Preminger, seated at his huge palette-shaped desk of white marble in the lavishly furnished projection room on the uppermost floor of his Eastside town house, admits that he sank over $2 million of his own money into the picture when his signed backers failed to come through. "Everybody in Europe lies about money," says Preminger in his deep, German accented voice. "I originally wanted to sue them, but suing doesn't make sense unless you are sure they have money. So I inquired from my Swiss lawyer, and they didn't have money in Switzerland. You see, in Switzerland, the advantage of the Swiss law is that is you sue somebody, all his assets are frozen immediately. … Luckily enough, I had two houses that I wanted to sell in the south of France. … At least I own the whole film. The question is now only: Will the picture be a big success as I hope, or not? That is always the main thing."
The nattily dressed Preminger, a tall, large man whose distinguished features and totally bald head give the opposite impression of his slow movement and somewhat frail appearance, revealed that the film's African scenes had to be shot in Kenya rather than South Africa "because they said they must see what I am shooting, and if they don't like it, they will confiscate it. They said, 'People in bed you can't shoot.' Then I went to Kenya, where there is a black government, and they didn't even ask for the script. They said I could have anything I want."
Asked whether any memorable events took place during the filming, Preminger snaps, "Even if there were, I don't remember. After I have made a picture and I have seen it maybe two, three times with an audience, I deliberately detach myself, because I don't want it to influence my next picture. As a matter of fact, a few months ago, my wife was dressing to go out, and I turned on the television and saw one of my old pictures. I recognized it, but we had to leave before it was finished. I still don't know how it ends."
As for Preminger's love life, he writes in his autobiography: "I have a reputation with women which is not entirely deserved, though it is true that I had my share of them, some of them stars."
In 1944 he had a three-week love affair with Gypsy Rose Lee that resulted in the birth of his son Erik Lee Preminger. The boy didn't find out the identity of his real father until the age of 18. They were reunited four years later, and liked each other immediately. Preminger legally adopted Erik, who is currently in Los Angeles writing a biography of his late mother.
Preminger and his third wife, a former costume designer named Hope Bryce, to whom he has been married since 1959, are the parents of 19 year-old twins, Victoria and Mark. An Upper Eastsider for two decades, Preminger includes among his favorite restaurants Caravelle, Le Cirque and 21, where agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar once broke a glass over his head that took 51 stitches to close.
An unabashed admirer of luxury, Preminger remains unruffled when questioned about how his fancy Eastside pad is in line with the philosophy stated in his autobiography that "my real reward is my work itself. Success matters only because without it, one cannot continue to work."
"I could live without it," he says with a shrug. "I like to give my family luxuries, but I could easily live in one furnished room and be also happy."
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WESTSIDER CHARLES RANGEL
Congressman of the 19th District