"Robert Altman: the oral biography" by Mitchell Zuckoff

Robert Altman: the oral biography
by Mitchell Zuckoff
Alfred A. Knopf 560 pgs.

Robert Altman will always be the patron saint of "serious" Hollywood actors. Name-above-the-title types would work for scale(1) to bathe in the fragrant pool of eau-de-genius. In reality, some folks found the experience less than ideal. To a screenwriter, Altman may have been the Antichrist. He saw a script as more of a suggestion, a jumping-off point that was a necessary evil used to lure the money changers to the table.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend ..." Overheard in Hollywood restaurant by someone who now works in a video store.

Altman's legend was of a shrewd guy shaping a career outside the bounds of Hollywood influence, creating largely improvised films. He made it all up as he went along, in a free-for-all collaboration between a paternal, weed-loving director and a reliable stock company of hot starlets and craggy-faced guys.

And, um, Huey Lewis's wiener.

This book doesn't contradict the idea of an almost wholly actor-centric director. But the tale told by some Altman vets (notably "Seinfeld's" chrome-domed nemesis, Bob Balaban and "Laugh In" poet, Henry Gibson)- reveals a less hagiographic take on the well-trod legend. Altman gave competent actors the freedom to add whatever they could bring to the set. Sometimes that meant doing whatever the hell you felt like and sometimes that meant keeping things closer to what was on the page.

In either case, Altman ran a pretty freewheeling enterprise. For all his anti-Hollywood stance, Altman basically partied like a rock star for most of his career, occasionally reigning things in to look good for the money men in the suits. Mercurial, moody and sometimes -inexplicably and inappropriately- mean, Altman's career is pockmarked by burned bridges and failed projects that left him scrambling for cash as his bankability oscillated wildly in the years between the career-launching "M*A*S*H" and his final work on the film version of "The Prairie Home Companion."

Somewhere in mid-career Altman helmed "Popeye", a decidedly left-field choice for a potential blockbuster film. After "Superman: The Movie" studios scrambled to jump on the comic-book movie bandwagon. Hence, someone thought a quirky, melancholy comic-strip smelled like a blockbuster. At the time, "Popeye" was whispered to be a colossal financial disaster, but it was actually a fairly successful film. Still, it was something of a personal calamity for Altman who had "troubled artist" tattooed across his head forever after. "Popeye" may be worthy of its own book. Robin Williams, in full-on spazz mode, with giant latex arms, on a sprawling set built in Malta. Malta? Only God and Robert Altman can explain why, but the most likely reason was because it was a remote island and not exactly accessible to those pesky MBA/spreadsheet guys.

Altman's failures were almost as colorful as his signature films. When Hollywood closed the door on him, he wasn't above shooting a Nixon film with a bunch of college kids enlisted in the name of some kind of wacky artist-in-residence sojourn. He took a failed off-Broadway play and shot it almost verbatim with 16mm cameras and very little money. Altman typically painted himself as a Hollywood outsider, but he rarely eschewed the yachts and high-living and was not above moves like stunt-casting Lindsay Lohan alongside Meryl Streep. Or giving his kid a crew job, and billing the studio considerably more then he paid him and pocketing the difference. Altman's diamond-to-shit ratio is pretty decent. The gems in his oeuvre are some of the most enjoyable films ever made and while the turds can be amazingly bad, they are still interesting in a W.T.F? manner.

Altman and most of his friends and family(2) cooperated in putting this book together. Which would seem to be a bit of a no-no as far as objectivity. To his grand credit, if the author pulled any punches, it's hard to imagine what was left out. It's a "warts and all" biography.

(1) "Scale" refers to the minimum pay dictated by the Screen Actor's Guild, the dominant union for proto-socialist, fellow-travelers like Tim Robbins (and his ilk.) As of this writing that means about $1000-$4000 usd per week. Which ain't exactly chicken feed. By comparison, a union carpenter can make $700-$1000 usd per week, depending where he is located.

(2) Conspicuously absent is Faye Dunaway. Who -it is strongly hinted- had an affair with the director that almost trashed his marriage.