Robert Evans was known to self-mythologize—but then again, who could be surprised that the movie mogul behind towering classics like The Godfather, Chinatown, and Harold and Maude liked to use a little creative license? 

Embellishments or not, Evans was a larger-than-life figure who became one of the youngest studio heads in Hollywood history and backed some of the greatest films ever made, shaping the culture and championing the artists who made it what it was. He was even wilder behind the scenes, palling around with movie stars, getting wrapped up in the cocaine craze, and running into trouble with the law—reaching unimaginable heights and sinking into unbelievable lows, only to climb back to the top once more.

Evans, who died in 2019, is now being remembered anew in The Offer, a glossy Paramount+ series about the bumpy making of The Godfather. He’s cheekily portrayed by Matthew Goode, whose slick impression of the young power player is a bright spot in a surprisingly tame series. Though the show does its best to cram in stories from Evans’s life here and there, it can’t get ’em all. For those craving more, here’s a crash course on just a few of the wildest moments from Evans’s blockbuster life. 

“The kid stays in the picture!”

Even cursory fans of Hollywood lore know the aforementioned phrase, which became the title of Evans’s memoir. But the story behind it is an all-timer. 

Before becoming a producer, Evans was a working actor with little onscreen experience despite his auspicious start in film. (While lounging at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, he’d been spotted by movie star Norma Shearer, who then had him cast as her late husband, movie mogul Irving Thalberg.) He had been tapped to play a matador in the adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and trained for three months to prep for the role. Still, he failed to impress either the film’s stars, Ava Gardner and Tyrone Power, or Hemingway himself. The author and actors demanded that producer Darryl F. Zanuck fire Evans—but Zanuck held his ground. “The kid stays in the picture, and anybody who doesn’t like it can quit!” he declared. The kid stayed, and Evans’s life changed forever. 

“When Zanuck said that, I wanted to be him, not me,” Evans later told The New York Times. “I wanted to be the guy who makes the decisions, not the guy who has the decisions made for him.” He switched from acting to producing, and the rest is history.

Losing Ali MacGraw to Steve McQueen

Evans married seven times over the course of his life, but his most well-known relationship was with Ali MacGraw, with whom he had his first and only child. At the time they got married, Evans was running Paramount and MacGraw was already on her way to becoming a well-known actor. But her star burned a lot brighter after Evans had her cast in the 1970 romantic drama Love Story (as breezily depicted in The Offer). The film was a critical and box office hit, a much-needed windfall after Paramount had suffered a string of flops. 

Soon after, Evans got to work producing The Godfather, and urged MacGraw to take the lead role in The Getaway, costarring big shot Steve McQueen. He thought the part would help broaden her acting range. MacGraw initially didn’t want to take the role, but eventually, she said yes. 

Almost immediately after production began, MacGraw and McQueen began having an affair, which soon became a major tabloid story. Evans was distraught, acknowledging years later that MacGraw had been unhappy in the marriage. “Ali warned me, ‘I’m a hot lady. Never leave me for more than two weeks,’” he told the New York Post in 1998. MacGraw and Evans eventually divorced, with MacGraw marrying McQueen not longer after. (They, too, divorced in 1978.) The affair, along with the fact that The Getaway was a critical flop, torched MacGraw’s reputation, though Evans later spoke sweetly and supportively of his ex-wife.  “If I had it to do over,” Evans told the Post, “I’d still be with Ali.” They remained good friends until his death. 

A feud with Robert Redford

By 1974, Evans was a major power player riding high off the success of both Godfather films. He was overseeing an adaptation of The Great Gatsby, starring Robert Redford in the titular role. One of the stipulations of starring in the production, Evans said, was that Redford had to come to the film’s New York premiere. But Redford apparently didn’t like the final cut of the film, and decided to skip the red-carpet event. At the time, it was reported that he was at home in Utah. Yet Evans claimed Redford was not only in New York, but that the star had literally walked past the premiere in a pair of jeans and gone to a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden.