:40:00
- Sure. It's fabulous.
- I know...
:40:02
We'll talk about your
expecting today on Dinah's Place.
:40:06
I'd have to say no two people
in the entire world...
:40:09
...were happier than Ali and myself.
:40:11
We had to pinch ourselves each day
to believe all this was happening to us.
:40:15
We had our Joshua,
we had ourselves.
:40:18
Ali and Jackie Kennedy were considered the
two most admired women in America.
:40:23
And me?
I'm sure the luckiest motherfucker.
:40:36
For the first time since I became head
of the studio, I finally had some job security.
:40:41
Now it's garbage.
:40:43
We had put together a string of hits,
including Rosemary's Baby...
:40:47
...Harold and Maude, The Odd Couple,
True Grit and Love Story.
:40:52
In 1970, we finally
reached the mountaintop.
:40:56
That air smelled
mighty good up there.
:40:58
Of all the major studios,
Paramount was now in first place.
:41:02
It's hard to believe that, just four
years earlier, we were in ninth.
:41:05
It was the beginning of the Golden Era.
:41:10
Over the next four years,
we would collect 144 Oscar nominations...
:41:15
...stay number one, and go through a streak
of hits that, to this day, is unprecedented.
:41:26
If I had to pick our crowning jewel...
:41:29
...I'd say it was a 30-page treatment to
a novel called Mafia, written by Mario Puzo.
:41:35
In turning treatment into novel, Mario asked
if he could change the name to Godfather.
:41:40
"Sure, why not?"
I never thought he would finish it anyway.
:41:44
Well, he finished it.
It became the biggest book of the decade.
:41:47
And there I was, holding the Hope diamond.
Euphoria? Wrong.
:41:52
Paramount didn't wanna make the film.
"Sicilian mobster films don't play."
:41:56
That's what these
distribution guys had to say.
:41:59
And when you bat zero,
don't make another sucker bet.