"Would you mind calling Leo, too. I think he should hear this and I think it would be appropriate if he heard it from you."
Leo Jaffe
, who was as astounded as
Hirschfield
, called Alan late that evening and related a conversation with Herbert that was nearly identical to Hirschfield's. "If
1
hadn't heard him say it with his own voice, I would not have believed it," Jaffe said.
Hirschfield then telephoned Joe Fischer, who was at home in New Jersey playing bridge with his wife and close friends.
"A miracle has just happened! We won!" Alan said, explaining the latest developments to his bewildered aide. "It looks like it's finally over. I can't believe it, but it looks like we can get back to running the company."
Fischer returned to his bridge game elated and immediately downed two stiff shots of Scotch.
THIRTY-THREE
It was inevitable, Hirschfield supposed, that gatherings of Columbia's foreign executives would forever remind him of the
Begelman
crisis.
Precisely six months earlier, on a balmy evening in Los Angeles, Hirschfield had been presiding over a festive party at Chasen's for his foreign staff when David
Begelman
had told him quietly that he needn't worry about a "problem with a check made out to Cliff Robertson."
On the cold, clear first Sunday in December—the morning after the
Begelman
fever had broken—
Hirschfield
, in his own home in Scarsdale this time, was entertaining the same group from abroad and at the same time celebrating his victory over the Columbia board of directors. The entertaining was gregarious but the celebrating was silent and almost conspiratorial; the only people in the house who had lived through the ordeal and knew the latest developments, in addition to Alan and
Berte
, were Dan
Melnick
, who had flown in from Los Angeles on Saturd
ay, and Leo Jaffe and Allen Adle
r. The foreigners knew little of the
Begelman
problem. They had come to New York, as
Hirschfield
had instructed the previous week, to see
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
and begin preparations for its foreign opening in the spring. Most of them had never been so excited about a film and hardly needed Hirschfield's pep talk.
"This is the greatest opportunity of your professional lives,"
Hirschfield
told the group when it had assembled in the living room. "You have an opportunity to release this picture in a way never done before. You have a chance to use your imagination in spending advertising dollars like you never have before."
The Hirschfields served a buffet brunch of lobster, Nova Scotia salmon, roast beef, turkey, and assorted salads and desserts, which they had purchased themselves on Saturday at their local delicatessen.
(Alan disdained the Hollywood tendency to have even the smallest parties professionally catered, usually by Chascn's.) Several of the visitors brought gifts. Erich Mueller, the studio's man in Germany, gave
Berte
a bottle of her favorite German wine and Alan a box of his beloved Monte Cristo No. 1 Cuban cigars.
When the guests had left, Hirschfield asked Melnick, Adler, and Jaffe to stay. The events of Saturday had mystified them all, and they speculated about David
Begelman
's and Herbert Allen's motivations. "I think it might be very simple," Melnick suggested. "I think it's entirely possible that David just doesn't have the stomach for any more fighting. He's emotionally exhausted and would do just about anything to end it."
"There must be more to it than that," Adlcr said. "Something must have happened to scare them off. Maybe some awful new revelation about David is about to come out."
Hirschfield said, "I keep hearing rumors that the FBI is getting involved. Cliff Robertson is supposed to have gone to the FBI. Maybe they've turned up something new, and David feels a lo
w profile is the best policy. We
may never know."
"Before you count your blessings," Adler cautioned, "you'd better wait and see what kind of production deal David wants to make. If he's as unreasonable as he was last Sunday, you may still have problems."
"He sounded awfully meek and reasonable on the phone yesterday," Hirschfield said.
"It's not in his nature to be meek," Adler said. "I'd wait to pour the champagne till the deal is done."
On Monday morning, Hirschfield, Fischer, and Melnick were seated around the coffee table in Hirschfield's office discussing candidates for the presidency of the studio when Leo Jaffe walked in. Jaffe looked stunned.
"Matty just called. He wants to know when the meeting is."
Hirschfield looked at Jaffe incredulously.
"What's he talking about? Didn't he hear from Herbert?"
"No. No one's contacted him."
"But the meeting's off. There is no meeting."
"That's what I told him—that you had spoken to me, that Herbert had spoken to me, that everything is settled, and there is no meeting to discuss it. He didn't know what 1 was talking about. He wants a meeting." Hirschfield called Herbert Allen.
"We just heard from Matty. He wants to know when the meeting is. Didn't you speak to him?" "No, I didn't speak to him."
"You said you were going to call him and tell him the meeting is off."
"Well, what's your decision?"
"What do you mean, what's my decision?"
"What's your decision on Begelman?"
"Herbert, you told me on Saturday after David called and after you spoke to him that as far as you were concerned everything was settled and there was no need for a meeting. You were going to call Matty and take care of him, and you were going to call Ray and square him away, and there would be nothing to meet about."
"Well, maybe we misunderstood each other. We do have to get your decision."
"Herber
t, I told you on Saturday that I
was reconsidering, but after we talked to David you said there was nothing to decide anymore, and there was no need to have a meeting, and that you'd take care of Matty and Ray, and that all was well and right with the world."
"Well,
I
don't remember saying all that. If Matty wants to have a meeting, then there should be a meeting, and you really have to give your decision."
"Herbert, this isn't what we discussed! If you're changing your mind, tell me you're changing your mind. Or if something else has happened, tell me! Has Begelman had a change of heart?"
"I haven't spoken to him."
"Well, you said there was no need to have a meeting, because if David was happy not being reinstated, you were happy, and it was at an end."
"Well, people hear words in different ways, and if Matty wants to have a meeting, then we better have a meeting."
Furious and dumbfounded.
Hirschfield
slammed down the phone.
"Am I going crazy? That is the most bizarre conversation I've ever had on the telephone with any human being. These people are determined to hold my feet to the fire. They're determined to make this thing as horrendous as th
ey possibly can. Leo, thank God
Herbert called you on Saturday so I've got a witness. Otherwise, it would be like 1 dreamed the whole weekend."
They were silent for a few moments. Then Melnick said, "You know what probably happened? Somebody must have gotten to David and Heroic and turned them around. Either Matty or Ray must have said something like, 'We've been fighting to get you back in. We've got Hirschfield on the ropes. He's reconsidering. And now you say you don't have the stomach for it. Well, fuck you.' They won't let him stop at this point. And David is probably saying 'Hey, I'm the one who may go to jail for all this.' "*
Hirschfield finally telephoned both Allen and Rosenhaus and told them that his original decision stood. Begelman would not be returning as president of the studio. To Rosenhaus he said, "David fully understands this, Matty. He knows he can never again have my trust and confidence. He doesn't want to be shoved down my throat."
"This is a tragedy for the company," Rosenhaus declared. "You're making a very serious mistake."
After he hung up,
Hirschfield
said to Fischer and Melnick, "These people will stop at nothing."
That afternoon, Hirschfield returned a phone call from Ira Harris, the investment banker from the Chicago office of Salomon Brothers who had fostered Columbia's $50 million purchase of the Gottlieb pinball-machine company a year earlier. They made a date to meet Wednesday when Harris would be in New York.
On Tuesday morning at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Todd Lang had breakfast with Frank Rothman, David
Begelman
's lawyer, to discuss the terms of
Begelman
's new production relationship with Columbia Pictures. Since the deal would have to pass a "smell test" at the SEC and otherwise would be scrutinized publicly, Lang urged Rothman to urge his client to be "reasonable." Although Columbia wanted to make use of
Begelman
's talents, the company could not "reward" him for his misdeeds and did not want to appear to be doing so.
As Lang and Rothman were leaving the Polo Lounge, Hirschfield was sitting down to lunch at La Cote Basque with Allen Adler. Although Adler and Hirschfield had been together occasionally in groups through the autumn—on the previous Sunday in Scarsdale,
*Ray St
ark later denied that he pressured Begelman as
Melnick
speculated.
for instance—they had rarely talked privately, and Adler had not participated in the Begelman battle to nearly the extent that others had. His last lengthy conversation with Hirschfield on the subject had been in the middle of October, at the same table in the same restaurant, two weeks after Begelman had been suspended. With a touch of quiet bravado, Hirschfield had assured Adler then that Begelman would not be returning to the company and that they probably would be able, therefore, to fashion a more efficient structure for the movie
and televison operations as Adle
r had been recommending. Adler, though pleased by the news, doubted that solving the
Begelman
issue or reorganizing the studio would be as simple as Hirschfield indicated. Over several years
of working for Hirschfield, Adle
r had learned to allow for the extra degree of boldness that Hirschfield, as his primary mentor, often displayed when they were alone together. By December, however, Hirschfield showed little boldness with anyone, even Adler. He was emotionally exhausted by the protracted struggle with Herbert Allen and deeply depressed by his inability to make his decision on Begelman adhere.
"Goddammit, what do I have to do to prevail here,"
Hirschfield
said to Adler. "I'm a seasoned adult. I'm forty-two years old. I've been running this company damned well for four years, and I'm still treated like an employee of the
Allens
. Herbert can't see the merits of this thing anymore. He's only interested in proving to the world that he owns me as well as this company, and he won't stand for any challenges to his authority."
"Look. Alan,
I
know you've worked for these people since 1959, and your father's been associated with them all his life," Adler said. "But at this point you've got to face the fact that there really is only one answer: There is no longer any possibility that this is going to get solved. You're never again going to be able to live with these people. You'll never be anything but their employee as long as you're in the same company together. And there's only one solution: Finding someone to buy them out and take over this company, or at least buy enough of it to dilute their influence."
"That wouldn't be easy."
"No. it wouldn't but it's the only way. These people are acting crazy. They're rewriting history. They're crediting
Begelman
with things he never did. They're discrediting us for things we never did. The real solution is for them to be taken out. Almost anybody else would be better."
"Who could it be?"
"Who knows?" Adler said. "It would have to be somebody big—somebody willing and able to spend two hundred fifty million or three hundred million, which is what this company is worth on the open market. It would have to be somebody outside the business; the Justice Department won't let anybody in the business buy us. It would have to be somebody willing to be in business with a bunch of Jews; that eliminates a lot of Waspy companies. It would take somebody with the nerve and sophistication and stomach to fight the
Allens
. A big pocketbook and a strong stomach, that's what it would take. There aren't that many candidates around."