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

by Jerry Weintraub; Rich Cohen; George Clooney

  On came Pat Morita in costume as Miyagi, doing a monologue from the script. "Not bad," I said. "Really, not bad at all."

  "Well?" asked Avildsen.

  "All right," I said. "Call him up. We'll do a screen test."

  We staged a test with Morita and Macchio, a scene in which the kid, who has been hurt, is in bed and Miyagi is nursing him. We shot it. And while we were shooting, I started to cry. I mean, real goddamn tears. The next day, as we were looking at the footage, I said to Avildsen, "You were right, so very right." Morita was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the movie.

  No matter how hard you work on a movie, no matter how good you think it is, you never know how it's going to play. You have to wait for the first real audiences, an often endless purgatory of hoping and fearing. With The Karate Kid, the waiting ended in a moment of sheer joy. This was at a screening in LA a few weeks before the release. We hung around the lobby talking when the picture was over, then went to the parking lot. Most of the people had gone, but there were forty or fifty kids out there, with their arms outstretched and legs up, imitating the crane kick that comes at the climax of the movie. I knew right then that the picture was going to be a smash.

  Arm and Hammer

  Armand Hammer had one of the most colorful biographies of the last century. His father, Julius, a Russian immigrant, headed the Communist Party in New York, which was unusual in that the family was quite prosperous. They owned a pharmaceutical company in the Bronx, but there was a scandal. I'm not sure of the details, but it had something to do with an illegal abortion and the death of a young woman. The family was horrified. Julius was sent to Sing Sing. If you're the son of a convict, the middle of three boys, it can have an effect.

  Hammer graduated from Columbia medical school, but he never practiced. Still, he loved it when people called him "Dr. Hammer."

  When he got out of school, the Russian revolution was in full bloom. There was a lot of suffering. Armand, who knew many of the Soviet leaders through his father--they visited the house on trips to America--decided something had to be done. He got hold of an old ship and filled it with medical supplies, which he took to the Soviets. I don't believe this was done as altruistically as Hammer claimed. I think he was actually unloading stuff his father could not sell. Nevertheless, Lenin heard about the shipments, this great act of charity, and asked to meet with "Dr. Hammer."

  This was in the early 1920s, the Lenin of the black-and-white photos, peasant cap worn low, riding the crest of a terrifying wave. And here was Hammer, the son of the disgraced capitalist, shaking hands with Rasputin. Hammer used to say he was the only person who had been friends with both Lenin and Reagan; that was the scope of his life. Lenin thanked Hammer for all he had done, then asked if he wanted to help some more.

  "Sure," said Hammer. "What do you need?"

  "We have to do business in America," said Lenin. "We need to make deals with all your great men, Henry Ford, the bankers, the financiers. Why don't you represent us, take care of us?"

  "Sure," said Hammer.

  "And we want to pay you for the medical supplies," said Lenin. "But not in money."

  He told Hammer to go to the Hermitage Museum and take whatever he wanted. Hammer went through the halls with a pointer, looking at masterpieces--he knew nothing about art--saying, "Give me two of those, and I'll take one of those, and that one of the monk in the red velvet robe, and that one of the dog." Rembrandts, Pissarros, Cezannes, Faberge eggs--he got them all. You can see his collection today at the Hammer Museum in LA. There is a curator and there are catalogues and shows and students writing dissertations, but this is how it started, with Hammer, trailed by a minder from the special police, going through the Hermitage, saying, "Give me one of that, give me two of that, give me three of that."

  Armand Hammer made a fortune with the Soviets. For several years, he was the only conduit to the West, and thus had a piece of every industry.

  The men around Lenin complained. Who is this American? It doesn't look right! He's getting too much. Lenin brought Hammer back to Moscow. He said, "Look, Armand, you can't have everything. Pick one business, one industry, and it will be yours."

  "One industry?"

  "Yes, one industry."

  "Okay," said Hammer, "let me think about it."

  And he went away, thought about it, and when he came back, he said, "Pencils."

  "Pencils?" asked Lenin.

  "Yes," said Hammer, "pencils. You've got millions and millions of people in this country, millions of them in school, and every one of them is going to need a pencil."

  That was Hammer--head in the clouds, feet on the ground. He thought of basics, of important, everyday things.

  Pencils? I mean, we're into big history here, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the man who overthrew the czars who defeated Napoleon who succeeded the Sun King and the rest, and what is Hammer thinking about? Pencils!

  Hammer went to Germany, where he met with the executives of the Eberhard-Faber Company. He took a group of them back to Russia, where they set up a pencil factory. Hammer made every pencil in the Soviet Union.

  By the time I met Hammer, which was decades later, he was on a first-name basis with the most powerful men in the world. He believed that personality could overcome anything, that a great man, by force of will, could straddle every divide--that's why he loved Lenin as much as he loved Reagan. Hammer was the CEO of Occidental Petroleum. This was typical of his luck and his life: The company was not meant to make money at all. He founded it as a tax shelter in the 1960s. Then, a foreman sank a tax shelter drill into an actual oil bed off California, and the old man was rich all over again. The first well came in when he was sixty-one. He was living in LA. Of course, I knew all about him. He was one of the grand old men of American business, and I was fascinated by him.

  One day, I got a call from a movie executive who had taken a job with Hammer. He had decided to make movies, mostly about himself. The executive asked if I wanted to help produce a TV special about Dr. Hammer's upcoming cultural tour of the Soviet Union. For me it was less an opportunity to make a television show than a chance to meet and work with and learn from one of the great machers. No matter your age, you never stop looking for teachers. "No," I said, "I'm not interested in a one-time project with Armand Hammer, but I might consider an exclusive deal to cover all such cultural exchanges."

  Five minutes later, the phone rang. It was Hammer. He said, "Hey, kid, get over here, let's talk."

  I went to meet Hammer at his office in Beverly Hills. He was a small and steely man, with a helmet of silver hair and horn-rimmed glasses. There was mischief in his eyes. He said he wanted to be where the action was. He was always in jump position. In him, I saw big deals and fun. In me, he saw himself as a kid. We had the same sensibility, we rhymed. So we called our lawyer--we had the same lawyer--and told him to draft an agreement. Just like that, we were partners.

  I loved to listen to him talk. My stories were about the Bronx, the Air Force, Elvis, the Colonel, Zeppelin, Sinatra. His were about the Communist Party, Trotsky, Lenin, Brezhnev, Moscow in January, Nixon, and Reagan. We hatched plans, crazy ideas.

  I remember a trip we made to China. There must have been a reason for this trip, but in truth Hammer just liked to go for the sake of going. Airports, cities, languages--that was his thing. We spent the night on the plane, engines humming, the world black outside the window. Then Beijing came into view, a sea of lights. We were met on the tarmac by bands and diplomats. Armand was the main event wherever he happened to be. The Chinese had a manifest. It listed the dozens of people in our group. Because I was Armand's partner--in America we were Weintraub-Hammer, in the rest of the world we were Hammer-Weintraub--my name was second on the list, which, as far as the Chinese were concerned, made me something like a vice president.

  Though we had been up for hours, we had no time to rest or shower and were instead hurried by motorcade to a dinner at the people's palace. This was the 1980s, not long af
ter Nixon opened China to the West. There was still something mysterious and exotic about the country, the squat buildings and shrines, the sea of faces, the narrow lanes. It was as if we had passed through the looking glass. The party was held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where we sat around an enormous table. Hundreds of waiters were coming and going. Ritual governed the slightest gesture.

  Hammer occupied the seat of honor, between the premier of the nation and the chairman of the country. I was second in importance, also seated between high officials. There was a lot of eating, talking, drinking. This was followed by the toasts. They came one after another, as dignitary after dignitary raised his glass and spoke about the generosity of Dr. Hammer. At one point, I leaned over and looked at Armand to see how he was taking all this. His chin rested on his chest and his horn-rimmed glasses had slid down nose. He was asleep.

  Then a little man at the end of the table raised a glass and said, "And now, we honor our other fine and honorable guest, Hollywood movie man and maker of the great film E.T., Mr. Jerry Weintraub. Everyone applauded. Then the little man said, "Now Mr. Jerry Weintraub, please to stand and say a few words."

  I stood, blushing, nodding through the applause. I tried to say no, no, I did not make E.T., but everyone seemed so happy with me, it felt wrong to disappoint them. In the end, I gave in and signed all their stills from E.T.

  We spent the rest of the trip in meetings with officials. Hammer, having finally gotten some sleep, was exploding with energy, shaking hands, talking, making deals, which, to him, was the same as making friends.

  Hammer was unpredictable and fun. As I said, he wanted to be where the action was. I'll give you an example. During Jimmy Carter's presidency, George H. W. Bush scheduled a reception for Deng Xiaoping, a member of China's ruling Politburo, in the course of his first visit to the United States. It was a big deal. Deng Xiaoping made only three stops when he was in the country. He went to Washington for a state dinner at the White House, he went to California to visit Disneyland, he went to Texas for a dinner with George Bush. The Chinese loved Bush--he had been the American representative in the formative years after Nixon's first visit--and they wanted to let the world know how much they valued George Bush, and how important he was. Ronald Reagan took notice of the dinner, and, in my opinion, it was a factor a few years later when Reagan picked George Bush to be his running mate. The dinner would be held in Houston, Bush's hometown. Bush told me about the dinner and asked if I wanted to invite anyone and so forth.

  As soon as Hammer heard about this the calls started. He had tried to get on the list for the state dinner, but was rejected by the State Department. There were several reasons, chief among them his long relationship with the Russians. We were, after all, trying to take advantage of the rivalry between the Russians and the Chinese. After the White House turned him down, Hammer focused on the dinner in Houston. He had to be there.

  But it was a no go, I couldn't do it, and Hammer finally gave up. Or so I thought. Then the night came. And Hammer showed up. No invitation? So what? There he was. I'm not sure how he got there, and do not remember the whole backstory, but Bush, who had known Hammer for years and was at that time a private citizen, said something like, "Of course, of course, he's here, let him in."

  Bush introduced Hammer to Deng Xiaoping, who was thrilled to meet Hammer because he had known Lenin--so thrilled, in fact, that he insisted on being seated next to Hammer at the dinner. Everyone was sent scrambling. All the seats had to be rearranged. Hammer ended up next to Deng Xiaoping, and that's how the two of us got an invitation to visit Beijing at a time when private citizens didn't do so. And we went on a private jet, which was the only way Hammer, who was over eighty by then, would travel.

  A few years later, I threw two parties at my house for Yitzhak Shamir because I really admired him. He was then prime minister of Israel. Shamir was a tough guy and a real hero. Hammer was at both parties, helping Shamir hit up the people at the dinners--forty heavyweights from LA--for money. He wanted us to drill for oil in Israel. I remember him sitting with his map, pointing to all the known fields in the region, saying, "Look, where we're sitting, there's got to be oil!" We had done surveys, tests, studies. We knew there was no oil, but he refused to believe us. He kept saying, "Gentleman, please, please, look where we're sitting! There's got to be oil."

  Shamir was smart. He knew that in order to get to us, he had to get to Hammer, and to get to Hammer, he need only play on his vanity. So, at the end of dinner, the prime minister stood and said, "I would like to thank Dr. Hammer, who loves and understands Israel and is therefore going to help us drill for that oil that's just got to be there. I mean, look where we're sitting!"

  Hammer, never shy of a spotlight, then said, "Uh, yes, Mr. Prime Minister. We will drill and the Jewish state will have its oil!"

  Hammer went to each of us later, saying, "One million from you, one million from you, one million from you, and we find that oil."

  When he came to me, I said, "Hey, Armand, I know a better way to get oil."

  "What's that, wise guy?"

  "Let's just sink a bit into the Saudi Pipeline."

  I kicked in the money, though. It was always that way with Hammer. He was a very good salesman. (They never did find oil in Israel.)

  Hammer became even more active as he got older. He wanted to go everywhere and see everything. His bags were packed, his plane was fueled, he was ready to travel with a change in the news. In the summer of 1982, while we were in the air on our way to South Korea, we got word that Leonid Brezhnev, the Russian premier, had died.

  "Turn it around," Hammer told his pilot. "We're going to Moscow."

  The pilot leaned on the stick, the plane banked steeply.

  "What are you talking about?" I asked.

  "We've got to be at that funeral," said Hammer. "It's where the action is!"

  "I can't just go to Moscow like this," I said. "I don't have the clothes for it, for one thing."

  "Look, Jerry," said Hammer, "history is not asking your permission. It's telling you. A man has died."

  "Brezhnev was anti-Semitic," I said. "And I don't need to see him buried."

  "He's been my friend forever," said Hammer. "I've got to be there."

  "Fine," I said. "But I'm not going to the funeral."

  "Don't worry," said Hammer. "I couldn't get you a ticket anyway."

  We landed in Paris, where we were met by Soviet pilots, who flew Hammer's plane into Moscow. In those days, they did not let private jets fly into Russia, unless they were flown by Soviet pilots. I saw the vice president's plane on the runway in Moscow, Air Force Two, with the government crest on its side. "Look," said Hammer, "your friend is in town."

  Hammer took a car to his apartment--he had houses and apartments all over the world--and I checked into a hotel. I called the U.S. Embassy and asked to talk to the vice president. Within a few seconds, Bush was on the phone. "What the heck are you doing here, Jerry?" he asked.

  "I came with Armand," I said. "He came for the funeral."

  "Are you going to the funeral?" asked Bush.

  "No," I said. "Armand can't get me a ticket."

  "I'm sorry, Jerry, I can't get you a ticket either," said Bush. "The Russians only gave us five, and I have Barbara with me, George Shultz and his wife, and Arthur Hartman, the ambassador. We don't even have a seat for his wife!"

  "Don't worry," I told Bush. "I don't even want to go. Hammer dragged me here."

  "I will call you when it's over," said Bush. "We'll have lunch at the Embassy."

  "Great."

  I hung up.

  A minute later, the phone rang. It was Hammer. "Get dressed," he said, "I got you a ticket. We're going to the funeral."

  It was a cold, bleak day. I got dressed and went down. Hammer was waiting with a car. We drove. The streets were gray cinder block after gray cinder block, same color as the sky. The people on the street looked gray, too. The Kremlin was surrounded by tanks and soldiers. When the c
ar stopped, Hammer popped out as if he were on springs, handed me my ticket, and raced ahead. There was a checkpoint. When Armand went through, the soldiers saluted. When it was my turn, they started to talk in Russian, guns were pointed at me. I had a ticket, but it said "Florence Hammer"--Armand's wife. That is what set off the guards. I started shouting, "Armand! Armand!" It took a moment for him to hear me, to recognize his own name--he was getting old. Then he came back, pushed his way through, started talking to these guys in Russian. They calmed down as soon as they saw him, lowered their guns, apologized--not to me, to Armand.

  We looked for our seats. It was like a Yankees game, when you keep getting closer and closer to the field and wonder, Jeez, who does this guy know, how good are these tickets going to be? We were on the carpet, a dozen feet from the casket, sitting with Castro, Qaddafi, and Arafat, all my favorites. The Politburo marched past me, the generals and the Red Army band. I was on all the broadcasts. As I scanned the crowd, bored, looking for familiar faces, I spotted Bush and Shultz and the rest in back, hands in their pockets, pinched by the cold and the indignity of bad seats. (The Russians did not want them to be shown on TV, so they stuck them far away from the cameras.) When I spoke to Bush later, he seemed genuinely amused. "What happened?" he said, laughing. "First I hear you're not going, then I see you, not only at the funeral but basically seated inside the coffin."

  What a day! It was like stumbling into a history book. After the service, a Russian big shot came over and said, "Dr. Hammer, we want you and Mr. Weintraub to please come with us to the tomb to say good-bye to the premier before we put him in the wall."

  We were taken to the wall of the Kremlin, where they buried the big shots. The world press was there. In front, it was just me, Hammer, a few Russians, and the casket. The Russians took hundreds of pictures of Hammer and me posed with the box. Each time, before the flash went off, Hammer broke into a big smile. It was his instinct. Don't let the cameras catch you looking morose! I finally said, "Hey, Armand, did you forget? Your friend died."