Indecent Exposure (55 page)
- At 711 Fifth Avenue, various executives and public-relations aides were sitting in their offices with yellow legal pads, attempting to draft a statement of unity that would be satisfactory to
Hirschfield
on the one hand and the board of directors on the other. Since there was no genuine unity, the task naturally was difficult. Words praising Alan
Hirschfield
were written for Herbert Allen and Matty Rosenhaus to utter. Words praising the board were written for
Hirschfield
to utter. Words stressing the "good faith" of both sides were written for Leo Jaffe to utter. Handwritten drafts we
re circulated, edited, typed, re-edite
d, rewritten, discarded, and begun anew. Someone felt it would be appropriate for the statement to begin: "Leo Jaffe, chairman of the board of Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., announced today that the board of directors of the Company has authorized him to negotiate a new long-term employment agreement with Alan J. Hirschfield.
..."
Someone felt it would be appropriate for Matty Rosenhaus to say: "While Mr. Hirschfield and I, as well as other board members, had an honest difference of opinion concerning David Begelman's ongoing role in the company, this did not in any way change my belief that Alan has masterminded a brilliant turnaround in the company during his tenure and that, by far, Mr.
Hirschfield
is the best individual to guide us into the future.
..."
Someone felt it would be appropriate for Herbert Allen to say: "I have been associated with Alan Hirschfield for many years and hold him in the highest regard. I consider that Columbia Pictures is fortunate to have Mr.
Hirschfield
as its chief executive officer. . . ." Someone felt it would be appropriate for Alan Hirschfield to say: "1 appreciate the board's expression of confidence and assert my strong commitment to the company, its board, and its employees. I look forward to continuing an association that has been amicable and successful.
..." - The effort continued for days and eventually waned. As tough and sophisticated as Hirschfield, Rosenhaus, and Allen were, they ultimately found it impossible to mouth words which so fundamentally misrepresented their true feelings.
- FORTY-TWO
- Aside
from Lew Wasserman of MCA-Unive
rsal, whom he considered the most skilled executive in show business, Alan Hirschfield admired no one in the industry more than the top officers of the United Artists Corporation—Arthur Krim, Robert Benjamin, and Eric Pleskow. Since taking control of United Artists more than a quarter-century earlier—in February 1951—Krim and Benjamin (and later Pleskow when he joined them in the top ranks) consistently displayed an unusual combination of ingenuity, taste, and business acumen, and had come closer than most in the modern era to mastering the still-mysterious process of making movies. There were many reasons for UA's success, but perhaps the most important was the company's sense of how to strike the right balance between the filmmaker's creative independence—essential for artistic integrity— and the studio's financial control—essential for corporate health and stability. Striking that balance had been at the heart of successful filmmaking since the industry's birth and always would be, as indeed it underpins all art forms that depend upon mass commerce for their survival. Achieving the proper balance between freedom and control is a perpetual struggle. Nothing in the entertainment business is more difficult. Nothing is more rewarding than consistent success at it. Nothing is more destructive than failure to achieve it. And nothing has fostered more feuds than differing opinions of how to achieve it. - Although Krim and Benjamin were never able to reduce their success to a formula, they undoubtedly were aided by the fresh, pragmatic, myth-free outlook that they brought to the movie business in the early fifties. And it was appropriate that the company they took over was atypical in the industry, having been born of an idea for giving film artists an unusual degree of freedom.
- Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks. Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith founded United Artists in 1919 in an effort to preserve the near-total artistic control, and the extraordinarily lucrative financial remuneration, which they had won in recent years but which the increasingly monopolistic film industry was reluctant to keep giving.* By starting their own company, they hoped not only to continue producing their own films but to distribute them as well and keep all the profits. It was not long before they encountered problems. They had to invest a lot of their own money to build and maintain a nationwide distribution organization. Their own films were insufficient in number to generate revenues needed to maintain the distribution company. They needed the help of businessmen and other artists. Joseph Schenck, a skilled executive and the brother of Nick
- *
Con
trary to
a popular notion, Barbara Streisand and other t
op actors and directors of the seventies and eighties were not the first to wrest
a
large measure of control over their films from the studios and reap huge rewards in the process. The four founders of United Artists possessed the same degree of control and made more money, adjusted for inflation, than the top stars and directors of today. - Schenck of Loews-MGM, was hired to run United Artists. Sam Goldwyn subsequently joined the company. Through the late twenties, thirties, and early forties, How
ard Hughes, Walt Disney, David O. Se
lznick, Darryl Zanuck, and other independent producers distributed films through United Artists. The careers of the founders declined, however, and the company never functioned entirely as they had intended for more than a few years. - Instead of becoming a durable base for independent filmmakers, UA more often was a stop on the way to other destinations. Its management was erratic and contentious. Joe Schenck left and was followed as chief executive in rapid succession by vice president Al Lichtman, founder Mary Pickford, A. P. Giannini of the Bank of America, and
foreign-sales chief Murray Silve
rstone, none of whom could get along with the dominant force in the company, Sam Goldwyn. After a bitter fight with Pickford, Fairbanks, and Chaplin (D. W. Griffith had sold out in the early thirties), Sam Goldwyn left UA in 1941. Amid continued feuding by the owners and executives, the company gradually declined through the forties until it was taken over by Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin of the prominent New
York law firm of Phillips, Nize
r, Benjamin & Krim, whose best known partner was trial attorney Louis Nizer. - Krim and Benjamin had done a lot of legal work for film companies and knew the business well. By. altering the United Artists founders' concept slightly, the new owners made the company a consistent success. Instead of attempting to function essentially as a non
-
profit distribution company, with all profit going to the film producers, United Artists became a financial partner of the producers, putting all or part of the money up to finance their pictures and sharing the profits with them. The idea still appealed to many producers because they continued to be given more creative independence than the other studios would give. It was by no means total independence: United Artists would sponsor no film on which it had not first agreed with the producer on the story, cast, director, and budget. But the rising number of talented producers who found the degree of autonomy attractive made some of the most successful movies of the fifties. Instead of panicking in the face of competition from television, U
nited Artists observed Nick Sche
nck's old adage— "There's nothing wrong with this industry that good pictures cannot cure"—and drew audiences away from their TV sets to see such pictures as
Around the World in
Eighty Days, Twelve Angry Men,
Some Like It Hot, The Moon Is Blue,
and
The Man with the Golden Arm.
Through the sixties and seventies, it released many noted films including
In the Heat of the Night, Midnight Cowboy, West Side Story, Elmer Gantry, Judgment at Nuremberg, Tom Jones, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Last Tango in Paris, Lenny
and
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
The studio also distributed all of the James Bond and Woody Allen movies. In 1976, three of the five films nominated for the Academy Award as "Best Picture" were distributed by United Artists—
Rocky, Network,
and
Bound for Glory. (Rocky
won.) - United Artists constantly adjusted the degree of control it exerted over film projects. In 1977 it decreed that if a film's cost exceeded its budget, the producer, not the studio, must pay the difference. But Krim, Benjamin, Pleskow, and their colleagues at the same time were straining under the restrictions placed upon them by their corporate parent, the Transamerica Corporation, which had acquired UA in 1967. The top UA officers finally decided to resign as a group and start a new company in affiliation with a major studio.
- Alan Hirschfield had first heard of their plans in strictest secrecy from banker William Thompson at Jimmy's Harborside in Boston on the first Saturday in October. With the
Begelman
crisis just engulfing Columbia, Thompson had felt that the availability of the UA group might help solve any management problem posed by the departure of
Begelman
. During the fall, Hirschfield clung to the hope that he could woo the UA people. The prospect had helped sustain him through the darkest moments of the
Begelman
fight, even though he knew that Herbert Allen did not share his enthusiasm for bringing the group to Columbia. Even after
Begelman
's reinstatement, he continued to hope. By mid-January, with the UA defections having been announced and the group already negotiating with several film companies,
Hirschfield
knew he had to act quickly.
On Friday, January 20—with Manhattan quiet and nearly immobile under a fresh foot of snow—he had lun
ch with Arthur Krim and Eric Ple
skow at the Harmonic Club. It was
Hirschfield
's fourth meeting with Pleskow on the subject, but his first with Krim. Hirschfield proposed that their new company be launched from a minimum base of $75 million—$25 million from Columbia as an advance against distribution fees, and a $50 million line of bank credit, which
Hirschfield
had tentatively arranged through Bill Thompson. Columbia would have the exclusive right to distribute their films. The profits would be divided evenly between Columbia and the new company. - Krim and Ple
skow liked the terms, and expressed confidence in
Hirschfield
personally. But they identified two general concerns about affiliating with Columbia—"the Begelman mess" and the "Ray Stark problem." - Arthur Krim felt that reinstating Begelman had been a "terrible mistake" and that the clash over the issue had clouded Columbia's internal authority structure and placed in doubt Hirschfield's authority in particular. Hirschfield revealed that the board, informally at least, had offered him a new contract and he said he hoped the board "would soon publicly clarify my role and endorse my position in the company."
- As for Ray Stark, the Krim group had never particularly liked Stark and were concerned about the extent of his authority at Columbia. Would they have to listen to Stark's opinion of each of their film deals and in effect clear deals with him?
- "Ray has nothing to do with running Columbia. Ray runs Ray.
I
run Columbia,"
Hirschfield
said, without total conviction.
Krim and Ple
skow said they would consider Hirschfield's proposal seriously but remained concerned about "the Begelman mess" and "the Stark problem." - Arthur Krim later talked with Herbert Allen, who
said, "Quite frankly, Arthur, we
have a contentious atmosphere here." - After a weekend slowed by snow, Hirschfield
on Monday went to see Andrew Heiske
ll, the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Time Incorporated, in his office high in the Time-Life Building.
Hirschfield
had valued Columbia's relationship with Time very highly since its inception eighteen months earlier when the publishing giant had agreed to invest several million dollars in Columbi
a's movie productions. Andrew Heiskell had said at the time: "We
have been impressed by the record of Columbia Pictures
...
in its selection of properties and in the aggressive marketing approaches it has pursued in distributing its films theatrically." - Spurred by Allen Adler,
who had negotiated the deal with Time
, Hirschfield had courted Heiske
ll, hoping that the film investment might lead to a bro
ader and closer relationship. Heiske
ll and
his wife, Marian Sulzberger Heiskell,
had been among Alan and
Berte
Hirschfield's guests at the party after the premiere of
Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Hirschfield worried that the Begelman scandal might damage the relationship, but at the same time he wondered whether Time might be of help. When he began pondering how to change the power balance at Columbia by inducing an outsider to invest in the company, he and Adler had thought of Time. But there had been no pursuit, and on this cold January afternoon Hirschfield made no explicit overtures and tried to put the best face on the situation as it stood: he expected to get a new contract, and he expected the Columbia board to endorse him publicly.
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