When Redford and Levinson eventually discussed a collaboration in early 1983, one moment became especially large: Redford's decision to suit up as The Natural with Levinson behind the camera. Based on Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel, The Natural features Redford as Roy Hobbs, a 35-year-old rookie blessed with such prodigious power that his slow motion home runs set off explosions or symphonies.
It didn't take long for Levinson, 42, to realize that The Natural would be a whole new ball game on the Hollywood hardball circuit. First, the $20 million film was the showcase venture of Tri-Star Productions (co-owned by Columbia, CBS and HBO). Second, Redford, at 46, was returning to the screen—for a reported $3 million—for the first time since Brubaker in 1980. Third, Levinson would be directing not only Redford, who had won an Oscar for his rookie directorial effort, 1980's Ordinary People, but also Robert Duvall, this year's Oscar winner. After a day or so of stomach flutters, Levinson "got past all that and got down to work."
The film's 1939 period images—exquisitely textured by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel—required just the right floppy gloves, scratchy wool uniforms, cleats, caps and 1939-style baseballs with now obsolete red and black stitching. Even Levinson's fussy search for the perfect period batboy—chubby, innocent, wide-eyed—"drove casting crazy," he says. "We finally found the kid [George Wilkosz] working at his parents' produce stand in Buffalo. They were from Gdansk."
Filmed in War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, the baseball sequences were complex. Redford would often swing 40 times and more for just the right trajectory and camera angle on a pop up or home run. Producer Mark Johnson recalls, "We would need Bob to strike out and the extras in the bleachers would go crazy as he'd step to the plate. He'd fan and they'd groan. They had no idea what we were doing."
Even actors out-of-uniform had trouble with the piecemeal shoot. Says co-star Glenn Close: "I had no idea sometimes what was going on. Barry obviously had it all in his head. It was a monster picture to make."
Levinson invited Redford's involvement from script changes to watching dailies and editing, but he says there was no struggle for control. "I wasn't there to act out stars' wishes," he says. "But you don't want to become such an egomaniac that no one else is included. That's not me. Bob left it to me to decide when to leave a scene." Redford concurs, "If I had wanted to direct this film, I'd have directed it. I wanted just to act and to work with Barry, not to complicate the film."
The son of a Baltimore discount appliances and carpet salesman, Levinson is an Oriole fan. ("I have hated the Yankees forever.") He recalls his bewilderment at 14 when an older cousin tore down the jock magazine covers from his bedroom wall and replaced them with a Playmate. "I said, 'Eddie, what are you doing? Mantle hit .356. What did she do?' " he laughs. "A year later my pictures came down too."
Struggling with a C average, Levinson spent seven years not graduating from American University in Washington. "I kept taking courses, and they kept telling me I needed a language requirement. Finally I just got out." He worked at local D.C. TV stations, operating hand puppets "from inside this little hut on shows like Ranger Hal and Dr. Fox. My parents were going crazy."
He wrote and directed promo spots for his TV station, then split for L.A. in the late '60s. Writing for Carol Burnett's show led him to his first script jobs—1976's Silent Movie, with Mel Brooks, then 1978's High Anxiety. He met actress Valerie Curtin (cousin of Jane) at the Comedy Store and as a writing team they churned out the scripts for Inside Moves, And Justice for All, Best Friends, Unfaithfully Yours and the unproduced Toys. Best Friends, starring Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn, recounted scenes from the three-year Levinson-Curtin marriage, which ended amicably in 1982.
Since the split, Levinson has lived by the ocean in Malibu. For two years he has shared his "nondescript 1940s California" home with Diana Mona, 32, a former teacher, who now works for an L.A. production company. The two met when she brought her daughter, Michelle, now 11, to audition for a flower girl bit in Diner's wedding scene.
A warm, buoyantly humorous man, Levinson is hardly in the L.A. party starting lineup. "There are no parties in L.A.," he says wryly. "Everything is business, it's all always on the line and intertwined. I'd love to just go to a party where somebody has a lampshade on his head. I'm not a good mixer."
He is, however, a fiercely disciplined and speedy writer. Though he loves his soothing ocean vista, he calls himself "the most uncranky writer I know. The view could just as well be a brick wall. In the end it's nothing but you and a piece of paper." He cranked out Diner, for instance, in three weeks.
Levinson hopes The Natural's success will "raise my stature. It's a big jump in a radically different direction for me." The Natural may also enable him to wind up Toys for the big screen. That quirky comedy remains his one strikeout in the majors. If it flies now, he will achieve something beyond even the supernatural prowess of a Roy Hobbs: He will boost his Hollywood batting average to a perfect 1.000.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
