Myth:
The spirit of the old moguls, with their consummate showmanship and their insistence on quality, even at the expense of profit, is gone forever. Hollywood today is run by accountants concerned about nothing but profit.
Truth:
The old moguls were far from homogeneous. Some were skilled showmen with good taste. Some were inept fools with bad taste. All of them, however, were in business for the money more than for the art. Pictures of high quality were the exception rather than the rule, just as they are today. And despite many obvious differences from their predecessors, the men who vie for power in Hollywood today are the direct cultural and psychological descendants of the men who founded and ran Hollywood from the early 1900s until the fifties, men whom Irving Howe has called "the dozen or so Yiddish-speaking Tammarlanes wh
o built enormous movie studios [
and] satisfied t
he world's hunger for fantasy, [men who were]
bored with sitting in classrooms, too lively for routine jobs, and clever in the ways of the world." Contrary to popular notions about bland financiers, most important executive positions in the entertainment business today are occupied by high-spirited, entrepreneurial Jews who emigrated to Hollywood from New York and other points in the East and Midwest. Even though the incumbents
are
better educated and more urbane, they are colorful, creative, flamboyant—and in some cases outrageous—in many of the same ways as the old moguls. And Yiddish remains the second language of Hollywood.
Myth:
The studio system is dead. Independent producers and agents now hold the power in Hollywood.
Truth:
Despite many structural changes, the power wielded by the major studios in the production of motion pictures and television programs remains formidable. The studios no longer directly employ large numbers of actors, directors, and writers. Instead, they normally contract with "independent" producers who in turn hire the talent. But the change is hardly revolutionary. The studios still put up most of the money for movies and retain the considerable power that resides with the money. With few exceptions, the studios still have a major voice—
*
The statem
ent actually was made by Fitzgera
ld's character Ce
cilia Bra
dy in
The Last Tycoon
frequently veto power—in the producer's assembly of a film project and in the production of the film itself. Most "independent" producers in fact
are
dependent producers.
Myth:
Studio bosses used to have absolute power but are impotent today.
Truth:
The heads of the film studios have—and always have had—less power to function independently of their corporate parents than has been commonly portrayed. Louis B. Mayer was one of the most famous figures in America from the twenties until the fifties, and was thought to have absolute power over his Hollywood domain, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. Fewer peopl
e had heard of Nicholas M. Schenck (pronounced Skenk),
the president and chief executive officer of Loew's Incorporated. Loew's Incorporated, however, owned MGM. and L. B. Mayer did not function in a vacuum. He reported to Nick Schenck. They talked by telephone two or three times a day in an age when coast-to-coast telephone calls were not made so casually as they are today. Nick Schenck was the "undisputed boss of the whole shebang." reported
Fortune
in 1939. and had an "uncanny eye for profitable pictures." It was Nick Schenck. not L. B. Mayer, who spoke perhaps the most prescient sentence ever uttered about the movie business: "There's nothing wrong with this business that good pictures can't cure." The two men railed at each other constantly. Mayer referred to Schenck variously as "the genera
l." "Nick Skunk." and "the smile
r and the killer."
"That Nick." Mayer once said to MGM production boss. Dorc Schary, "he always has to be the big 'I am.' The big cheese. All he knows about movies you could stick in a cat's ass."
David
Begelman
and Alan
Hirschfield
were saying comparable things about each other in the seventies, although not to each other's face. Their rivalry was subtle and their relationship actually was quite cordial and reflected a strong mutual grasp of the truths of Hollywood. They understood that power in Hollywood resided where it always had—in the top echelon of the film studios and networks and their parent corporations: that power rarely was absolute and usually was shared among the two or three or four top people in each company; that a degree of rivalry and jockeying for position was inevitable;* and that when all
the acclaim had been handed out,
and
·
Although t
hey usually
keep
their feelings to themselves. it was mutually irritating to Hirschfield a
nd Begelman
that long-stand
ing corporate nomenclature enabled each
of them to call himself "the president
of Col
umbia Pictures." Hirschfie
ld's official title was
president and chief executive office
r of Columbia Pictures Industries Inc.
He referred to the corporation"
motion picture studio as "the picture
division."
to
the
telev
ision production company as "the television division.'
and
to
Begelman as the "president of the
picture and televi
sion divisions.' Bege
lman actually
bad
thre
e titles: president
of
Columbia Pictures, the official name of t
he
st
udio:
president of Columbia Pictures Television, the official name of the TV production company: and senior executive
vice prevalent of Columbia Pictures Industries
Inc.. the parent of both the st
udio and the TV company. The abbreviation "president of Columbia Pictures." therefore, was convenient for both men
, each of whom was eager that
his
titl
e convey his status as a major entertainment mogul.
all the executive titles bestowed,
ultimate
power in Hollywood was financial power, vesting in the people who owned, or were perceived to own. the controlling interests in the big entertainment companies. Lew Wasserman at MCA-Univcrsal. Bill Paley at CBS. Kirk Kcrkorian at MOM. Herb Allen. Jr., of the Allen investment banking family, at Columbia Pictures. The power of ownership was not often exercised overtly, however, and the top hired executives like
Hirschfield
and
Begelman
wielded a great deal of authority.
Having been in the business longer, David
Begelman
's understanding of these truths perhaps was greater than Alan Hirschfield's. But
Hirschfield
presumably was learning.
No one questioned that David Begelman was Columbia Pictures' principal initiator and overseer of film projects. But Alan Hirschfield, more than some corporate presidents, felt it was his right as well as his responsibility to question his studio head's judgment. While Hirschfield normally went along with Begelman's wishes in the end, he occasionally vetoed him and the two men tangled frequently over the structure and dollar value of particular film deals, and even over the merits of scripts.
Begelman
wanted to make the movie version of
The Sunshine Boys
at Columbia but Hirschfield didn't. The producer took it to MGM.
Begelman
wanted to make a movie out of
That Championship Season,
the Pulitzer-prize-winning play by Jason Miller.
Hirschfield
felt strongly that the play would not convert well to film.
Begelman
gave up and it was not made.
Begelman
wanted to make
Shampoo.
Even though the script was offbeat and somewhat provincial,
he had great faith in Warren Be
atty, the produ
cer and coauthor of the script.*
Hirschfield hated the script and did not like the structu
re of the financial deal with Beat
ty. But he eventually relented and the film was made.
Begelman
had to talk hard to get
Hirschfield
to go along with the rock musical film
Tommy
until Hirschfield saw a rough cut and became the film's most enthusiastic proponent.
*Asked a fe
w years later why he had been so enthusiastic about Shamp
oo
.
David Be
gelman said. "Warren's one of the best
produce
rs ever.
Warren doesn't come to love, he comes to win. Fo
r instance, that line in the pict
ure that Julie Christie gets off
was not in
the script . . . the party In the Bistro where she's a
little bit tipsy because
she's being neglected by h
er friend and his wife is putting her down, so a man in the restaurant asks her what she would like, thinking her answer might he "a cup of coffee." or 'a martini." or something, and she says. "I
'd like to suck your cock." Now,
that wasn't in the script, but Warren knew that if he could
get a majo
r actress to say that line in a major film.
...
He called that his twenty-million-dollar line. When I heard it f
or the first time. I almost fell off my chair. I had to listen to it a co
uple of times and convince myself that it should st
ay in. So I knew that Warren was g
oing to make a terrific film." (Actually, the Julie Christie character,
Jackie, said to the man. "I'd like to suck his c
ock." referring to the Warren Beatt
y character. George.)
Hirschfield
didn't mind his tussles with
Begelman
. He enjoyed being involved in the selection of movie projects. And he felt
Begelman
needed to be challenged. Hirschfield, at age forty-one, was coming to the conclusion by the summer of 1977 that Begelman, at age fifty-six, would soon be too old—if he wasn't already—to possess all of the vision required to guide the studio in the new era of video cassettes and discs, and cable and satellite television. Although
Begelman
still had few equals at the primary art of assembling and guiding particular movie and television projects—and still had a bright future at Columbia in that role—Hirschfield had begun to think of him as a member of the Hollywood old guard.
Hirschfield
felt that it would take men like himself—men whose careers encompassed Hollywood but were not enveloped by it—to lead Columbia and the industry at large into the new age.
So, while he was certainly willing to give
Begelman
his due. Hirschfield didn't object to the implication of his press clippings that he, more than
Begelman
, was responsible for the new success of Columbia Pictures Industries.
Hirschfield also welcomed the opportunity of the publicity to assert— slowly and strictly by implication—his independence of the Allen family and their investment banking house, Allen & Company. The Hirschfield and Allen families had been closely associated since the 1920s in Wall Street where Alan
Hirschfield
's father, Norman, and Charles Allen, the founder of Allen & Company, had become fast friends as struggling, would-be tycoons barely out of their teens. Alan
Hirschfield
himself had worked for or on behalf of Allen & Company almost continuously since graduating from the Harvard Business School in 1959. The firm had employed him as an investment banker, giving him a chance to make a lot of money in various business deals. When the
Allens
took effective control of Warner Bros, in the sixties, they sponsored Hirschfield for a year as Warner's vice president for finance. When they took control of Columbia, they sponsored him as president
and chief executive officer of
Columbia. But while Hirschfield
appreciated all the All
ens had done for him, he had gradually begun to feel unappreciated by the
Allens
for what he had done for them. In particular, Hirschfield considered himself superior in intellect and business acumen to Herbert Allen, Jr., the firm's scion and Charles Allen's nephew, who was four and a half years younger than
Hirschfield
and, unlike Hirschfield, born to great wealth. Herbert had entered the family firm straight from college without training, had been made its president only five years later at the age of twenty-seven, and by the 1970s was the firm's most visible symbol.
Hirschfield
had come to resent the control that Herbert exercised as the most powerful member of Columbia Pictures industries' board of directors. As a practical matter, Allen & Company remained Hirschfield's boss with all that that implied about enforced loyalty to the Allen family. Apart from not particularly respecting Herbert Allen,
Hirschfield
felt that he had earned, by his outstanding performance as president of Columbia, a chance for more independence and freedom from Allen's control than he was accustomed to enjoying. He, not Herbert, had saved Columbia. He, not Herbert, was one of the brightest young show-business executives in the nation. Herbert knew relatively little about the entertainment business, and what he did know had given him old-fashioned views, Hirschfield felt, because it had come from old men—from Herbert's uncle, the
patriarch of Allen & Company, seventy-five-ye
ar-old Charles Allen, who long had been a director of Warner Bros, and a pal of Jack Warner; and from sixty-two-year-old Ray Stark, the producer of
Funny Girl, The Way We Were,
and other films. Stark had become Herbert's closest friend in recent years and in many ways was idolized by the younger man.