by Art Buchwald
I heard from pals in the Marine Corps, some who hadn’t considered me a pal when I was in their outfit. Back then, when they weren’t nice to me I blamed them for not liking Jewish Marines. One tentmate of mine said at the time, “They don’t dislike you because you are Jewish, but because you are an asshole.”
People who had been in my life sent me souvenirs from the times we had been together. They sent me photographs, newspaper clippings, and articles about Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands.
My USC college buddies sent me clippings of my stories in the Daily Trojan newspaper and Wampus magazine.
Me and Picasso
After my media splash, some letter writers relayed memories of eating in a Paris restaurant with me. I had taken them around Les Halles. They remembered sitting with me at Fouquet’s sidewalk café.
One of the most interesting columns I’d written in Paris was one about how silly my mail was getting. To illustrate my point I printed a letter from Harvey Brodsky, a student at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Harvey said he was in love with a girl named Gloria Segall, and he hoped to marry her someday. She claimed to be the greatest living fan of Pablo Picasso.
The couple went to a Picasso exhibit, and to impress her, Harvey told Gloria that he could probably get Picasso’s autograph. Harvey’s letter continued, “Since that incident Gloria and I have stopped seeing each other. I did a stupid thing and she told me she never wanted to see me again. I’m writing to you because I’m not giving up on Gloria. Could you get Picasso’s autograph for me? If you could, I have a feeling Gloria and I could get back together. The futures of two young people depend on it. I know she is miserable without me and I without her. Everything depends on you.” At the end of the letter he said, “I, Harvey Brodsky, do solemnly swear that any item received by me from Art Buchwald (namely, Pablo Picasso’s autograph) will never be sold or given to anyone except Miss Gloria Segall.”
I printed the letter in my column to show how ridiculous my mail was. When it appeared, David Duncan, an American photographer, was with Picasso in Cannes and Duncan translated it for Picasso. Picasso was very moved, and he took out his crayons and drew a beautiful color sketch for Gloria and signed it, “Pour Gloria.”
Duncan called and told me the good news.
I said, “The heck with Gloria Segall, what about me?”
Duncan explained this to Picasso, and in crayons he drew a picture of the two of us together, holding glasses of wine, and wrote on the top, “Pour Art Buchwald.”
By this time the Associated Press had picked up the story, and they followed through on the delivery of the picture to Gloria Segall. When it arrived via special delivery in Philadelphia, Gloria took one look and said, “Harvey and I will always be good friends.”
If you’re wondering how the story ends, Harvey married somebody else, and so did Gloria. The Picasso hangs in Gloria’s living room.
It was a story that caught the imagination of people all over the world. I received a flood of letters after the column was published. My favorite came from an art dealer in New York. “I can find you as many unhappy couples in New York City as you can get Picasso sketches. One girl said she is on the verge of suicide if she doesn’t hear from Picasso, and I know several couples in Greenwich Village who are in the initial stages of divorce. Please wire me how many autographs you can get. We both stand to make a fortune.”
Another letter, from Johnny Kohn in London, said, “My wife threatens to leave me unless I can get her Khrushchev’s autograph. She would like it signed on a Russian sable coat.”
The final chapter of this story takes place in the hospice, where Harvey Brodsky and Gloria showed up for a visit. They hadn’t married each other, but they both maintained that the Gloria Segall Picasso changed their lives.
I know my Picasso has to be worth a lot of money, but my children won’t let me sell it.
Holding Grudges
Another visitor was Pierce O’Donnell, my lawyer during my lawsuit in the 1980s against Paramount Pictures. Back then, I claimed they had stolen my idea for the film Coming to America. Pierce took the case on contingency, and it lasted eight years. Since the film had to do with Eddie Murphy, I became famous—something I obviously have been trying to do all my life.
I was never a screenwriter, but one day in 1977 I had an idea for a movie. I was sitting in the Rose Garden of the White House, where President Carter was entertaining the Shah of Iran. Outside the gates, thousands of Iranian students with paper bags on their heads protested the Shah’s visit to the United States. The students made such an uproar that the police fired tear gas at them. The tear gas blew into the Rose Garden and both President Carter and the Shah started to cry.
I watched the scene, and the premise for a movie hit me. Suppose a ruling prince came to Washington, D.C., on a state visit and was overthrown back home by his brother-in-law with the help of the CIA.
All the prince’s bank accounts are frozen, he is tossed out of the White House, and he winds up in the ghetto, where he sees life as it really is.
I wrote a treatment and sent it to my friend Alain Bernheim, who was a Hollywood producer. Alain sent it to Paramount as an idea for Eddie Murphy. The studio took an option for a year and the contract read that if they made the movie, Alain and I would get 25 percent of the net profits.
Just before the option ran out, Paramount said it was not interested in the project and returned it to us, saying it wasn’t right for Eddie Murphy. Then we brought the treatment to Twentieth Century–Fox. While they were reading it, Paramount announced it was making a movie about an African prince who comes to America, starring Eddie Murphy.
Obviously, Twentieth was no longer interested in our project. When Coming to America was finally released, I saw it on Martha’s Vineyard. When it was over, I called my partner Alain and said, “Let’s sue.”
The major studios had been screwing people for years and someone had to have the guts to take them on. When the lawsuit was announced it became a daily front-page story. Eddie was a superstar and Paramount was not going to allow bad press to disturb him. Besides, Eddie Murphy put his name on the picture as the sole writer of the story.
Marty Davis, then the president of Paramount Pictures, whom I knew, took our suit personally. Marty was known as the King of Chutzpah. While the suit was on, one of his aides called me and said, “Marty is being honored at the Waldorf next month as a great writer and he wants you to be the speaker.”
I said, “For Christ’s sakes, doesn’t he know I’m suing him?”
The aide said, “Marty says one thing has nothing to do with the other.”
As the suit progressed, the press wrote that I was David and Paramount was Goliath. I rather saw myself as Rocky. Every time I walked down Rodeo Drive I expected music to come up and the screenwriters to cheer.
That was the good part.
What I didn’t know at the time is the lengths to which lawyers will go to win a case. They will try to destroy you as a writer and a person. They will dig up personal facts to make you look like a serial killer.
Once the judge in my case decided that I wrote the original idea, Paramount said I stole it from Charlie Chaplin’s King of New York. The accusation went around the world on the wire services. When Judge Schneider ruled the next day that I hadn’t stolen the idea, the truth hardly received a mention.
The case went on for eight years. We won in court after four years of trial and then Judge Schneider ruled we were entitled to net, and then the penalty phase stretched on for four more.
We assumed our net was at least ten million dollars, but Paramount maintained that although Coming to America at that point had made $250 million ($600 million to this day), the picture had lost money. There was no net.
The studio had written off every turkey they made that year as well as rent, heat, hot water, bonuses for executives, and private planes. As Larry Gelbart, the creator of the M*A*S*H TV series, told me, “There is no net when you are en
titled to net.”
The judge said we had to get something.
Paramount said it would appeal. Four years later, Frank Biondi, then head of Paramount, decided to settle rather than appeal. Alain and I received $900,000 to divide between us.
Everyone at Paramount told us the suit was business, but to this day I consider it personal. Everyone who has to deal with lawyers takes it personally. By this time I hope you know how I feel about lawyers. I still dream up different ways to kill them. Because I lived in France, the death that gives me the most pleasure is seeing the entire Paramount legal team waiting their turn to be guillotined.
As I’ve mentioned, the beauty of the hospice and all the attention I have received from the press and television is that everyone knows where to find me. I received one call from a gentleman who said his name was Harvey and he was calling to wish me well and hoped I was not in pain.
I thanked him and then said, “Who are you?”
He said, “Harvey Schneider. I was the judge in your Coming to America suit against Paramount.”
And I said, “Oh, I’m so glad to hear from you. Is there any more money there?”
He laughed and said, “I’ll reread the transcript.”
The Academy
Russell Baker, the New York Times columnist emeritus, also came to visit, and we had much to share. His column in the Times was funny, witty, and erudite. All the things I hated him for. We used to meet for lunch to discuss how bad the world was. Baker was far more downbeat than I. He felt the world would end tomorrow. I gave it about three days.
One day we were eating lunch at the Sans Souci, a power restaurant near the White House. (Now a McDonald’s.)
Baker and I lunched there several times a week, but one day when he paid the check he complained that we had no reason to continue having lunch. All we were doing was hoping to steal column ideas from each other. “Besides, you are not much fun to eat with,” he said.
“And neither are you,” I retorted. “We have to find a new reason to lunch. What if we founded a luncheon club like they have at Princeton?”
Baker said, “It doesn’t have enough prestige. Why not an academy?”
“How about the Academy of Humor Columnists?”
Baker countered, “The American Academy of Humor Columnists. We don’t want anyone to think we are communists.”
“We should have swords like the French Academy, and a secret handshake.”
“The first order of business is the initiation fee.”
“Who should we ask to join?” I asked.
“Calvin Trillin?”
“Art Hoppe of the San Francisco Chronicle. He has always wanted to break into the East Coast Establishment.”
We decided we needed a token African American. “What about Don Ross, who writes a humor column for that Oklahoma paper? If he can’t afford to pay the dues we’ll get him a grant from the Ford Foundation.”
“Do we have to have a woman?”
“Why not Erma Bombeck?” I suggested. “She is very funny and makes three times as much money as we do.”
We kept adding candidates: Jerry Nachman of the Daily News, Andy Rooney, Garry Trudeau, and Dave Barry, who was a snotty kid since he kept stealing newspaper clients from us.
It was a very productive lunch, and as soon as we got back to our respective offices we sent out letters to those on our list announcing they were elected and asking them to make out their tax-deductible initiation checks to the Academy.
To make sure they opened the letters, we printed on the envelope “You Have Just Won Five Million Dollars”—an idea we stole from the Reader’s Digest.
The columnists wrote back they were flattered to be nominated to the Academy, and of course the check was in the mail.
Responses followed from Baker and me in letters to members. We wrote Erma she had to sweep the clubhouse floor and make sure the spittoons were polished every morning.
We wrote Don Ross and told him he wasn’t very funny and he had to stick to his “Roots.”
Baker dispatched a letter to Andy Rooney telling him he had been made a member of the Academy, but since he had reached the mandatory retirement age of sixty-five he had to resign.
For two years the letters went back and forth, each member putting more effort into the correspondence than they put into their columns.
One of the more famous exchanges had to do with a fruitcake. Russ Baker sent me a fruitcake he had received for Christmas. He said he had lost three teeth trying to bite into it. He wanted me to have it as a token of our friendship.
I didn’t know what to do with it, but I remembered that Erma Bombeck was building a new house and decided the fruitcake would be perfect as a brick for the fireplace. I sent it to her. Instead of accepting it, Erma mailed it back to Russ with a Black & Decker drill so he could get the raisins out of his teeth.
Erma is no longer with us. Russ is retired and does volunteer work on Masterpiece Theater. Don Ross went into Oklahoma politics, and Dave Barry turns out a book every other week.
Calvin Trillin works for The New Yorker, the only magazine that will have him. Andy Rooney is still on 60 Minutes telling us why he hates milk cartons.
Garry Trudeau is still irreverent about the administration, which makes him a traitor or a left-wing liberal or both.
The Academy no longer exists. It went bankrupt after Russ and I started cooking the books.
Since it really didn’t exist except in our minds, a funny thing happened when we went to the mailbox. Robert Yoakum, who had a column servicing two or three papers, demanded we make him a member. He was serious and kept sending us letters and having friends intervene for him. It got so bad Baker said, “Let’s make Yoakum the main reason for the Academy—to keep Yoakum out.”
The Gang
The usual suspects who come to visit me are George Stevens, Jr., Jack Valenti, Ben Bradlee, and Joe Califano, otherwise known as “the gang.” The girlfriends include Ethel Kennedy, Bonnie Nelson Schwartz, Kathy Kemper, Sue Bailey, Diane Machan, and Linda Mortenson. Since I have only one leg I can flirt with them and they aren’t afraid to flirt back. It is a wonderful game.
Jack Valenti has stopped by many times. I first met Jack when he was President Johnson’s special assistant in the White House. We got to be pals in 1964 when he asked me to work on Johnson’s first Gridiron speech. Jack, Bill Moyers, and I worked on it as a comedy team and we leaned on some writers from Hollywood. It took us two or three weeks to get the speech in shape. The night of the dinner, Johnson listened to several skits about himself. He didn’t laugh much. The writing team and I were all waiting for him to go on to deliver the speech we had crafted. Finally he got up and he said, “Thank you for this wonderful dinner.” And he sat down. We couldn’t believe it. Two weeks later I was at a reception at Abe Fortas’s house and Abe introduced me to the president. Johnson grabbed my hand in both of his and said, “Art, I’ll never be able to thank you enough for the wonderful job you did on my Gridiron speech.”
Jack went on to be the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, where he claimed he never saw a film he didn’t like.
Another of my frequent visitors, George Stevens, Jr., produces the Kennedy Center Honors programs. He booked me to be the first stand-up commentator for the show in 1978. My monologue, addressed to Jimmy Carter, had to do with how the Kennedy Center was built:
Mr. President, since you have only lived in Washington for a couple of years, I am sure you cannot fully appreciate what it means for the rest of us to devote an entire evening in this town to culture.
To understand the importance of this evening, Mr. President, you have to imagine what the cultural scene was like in Washington before there was a Kennedy Center. On this very site, only a few years ago, there were buffalo as far as the eye could see. Up on Capitol Hill there were nothing but saloons filled with hard-drinking politicians and free-spending South Koreans. There was no place a respectable person could take his family for a cup of cof
fee or a glass of Amaretto.
But into this vast cultural wasteland came a man named Roger Stevens, who had made a personal fortune in real estate, selling the Brooklyn Bridge to the Chase Manhattan Bank. One night Roger had a dream. He dreamt he could build a cultural center on the banks of the Potomac River for forty million dollars—but he overslept. And by the time he woke up it was seventy million dollars. So Roger went to the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose powerful chairman told him, “Boy, if you want a cultural center for Washington, D.C., you’re going to have to build it in Mississippi.”
Roger was about to give up on his idea when a lobbyist told him, “You’re not going to get any money by telling Congress you want to build a cultural center. If you say you want to build a missile site they’ll buy it in a minute.”
“You mean with these architectural plans?” Roger said.
“Sure. Your blueprints call for a roof that opens at the top, and that’s exactly what a missile site needs.”
So Roger went back to the Senate and said, “I changed my mind. Instead of a cultural center, I want to build a missile site to protect the Watergate from a sneak attack.”
“Now you’re talking, boy,” the chairman said. “How much do you need?”
“Twenty million dollars,” Roger said.
“Take sixty, and keep the change.”
Mr. President, be grateful for small favors. If it weren’t for men like Roger Stevens, you would now be sitting in Lafayette Park on a cold, wet wooden bench listening to a high school band playing “Hail to the Redskins.” It may not be my place to say, sir, but culturally speaking, you came to the right place at the right time.
When I was doing well in the hospice, George accused me of pulling a scam, and said I was just in it for the money.