If I Only Knew Then...

by Charles Grodin

  And now, three decades later, I look in the classifieds and see a condo for sale in the Woodley. It’s a one-bedroom, advertised as “one of the largest units,” one that’s “sunny,” “open,” and in a “fabulous building and location!” Lots of exclamation points marshal their way across the ad. And how much do they want for what I could have bought for $22,000 lo those many years ago? A mere $369,500—which they claim is $10,000 under market because it’s for sale by owner.

  Over the years, my father and I have been in the nation’s capital together many times. We bemoan the loss of the Omega restaurant (okay, I bemoan its loss; he couldn’t care less). We go to museums together, and remember the March on Washington and my childhood trips to the Smithsonian, and we both shake our heads at our foolish decision to let one of those Woodley condominiums slip through our hands.

  I think about other real estate mistakes over the years, the relatives who’ve bought time-shares when we should have pooled our money and bought a beach house or condo. The huge old house I could have bought for $112,000 when I lived in Baltimore; it’s now worth half a million. The London town house I rejected because I thought it was too large, opting instead for a tiny cottage . . . But I shouldn’t complain—I didn’t do too badly. The town house may have trebled in value, but my little cottage has almost doubled.

  I tell my family about the neighbors who live across the hall from me in my Manhattan co-op—two sets of forward-thinking parents who bought apartments for their children attending college in New York. They got them dirt cheap—probably $30,000 or $40,000—gracious old prewar two-bedroom apartments that sell today for three-quarters of a million dollars. And we realize that we all learned something.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  If you’re going to defy your parents, make it for something worthwhile. I look back at the pictures of myself with the big Angela Davis afro and the red velvet miniskirt and wonder what on earth I was thinking—and how my parents could have let me out of the house looking like that. But real estate? Buy something as soon as you possibly can. If you can afford it, when you’re moving on up, buy your second, more spacious property, keep that first one and rent it out. Real estate is a long-term investment that usually—not always, but usually—appreciates. And getting on a solid financial footing as early in life as possible? That’s worth fighting for.

  STEVE SOMERS

  Sports Talk Show Host

  I wanted to say the biggest mistake in my life was taking up the tobacco.

  Wrong.

  Not quitting, not even wanting to, will be, as it probably is now, the biggest mistake in my life and the probable cause of my death . . .

  I play Russian roulette with my life, eating right, exercising, then grabbing a smoke.

  Lots of broccoli, lots of cigarettes. I believe that if it can happen to others, from Nat King Cole to Peter Jennings, it can probably happen to me.

  I say “probably” because still in the back of your mind, you’re hoping against hope it won’t happen to you, and maybe it won’t, and maybe that’s just more denial. People say, “Hey, you’re a smart guy. Why smoke?”

  Well, I’m smart enough to know there are more things unknown to me than known, but there are choices and addictions, and as of this writing, I choose to be addicted, which I also think is not so smart.

  It’s like saying, “I’m in control of my addiction and choose to be that way, so mind your own business!” Also not so smart.

  Smart is knowing that smoking can kill and socially and culturally makes you a “dirty and smelly outcast.” Being charming or conversational, engaging, warm, or funny—all of this falls behind the social leper you’ve become, smoking away with all that firsthand smoke.

  Sad that as I write this I have a cigarette burning nearby.

  Don’t breathe these words . . .

  WHAT I LEARNED

  On the subject of smoking—sadly, so far nothing.

  GORDON EDELSTEIN

  Artistic Director,

  Long Wharf Theatre

  The Ten Commandments are clear codes of behavior. We know when we have murdered someone, stolen something, or cheated on our spouse we have broken a commandment. But as adults in a complex grown-up world, we sometimes find that the line between right and wrong is not so clear. It is often at those times that we allow ourselves to cross that sometimes cloud-covered line.

  One of the most important parts of my job as an artistic director of a theater is to go hunting. I sleep with one eye open, as I try to stay aware of what is exciting, fresh, and new in acting, directing, designing, and most of all playwriting. When I hear something move in the night, I chase it and try to bring it home to the Long Wharf Theatre. As I am never one to do something lightly, my pursuit can, at times, take on its own life. This is a story about one of those times and the ethical boundaries I crossed chasing a play and playwright I wanted. I will change the names of all the players in this story, but frankly, because I behaved badly, the name I would most like to change is my own.

  I had become aware through the ever-active, multibranched theatrical grapevine of a very ambitious, large-scale play on religious and political themes that sounded like it would be very much to my taste. The play—lets call it Pilgrimage—is in three parts, and each part takes place in a different century. The playwright, Linda, was generating buzz around the country and in particular was receiving a great deal of attention from the Circle Theatre Company, one of our country’s top regional theaters. It is run by Barbara Doyle, an old friend and colleague of mine. I have known Barbara since the mid-1980s, and we have always had a good deal of professional respect for each other and have had a warm relationship. Howard, Linda’s agent, informed me that the Circle Theatre was developing Pilgrimage with Linda in residence, and that they were planning on putting together a reading of the entire play, and asked me if I would like to come. Howard told me that Barbara had not committed to producing the play and was encouraging my interest in it for Long Wharf, ours being a slightly more advantageous place to premiere a work because of its close proximity to New York. Howard was clearly coaxing me to hunt aggressively.

  I called Barbara and told her of my enthusiasm for the play and I asked if I might come down to hear the reading. It became clear during my conversation with Barbara that she had worked closely and for some time with Linda on the play. Howard had underplayed her interest. Her excitement was palpable, and she expressed interest in co-producing the play with Long Wharf. I had real questions about co-producing Pilgrimage with Barbara for many reasons, primarily because I would have to sacrifice significant artistic control over the play, and because of its complexities, I was uncomfortable doing that. I was careful to parse my words but did not disabuse her of whatever assumptions she may have been making. It would have been better to make things clear at that moment, but I was avoiding a potentially uncomfortable conversation.

  My trip to the Circle Theatre to hear the reading of Pilgrimage confirmed many things for me: (a) Linda’s play was a massive undertaking, both expensive and risky, but potentially a thrilling night in the theater; (b) Barbara’s commitment to this play was real and passionate; (c) either it was assumed that I wanted to co-produce the play with them or I was being heavily courted to do so. I was given a real VIP treatment at the Circle, which made me more uncomfortable. What were they assuming?

  The next day I spoke with Linda’s agent, who was pleased that my interest in the play continued, and he reiterated that Barbara’s commitment to the play was not definite. He, as an agent, was not at all sure if the Circle even wanted to produce the play, or that he would grant them exclusive rights. In other words, he was suggesting that Long Wharf still might be able to produce it on its own in the next season and possibly have it moved to New York, leaving the Circle out.

  The agent was very enthusiastic, and he encouraged me to call the playwright, Linda, and talk to her. It was at this point that I began to ignore my inner ethical alarm. It felt wrong somehow to go behind Barb
ara’s back and compete for the play, but I avoided real reflection on the matter, and when inner objections would rise up in me, I justified my actions by telling myself that it is a dog-eat-dog world and I was just competing for something that was up for grabs. I work for Long Wharf, and it is my job to secure the best and most important material that I can.

  The honorable next step would have been to call Barbara and tell her that although I respected her emotional and artistic involvement in the play and appreciated all the work she had done with Linda, I was not interested in pursuing a co-production with her. I ought to have asked her if she was indeed committed to do the play without me, and if she was, I should have had a candid conversation with her about my interest in pursuing the play without her. Technically she did not have exclusive rights to the play, but I would probably not be pursuing the play without her work on it. The right thing to do would have been to let her have the first shot at it and see if she could generate enough interest in it herself to give it a future.

  But I didn’t do that. I chose to believe Howard, the agent, and not my eyes and ears. I said to myself that Barbara had not made her definitive move on the play so it was anyone’s project to pursue.

  The next day I called Linda and took her to lunch. She is a charming and smart woman but a relative neophyte in the business of the theater. She was pleased to be courted so aggressively, and I asked her if she would be interested in my trying to set up a production that would begin at Long Wharf and move to New York. Linda was thrilled at the opportunity without fully understanding—I believe—the ramifications for the Circle, and she gave me permission to pursue this option. In my heart I knew I was doing something smarmy—not clearly wrong, but I was doing something to Barbara that I would not want someone to do to me. That may be the final barometer to measure ethical behavior: How would I feel if someone else behaved as I was behaving?

  As time went on I was feeling worse and worse about what I had done. I struggled with guilt over my behavior, but I still refused to admit to myself that I had let my type A–style aggression drown my ethical knowledge. Barbara learned of my lunch with Linda, and as much as I hated doing it, I felt as though I had to call her. Haltingly I told Barbara that I did not want to produce the play with her, and that if I did it, I wanted to do it by myself. She said, “Stop right there. You know, I am having some real problems with the ethics of your behavior here.” I had been caught, and I had nothing to say. I fumbled some sort of apology with broken sentences and long pauses and then got off the phone, deciding not to pursue the play any further. In a feeble attempt to apologize again, I sent her a bouquet of flowers on her opening night of Pilgrimage. The play ran at the Circle and is now being considered for production at other prominent theaters around the country.

  My sense of shame is so great that I no longer pursue Pilgrimage even though I would not be in competition with the Circle anymore. The project for me is a vivid reminder of behavior of which I am ashamed. I have seen Barbara a number of times in professional settings, and it is awkward between us; I am sure that she feels betrayed and hurt.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  It is so easy to talk yourself out of an ethical decision, especially when you are going to directly benefit from your unethical behavior. When the situation is complex and the line between right and wrong is obscured, the only way I know to figure out the “right thing to do” is to try to listen to the voice inside me and remember that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The late Christopher Reeve was fond of quoting Abraham Lincoln: “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.” Words to live by.

  BOB SHAYE

  Co-Chairman and Co-CEO,

  New Line Cinema

  I was doing pretty damn well. I had started my company, with three thousand dollars, out of a fifth-floor walk-up in the Village.

  It wasn’t easy. There was much adversity, but with hard work we prospered.

  Our films began to click with the public. Our earnings rose year after year. Drexel Burnham took us public. I was the largest shareholder of a successful publicly traded organization.

  My personal net worth began to skyrocket. Sure, I’d earned every penny, and sure, it was fun, and I was getting bloody rich, and prideful.

  Then Ted Turner proposed a merger. I grew to really like Ted. I got to know him pretty well and trusted him, as he trusted me. I was on his board. Now I was the second largest individual shareholder of Ted’s company. I had full autonomy, a lot more capital to deploy in filmmaking, and it was still my company, or so it seemed.

  Then Turner was bought by Time Warner. I wasn’t invited to join their board, but I held on to this new version of my equity, as if New Line were still my company, and that stock increased in value. Not that our company’s success made it go up or down, but I was worth hundreds of millions. “My” company was doing just fine.

  Then senior management decided to merge with an Internet company. It was called a merger, but it was a sellout. Disaster of every possible nature befell this new entity. The stock plunged. My net worth plunged.

  The faith ultimately placed in the hands of strangers became a disaster for us all. By anyone’s standards, I’m still in very fine shape, but 90 percent of one’s net worth is a lot to lose.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  There was a moment I should have realized that my company was no longer mine. Loyalty is a noble emotion, but it must be applied with reason and insight and caution. As someone said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” It’s not smart to both sell and keep. I had sold my control. I should have sold my stock.

  JANE ROSENTHAL

  Partner and Cofounder, Tribeca

  Productions, Tribeca Film Festival

  I have always been one of those people who get quite nauseous on roller-coaster rides, so I try to avoid them like the plague, but it is now clear to me that I have picked a career in the wrong industry. And the summer and fall of 2000 certainly made this clear to me. For as Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

  Let me tell you a little bit about those ninety days. The lowest of the low occurred on opening weekend in June for a film I had spent seven years developing. With much fanfare and anticipation Rocky and Bullwinkle came to the silver screen one Friday afternoon. By the five o’clock show we were in full cardiac arrest, by the nine o’clock show rigor mortis had set in, and by Saturday morning, we were sitting shiva. However, I did discover a little-known Jewish custom for the film business: out of respect for the dead, no one, and I mean no one, calls for a full seventy-two hours. The silence of a bomb is deafening.

  My husband, Craig, put it best: “I guess they don’t know what to say!” And you really haven’t experienced life (to its fullest) until you’ve read over breakfast an entire article in the Wall Street Journal on how your “doozy” of a project got made in the first place. What I had intended as a smart and funny love letter to childhood icons in a market desperately in need of alternative family entertainment just didn’t work.

  And then, like magic, it was suddenly the best of times. Just a few short months later, another film I produced, Meet the Parents, opened to glowing reviews and a record box office. I can now speak with great confidence from my personal experience that (not surprisingly) good times are much more fun. I also learned something important along the way.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  The euphoria from a big hit is fleeting, but the sense of personal loss and devastation that comes from a labor of love gone bad is everlasting. As the years have passed, I have come to realize that we learn as much, if not more, about ourselves from our failures as we learn from our successes. As filmmakers we must be willing to take the risk and buy an all-day ticket on that virtual roller-coaster ride we call filmmaking, even if it sometimes makes us nauseous, because as someone once said, “This too will pass.” And it just comes with the territory.

  BOBBY VALENTINE

  Form
er Baseball Manager, New

  York Mets, and Current Manager,

  Chiba Lotte Marines, Japan

  I was in college in 1971. I had just finished playing a season of baseball for Tommy Lasorda in Washington with the Spokane Indians. I was the shortstop for the championship AAA team and the MVP of the league, and I was twenty years old. I led the league in seven different categories and won the batting title.

  We played a playoff series between the winners of the East, the Indians, and the winners of the West, the Hawaii Islanders. The series started in Spokane, and we won the first two games easily at our home ballpark. We went to Hawaii to continue the best of seven series. I was booed when I took the field because I’d beat out a fine experienced hitter, Winston Llanas, for the batting title on the last day of the regular season by getting three hits in the game. The two hundred and eleventh hit of the season for me was a ball I hit to third, which could have gone for a hit or an error, but our hometown scorer ruled it a hit. A lot was written about the call and not much about the other two hundred and ten hits, so when I got to the island many of the loyal Hawaii Islanders fans made it clear they were not very happy to see me.

  We won the game and I got three hits, including a home run. I was even cheered by their home crowd. I was the leadoff hitter for game four, just as I was for every game of the 1970 season, and the pitcher, Greg Washburne, hit me with the first pitch of the game. As I fell away from the plate, the ball followed me and landed with its full force on my left cheekbone. My face collapsed immediately, and within an hour I was in the ER of the hospital, ready for an operation to pull my cheekbone back up three and a half inches to its normal position.