Malibu, 1977. Martin Scorsese<\/a>\u2019s mansion is heaving with Hollywood royalty. Brian De Palma<\/a>\u2019s holding court somewhere. Francis Ford Coppola<\/a> is there too. Prowling from room to room is Jack Nicholson<\/a> with that lupine smirk. \u201cI like the setup you boys got here,\u201d he tells Scorsese. \u201cBig speakers for music. A cave for movies and charming the ladies.\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019ve gathered for drinks before heading to a screening of The Last Waltz, Scorsese\u2019s masterful film about The Band<\/a>\u2019s farewell concert in San Francisco. But Coppola, concerned by how undernourished Scorsese and his housemate, The Band<\/a>\u2019s Robbie Robertson, are looking, insists on cooking everyone a proper meal. He hauls a 16mm projector into the kitchen and ingeniously tapes a wooden spoon to one of the reels; his famous Italian sauce will stir itself. Robertson offers to stay behind and watch the pot. <\/p>\n Except, the second the others leave for the film, he slips out to meet his dealer, Jerry. Three-and-a-half grams of pure uncut Colombian cocaine. He lights a cigarette, gets comfortable, loses track of time. Hours pass. When he finally slopes back, Coppola has already returned; a look of thunder is etched across his face. The sauce is spoilt. Robertson discreetly hands Scorsese some coke anyway. \u201cWhen Francis serves up, we show proper appreciation,\u201d Scorsese cautions Robertson. \u201cHe\u2019s deadly serious about his cooking.\u201d So there they sit, jittering, appetites annihilated, forcing down hefty portions of pasta under Coppola\u2019s beady gaze. <\/p>\n This is one of many starry anecdotes coursing through Insomnia, a new posthumous memoir about Robertson\u2019s burgeoning late-Seventies friendship with Scorsese, as it takes root amid a bacchanal. As guitarist and songwriter for The Band, Robertson had helped rewire rock\u2019s DNA, not only as an accomplice in Bob Dylan\u2019<\/a>s great electric apostasy, but also through his own group\u2019s sepia-toned Americana.<\/p>\n His 2016 autobiography, Testimony, a New York Times bestseller, recounted all this with flashes of linguistic brio. It charted Robertson\u2019s journey from an unconventional Toronto childhood \u2013 his mother was part-Mohawk \u2013 through his teenage baptism in Ronnie Hawkins\u2019 rowdy rockabilly outfit The Hawks, up to The Band disbanding, torn apart by addiction and fights over money. It was entertaining, certainly, if a little self-hagiographic, his part in The Band\u2019s rise and fall not so much interrogated as carefully curated.<\/p>\n That same spirited storytelling and low-key self-admiration inform Insomnia. While Robertson narrows his focus this time round, zeroing in on the years surrounding the release of The Last Waltz \u2013 Scorsese\u2019s concert film featuring cameos by pals such as Dylan, Van Morrison<\/a>, Eric Clapton<\/a>, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young<\/a> \u2013 the memoir still positively thrums with humblebrags and namedropping. It was a time when Robertson was becoming more entrenched in the Hollywood community. Having been kicked out by his then-wife Dominique Bourgeois, he\u2019d holed up in Scorsese\u2019s home; the director was himself recently single after an affair with Liza Minnelli<\/a> had ended his marriage to writer Julia Cameron. Together, they became \u201csome kind of whacked-out new version of The Odd Couple\u201d, mainlining coke and classic films; Robertson recalls them watching Orson Welles\u2019 Touch of Evil. \u201cMarty would let out a small \u2018yeah\u2019 or a laugh of appreciation at certain scenes, which pulled me deeper into the whole film experience, almost like seeing it through his eyes,\u201d he writes. \u201cMarty took the time to point out technique in these films.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Blossoming friendship: Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese (Redferns\/Getty)<\/p>\n If The Band\u2019s slow disintegration had left Robertson \u201ctired of feeling like a babysitter\u201d, burdened at the end by having to write all of their songs, he found the creative fillip he craved in his blossoming bromance with Scorsese. In many ways, it was a hugely successful union. For the next four decades, the two friends would collaborate on the soundtracks for a number of Scorsese\u2019s films, including Raging Bull<\/a> (1980), The King of Comedy (1982), Casino (1995), The Departed (2006), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and The Irishman<\/a> (2019). Shortly before his death at the age of 80 in 2023<\/a>, Robertson had completed work on the music for Killers of the Flower Moon<\/a>. <\/p>\n Beyond his very obvious talents as a guitarist and a songwriter, what\u2019s clear in Insomnia is that Robertson had a flair for making friends with the Hollywood elite. Warren Beatty<\/a>, Harvey Keitel<\/a> and Gary Busey all make casual appearances. He has multiple hangouts with Robert De Niro<\/a>, whom he says he \u201cconnected with right away. He had a terrific sense of humour and was obviously dedicated to his craft\u201d. Robertson also details his flings with a number of actresses, including Jennifer O\u2019Neill, Genevi\u00e8ve Bujold and Carole Bouquet. On the latter, describing a naked, heated argument between the two of them, he writes: \u201cShe pushed me and pounded on my bare chest with the sides of her fist. Her face was flushed as tears flew\u2026 I was crazy about Carole, but crazy was the key word.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n The Last Waltz: Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson during The Band\u2019s farewell show (Getty)<\/p>\n While at the Savoy Hotel, Robertson bumps into Jack Nicholson<\/a>, in London shooting The Shining<\/a> with director Stanley Kubrick<\/a>. Nicholson ends up in his suite with a few friends. \u201cJack knew how to get the party started,\u201d Robertson writes. \u201cAfter we passed around a fat spliff, he had us in stitches with stories about Kubrick, who wasn\u2019t exactly known as a barrel of laughs. Jack described shooting what would become the classic scene in the film, where his character, Jack Torrance, having gone completely mad, hacks a hole into a door with an axe to get at his terrified, screaming wife. There was no line in the script for when the character breaks through, but Jack had peered through the hole and ad-libbed the line \u2018Heeere\u2019s Johnny!\u2019\u201d Kubrick, Nicholson informed him, usually objected to actors ad-libbing, and was known for shooting many, many takes to get a scene exactly as his vision demanded. \u201cBut in this case, Jack told us, Kubrick broke up laughing, and said he intended to use the line in the movie.\u201d <\/p>\n There were times in this period, I thought, when Marty and I both felt that all we had was each other<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Robbie Robertson <\/p>\n Robertson casts light, too, on Minnelli and Scorsese\u2019s torrid, drug-fuelled affair, which they had struck up on the set of New York, New York, the director\u2019s disastrous musical. \u201cYou could see why Marty was drawn to her magnetism,\u201d Robertson recalls. Visiting the couple in New York, he found their hotel room \u201csomewhat in disarray\u201d, with Scorsese\u2019s assistant dabbing away at \u201ca stain on the rug\u201d. According to Insomnia, there had been a \u201cspat\u201d, which resulted in a glass of wine being launched \u201cthrough the air and shattering brilliantly on contact with the enormous crystal chandelier, the blood of the grape dripping slowly from the crystals, like a wounded swan\u201d. The couple were immediately over it, \u201claughing helplessly at the Italian opera they had created\u201d. \u201cI dialled room service and ordered a selection of pastries and more red wine,\u201d Robertson recalls. \u201cThe diet of champions.\u201d<\/p>\n Considering all those late-night drug sessions, it\u2019s a small miracle that Scorsese and Robertson ever finished editing The Last Waltz, which was critically acclaimed upon its release in 1978. Robertson\u2019s bandmates were less impressed, though. They felt he had pieced the film together in such a way that they were reduced to his junked-up sidemen. \u201cThey weren\u2019t film people,\u201d Robertson claps back, suggesting they should have been \u201cthrilled to work with someone like Marty\u201d.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n \u2018Mister Hollywood\u2019: Robertson with a young Jodie Foster (Robbie Richardson Estate)<\/p>\n In his own memoir, This Wheel\u2019s on Fire, The Band\u2019s drummer and singer Levon Helm was damning of The Last Waltz. The Arkansas native with the powerhouse vocals feuded with Robertson for years, with Helm adamant that the guitarist had broken up The Band and made off with the songwriting royalties. In Insomnia, alluding to Helm\u2019s heroin habit, Robertson writes: \u201cI was tired of Levon, who was becoming more and more difficult to deal with.\u201d <\/p>\n![\"Blossoming](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-86123951.jpeg\")
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