by Gus Russo
By coincidence, Bluhdorn was enamored of all things Hollywood, especially starlets, so Davis had little trouble in convincing the titan to buy the company outright. Adding to the attractiveness of the deal was Paramount's vast real estate holdings, which Davis predicted would only skyrocket in value. In 1966, Paramount consisted of a 31.8-acre back lot with nineteen soundstages, and the 10.2-acre Sunset Studio. However, Bluhdorn was unable to complete the purchase of Paramount on his own—he needed to gain the approval for the buyout from Paramount's executives and board members. Enter Sid Korshak.
G&W corporate attorney and Wall Street whiz Ed Weisl Sr., a graduate of the University of Chicago, who was chairman of the executive committee of the Paramount board, brought in networking mastermind Sid Korshak (whom he had originally introduced to Bluhdorn) to make the necessary introductions and arrange informal sit-downs as only he could. Since MCA founder Jules Stein sat on Paramount's board, and Korshak and Weisl were both close to Lew Wasserman, the group was soon seen with Bluhdorn at Korshak's Bistro table discussing the possible takeover of Paramount by G&W.56 On October 19, 1966, Paramount Pictures Corporation finally became a subsidiary of Gulf St Western, purchased for $125 million, with Bluhdorn replacing its aging chairman, Adolph Zukor.* Through Paramount, Bluhdorn also owned Paramount TV Enterprises, which was responsible for Star Trek, Mannix, and Mission: Impossible.
Within the Paramount executive suites it was impossible to be neutral about Bluhdorn; one either was devoted to or feared him. One production executive said of Bluhdorn, "He was a thug, a terrible person, an absolutely unmitigated awful human being." Film director Don Simpson called Bluhdorn "a mean, despicable, unethical, evil man who lived too long. He had no problem breaking the law. He was a criminal." Even Frank Yablans, Bluhdorn's head of distribution, remarked, "Charlie was a very sinister, Machiavellian kind of guy."57
By all accounts, Bluhdorn relished his new role as a movie mogul. As Paramount historian Bernard F. Dick wrote, "There was a special kind of power that comes from owning a studio: the power over those who create mass entertainment."58 Bluhdorn, however, was struck from the Howard Hughes mold, more interested in visiting sets and getting set up with the starlets. An executive at the studio said, "Bluhdorn bought Paramount 'cause he figured it was an easy way to get laid."39 Thus, Bluhdorn began casting about for someone to actually micromanage the studio's production. Enter Sid Korshak's sybaritic young protege Bob Evans.
Since their meeting in the fifties, Korshak and Evans had practically become each other's surrogate father and son. Evans was a regular at Korshak's parties, prompting Hollywood insider Dominick Dunne to observe, "Bob wasn't such an asshole in those days. He was hot stuff, and Sidney adored him, absolutely adored him."60
Since his acting career was going nowhere, the permanently suntanned Evans had been buying up literary rights, hoping to become the next Darryl E Zanuck. At the prodding of his consigliere, Sid Korshak, Evans retained the legal services of Sid's friend Greg Bautzer, who was able to secure the wannabe mogul a three-picture producing deal at Fox.61 Little did he realize that he would soon be at the helm of a major studio, thanks to Korshak's and Bautzer's intercession with Charlie Bluhdorn.
As Evans told it, soon after a flattering profile of him by Peter Bart appeared in the New York Times, he received a call from Bautzer, who said, "Pack your bags, Bob. We're going to New York."
"I've got plans, Greg," answered Evans.
"Break 'em," ordered Bautzer. "Charlie Bluhdorn, who just bought Paramount, wants to meet you. He read that article about you in Sunday's NewYork Times."62
Bluhdorn offered Evans a job in Europe to get his feet wet, then quickly promoted him to studio production chief, answerable only to Bluhdorn and Paramount president Martin Davis. Of course, most inside players in Hollywood merely assumed that Korshak had brought his boy to Bautzer and then to Bluhdorn. The Riviera's Ed Becker is among those who are certain that Korshak even went so far as to approve Evans's appointment with "the boys" in Chicago.
Greg Bautzer's former wife, actress Dana Wynter, recently spoke of her memories of the Evans recruitment: "Bob Evans used to hang around, and I never understood why Greg had faith in him and why Evans thought that he knew what he was doing. One day I said to Greg, 'What do you bother with him for? He's a lightweight.' I told him, 'Greg, I met him and his brother when I first hit New York and they were tailors, making such lightweight stuff.' I said I didn't like Robert Evans, but Greg got him the job." Wynter firmly disputed Evans's version that he was hired after Bluhdorn read Bart's Times piece: "Don't you believe it. Greg forced him on Bluhdorn, who was just starstruck. After Greg got him that job, I remember the whole town was falling down laughing."63
Steve Blauner, the producer of Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, was among those doing the giggling. "What a joke," Blauner said. "I figured he was fucking Bluhdorn or something."64 The New York Times referred to Evans's hiring as "Bluhdorn's Folly," while the slightly less refined Hollywood rag Hollywood Close-Up called it "Bluhdorn's Blowjob." Of course, much of the outrage was explained by the staggering jealousy that pervades the business. In 1969, Life magazine summarized the feeling that was endemic in Tinseltown: "Robert Evans is an outrage. He has no more right to be where he is than a burglar. He has no credentials, none of the requirements for membership. Robert Evans has never produced a film, doesn't know about movies, and so why should he be a boss of Paramount with control over 25 pictures a year, costing $100 million, influencing the cultural intake of millions of Americans? He is entirely too good-looking, too rich, too young, too lucky and too damned charming. The playboy peacock of Paramount. Who the hell does he think he is? If there's anything Hollywood wants out of Robert Evans, it's to see him fail."65
Bluhdorn lavished Evans with the gift of Greta Garbo's former sixteen-room manse in Beverly Hills, which included an egg-shaped pool, a barrier made of one-hundred-foot-tall eucalyptus trees and thousands of red-rose bushes. Evans named it Woodland. To cut costs, Evans moved Paramount's executive offices to 202 N. Canon Drive, just steps away from Korshak's Bistro. According to one Bistro employee, he even took an apartment above the restaurant.
Evans brought in Peter Bart as his production assistant, worked long hours, began gearing the studio toward a younger market, and surprised almost everyone when he began to turn the company around. Within two years, Paramount was back on top, producing hits such as The Odd Couple,Rosemary's Baby, and True Grit. Over the next few years, Evans's lordship over Paramount would yield still more negotiating adventures for his mentor, Sid Korshak.
As controversial as the Evans appointment was, it paled in comparison to Bluhdorn's next G&W enlistment. In 1968, a shady New Jersey real estate investor named Philip Levin sold his huge block of stock in MGM Studios and invested the $22 million nest egg in G&W, where Bluhdorn promptly appointed him head of the company's new real estate division, Transnation. Soon thereafter, Sid Korshak, who was by now "house counsel" to G&cW, personally arranged a $16 million Teamsters Pension Fund loan to Levin's Transnation for a construction project at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. For his effort, Korshak received a $150,000 finder's fee.66 But Bluhdorn's decision to bring in Levin also marked the first in a series of corporate moves that opened up G&W as a conduit for both U.S. and Sicilian Mafia operations.
At this point in his career, Sidney Korshak's big-name clients numbered well over one hundred, an amazing list, considering that Korshak was still practically a one-man operation, with no secretary and no office. Interestingly, Korshak's success in the corporate world was not without the occasional ugly reference to his heritage. One Korshak colleague who preferred not to be named recently spoke of what he witnessed: "Some of the companies resented having to use him because they were anti-Semitic, and there was always that taint of the gangsters, so they said, 'We'll use him if we have to use him. But we don't want to mingle with him too much.' Sid was aware of it—that some people didn't like him or trust him, but he only ming
led with the kindred types like Wasserman."
A Partia l List of Korshak Clients
Desert Inn
Fremont Hotel
Riviera Hotel
Sahara Hotel
Stardust Hotel
La Concha Motel
Echo Products (CT)
Englander Corp.
Robert Hall Quality Clothes
Goldblatt Brothers Department Stores
Chicago Hotel Association
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
United Steel Workers Union
Restaurant Workers and Bartenders Union
Minnesota Mining 6c Manufacturing (3M)
Max Factor Cosmetics
General Dynamics
Commonwealth United
Kinney Company
National Video (Ralph Stolkin-owned)
The Grocery Owners Association
Thoroughbred Racing Association
Gulf & Western
Madison Square Garden
Jim Beam Whiskey of Kentucky (the Kovler family)
Schenley Industries
Bohemian Distributing Company
Seeburg Jukeboxes
Duncan Parking Meters
Los Angeles Dodgers
New York Knicks and Rangers
Atlanta Braves (Coleman, director)
San Diego Chargers
Diners Club
National General
Hyatt Hotels
Hilton Hotels
Parvin-Dohrmann
O'Hare International Airport
Playboy Magazine
Del Mar Racetrack
Hollywood Park Racetrack
Arlington Park Racetrack
Santa Anita Racetrack
Washington Park
Universal Pictures
MCA
Paramount Pictures
Warner Brothers-Seven Arts
Rapid American
White Front Stores (CA)
Although assumed to be grossly understated, since Korshak did so much business in cash and trade, his IRS reported income for the period was as follows:
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
$ 547,121
$ 620,385
$ 647,591
$ 621,108
$ 1,328,144
West Coast Teamsters leader Andy Anderson was among those who knew that these amounts were just the tip of the Korshak iceberg. "By February of each year, he told me he'd have more than one million dollars in retainers, already paid up," Anderson said. He also picked up on one Korshak financial peculiarity: "Sidney always used new money, usually hundred-dollar bills, fresh from the bank, so the money from the boys couldn't be traced to him."67
Sidney closed out a good year by attending another in a series of galas honoring his brother. On December 20, 1967, new city treasurer Marshall Korshak, chairman of the State of Israel Bonds, was named its Man of the Year. In the first three years of his chairmanship, the organization raised $21 million, and although Israel was his main charitable interest, Marshall donated to literally dozens of other organizations*
Jake Arvey, Richard Daley, Marshall and Edith Korshak, and R. Sargent Shriver, at Korshak's naming as 1967 Israel Bond Man of the Year (Chicago Tribune)
In 1968, Sidney performed a favor for another celebrity friend—actor Warren Beatty—that was reminiscent of his assist for comedian Alan King. At the time, Beatty had joined the anti-Vietnam War chorus that was at a fever pitch after the June 5, 1968, assassination of antiwar presidential candidate Senator Robert Kennedy. All indications pointed to the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago at the end of August as a potential climactic confrontation with the pro-war party delegates. Beatty wanted to attend the showdown, but was unable to secure a room in the city's long-sold-out hotels. It was well-known in Los Angeles that Sid Korshak not only had pull with numerous hotel chains like Pritzker's Hyatt and Kirkeby's Hilton hotels, but that his influence with Chicago hoteliers, through the Chicago Hotel Association, was unparalleled.
"I called Sidney," said Beatty, and he asked, "Can you find me a room?"
"Where would you like to stay, Warren?" asked Korshak "The Ambassador East would be nice—but, really, anywhere."
"How many suites would you like?"
"A room, Sidney—I really don't need a suite. A room would be great."
Three minutes later, the phone rang. "You have three suites at the Ambassador East," said the Fixer,68
Jan Golding Amory tells another Korshak-Beatty war story that occurred after her divorce from Seeburg's Del Coleman. The incident took place at Manhattan's swank La Grenouille restaurant. Amory, then in her midtwen-ties, was dining with friends when she noticed Sid Korshak waving her over to his (the best) table, where she joined him for lunch. Korshak introduced her to his disheveled, unshaven dining companion.
"Jan Golding, Warren Beatty," said Korshak. According to Amory, sometime during midlunch, Beatty just blurted to Amory out of left field, "Do you want to fuck?" With that, Korshak burst into laughter.
"No, thank you very much, but, no," answered an agape Amory.69
As Jan Golding Amory soon learned, Beatty's indelicate pass was part and parcel of the world in which these men lived. She also knew that Sid Korshak had his own reputation in the womanizing department, a propensity greatly facilitated by his great access to the armies of aspiring actresses and dancers in Hollywood and Las Vegas.
*The Douglases first purchased property in Palm Springs in the late fifties. Property records show that the home was actually owned by Kirk's production arm, Brynaprod, which according to the FBI was "organized under the laws of Switzerland."
*In 1968, Leavitt was sent to Las Vegas to head the drive to organize the casino dealers. During the organizing drive, Leavitt was in constant contact with Sidney Korshak, who, acting as labor consultant for the Sahara, Desert Inn, and Silver Slipper, gave Leavitt advice on how to thwart the elections. In fact, the union lost the certification vote at all three hotels. Shortly thereafter, Leavitt purchased a large ranch in San Diego County. According to a source, the money came from the payoff to Leavitt to throw the election. (Peter F. Vaira and Douglas P. Roller, Attorneys in Charge, Cleveland Strike Force, 1978 Report for the Carter White House)
*The hotel has long been a popular spot for assignations of all sorts. It was later immortalized in the movie Pretty Woman as the hotel where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts had their suite. The hotel was also a favorite of Jimi Hendrix's, who wrote some of his most famous lyrics there.
*According to Bistro owner Kurt Niklas, the Kitchen Cabinet met in private in the upstairs Terrace Room.
†Although the state was exploding with a half million new residents per year, Brown managed the budget skillfully. Among his accomplishments: he built the state's freeway system and aqueducts that brought water to the San Joaquin Valley and L.A.; he came up with California's master plan for education and funded the UC, Cal State, and community college systems so well that there was a place there for every high school graduate; and he shepherded the state's first antismog legislation through the legislature.
*The FBI appealed the case in five courts, all of which ruled against it. The futile stonewalling cost the Bureau $1.9 million in legal fees and processing costs. The ultimate release is believed to be among the largest single FOIA releases in U.S. history.
*Caesars later expanded to twenty-five hundred rooms and featured Romanesque fountains; the eight-hundred-seat Circus Maximus Theatre, patterned after the Roman Colosseum; numerous marble and concrete-over-chicken-wire replicas of classic Roman sculptures, frescoes, and murals; and an Olympic-size pool formed out of eight thousand pieces of Italian marble.
^In the most infamous underworld conclave ever held, some eighty national bosses met in Apalachin, New York, on November 14, 1957.
*Some Kennedy assassination writers have inferred that Korshak's sole purpose in complaining t
o the source was to prevent Reid from promulgating an alleged threat against President Kennedy made by Marcello in September 1962, which Becker had witnessed and gave to Reid for his book. However, although that may have been the source's intent, there is no evidence that Korshak was worried about any one of his associates (e.g., Marcello) more than another, or that he even knew that the Kennedy allegation was in the manuscript. AH of the available evidence indicates that Korshak was infuriated by Becker's alleged blackmailing of Korshak's friends, and by the possibility that his own name might surface in the Reid book.
*G&W's takeover of Paramount was parodied in Mel Brooks's 1976 film, Silent Movie, in which the voracious conglomerate "Engulf & Devour" attempted to buy out Brooks's "Big Pictures" studio.
*He also raised funds for the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Joint Negro Appeal, St. Jude's League, United Negro College Fund, United Settlement Fund, Chicago Youth Centers, United Cerebral Palsy, Roosevelt University, and Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. His tax records show an average of $3,000 per year donated and divided among over fifty charities.
*The convention did not disappoint the prognosticators. On August 29, five thousand protesters in Grant Park, located across the street from Kirkeby's Hilton Hotel, where many of the delegates were staying, were met by a primed Chicago PD; over a thousand activists were treated for injuries, the result of tear gas, Mace, clubbings, and beatings by Chicago's Finest. At a press conference after the convention, Mayor Richard Daley presaged the verbal eloquence of George W. Bush when he explained, "The policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder."