Peter Bart

by the Mob (And Sex) Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies

  Within weeks Gulf & Western was again the target of a fusillade of investigations. One probed possible organized-crime links, another looked into secret transactions involving corporate securities, yet another at the manipulation of its pension funds. Stanley Sporkin, who headed the SEC’s division of enforcement, declared that Joel Dolkart’s revelations were “reliable and objective.” Jeremiah B. McKenna, general counsel of a New York State Senate committee on crime, announced that “we are coming at the organized crime aspect of it from a different angle.”

  Bluhdorn’s reaction was to transform G & W headquarters into his personal bunker. Once a regular on the speaking circuit, Bluhdorn now talked to no one. His habit of trading securities moment by moment—especially G & W securities—was now abandoned as he watched his shares fall by 20 percent in a month. A snarky piece in Time magazine in July 1977 noted that “Bluhdorn’s truculent, toothy grin” had vanished.

  By now, Sydney Korshak was not around to provide crisis advice. Afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, Korshak had slowly retreated into semiretirement, dressing in his dark blue suit and tie each morning to sit alone in front of a TV set in his den. Korshak died in 1996. None of his onetime friends from the dark side were in attendance at the memorial, nor was Lew Wasserman. Bob Evans delivered the eulogy.

  Bluhdorn was never the same after the Dolkart fiasco. Having lost his bravado, his final days in 1983 were shrouded in mystery. An initial report suggested that he died at his estate in the Dominican Republic, but that was quickly corrected, perhaps for legal or tax reasons, to a revisionist report that he’d died in flight, on his private jet, on his way back to New York. There were rumors that he’d been murdered, but they were never investigated.

  Not surprisingly, Bluhdorn did not leave behind a clean path of succession. After a brief but bitter battle, Martin Davis was named the new CEO, having marshaled the support of Bluhdorn’s widow, Yvette, and of Barry Diller. Both were later to declare their regret as Davis quickly cut off Yvette Bluhdorn’s corporate perks, even her use of the G & W plane.

  Though Diller proved to be a skilled corporate president, he and Davis clashed frequently, especially over issues of compensation. After one especially stormy week, Diller quit to become president of Twentieth Century-Fox. His two principal aides also bolted, Michael Eisner becoming the new boss of Disney with Jeffrey Katzenberg later joining him there. All three would have stellar careers, even as Davis struggled to solidify his corporate power.

  In contrast to the Evans-Yablans melodramas, my own odyssey at Paramount came to a quiet end. I had been tracking the Bluhdorn-Diller dialogues and knew that a big change was imminent. I also knew that I didn’t want to be part of a studio makeover. I’d had my fill of corporate intrigues and had lost any residual respect for Charlie Bluhdorn. Though Diller would bring new ideas, all roads would still lead to Bluhdorn and, to my mind, they were roads of no return.

  I paid a visit to Evans’s house to tell him I wanted out. “You promised a great ride, and you delivered,” I said. “But I know when it’s time to get off.”

  Evans gave me a wan smile. “I’d like to go with you,” he said. “But I can’t.” Evans, I knew, had to wait out the rituals of termination. There would be a flowery announcement of a new production deal and appropriate euphemisms about commitments for the future. As he predicted, all of it was to unfold over the next two weeks. I still felt a great fondness for Evans and I knew it was mutual. I also knew our time of working together was over—he had his demons to overcome.

  Meanwhile, I wasn’t ready to turn my back on the movie business. Indeed, two studios had approached me about potential jobs, but the years of infighting at Paramount had left me wary of new corporate entanglements.

  For some time I had been talking with a billionaire named Max Palevsky about starting a new entity. A pioneer in the burgeoning computer world, Palevsky had just sold his company, Scientific Data Systems, to Xerox and proposed formation of a partnership to independently develop and cofinance a small slate of movies. I admired Palevsky’s taste in films and I also welcomed the fact that his personality was the mirror opposite of Bluhdorn’s. Palevsky was committed but cautious; having helped conquer the computer, he had no interest in conquering the world.

  My association with Palevsky resulted in two films, Islands in the Stream, which reteamed George C. Scott and the director Franklin Schaffner, who had worked together on Patton, and Fun with Dick and Jane, starring Jane Fonda and George Segal and directed by Ted Kotcheff, who was responsible for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

  Open heart surgery forced Palevsky to cut back his activities and we closed the company after three years. I was to move on to two other movie jobs: Frank Yablans recruited me to join him in an effort to resuscitate the fading MGM. Yablans had assumed the presidency of that legendary studio and had been pledged hundreds of millions in new capital to support his ambitious slate. The funding proved less long-term than advertised, however, and Yablans’s erratic leadership stirred the mistrust of Kirk Kerkorian, MGM’s majority shareholder. The MGM adventure was to last only one year.

  I was then recruited to join a smaller yet seemingly far more promising company called Lorimar, which had hatched several of the most successful TV shows of the eighties, including The Waltons, Eight Is Enough, and Dallas. Merv Adelson and Les Rich, who controlled the company, were determined to expand into film production and asked me to become president of a new division to pursue that objective. Again, the Lorimar scheme was short-lived. Several estimable films emerged from my first eighteen months, including Being There, directed by Hal Ashby, and The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring Jack Nicholson. Adelson and Rich clashed constantly about programming and finance, however, and their feuding destabilized their company’s operations. Not long after my departure, Lorimar was sold to Warner Bros.

  Soon thereafter, a headhunter approached me with an unexpected proposal. The century-old show business newspaper Variety had just been sold by the Silverman family, whose control of the company had spanned four generations. The new owner was a New England–based publisher of trade publications, Cahners Publishing Company, which in turn was part of a multinational corporation, Reed Elsevier.

  According to the headhunter, the new owners had concluded that Variety was on shaky financial ground—the daily newspaper in Hollywood was making money but the weekly, published in New York, was dipping into the red. New leadership was needed—preferably someone who had worked both in journalism and in the movie business. The list of individuals who met those criteria was a limited one—indeed, mine was the only name on it.

  I had always enjoyed reading Variety; the prospect of introducing new coverage and new design elements was exciting to me. Further, despite the traumas at Paramount, the entertainment business seemed poised for a period of exponential growth. Variety would be a beneficiary of that expansion if it was appropriately reinvigorated.

  Happily, my prognostication proved to be correct. My stint as editor in chief of Variety was to endure twenty years, during which the paper was to thrive in prestige and in revenues. My timing proved fortuitous: the end of my tenure in 2009 coincided with the sharp economic downturn across the entire landscape of journalism.

  Looking back, I realize that I was the beneficiary of good timing both at Variety and at Paramount. It is hard to imagine a new era of growth in print journalism comparable to that of the eighties and nineties. Similarly, it would be all but impossible to re-create a major film studio today that embodied the reckless swagger of Paramount in the seventies. Hollywood’s dream factories today operate within rigid corporate discipline more akin to those of Proctor & Gamble. The mandate for studio regimes is to perpetuate tent-pole franchises like Spider-Man and Iron Man for the consumption of global audiences, not to subsidize the cinematic mind games of a new generation of Coppolas and Lucases. The business of Hollywood is that of building brands, not fostering imagination.

  With rare exceptions, the generat
ion of filmmakers from that earlier era is no longer around to witness the transformation. Spielberg and Lucas still reign supreme within their spectrums, but their colleagues and contemporaries, by and large, have faded from sight.

  At the end of Easy Rider, the character called Wyatt tells his friend Billy, “We blew it ...” The line is cited importantly in Peter Biskind’s thoughtful book titled Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, in explaining the devastating casualty rate among the leading players in seventies Hollywood. The careers of many artists seemed to capsize shortly after reaching their zenith—Bogdanovich, Arthur Penn, Bob Rafelson, Paul Schrader, among others.

  Undeniably, indiscriminate drug use shortened many careers, and so did rampant egomania. But the hit movies of the sixties and seventies were themselves narcotics, and their mythic success transformed immature filmmakers into rock stars, with all the attendant risks and rewards. The suddenness of their rise seemed to mandate their instant obsolescence.

  Filmmakers have always tended to accomplish their greatest success with their earliest one or two works, and the crazed acclaim accorded their films during this epoch accelerated this phenomenon. Sure, they “blew it,” but it was all but impossible to hold onto “it”—the instant celebrity, the unimaginable financial rewards.

  Without consciously doing so, they had reached for the moon and come away with vastly more than they had bargained for. Nor had they bargained for the long night that awaited them.

  Bob Evans, too, had reached for the moon. Today he still lives in the same elegant house in Beverly Hills that he purchased when he first came to Paramount. The screening room, which was the scene of so many grand and historic moments, burned down in 2001. The furnishings of the main house have not been changed since the seventies. The trees lining the driveway, now bent with age, branches in need of trimming, lean ominously close to the pavement. The proud cock at the front fountain looks a tad forlorn. The home is filled with memorabilia, including photos of its famous visitors. Especially prominent is a framed front page of Daily Variety dated May 18, 1972. Its banner shouts: PAR DISPLACES 20TH AS NO. ONE. The story details the studio’s astonishing rise from last place to first place in five short years. Few, if any, studios in Hollywood history have accomplished such a remarkable turnaround.

  “I still get a charge when I pass the page,” Evans told me wistfully over lunch not long ago.

  “I do, too,” I replied, but even as I said it I asked myself why I had never framed that page, or had even saved it. Was it an acknowledgment of its evanescence? That moment seems so brief and so distanced. So very long ago.

  PARAMOUNT SLATE OF FILMS

  TITLE DIRECTOR PRODUCER

  1967

  Hurry Sundown Otto Preminger Otto Preminger

  The Busy Body William Castle William Castle

  El Dorado Howard Hawks Howard Hawks

  Barefoot in the Park Gene Saks Hal B. Wallis

  Africa—Texas Style Andrew Martin Andrew Martin

  The Stranger Luchino Visconti Dino De Laurentiis

  The Last Safari Henry Hathaway Henry Hathaway

  The Penthouse Peter Collinson Harry Fine

  Oh Dad, Poor Dad, ... Richard Quine Ray Stark–Stanley Rubin

  The Spirit Is Willing William Castle William Castle

  Waterhole No. 3 William Graham Joseph Steck

  Hostile Guns R. G. Springsteen A. C. Lyles

  Warning Shot Buzz Kulik Buss Kulik–Bob Banner

  The President’s Analyst Theodore Flicker Stanley Rubin

  Tarzan and the Great River Robert Day Sy Weintraub

  Funeral in Berlin Guy Hamilton Charles Kasher

  Red Tomahawk R. G. Springsteen A. C. Lyles

  Chuka Gordon Douglas Rod Taylor–Jack Jason

  C’mon, Let’s Live a Little David Butler June Starr–John Hertelandy

  The Deadly Bees Freddie Francis Max Rosenberg–Milton Sobotsky

  Easy Come, Easy Go John Rich Hal B. Wallis

  Fort Utah Lesley Selander A. C. Lyles

  The Gentle Giant James Neilson Ivan Tors

  Gunn Blake Edwards Owen Crumo

  The Hired Killer Frank Shannon F. T. Gay

  The Long Duel Ken Annakin Ken Annakin

  The Sea Pirate Roy Rowland Roy Rowland

  Smashing Time Desmond Davis Carlo Ponti–Ray Millichip

  Two Weeks in September Serge Bourguignon Francis Cosne–Kenneth Harper

  The Upper Hand Denys de la Patelliere Maurice Juaquin

  The Vulture Lawrence Huntington Lawrence Huntington

  1968

  Benjamin Michael Deville Mag Bodard

  Targets Peter Bogdanovich Peter Bogdanovich

  Sebastian David Greene Michael Powell–Herbert Brodkin

  The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom Joseph McGrath Joseph Shaftel

  Inadmissable Evidence Anthony Page Ronald Kinnoch

  The Strange Affair David Greene Stanley Mann–Howard Harrison

  Rosemary’s Baby Roman Polanski William Castle

  The Odd Couple Gene Saks Howard W. Koch

  Danger: Diabolik Mario Bava Dino De Laurentiis

  Tarzan and the Jungle Boy Robert Gordon Sy Weintraub–Robert Day

  Villa Rides! Buzz Kulik Ted Richmond

  Romeo and Juliet Franco Zeffirelli Anthony Havelock-Allen–John Brabourne

  Uptight Jules Dassin Jules Dassin

  Will Penny Tom Gries Fred Engel–Walter Seltzer

  No Way to Treat a Lady Jack Smight Sol C. Siegel

  Up the Junction Peter Collinson Anthony Havelock-Allen–John Brabourne

  Long Day’s Dying Peter Collinson Harry Fine

  Anyone Can Play Luigi Zampa Gianni Hecht Lucari

  Arizona Bushwackers Lesley Selander A. C. Lyles

  Blue Silvio Narizzano Judd Bernard

  Buckskin Michael Moore A. C. Lyles

  Fever Heat Russell Doughton Jr. Russell Doughton Jr.

  Maroc 7 Gerry O’Hara John Gale–Leslie Phillips

  Project X William Castle William Castle

  The Treasure of San Gennaro Dino Risi Vetra-Lyre-Roxy

  The Violent Four Carlo Lizzani Dino De Laurentiis

  1969

  My Side of the Mountain James B. Clark Robert Radnitz

  Downhill Racer Michael Ritchie Richard Gregson

  Medium Cool Haskell Wexler Tully Friedman–Haskell Wexler

  If Lindsay Anderson Michael Medwin

  Fraulein Doktor Alberto Lattuada Dino De Laurentiis

  Once upon a Time in the West Sergio Leone Sergio Leone–Sergio Donati

  Ace High (Revenge in El Paso) Giuseppe Colizzi Giuseppe Colizzi–Bino Cicogna

  Paint Your Wagon Joshua Logan Alan Jay Lerner

  True Grit Henry Hathaway Hal B. Wallis

  The Sterile Cuckoo Alan J. Pakula Alan J. Pakula

  The Italian Job Peter Collinson Michael Deeley

  Oh! What a Lovely War Richard Attenborough Richard Attenborough–Brian Duffy

  Only When I Larf Basil Dearden Len Deighton––Brian Duffy

  Riot Buzz Kulik William Baker

  The Assassination Bureau Basil Dearden Michael Relph

  Goodbye, Columbus Larry Peerce Stanley Jaffe

  Adalen 31 Bo Widerberg Bo Widerberg

  The Brain Gerard Oury Alain Poire

  Hello Down There Jack Arnold George Sherman

  Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies Ken Annakin Ken Annakin

  1970

  WUSA Stuart Rosenberg John Forman–Paul Newman

  The Adventurers Lewis Gilbert Lewis Gilbert

  Darling Lili Blake Edwards Blake Edwards

  Catch-22 Mike Nichols Martin Ransohoff–John Calley

  Borsalino Jacques Deray Alain Delon

  The Molly Maguires Martin Ritt Martin Ritt–Walter Bernstein

  The Out-of-Towners Arthur Hiller Paul Nathan

  On a Clear Day You Can See Forever Vincente Minnelli Howard W. Koch

  The Lawyer Sidney J. Furie Brad Dexter

  Love Sto
ry Arthur Hiller Howard Minsky

  Tell Me You Love Me, Junie Moon Otto Preminger Otto Preminger

  The Confession Constantin Robert Dorfman–Bertrand Javal

  Costa-Gavras

  Little Fauss and Big Halsy Sidney J. Furie Albert S. Ruddy

  Norwood Jack Haley Jr. Hal B. Wallis

  Tropic of Cancer Joseph Strick Joseph Strick

  1971

  Waterloo Sergei Bondarchuk Dino De Laurentiis

  Friends Lewis Gilbert Lewis Gilbert

  The Deserter Burt Kennedy Norman Baer–Dino De Laurentiis–Ralph Serpe

  Plaza Suite Arthur Hiller Howard W. Koch

  Such Good Friends Otto Preminger Otto Preminger

  Deep End Jerzy Skolimowski Helmut Jedele

  A New Leaf Elaine May Joe Manduke

  Unman, Wittering and Zigo John Mackenzie Gareth Wigan

  Harold and Maude Hal Ashby Charles Mulvehill–Colin Higgins

  The Bear and the Doll Michael Deville Mag Bodard

  Been Down So Long It Jeffrey Young Robert Rosenthal

  Looks Like Up to Me

  Black Beauty James Hill Peter Andrews–Malcolm Hayworth

  The Conformist Bernardo Bertolucci Maurizio Lodi-Fe

  Desperate Characters Frank D. Gilroy Frank D. Gilroy

  A Gunfight Lamont Johnson A. Ronald Rubin–Harold Jack Bloom

  Joe Hill Bo Widerberg Bo Widerberg

  Let’s Scare Jessica to Death John Hancock Charles B. Moss Jr.

  Murphy’s War Peter Yates Michael Deeley

  The Red Tent Mikail K. Kalatozov Franco Cristaldi

  The Star-Spangled Girl Jerry Paris Howard W. Koch

  T.R. Baskin Herbert Ross Peter Hyams