He introduced me to Red Auerbach, with whom I instantly bonded. Red came to the set to watch the filming of The Brink’s Job, and I introduced him to the actors. Soon he was inviting me to all the Celtics home games. I’d go to Red’s office at the Old Boston Garden, filled with memorabilia from his then-thirty-year career as the most successful coach and general manager in pro basketball history. His Celtics won sixteen championships, still a league record. Various local politicians and celebrities would gather in his office an hour before the game, and we’d eat deli sandwiches while Red chain-smoked Dutch Masters cigars. I sat next to him at the games and listened to his observations, and afterward we’d go for a late dinner, always to a Chinese restaurant, either in Brookline or in downtown Boston. Red was like a surrogate father to me, and he let me suit up for the practices and scrimmage with the team.
After the practices we used to play racquetball for an hour, and Red, even in his late seventies, was always on the winning side.
The owner of the Celtics since 1975 was Irv Levin, the boss at National General Films when they developed, then passed on, The French Connection. National General was defunct, and I used to rub it in to Irv at every opportunity. In Boston he was known as “Mr. Hollywood,” for his multicolored jackets and open shirts revealing a hairy chest festooned with gold chains. He had the reputation of a riverboat gambler but fancied himself a sportsman, and owning the Celtics was a big deal. The Celtics won a championship in Irv’s first year as principal owner, but at the end of the 1978–’79 season, they failed to make the play-offs.
The last home game of the season was televised on the CBS Network on a Sunday afternoon, and it marked the retirement of one of the Celtics’ greatest players, Johnny “Hondo” Havlicek. At halftime Irv appeared at center court to present Havlicek with the usual retirement gifts. Irv was loudly booed by the disgruntled crowd. The following Monday at lunch he was angry. Getting booed in Boston Garden on national television was painful. He told me he was ready to sell the team. The fans were ungrateful—it was all “what have you done for me lately?” He said, “I know you love this team. I’ll sell you a third for what I paid for it, a little over four million dollars, and you can run it. Red likes you. For a million and a half you can call the shots.” He was serious, but I had mixed emotions. Much as I loved the Celtics, I didn’t see myself running a team, especially Red Auerbach’s team. Red wasn’t getting along with Levin at the time and was considering an offer to become general manager of the New York Knicks. People in the streets of Boston and in restaurants would approach him and say, “Don’t leave, Red, please don’t go.” Red said that if Levin gave me control of the team, he’d stay, but I knew if I did it, it would be a full-time job. The team needed to rebuild, and I wasn’t ready to stop directing.
I took Levin’s offer to Ed Gross, who thought it could be interesting and asked to see the financials. I was earning a million dollars a film plus royalties, and I had money saved, but I was by no means rich. Yet at the time, owning an NBA team was affordable. The sport had not yet become the playground of billionaires and corporations. After going over the financial statements, Ed said to me, “Well, this might be a lot of fun for you, but they lose money.”
What?
“The Celtics are losing money,” Ed repeated.
I’ve lost money on investments before and since, but never on purpose. The decision was easy. I passed. The next season Larry Bird and Magic Johnson came into the NBA, and its financial structure changed completely. I could never have competed. The Celtics are worth at least a billion dollars today, but Levin never shared in their financial success. When I passed on the deal, he traded the Celtic franchise for the Buffalo Braves to John Y. Brown, the principal owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Harry Mangurian, a wealthy horse breeder. Irv moved Buffalo to San Diego, renamed them the Clippers, and sold them a few years later. They became the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Brink’s Job was another disappointment, but I loved Boston and became part of the Celtics family until Red’s death in 2006.
Unrelated events came together to plant the seeds for my next picture, Cruising. A series of articles—graphic accounts of unexplained deaths and murders in the West Village—appeared in the New York counterculture weekly the Village Voice, written by Arthur Bell, who chronicled the gay community for the Voice. It was 1979, and there wasn’t yet a name for AIDS, but gay men were dying mysteriously in increasingly large numbers. They were also being murdered, as Bell reported, in the S&M clubs in the Meatpacking District on the Lower West Side. Body parts were found floating in plastic bags in the Hudson River. The unexplained deaths and brutal murders aroused my curiosity. The devil was at work.
The clubs had names like the Mineshaft, Ramrod, the Eagle’s Nest, and the Anvil, and they were off limits to all but the devotees of hard-core male sex. The consensus among “straights” at that time was that homosexuality was not “normal.” The Boys in the Band revealed the frustrations of being gay and why gay men led a double life.
I knew about the S&M clubs from Randy Jurgensen, who had retired as a detective first grade since he worked with me on The French Connection. Randy was one of the best street cops I’d ever known, and I’d gone on many ride-alongs with him. He had great stories about his work as a detective, and he described how he was sent undercover into the S&M clubs to entrap a killer. He lived in that world for months and described how it “messed up his mind.” I didn’t ask for clarification.
One morning in the New York Daily News, I read about the arrest of Paul Bateson, who was charged with several killings of gay men, including the brutal murder of Addison Verrill, the theater critic for Variety. I was stunned to recognize Bateson’s picture. He was the radiology nurse at the NYU Medical Center who prepared Linda Blair for the arteriogram in The Exorcist. The paper referred to him as “the trash bag killer.” I remembered that he wore earrings and a leather-studded bracelet in the medical center, a rarity in the workplace in 1972. His lawyer’s name was in the article, so I called and asked him if Paul would see me. Once he agreed, I had to request permission from the Deputy Commission of Corrections, and it took a couple of weeks before I was given a time and a date.
Rikers Island is a complex of ten separate jails on over 400 acres in the East River, between Queens and the Bronx, near LaGuardia Airport. From an aerial view it looks like a giant amoeba. Overhead, the roar of planes landing and taking off is a constant nerve-jangling nuisance. At any time, the Rock, as it’s called, holds more than twelve thousand inmates, accused of crimes or awaiting trial, who can’t make bail. It’s known as the world’s largest penal colony. From the parking lot you can see the Manhattan skyline and, in the distance, the Statue of Liberty.
I was led to a private room with a small metallic table and two straight chairs. Bars on the windows. Paul was brought in by two guards, who then waited outside. He was thirty-eight years old at the time of his arrest, and he was wearing a short-sleeved tan prison jumpsuit over a white T-shirt. He greeted me with a smile and asked, “How’s the picture doin’?” The Exorcist was still in theaters after six years, and he was clearly pleased with his part in its success.
“Paul, did you kill these people?” I asked. He looked directly at me. “I don’t remember. I must have been really high,” he explained. “I remember the guy from Variety.”
“Addison Verrill?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I picked him up at the Mineshaft and took him to my apartment. We had sex, got stoned . . . I remember hitting him over the head with a frying pan. Then I guess I chopped him up.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did they get you?” His gaze became distant.
“When I cut him up, I put the pieces into a body bag and threw it in the river. The bag had ‘NYU Medical Center’ stamped on it in small print, and the police were able to put a tail on me.” (The bag was brought to the morgue, and the body parts were labled CUPPIs, Circumstances Unknown Pending a
Police Investigation.)
“There were other bags that came up, Paul—do you remember doing any of those?”
“Not really.” He smiled. “I might have.”
Neither of us said anything for a long time, then he whispered: “You know the cops offered me a deal?” I leaned closer.
“If I confess to eight or nine more murders, they’ll reduce my sentence.”
“Why?”
“So they can clear the books. Grab some headlines: ‘Trash Bag Murders Solved,’” he said.
“You mean if you confess to more killings, you’ll do less time?”
“Yeah. I might only have to do twenty years.”
He was released in 2004.
Now I had Bell’s articles, Randy Jurgensen’s undercover exploits, and Paul Bateson’s story. I called Jerry Weintraub, a concert promoter and manager I met in New York when he was presenting Frank Sinatra at Madison Square Garden. In addition to being Sinatra’s promoter, Jerry’s clients included Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, Led Zeppelin, and John Denver. A street-smart Brooklyn guy raised in the Bronx, Jerry wanted to become a film producer. One evening at dinner, years before, he said, “I want you to know I just bought the rights to Cruising.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“’Cause I heard you were interested in it, and I want to be in business with you.”
“That’s flattering, Jerry,” I said, “but I have no interest in Cruising.”
Three years later: “Jerry, you still own Cruising?”
“Why?”
“I think I know how to do it.”
Jerry is brash and self-confident. A natural salesman, he can charm the butter off the toast, then sell you the butter. He also really “gets” show business and its natural ally, politics. We formed a partnership. Jerry would produce; I’d write the script and direct. We agreed to take less money in order to co-own the negative with whatever studio would finance it. Within a week, Warner Bros. was interested.
I wrote the script in four weeks. I used the title and premise of Gerald Walker’s book, which pre-dated the trash bag murders, and was set in the genteel gay bars of the Upper East Side, not the S&M clubs. I used elements of Randy’s story, Bateson’s case, and Arthur Bell’s accounts.
But I had never seen the clubs myself.
Jerry had a friend who could arrange that. He introduced me to “Uncle Mort,” a retired New York City homicide detective who owned a limousine company. The car he drove was a gray bulletproof Cadillac with a gold bull hood ornament and the license plate NYNY1, courtesy of his client Frank Sinatra. He was the most loyal friend you could have, and he knew every corner of the city. It was rumored that Uncle Mort, even as a detective, “did some things” for Matty “The Horse” Iannello, a member of the Genovese crime family who later became its boss and worked with all five of the New York City crime families. Mort knew Matty and introduced me to him.
We drove out several times to visit Matty at his Westbury, Long Island, home. Matty controlled the Mineshaft as well as massage parlors, whorehouses, and peep shows in Times Square and midtown. He also controlled Umberto’s Clam House, where Joey Gallo, a prominent Colombo family capo, was gunned down. The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, where the gay liberation movement started, belonged to Matty. In fact, there were few businesses on the West Side of Manhattan that didn’t pay him for protection and other services.
Tall and heavyset, with white wavy hair, Matty tended to speak quickly and would often slur words as though English wasn’t his first language. To me, he was always friendly, and it behooved me to show him respect. He was called “The Horse” either because he was built like one or could punch one out. He lived in a beautiful house in a peaceful neighborhood and greeted visitors in his kitchen over breakfast, his grandchildren sometimes crawling on the floor, his wife and son occasionally appearing—a loving family man.
One morning, I drove to Westbury and shared with Matty his usual breakfast, soft Italian salami and chunks of sliced provolone cheese. He liked to talk about the film business, and he loved The French Connection and had many questions about it, especially how much money it was making. I told him I needed a favor.
“What can I do for you, kid?”
“Matty, I need your permission to film in the Mineshaft.” He set down the serrated steak knife he was using to cut the salami and cheese and put a finger to his lips in a gesture of “shhhhh.” Then he continued talking about The French Connection as though I hadn’t changed the subject. After a half hour he said quietly, “Thanks for stoppin’ by, kid—come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”
When we were outside, he put his arm around me and walked me to the middle of the street, away from my car. “Don’t ever talk about my business in my house. They got the place wired,” he whispered.
“Jeez, Matty, I’m sorry . . .”
“Just listen, and don’t turn around—there’s a brown sedan on the corner behind us. Two plainclothes. They got binoculars on me every time I go out or someone comes in. Now, tell me what you want and talk quietly.”
“I want to film in the Mineshaft.”
“Why?”
“I want to make a movie about the S&M clubs.”
“Why?”
“It’s a good story. A detective who goes undercover to trap a killer.” We kept walking away from the house.
“This have anything to do with me or my business?”
I shook my head. “It’s fiction. A murder mystery.”
A long pause, then: “I’m gonna give you a phone number. Don’t write it, just remember. Call in two days. Ask for Wally.”
Wally Wallace was the manager of the Mineshaft. I made an appointment to meet him at a diner on the Lower West Side. I told him I wanted to check out the scene, which made him smile. He was thin, with short hair starting to gray, and he dressed casually in the hip leathers of the 1970s. He was well spoken, intelligent, and loved films. He knew my work, which is why he agreed to talk to me. “The Mineshaft is a private club,” Wally told me. “Don’t wear aftershave or sneakers or any designer shit. And don’t bring a woman. Or a camera. Come Thursday night after ten. It’s jock-strap night, so you’ll have to strip down to your jock and check your clothes at the door like everybody else.”
At midnight, the West Side waterfront was as deserted as a ski slope in July, except for the meat trucks parked outside the piers, where men had sex all night. Two cops sat in a cruiser nearby. They knew what was happening in the trucks and were paid to dummy up. The piers on the Lower West Side was like another planet for “straights,” who tried to avoid it.
The Mineshaft was in the Meatpacking District at the corner of Washington Street and Little West Twelfth Street, across from the piers. A long white arrow painted on a black brick wall pointed to a black door marked in large white letters: 835. In front of the club were two black limousines, one with the license plate FFA5, the other FFA6: the Fist Fuckers of America. Matty thought it could be dangerous for me to go alone, so he had Uncle Mort accompany me. From the front door, you walked up a long narrow staircase to two gatekeepers, who checked IDs and enforced the dress code. Our names were on a list, and Wally came over to greet us. He escorted us to an area where indeed we had to strip down to our jock straps, shoes, and socks. Uncle Mort had a .38 strapped to his right ankle, concealed in his sock. Everyone was in a jock strap, some with leather boots and vests, executioner masks or leather jackets. Men of all races, colors, and social status mingled as equals.
Black walls. Black and purple light. A jail cell. A dungeon, where men had anal and oral sex. A wall to which men were chained and whipped. A bathtub in which a man sat, being pissed on by groups of men: “the Golden Shower.” A sling from which one man was draped while another fist-fucked him. Glory Holes, into which men inserted their penises to be sucked by strangers on the other side. Men giving blow jobs to other men in corners and around the room. A long bar, though the club had no liquor license, at which men took turns l
icking the bartender’s ass. Every conceivable male-on-male sexual fantasy was being fulfilled, and though they involved degradation, they were consensual, not exploitive. Among the men were a few I knew, lawyers or stockbrokers by day. Several were married. Everything was done openly, but outsiders weren’t welcome. I think Wally spread the word so no one bothered me or Mort—either that, or we were the ugliest guys in the room. We stayed for a couple of hours and had drinks while trying to appear casual.
When we hit the street, we couldn’t speak for a long time. As a homicide detective as well as “a friend” to Matty “The Horse,” Mort had seen pretty much everything. Though we were aware of the S&M world, it was frankly shocking to us. I’ve had every kind of sexual fantasy myself, but never the curiosity nor the desire to act them out.
The S&M world was out of sync with the gay liberation movement, which made enormous progress in the decade since The Boys in the Band. Cruising was going to be controversial and possibly offend everyone, but for me it was just an exotic background for a murder mystery.
I returned several times to the Mineshaft and became friendly with the managers and the regulars. I also went to the Anvil, a similar venue a few blocks away, housed in a triangular four-story building with a dance club downstairs and small hotel rooms on the upper floors. I hung out at the Ramrod and the Eagle’s Nest, hard-core bars that were only slightly less “private.” I wrote my script to reflect what went on in these clubs, avoiding all reference to the Mafia or the ex-cops who were the nominal owners. Weintraub took the script to Warner Bros., where it was eagerly awaited and promptly rejected. The timing was bad for a film about hard-core gay life, but I wanted to tell the story as I saw it, risking censorship and reproach. From my contacts in the police department and the gay community, I became painfully aware of the homophobia, exploitation, and humiliation inflicted on gays, and I wanted the film to reflect this.
The Friedkin Connection: A Memoir Page 34