Moguls, Monsters and Madmen, page 20
When I interviewed Dorthy Moxley for the Dunne film, she told me how blunt and sure Dominick had been in his approach. “One morning, he called to say, ‘Dorthy, I know who killed Martha. It was Michael.’ Dominick gave me a feeling of hope. All of a sudden he came to me, and my prayers were answered. People like him are truly angels.”
Michael’s father, Rushton Skakel, had hired the Sutton Agency, made up of retired detectives and NYPD cops, to dissolve the dark cloud hanging over his family. When the agency came up with damning evidence against Michael, the elder Skakel was so horrified he paid the agency’s $750,000 bill, then suppressed the report.
Dunne acquired that report and it provided the evidence that was decisive in the case. As he explained, “The agency had hired a young guy out of the University of Virginia to put all the reports together for Rush Skakel. When the student learned the report had been quashed, he stole it. It’s as simple as that. The Skakels were able to ward off justice for twenty-seven years, ruining everybody’s life. If they had dealt with the murder when it happened, everyone would have been happier.”
Michael Skakel’s guilty verdict took Dorthy Moxley by surprise. “I never dreamed the jury would convict. I was all set to talk about an acquittal, and I didn’t know what to say. Then it occurred to me that this was Martha’s day—what so many people had worked so hard and so long for.”
After I finished filming Guilty Pleasure, Dominick received a cut of the film, against my wishes, before it was ready. Should I have been surprised? Wasn’t he the man who had access to everything? The result was a sudden voicemail from Dominick on my answering machine, “I’ve got to talk to you!”
When I called back, he told me, “Look, I loved the film except for two things: First, I don’t like the title, I don’t understand it.”
After I explained that “guilty pleasure” was what readers felt when reading his Vanity Fair columns, he said, “Okay. You’re the marketing guy. I’ll leave that with you.”
His second complaint: “I don’t know who Eddie fucking Greenspan is, but I want him out of the film. Cut him. I want him out.”
I replied, “Look, Dominick, this is not a bar mitzvah film. Eddie is a well-respected lawyer.”
“To whom? I don’t know who he is.”
The film—with Eddie Greenspan still in it—was given a private screening in a New York screening room, attended by all of Dominick’s friends. It was a glittery event, definitely A-list. Afterwards, Dominick wrote in his Vanity Fair column, “I just attended the screening of a film about my life, and it was thrilling, except for the presence of a Canadian lawyer, to whom I will not give any publicity by mentioning his name.”
Three years later, when I did a documentary on Eddie for CBC-TV’s Life and Times, I made sure to tell Dominick when he would be able to watch my film about “the lawyer you love to hate which was sold to Court TV in the U.S.” Dominick replied, “Thanks for giving me advance notice to throw my television out the window.”
Eddie loved that email, which he framed and hung on his wall. He said it was almost as good as being in Vanity Fair.
After Guilty Pleasure was released, Larry King invited Dominick and me to appear on Larry King Live, which would have been terrific publicity. Dominick agreed. Unfortunately, around this same time, the Gary Condit/Chandra Ann Levy scandal went into high gear. Levy, an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, disappeared in May 2001. Investigators later discovered she was having an affair with a married congressman, Gary Condit. Dominick, with his usual self-assurance, was convinced of Condit’s guilt. Why? Because he had heard it from a horse whisperer in Dubai. As it turned out, the horse whisperer was wrong. When Condit was cleared, he sued Dominick and Vanity Fair. Dominick, caught in mid-scandal, was mortified, because he’d always had the best information. When he told me he wasn’t going to appear on Larry King Live, I tried to persuade him, “We’ll insist that the Gary Condit case is off-topic.”
Dominick was adamant. “Larry would not be doing his job if he didn’t ask about the Condit case.”
He was right of course, proving that even if you are at the centre of the media, you can’t control it. I lost my chance for Larry King Live just as Eddie Greenspan lost his for Vanity Fair.
I was gratified when our collaboration over the filming of Guilty Pleasure turned into a friendship. During the five years before Dominick’s death, he tutored me on networking and event planning, how best to use information and to build up my Rolodex. His lesson in power was simple: if you don’t have it, get close to those who do. Dunne taught me that we are all three degrees away from access.
My ultimate story about celebrity, Dominick-style, occurred the last time we lunched together. I knew his favourite restaurant was the Four Seasons in New York’s Seagram Building. Everything about it spelled power, from the scale of the walls to the sculpture and other famous artworks that hung on the walls. I had made the reservation, even though I knew this lunch would cost a fortune, because I wanted to have the ultimate power lunch with the ultimate power player. I also had a Cartier pen with Dominick’s name inscribed on it, because he collected pens, he wasn’t well, and I wanted to thank him for his friendship. When I arrived at the Four Seasons, I identified myself to the snooty owner, Julian Niccolini.
“Avrich?” He snapped his fingers, then directed someone else to take me to a table. I knew Dominick would be late, because that’s the way it is with famous people. Meanwhile, legends were walking by my table—Clive Davis, Edgar Bronfman, Henry Kissinger, Mike Nichols, Barbara Walters—making it clear from each placement that I was on the D-level of this cruise ship. After about forty-five minutes, Niccolini walked by, paused, then returned. “Who are you waiting for?”
“Dominick Dunne.”
He banged his fist on my table. “Why didn’t you tell me you were dining with Mr. Dunne?”
“You didn’t ask. You didn’t even look up.”
“Follow me for God’s sake!” Suddenly, he stopped. “Wait here.”
I watched as he removed a couple from what I would learn was Dunne’s table, at the centre of the Four Season’s universe. I received their table, and they got mine. Dunne would have loved the news that Niccolini was arrested for sexual harassment in 2015.
Dominick Dunne and Barry Avrich on the set of Guilty Pleasure
from the personal collection
Eventually, Dominick made his appearance. “Sorry, Barry. Long call with Nancy.” I assumed he meant Nancy Reagan. Once he was seated, everyone who had whisked by me came over to say hello.
It was an intimate lunch, and very poignant. Dominick told me he was dying of bladder cancer, which was shocking news. Dominick craved exposure and publicity but this was a headline he’d planned to avoid till his last breath. Long before this moment his life had been all talk and all action, and that was the way he wanted it. Celebrity for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Celebrity all the time.
Chapter Seventeen
THE LAST MOGUL:
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LEW WASSERMAN
As soon as I met Lew Wasserman at an L.A. screening in the early ’90s, I knew that I was going to make a film about him, and that’s what I told him. At six-foot-two, he towered over me, gaunt and craggy-faced. He stared down at me through his oversized, black-rimmed glasses, put his hand on my shoulder, and with his thumb dug deep into my neck said, “Not while I’m alive or dead, kid.”
He was half right. I started researching Wasserman that day, then began filming on June 3, 2002, the day of his death. Lew Wasserman was easily the most powerful and imposing figure Hollywood has ever known. George Orwell wrote, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He must have just had a meeting with Lew Wasserman.
Isaac and Minnie Weiserman arrived in America from Russia in 1907 with empty pockets and dreams of a better life. They settled in the east side of Cleveland, then a hotbed of prostitution, gambling and racketeering. They changed their name to Wasserman, and in 1913 Minnie gave birth to Louis, their third and last child.
When he was twelve, Lew took a job selling candy at Keith’s, a raunchy burlesque house. He became doorman for one of the mob-controlled speakeasies on Vincent Avenue when he was still a gangly kid. In high school, he hired bands for dances from the same talent agency that booked for Al Capone’s mob-controlled Chicago nightclubs. That agency was the Chicago-based Music Corporation of America, or MCA, founded by Jules C. Stein. After he graduated from high school, Wasserman became publicity director for the Hippodrome Movie House. One night after his shift, he watched The Jazz Singer. That movie changed his life. Like Al Jolson’s character, he was the son of a devout immigrant Jew who had craved a career in show business. Lew’s own dream began to take shape.
In 1935, when Kingpin Moe Dalitz, head of the Jewish Mafia known as the Silent Syndicate, opened the Mayfair Casino, he hired Wasserman to run promotions. After countless raids by prohibition investigator Eliot Ness, the real-life inspiration for the TV series The Untouchables, Dalitz sold the casino to a New York crime outfit known as Murder Incorporated. Jules Stein offered the unemployed twenty-two-year-old a $60-a-week job as a publicist for MCA, provided that he move to Chicago. Lew was eager to leave Cleveland behind. So was his new wife, Edie Beckerman, daughter of a prominent family caught up in scandal. Her father, Henry Beckerman, who’d made a fortune doing business with Moe Dalitz, was charged with embezzling from the city. He was later acquitted, but not before the Beckermans lost their wealth and social standing.
Stein was making big money booking bands into clubs for Big Jim Colosimo and his protege, Al Capone. He had persuaded James Caesar Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, to give MCA a waiver to not only represent big bands but also to produce radio shows. Petrillo then helped keep the money rolling in by blocking costly musician salary increases or strikes that might hurt the agency. By 1938, MCA was managing 90 per cent of America’s dance bands. For Sophie Tucker, Tony Martin, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and a host of others, MCA was the only game in town. MCA also controlled comedy writers, producers and film stars.
Inspired by Stein, Wasserman created the radio show Kay Kyser and His College of Musical Knowledge, which regularly attracted an audience of twenty million per episode. Stein was impressed and made Wasserman his New York agent. The move would prove to be temporary: Wasserman had his eye on Hollywood. In 1939, when he moved to the grand, white-pillared office in Beverly Hills to head up MCA’s movie division, Hattie McDaniel and Ronald Reagan were MCA’s only Hollywood clients. Wasserman dug into MCA’s deep pockets and bought up talent agencies rich with stars such as Greta Garbo, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, and writers including Billy Wilder, Dorothy Parker and Ben Hecht. Almost overnight, MCA became the largest talent agency in the world, shifting clout away from the movie studios. MCA represented seven hundred movie stars and three hundred Broadway actors. Its booking team controlled radio programming, big-band bookings and most nightclubs. Stein rewarded Wasserman by making him president of MCA. At thirty-three, he was the most powerful person in Hollywood.
In 1951, at a time when the new medium of television was hurting movie business, MCA created Revue Productions to produce TV shows. This, despite the fact that the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) prohibited talent agencies from also being producers. No problem. Meet the new president of SAG—former MCA client Ronald Reagan. What a happy coincidence! Reagan’s first order of business was to oversee the granting of an exclusive waiver for MCA to produce. Wasserman was using the same strategy with the actors’ union that Stein had used to persuade music union chief James Petrillo to allow MCA to represent big bands while also producing radio shows.
Reagan had good reason to be grateful to Wasserman. After Reagan starred in Kings Row (1942), Wasserman negotiated an unprecedented seven-year $1 million contract for him as host of General Electric Theater. He bailed Reagan out of financial troubles by brokering a deal to sell 236 acres of Reagan’s Malibu ranch, appraised at $115,000, to 20th Century Fox for $2 million. He helped Reagan became governor of California. He would go on to help Reagan become president of the United States but first he had to deal with another president’s brother.
MCA’s growing power had set in motion a counterforce. As early as 1946, the Saturday Evening Post had carried a feature story, MCA: Star-Spangled Octopus, detailing MCA’s grip on the entertainment industry. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, convened a Grand Jury Investigation to look for evidence of corruption and abuse of power at MCA. With the threat of criminal and civil penalties for alleged antitrust violations hanging over it, MCA divested itself of its talent agency. As producer David Brown, who was on that grand jury, told me in an interview, “I remember quite well that when we put together The Young Lions with Dean Martin, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Maximilian Schell, every actor was an MCA client. If you wanted one, you had to take all the others. The U.S. government overnight upset Lew’s applecart, and MCA the talent agency was no more, cutting adrift some of his closest associates.”
Even as it stopped representing performers, MCA expanded its operations in other areas by buying then-struggling Universal Pictures and Decca Records and creating the largest entertainment assembly line in Hollywood. Building on its Revue library of detective shows, westerns, situation comedies and specials, MCA and Wasserman transformed moribund Universal Pictures into Universal Studios, the largest and busiest lot in Hollywood.
With profits from MCA-produced TV hits such as Dragnet, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the groundbreaking miniseries, Roots, Wasserman paid $11.25 million for Universal’s property and facilities. He turned the four hundred acres into Universal City, which offered studio tours to the public and attracted five million guests a year. He added a 1,800-room hotel and a live concert amphitheatre that opened with the Grateful Dead. The long lineup of hippies horrified Wasserman, but those concerts became the fastest-growing outdoor attraction in California.
As a monument to his own success, Wasserman hired architect Mies van der Rohe to duplicate the New York tower that he had built for Bronfman’s Seagram Company. This became MCA’s new office and impressive evidence of his mainstream power. Nevertheless, Wasserman’s reputation was tainted by the company he still kept. This included Sidney Korshak, known as his fixer and an attorney to the mob. Though Korshak was a polished and sophisticated lawyer, a mobster once testified under oath that “a message from Korshak is a message from us.”
Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair, who knew Korshak well, told me, “Sidney’s was the first house I ever went to for a party where they had a guy at the door with a gun.”
Korshak negotiated contracts for people like Robert Evans for free. He forced MGM’s Kirk Kerkorian to release Al Pacino for Evans’ production of The Godfather. It has been said that the character of the consigliere played by Robert Duvall was based on Korshak.
Larry King shed light on some of the dark corners of the entertainment industry when he told me, “Wasserman, who called himself a pencil-pusher, would never talk about the Mafia. He was as sharp as they come—a legit [Meyer] Lansky! As Frank Sinatra once told me, ‘You work for certain clubs that are owned by certain people that are backed by certain people, so are you going to say, I will not work that club? I will not do that deed?’”
When Jules Stein took MCA public, he gave Wasserman 20 per cent of the stock. After opening at $17.50, the shares flew up to $78 in three years.
As undisputed Hollywood royalty, Edie and Lew moved into a custom-designed, modern home in Beverly Hills, complete with a state-of-the-art screening room. The house became the setting for many high-powered political parties, and Edie’s equally influential Hollywood Wives Club. Stars such as Janet Leigh, Polly Bergen and Rosemary Clooney, as well as wives hidden behind their famous husband’s shadows, shared gossip that Edie passed on to Lew.
By the time he was forty-six, Lew Wasserman was godfather of an entertainment empire that had never been seen before and would never be seen again. This was the man whose life I wanted to chronicle. No biography of him existed, either in film or book form. He was famous for having a clean desk. No notes. No files. Though he had experienced a dramatic fall from grace before his death at eighty-nine, his grip on his life remained as firm as the Vulcan pinch he had applied to my neck on our first meeting.
How was I going to capture the career of this man who strode the entertainment world like a colossus but left no footprints? Everything about making the film was difficult, from financing it to persuading Wasserman’s associates and even his critics to be interviewed, and then getting them to actually show up. Everything about marketing, premiering and showing the film was also fraught. Why? The Wasserman family was always one step ahead of me, blocking my way, preventing access and threatening me if I persisted. I felt his presence and power every day that I worked on the project.
My interest in Lew Wasserman had been piqued by my interest in Garth Drabinsky. Even before I worked with Garth, I had followed his fatal relationship with Wasserman.
Fortunately I had backing. When I pitched the film to Robin Mirsky, who heads up the funding arm at Rogers Communications, she was spellbound by his story and instantly agreed to provide financing. Robin is a national treasure: she has consistently supported independent filmmakers and has invested in most of my films since 1998. Having the money in place, however, did not guarantee access.
Wasserman had the look of a powerful man. He had the Palm Springs tan, the silver hair, the black-framed glasses, the extraordinarily tall, lean body encased in a designer black suit with crisp white shirts and a black-silk tie. Everyone who worked for him was required to wear a suit.
