“I’m the Shabbos boy of 42nd Street in Borough Park, Brooklyn.”
“What?” he replied.
I went into my Shabbos boy story, and after I finished he shocked me by saying, “I know who you are. You’re the kid who held up my grandfather for more money.”
With that he stood up, saying, “Okay, I’ll be your lawyer.”
Our company, Joe Franklin Productions, did a reverse merger initial public offering (IPO) and went public on the day of the Stock Market Crash of 1987, or “Black Monday.” It was the largest one-day market crash in history. The Dow lost 22.6 percent of its value, $500 billion dollars, on October 19, 1987.
1986 and 1987 were banner years for the stock market, with low interest rates, hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts and merger mania. IPOs were also becoming a commonplace driver of market excitement. An IPO is when a company issues stock to the public for the first time. The euphoria of these years made investors believe that the stock market would “always go up.” Many people lost millions of dollars instantly with IPOs. There are stories of some unstable individuals who lost large amounts of money and then went to their broker’s office with a gun and started shooting. A few brokers were killed. What a ball I’d grabbed. Forging on, I hoped this wouldn’t happen to me.
I was now president and CEO of the public company that was formed and based on Joe’s vast nostalgia collection. In addition to the production and distribution of rare classic and nostalgic entertainment products, we offered a monthly magazine and various rare music, television, and home video programs. Joe really liked the girls. He would send them to see me all the time—wannabe actresses, strippers, dancers, health fitness experts, singers. Lady Allison Asante came to me wanting to release her record and Broadway musical, Lady Bird. Lady Allison was something special, elegant and charming. She’d married some Count Something or Other and when he died she inherited a vast amount of art, money, and property, so she was very wealthy, living on Park Avenue, and I was fighting off her very provocative advances.
Charli would say half-jokingly I should marry her, and then I finally would be happy having all the money I ever wanted, and of course to give her some. It wasn’t easy to overcome the temptation. Lady Allison was a beautiful woman. I often would escort her to formal affairs and it was she who introduced me to the Knights of Malta and Father Zorza. I will get into that story later.
First comes the main reason for the story of Joe Franklin Productions. Joe was beginning to become subversive, dropping hints how more should be done with the company even though he didn’t do much to help. I realized he was developing a plan to sell the company and get rid of me. All he kept saying was, “We should bring in a real shark to run the company. We need a shark.” He would tell this to everyone. But everyone, including our stockholders, was happy with our progress, having built a business from nothing. It didn’t matter to Joe what or how much we did; he was always unhappy and divisive, so it was Joe that no one trusted. He set up meetings to discuss a merger takeover with a public company headed up by an Israeli—as he called him—shark. I was sure he had hand grenades in his pockets. I decided this was the time to make my move, that during our merger negotiations it was time to sell and get paid. After several days of intense meetings, I began stalling and becoming difficult, then while sitting around the conference table after everyone agreed on the terms I grabbed the ball, throwing out my own grenade by declaring, “I changed my mind. I don’t want to sell my shares. I want to buy everyone else out.” I thought there were going to be several heart attacks after the gasps of “What did you say?”
“I said I want to buy you all out.” Joe was taken by surprise, since he thought he already had a side deal with the Israelis that I would accept. Shaken by my counteroffer, he asked me if I would talk to him privately. Everyone left the room. Joe seemed very perturbed.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “What is it you want, Frank?”
“I want more money for my third of the company,” I cooly answered.
Joe shot back, “They won’t give us any more than we agreed; where is it going to come from?”
My answer was simple and direct: “You.” He was shocked and realized I was dead serious. He agreed to pay me off. I figured that paid me back for the food he ate while crashing my engagement party. I didn’t tell him that, of course, and he still doesn’t know, so I say: sorry, Joe.
“If you, look, smell, and act like an ass, look in the mirror; you’re an ass.”
Vatican Deal Maker
“I’m the cause and effect.”
One evening I escorted Lady Allison Asante to a Knights of Malta extravaganza dinner. She introduced me to Father Lorenzo Zorza, a handsome young priest. He told me he represented the Vatican in Rome and that the Pope himself had sent him on a mission. I invited him to my office, and he showed up with his assistant Chauncey, a very tall, sexy, attractive short-skirted redhead. What was that all about? I should have gotten a clue.
Zorza, as he called himself, claimed to be a real authentic practicing priest and dealmaker for the Vatican. In fact, he told me one of his projects was keeping the Archbishop out of Rome, sort of on a traveling banishment.
It was sometime in September 1986 when Zorza introduced me to Emmanuel Milingo, this former Archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia. He gave me a signed copy of his new book, The World in Between: Christian Healings and the Struggle for Spiritual Healing.
During our conversations, I was to learn that in 1973, Milingo began preaching his ideas regarding the spirit world to a growing number of followers. He was convinced, after personally experiencing and participating in several events, that by placing his hands on those who believed he had the gift of healing, he was able to cure them from being possessed by the evil spirits; in short, he was practicing exorcism of the spirit. In 1982 Milingo was summoned to Rome. The church and the Pope had had enough, since the church was totally against the use of exorcism and denied the existence of evil spirits. While in Rome Milingo was accused of witchcraft, and after pleading his case with the Pope in 1983, he was forced to resign in 1984 and was put into exile, banned from practicing and forbidden to make any contact with his dioceses in Rome and Zambia.
In order to guarantee this, Father Zorza was appointed by the Vatican to take Milingo away from his disciples and followers. Zorza took him to America, which led to my meeting with the two of them several times. Milingo explained his beliefs in detail and requested I attend a hands-on healing he was planning at St. Joseph’s Church in the West 40s. As I entered the church packed with people, there was Zorza, dressed in full priest collar, robes, and crosses, presiding with two other priests at the altar. Until that point I wasn’t really sure Zorza was a real priest since he talked and acted more like a playboy. After the priests finished their ceremony they requested everyone place their hands in the air to demonstrate accepting Milingo, who now took center stage and mumbled a few words as everyone but me waved their hands to the heavens. Milingo summoned those in need to come to the altar to receive his hands of healing.
Reluctantly, I joined the line, and one by one people of all ages and colors approached Milingo. As he placed his hand on their heads, some wept and shouted out loud, and many fell to the floor and shook violently. When my turn arrived I was scared to death. What would happen to me? Would I faint? Would I be cured? Cured of what? I walked up to him, and as I got close, an inch away from him, a terrible smell filled my nose and brain. I thought, What the hell? This guy smells like shit. Milingo must have felt my vibe, and instead of placing both of his hands on my head, he forcefully threw me off to the side, more like a hands-off healing. I was immediately taken away by his protectors. That was the last time I saw Milingo.
Several days later, Father Zorza was on his way to our apartment, but just like Abbie Hoffman coming for dinner, Zorza never showed up. Then, wouldn’t you know, Charli and I saw it on the news and read it in the papers that the Hoodlum Priest had escaped from a police dragnet. It turns ou
t one of the other things Zorza did was smuggle heroin, using real Church nuns as his mules. I never heard from or saw him again, either, and he was never caught.
Hi, Zorza, wherever you are. Call me. My number is the same.
What you see is not always what you get.
CHAPTER 21
Snow White in Happily Ever After
In 1993, despite being bedridden in the hospital after suffering a slipped disk, I grabbed the ball and launched my next project, a Disney-type animated film called Snow White: Happily Ever After, a sequel to Disney’s original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Charli was there in the hospital every day. She set up an office on the bed next to mine making and answering phone calls, never letting on to anyone that I was in the hospital. I was a partner and president of Technovision Industries, a theatrical film and television distribution and ancillary sales company in association with First National Films, a publicly traded company who owned the film.
The film was created by famous onetime head Disney animator Lou Scheimer and starred the voices of Dom Delouise, Ed Asner, Phyllis Diller, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tracy Ullman, and Irene Cara as Snow White (on a side note, back in the early seventies, Michael Lang signed to Just Sunshine Records a group of very talented singers and dancers called “The Voices of East Harlem,” featuring Irene Cara).
The project was part of a major plan for company insider stockholders to increase Technovision’s stock value by producing and launching the film and using it as a marketing tool—sort of a loss leader. And it worked. We distributed the film nationally to theaters and then home video. We planned a private dinner, invited all the stars of the movie and the press including an actress and actor dressed as Snow White and the Prince, my kids, and Mom and Dad, who took pictures with all of them. Our efforts raised the public stock price of Technovision from just under $2 to about $10 per share and produced several million dollars in profit from theatrical, ancillary, and merchandising sales.
This was all preceded by a landmark lawsuit by First National Films who beat Disney but lost the war. The battle began when Lou Scheimer left Disney to start Filmation to compete with his old boss. He then contested Disney’s claim of ownership of the name Snow White, claiming the character was an old German fable and not copyrighted or owned by Disney.
The battle was on. Lou was right that “Snow White” herself couldn’t be owned, as she was now in public domain. Walt Disney was very shrewd when Disney studios first made the film, however. In order to camouflage ownership and copyright, Walt created the seven dwarfs, which he did own the rights to, and included the seven dwarfs in the title, so by connecting Snow White to the seven dwarfs, Disney gave the illusion they owned it all, and no one contested it, until Lou. It went to court in a major lawsuit. Scheimer won the case, giving him the right to use Snow White’s name and image, but not the seven dwarfs, so Lou came up with a solution. He would make the film about what happened to Snow White after she met the prince, sort of a sequel, this time with the seven dwarfetts. All girls. While the male dwarfs are away whistling while they work, their wives and girlfriends tend to the village with Snow White and the Prince. The film was great and looked exactly like what the Disney Studios had done fifty years ago, if not better, and Disney knew it.
The problem I now faced was the marketing, what to call the film and how to use the name Snow White. Ultimately, Disney allowed us to use the title Snow White in Happily Ever After, with restrictions. On all printed material, her name had to be half the size of Happily Ever After. I realized, though, that in all my ads on radio, TV, and in the theaters the audience would hear the entire title, unbounded by percentages: “Snow White in Happily Ever After.” Sounds great, right? Except Disney didn’t think so. Although we can’t prove it, they blocked us in most if not all distribution channels.
We managed to do something, though—a limited theatrical release, licensing the sale of home video cassettes with Blockbuster, and securing other licensing on merchandising, toys, dolls, and a soundtrack album.
Even though the film was not a box office smash, the publicity still caused the stock to go up several dollars per share, so investors were happy. It was not easy. Even though Lou Scheimer won the lawsuit, if you’re not careful you might say: winning the battle can cause you to lose the war.
Ponte’s Restaurant
Years later I would come to visit Ponte’s restaurant again. My cousin Bea’s husband, Donald Mazza, had a cousin, Pauli, who was the son of a very well-connected New York family in the construction restoration business. As a matter of fact, they were the ones who constructed and secured the giant King Kong on top of the Empire State Building in the sequel to the movie. There was nothing subtle about Pauli, who also played drums in a rock band. We would meet at Ponte’s restaurant. You never knew who you might be sitting next to or pissing with in the bathroom.
Among other things, as I mentioned earlier, the Pontes were deeply entrenched in the garbage business in the tri-state area. The first time I went to the restaurant was with my father to try to put together a garbage disposal deal for Guccione. That’s when my I met my soon-to-be friend Ted Fay, who introduced me to John D., who I call the Shoemaker, the Godfather of garbage and recycling. The two of them were going to introduce me to the powers that can make these things happen. I was introduced to Anthony Dilorenzo, who had just come out of prison and was celebrating with friends at the restaurant. Ironically my father also knew The Hick, as he was called. Charli and I had met him at a New Year’s Eve party Dad threw for his partners, friends, and associates several years earlier.
Conversely, on a similar occasion, Pauli and I were invited not to a coming-home party but rather a going-away party for one of the mob big shots who was going to prison the following week. Something I have witnessed for years is that for some reason these guys can’t get enough of being noticed and being treated special by the maître d’ and owners of restaurants, whom they tip handsomely. It is an important badge of honor to be known in restaurants, to look good in front of your guests and all the other restaurant patrons watching your grand entrance. Another observation is that these guys travel in packs with other close associates and their gumadas, their mistresses, while their wives stay at home with the kids.
At these dinners they are liable to say anything. Inside secrets, stories, these gumadas hear everything. It’s quite remarkable how much is revealed and bragged about as the big shots boast about going away. It is traditional to order pasta puttanesca, a dish known for and made famous because it was a fast dish the gumada could prepare on the spur of the moment as the wise guy visited her for an unannounced quickie. The recipe is simply olive oil, garlic, tomato sauce, black olives, pepper, and anchovy cooked in one pot until it gets hot, then served over tubalini spaghetti, with Italian bread and a glass of wine. The entire visit would take ten minutes; in and out.
Sometimes, once you have grabbed the ball, it takes longer to develop or to achieve its goal. Even if it lies dormant for years, hold on to it. Oftentimes it can be joined or merged with other past and future balls. Some things may just be ahead of their time. Also, you have to do something with it; having a ball is a waste unless you use it. Sometimes, though, you can’t. It’s tricky. A ball may simply be out of your scope.
For instance, one day I was sitting in my office with my friend, the New York family–connected Shoemaker. He would come to visit me sometimes, presenting ideas and opportunities he had, or just to talk. I really liked the Shoemaker. On this day, Vickie, Bert’s receptionist, called my office phone to say there was someone here to see me. It was common for someone visiting someone else or who happened to be in the neighborhood to just drop by. That’s how it was at Bert’s; you never had two days the same, ever. I went out to the front desk. It was Teddy, who had lived in Artie’s apartment building on 56th Street fifteen years earlier. I invited him into my office and introduced him to the Shoemaker. Teddy proceeded to lay out his idea to the two of us. He was involved with a company, a foreign
one. His mission was to get the company set up in New York to introduce their technology and machinery, and take over the building-cleaning and maintenance industries by introducing a machine that could do the work of ten men, and, as he boasted, do it better and faster, therefore making zillions. But with one simple statement my distinguished older guest, who was connected to the men this machine would replace, said, very calmly and very seriously, “Who’s going to let you in to do it?” I never saw Teddy again, nor did his plan work. He had a ball without a plan … or connection.
One day while waiting for Pauli I was sitting at the bar at Ponte’s having a Myers and coke, watching the baseball game. At the other end of the bar was this old man, a scruffy-looking guy. We got into a conversation about the game. He had one viewpoint, I had another, and just as our conversation was getting heated, Pauli arrived. All of a sudden Pauli starts franticly rubbing his chin, eyes wide open, suggesting I stop the argument. I had no idea what he was doing; he kept on rubbing and rubbing his chin, so I looked back at him as if to say what the hell are you doing, until he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “That’s the Chin Vincent.”
Vincent “The Chin,” Gigante, the Godfather, head of the Genovese family. I stopped talking and ordered another drink, looking at the TV, then raised my glass and smiled to the Godfather as if to say you are right. He never smiled back. I then realized this was the same guy who, while sitting at the bar a few days before, was approached by a man presenting a big paper bag to him. The old man looked into the bag and reprimanded the deliverer. “You are paying me with small bills. What are you, crazy?’’ The deliverer answered back, “I’m sorry; that’s what I collected.” With that the old man called over Angelo Ponte, saying, “Hey Angelo, lend me $5,000 from the back room.” The back room was where the bosses would play high stakes card games. Angelo, without questioning the old man, went back and came out with a stack of hundred dollar bills, gave it to the old man, and after a short pause the old man handed Angelo the paper bag saying, “Here, I paid you back.”
Frank & Charli Page 26
