Indecent Exposure (16 page)
- *
Although Herbert Allen did no
t disavow this statement when it was published, he did so four years late
r when asked specifically about
it. In any case, the reader should not infer that the w
ords "hustlers." "'shysters." and "c
on men" necessarily refer to the individuals named in the preceding paragrap
hs. The degrees of wrongdoing of which they were accused varies considerably from case to c
ase.
For
example,
while Wallace Groves was convicted of crimes. Burt
Kleiner's firm was accused of civil violations of
federal
securities laws. - Some of those who denigrated Herbert's abilities as a businessman noted that he often seemed tense and ill at ease. Usually, however, those were misperceptions. While Herbert's slightly sunken eyes appeared to reveal fatigue and worry, they normally did not. Herbert's eyes were an inherited physical characteristic which rarely revealed anything about his moods. And if he was brusque, if he stood and sat stiffly erect, never slouching, it was not so much because he was tense as because he had a high energy level and a short attention span. Ninety seconds into almost any conversation, Herbert would start to fidget. He was intolerant of interruptions of his daily regimen, which was as ordered as it had been in college. He went to bed early, got up early, and ate his meals early. Through style fad after style fad, year after year, he dressed fashionably but very conservatively in meticulously tailored clothes, and kept his dark-brown hair short. There was a punctiliousness about him, an exactitude, that the women he dated found attractive. They knew where they stood with him. He told them where to be and when. He was not a fussbudget, but was simply consistent and dependable to a fault—a man trying his best to be in control and usually succeeding. Perhaps as a psychological compensation for the risks he took in business, he made it a point to control every other aspect of his life to the extent that he could. He controlled his emotions. He controlled most conversations. He controlled his women. Although his sense of humor was intact and emerged often, he was essentially a serious, pragmatic, and cynical man, who took pride in having few illusions.
- Herbert Allen's role in the life of Ray Stark had evolved over two decades from that of the bright young nephew of Ray's friend Charlie Allen, to that of surrogate son after Ray's own son's apparent suicide, to that of Ray's best friend in all the world. The relationship eluded easy explanation. The surrogate-son role seemed natural enough, but it was unclear why it went well beyond that. Ray and Herbert both were cautious men, and were wary about personal relationships. Perhaps they found it easier to trust someone a quarter of a century older or younger than to trust their own peers. Whatever the explanation—and any explanation would be a considerable oversimplification—the relationship was genuine, durable, and as close as a friendship could be. Ray and Herbert saw each other often and spoke by telephone at least once daily, month in and month out, year in and year out, no matter where on the globe they happened to be.
- It was natural, therefore, that when Ray Stark became concerned in 1973 about the financial condition of Columbia Pictures, he would turn first to Herbert Allen. Stark first broached the subject early in the year when Columbia's stock was trading at nine dollars; he mentioned the problem again in March when the stock hit seven dollars. In June, after the price had fallen to four dollars, he became insistent. Charlie and Herbert senior opposed any involvement but left the decision to Herbert junior, who was eager at least to explore the possibility of investing in Columbia. Along with Alan Hirschfield, he evaluated the company's problems, and then proceeded to convince the banks, which were considering forcing Columbia into bankruptcy, that new management could save the company. Hirschfield and Allen also gained the confidence of the l
argest shareholder, Matthew Rose
nhaus, the pharmaceuticals tycoon who had bought into the company in the sixties, and of Serge Semenenko, who was on the board of directors as well. Ray Stark arranged a meeting between Herbert Allen and the incumbent Columbia management, and in July, Allen & Company in effect took control of Columbia Pictures. - President Leo Jaffe, who had been at the company since 1930, stayed on as the board chairman, but the power flowed to Herbert Allen, who went on the board of directors, to Alan
Hirschfield
, who was made president, chief executive officer, and a director, and to Ray Stark, who was acknowledged to be the "master architect" of the takeover, even though he did not become an officer or director. Once inside, the new regime found Columbia's condition even worse than it had appeared from a distance. The company declared a $50 million loss for fiscal 1973. - Less than a month after becoming president, Alan
Hirschfield
, at the instigation of Ray Stark, and with the full support of Herbert Allen, named David
Begelman
. then fifty-one years old, to head the motion-picture operations. Later.
Hirschfield
hired Clive
Davis to run Columbia's phonograph-record unit, even though Davis had been fired as head of CBS Records for misappropriation of funds and was under federal indictment for income tax evasion. Despite his legal problems. Davis was an acknowledged talent in the record business, and
Hirschfield
believed that Davis, like David
Begelman
. could make money for Columbia Pictures Industries. - "What if Clive goes to jail?" Herbert Allen asked Hirschfield.
- "Then he'll run it from Danbury [a federal prison in Connecticut]," Hirschfield replied, only half in jest. Allen again supported Hirschfield's decision. Davis got off with a fine and suspended prison sentence.
- The Allen takeover of Columbia gave Ray Stark enormous influence. Although Stark and Herbert Allen spoke daily on the phone, often about business, it was Alan Hirschfield, as the chief executive of the company, who was placed in the position of actually conducting business with Stark. They had known each other well for a decade, of course, and while
Hirschfield
admired Stark's ability as a producer, he always had been wary of some of Ray's business practices. Stark was extremely aggressive and never failed fully to exploit every situation to the maximum advantage for him personally. While still a full-time salaried officer of Seven Arts, Stark had begun, independently of Seven Arts, to develop various theater and film projects stemming from the life and career of Fanny Brice. The projects included
Funny Girl
and were to make use of Barbra Streisand. Although his contract with Seven Arts permitted this independent activity, some members of the Seven Arts board felt that conflicts of interest were inevitable and that Stark was taking undue advantage of his freedom. There were heated, protracted arguments, and Stark finally decided to leave Seven Arts just before it merged with Warner Bros. - When
Hirschfield
became president of Columbia Pictures, he knew that Stark's relationship with the company might cause pain as well as pleasure, and decided to assert his authority immediately. Ray had nearly completed
The Way We Were
with Streisand and Redford for release in late 1973 and was preparing to begin
Funny Lady.
Hirschfield examined Stark's deal with Columbia and was not surprised to find that while the terms were very lucrative for Stark, they were not as lucrative as Hirschfield felt they should be for Columbia, particularly in view of its precarious financial status. He also was dismayed to sec that the studio had not been enforcing strict controls on production expenses for Stark's films. - On Thursday, September 6
1973. only six weeks after Hirschfield had been named president and only three weeks after David Begelman had become studio head. Hirschfield dictated a memorandum to
Begelman
about the "Ray Stark Relationship." - "When you
are
in New York on your forthcoming trip
I
believe it important to discuss fully the Ray Stark situation as to specific projects as well as the overall nature of our deal with him. It makes no sense to me whatsoever to be spending the kind of money we are for production and ending up with 35 percent of the profits after substantial gross participations. I also feel that the overheads he is incurring need revising and trimming in accordance with our policy as far as all outside producers are concerned. - "We also have to come to grips with the
Funny Lady
situation as soon as possible." (
Hirschfield
went on to question the wisdom of keeping the
Funny Lady
project at Columbia, in view of the relatively small amount of money the studio stood to make from what inevitably would be a large expenditure.)
Begelman promised to do his best, but eleven months later, with principal photography completed and the film in the editing room,
Hirschfield
was still fretting about a lack of effective control over Stark's spending. - "Now that this picture is completed, the most difficult job all of us have is holding down additional expense," he wrote to Begelman in August of 1974. "It appears to me that the cost could rise substantially if the producer is allowed to have free rein of continuing expenditures. At some point someone is going to have to say no to some of the requests or all of the very good efforts that were made to hold down costs during production will be overshadowed by the post-production expenditures. I believe it is important that a very hard line be taken in this regard."
- Of course, Stark knew of
Hirschfield
's memos to Begelman, and occasionally Ray and Alan clashed directly. Prior to the release of
Funny Lady
they fought over the terms of the contract covering that picture as well as others. They sometimes fought over the substantive merit of particular movie projects. (When
Hirschfield
said he wasn't fond of Stark's concept for filming Neil Simon's
The Sun
shine Boys.
Stark took it to MGM, where it became a modest success, starring Walter Matthau and George Burns.) Their most bitter and protracted dispute, however, was over Hirschfield's determination to change and improve Columbia's method of, and attitude toward, the distribution, marketing, and advertising of motion pictures—an attitude that had been prevalent in the industry for decades and had changed relatively little by the 1970s. - To many producers, the process of marketing the average movie (they believed there was such a thing) was very simple: You opened it at Loew's Tower East on the East Side of Manhattan, Loew's Astor Plaza in Times Square, the Bruin in the affluent Westwood area of Los Angeles, and the Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard. You took full-page ads in
The New York Times
and the
Los Angeles Times
beginning a few days before the movie opened and extending a week into its run. If the movie did poorly, you doubled the ad budget. No motion picture was so bad that it could not be sold to the public by an aggressive studio advertising department. Money, since it was the studio's, was no object to the producer. - Alan Hirschfield wanted to change all that. He was determined to bring some of the same modern techniques to the marketing of films that were being used throughout the American economy to market detergents, toiletries, beer, and other products—techniques such as market research, to try to determine just who might want certain products and why; regional analysis, to try to determine what parts of the country might be most receptive to a particular film; and strict controls on ad budgets, to ensure that a full-page ad was not run if a half-page ad would suffice. While not advocating neglect of the crucial New York and Los Angeles markets,
Hirschfield
wanted to focus more attention on motion-picture audiences in the vast area "between the mountains" as Hollywood put it (the Appalachians in the East and the Rockies and Sierras in the West)—places like Kansas City, Denver, Cleveland, Miami, Dallas, Phoenix, and a hundred other large and medium-sized cities which represented many millions of dollars in potential film revenue but which often had been slighted by the advertising strategists of Hollywood. - Ray Stark did not object to the general principles that Hirschfield espoused, but he found much to criticize about the particular ways in which Columbia marketed his films, and about the people making Columbia's advertising decisions. When
Funny Lady
was being prepared for release, Stark hired two "producer's representatives" to monitor Columbia's advertising and marketing planning. The move incensed
Hirschfield
; in a memo to Stark on September 13, 1974, he called it a "demeaning gesture to all concerned here at Columbia." - Stark's retort to Hirschfield was typical—long-winded, preachy, patronizing, alternately self-righteous and cynical—the reply of a powerful, sixty-year-old Hollywood impresario to a man he still considered a green and insufficiently deferential Wall Street upstart.
- "Friday the 13th would not necessarily seem the likeliest day for you to write me a memo," Stark began. "So, with my usual compassion, I will briefly answer you and then let Gerry Lipsky and Bob Mirisch [Stark's lawyers] leisurely get into the specifics. . . . Does Columbia have anything to hide? Are they afraid someone else may come up with a better or more viable [marketing] suggestion? . . . Yes, I am happy with the [general marketing] decisions you have made and, certainly, I have expressed this not only to you privately but publicly. One day you might find out that this is one of the reasons you are ending up with a lot of the [movie] products you are now getting. My support of Columbia in this town has been a helluva lot more important to helping you acquire product than you may realize.
...
If you would be kind enough to check your facts, Alan, you would find that the term 'producer's representative' is not the manifestation of my troubled mind. For years, top producers (and this is a category that I humbly admit to) have had producer representatives.
...
I believe the success of a picture, Alan, is contingent upon the whole rather than any individual elements. I welcome Columbia's executive advice as to the creative areas of my productions. Your advertising department and I have found a very happy and productive relationship through communications. I know that after you have read this letter you will agree that there is no Frankenstein replacing the lady holding the torch for Columbia Distribution. All we want to do is help make
Funny Lady
the richest lady in the world."
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