In the Company of Legends

by Joan Kramer

  Understandably, the shoot in California was less easygoing, mainly because it was more involved on many levels. Glenn had chosen the hairdresser and makeup artists she wanted, and they sometimes acted as though they were the stars. However, they did their jobs well. The hairdresser cut Glenn’s hair that morning; it was much shorter than before and suited her perfectly. And the makeup was commendably subtle. Glenn Close has a natural luminous quality, and her skin looked flawless.

  David and Glenn Close on the Sony lot.

  Culver City, CA, 1998. Authors’ collection.

  She had told us that Giorgio Armani would provide her with either a pink or light blue suit. She arrived with dark taupe pants, a slightly lighter, striped jacket, and a choice of two shirts—both in the beige family. I was concerned that her clothes would blend in with the overall color of the studio buildings, but the right lighting solved that problem.

  An additional “extra” was that I had persuaded Columbia to let us produce the program in High Definition. Although it added more than a few complications, it seemed appropriate, as Sony not only owned Columbia Pictures, but was poised to become a major supplier of HD equipment to broadcasters. However in 1996, shooting in HD was cumbersome. For example, each camera came attached to its own small truck full of equipment. Then I remembered reading that Sony in Japan had developed a much smaller camera which did not need to be tethered to a truck. When I asked if we could get hold of one for this project, I was told that only two existed, both of which were being used at the Winter Olympic Games in Japan. If we could schedule our shoot late enough, one could be made available. I was hoping that going HD was not going to result in unexpected delays. I had asked for this, and I would bear the brunt of any problems it caused.

  Fortunately there were none. The results were better than I could have hoped. When Glenn Close saw herself in the finished show, she said, “How did you make me look so good?” In part, that was simply a polite compliment; in part, it was because she is a beautiful woman and was in the hands of makeup and hairdressing experts; but it was also because she was lit and photographed so well.

  JK Glenn’s daughter, Annie, had come with her to California and was with us on location at Columbia’s original Gower Street lot (now known as the Sunset-Gower Studios). The lot has a number of stages, and our crew was not the only one shooting there. During a break, a group of people, including the singer, Brandy, came out of an adjoining soundstage where they were making a music video. Annie was excited when she spotted them, and told her mother.

  Glenn walked over and said, “You’re Brandy, aren’t you?”

  Brandy replied, “Oh my gosh. You’re Glenn Close.”

  Later, I noticed some rap singers come out of another nearby stage and introduce themselves to Glenn. As I walked by, I heard her telling them the story of Columbia Pictures, about Harry Cohn, and his “little studio that could.”

  Glenn with rap singers.

  Sunset-Gower Studios, Los Angeles, CA, 1998. Authors’ collection.

  JK and DH In December, 1998, we were invited to attend the Sony Christmas party, where the theme was the upcoming seventy-fifth anniversary of Columbia Pictures. The centerpiece was an enormous model of the torch lady logo made out of ice. Then a month later, we went back to California to introduce The Lady With the Torch at a special preview screening. It was in the Kim Novak Theater on the lot, and the studio spared no expense. It felt like a true Hollywood premiere, complete with a red carpet leading all the way from the front gate. Afterwards, there was a reception in the Rita Hayworth Dining Room. We were struck that all these festivities were taking place on the former MGM lot, which had always been the envy of Harry Cohn, and which was now the home of his Columbia Pictures.

  On the way back to our hotel that night, we breathed a great sigh of relief. The show was finished; it was attracting a great deal of good publicity; and we were still standing. But we said, “If anyone ever asks us to do another story of a studio, please let us have the strength of character to turn it down.”

  The Lady With the Torch “graduation picture.”

  Culver City, CA, 1998. Authors’ collection.

  Lobby of the Lew R. Wasserman building.

  Universal City, CA, 2002. Authors’ collection.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Getting to Know The Last Mogul

  He was known as “The King of Hollywood.” Following in the footsteps of the famous moguls who were the founding fathers of the motion picture industry, Lew R. Wasserman loomed as large as any of them. In his dark suit, white shirt and black tie—the dress code for all MCA/Universal executives—he was both feared and revered. His temper was as legendary as were his relationships with stars, directors, unions, United States Presidents, and the Pope. And he wielded his power shrewdly, staying away from reporters, microphones and cameras. He’d first built his reputation as a super-agent at MCA, which represented almost every big name in the entertainment business. When the agency’s founder, Dr. Jules Stein, decided to relinquish the day-to-day running of the company, Wasserman became its president, and expanded it into a production center for television and movies. Eventually, the government mandated that MCA couldn’t represent talent and also be producers, so he gave up the agency and bought Universal. Coincidentally, he was born on March 15th, 1913, two years to the day before the studio opened its doors.

  By the time we met him, his title was Chairman of MCA/Universal, the oldest movie studio in Hollywood, based in Universal City. His office was on the fifteenth floor of the Black Tower (now named the Lew R. Wasserman building). At the other end of the hall was President Sidney Sheinberg. Together they ran the company with an iron hand.

  When we started producing The Universal Story, the first person we asked to meet was Lew Wasserman. Frankly, we were rather surprised he agreed. But Blair Westlake, who had initiated the project, and was among his protégés, asked him to talk with us and accompanied us to the meeting. When we thanked Wasserman for seeing us, he glanced at Blair and said, with a dry humor we would come to know well, “He made me.”

  Blair Westlake with Lew Wasserman.

  Beverly Hills, CA, 1999. Blair M. Westlake collection.

  JK We spent ninety minutes with him and I found him absolutely fascinating—and subtly flirtatious. He was full of stories about Hollywood and the history of the studio. He spoke in an almost monotone voice, rarely smiling, except for an occasional glint in his eye, although many of his stories were funny.

  When we left, I said to Blair, “He’s adorable.”

  Blair replied, “Believe me, Joan, that’s not the word most people use to describe Lew Wasserman.”

  DH Our next meeting was with Sid Sheinberg, a few offices away. We were half an hour late and Sheinberg’s reputation as a tough, no-nonsense executive was well-known. If the delay had been caused by anyone other than Wasserman, I’m sure we would have had an earful.

  As it was, we heard this: “If I’d known about this project before, I’d have killed it. I don’t like looking back. My focus is on the present and the future.”

  Not exactly the most welcoming of opening lines. But to this day, we wonder if it was a test to see if we’d flinch. We didn’t.

  Once we got over that bump, Sheinberg said, “I hope this program will tell the truth. The studio has had its ups and downs, and the movies weren’t always wonderful. Don’t do a puff piece on us. Make it honest.” It was a mandate that we knew was unusual. Most studios want to shine only a positive light on themselves.

  It had been an extraordinary morning. We couldn’t have asked for a more successful start. It was followed by over a year of very hard work.

  JK Every time we were in Los Angeles from then on, we visited Lew Wasserman, either in his office or at home. Sometimes he invited us to have lunch with him at his reserved table in the studio commissary, or if he already had a lunch date, he’d escort us downstairs and see that we were given a choice table. We always had one of his reserved parking spaces be
hind the Black Tower, and he used to say to David, “Drive carefully. You’re carrying precious cargo.”

  He told us story after story: about his friendship with Pope John Paul; how he helped Bill Clinton get elected; how his house and grounds were permanently wired by the Secret Service.

  I once asked him, “When you were an agent, did you ever drop a client from your roster of talent?”

  He said, “Just two. Bette Davis and Frank Sinatra. Bad boy, Frank. He lives right next door.”

  “Why Bette Davis? I would have guessed Joan Crawford.”

  “No, Joan Crawford could swear like a truck driver, but she would take career advice. Bette Davis was impossible to please. No deal was ever good enough for her.”

  “And Sinatra?”

  “Well, I made a deal for him to do seven pictures for MGM, and while he was making his first color film, he asked the producer, Arthur Freed, if he could see the dailies. Freed said, ‘I never let actors see the rushes.’

  “Frank kept insisting, and Freed kept saying ‘No.’ So Frank went to Louis B. Mayer, who told him, ‘I don’t override my producers. If Freed doesn’t want you to see the rushes, then you can’t.’

  “Frank said, ‘Fine. Then I’m leaving.’

  “It was 8:30 in the morning and I was getting dressed to go to work when my phone began to ring off the hook. The studio’s head of production screamed, ‘Sinatra just walked out. You’d better get him back here in a hurry. We’re halfway through the picture and he’s in almost every shot. Now he’s costing us thousands of dollars while a full cast and crew are just sitting around. Get him back on this set or he’ll never work in this town again.’

  “I said to my wife, ‘I’ll be back in forty-five minutes. I’m going to the beach.’

  “She said, ‘What? Why?’

  “‘I’ll tell you later.’

  “I drove to Malibu and saw Sinatra lying on the sand, smoking and slugging from a bottle of liquor. When he noticed two shiny black shoes next to him, he looked up and said, ‘Lew! What are you doing here?’”

  Wasserman then interjected, “As you can imagine, I looked like the last guy you’d see on a beach, dressed like that.

  “I said, ‘Well, Frank, I came to talk about some offers I’ve had for you.’

  “‘Yeah, what d’ya got?’

  “‘There’s two weeks in concert in Cincinnati, a week in Cleveland, another two weeks in Paramus, New Jersey…’

  “And then he interrupted me: ‘Wait a minute, Lew; I don’t have time for those concerts. I’ve got seven pictures to make back to back.’

  “‘Well, you’re never going to work in this town again, so I’ve got two weeks in Cincinnati, a week in Cleveland….’

  “In one second he was on his feet and heading for his car. He was back at Metro in twenty minutes and I was home drinking coffee with Edie before 9:30.

  “You see, you have to know your customers. If I had said, ‘Look Frank, you’d better get your ass back on that set or else…’ it wouldn’t have worked. I knew I had to go in the back door.”

  DH He had some iconic photos in his office. Among them was one of him with Pope John Paul II. I asked where it was taken.

  “The Pope invited me to sit in his box when he spoke at The Hollywood Bowl. His security detail said to me, ‘When he finishes the speech, try to get him to exit towards the left because we have more coverage on that side.’

  “Well, after he finished, he saw someone he knew on the right and began heading in that direction. I suddenly felt someone grabbing the back of my neck and whispering in a seething tone of voice, ‘We told you to get him off to the left.’

  “I said, ‘Listen you guys. First of all, take your hands off me. And secondly, even I don’t tell the Holy Father what to do.’”

  “Mr. Wasserman,” I said, “I think I saw that picture of you and the Pope in the papers at the time. You know, of course, what most people said when they saw it, don’t you?”

  “No, what?”

  “Everyone wants to know who that guy is with Lew Wasserman.”

  He said innocently, “Really?”

  I have no doubt that he’d heard that before.

  JK On another visit, this time to his home in Beverly Hills, we were standing in the large forecourt, when he said to me, “It was your sex that found the flaw.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your sex found the flaw. I was about to give a fundraiser for Bill Clinton and even though the house and property have been wired by the Secret Service for many years, since I’ve had almost every President here, an advance team always comes to check that the security is still in place. So a female agent was here and she said, ‘Mr. Wasserman, what’s up there?’ as she pointed up that hill in front of us.

  “‘It’s a house; what does it look like?’

  “Now as you probably can guess, Secret Service agents aren’t known for having a sense of humor. Through clenched teeth, she said, ‘I know it’s a house. Whose house it that?’

  “I told her that a singer lived there, and she said, ‘It’s a straight shot from that house into this forecourt. And we’re not covered.’

  “Within minutes, the Secret Service was installing wiring. But do you know how many presidents and world leaders could have been assassinated right where we’re standing?”

  And then, again, this time with just a hint of a smile, he said to me, “And it was your sex that found the flaw.”

  DH While we were in his office one morning, his secretary buzzed him. That was unusual since she usually didn’t interrupt when he had visitors.

  He said to us, “Sorry, but I have to take this. I’ll just be a second.”

  We asked if he wanted us to leave the room, but he motioned for us to stay where we were.

  “Rupert. I’m throwing a fundraiser next month for Clinton and the plan is for you to sit next to Hillary and your wife to sit next to the President. So can I count on you to be there? Good. See you then.”

  The conversation lasted no more than a few seconds, and as he put the phone down, he said, “I just raised another $10,000 from Rupert Murdoch. When you tell someone he’s sitting next to the First Lady and his wife will be next to the Commander-in-Chief, you can’t lose. It’s foolproof.”

  What may be more surprising is that Murdoch is a Republican. But obviously, no one turned down an invitation from Lew Wasserman.

  He then told us about his long relationship with Bill Clinton.

  JK “If it weren’t for me, he still would have been on the bus,” he said.

  His opening lines were always perfect teasers.

  I laughed and asked, “What happened?”

  “I’ve been to many Governors Balls in Washington, so I’d probably met Clinton when he was still Governor of Arkansas, but I certainly didn’t know him well. And when he was running for the Presidency, even after he’d won the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, he still didn’t have a high profile. The fundraisers he was doing were from hunger. They charged about $50 a plate and if they made a few thousand dollars, they were thrilled.

  “One day, my secretary buzzed me and said, ‘I have Governor Clinton on the line and he says he’s on a bus.’

  “I picked up the phone. ‘Governor, this is Lew Wasserman. What can I do for you?’

  “In his southern drawl, he said, ‘Well, Mr. Wasserman, Hillary and I and Al and Tipper are on a cross-country bus tour meeting folks and we’re heading for LA. We’re throwing a small fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and since you’re such a famous Democratic supporter, I wonder if we could come to your house for dessert.’

  “I said, ‘When is the fundraiser?’

  “He said, ‘In thirteen days.’

  “‘Let me ask you a few questions. What time is the event?’

  “He said, ‘Oh, I guess drinks will be about 7:30 and then dinner and a couple of speeches.’

  “‘And so what time do you think you’d be here for dessert?’”

  Wasserman s
aid to us, “Now remember, back then no one knew that Bill Clinton was seldom on time. But even if he was, this wasn’t going to work.

  “I said, ‘Look, Governor, Edie and I go to bed by 9:30, so I don’t want a few hundred people showing up for ice cream and cookies at 10 or 10:30. Why don’t you let me throw the entire fundraiser? We’ll start at 7 and everyone will be home in bed by 9:30.’

  “Clinton said, ‘Mr. Wasserman, do you really want to do that? I’d be honored.’

  “I said, ‘Yes, Governor, I’m happy to. Have one of your guys call me.’

  “As I put down the phone, the light was blinking again. My secretary said, ‘There’s a gentleman here to see you. He says he’s from the Clinton campaign.’

  “Now I’ve been around a long time, but that really threw me off my pins. Clinton knew exactly what he was doing. He led me right to the trough and I jumped in head-first.

  “‘Send him in.’

  “The guy was wearing plaid pants, a matching jacket, some strange-colored shoes and was holding a cap. I thought he looked like a country bumpkin.

  “‘Sit down,’ I said.

  “He began, ‘Well, I know you’re doing a fundraiser for the Governor, and he wants me to get the details. How many people are you thinking of inviting? And how much are you charging each person?’

  “‘Listen. I’ve got a lot to do,’ I told him. ‘I have to print invitations, order food and liquor, and start calling people. So I’m throwing you out. Tell the Governor that I’m inviting about two hundred and fifty people at $5,000 a plate. I guess about a hundred and fifty will actually show up. And I’m calling Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, a few studio heads, and corporate business leaders to be there.’ He was speechless as I ushered him out of my office.