Hollywood: The Emperor

The gait was unhurried, the paunch impressive as a Roman emperor’s, the head massive as a Percheron’s. Producer Sam Spiegel, to the strains of the theme music from Lawrence of Arabia, was advancing down the aisle of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium to accept the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year.

Sam Spiegel had traveled the red carpet toward the top Oscar twice before—in 1954 for On the Waterfront, and in 1957 for The Bridge on the River Kwai. And Central Casting itself could not produce a more classic prototype of the Hollywood producer. He chomps cigars, calls everybody baby except babies, speaks nine languages, all of them except his native German with a heavy accent. He is a hard man to work for. The story goes that when Writer Irwin Shaw was working on Waterfront, his wife awoke one morning at 3 o’clock to find her husband in the bathroom, shaving. What was he doing? “I’m going out to kill Sam Spiegel,” he said.

Spiegel, a man whose self-made vision of his mission is clear and explicit, is serenely unperturbed by such minor rebellions. “The producer’s job is to conceive a picture, to dream it up, to have the first concept of what a film is going to be like when it is finished, before a word is written, a part is cast, a director thought of. Most of the pictures I have made in recent years have come out quite close to the way I conceived them.”

Next, Z. A. Nuck? It took Spiegel years to make the climb to this pinnacle of authority. At one point, back in the 1940s, he even changed his name to get there. Better known then for his lavish annual New Year’s Eve parties than for the pictures he put out, Spiegel decided that what might hold true for roses was simply not so for him, renamed himself “for professional purposes” S. P. Eagle. Hollywood roared with laughter; sports referred to one Eagle picture as The S. T. Ranger, suggested that Z. A. Nuck and L. U. Bitsch follow Sam’s lead. But Spiegel played the game for twelve years, relinquishing the gag only when Director Elia Kazan told him On the Waterfront was good enough to risk his real name for. Variety headlined the news: THE EAGLE FOLDS ITS WINGS.

Sam Spiegel is as arbitrary about his background as he used to be about his name. Born some 58, 59 or 60 years ago in Jaroslau, Austria (now Poland), he studied at the University of Vienna, went to work as a “Young Pioneer” in Palestine. Sensing greater profits elsewhere, Spiegel became a cotton broker, traveled to the U.S. on business. In Hollywood he so charmed M-G-M Producer Paul Bern that Bern put him under contract as reader and adviser.

In 1930, Universal sent him to Berlin to arrange for the exhibition of the German version of All Quiet on the Western Front. The film was banned when the Nazis bombed the theater opening night, but Spiegel ran a series of private screenings for Reichstag members and Nazi Leaders Hitler, Goebbels, and Goring. Over the Nazis’ protests, the ban was lifted. But when Hitler came to power in 1933, Spiegel thought it best to flee to Vienna. Six years later, he returned to Hollywood with an idea for casting a picture with nothing but stars. Tales of Manhattan had nothing but stars to its credit, but Sam was on his way.

Oscars to Come? All through the Eagle years, he looked for the right big picture, found it in 1951 on a shelf in the Warner Bros, story department. Spiegel dusted off The African Queen, surprised filmland by casting it not with regular types like Robert Taylor and Betty Grable, but with a combination considered far-out indeed—Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Queen became the first Spiegel film to get an Oscar (Bogart’s), and others trod hard on its golden heels: Waterfront won eight, River Kwai brought the total to 16. Lawrence made it 23.

Through it all, Sam spiegeled—a verb which has a special meaning for anyone who has worked for him. It means to soothe, cajole, or con another; a talking-out-of, a sleight-of-mouth operation. During the six months the Lawrence crew spent in the desert, many a worker cracked, more from Sam-than sun-strain. A typical mutineer’s speech: “I’m through. I’ve had it. I quit. I’m going to tell Sam he can take his bleeding, bloody picture and shove it. I’m getting out of here in the morning.” But next morning the rebel would be found still unpacked, explaining sheepishly: “Aww, I decided to stay . . . But I gave Sam a piece of my mind.” He had been spiegelized. Lawrence’s Director, David Lean, alternately raged (“The s.o.b. doesn’t understand me at all”) or, spiegelized, praised (“I worked in Jordan for five months and never saw a foot of film. I didn’t have to. I knew I could rely on Sam in London to tell me whether I was getting what I was after”).

Arabia or Palm Springs? Spiegel, too, has got what he was after. He describes his esthetic attempts with a certain convolution more fitting to script-writing than speech: “I want to explore the variations on the theme of a man being basically in conflict with his own destiny, asserting his instinct for constructiveness, conflicting with the destructive forces around him.” But his search for motion-picture reality is earnest: he built miles of roads in Ceylon while making River Kwai, hired 16 elephants to haul the 30,000 cu. ft. of timber used to build the bridge. “One Hollywood joker,” says Spiegel, “said that ‘If you like Palm Springs, you’ll love Lawrence,’ but the point is that Lawrence was great largely because it was obviously not made in Palm Springs.” To ease the tensions inherent in making Lawrence in Arab Jordan, Spiegel, who is Jewish, bearded the country’s ambassador to Washington. “I explained the aim of the picture, and the King got me a visa right away. We became quite good friends, the King and I,” says Spiegel. “He visited me on the set and on the yacht.”

Sam keeps his boat, all 300 ft. of it, anchored in some convenient Mediterranean port for just such purposes, claims, “I don’t consider it extravagant. I work on yachts to save time.” But much of his time is spent jetting between his penthouses in London and Manhattan. Sur rounded by the talismans of success (a sunken marble tub, projection room, an impressive collection of French impressionist paintings), Sam lives the splendid life with his third wife, former Model Betty Benson. Last week Sam Spiegel surveyed his kingdom with a sense of joy. “I’ve never wanted more than pocket money,” he says. No small desire for the man with the biggest pockets this side of Australia.

For the rest of Hollywood, Oscar night involved the usual savage sidewalk crush of fans, flacks and photographers, as well as the expected crises: Olivia de Havilland’s Dior dress arrived via Air France only moments before showtime; Shelley Winters lost her dress and had to be hand-sewn into a last-minute substitute. M.C. Frank Sinatra forgot to apply the right sticker to his car, had to park it himself and make it to the theater on foot. Triumph of the evening: Joan Crawford. Announcing that she would make “my first appearance with the silvery look,” Joan washed the red out of her hair, hired Designer Edith Head to create a grey little something to match, slung a chinchilla around her shoulders, and topped the production with a ton of diamonds. Crawford’s investment paid off with interest: as stand-in for Best Actress Contender Anne Bancroft (stationed cross-country in the Broadway production of Mother Courage), Joan emerged as the most photographed, autographed star in all that night’s sky.

Other top winners:

> Best Actor: Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird).

> Best Supporting Actor: Ed Begley (Sweet Bird of Youth).

> Best Supporting Actress: Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker).

> Best Director: David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia).