Trivia / The Cotton Club

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $58 million. Box office, $25,928,721.
• Career Resurrection: His role in the film boosted Fred Gwynne away from the typecasting of The Munsters and into many character roles in film.
• The Cast Showoff: Richard Gere played his own cornet solos.
• Money, Dear Boy: This was one of the many films Francis Ford Coppola made to pay his debts from One from the Heart.
• Real-Life Relative: The tap-dancing Williams brothers Delbert and Clay are played by real-life tap-dancing brothers Gregory Hines and Maurice Hines
• Those Two Actors: This is the first of three films in which Richard Gere and Diane Lane starred together (and as a couple at that), followed by Unfaithful and Nights in Rodanthe.
• Troubled Production: The film suffered an epic one, including, in the most horrifying case of Life Imitates Art for a movie about gangsters, the gangland-style execution of a would-be backer (which lead to the murder case to be dubbed "The Cotton Club Murder"), and a budget-skyrocketing war of egos between producer Robert Evans and director Francis Ford Coppola, both of whose careers were already in trouble from other box office disappointments:
  • Former Paramount studio chief Robert Evans (who was a nemesis of Coppola during filming of The Godfather) had the idea of producing and directing a film about the 1930s Harlem speakeasy in 1980, but struggled to spark interest among backers in Mario Puzo's script (early donors included Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, whose money Evans had to return after rejecting his suggested script changes). Through Miami drug dealer Lanie Jacobs, he was introduced to New York vaudeville promoter Roy Radin, who offered to help raise the necessary funds. However, Jacobs expected a share of the profits and a production credit for her efforts, which Radin refused. In June 1983, Radin's bullet-riddled corpse was found in the desert outside Los Angeles, and Jacobs was later convicted of ordering his murder and sentenced to life without parole. Though suspicions also fell on Evans, his involvement was never proven. In his memoir The Kid Stays In the Picture, Evans says that experience made the early years of the '80s, in which he was arrested for trying to smuggle a large quantity of cocaine into the country and required to organize antidrug events with the big stars he knew as community service, the "good half" of the 1980s for him.
  • Radin's murder alone would render The Cotton Club a troubled production, but as efforts to tweak the script continued to founder, Evans brought in his former foe Francis Ford Coppola to work on the script, and ultimately gave him the reins of director. Coppola, already reeling from the troubled productions and financial failures of Rumble Fish and One from the Heart, saw the film as an opportunity to get his career as a director back on track, just as Evans hoped to do the same for his career as a producer following the troubled productions of Popeye and Urban Cowboy. This inevitably set the stage for an epic battle of egos between the old enemies, who had drastically different creative visions for the story, characters, and visuals of the film.
  • Enticed by a script by Mario Puzo and the promise of funding from Las Vegas casino-owning brothers Edward and Fred Doumani, Paramount offered Evans the talents of Richard Gere as leading man and access to their studio facilities along with further production funds. However, determined to re-establish his reputation as a major player in Hollywood, Evans turned down the latter offer in favour of the services of Orion Pictures - who were in the business of marketing and distributing films rather than producing them, meaning that Evans would need to raise more production money and find a studio in which to shoot the film, causing further delays and adding to the already bloated budget.
  • Upon being appointed director, Coppola added to the budgetary woes by firing the film crew Evans had assembled en masse (in some cases requiring large payoffs) and hiring his own crew members, including a music arranger who commuted via Concorde between the shoot in New York and a regular engagement in Switzerland. His quasi-improvisational approach to directing the actors meant the script was in a constant state of flux, and actors would frequently spend all day on set without shooting a single frame of film. There were frequent clashes between Coppola and Gere, who insisted on showing off his (modest) skills on the cornet in the film, and seemed more concerned about possible damage to his reputation than about the film itself.
  • Filming finished in March 1984 with a final budget of $47 million (nearly three times initial estimates), and the battle between Evans and Coppola continued during post-production. A lawsuit filed by Evans against Coppola, the Doumani brothers, and Orion resulted in Evans being given a flat fee and a producer credit, but yielding complete creative control over the film to Coppola. The film was released in December 1984, and although Siskel & Ebert both named it one of the year's ten best films, most critics were more muted in their enthusiasm, and its final domestic gross was just $25.9 million. Although Evans and Coppola continued to produce and/or direct films, their careers as major players in Hollywood were over.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Mario Puzo was the original screenwriter before being eventually replaced by William Kennedy and Francis Ford Coppola. Puzo eventually shared a "Story By" credit with Kennedy and Coppola.
  • Besides being the film's producer, Robert Evans also wanted to direct. He hired Kennedy and Coppola to re-write Mario Puzo's story and screenplay. Evans eventually decided that he did not want to direct the film and asked Coppola to direct at the last minute. Coppola for his part claimed that he had letters from the film's art director Richard Sylbert that ask him to work on the film because Evans was crazy.
  • Sylvester Stallone was the original choice for the lead, but backed out angrily when he found out producer Robert Evans was having an affair with his then girlfriend. Al Pacino was also offered the role, but turned it down, feeling it was too similar to The Godfather (this was before Coppola was brought in to direct). Matt Dillon and Harrison Ford were also considered.
  • The role of Vera Cicero was originally assigned to Brooke Shields. However, she turned down the offer in order to study French Literature at Princeton University.
  • Sigourney Weaver turned down the role of Lila Rose Oliver.
  • Richard Pryor was considered for the role of Sandman Williams, but the budget could not accommodate his salary.
  • Robert Evans wanted to cast his friend Alain Delon in the role Lucky Luciano but this did not eventuate. The role of Luciano was instead portrayed by former Warhol Superstar Joe Dallesandro.

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