Singing to a Bulldog

by Anson Williams

  A few weeks later, I drove onto the Warner Hollywood Studio lot, formerly Samuel Goldwyn Studios, and before that Pickford-Fairbanks Studios. This is where Aaron had his company’s headquarters, and it was my first day with Spelling Productions. The head of facilities took me to my bungalow office, a beautiful, retro building with years of history attached to it—I was told that Mary Pickford used it as her private office in the twenties. Walking into my new digs, I thought, Hey Willie, wish we could set up the oil drum cans in here. Would be a great “Dey Talk” room. I was then taken over to a warehouse where hundreds of pieces of set furniture, etc., were stored. I was told to pick a desk, couch, chairs, pictures—whatever I needed—to furnish the office. All of it was brought over and set up by the end of the day. Before I left, I got word that Aaron wanted to see me at ten the next morning.

  Aaron had exquisite taste; actually his wife, Candy, had exquisite taste. She really knew how to make things beautiful. Walking into his enormous office was jaw-dropping. There had to be at least four large seating areas and a full bar, with a bartender and full-time waiter. Again, I was served coffee on a silver tray. Aaron wanted me to put together a presentation for a meeting with his agency, Creative Artists (CAA). It would take place at the end of the week. He said that they would be quite helpful in bringing in writers and star talent for my projects.

  The meeting was intimidating; there were at least six agents in the room, along with Aaron’s creative staff. I thought that I did a good job presenting my wares, but I could feel a lack of excitement. After I was finished, Aaron asked me to leave; he said that they had other business to discuss. I was putting my materials back in my briefcase, just outside Aaron’s closed door, when I heard Aaron saying something about them not doing anything—that they were just making money on past shows. He didn’t sound happy. I finished organizing my stuff and headed back to my office. A few hours later, I again got a call asking me to come and see Aaron.

  This time when I entered his office he was sitting alone, no bartender or waiter. He motioned for me to walk over and sit down. I could tell that something was bothering him, and I hoped that it wasn’t me. He told me that I did a great job in the meeting. The problem was between him and his agency. Even though CAA continued to make millions on his film library, the company (and all of Hollywood for that matter) thought that he was through, that he was a dinosaur and should just fade away.

  I recalled something I’d heard Willie say many years before. “Age don’t stop nothin’. Don’t let nobody tell you different. Peoples tries to makes you feel like nothin’, but you smarter and better. You keeps goin’. Never forget dat, boy.” Willie hated when older people were not given chances—were basically put out to pasture. He felt that it was as much a form of prejudice as racism: “Just damn wrong.”

  Aaron’s next words inspired me then (and to this day). “I’m sixty-five years old,” he said, “and I still have the fire in my gut. I’m going to do it one more time. I’m going to show all of them how wrong they are.”

  Here was the most successful television producer in history having to prove his worth all over again; a courageous, talented man, who had the guts to march to his own drummer and start again, and the rest be damned! I felt honored that Aaron shared his feelings and goals with me.

  And boy, did he do it again! Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and Charmed are just a few of the hit shows he created his “second time around.”

  Aaron Spelling was as loyal as he was talented, and he kept me working on many of his shows. His continued success and inspiration also gave me the guts to start a totally unexpected career: creating a multi-million dollar product company at the age of fifty.

  “Age don’t stop nothin’. Don’t let nobody tell you different.”

  “Melrose Place” and StarMaker

  “Good opportunities suppo’ to happen if you stand still and let it show itself.”

  Aaron Spelling was hotter then he’d ever been, making the entire Hollywood industry eat crow. He was also very generous, contracting me to direct many of his new shows. My favorite was Melrose Place, one of the most popular shows in the world and a lot of fun to work on. The entire cast was great and so was the creative team.

  One morning, the cast members were raving about a skin treatment they’d received in the make-up trailer that had crushed pearls in it. Crushed pearls, I thought, my interest piqued. The actors couldn’t stop talking about it, and my instincts said to investigate. So during a lighting set-up, I visited the make-up trailer and met JoAnna Connell. She was a top make-up artist (Madonna and Tom Cruise were her clients) and also a skin care specialist. She had created all of the skin and self-tanning treatments used on the original Baywatch series. Numerous movies and television shows brought her in to do skin treatments on stars. When I met her, she was showing the Melrose make-up department her crushed pearl treatment. I asked her if her products were in stores. She said that they were not, that she and her chemist made bulk batches only for shows that requested it.

  Now, one day in “Dey Talk Room,” after he heard a radio commercial about getting rich quick, Willie shook his head in disagreement. “Don’t believe no get rich commercial and runs after it. Den you don’t lead, and greedy peoples lead you.” He told me that “good opportunities are suppo’ to happen if you stand still and let it show itself.” Standing in that make-up trailer, his voice roared in my head! I was looking at a woman who created real, working beauty products that were used daily on the most famous faces in the world. What if the public could buy these exact products? Talk about “good opportunities are suppo’ to happen if you stand still and let it show itself”! Nothing else like JoAnna Connell’s treatments was on the market.

  I was fifty years old. I knew nothing about the beauty business (let alone manufacturing, legalities, commerce) and I’d had that near-disaster with Big Al’s . . . and yet instead of walking away, I thought about Aaron Spelling, and the fire in his gut. It was exactly what I was feeling. JoAnna knew a lot about beauty and I could see she felt that same fire. So we became partners, and together we created StarMaker Products. The crushed pearl skin care treatment became our first product for sale (and was successful on QVC for a decade). I branded it “Micro Pearl Abrasion.”

  Unlike with Big Al’s, this time I was determined to do things right, and JoAnna made it a lot easier. She was a great businesswoman, and fiscally conservative. We first secured commitments for packaged versions of our products from television shows that knew about her; this way we were never in the red. We had buyers for our wares before they were even produced. Then, through trial and error, we began to manufacture small runs for our film industry commitments. We knew we were a long way from becoming a consumer brand in the marketplace, and that we still had a hell of a lot to learn.

  While we were nurturing StarMaker Products, I was directing a lot of Spelling shows. Aaron was not in the best health, and he now left the day-to-day responsibilities of his company to a new executive who, unbeknownst to Aaron, had his own agenda. One of his goals was to get rid of Aaron’s people in a clever and politically correct way.

  I was directing the show Charmed at a warehouse in Woodland Hills. Across the street was the Woodland Hills Swap Meet, the largest of its kind in Southern California. JoAnna and I needed to obtain consumer research for StarMaker Products, but the market research companies we had contacted were demanding over $200,000 to do the job. Ten thousand people walked through the swap meet every weekend. Why couldn’t that be our market research?

  We set up a meeting and found that we could rent a space at the Swap Meet for only $400 a month. We would have access to thousands of people, each and every weekend, who could sample our product, write opinions, and give us their contact information. In other words, we could get everything we needed from the market research companies for only $4800 a year plus product cost. What a deal! And what a way to make sure the responsibility of our fled
gling company would stay in our own hands: We would be the labor. JoAnna and I rented a space and started to get everything ready.

  The very next week, after finishing up an episode of Charmed, I was told to go to the production office. The episode was brought in under budget, so I thought that I was going to get an “Atta Boy!” Instead I got an “Outta here!” I would not be directing any more episodes. I was now persona non grata on other Spelling shows as well. In three words, I was out.

  “Dey times things need to be so bad to be so good. Gotta drop to da bottom to find da way.” Willie’s lesson came roaring back. I had to suck up my ego, forget the unfairness of my situation, use my energies to move forward with StarMaker, and launch a brand new career. JoAnna and I set up shop at the swap meet as planned, and we worked it together every Friday through Sunday for almost a year. As we had hoped, thousands of consumers tried our products, and we were able to accumulate valuable information for the building of our company.

  “Can you believe he’s here?” I heard one Friday at lunchtime. “He must be really bad off. It’s embarrassing.”

  I looked up, and across the aisle from the booth were some members of the Charmed crew, watching me. They had no idea that I was launching a new business. They saw their former director selling stuff at a swap meet and judged me as a loser. It was ironic, then, when less than two years later they all began calling me. They’d found out that StarMaker Products were selling all over the world and now saw me as a winner and their new inspiration. They wanted to know how to launch their own products. They wanted to know what magic I had found to turn my life around . . . The magic was one more teacher.

  QVC? It’s Impossible to Get On There

  “Sometime de little person is de big person.

  Don’t never judge, boy.”

  A customer at the store realized that she underpaid for her purchases after she got to her car and saw that certain items weren’t rung up on her receipt. Having been a cashier herself once, she knew that the worker could get in trouble for the mistake. So she walked back into Leonard’s with the items, brought it to the attention of the cashier, and then paid for them. She was right: The worker would have gotten in trouble. Willie said, “Dere’s doz people dat don’t let nobody or nothin’ change dere good self. Dey always do da right thing. Never let go of dem, boy, dey God’s hand.”

  Unfortunately, these kinds of individuals are rare in today’s world; too many greedy people are out for themselves no matter what the cost. JoAnna and I found this to be especially true in the product business—make that the entire world of commerce. We were working hard at the swap meet and I was still reeling since my fall from grace as a director, but I knew that I had to keep moving forward. We were still using our chemist and her workers to hand-fill limited industry orders, but our goal was to finish our market research and then—in the future—sell to the general public. At this point, if we did sell thousands of units we’d be in nothing but trouble. Neither JoAnna nor I knew the first thing about mass production yet, or the huge responsibilities and commitments that go along with it.

  Well . . . one day, a friend set up an appointment for us with someone who specialized in direct-mail sales. We really didn’t think that could possibly work for us, but something deep inside pushed us forward and we took the meeting. What we didn’t know was that the person we were meeting with, Jeff Giordano, was also one of the major players in direct-response television, which included the largest home shopping network in the world, QVC. At the meeting we all quickly agreed that our products were not right for direct mail, but Jeff was quite intrigued with Micro Pearl Abrasion.

  As JoAnna and I were heading back to the car after the meeting, my cell phone rang. “Hey, this is Jeff. Have you ever thought about QVC?”

  “I heard that it’s impossible to get on there,” I replied.

  “I need to know if you’re interested,” he said.

  “I just don’t want to waste time,” I answered.

  “Do you want to get the hell on or not?” Jeff retorted.

  “Sure,” I countered. I was thinking, what a dreamer.

  “I’ll get back to you,” and he hung up.

  Days later we not only knew about the relationship Jeff had with QVC—we had also sold QVC 6,500 units of Micro Pearl Abrasion to a very special person and talented buyer, Bernadette Voelker. It was a dream that almost turned into a nightmare.

  It turns out that when you sell to a giant like QVC there are numerous requirements you must fulfill: everything from safety tests to specific packaging, pack-outs, delivery schedules, and on and on. We were newbies and it was overwhelming. JoAnna and I had only a few weeks to have all of the completed samples, clinical testing, paperwork, pricing, etc., done and on our QVC buyer’s desk. If not, we’d lose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We didn’t even have a manufacturing facility that could perfect the formula and create such large numbers of units!

  JoAnna and I asked people for help, but we asked the wrong people. They were individuals that Willie would have called “de users” and companies who didn’t want to help as much as they wanted to take advantage of us. Days went by, and it looked like we were going to fail. We were getting frustrated and panicky; I was having a hard time sleeping, it got so bad.

  As the deadline loomed (and after finally falling asleep), I had a dream. Willie and I were in “Dey Talk Room,” and he was telling me, “Sometime de little person is de big person. Don’t never judge, boy.” I instantly woke up and had the answer to our problems: JoAnna and I knew a product-­packaging salesman! His name was Lonnie Stephan, and he worked with numerous manufacturing labs in Southern California.

  We took Lonnie out to lunch and sure enough, he had all of the information that we needed to complete QVC’s requirements. He recommended a lab, Cosmetic Technologies in Newbury Park, California. Lonnie set everything in motion for us. One good-hearted salesman who cared moved us forward—not a large corporation or an expensive consultant. “Sometime de little person is de big person. Don’t never judge, boy.” This is probably the most important lesson Willie ever taught me.

  We called the owner of Cosmetic Technologies, Ron Lewis, and explained our situation and our deadline. He was amazing—he cleared his calendar so that he could meet with us the next morning.

  “Dere’s doz people dat don’t let nobody or nothin’ change dere good self. Dey always do da right thing. Never let go of dem, boy, dey God’s hand.” Ron Lewis was “doz people”: an extraordinary, brilliant, talented, and ethical man. He took us under his wing and mentored us. He not only manufactured (and perfected) our first QVC product, but he was also instrumental in making sure that every detail—clinical testing, packaging, labeling, everything—was done one hundred percent correctly.

  Ron taught us the product business because he believed, like Willie, that we should use our talents to create good things that contribute to and improve people’s lives. Without him, JoAnna and I might still be at the swap meet hoping and praying that another break like the QVC one we messed up would come along. He selflessly educated us, and made damn sure that we were a success and built a successful company.

  Today, StarMaker has manufactured over forty products: everything from beauty creams to disposable lint remover sheets. It’s a fantastic feeling to know that lives have been improved because of a company that would have never gotten off the ground without Lonnie Stephan, the packaging salesman, and Ron Lewis, a teacher using both of God’s hands. He taught JoAnna and me the product business—and more importantly, he helped me become a better man. And if you were wondering: We sold out on our first QVC show. It was the start of StarMaker Product’s national success.

  Heart of Light

  “Some people’s got God’s glow.

  Dey healers dat heal hearts.”

  An older gentleman with a disability, Ben, would occasionally buy things at Leonard’s. He walked with tw
o canes, never stopped smiling, and insisted that he do things himself. What was amazing about him was the beacon of light that he radiated—almost like heaven’s follow-spot was continuously tracking him. Ben literally brightened up the aisles he walked down, and all of the people that he met. When you talked with him, you could actually feel his positive energy, and it made the rest of your day better. Ben loved Willie, who had his own shining light, and would sometimes bring Willie a sandwich from Lancer’s—the restaurant that shared the same parking lot as the store. They would sit outside and eat together, making a bright, beautiful day even brighter. Willie said of Ben, “Some people’s got God’s glow. Dey healers dat heal hearts.”

  * * *

  I first saw Dolly Parton on the Porter Wagner television show in the very early seventies. I was not a country music fan because I was never really exposed to it. One night I was over at my friend’s house and his dad—he was from Tennessee and a country music fanatic—called us in to watch The Porter ­Wagoner Show. I saw a girl who was pretty, but a little over the top with her hair and make-up. Then she performed a song that she had written titled “Coat of Many Colors.” I became an instant fan. Her music went beyond country for me—it went right to my heart.

  Dolly Parton started breaking out on her own during the first years of Happy Days. In 1976 I received a call from my agent who told me that Dolly had a new syndicated variety show; they wanted me as a guest. I was very excited and couldn’t say yes fast enough. Then the day before I flew down to Nashville to tape the show, I came down with a sore throat. I was feeling pretty badly when I got off of the plane. I was driven straight to a rehearsal where I met Dolly for the first time. She gave me the warmest hug and when she heard my voice, she instantly knew that I didn’t feel well.