call him, because that was his name and nobody could think of anything else. He was Head of 20th Century Fox or some other studio, famous for his medium build, reasonable attitude, brown hair, and freckles. I’d heard through the grapeline that he was having trouble with his latest picture.
“Take your hat pins, Mr. Skouras?” I say.
He liked that.
“Hey, kid,” he says in his heavy American accent, “This new picture we’re shooting, The Night They Tangoed All Night, you heard of it?”
“No, sir,” I say, cannily.
“It’s $5 million over budget, the leading man is a drunk, the leading lady is Canadian, and the director has been dead for 16 years. This picture’s goin’ down the toilet. What do I do?”
I think for a moment and say, very slowly, “I have no idea, sir.”
“Kid, I like your hjundertergen! [his word for “moxie”] How’d you like to come work for me?”
The word “yes” came out of my mouth faster than a rainbowfin salmon out of a box of Cheerios at Christmas.
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It’s January, 1962. The Summer of Love they called it. Beatniks are all the rage. Mankind has just landed on the moon. Glenn Miller’s tearing up the airwaves. The Steelers win the World Cup in a dead heat, beating out Maine for the pennant. Me? I’m assistant vice under-head of production at Paramount Studios.
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I’m on the set of Tarry With Me, Terry Wythmie. Steve McQueen is blowing his top. The Beach Boys haven’t shown up—they’re 98 hours late and word has it one or more might be dead. Debra Winger is a seven-year-old girl playing hopscotch in Los Mayos, Texas. The whole production’s getting down to the wire and I haven’t gotten to first base all day.
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Nevermind. It’s 1966, I’m finally back from Vegas where Rod Steiger’s trial has just ended. The jury acquitted him—they couldn’t prove he rode that elephant. I’m in Charlie Bludhorn’s office, and he’s madder than a jetskier at an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet.
He’s holding up a picture of Candy Bergen. I’m getting crazy flashes just thinking about first base.
“She’ll never work in this town again!”
Charlie’s yelling, making his voice achieve a higher volume than if he were merely speaking. It was a trick he’d trademarked in Hollywood. Powerplayin, they called it.
“But Mr. Bludhorn,” I say, in my calmest tone, “she had 9 hit pictures last week!”
Just then, who should walk into Charlie’s office but a young Robert Davi. Behind him walks in an old Van Johnson, a middle-aged Burl Ives, and an even younger Robert Davi.
Before Charlie can say “Get the hell out of my office!!” I pull out a bottle of seltzer. I’ve been saving it for a moment like this. Van, Burl, and both Robert Davis give me this look. Then Charlie starts to smile.
And that’s how The Hottest Guns In Milwaukee came together.
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It’s 1970. I’m on the set of First Base, American Style. I’m getting to first base with my leading actress, Tina Louise. We got married in Acupulco, divorced in Cancun, and married again in the Sudentenland (which is what the fashionable set called Puerto Vallarta at the time). Recently divorced, we’re talking about the script, between heavy breathing and passionate eye-fluttering (and first-basing).
“I think it’s too long,” I say.
“I think it’s too short,” Tina says.
“Let’s compromise,” I say.
“Ok,” she says.
And that’s how we decided to leave the script exactly the way it had been originally written by Noel Coward. And that’s why the movie is the length that it is today. But it wasn’t the last time I got to first base with, or got married to old Tina (Louise).
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I’m at the 1972 Academy Awards. Bob Hope and Frederic March are co-hosting. I’m backstage after having just presented the Best Actress award to Valerie Perrine for The Naked And The Nude. Just as we’re getting to first base, who should come out of the freight elevator but Ned Beatty. He looks crazier than the proverbial organ grinder in a henhouse full of flapjacks and is gripping a throwing star in one hand.
“What’s up, Ned?” I ask slowly and calmly, in all innocence.
“Don’t give me that, Gentles!” Ned used to call me “Gentles” because that was my last name at the time (still is, too, if you want to know).
Before I can hit him harder than the proverbial Florida June bug at a Skinny Puppy concert, he wallops me right between the sideburns (the throwing star was just a piece of origami). Valerie screams like a coonskin cap falling off a lantern factory and within 8 seconds all of Hollywood is rushing backstage to see what all the fuss is about.
And there’s ol’ Irving Thalberg (so-called because of his first and last names), veins bulging out of his neck like a furnace hotter than a bat-winged dinosaur with horns longer than a dirt farmer’s eulogy at the funeral of a Malaysian banjo dealer with overalls dirtier than a twelve-gauge hairdryer on a two-dollar oat fry diet.
“What is the meaning of this, Dobbie Gentles!?!?” Irving steams.
“Honestly, I’m not sure, sir.”
Well, that did it. Everybody starts laughing and before you know it, we’re all back at the Blonde Goose for last call. And that’s how Margot Kidder got excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
And that’s just the beginning!
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And that’s really all there is to tell!
