Indecent Exposure (24 page)
- Hirschfield's office was quiet at last, and he was alone, slumped in his chair. The intensity, the shouting, the tears, the sense of desperation that had filled the day since early morning had ebbed, at least for the moment. All arrangements had been made, all documents signed, all telephone calls completed, all teletypes sent. There was no turning back. By Monday, the world would know that Columbia Pictures had a scandal on its hands.
- "A lot of people will lose because of this," he had said to Melnick. "Nobody will win."
- Hirschfield shrugged, got up, and packed his briefcase for a week in California. Then he met his children and wife for a long-scheduled evening of
Beatlemania
at the Winter Garden Theater and dinner at "21." As exhausted as he was, especially by the events of that day, he managed to enjoy the evening. The company of his children— Laura, thirteen; Marc, eleven; and Scott, eight—always invigorated Alan, no matter what problems might be plaguing him. The prospect of good news from Bill Thompson was cheering as well. - For the first time in sixteen days, the weight on Hirschfield's shoulders seemed a little lighter.
- By early Friday evening in Burbank, the Columbia executive suites were abuzz with rumors that something dramatic was about to happen. It was unprecedented for Alan Hirschfield to fly out on short notice and hold high-level meetings on a weekend. The only person at the studio who knew the full details—Jim Johnson—was sworn to secrecy. Though a few people suspected that the meeting would concern David Begelman, most knew nothing.
- Norman Horowitz, a senior vice president of Columbia's television company, flew into Los Angeles Friday evening from Hilton Head, South Carolina, where he had been attending a business conference. He was supposed to be in New York on Monday and would have stayed in the East, but he had promised to attend an
est
seminar that weekend In Los Angeles. Attendance at
est
seminars was all but mandatory, so rather than risk the wrath of his
est
colleagues, Horowitz had decided to endure two cross-country flights in three days. - When he arrived at his hilltop home in Encino about ten, Horowitz's wife immediately told him of the Sunday meeting with Hirschfield. Horowitz was angry; the meeting would keep him from a major part of the
est
seminar. His curiosity grew. Something big must be up. It was too late to call anyone in New York, so he began calling Columbia people in Los Angeles. - "What the fuck is going on?" he asked a studio colleague.
- "Nobody seems to know what it is, Norman, but there was one strange thing. David Begelman went to New York very suddenly yesterday, and some time overnight they changed the locks on his office."
- "They what!
' - "They changed the locks on David's office. It's true. Something fishy is going on with David."
- "Holy shit!" said Norman Horowitz, thinking that Begelman probably had been hired away by
another studio and that Columbia
was being awfully heavy-handed in protecting its trade secrets. - SEVENTEEN
- On most autumn Saturday mornings, Alan
Hirschfield
could be found at one of seve
ral athletic fields in Scarsdale
where he coached not one but two soccer teams. Fortunately they did not play at the same time. His older son. Marc, played for one team; his younger son, Scott, for another. After the games on Saturday, October 1,
Hirschfield
showered, dressed, drove to the Westchester County Airport and was flown to Boston on a small jet belonging to Time Incorporated. In the course of negotiating a multimillion-dollar investment by Time in Columbia's films, Hirschfield had become friendly with several Time executives and was afforded occasional use of the plane. - Bill Thompson met him at Logan and they went to Jimmy's Harborside, a rustic seafood restaurant on the water across the harbor from the airport. Although Joe Fischer had briefed Thompson the previous Sunday, and Thompson had attended the Brandeis dinner the week before that, Hirschfield and Thompson had had no more than a brief chat in several weeks. The good impression they had made on each other four years earlier, when the
Allens
were buying control of Columbia Pictures, had grown into warm friendship and admiration. Thompson was a
Hirschfield
fan and praised him at every opportunity, public as well as private. "We're very proud of the job that Alan
Hirschfield
has done; he has really put vitality into Columbia," Thompson had told
Film Comment,
the prestigious journal of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in 1976. "This is a people business, there"s no question about it. Alan has brought new blood to a company that was really getting somewhat tired. The record speaks for itself. They were swamping in oceans of red ink, and Alan really did an outstanding job." - Coming from the most influential movie banker in the world, such words were welcome indeed, especially since Hirschfield worked for a board of directors who, he felt, had never given him sufficient credit for his accomplishments, and who were now counseling a cautious response to the flagrant crimes of David
Begelman
, partly, it seemed to
Hirschfield
, on the ground that Begelman might be irreplaceable. That was another thing Hirschfield liked about Bill Thompson: he knew that every successful company was run by a team and that no individual was indispensable. - Thompson commiserated about the
Begelman
problem, and then revealed his news—news that was extraordinary in itself and also accomplished something that Hirschfield was beginning to think was impossible: it placed the Begelman problem in what might prove to be a manageable perspective. - Thompson told
Hirschfield
that the five top officers of the United Artists Corporation were about to resign because they were dissatisfied with the way UA's corporate parent. Transamerica Corporation, was treating them and their movie company. The five men—Arthur Krim, Robert Benjamin. Eric Plcskow, Mike Medavoy and William Bernstein—were among the ablest and most highly respected people in the entertainment industry. Their resignation meant that they would be free to join another company. Thompson felt that that company might be Columbia Pictures if the correct approach were made. And if Arthur Krim and his associates joined Columbia, the
Begelman
problem—insofar as his departure might cause a management void—would vanish because Columbia would have no further need for Begelman. - Thompson cautioned Hirschfield that the news must be held in the strictest confidence: Krim and his colleagues would not make their move until around the turn of the year. They had not even told their bosses at Transamerica yet. The prospect, however, seemed to hold much promise. Hirschfield had a warm relationship with the UA group. And Arthur Krim and Herbert Allen knew each other, independently of the movie industry, as fundraisers for the Democratic Party.
Hirschfield
's mind raced with possibilities. The Krim group's filmmaking record for the most part was excellent. United Artists had had the enormous revenues of the James Bond movies and the considerable prestige of the Woody Allen films. The company also had distributed some of the most spectacular individual films of recent years, including
Rocky, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest,
and
Midnight Cowboy.
Equally important, in the new circumstances at Columbia, the United Artists executives were men of integrity, whose business and professional reputations were beyond reproach. David
Begelman
seemed sleazy by comparison, despite his talent and any possible extenuating psychological factors that might mitigate his criminality. - It was by no means certain, of course, that the United Artists people could be induced to come to Columbia or, if they could, under what conditions. And it was too soon to approach them formally. Thompson suggested that
Hirschfield
schedule a lunch with Eric Pl
eskow, UA's president, whom
Hirschfield
knew better t
han the other four, and tell Ple
skow that if he or his colleagues ever decided to leave United Artists, Columbia would be interested in discussing their futures with them. Such an approach at least would put Columbia first in line and might prove helpful later. - Back home in Scarsdale
in the late afternoon, Alan gave Berte the good news and then phoned Herbert, the only other person he had told about his trip to Boston. He had obtained Thompson's permission to give Herbert the details not only because of Herbert's uniquely influential position at Columbia but because of his relationship with Arthur Krim. Even though the UA group's plan remained secret, the word eventually would leak, and Alan wanted to be the first to tell Herbert. Still exultant on the telephone. Alan portrayed the news as the "answer to Columbia's prayers. It would be a world-beater for us. We'd be the strongest company in the industry if we could land these people." But to Alan's chagrin, Herbert was not nearly so enthusiastic. "It sounds interesting—som
ething to think about. Let's see
how things look in a couple of months. It woul
d depend on what kind of deal we
could make." - Alan hung up and said to Bert
e, "Can you believe that? He was lukewarm. You'd have thought I was telling him today is the first of October and winter is just around the corner. 'Ho-hum.' 'Somethi
ng to think about.' 'Have to see
what develops." How can
anyone be so blase
about this kind of news?" - What was surprising, however,
was not Herbert's reaction but
Alan's failure to anticipate the reaction. It was Herbert's nature— almost a reflex—to be skeptical and blase in the face of dramatic news, good or bad. Reacting that way made Herbert feel mature, made him feel that he was exercising control, made him feel that he was keeping his head when all about him were losing theirs. Though this trait could be irritating, it was familiar to most people who knew Herbert well, and they had learned to deal with it routinely. But Alan Hirschfield did not handle such behavior adroitly. However, his purblindness was not limited to that particular trait in Herbert, or even to Herbert's personality in general. It was symptomatic, in fact, of a general incapacity in Alan for the rudimentary psychoanalysis that is essential in all close human relationships. Alan could charm strangers, singly or in groups, with almost uncanny skill. But he frequently had difficulty with people close to him. Infec
ted by an unusual mixture of naivete
and laziness, he tended to take friends for granted, not in the sense of forgetting their birthdays, but in the more important sense of failing to discern the nuances of their personalities and the precise nature of his relationship with them. He paid little heed to the shadings of friendship, sometimes treating a close friend as something less, or a casual friend as something more. Naturally, such carelessness occasionally led to awkward moments, miscalculations, and even pain, not only for his friends but for Alan himself. And in 1977 no relationship held more potential for trouble than his relationship with Herbert. - Alan—at least subconsciously—failed to discern that their relationship had never been a dynamic friendship. Although the relationship generally was pleasant—they acted like friends most of the time— they never had been more than close business acquaintances, and the relationship had always contained the seeds of enmity. Indeed, Alan in recent years had come to resent Herbert's role in his life and wanted more independence. But he had never bothered to analyze the ramifications of the conflict between his private feelings and the surface congeniality. And he persisted in conducting the relationship as a close friendship between men of similar inclination and spirit, assuming that whatever excited him would excite Herbert, that whatever horrified him would horrify Herbert.
Thus, when Herbert did not react as Alan anticipated—when he did not exult over the prospect of five prominent United Artists executives joining Columbia Pictures—Alan interpreted the response as an annoying but essentially minor and isolated disagreement between friends. He not only overlooked the reflexive nature of Herbert's skepticism. He also failed to sec that Herbert was analyzing the concept not as a friend but as a business associate—an associate, moreover, with interests that did not necessarily coincide with Alan's interests. (Though the presence of the United Artists group might solve the
Begelman
problem, it might also dilute Herbert Allen's power at Columbia Pictures. It might lessen Ray Stark's role.)
In more than fifteen years of knowing each other—four years of working closely together—Alan's psychoanalytic naivete" rarely had hurt him because he generally had deferred to Herbert's judgment on most matters, or Herbert had chosen not to counter him. It was remarkable, however, that in all that time Alan had never seriously considered the possible consequences of his taking a strong stand against Herbert on a matter of vital importance.
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