In his new memoir, Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Oliver Stone reveals behind-the-scenes tales from the gritty drug saga.
I was, overall, grateful to be doing well and back in the business.
I had a job, I was well paid, and I was thirty-five.
Universal Pictures
In my bones, I felt that I’d direct again.
After eight or nine weeks, I sent the first draft ofScarfaceoff to New York.
Marty and Al liked it very much, no question.
Everett Collection
But Sidney Lumet told Marty it was violent and exploitive.
[Producer Martin] Bregman did not agree, and to my chagrin, Sidney withdrew.
Blessedly, Liz was off the coke too and back to a healthy lifestyle.
He injected me with the latest technology, quite confident that Elizabeth and I would succeed.
This possibility raised my spirits enormously.
Meanwhile, Bregman went painstakingly through the script with me, with Pacino separately making incisive suggestions.
It surprised me that Al had never snorted cocaine or known anything about drugs.
According to Marty, he’d had a serious problem with alcohol when younger but was now completely dry.
Yet he had no problem behaving onscreen like the ultimate coke addict.
Al, to my mind, always had one goal the play.
Nothing else seemed to exist.
Marty dismissed my idea as nuts “She’s got a face like a horse!”
If he saw a new face on the set, he’d react.
He was just that way.
Billy Wilder described this sensitivity in recounting how Greta Garbo banned him from Ninotchka for appearing in her sightline.
We also didn’t last long on location.
First, they started the ridiculous rumor that Castro was financing the film.
