by Gus Russo
Also dying that year was Ronald Reagan's lifelong nemesis, the "Evil Empire" controlled by the USSR. In January 1990, the Soviet-backed Communist Party ceased to exist in Poland after years of struggling with Lech Walesa's Solidarity Party. On February 7, 1990, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party voted to give up its monopoly of power, and within a month former Soviet states such as Ukraine and the Baltics began declaring their independence.
Almost immediately, former President Reagan's sycophants attempted to hijack history by giving their boy much of the credit for the fall of Soviet Communism—it was deemed too much of a stretch to call him a philanthropist. Since his days of implicating fellow actors in the forties, Reagan's hatred of all things Communist was agreed by all; in 1983, his stance famously saw him enlist Donald Rumsfeld to hand-deliver a letter of support to Iraq's Saddam Hussein in his anticommunist purges,* and his "tough on commies" history was further burnished when he visited Berlin in 1987, exhorting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," a remark that was followed two years later by the wall's actually coming down. Reagan's anticommunist obsession also saw him support the overthrow of the democratically elected Communist government of Nicaragua, encourage legislation that opposed Nelson Mandela's pro-Communist African National Congress, and provide support and training to Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan.*
But those positions and his support for out-of-control military spending actually had precious little to do with the end of the Soviet empire. The real heroes were the likes of Gorbachev, whose courageous moves toward a more open society (perestroika and glasnost) encouraged the breakaway republics; Pope John Paul II, whose bold support of Walesa played a key role in the breakup; and Russian dissident Andrey Sakharov, the physicist who fathered the Soviet H-bomb, whose outspoken and eloquent opposition to the Soviets' human rights abuses led to his being stripped of all his awards (including the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize) and sent into exile in Gorky in 1980—until Gorbachev freed him in 1986. Sadly, Sakharov died one year before the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Confronted with these arguments, Reagan's apologists fall back on the logic that at least he bankrupted the USSR by forcing it into a costly military buildup. However, the CIA's final revised estimates of Soviet military expenditures concluded that they were in fact more or less constant throughout the seventies and eighties—Reagan's spending spree had no reciprocal effect. In February 1994, Gorbachev discussed Reagan's weapons spending with the Atlantic Monthly, saying unequivocally, "These were unnecessary and wasteful expenditures that we were not going to match." Aleksandr Yakolev, the Soviet ambassador to Canada, insisted that Reagan's vaunted "Star Wars was exploited by [Soviet] hard-liners to complicate Gorbachev's attempt to end the Cold War." And even if the Soviets had chosen to waste more money on arms, it would likely have had no connection to its breakup; other regimes such as North Korea, Israel, and Taiwan spend disproportionate amounts on the military, but show no signs of coming apart.6
George Kennan, the two-time Pulitzer winner and former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, wrote, "The suggestion that any administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in another country on another side of the globe is simply childish."7 In fact, had Reagan's positions not encouraged Soviet hard-liners to clamp down on freedom movements, the regime would most likely have collapsed years before it actually did. Again Kennan: "The general effect of Cold War extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s." He pointed out that, for even many Communist Party members, the collapse of the Soviet system became inevitable as far back as the death of Stalin in 1953.
The next Supermob associate to join the earthly exodus was Paul Ziffren, who died on May 31,1991, at age seventy-seven. The Los Angeles Times headlined THE QUIET MOVER AND SHAKER: THE LATE PAUL ZIFFREN WAS A HARDWORKING PATRIOT FOR LOS ANGELES and referred to him as "a soft-spoken civic leader."8 On June 3, over five hundred mourners attended his funeral at Hillside Memorial Park, including then state controller Gray Davis, Pat and Jerry Brown, Lew Wasserman, Robert Wagner, and Bob Newhart. Charlton Heston delivered one of the three eulogies, quoting from Shakespeare and the Old Testament. One of Ziffren's many proteges, U.S. district court judge Stephen Reinhardt, who had been on retainer from Ed Hanley's Culinary Workers Union and had negotiated Morris Schenker's Teamster loan, said Ziffren "almost single-handedly led California Democrats out of generations of oblivion and turned this previously Republican stronghold into a two-party state." Gray Davis added, "Paul was a peacemaker. He could find consensus where the rest of us couldn't see it . . . Paul Ziffren was the glue that held together sometimes-warring factions. I hope God gives us another Paul Ziffren."9
The praise heaped on Ziffren was predictable, and in many cases warranted. However, one must question how valid such plaudits are in a city infamous for allowing transplants to reinvent themselves, no questions asked, and white-collar crime to flourish. In 1960, Supermob gadfly Lester Velie wrote a more suitable epitaph: "Paul Ziffren broke no law as a business associate of underworld fronts. Yet such associations raise a vexing problem for our society. When gangster profits flow, via fronts, into legitimate business, what share of the responsibility must be borne by men like Paul Ziffren, lawyer for and business associate of such fronts?"10 Connie Carlson, the unflinching former white-collar-crime investigator for the California Attorney General's Office, recently added a question with just a touch of sarcasm: "Isn't it interesting how all these 'civil libertarians' ended up with the confiscated Japanese land?"11
Paul Ziffren (private collection)
Paul Ziffren's legacy is perhaps most visible in the accomplishments of his son, Hollywood uberattorney Kenneth "the Pope of Hollywood" Ziffren. Born in Chicago in 1940, Ziffren was the editor in chief of the UCLA LawReview before clerking for Chief Justice Earl Warren. He next became a cofounder of the powerhouse firm Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca, Fischer, Gilbert-Lurie, Stiffelman & Cook, which represents the elite of the Hollywood elite, among them Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, DreamWorks, Jay Leno, Eddie Murphy, and Harrison Ford; producers Marvin Davis, Stephen J. Cannell, James Brooks (The Simpsons); Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein; and Interscope Communications.* At one time, Ziffren represented the producers of fully one third of all prime-time television series, In 1995, he served as outside counsel to Turner Broadcasting in its acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-United Artists and subsequently brokered the 1996 sale of MGM Inc. to Kirk Kerkorian. He also worked with Microsoft Corp., helping it to form its MSNBC cable channel and interactive joint venture with NBC Studios. "He is so preeminent, it's hard to imagine his star rising any further," said one prominent L.A. attorney. "Everyone wants Ken Ziffren." Another said, "He's the top dog."12
In his counsel to major stars, Ken Ziffren is seen as pioneering the "unsigned contract," wherein an elite actor never signs a film contract, a strategy that allows them to pull out of agreement at any time or make last-minute demands of a film producer.
Representing studios, producers, and talent has landed Ziffren in the same sort of hot water that plagued Wasserman's MCA: conflict of interest. Ziffren's firm was sued in 1992 by Simon & Simon producer Philip DeGuere Jr., who claimed the company conspired with CBS to defraud him of almost $1 million. In a description some would say fits Paul Ziffren and the rest of the Supermob, UCLA legal ethics professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow said, "Entertainment lawyers generally behave like they are outside the rules, and they are quite nervous when you say what the rules are." However, Menkel-Meadow added, unlike DeGuere, most clients are afraid to sue the likes of Ken Ziffren, for fear that they'll "never work in this town again."13 Larry Sackey, attorney for another Ziffren plaintiff, added, "There are a lot of people who have been harmed who are afraid to bring this issue up."14
Ken Ziffren is on the board of directors of Al Hart's City National Bank of Beverly Hills.
Nineteen ninety-two saw still more close Korshak friends in the headlines. In April of that year, as Jerry Brown kicked off a strong grassroots presidential bid, Gussie Alex, one of Korshak's oldest Outfit pals, and an early liaison to the inner sanctum of Joe Batters Accardo, was sentenced to fifteen years for extortion, at age seventy-six. One month later, on May 27, 1992, the man himself, Antonino "Joe Batters" Accardo, died at age eighty-six in Chicago. He was buried in the Queen of Heaven Cemetery in suburban Hillside, flanked on either side by the remains of his key aides Paul "the Waiter" Ricca and Sam Battaglia.
That fall, CBS aired Sinatra, a five-hour miniseries produced by Frank's daughter Tina. After the telecast, Tina was puzzled by the lack of feedback from Frank's inner circle, among them the Korshaks. "The mystery was solved at the Korshaks' Thanksgiving fest," Tina later wrote, "where Tommy and [actress] Suzanne Pleshette Gallagher were annual participants. Suzanne made some casual comment about the miniseries, to which Katie Korshak, Bee and Sidney's granddaughter whom they raised, replied, 'Oh, we didn't watch it. Auntie Barbara didn't want us to see it.' "15
On February 19,1993, liberal court icon David Bazelon died in Washington. As the Chicago Tribune headlined, Bazelon had helped "shape the insanity defense," creating a legacy of activism for the legal rights of the mentally handicapped, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law being the most visible symbol. Like Stein, Factor, Dalitz, and countless other Supermob associates, Bazelon's second life virtually erased any memory of his questionable land deals with the likes of Pritzker, Ziffren, Alex Louis Greenberg, and others.
Sid and Bee, 1993 (private collection)
At the Korshaks' fiftieth wedding anniversary party in August 1993, Bob Evans read a chapter on his consigliere from his forthcoming book, The KidStays in the Picture. All the Korshak regulars—the Broccolis, Wassermans, Tony Martins, and Dinah Shore*—were entertained by Evans's tales of the man he called The Myth.16 The subsequent 1994 release of the autobiography, which avoided any mention of Korshak's long-standing relationship with the Outfit, reawoke journalist David Robb's interest in writing about Korshak. "When Evans's book came out and gave a bullshit story about who Sid Korshak was, I decided to write a story about who Sid Korshak really was," Robb recalled. Then working for the Hollywood Reporter, Robb soon experienced the sort of melodrama that always surrounded those attempting to interview Korshak's inner circle. "You'd be in a restaurant with them; whenever people would talk about Sid, they'd lower their voice when they mentioned his name." One family member who spoke to Robb decried the theory of him being ruled by the mob. "Sidney wasn't ruled by anybody but God," the relative said.
Ultimately, Robb sought out Korshak himself to hear his side of "the myth" legends. "I followed him around," remembered Robb. "I parked on Hillcrest and waited for him to come out—Bee was driving. I lost him on the street, then the car stopped at a mailbox. Just like a scene from a movie, I screeched up in front of him and parked in front of his car. Are you Sid Korshak?' Click, click, click—I snapped some pictures of him."
Robb said that Korshak looked at him as if he were a hit man, fifty years overdue, not surprising given what is now known about Korshak's furtive meetings with Sheriff Ralph Lamb and others. "When I said I was a reporter, he seemed relieved," said Robb. "I said, 'I'm doing a story about Bob Evans's book. Would you give me an interview?' Then came the classic Sid Korshak: 'Yeah, just call Bob's office and set it up.' Of course, when I called, nothing happened. Sid's specialty was Always say yes even when you mean no.' What do you lose by saying yes?"
Korshak, captured on a Beverly Hills street in 1994 by labor reporter turned paparazzo David Robb (David Robb)
On August 19, Robb's story appeared, entitled EVANS PAINTS PICTURE OF KORSHAK AS "THE CONSIGLIERE." Initially, the piece described Evans's recounting of Korshak's power in the movie business, but then added much more about Korshak's Chicago Outfit connections, labor racketeering, Hoffa, and his naming by countless witnesses as the mob's man in Hollywood—something Evans has always denied. Like most other reporters who reported Korshak's history, Robb soon learned that Sidney's pals placed calls to his boss. Robb recently recalled, "After the story came out, [Greg] Bautzer told my editor, 'Dave Robb better be careful about what he says about Sid Korshak. If I ever see him, I'm going to punch him in the nose.' 17
With so many of its clientele—and owners—either dying or growing too old to hobnob, the Bistro closed its doors for the last time in November 1994.* "Its time had come and gone," owner Kurt Niklas wrote. "The days of evening gowns and jewels and black ties had almost become a memory." Niklas also had no energy to compete with the new hot spots such as Le Dome and L'Orangerie.
As Sid Korshak's days also grew short, he remained no less of a sphinx, with opinions at odds as to his physical condition. Peter Bart had one impression: "In Sidney's final days, he still put on his dark suit every morning, walked into his den, and watched television," wrote Bart.18 Kurt Niklas called him senile, and VP-turned-writer Dominick Dunne is firm that he saw a failing Korshak in a fragile state. "The last time I saw Sidney was at Freddie and Janet DeCordova's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party at Chasen's," Dunne said. "I hadn't seen him in quite a few years. He was in a wheelchair and his voice was weak and raspy—I was shocked. He said to me, 'I am so proud of you. I read everything you write.' That was so nice coming from someone who they said was such a tough guy. But then again, he was always nice to me."19
But veteran television producer and close Korshak pal George Schlatter had a different take on Korshak's waning days. "We would go to breakfast with Sidney and Bernice and his granddaughter to Jerry's Deli on Sunday mornings," remembered Schlatter. "And he would pick up the paper and they'd walk around and it was great to see him. He was still a dynamic force field of energy. The last conversation I had with Sidney, he was on it. Not vague or anything. Colorful as it would be to see this powerful man reduced to whatever . . . the guy I saw was not that."20 Another close friend agreed, saying that Dunne may have been confused with eighty-five-year-old Cubby Broccoli, who was wheelchair-bound after suffering a stroke after eight hours of cardiac surgery in July 1984; he also suffered permanent speech problems. "I saw Sidney just a week before his death and he appeared fine," said the friend, "dashing across the room at the Bistro Gardens. 'How's everything, buddy?' he said to me."21 (Korshak's nuclear family, who could obviously clarify the situation, typically did not respond to requests for interviews.)
Former Korshak daughter-in-law Virginia Korshak remembered one aspect of the Korshaks' health regimen that likely remained in place until the end: his reliance on his personal physician, Dr. Rex Kennamer, a Beverly Hills cardiac internist who was also the longtime doctor to Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, and countless other Hollywood elite* "If Sidney needed something, he would call Rex, any time of the day or night," remembered Virginia. "They [Sid and Bee] were like little puppets. Every Sunday, Rex Kennamer would give Sidney and Bee vitamin B p shots."22
Whatever the truth of Korshak's health, he was without question too weak to endure the news he received on January 19, 1996, the day his beloved brother Marshall Korshak, age eighty-five, died at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as a "great political leader," Marshall's obituary made no reference to his infamous brother in Beverly Hills, but instead made a point of mentioning his friendship with the likes of the Kennedys, and that he was survived by Edith, his wife of sixty-one years, and two daughters.23
The very next day, less than twenty-four hours after getting the news, the Fixer himself died suddenly at home at age eighty-eight of "a cerebrovascular incident caused by generalized arteriosclerosis," from which he had suffered for the last ten years, according to his death certificate. It was Saturday, January 20, 1996. Considering brother Marshall's coincidental passing in Chicago one day before Sidney's, one wag offered, "It seemed natural that Sidney, eighty-eight, might have dispatched Marshall, eighty-five, to size up the next world for him, perhaps t
o set up negotiations for him with higher powers about safe passage into the hereafter." The same writer noted the legendary reticence of friends to talk on the record about the Fixer—even after his death. "I heard Sidney died," explained one jittery associate. "I didn't hear he was buried."24
In their official death notice, the family not only listed Bee, but referred to Sidney as "the devoted brother of Marshall . . . [and the] loving father of Harry, Stuart, and Kate." Of course, Kate was his granddaughter by Harry, whom Sid and Bee came to call their own daughter.
And the newspapers finally felt free to get it right. The New York Times headlined SIDNEY KORSHAK, 88, DIES; FABLED FIXER FOR THE CHICAGO MOB. And the Los Angeles Times: SIDNEY KORSHAK, ALLEGED MAFIA LIAISON TO HOLLYWOOD, DIES AT 88.*
Among the 150 in attendance at Korshak's private service at the Jewish Hillside Memorial Park were Barbara Sinatra, Robert Evans, Dani Janssen, Niki Bautzer, Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse, Angie Dickinson, Suzanne Pleshette, and Rona Barrett. "There were quite a few eulogies at his funeral," remembered the Bistro's Jimmy Murphy. "But Robert Evans was the guy that just wouldn't get off. He kept going on, and on, and on. He seemed like he was on something. Finally somebody had to grab him and say, 'Look, Robert, we have to move on here.' "25 After the service, Evans said, "There wasn't a day in thirty years we didn't spend an hour on the phone together. He treated me with the same respect from when I was a wannabe actor to when I ran Paramount. In life and in memory, he was the quintessential example of a friendship treasured."26
