We drove back through the passes, the storm closing in behind us.
Armand was on the phone the entire way. He called every hotel in the city but could not find a room, so he called the president, got him out of bed. "We need help," said Armand. "We don't know where we're going." A palace was found in the middle of the city. It was filled with diplomats. It was completely packed, but no problem. The president kicked everyone out, ambassadors and diplomats were awakened in the dead of night and told to pack. I saw them in the halls, one shoe on, shirtsleeves hanging out of suitcases. I was given a suite of rooms on a high floor. I could see distant blue mountains over the red rooftops of the city. My living room was a ballroom, the bathroom was bigger than my house in LA. It was a fairy tale.
The next day, at the opening ceremonies, we sat with the president. It was like every other trip I'd taken with Hammer: going to be going, big wheels and diplomats, sleeping through banquets and toasts. We attended the opening ceremonies of the Games, went to some of the contests. Well, I assume we did. I don't really remember. With Armand, the event was always less interesting than the show. He wanted to be in the action, to see and be seen. He made a study of human drama-it was his life's work. He was fascinated by everyone, high and low. He wanted to find out everything. He had a special interest in charisma and power, in great men, the special few who worked their will on history. Hammer participated, but he also observed. In this, he exhibited a kind of active detachment. He was in the game but removed from the game, playing and watching himself play. He made a spectacle of himself but enjoyed watching that spectacle. He did that his entire life, until he was sick and old.
He died of bone cancer. It was very painful, but it was not the pain that bothered him. It was being stuck in a hospital bed, removed from the game. Look at this joint! This ain't where the action is! But I did not agree. To me, Hammer was the action. He carried his own gravity-the definition of a great man. He died in 1990. When I think of him now, it is not the sick man I see but the immeasurably pleased man at the funeral in Moscow, grinning in pictures standing next to a casket. "What are you smiling for? Did you forget? Your friend died." But maybe Armand had it right. As long as you're here, you might as well smile.
The Peanut Farmer
People think that Hollywood and politics operate in different spheres-they don't. The world is very small at the top, with a few thousand players running everything. For a producer, an actor, a banker, a politician-name your celebrity-crossing genres is less a matter of making connections with the leaders of other industries than of climbing high enough in your own to reach the place where all lines converge. As I said, people describe me as a Republican powerbroker, a right-winger in the land of liberals, but that's not true. I am, in fact, a person who values friendship over politics, and I happen to have a lot of friends, which means I happen to have a lot of politics. As Hammer was friendly with both Lenin and Reagan, I am friendly with both Clooney and Bush.
If you were a Jew in New York when I grew up, you were a Democrat. Franklin Roosevelt was like a great-uncle to us, a benign presence who towered over everything. By watching him, you learned about power and prestige. He taught you that politics is more than conventions and elections, more than smoky backrooms. It's the neighborhood. It's life. It was Roosevelt who led the country through the Depression. It was Roosevelt who took on the Nazis. When he was riding high, we were all riding high. When he was licked, we were all licked. I consider Franklin Roosevelt the ideal leader, the president against whom all others are measured.
Of course, all of this was in the background; it was the world of adults. Politics did not become real to me until the late fifties, and then only because of a particular incident. I was working as a record plugger, traveling the Midwest and South to promote artists. Going into a radio station in Omaha, Nebraska, I bumped into a young man coming out. This was John Kennedy, then a freshman senator. (You can say I crashed into politics.) We fell into conversation in the way of northeasterners happening upon each other far from home, and formed an instant bond. He had finished his interview and was at a loose end. So he waited for me. We went around the corner and sat down for coffee. I fell in love with him. It took sixty seconds. The charisma came off him like shimmers come off a hot road. We had a picture taken together, standing side by side in the sun. I was added to the list of people who could be contacted, counted on. I later worked for him in the presidential election, making calls, getting out the vote. I was an advance man.
From Kennedy I learned that the best politicians are not different from movie stars. They charm, communicate, command. The good ones never make you feel isolated or small, as if they have something you don't. Quite the opposite. They include you in their world, enlarge you, make you recognize the best qualities in yourself. I saw this most powerfully with Ronald Reagan. George Bush had taken me to the Alfalfa dinner in Washington. At one point, I realized that everyone in the room had been on the cover of Time magazine. Secretaries of state, presidents, vice presidents. But when Reagan came in, everything stopped, everyone stared, then they rushed to him like moths to a flame. Whatever moment he was in became his moment. Whatever room he entered became his room. Some people have that. It's the intangible quality that sells tickets and pulls nations out of funks. It's where politics becomes showbiz, and show-biz becomes transcendent. A movie or piece of art can save your life in the same way your life can be saved by a policy or law. This is why politicians seek out movie stars, and why movie stars want to become politicians. They seek the same target, which is the soul of the people.
I've worked for many public figures over the years, for mayors and congressmen, and selectmen who wanted to become mayors. I've given money and advice, hosted fund-raisers and campaigned. Contributing money and resources is my honor and responsibility as a citizen of the greatest nation on earth. (I am, for example, very proud of my work with Not On Our Watch, which battles genocide in Darfur, and which was founded by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, and myself.)
The most liberal politician I've ever worked for was probably Jimmy Carter. He sought me out, reaching me through a friend. This was 1974, even before he won the Democratic presidential nomination. He was just a peanut farmer from Georgia, a nobody really, just a governor, a long shot. I could give you a big, mumbo-jumbo reason why I did not want to support him, but the simple fact is, I did not think he would win. I bet horses that figure to finish in the money. As Dino said, "Don't be a sucker." But Lew Wasserman loved Carter. Just loved the guy. Honest. True. Integrity. All that. He called me and said, "Listen, Jerry, Jimmy Carter is going to be president of the United States. I want you to meet him."
I fought, resisted, dragged my feet. I finally agreed to do a little work for the campaign, just to get Lew off my back, and hosted a ten-thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner for Carter. Carter and I were supposed to meet at the Century Plaza Hotel in West Hollywood for lunch, where we would really talk. But I broke the date at the last minute. I told his people I had pinched a nerve in my neck, and it was simply too painful for me to leave the house. Well, a few months go by and what happens? The peanut farmer is elected president. I get a call. President-elect Carter wants you to meet him in Plains, Georgia. I took my son and daughter along-he was a little kid; she was a newborn. We landed on a strip about thirty miles from the Carter farm. I stared out the window as we drove. We went through endless rows of green crops streaming past the window. We finally get to Plains. The Carters were doing that southern hospitality thing. Yes ma'am and no sir and lemonade and whatnot-the kindness that can kill you. My children were taken into the yard to play, and a secret service agent brought me in to see Carter. As I was walking in, Cyrus Vance-the next secretary of state-was walking out.