Robert Davi, legendary actor, movie star, tells us about the deep, seedy underbelly of Hollywood. Spill the beans! In 1977, Robert Davi was working as a waiter in New York City at a place called Fiorello s across the street from Lincoln Center. He was making $175 a month working in a railroad flat on 2nd Avenue.
00:00:12.000Well, I started to allude to a story of when I did the film with Sinatra in 1977, my first film.
00:00:20.000And what it was, was I was working as a waiter in New York City at a place called Fiorello's, which was across the street from Lincoln Center.
00:00:41.000For those that aren't familiar, this basically means that all the rooms are connected to each other in a row.
00:00:45.000So it's like you walk in the living room and there's a bedroom, which is basically a hallway, and then a bedroom, which is basically a hallway, and then maybe a back room.
00:01:06.000I was studying with Stella Adler, great acting coach at her school, taking my voice lessons from Samuel Margulies and Dan Farrow from Juilliard, and working at a fruit and vegetable stand at 110th and Broadway.
00:01:18.00017th and Broadway, 110th and Broadway. Now I got fired from Fiorello's and I was
00:01:25.000making my nut, paying for everything that I had to do, working three days a
00:03:28.000was a very interesting guy in New York City, okay.
00:03:32.000And then Martin Gables and myself and Frank Sinatra.
00:03:36.000So we go, and I'm thinking we're going to go to Patsy's Pizzeria at 117th and Broadway or Patsy's at West 54th Street, two of the great places we would go to.
00:05:53.000And any problem in the world in film, Sidney Korshak could take care of it.
00:05:59.000Any studio would get... The legendary story of the Godfather is when they wanted Al Pacino.
00:06:07.000Francis Ford Coppola wanted Al Pacino to show you who Sidney Korshak was.
00:06:11.000They, uh, Bob Evans, who was the head of Paramount, called a guy named Jim Aubrey, who was called the Smiling Cobra, who I did a TV series for years later, but he was the head of MGM.
00:06:23.000He had to call him up because Pacino was signed to a picture that MGM had.
00:06:26.000They wanted to have Pacino released from this picture.
00:06:29.000So they call him up, Evans calls him up, he says, uh, Jim, I, you got this actor, Al Pacino, I'd like to, Francis Watts, he used him for The Godfather.
00:06:37.000You got him for this little film, but our book is number one in the world, it's like, Your film will be worth much more money if you let him do The Godfather first, then the guy goes F you and hangs up the phone.
00:09:46.000If you break the law, the government is manipulative.
00:09:49.000These guys, so I always felt that, you know, I mean, it's interesting, you know, you don't want to, nobody wants crime and anything else, but there was a certain order, you know, there was a Sicilian, and I'm not denigrating, I mean, there was a code of, there was an actual book written in Sicilian
00:10:06.000Hey, it's Kimberly Fletcher here from Moms4America with some very exciting news.
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00:11:43.000When I filmed in the favelas and I filmed in the Amazon rainforest with the Yanomami Indians, it was the first ecology film with a Finnish film director, Mika Kautismäki.
00:11:52.000And we went to Manaus, Boa Vista, Tepicang, and we're in Manaus, which is where the rubber barons built this huge Hotel Trapical.
00:13:11.000It's very dangerous, but it's a dumb feeling.
00:13:14.000And I experienced that, so I understand it.
00:13:17.000So what happens is, they drive me to a place.
00:13:20.000We're in the little dirt road and trees and jungle and all of a sudden this dirt, this tree thing goes like this.
00:13:27.000It opens up and then there's another long dirt road and we go and now I'm getting a little nervous and then there's a clearing and guys that is watching and we go and I figure okay and they told me yes Mr. Escobar would like to meet you.
00:13:48.000Now, you had heard about me from Beverly Hills because when I did the research, the guy that designed his home in Medellin was a guy that I was researching with.
00:15:16.000He goes, and then we hear, And we put the cars down, we pick up a drink, and we watch the gate of the Passo Finors coming through the house.
00:17:16.000And I had to tell my friend who knew this story, who was a Special Forces guy, another thing, he says, you've got to tell him this story, that you met Escobar.
00:17:23.000And these are the guys that took him out.
00:17:25.000Lauren, I got an idea for you because I've been following Robert around for a couple of days and doing tons of publicity and he has a thousand of these stories.
00:17:33.000I've heard him tell 400 stories over the last three days and I've only heard him repeat himself once.
00:17:42.000We walked into a Nancy O'Dell with a really hot bar and he walks up to the maitre d and he just comes in says two cappuccinos please and it is like there's no cappuccino this is a place where you go for a martini or something like that you're not you're getting a cappuccino here they produce a cappuccino just magically it's like he's got this way with people it's the voice it's the vibe yeah it's the
00:19:05.000Hey guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the First Podcast Network.
00:19:12.000Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the Hill, the this, the that.
00:19:18.000There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented lawfare debilitating and affecting the 2024 presidential election.
00:19:27.000We do all that every single day right here on America on Trial with Josh Hammer.
00:19:31.000Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
00:19:34.000It's America on Trial with Josh Hammer.
00:23:51.000I got the Nickelodeon thing about the kids being abused and stuff like that.
00:23:55.000Yeah, I had not experienced, thank God, any of that.
00:23:59.000It could have been happening behind my back.
00:24:01.000I did experience... You know what bothered me about the Me Too movement a bit?
00:24:07.000And a certain thing, the culture of Hollywood, that in the eighties You could be, and I was never a druggie, I've had family members that had problems but I was never myself, but you could take a date to a club like the Roxbury they had on Sunset Boulevard or another club and you could be there with her and another girl could come over and the girl could say,
00:24:36.000And, you know, for some reason a girl goes, I'll be right back.
00:24:39.000And the girl would go, and you would, the girl would go, there would be somebody that had quaaludes that would be giving, the culture was quaaludes, so when you hear about 20 or 40 years later, he drugged me, he did this to me, he did that to me, all of this other stuff, it's kind of... They knew.
00:24:57.000There was kind of, some of them did, I'm not saying all of them, but it was an absolute thing that was happening there that the drugs and the and and and it's unfortunate and look at I have six
00:28:47.000This is big though, and Tim, I know this comes up in your show a lot because your audience skews younger.
00:28:52.000I feel like people, we're almost exactly the same age, that our age and younger, I don't see anyone who's a big success who didn't take what they wanted, who didn't go out there, carve their own path, didn't take no for an answer.
00:29:19.000I literally can't think of anything I can think of anything in my life that I'm doing that I didn't just take on my own and and of course you got to get people to buy in and believe in you eventually but it's the it does start with why wait let me bring the resume now this is this is my destiny I'm going to see that it is so and I know there are people in the audience who are thinking about that and is just If this conversation gives you that push to go do something you want to do.
00:30:08.000When I was younger, there was a lot of, I don't know what to do, someone's supposed to tell me what to do, and then at a certain point, it wasn't about, someone needs to tell me what to do, I don't know what to do, it was, you're in my way, I'm trying to do something.
00:31:50.000Then after working there, I just decided I'm going to do my own thing with my friends because then we don't got to worry about the middleman.
00:31:57.000And then I ended up moving to LA, went to another non-profit and said, I want to be a director.
00:32:05.000I always tell my friends this, but some people just don't have it.
00:32:08.000It's not trying to be mean to them, but I tell my friends, I'm like, if you really want it, after you get your job, start looking for another job.
00:32:16.000Never stop looking for what it is you want to do.
00:32:19.000Because I was like, you need to understand this.
00:32:47.000A week goes by, I get a little bit, my salary goes up, they give me more things that I'm asking for, and then I'm like, this is good, but I said three things.
00:32:55.000So then a month goes by and I go back and I said, you got me this, you kinda got me that, we're still missing this.
00:33:00.000And they were like, we're gonna work on it, it takes time, I understand.
00:33:04.000And I'm like, and I do too, I know it's business.
00:33:07.000And then finally, once I got poached by ABC News and they offered me substantially more money and everything, I went to them and said, I quit.
00:34:39.000So you get inspired by, who were the best teachers?
00:34:42.000So if you get that preparation, then you have the confidence to say to somebody and look them in the eye, and they know right away.
00:34:49.000I always had a friend tell me, doing the reading is a superpower.
00:34:52.000And it's gotten so bad today that when I apply that, he's like, any show you go on, doesn't matter where, if you just read the article that you've been asked to read by the news program, nine out of ten times you'll blow the other person out of the water that you're debating.
00:35:06.000Because there's a good chance they never even touched it.
00:35:08.000And that's the majority of people today.
00:35:10.000They just won't even read past the headline.
00:35:20.000But the good news is if you listen to a show like this or if you're paying attention to people who've made it and you're following Lauren online or Robert, then you are going to be so far ahead of everyone else because You now have the tools.
00:35:32.000We're giving you guys the answers right now.
00:35:34.000But you do have to deliver the goods, Tim.