Indecent Exposure (32 page)
- On Monday morning, October 24, Hirschfield and Dan
Melnick
flew to Boston for a visit with the chief executive officer of General Cinema, Richard A. Smith. Dick Smith's unpretentious manner and appearance belied his prominence in the business and cultural affairs of New England. The son of General Cinema's founder, he had graduated from Harvard and had remained active in the university's affairs, as well as serving on the boards of the First National Bank of Boston and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. - Hirschfield wanted to show off
Melnick
, one of the brightest and most articulate people in Hollywood, as a way of assuring Smith that Columbia's film program, with Melnick as head of production, was in good hands no matter who was president of the studio. Before introducing
Melnick
, however, Hirschfield spent a few minutes alone with Smith.
Hirschfield
was ready with his usual carefully worded explanation of how Columbia was handling the Begelman problem, why it was investigating carefully, and why it had suspended
Begelman
rather than dismissing him. But he did not have to deliver the speech. Dick Smith, it turned out, already knew the pertinent facts and had formed strong opinions about them. - "I don't understand what all the confusion is about," Smith declared in his mild New England brogue. "Why don't you just fire the man and be done with it. It seems clear from what I know that he's a crook."
- "I appreciate your sentiments, Dick; they're my sentiments, too," Hirschfield said. "But I've got a board to contend with, and not everybody on the board sees the issue that clearly. The prevailing view is to wait and see what the investigation reveals before doing anything."
- "Let me
make one thing very clear to you," Smith replied. "We have no interest in investing in Columbia if Mr. Begelman has anything to do with the company. We just don't run our business that way. As far as I'm concerned, we're investing in Alan Hirschfield and his management team. We want to meet
Melnick
and make sure he has his head screwed on straight, but basically we're looking to a relationship with Columbia as represented by you. If Begelman comes back into the company, there will be no deal with General Cinema. We can't afford those kinds of relationships. That's not the way we run our business. I assume your board will come to the same conclusion. I don't know what's taking so long." - "I'll certainly see that your feelings are conveyed to the board,"
Hirschfield
said. "I appreciate your candor, and I know your feelings will carry a lot of weight." - Dan
Melnick
then gave Smith an informal briefing on Columbia's motio
n-picture production plans for t
he next two years. Smith was very impressed, and
Hirschfield
and Melnick left for the airport and a flight to Los Angeles with General Cinema's 526 million investment plan still intact. Hirschfield was elated. He was gratified by Smith's support of his desire to get rid of
Begelman
. And he was confident that Smith's threat to withdraw from the deal if
Begelman
returned surely would help nullify any attempt to resurrect
Begelman
. - Having been warned by Herbert Allen to make amends to Ray Stark, whom he had slighted inadvertently while in Los Angeles three weeks earlier, Hirschfield scheduled a long lunch with Stark for Tuesday. They ate at Ray's favorite restaurant in the immediate vicinity of T
he Burbank Studios, Chow's Koshe
rama Delicatessen, the only spot for miles around that featured tongue on rye and chicken with walnuts on the same menu. - Hirschfield
was more surprised than he should have been that Stark was lobbying for
Begelman
's reinstatement as president of the studio. He knew that the investigative team was f
inding evidence (hat Stark and Bege
lman had a closer relationship than he had thought. And David
Geffen
had warned him that Stark's comments were tilted for
Begelman
and against Hirschfield. But he had not grasped the ramifications of these signals and thus was unprepared for a sophisticated encounter with Stark, who not only sketched a rationale for
Begelman
's restoration but also hinted that the continuation of the Rastar multipicture contract with Columbia might depend on Begelman's return. The Stark contract, which Columbia valued very highly, was in the midst of renegotiation. - "I really can't sign any deal until I know who's going to be running the studio," Stark told Hirschfield. "Maybe you'll bring in somebody I don't like or who doesn't like me."
Hirschfield
pooh-poohed that notion. Stark then said he understood that
Begelman
was making excellent progress in his psychotherapy with Dr. Judd Marmor. Hirschfield pooh-poohed that as well (and concealed his shock that Stark was so well informed on something so intimate as another person's psychotherapy). - "At best," Hirschfield said, "David has severe psychological problems that will take a lot of time to treat. At worst, he's nothing but a crook. In any event, he
has lied up and down. There's
nothing he can say to me ever again where I could rely on what he says or trust his motives." - "Alan, you've got to have a more flexible attitude," Stark replied. "He's coming along well. Besides, he's the best in the business at what he does, and you two have been a great team. It would be a tragedy to break it up."
- "My God, have you forgotten what he's done—the horrendous nature of the acts! The man has forged checks, he's stolen money, he's falsified documents!"
"But it isn't that much money. I would have given it to him. You would have given it to him. I'm sure he's learned his lesson." - "Ray, what do you do the day you catch some vice president in your company stealing? Do you say everybody gets one chance? And who knows what else we're going to find in this investigation?"
"I'm convinced you've found all you're going to find. You're at least obliged to wait for the results before making up your mind." - That evening Hirschfield took Leonard and Wendy Goldberg to dinner at La Scala. Although he was friendly with the Goldbergs, the occasion was not an idle, relaxed retreat from the cares of the day. It was a "relationship dinner"—a genre of event which is common in more than one industrial subculture but which nowhere rises to the level of vital social ritual quite the way it does in Hollywood. Relationship dinners (the label is never used openly) are big in Hollywood because many important relationships depend for their perpetuation on a degree of contrived, artificial stimulus. The town is so small that one does not have the luxury of dealing only with people that one genuinely likes and respects. Sooner or later, one must do business with just about all the important people, whether one likes them or not. Hollywood is still one of the most oligarchical societies in the world. There are only seven major studios, three television networks, two or three important talent agencies, a handful of truly important motion picture producers, and another handful of truly important television producers. A hostile relationship with even one or two of these entities or people can be very harmful, so one tries to be everyone's friend. However, disputes, quarrels, and general hostility
are
so common in Hollywood that efforts toward harmony are defensive more often than they are offensive. One spends more energy attempting to isolate and limit the harmful effects of wounded relationships than one spends maintaining healthy relationships. If, for example, an important relationship deteriorates, and an important friend becomes an enemy, one must try to ingratiate oneself with the important friends of the new enemy in hopes that the ill feeling will not spread from the individual to an entire circle of people. - Alan
Hirschfield
, therefore, arranged a relationship dinner with the Goldbergs for two reasons. First, Leonard Goldberg, along with his partner, Aaron Spelling, was one of the most important television producers in the industry. Four of the top ten TV shows—
Charlie's Angels, Love Boat, Fantasy Island,
and
Starsky and Hutch
—were Spelling-Goldberg programs. Goldberg wanted to produce movies, too, and had been in the process of negotiating a production deal with Columbia when David Begelman was sidelined. The second reason for the dinner was that Leonard and Wendy Goldberg, individually and as a coup
le, were among David and Gladyce
Begelman
's closest friends. (Wendy and Leonar
d accompanied David and Gladyce
on their European honeymoon in the late summer of 1975.) - Hirschfield thus hoped that he could maintain Leonard Goldberg's good will, even in the face of Columbia's suspension of Begelman and even if it became necessary to dismiss David permanently. The dinner was pleasant and cordial, as most relationship dinners
are
. They sat in one of the red-leather banquettes in La Scala's brightly lit main dining room just to the right of the bar. They were seen by a number of mutual acquaintances (a helpful occurrence at a relationship dinner). Talk of David's misdeeds was kept brief and confined to generalities. Assuming that the Goldbergs kn
ew the details of the thefts—but
not knowing for sure that they did—Hirschfield refrained from invoking the words "forgery" and "embezzlement." He merely offered sympathy when Leonard and Wendy expressed sadness at David's plight and surprise that he might have strayed from his usual pattern of honorable conduct. - The talk of Leonard's movie-production plans, however, was more specific. Alan said he was confident that the conversations which Leonard had been having with David could be consummated satisfactorily. Columbia very much wanted Leonard to produce pictures for it. Alan even confided that Columbia was seriously considering purchasing the motion-picture rights to
Annie,
the Broadway musical which had become a major hit since opening the previous April. If Columbia were to buy
Annie,
Alan asked, would Leonard be interested in producing it? Leonard was enthusiastic. Although he had been skeptical about
Annie
before it opened, he said, he had been pleasantly surprised—even astounded—by how well it worked on the stage and how much the audience obviously loved it the night he and Wendy saw it. Yes, he would be very interested in producing
Annie.
(Neither Alan nor Leonard bothered to mention an obvious fact:
Annie
would be a big-budget film, and the producer's fee would be very large.) - The evening ended with visions of
Annie
dancing in Leonard Goldberg's head, and with Alan Hirschfield hopeful that the Goldberg relationship was intact. - Hirschfield faced two awkward encounters on Wednesday with men he knew well—breakfast with Frank Wells, the president of Warner Bros., and lunch with Lew Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg, the chairman and president of MCA-Universal. Hollywood labor problems were the subject of both meetings, but David Begelman loomed over the conversations, almost as if he were present in Frank Wells's home for breakfast and in the MCA executive dining room for lunch. Frank Wells had not seen Hirschfield since they were at the White House together four weeks earlier, the day before Begelman was suspended. "That was the greatest performance I have ever seen, on screen or off," Wells said, recalling that
Hirschfield
's demeanor had been typically affable and droll, and had revealed nothing of his inner tumult. - Wells, Wasserman, and Sheinbe
rg had all learned by late October that check forgery was at the heart of the
Begelman
problem. They were having difficulty understanding why Hirschfield seemed to be having such a tough time handling the matter. But they hesitated to broach it. The head of one movie company docs not tell the head of another movie company how to manage his business. The other executives thought perhaps there were extenuating circumstances which, if known to them, would make Hirschfield's behavior fathomable. Hirschfield, for his part, was beginning to feel an acute need for moral support and wanted to confide in Lew Wasserman and seek his advice. He admired Wasserman more than anyone in Hollywood. But Hirschfield was not sure that Wasserman knew the salient facts of the Begelman affair and did not feel free to volunteer them. Therefore, instead of the candid discussion that all four men would have preferred, they confined themselv
es to generalities; Wells, Wasse
rman, and Sheinberg expressed sympathy for both Hirschfield and Begelman, and Hirschfield acknowledged that it was a difficult situation but said it would be resolved satisfactorily in the near future. - By the end of the week,
Hirschfield
was more eager than ever to find a replacement for Begelman. In addition to the discomfort of straddling a secret scandal and the public obligations of a continuing business,
Hirschfield
was feeling the extra pressure of his responsibility for direct supervision of Columbia's movie and television operations in Begelman's absence. The week had been littered with meetings on details of studio operations that normally would have been handled by the president of the studio. It appeared that Hirschfield would have to spend two weeks a month in Los Angeles instead of one. The prospect depressed him as he flew home Friday afternoon.
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