It emerged that Pellicano’s clients included top agent Michael Ovitz, former manager and Paramount Pictures chief Brad Grey, Hollywood lawyer Bertram Fields and Die Hard director John McTiernan. Targets of Pellicano’s work were, among others, Sylvester Stallone and Garry Shandling, best known as TV’s Larry Sanders.
Grey had hired Pellicano to investigate Shandling, his former client, after Shandling sued him for $100 million for unpaid royalties, while Busch had written a great deal about Ovitz and believed, but never confirmed, that he was behind Pellicano’s intimidation of her. Often employed by lawyers, Pellicano’s role was to dig up dirt to discredit someone who’d brought a lawsuit. His team included a former LA police sergeant, a computer expert and a former telephone company technician.
Pellicano was found guilty of racketeering, computer fraud and wire-tapping. But the full stories of his wire-tapping are still unknown.
Pellicano’s clients claimed that they’d been unaware he was using illegal methods, and in court the private detective pleaded the Fifth Amendment rather than incriminate himself, and possibly others. In 2008, he was found guilty of 76 criminal charges, including racketeering, computer fraud and wire-tapping. The full stories of his wire-tapping are still not known.
Whose Idea is it Anyway?
In 1982, Washington Post humourist Art Buchwald sold a comedy idea about an African potentate visiting America to Paramount. Buchwald imagined it as a vehicle for Eddie Murphy, who, at that point, was still only a stand-up comedian. After a few scripts were commissioned based on Buchwald’s idea, nothing came of it, however, which is usual in Hollywood – 80 per cent of scripts not being made into movies.
In 1986, Buchwald’s idea was re-optioned, this time by Warner Bros., but before a movie could be made of it, Paramount announced Eddie Murphy’s next film – Coming to America – the story of an African prince’s experiences in New York. It seemed to Buchwald that this was his idea, but Murphy was credited as the author of the film’s story. It’s quite likely that Murphy was the sole author of the story – there are scores of ideas and scripts received by studios every day and some are bound to be similar. And the head of production at Paramount who’d optioned Buchwald’s idea was no longer at the studio when Coming to America was commissioned.
CRUISE CONTROL
WHEN TOM CRUISE fired his publicist Pat Kingsley in 2004, his well-controlled public presence that Kingsley had handled for 14 years began to wobble. Oddest of all was his appearance the following year on the Oprah Winfrey Show when he jumped up and down on the sofa, announcing his new love for Katie Holmes.
So, what had Cruise lost in parting with Kingsley? As stars became more powerful in the 1980s and 1990s, Kingsley and others took control back from the media. She limited the number of interviews that stars gave and would approve the journalists first – Rolling Stone magazine once having 14 journalists rejected before one was approved to interview Cruise. Also, journalists wouldn’t be given access to a big star of Kingsley’s before they’d written fawning articles about a couple of her less well-known clients. All of which is why, today, celebrity interviews risk being little more than froth.
The media, however, can fight back. When Kingsley wouldn’t agree to Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman being interviewed together about their film Eyes Wide Shut on the Today show, the TV producers refused to have any of Kingsley’s other clients on the programme either. And, although interviews may be more rigorously controlled now, celebrity magazines and websites, relying on catty comments, paparazzi photographs and revealing quotes from unnamed insiders, have emerged to fill in the juicier elements about the stars’ private lives.
Buchwald, however, brought a suit that Paramount had stolen his idea, and he won. By this point, the movie had made $288 million at the box office, so how much would Buchwald receive for his contribution to the hit? Nothing. According to Paramount, they’d spent so much making and marketing the movie that it hadn’t yet turned a net profit.
Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ: journalist Art Buchwald successfully sued Paramount Pictures over the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America, which he believed was based on an idea he’d earlier offered the studio.
Rather than be forced to reveal their accounting system, the studio settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Hundreds of millions at the box office and still no profit? Yes, but rather than be forced to reveal their accounting system after Buchwald threatened to launch an appeal, the studio settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
‘Every movie I have been involved with that was a big hit had people suing the studio saying it was their idea,’ said Coming to America’s director John Landis, who also made Animal House, The Blues Brothers and Trading Places. ‘On Animal House, there were four lawsuits and Universal just settled them, as that was cheaper than fighting and even prevailing.’ As a consequence, studios, these days, won’t even read a script they haven’t requested.
To turn a box-office hit into what the accountants claim is a financial loss, the studios inflate the costs of making, marketing and distributing their movies.
Creative Accounting
That hit movies like Coming to America don’t show a profit is by no means unusual in Hollywood. Rain Man (1988), Batman (1989) and Return of the Jedi (1983) – which made $475 million on a $32 million budget and was once the 15th highest-grossing film of all time – all failed to show a profit many years after they’d been released. Fewer than five per cent of Hollywood films actually show a profit and most certainly do lose money. But the Lord of the Rings trilogy took $6 billion at the box office, so when the studio claimed that it had yet to turn a profit, lawsuits were brought by the Tolkien estate and actors who’d agreed to their likenesses being used for merchandise. Even low-budget hits such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) can end up showing a loss according to Hollywood’s accounting practices.
How does Hollywood get away with this? It seems, to turn a box-office hit into what the accountants claim is a financial loss, the studios inflate the costs of making, marketing and distributing their movies. Stars, producers and directors avoid the pitfalls of this by taking money from gross, not net, profits. That way, they receive their share before the money disappears into the studio’s accountancy system. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks both received 16.75 per cent of the gross box office from Saving Private Ryan. But that money – $30 million each – was then added as a cost to the film’s budget. The other people who worked on the movie and expected net profits were now a further $60 million away from receiving it.
Although Coming to America took $288 million at the box office, the studio initially claimed that there were no profits. This is common practice in Hollywood. It is known as creative accounting.
Hollywood’s Ending?
So, after a century of Hollywood, what shape is the industry in today? On average, two-thirds of Americans went to the cinema each week in 1947. Now it’s less than 10 per cent. Of course, people are also watching films on DVD or online – in fact, the revenue from home video became a vital part of the movie industry. And television, which for years was regarded as the poor cousin to cinema, is now more like the parent to the movies’ teenager. While television offers longer-form, more mature drama series, such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, the kids, or the child in all of us, can have fun with the crash, bang and wallop of superhero franchises on the big screen.
Every summer, blockbusters boast digital effects that supersede those of the previous years’ movies. As long as they can keep out-doing each other, they will probably remain popular. But the danger is that they may return the cinema to the fairground attraction where it originated, offering quick visual tricks but lacking much in coherent drama.
Each summer, blockbusters boast digital effects that supersede those of the previous years’ movies.
It’s in animation that digital technology is most interesting. The wit and sophisticated story-telling of films such as Toy Story and Shrek have reviv
ed Hollywood animation and it’s likely that similar films will maintain a hold on cinema-going as a family event. Interestingly, the names of the producers, writers and directors of world-famous animated films are barely known outside Hollywood. And, although animated films use some stars as voice artists, it’s the movie that remains the star.
The Tolkien estate, in a not unusual move, had to bring lawsuits against New Line Cinema when it claimed that the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which had taken $6 billion at the box office, hadn’t yet shown a profit.
And what of online piracy? Will the resultant loss in revenue change Hollywood? Some argue that online piracy is free publicity, spreading the word without the cost of an advertising campaign. While that may be true to some extent, if it doesn’t translate into people paying to see the films, the studios will have to redo their numbers.
Recognize these two? Some of today’s most successful film-makers are barely known to the public. Pete Docter (left) and Rex Grignon (right) are animators whose credits include Toy Story and Shrek.
Some argue that online piracy is free publicity, but if it doesn’t translate into people paying to see the films, the studios will have to redo their numbers.
Will big budget films become a thing of the past, leading to stars having their fees cut? And in years to come, will we marvel at the locations, crowds, sets, stars and special effects offered by films from the first century of cinema in the way we look at medieval cathedrals or ornate 1920s cinemas? And wonder how anyone could afford to make them?
The Lumières threw shadows on a wall, taking moving pictures from Edison’s solitary slot-machine viewer and creating cinema as a communal experience. But with the increase in watching films online, we are turning full circle to pictures as Edison imagined them – a single viewer able to pause and repeat whenever he wishes. Perhaps that’s the way cinema will develop, with more movies watched alone online, and just a few spectacles enjoyed en masse in an auditorium.
Hollywood has, at times, been corrupt, spineless and sordid. It has covered up crimes, sex scandals and murder. For every film-maker and actor who enjoyed a wonderful career, there were others who suffered thwarted lives, frustrated ambition and failure. Not every Tinseltown story has a Hollywood ending. But that’s reality. And when the lights go down, the rest is movies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anger, Kenneth. Hollywood Babylon. New York: Delta, 1975.
Bart, Peter & Guber, Peter. Shoot Out: Surviving Fame and (Mis)Fortune in Hollywood. London: Faber, 2003.
Borkowski, Mark. The Fame Formula: How Hollywood’s Fixers, Fakers and Star Makers Created the Celebrity Industry. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2008.
Brady, Frank. Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990.
Crowe, Cameron. Conversations with Wilder. London: Faber, 1999.
Davis, Ronald L. The Glamour Factory, Inside Hollywood’s Big Studio System. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1993.
Eliot, Marc. Cary Grant: A Biography. London: Aurum, 2005.
Fleming, Charles. High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess. New York: Doubleday, 1998.
Flynn, Errol. My Wicked, Wicked Ways. (New edition) London: Aurum, 2005.
Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. London: Abacus, 1996.
McGilligan, Patrick. Nicholas Ray. New York: Harper Collins, 2011.
Norman, Barry. Talking Pictures. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1987.
Puttnam, David and Watson, Neil. The Undeclared War: The Struggle for Control of the World’s Film Industry. London: Harper Collins, 1997.
Spoto, Donald. Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies. London: Arrow, 2009.
Sylvester, Christopher. (ed.) The Grove Book of Hollywood. New York: Viking, 1998.
Taraborrelli, J. Randy. The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2009.
Thompson, Douglas. The Dark Heart of Hollywood: Glamour, Guns and Gambling – Inside the Mafia’s Global Empire. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2013.
Thomson, David. The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. London: Little, Brown, 2005.
Urwand, Ben. The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Webb, Michael. (ed.) Hollywood: Legend and Reality. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1986.
PICTURE CREDITS
Alamy: 8 (Photo 12), 22 (Pictorial Press), 42 (Everett Collection), 53 (Photo 12), 68 (Interfoto), 75 (Photo 12), 80 (AF Archive), 85 (Everett Collection), 86 (Everett Collection), 92 (Everett Collection), 124 (Pictorial Press), 127 (Pictorial Press), 147 (A.F. Archive), 153 (A.F. Archive), 170 (Mug Shot), 180 (Marka)
Corbis: 6 (Jose Fusta Raga), 28 (Underwood & Underwood), 39 (Sunset Boulevard), 54 (John Springer Collection), 60 (Hulton), 63 (John Springer Collection), 67 (Hulton), 98 (Classicstock/Charles Phelps Cushing), 128 (Hulton), 140 (Hulton), 150 (Screen Productions/Photononstop), 161 (Reuters), 168 (Corbis Entertainment), 169 (Retna/John Stevens), 177 (Sunset Boulevard), 178 (Sunset Boulevard), 181 (Cat’s Collection), 196 (Reuters), 199 (Sygma/Sophie Bassouls), 201 (Zuma/Kathy Huchins), 205 (Reuters), 213 (Sunset Boulevard), 214 (EPA/Olivier Hoslet), 216 (Katherine Karnow)
Corbis/Bettmann: 7, 12, 19, 29, 32, 36, 40, 47, 49, 51, 52, 57, 59, 65, 70, 71, 74, 77, 79, 87, 91, 93, 95, 103, 104, 109, 110, 112, 114, 115, 116, 118, 123, 125, 126, 136, 137, 146, 148, 149, 152, 154, 163, 164, 165, 171, 179, 182, 183, 189, 192, 212
Getty: 9 (Time & Life/J.R. Eyerman), 58 (Hulton), 64 (Hulton), 83 (Time & Life/J.R. Eyerman), 90 (Time & Life/George Lacks), 97 (Time & Life/Francis Miller), 120 (Time & Life/Ike Vern), 176 (Hulton), 194 (Hulton)
Ronald Grant Archive: 1, 2, 5, 10, 17, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 33, 41, 43, 45, 48, 50, 55, 56, 61, 73, 82, 84, 89, 96, 101, 102, 105, 106, 108, 117, 119, 122, 130, 131, 132, 135, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 155, 156, 157, 158, 162, 166, 174, 175, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 197, 198, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 217, 218, 219
Kobal Collection: 78
Library of Congress: 11, 13, 15, 16, 34, 88
Media History Digital Library: 18, 35
Photoshot: 172 (Richard B. Levine)
Press Association: 134 (Mark J. Terrill)
Public Domain: 113
INDEX
References to illustrations are shown in italics
A
Academy Awards 52, 52, 83, 183, 183, 214
adultery, in films 160
ageism 196, 198, 200
alcohol, prohibition 32, 37
Allen, Woody 101, 167, 169, 169
Anderson, Pamela 168, 168
animation 218
Another Time, Another Place 124, 124
Anti-Nazi League 86, 88
anti-Semitism 71
Apartment, The 160
Apocalypse Now 183, 185
Arbuckle, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ 32, 33, 35–8, 36
Astaire, Fred 206
awards, Oscars 52, 83, 183, 183, 214
Axelrod, George 150
B
Bacall, Lauren 95
Bach, Steven 208
Baena, Mildred Patricia 172–3, 175
Baker, Diane 154, 154
Ball, Lucille 73
Balshofer, Fred J. 20
Barker, Lex 122
Barrymore, Drew 191, 191–2, 195
Bart, Peter 131, 159
Basic Instinct 181
Baxter, Anne 147, 147, 198
Beatty, Warren 137, 138–9
Begelman, David 212, 212
Bergman, Ingrid 62, 146, 147–8, 156, 156
Berkeley, Busby 75, 75
Bern, Paul 62, 65, 66
Bernstein, Leonard 100
Bernstein, Walter 100
Berry, Halle 174, 175
Bessolo, Helen 75–6
Betty Boop 143
Big Parade, The 53
Bioff, Willie 116, 118, 119
Biograph 12, 17
Birds, The 155
Birth of a Nation, The 23, 24
Black Panther Party 199
blacklisting 89, 99–113
Bogart, Humphrey 95, 99
Bogdanovich, Peter 171
Boniadi, Nazanin 200
Brando, Cheyenne 195
Brando, Christian 195, 196
Brando, Marlon 132, 182–3, 185, 195, 196
Brecht, Bertolt 93
Breen, Joseph 143, 147
Bringing Up Baby 144
Britt, May 123
Brooks, Louise 30, 38, 44, 45
brothels 159–60
Brown, Divine 169–70
Brown, William J.F. 66, 69
Browne, George E. 116, 119
Bruckheimer, Jerry 210, 211
Buchwald, Art 215–16, 216
Bugsy 138–9
Busch, Anita 214, 215
Byron, Walter 48
C
Cagney, James 79
California Child Actors Bill 189
Call of the Wild, The 63
Capone, Al 137
Carey, Estelle 119
casting couch 157–9
censorship
Doom Book 142
flouting of rules 143, 144, 145, 156
Hays Office 48, 51, 142, 143, 144–5, 147–8
kisses, length of 143, 156
and Nazi party 71
nudity in films 141–3
Production Code Administration (PCA) 143, 156, 160
race issues 175
rules 143, 145, 156
self-policing 142–3
Chaplin, Charles Spencer Jr 29
Chaplin, Charlie 26, 27–8, 28, 30, 30, 46
Dark History of Hollywood: A Century of Greed, Corruption and Scandal behind the Movies (Dark Histories) Page 19