Robin Williams’ ‘Popeye’ Set Was Full of Cocaine: Everyone Was Stoned

Barry Diller‘s book tour for his recently published memoir “Who Knew” hit New York City’s 92Y, the place moderator Anderson Cooper requested Diller throughout a Q&A to disclose “the most coked-up film set” he ever visited throughout his tenure because the CEO of Paramount Pictures. The former studio govt had the reply virtually instantly: Robert Altman’s “Popeye” (1980).

“Coked-up film set? Oh, ‘Popeye,’” Diller answered (by way of Entertainment Weekly). “By the way, you can watch it. If you watch ‘Popeye,’ you’re watching a movie that — you think of it in the thing that they used to do about record speeds, 33 [RPM], whatever. This is a movie that runs at 78 RPM and 33 speed.”

Diller served as the pinnacle of Paramount Pictures from 1974 till 1984. His illustrious tenure on the studio included the releases of hit motion pictures similar to “Saturday Night Fever,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Grease” and “Beverly Hills Cop,” amongst different classics. But it’s Altman’s “Popeye” that earns the excellence of getting probably the most “coked-up film set.”

“You couldn’t escape it,” Diller mentioned in regards to the drug use on the film’s set. “They were actually shipping in film cans at the time. Film cans would be sent back to L.A. for daily processing film. This was shot in Malta. And we found out that the film cans were actually being used to ship cocaine back and forth to this set. Everyone was stoned.”

Robin Williams starred because the title character in “Popeye,” which marked the comic’s first big-screen appearing function after making a reputation for himself on hit tv collection “Happy Days” and its spinoff “Mork & Mindy.” The movie co-starred Altman common Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl. The film was a field workplace success with $60 million worldwide (unadjusted for inflation), practically double its manufacturing finances. Reviews, nonetheless, have been combined.

Variety wrote in its authentic “Popeye” assessment: “It is more than faint praise to say that ‘Popeye’ is far, far better than it might have been, considering the treacherous challenge it presented. But avoiding disaster is not necessarily the same as success. To the eye, Robin Williams is terrifically transposed into the squinting sailor with the bulging arms. But to the ear, his mutterings are not always comprehensible.”