Well before I set foot in a family law court, I had attended much of Kim’s trial in 1993, when she was sued for breach of contract by the producers of a film. In the fall of 1992, while I was shooting Malice in LA and western Massachusetts, Kim had signed with a new agent, an old guard character named Guy McElwaine. As agents often do, he wanted to sweep aside as many of her pending commitments as possible, as he would not get a commission on those deals. Boxing Helena was such a project, and Guy told Kim that he would extricate her from it. Additionally, the script explicitly called for nudity and sexual contact that required Kim’s approval, none of which had been spelled out to her satisfactorily by the director. Other actresses had been approached about the role before Kim, and Madonna had actually been hired for a time before walking away with little fuss. However, when Kim decided to leave, the producers, feeling powerless and thwarted, were determined to make an example of her. They sued her, and the case went to trial in early 1993.
During pretrial preparation, Kim rehearsed mock cross-examinations with her lawyer Howard Weitzman. Sometimes, she would come home in tears for fear of what lay ahead. Jake Bloom, who in addition to being an agent also one of Kim’s lawyers, told her to settle the case. Hollywood is a place where the pay scales are so out of proportion that Bloom’s suggestion made perfect sense to everyone involved. “Give them a million to walk away,” Bloom spouted. “That’s definitely better than getting in front of a jury.” He was, in hindsight, wise on that front. But Kim would hear none of it. The idea of handing over a large sum of money to these producers while she was certain that she was right was out of the question.
When the producers appeared in court, it was plain to see that they would likely earn more money in that courtroom than they ever would in their careers. The director, Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of David Lynch, had apparently inherited his unruly hairstyle but none of his talent. Lynch parlayed her unkempt appearance and inarticulate demeanor into an image of herself as the victim of “Big Hollywood” and its bullying tactics. Her producer, Carl Mazzocone, a soft-spoken, obese man, also dialed up the victimhood in order to lobby a jury that ultimately was more than inclined to side with the have-nots.
The plaintiffs’ attorney was Patricia Glaser. I have written about Glaser before, but perhaps that characterization could use a finer point: in the courtroom, she was like a creature out of Jurassic Park, in appearance, body language, and demeanor. Glaser is one of the most contemptible people I have ever encountered, a cartoon rendering of the rapacious litigator, representing everything that I believe is exploitative and unfair about our civil system. Her opening salvo was, “Now, we all know what it feels like for the pretty girl in school to get everything she wants.” Glaser, not the pretty girl, wanted to take Kim down in some schoolyard-style Betty-vs.-Veronica dynamic straight out of Archie comics. Naturally, she won.
Kim had dressed herself with great care every day before heading to court, in order to avoid appearing too extravagant. Some mornings, sitting on the edge of the bed, wondering what to wear or not wear in order to project the “right” image to a jury of strangers, she would quietly start sobbing. It was heartbreaking.
The case proceeded for several days without any clear cause for alarm until it was announced that Kim’s agents, who were co-litigants in the complaint, would be dismissed from the case. Thus, the entire burden of any potential verdict and subsequent award would fall on her alone. The judge further ruled that the jury would not be informed that the deep-pocketed codefendant was now out. The jury should level its judgment for damages blindly, without regard for Kim’s financial position.
Everyone in the courtroom twisted the truth or outright lied. On one telephone call during the pretrial period, one of Kim’s lawyers spit at her, “They’re going to lie! So you have to lie if you want to win!” But she didn’t lie. Not once. In the end, they handed her a bill for $8.9 million. She filed for bankruptcy in the hope that the verdict would be reversed on appeal. As was widely reported at the time, the judge, a disgrace to the bench named Judith Chirlin, strode across the courtroom and hugged the two plaintiffs in full view of the jury. In September of the following year, the verdict was thrown out due to Chirlin’s improper instructions to the jury. However, the damage to Kim’s reputation was done.
During the trial, I didn’t work and stayed in LA to attend the proceedings. During that time, Walter Hill, the great screenwriter and director, approached me about a remake of Peckinpah’s The Getaway, which he wanted to direct using his original script. The producer, Larry Gordon, wanted Sharon Stone to play the female lead, if only for the financing she would bring. I asked him if Kim, who desperately needed to go back to work to take her mind off of her troubles, could play the part. Gordon agreed, but only after slashing the budget considerably. With less money on hand to shoot, Walter walked away and Roger Donaldson stepped in.
Quite often, when evaluating actors and their creative choices, the public fails to see them as husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers. Entertainment writers and critics in particular, who are assumed to actually know something about the business, never seem to understand that performers want to alternately stay home or get away from home, to do something heavy and dramatic or something light and fun, to dig into a performance and give everything they’ve got or just pick up a paycheck. With The Getaway, I just wanted to be with Kim. I wanted her to get back on her feet and shake off the effects of the trial. We went off to Arizona and shot all over the state. Beginning in Phoenix, living at the great old Biltmore Hotel, we made our way to Prescott, Jerome, Sedona, and then finished down in Yuma, where on one shooting day the temperature hit 126 degrees.
We brought with us our movie family: hair and makeup, wardrobe and stunts, stand-ins and assistants who formed the personal crew we had assembled over several years of moviemaking. On the first day of shooting, Kim was compelled to sign papers declaring bankruptcy in response to the verdict. However, my overall idea worked, as in the ensuing weeks, she genuinely seemed to relax and enjoy working.
The first thing critics do when you remake a film like Peckinpah’s is to make a negative comparison to the original. Just like with Brando and Streetcar a year earlier, not once did I ever consider I could top Steve McQueen in the movie-star department. McQueen became an icon by perhaps doing less than any film star in history. His acting was so casual that at times it barely registered on-screen. His voice, his line readings, his whole demeanor seemed like he was a few moments away from a siesta. And yet it worked. Stage acting is about doing half a dozen things, all at the same time, and doing them well. Movie stardom is about doing two, maybe three things on camera, but doing them to perfection. Stars like McQueen taught me that sometimes the trick is to do nothing at all.