When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man

by Jerry Weintraub; Rich Cohen; George Clooney

  Here's how San Francisco's Bill Graham, the biggest independent promoter in America at the time, explained it to Newsweek: "Jerry Weintraub comes into town like an eagle, scoops up the money, and leaves. He tells his acts, 'For a piece of the action, I can eliminate certain promoters and agents.' He's more a power broker than a producer."

  My answer? Well, hell, yes, of course that's what I do. It's called business. Why do you think I'm successful?

  (Bill Graham and I were great friends before this, and we remained great friends.)

  I don't really know what came out of this meeting other than a bunch of chatter. The fact is, if a bunch of men are discussing you, meeting about you, and scheming to destroy you, it probably means you're doing something right.

  In those years, my key relationship was with the owners of the arenas. That's where I cut my deals and made my profit. The owners were a unique breed, almost entirely gone now, wheelers and dealers, big-money boys, political players, sharpies and sharks, the makers and builders of cities. It was not art or ideas that interested these men. It was bricks and mortar, seats, stages, real estate. A few of them became my teachers. Here I am thinking mostly of Arthur Wirtz, who owned the Chicago Stadium and was one of the truly interesting people of his era.

  For a long time, Arthur Wirtz was just a name, like John Doe is a name--I had heard it, but I was not sure where and not sure why. I took an interest only when I started making my way in the concert business. I had two or three months' worth of shows a year and was looking to strike a deal in Chicago, that fantastic market. Chicago Stadium was the obvious place. It had about twenty thousand seats, which is as big as you get before you have to move outside. Other than the Bulls, the Blackhawks, the Ice Capades, and the Circus, which adds up to about a hundred nights a year, the place stood empty.

  I went to Chicago and started asking around.

  "Who do I have to talk to cut a deal on the Stadium?"

  Arthur Wirtz, you've got to talk to Arthur Wirtz.

  Arthur Wirtz was huge, six-foot-six, with gray hair. He wore wire-framed glasses, an odd, dandified touch on an otherwise classic Chicago face. He had been to college, but kept something of the street about him, the grit of the west side club rooms. He was like a boss in an old movie, a mountain of a man behind a desk, the city humming behind him--Chicago, with its steel towers and slaughter yards. He had fought his way to the top of a tough town, and I admired him. He made his first fortune in commercial real estate, but his true talent had always been sales. Sell, earn, invest, increase. His family still owns the Blackhawks. He began to acquire things, which is how an ordinary man becomes a titan. By the time I started asking around, Wirtz had become a power in Chicago, the man behind the aldermen, the man behind the mayor.

  Though sensible and hard-nosed, he had an eye for showbiz. He built the stadium, then needed to fill the seats. He owned an NHL franchise. It did so well he acquired interests in several others. He came to own most of the teams in the league, including franchises in Montreal, Toronto, and Detroit. He also brought Sonja Henie to America and produced her ice shows, which led to the Ice Capades. He was a giant.

  "I don't understand Arthur Wirtz," I told a Chicago friend. "Why doesn't he put other shows in the Stadium?"

  "He doesn't want other shows," my friend told me. "He has the Ice Capades, he has the circus, hockey, and basketball. He doesn't know from anything else."

  I called Wirtz's office and left a message. No return. I called again. Nothing. It was like shouting into a well. Nothing came back.

  Around this time, I ran into Bob Strauss, from Texas. He was a big player in the Democratic Party. I asked him if he could help set up a meeting with Arthur Wirtz. He laughed.

  "What's so funny?" I asked.

  "You can't just meet with a man like Wirtz," he told me.

  "Well, then, how the hell am I supposed to do business with him?"

  "You have to talk to Mayor Daley's people first," he told me. "You can't do anything in Chicago without the machine."

  "Great, set up a meeting with Daley."

  "No, no, no," said Bob, laughing. "You don't actually meet with Daley. You meet with Colonel Riley."

  "Colonel Riley? Who the hell is Colonel Riley?"

  "Everything in Chicago goes through Daley," he explained, "and everything that goes through Daley goes through Colonel Riley. You meet with him, work it out, then you get to meet with Wirtz."

  "Work what out?"

  "Just meet him."

  I met Colonel Riley in the Bismarck Hotel across from City Hall. This is where the operators and aldermen hung out, where deals got done. We took a table in back. The Colonel hung his jacket on the back of his chair. It was nine in the morning, but the place was filled with newspapermen, union leaders, tough guys, and such. Riley was a skinny Irishman with a patch over his eye. We bullshitted a bit, then he said, "Okay, let's get down to it. What exactly is the nature of your business?"

  I told him I wanted to cut a deal to put shows in Chicago Stadium.

  "You mean you need to meet with Arthur Wirtz."

  "Yeah," I said. "I guess that is what I mean."

  "Okay," he said. "I'm going to get up and go the bathroom. And while I'm in the bathroom, you're going to put something in my jacket."

  "What am I going to put in your jacket?" I asked.

  He told me, and it wasn't two tickets to The Wiz.

  "Well, I don't have that," I said.

  "You have to get it," he said.

  "Oh, God."

  "Can you have it by lunchtime?" he asked.

  "Yeah," I said, "I guess so."

  "Good. Come back here at lunchtime, put it in my pocket, and you will have your meeting with Arthur Wirtz."

  A few days later, I go to meet Mr. Wirtz. A two o'clock appointment. He had an office in the Furniture Mart, which he owned. I gave my name to the secretary, then sat, waiting. Now and then, I asked the secretary, "How much longer?" and she smiled and said, "Any time now." Her name, as I learned later, was Gertrude Knowles, and she was fantastic, a multimillionaire with a piece of every one of Wirtz's deals. (He could be very generous.) Two o'clock became three o'clock; three o'clock became four o'clock. I was angry. "What's his problem?" I asked Ms. Knowles. "We had an appointment. I got things to do."

  "Relax," she said. "He does this to everybody. If you want something from him, you have to wait."

  "I am thinking of leaving," I told her.

  "Don't worry," she said. "I'll get you in there."

  Another thirty minutes went by. I couldn't stand it. I was going wild. I stood up and said, "To hell with this, I'm out of here."

  "No, don't," she said, "I'll get you in right now."

  She walked over, opened the door, stuck her head inside, and said, "Jerry Weintraub has been out here waiting three hours. It is time for you to see him."

  A voice boomed back: "Okay, fine, bring him in."

  It was the biggest office I'd ever seen. Everything was covered in brass and wood. Behind him was a credenza filled with Steuben glass. On his desk--it was the size of an aircraft carrier--was a model of the Wirtz family yacht, the Blackhawk, and a plane. Mr. Wirtz was alone in this office, and had been all afternoon, this enormous man, signing checks, which were piled beside him. He did not greet me. He just went on signing.

  "What do you want?" he asked, without looking up.

  That's what he said. After all that sitting and waiting and him being in here all the time by himself, with his checks and signing pen.

  "What do I want?" I said. "I'll tell you what I want. Screw you! That's what I want!"

  Now he looked up, stunned, as if I had slapped him across the face.

  My God, he was huge!

  "Excuse me," he asked, "what did you say?"

  This man was power, you have to understand that. He was the boss, the man sitting on top of a very tough town. This was Chicago. Sam Giancana was there. Tony the Ant was there. Wirtz was no gangster, of course, but he had the gangs
ters, and had the police, and had the firemen, and had the aldermen, and had the attorney general, and had the mayor and the governor and everything else.

  "You heard me," I told him. "Screw you."

  He was more surprised than angry--confused, concerned.

  "Why?" he asked. "What's the matter?"

  "I've been waiting out there four hours," I said. "Then, I finally get in here, and you don't even look up and say hello, how are you? You don't shake my hand, or offer me a drink of water? What kind of bullshit is that? I'm a human being, you know. I'm standing here."

  And he sat back and looked at me--and this looking took longer than it should have--smiled and laughed. He stood up, walked around the desk, sat in the chair next to me, shook my hand, and said, "It is nice to meet you. I am Arthur Wirtz."

  And I shook his hand and said, "Nice to meet you. I'm Jerry Weintraub."

  We made a deal that very night, negotiating the terms for hours. At one point, he said, "Hey, Jerry, you look hungry," went into the little kitchen he had off his office and cooked me a steak. This big guy, this big shot, sleeves rolled up, standing over a T-bone. He loved me because I told him to go screw himself. No one had ever done that. We finished the last points at 9:00 P.M.

  "Okay," he said, "now I have to get the board of directors to ratify the deal."

  I was pissed. "You mean, I stayed here all night negotiating and you can't even do a deal with me? You have to wait for someone else?"

  "We don't have to wait," he said. "We'll do it now."

  He led me down the hall to an empty boardroom. There was a round table with ornate chairs and leather blotters and beautiful lamps with green shades, each throwing a pool of light. Arthur sat at the head of the table, struck the gavel, then said, "Meeting in session." He read the main points of our contract aloud, asked if any members of the board were opposed, any objections, waited a moment, as if expecting an answer--"Good news," he said to me, "no objections"--announced the contract ratified, then brought down the gavel, adjourning the meeting.

  "I did that for a reason," he explained. "I wanted to show you something. You're going to make a lot of money. Do it yourself. Don't ever go public. Be in charge of your own destiny."

  It was the beginning of a friendship that lasted decades. We made millions of dollars together. He was my mentor in the world of arenas and concerts and filling seats. He made me a king. He got me exclusive deals in hockey buildings all over the country. The Stadium in Chicago, the Olympia in Detroit, the Garden in New York, the Forum in LA--he controlled them all. We worked as partners, put on shows, filled the seats, paid the band and other expenses, paid our taxes, split the rest. He was supposed to be anti-Semitic. It was a rumor. You heard it whispered, but there was no truth to it. I loved him, and he loved me. We hung out together, vacationed together. Remember the model of the boat on his desk? Well, he gave me use of that boat--the real thing, not the model--whenever I wanted to get away.

  Wirtz had a way about him. It was often hard to tell if he was joking. One night, when we had Zeppelin at the Stadium, security confiscated joints and other contraband from the kids as they came in the door. By showtime, the back room was filled with bags of dope and pills. One of the cops asked Wirtz what should be done with the stuff. Arthur thought for a moment, then said, "Well, why can't we sell it back to them as they leave?"

  By the late seventies, I had so much going in LA, it left no time for Chicago. I stopped going, stopped hanging out, bullshitting, and instead sent Bill McKenzie, the chief financial officer of my company, to talk to Mr. Wirtz and settle up after a show. The money from the city had come to seem automatic. Then something changed. The profit dipped, the numbers went down. One year I made eighteen million with Arthur, the next year I made fifteen million, then thirteen million.

  My accountant called.

  "Jerry," he said, "something is wrong in Chicago. The receipts have been going up, but the backend stays the same. I think you're being shorted."

  "Shorted?"

  "Yeah. Shorted. You're being ripped off."

  I called Mr. Wirtz.

  "What's happening with the money?" I asked.

  "If you want to talk to me," he said, "come to Chicago and talk to me."

  I went to his office.

  "Okay," he said, "what's the problem?"

  I had written all the numbers on a sheet of paper, costs, ticket sales, and where I was coming up thin. He looked these over. "So you think you are being shorted?" he asked.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "How much you think you've lost?" he asked.

  "Well," I said, "I think I'm behind about a million and a half dollars."

  "Hold on," he told me, opened his desk drawer, took out a paper, looked at it, then said, "Not bad. You're only off a little. I actually owe you two million."

  "What's going on?" I demanded.

  "Don't get hot," he said. "I have every penny of it for you right here. You would have had it months ago if you had not been such a bastard and come here and been with me and talked to me and done business with me. You should have been here taking care of your business," he told me. "You weren't taking care of your business. This is a good lesson for you."

  Years later, when Mr. Wirtz was dying, I went to Chicago and sat by his hospital bed. He could hardly talk. He was just a mountain of a man under the sheets, with the tubes, and the nurses coming in and out, but he was still sharp and missed nothing. You could see it in his eyes.

  Once I was established in the entertainment business, I began to see the possibility of shows everywhere. All life was theater and I wanted to put it on a stage and sell tickets. I wanted to produce everything. This is when Billy Friedkin started calling me "Presents." As in, "Hey, Presents!" "How you doing, Presents?" I wanted to put the world under a marquee that read: "Jerry Weintraub Presents." I began to expand away from concerts, pursuing fantasies of the Great White Way. Like every kid from the boroughs, I dreamed of Broadway. I put on a few small shows but realized that to be good, I would need a teacher and guide. If you want to learn, find a person who knows and study him or her.

  Which is how one day in 1968, I found myself in the office of Frank Loesser, that Broadway legend, author of, among others, Where's Charley?, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and, my favorite, Guys and Dolls. Frank Loesser worked in movies, too--he had been under contract with Universal--but he will always be associated with the theater.

  He worked in a big office on 57th Street. There was an upright piano and a view of the city. New York is like an infinite library, with everyone you ever wanted to meet tucked in a little room. Knock on this door, Sinatra answers. Knock on that door, Presley answers. Knock on this door, Frank Loesser answers.

  "What the hell can I do for you, kid? Did they send you for the dry cleaning?"

  "No, my name is Jerry Weintraub."

  "Okay, Jerry Weintraub. What do you want?"

  I told him he was my favorite writer in the world, that Guys and Dolls was my favorite show, that I was a producer, and was going to produce on Broadway, and told him that he should produce a show with me.

  "Why would I do that, kid?"

  "Because I'm going to be a great Broadway producer."

  Loesser laughed. "All right," he said, "but why not tell me what you are now."

  "I told you," I said. "I'm Jerry Weintraub."

  He thought a moment, noodled on the piano, notes drifting across the room, then said, "Tell you what. There is a show in London called Canterbury Tales." It's in previews. Hot as a pistol. Goddamn, I want to stage that in New York. But so does every other producer on Broadway. You go to London and get me the rights to that show, and we'll produce it together. We'll be partners.

  "We got a deal?" he asked.

  "Hell, yes, we got a deal."

  "And you are again...?"

  "Jerry Weintraub."

  "Okay, Jerry. Go get it."

  Loesser said everything but "fetch."

  I had a big
career on Broadway later, and owned a stake in several theaters with Jimmy Nederlander, who ran one of the great organizations in the history of the business. His name is up there with the Shuberts. But this is how I started, in that office off Broadway, with Loesser calling for this trick: Go to London and snatch the prize from the jaws of a dozen hungry producers.

  When I landed at Heathrow Airport, I went straight to a house in Chelsea, where I met Nevill Coghill and Martin Starkie, who produced and adapted the original production of this play, Canterbury Tales. I say "this play" because I did not know anything about it. I had heard of Chaucer but did not really know who he was. Maybe if instead of the Air Force I had gone to college... but, as I said, I did go, only my professors were Colonel Tom and Frank Sinatra, who offered neither a core curriculum nor lectures in medieval English poetry. My classes, which were various, included deportment ("Talking Straight With a Buzz On"), History ("The Rise and Fall of Dukes and Kings"), Business ("Don't Be a Sucker"), vocations ("Knowing What You Got, and Using It"), and philosophy ("I think therefore I dance").

  I knocked on the door of the house. A beautiful-looking guy came out in tight white pants with no shirt. He was Coghill and Starkie's butler. His name was Bunky. He led me to a dining room, where lunch had been set out. The producers were waiting, proper, English, amused. Referring back to my class with Professor Sinatra ("Knowing What You Got, and Using It"), and considering myself a not terrible-looking kid, I switched gears, turned a little flirty. We talked about the play. As I said, I did not know who Chaucer was, but the show had been a hit in previews and Loesser said get it, so here I was, drinking Perrier and asking the guys to pass the dill. I could not have the show, they said. Not yet, anyway. They were still making up their mind, had to meet with everyone, and so forth. But I persisted. I went over there every day for a week, pitching, selling. We got to be friends. They invited me to go with them to the opening night, which was a real honor.

  We got to the theater. Freyer, Carr, Harris, Merrick, Bloomgarden--all the Broadway big shots were there, looking to acquire rights to the show. They were craning in their seats, looking over, perplexed, trying to figure, Who is the kid with Coghill and Starkie? Is that Jerry Weintraub? Doesn't he work with Elvis? What the hell is he doing here? The lights go down, the curtain comes up on a road in the country, a cart filled with travelers, each itching to tell his or her tale. The crowd is silent, rapt, but I'm not hearing it, not seeing it. I'm thinking about Frank Loesser: "Go to London, get the rights, we'll produce it together. We'll be partners." I'm with these guys, have them to myself... but the show will end, the party will start, the drinks and congratulations and Broadway hotshots, and I will miss my chance.