Anyway, Daniel finally lands the big one—a lead role in a new TV series, and no question, it’s the biggest break of his life. The reviews are great, the ratings are strong, and Daniel is the new flavor of the month. Every actor’s dream, right? By all measures, his career is ready to rocket into orbit. So what happens? This idiot decides he’s too big for television. He wants to be a movie star. He develops a serious attitude problem. He constantly denigrates the material (“Who writes this shit?” was a particularly galling quote recollected by the writing staff). He alienates his fellow cast members. When everyone should be enjoying the miracle of a successful new show, this jerk is poisoning the well.
One time, he punched out an associate producer, then locked himself in his trailer, refusing to come out till they sent for his shrink. The production manager got in touch with the doctor, who came right over, huddling with Daniel for half an hour in his trailer.
When the shrink finally came out, he said to the production manager, “Why don’t you take an early lunch break, and when you’re done, Daniel will go back to work.”
The production manager said okay, sure, what choice have we got anyway, and as the shrink was leaving, the guy said, “Doc, before you go, can you tell me what’s his problem?”
The shrink stopped, turned back to the guy, and said, “What’s his problem? He’s crazy, that’s his problem.”
And I’m in the middle of this shit storm. The producers are calling me to complain about Daniel, Daniel is calling me to complain about the producers, every movie studio in town is calling with offers of starring roles during the show’s hiatus, and the general tension surrounding this guy’s newfound fame is excruciating.
Somehow everyone survives the first season, and during the summer hiatus, with Daniel off making a movie in New York, the show is nominated for a couple of dozen Emmy Awards, including one for Daniel as Best Actor. Fat city, right? Fat chance is more like it.
Now he wants out of his contract so he can pursue his long-held dream of movie stardom. I point out to him that it makes no sense. I can get him a hefty raise. He can solidify his position as a star. He can make movies during the off-season. Look at Ted Danson, I say. Look at Alan Alda. (If E.R. had been around then, I would have said, Look at George Clooney.) All these guys are huge television stars, they make millions of bucks, plus they do movies, and everybody they work with loves them. How bad is that?
Nothing doing. Daniel wants out. I try to explain to him the consequences of his actions. They can sue him. Or they might retaliate by reducing his role to a glorified extra—believe me, I’ve seen it happen. Finally, as a cautionary tale, I invoke the two magic words: Pernell Roberts.
Pernell Roberts was one of the original three sons in the television series Bonanza, along with Michael Landon and Dan Blocker. Pernell decides after a couple of seasons that he’s too big for television, and wants out of his deal to pursue a movie career. They finally release him, Bonanza runs about seventeen years, everyone becomes really rich and really famous (and, of course, in Blocker’s case, really dead), and Pernell Roberts’s career, for all intents and purposes, goes in the toilet.
Anyhow, to make a long story short, Daniel remains adamant. And, of course, by now there’s also a manager in the picture, along with a big-shot entertainment attorney. So the three of us, including some punk associate the attorney drags along so he can bill an extra two hundred an hour, all troop over to the executive producer’s office for a Big Meeting.
To be perfectly honest, I was against it from the beginning. I thought Daniel ought to be thanking his lucky stars he had a fucking job, for Christ’s sake, instead of trying to weasel out of his contract, but hey—this is Hollywood. Everyone signs off on the contract knowing that in success there basically is no contract, that the actor has you by the balls, and if he (or she) is willing to be a complete shit and stay home, there’s really not a goddamn thing you can do about it except give them the fucking raise. This is America, baby. Fuck the contract.
Anyway, there we all are in the executive producer’s office, for one of the most uncomfortable meetings I’ve ever attended in my life. The room is jammed. There’s the executive producer, of course, along with the president of the production company (also a lawyer, by the way), plus the production company’s business-affairs guy (another lawyer), and with all those lawyers in one room, it won’t come as a big shock when I tell you that the meeting gets testy almost immediately.
First, the manager says Daniel feels he’s been persecuted all year; that because of his script complaints, the writers have reduced the size of his role. The executive producer says that’s bullshit. Everyone—the public, the media, the producers themselves—acknowledge he’s the star.
Then the president of the company cuts to the chase, wanting to know what Daniel’s looking for. The lawyer, trying to hide the smirk on his face, says, “Our demands are based on the theory of diminished opportunity.”
“What the fuck is that?” asks the executive producer, and I can tell already this guy’s not gonna last the whole meeting before blowing out his carotid.
“Diminished opportunity,” the lawyer explains, “goes like this. Daniel is currently in New York making a movie for seventy-five thousand dollars a week. Coming back to the series for a second season at the contractual rate of forty-two-five an episode represents a big pay cut—hence, a diminished opportunity.”
Now the executive producer starts to squirm around in his chair, he’s so pissed off. “Let me tell you my theory of enhanced opportunity, counselor, which holds that if not for the success of this series, your idiot client wouldn’t be in New York making seventy-five thousand a week in the first place!”
“That may be true,” says the lawyer, “but that was then and this is now.” In other words: this is a stickup; reach for the sky.
Now, I’m an agent. My job is to get the best deal I can for my client, and I like to think I’m not incapable of playing hardball when the occasion calls for it. But this has me squirming in my seat, too.
Finally, the president of the company, who happens to be the only female in the room, and a goddamn good-looking one at that, says, “What is it exactly you’re looking for?”
Straight-faced, the lawyer ticks it off on his fingers: one, a hundred thousand dollars per episode. Two, Fridays off. Three, a thirty-eight-foot trailer. Four, an office on the lot. Five, a development executive of his own, to be paid (by the production company) a thousand dollars a week. Six, two hotel suites in New York when the company’s on location. Seven, a dozen first-class plane tickets. Plus, eight, additional security to shield this clown from his adoring public. By now, the lawyer’s running out of fingers. It’s like the twelve fucking days of Christmas.
The executive producer laughs out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he says.
Unfazed, the lawyer comes back with plan B. “If you’re not willing to meet the first set of demands,” he says, “there’s a second set of demands that would not make Daniel as happy but that he’s willing to live with.” And then he starts with the fingers again.
“Sixty-five thousand per episode, Fridays off, the office, the development executive, the tickets, the suites, the trailer, and, last but not least, the final seven episodes off so he can have a larger window of opportunity for doing feature films during the hiatus.”
The executive producer is shaking his head in disbelief. Can you imagine letting the star of your show take a leave of absence for fully one third (and the final third at that) of the season?
“And, lastly,” the lawyer states, “if neither of the two options is acceptable, the third option is to release him from any further obligation to the series so he can pursue his feature film career full-time.”
By now the executive producer looks like he’s ready to throw a punch. He’s red in the face, and the veins are sticking out on his neck. “How about this,” he proposes. “Your fucking client has a contract, we’ve exercised his option for a second
year at forty-two-five an episode, and if he doesn’t report for work on August eighth, we’ll sue his ass for breach of contract.”
Needless to say, that was the end of the meeting. I won’t bore you with the rest of the story, which you can probably figure out anyway.
Pernell Roberts ring a bell?
There’s another story about Daniel Deveaux, which is where Dennis comes in. Before he became a TV star (for the aforementioned twenty minutes), Daniel was having an affair with this actress named Wendy Marx, who was also a highly regarded acting teacher. Like Ramon Montevideo almost twenty years later, Wendy had a habit of taking her students as lovers, and Daniel was her hump du jour.
One night after class, Daniel and Wendy were confronted by a gun-toting junkie in the parking lot adjacent to the building she taught in, and tragically, Wendy was shot and killed. Dennis Farentino, then a young homicide detective, caught the case.
The local publicity from the case was considerable and actually brought Daniel to the attention of the director who finally cast him in the TV series that made him a star, so in a sense you could say Daniel Deveaux turned a lemon into lemonade, big-time.
Dennis tells me over lunch that when they finally caught the kid who killed Wendy Marx, he said the shooting was an accident; that instead of just forking over his wallet, Deveaux was trying to be a hero, and in the ensuing struggle, the gun went off and Wendy was killed instantly.
So this asshole Deveaux not only was responsible for Wendy’s death but he used the publicity from it to parlay himself into a career. I suppose the fact that, being an asshole, he finally parlayed himself out of a career qualifies as ironic justice, of sorts.
During that period of time before Deveaux imploded, however, he befriended Dennis, who’d never actually gotten close to a celebrity before, and they spent a fair amount of time drinking and gambling and womanizing together. Dennis provided Daniel with a degree of personal security he wasn’t used to but quickly learned to enjoy (and take advantage of), and Daniel gave Dennis an entrée to Hollywood he’d never enjoyed before. This is called symbiosis, kids, and Dennis and Daniel, pretty much the same age, were a mile up each other’s ass.
Which is why, when Daniel hit the bookies for six hundred thousand dollars, Dennis, against his better judgment, went to New York City to pick up the money for him.
In any event, by the time we’ve gone back and forth with our Daniel Deveaux stories, Dennis and I have hit it off pretty well, and he finally asks me if I know what Bobby was working on when he died.
“No,” I say. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said he wanted to finish it and have me read it cold. He was pretty excited, though.”
“Did he say anything about the project we were working on?”
Again I tell him no, so Dennis explains that it was an idea for a cop show he wanted to call Blind Justice, which he says he told Bobby with the notion that Dennis would provide the stories and Bobby’d write it, but now that Bobby’s gone, Dennis is thinking maybe he’d like to pitch it to HBO himself, and would I be interested in representing him, since Bobby always spoke so highly of me.
No one’s immune to flattery or the prospect of earning a buck, so I tell Dennis I’d be delighted to represent him, but who’s going to do the actual writing?
“I was thinking,” Dennis says sheepishly, “I’d take a shot at it myself. Bobby said I was a natural storyteller, and if I could tell a story I could write it, so I’m thinking, Why not? I mean, who knows more about this stuff than me anyway? In fact,” he goes on to say, “I was thinking there might also be a really good movie in this Ramon Montevideo case.”
“Well,” I say, not wanting to burst his bubble, “no one knows the story better than you.”
“I’m thinking I might take a whack at it,” Dennis says. “I’ve never actually had the balls to try it, but I think it might be fun.”
I don’t want to piss all over Dennis’s fantasy, but it’s not too often a cop suddenly turns in his badge to become a successful writer, Joe Wambaugh notwithstanding.
“I know it sounds pretty naÏve,” Dennis says, reading my mind, “and it’s probably a lot harder than it looks, but what the hell. If I really stink up the joint, I can always count on you to tell me, right?”
“I promise if you stink up the joint, I’ll tell you,” I say, and Dennis’s smile is heartbreakingly sad.
“Y’know, Bobby’s death hit me hard,” he says. “I hadn’t made a friend in a long time, and suddenly here’s this guy in my life I can really talk to about stuff. Most of the guys I know, if we argue, it’s about where to go for dinner. But Bobby and I, we had real arguments. He gave me the idea I could be something more than a cop. I guess I want to try and honor that idea.”
Suddenly there’s a lump in Dennis’s throat and he’s wiping his eyes and apologizing. “I’m sorry. But I miss him.”
In all honesty, I do too, and I puddle up a little myself.
CHAPTER 34
Over the course of the next three months or so, Dennis calls me once or twice a week, just to check in and report on his progress. With Bobby as his inspiration, he says, he’s writing every night after work, and by the time the three months have gone by, he’s written an entire screenplay, called Death by Hollywood, which, as advertised, is about the murder of Ramon Montevideo. But it’s more than just a murder mystery, Dennis says. It’s also a tribute to Bobby, who’s the central character in the movie.
I can tell you now that when I read the script, I was shocked at how good it was and by how much of it was infused with Bobby’s style and sensibility, almost as if his spirit had been watching over Dennis as he wrote. It gave me chills reading it.
That I didn’t realize the title page should have read “Stolen by Dennis Farentino” instead of “Written by” him is an index, I suppose, of how naÏve and gullible I am. It simply never occurred to me, until later, that Dennis was passing off Bobby’s last script as his own. And even when that idea did take hold of me, the thought that Dennis might have actually murdered Bobby for his computer was inconceivable. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
One week after I read Death by Hollywood, Dennis and I are sitting in Jared Axelrod’s office, along with his tight-assed little development executive, Lainie Ginsberg, and he’s raving about the script. He says it’s one of the best screenplays he’s ever read. “It’s got everything. Great story, lots of sex, and I love the dark humor,” he says, raising his hands above his head like a referee, palms facing each other. “It’s a fucking touchdown.” He says he can see Mel Gibson, or maybe Brad Pitt, as the cop, and Kevin Spacey would be perfect as the writer. “And how about Mrs. Brad Pitt for the part of the writer’s wife?” And he raises his hands again, shouting, “Touchdown!”
As much as I’m thinking, What an asshole, I’m also thinking, What a payday.
“So, Jared,” I say, looking to close, “what kind of deal are we talking about?”
“Well,” he says, fucking weasel that he is, “it is a first screenplay.”
Dennis gets up from the couch and extends his hand to Axelrod. “Nice talking to you, Jared,” he says. Then, to me, “Come on, Eddie. Let’s go.”
“Hold it, hold it, hold it,” Axelrod says. “Let me finish. It’s the best first screenplay I’ve ever read, and I’m prepared to offer you a preemptive bid of one million dollars.”
Dennis sits back down.
“We’ve already turned down a million two-five against five percent of adjusted gross from Paramount,” I lie.
“All right, you’ve got a gun to my head. I love this script, I want this script,” Axelrod whines. “I’ll give you one point five against seven adjusted.”
“I tell you what,” Dennis says before I can respond. “I don’t know anything about how your business works, so it’s not that I don’t trust you guys, but how about you keep the back end, make it two million cash, and she’s all yours?”
Axelrod’s hands signal touchdown again. “Deal.” And just like that
, Dennis has sold his script for two million dollars, and because Hollywood producers are essentially junkies always looking to score, Axelrod says, “As long as we’re all here, what else have you got in your back pocket?”
Dennis says, “I’ve got an idea for a TV series I’m calling Blind Justice, about a cop who loses his eyesight in a shootout but stays on the job.”
“I love it,” Axelrod says. “But why not make it a movie first, then do the series?”
“Hey,” Dennis says, grinning. “You’re the expert. I’m just the writer.”
And we walk out of Axelrod’s office with two deals. When we walked in, Dennis was a cop making eighty-five grand a year. When he walked out, he was a multimillionaire.
Puts a different spin on the whole concept of identity theft, doesn’t it?
On the way out of Axelrod’s office, Dennis stops and tins Sylvia, the hatchet-faced assistant. “Sylvia,” he says, “you’re under arrest for felony impersonation of a human being. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Then he gives her his impish grin, and because Dennis has suddenly become a star, the old bitch actually smiles, charmed, and I have to vacate the area quickly so as not to laugh out loud.
CHAPTER 35
That night, Dennis and Vee celebrate Dennis’s new-found success with dinner at Spago, in Beverly Hills, after which they go back to her house and make love in the nice cushy king-size bed that used to belong to her and Bobby.
And after, because it’s an unusually warm night for this time of year, they take their refilled champagne glasses and walk naked out onto the deck to look at the bright, twinkling lights of Hollywood. Vee says to Dennis that she never knew it could be like this, that Dennis is the first man she could ever see spending the rest of her life with. And Dennis, thinking his own feelings for Vee might be moving in the same direction, is smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He takes her in his arms and kisses her, she kisses him back, and after a couple of minutes of serious tonsil hockey, Vee slides down between Dennis’s legs and commences giving him the oral B-plus special, right out there on the deck, with the HOLLYWOOD sign in the distance.
Steven Bochco Page 16
