Two studio anniversary celebrations, an eightieth for Universal and a seventy-fifth for Columbia, presented unique challenges. How could we make an audience care about corporate entities, albeit entities that glittered with stars and legendary movies? And how could we tell the stories of these two great studios by showing excerpts from the motion pictures they made, when the movies’ plots had nothing to do with the tales we were trying to tell? Of course there were powerful behind-the-scenes personalities here—Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures, and Harry Cohn, who, with his brother, Jack, created Columbia—but most people had never heard of them. However, having unrestricted access to their libraries, and a free hand to use anything we wanted, must have blinded us. We said “Yes” to both projects—and afterwards vowed we’d never take on anything like this again.
DH One of our first decisions had to do with interviews. There was such a vast amount of visual material available that we decided to record people audio-only. We would show excerpts from the movies themselves, and behind-the-scenes shots, but with no interruptions from “talking heads.” It would be much more compelling to hear Arnold Schwarzenegger tell us about the making of Conan the Barbarian, and how he was bitten by one of the wild dogs, as we saw the scene play out, than it would have been to stop the scene and cut to Arnold on camera. And this audio-only approach had an additional benefit: we could include archival interviews, most of which were not on film, and these would be on a par with the ones we did ourselves. Thus Lew Ayres, Paul Newman, Mary Tyler Moore, Steven Spielberg, Lupita Tovar, Susan Kohner, Gregory Peck, as well as Arnold, to name a few, could be indistinguishably mixed with stories told by Mary Pickford, Fred Astaire, Boris Karloff, Orson Welles, and others we found in collections.
JK In 1990, Universal City turned seventy-five. But the studio let the milestone go by with virtually no hoopla.
Three years later, Blair Westlake, who headed the Pay Television Division, called to ask if we’d be interested in producing a program in time to celebrate Universal’s eightieth birthday. He was upset that its seventy-fifth had been all but overlooked, and was determined not to allow the eightieth to have the same fate.1 We’d met Blair some seven years earlier, when we shot on the Universal backlot with Johnny Carson and Jimmy Stewart for James Stewart: A Wonderful Life. Blair was responsible then for making certain that we had the proper insurance coverage. He came by the set and we struck up a friendship. He subsequently rose through the ranks, eventually holding the title of Chairman of Universal Television.
When we started the project in 1994, the studio was ruled by Lew Wasserman2 together with his second-in-command, Sidney Sheinberg, and it was obvious that we needed them both for the program. However, Wasserman rarely ever agreed to be interviewed; his policy was to work unseen by the public, to avoid the limelight. We asked Blair to help. He spoke to Sheinberg, who somehow persuaded Wasserman that they should do an interview together. But Sid had misunderstood that we needed voice only, so we found that we had them scheduled for an on-camera interview. It would be at 11am on a Thursday morning on the top floor of the corporate building known as the Black Tower, which is near the entrance to Universal City. When we reminded Blair that we only needed their audio, he said, “Let’s film them anyway. You can use just their voices for the program, but we’ll have a rare interview for the archives.”
Universal City opening day poster.
March 15, 1915. Authors’ collection.
By an unfortunate coincidence, that same Thursday morning was the only time that Steven Spielberg was available, and we had already scheduled him for 9:30 at the Amblin Entertainment complex, which was also on the Universal City lot, but a good fifteen minutes away from the Black Tower.
DH I had our film crew start setting up for the Wasserman/Sheinberg interview at about 8:30, and when I was satisfied that all was going well, left them to head to Amblin. As Spielberg was to be audio-only, it would not take long to get ready. The receptionist told us that Steven wanted the interview to take place in his screening room, but he was currently in a meeting which was running long, and he would probably be about fifteen minutes late.
Steven Spielberg started his career at Universal, and had played a large role in the studio’s success over the last twenty-or-so years. We had a long list of questions for him.
JK At 9:45 there was another message from the receptionist. Steven was still in his meeting, but would be with us as soon as it was finished. David and I were now looking at which questions we could eliminate. We had to be finished at Amblin by 10:30 if we were to get back to the Black Tower in time for the Wasserman/Sheinberg filming. There was no way we could be late for that.
DH At 10 o’clock Steven Spielberg walked into the screening room. He was full of apologies, and suggested that we begin recording immediately. I had in mind a few questions that we could cut, but started at the beginning.
“Can you tell us about the first time you were on the Universal lot?”
It was with his first answer that I realized we had our dream interviewee. His responses were all concise and to the point. There were no rambling stories, no irrelevant asides. This was a filmmaker who knew what it was like to be in an editing room—which answers could make it into the final cut, and he was doing his very best to deliver those answers. For example, when I asked him who the producer was on one of his early films, he gave a name, and then paused momentarily.
“No, that might be wrong,” he said. “I’ll give you another line and you can edit in whichever is correct.”
Despite our many questions, and starting half an hour later than planned, I knew early on that we would not have to eliminate any of them.
JK Near the end, David asked him something that I thought was pushing the envelope too far. We’d read an article about the making of Schindler’s List, in which Spielberg was quoted as saying that one location was the real site of a Hitler death camp, and he had hired German actors to play the guards, all of them dressed in authentic Nazi uniforms. Between shots, they wanted to chat with him about Jaws, E.T., and his other famous movies, but he found he couldn’t deal with them. Even though he knew intellectually that they were actors in costume, all he could see were Nazi officers. He just turned his back and walked away.
I was afraid that bringing this up might cause Steven some embarrassment, but David waited until the end of the interview and went for it. I was holding my breath.
Spielberg said that the story was true, and that we were the first to ask him about it since the article had appeared. He reiterated that he couldn’t get past the sight of those actors in those uniforms in that location and what it all represented. However, they were still at that same location at the beginning of Passover, and he decided to hold a Seder for the entire cast and crew. At one point he turned and saw the German actors enter the room, wearing suits and ties, with yarmulkes on their heads. They took seats at the table, held hands with everyone else and bowed their heads, joining in the prayers. Steven said he sat at the head of the table and began to weep. And at that moment he knew he would never again judge a man by his forefathers.
I had tears in my eyes too.
As we were about to leave, I said to him, “What’s interesting to me is that after all the films you’ve done, you don’t seem to have lost the ‘wonder.’”
“It’s true,” he replied. “I get that from my mother. She’s always been filled with ‘wonder’ and still is.”
DH Looking back, it’s perhaps one of the best interviews anyone ever gave us.
But now there were only twenty-five minutes to wrap up, get to the Black Tower—running was the only option—and check that everything was ready for Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg. When we arrived, I had one small adjustment I wanted the crew to make, and as it was completed, the two of them walked through the door. It was exactly 11 am.
Wasserman began with, “You know, we have final cut on this.” I reminded him that the studio had final cut on the entire program. He wasn’t an easy interviewee, warming to some questions, but giving only brief replies to others. Sheinberg was more forthcoming. But by the end, both of them were comfortable and Sheinberg joked, “Now we’d like to turn the camera around so we can ask you some questions.”
JK and DH Like all studios, Universal has its hierarchy, and there’s a pecking order for getting things done. We knew that as outsiders, we needed some top-flight muscle to cut through the red tape, otherwise, requests for screening cassettes, photos, research files, etc. would take months. We couldn’t afford any delays since we were on a budget and a strict timetable.
Sid Sheinberg sent out a memo to the ten thousand department heads at Universal Studios in California, Florida, Europe, and New York, directing them to inform their staffs that this project was to be given priority status. It worked like a charm.
However, that wasn’t the only perk that came with having the highest-level executives as allies. Towards the end of one of our trips to Los Angeles, Universal Television Chairman, Tom Wertheimer, offered us a rare opportunity: to be flown back to New York on the studio’s private jet. Never before or since have we had that experience. We were picked up at our hotel and taken to the Burbank airport where the twin-jet Gulfstream IV was waiting on the tarmac. The aircraft’s tail number was N315MC, and we discovered that it was more than just coincidence that Lew Wasserman’s birthday was March 15th (and, oddly enough, Universal’s founder, Carl Laemmle, had opened the gates to Universal City on March 15th, 1915).
David and Joan on steps of Universal’s corporate jet.
Burbank Airport, CA, 1995. Authors’ collection.
DH The interior of the plane was furnished with sofas and plush chairs, and in addition to the pilot and co-pilot, there was another engineer who also served as the steward, looking after our every need. We were on board with some studio executives who had to stop in San Jose for a meeting before going on to New York. When we landed in San Jose, two limos were waiting: one took the executives to their meeting and the other took us sightseeing. We stopped at a few shops and bought souvenirs and, about ninety minutes later, headed back to the airport.
The pilot invited me to sit in the cockpit during take-off, and it was thrilling. And several hours later, when we were about to land at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, Joan was equally as thrilled when she was asked to be in the cockpit for the descent and landing. Once again, two limousines were waiting on the tarmac: one to take the executives to their hotel, and the other to take us to our respective homes.
I told Joan, “Let’s not get too used to all this pampering, or we’ll never be able to fly coach again.”
JK The Universal Story was hosted by Richard Dreyfuss. Sheinberg chose him from a list I discussed with him in a phone conversation that lasted about twenty-five minutes. When Blair heard about it, he said, “You talked for twenty-five minutes? Sid is known for thirty-second calls. He’s not a guy who chats on the telephone.”
“Well, he did with me. And his choice was Dreyfuss. He said, ‘Go with Ricky. He’s smart; he’s in one of our most important movies, Jaws, among others; and he cares about Hollywood history.’”
Fortunately, Richard was our first choice too. We’d met him when he agreed to be interviewed for the show about James Stewart. Back then he had impressed us with his detailed knowledge of films and the motion picture business. He is a true movie buff.
I called his assistant, Audrey Bamber, and told her we were inviting him to host and narrate the program about Universal, and that he was not only our choice, but Sid Sheinberg’s as well. We’d need him for four days of shooting on the Universal lot plus two days of narration. And we’d like to meet and talk with him before the shoot to go over the script. He called the next day and accepted the offer.
I asked him, “Do you prefer to be called Ricky?”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the name Sid Sheinberg used.”
“He probably called me that because Steven Spielberg does, and they’re good friends. But everyone else calls me Richard.”
Richard Dreyfuss filming introduction to Jurassic Park sequence for The Universal Story.
Universal City, CA, 1995. Authors’ collection.
JK and DH The story of Universal was right up his alley. He relished learning about its founder, Carl Laemmle, and how Laemmle eventually lost the studio when he borrowed money to finance a sound version of Show Boat. He was so sure the picture would be a hit that he put up his studio as collateral for the loan. As luck would have it, the production fell badly behind schedule, and when the loan repayment became due, Laemmle lost his gamble—and Universal Pictures. When Show Boat was finished and released, it was indeed a big hit, but it was too late. By then, the film—and Universal—belonged to a bank, Standard Capital.
But there were portions of the script to which Richard objected. He felt that some of it, especially the more recent history, sounded too promotional and he said, “I don’t want to be part of just a puff piece.” Neither did we, so his comments were particularly helpful. And he kept reminding us to include phrases about the studio being “big business,” with its eye always on how much money their films, the tour, etc. were making.
DH One of the locations we used was Stage 28, the oldest on the lot. It was built in 1924 for the original The Phantom of the Opera and contains an exact replica of the interior of the Paris Opera House, which has also been used as a “theater set” for many films since. We arranged to have Richard wear a tux and sit in one of the boxes as he talked about Phantom.
The day before the shoot, our production manager came to me with a problem. “We have to re-arrange our schedule. The studio’s cleaning crew found fleas in the curtains of the opera house boxes, so the stage has to be fumigated.”
We all agreed that it was best not to mention the problem to Richard—and we almost got away with it.
Unfortunately, as a studio car was bringing him there the next day, the driver said, “I hope they got rid of all the fleas.”
Richard turned to Joan. “Fleas? What fleas?” he said.
When we arrived, there was a slight smell of mustiness and extermination fumes, but no sign of the fleas.
Stage 28, by the way, has always been rumored to be haunted.
JK Each day we had a catered lunch on tables near our “home base.” All of us, including Richard, sat and ate together, with him telling stories about the making of Jaws, and many of his other films. The crew later told us that this job was one of the best experiences they’d had. It’s more usual for a star to have lunch in his dressing trailer, rather than socializing with the members of the crew.
Richard Dreyfuss on the Phantom Stage.
Universal City, CA, 1995. Authors’ collection.
Our last location was at “Jaws Lake,” where we’d been asked to set up and get our shot quickly, so that the Universal City tour bus didn’t have to be diverted any longer than absolutely necessary. The shark was a main attraction, and people would be very annoyed if they weren’t able to see it.
The studio’s engineers had agreed to adjust the computer that controlled “Bruce” (the fake shark), so that it would rise up out of the water directly behind Richard at the right point in the script. It turned out to be more complicated than we had imagined, and in take after take, “Bruce” bopped up in the wrong place or at the wrong time.
Richard turned around and said, “Some nightmares never end,” a reference to the fact that the original mechanical shark used in the making of Jaws was famously temperamental too.
JK and DH We had planned to send a limo to bring Dreyfuss to the set every morning, but he insisted on driving himself. At the end of each day, we asked him again, and again he turned us down.
Finally his assistant, Audrey, said, “Richard, do you know why they keep offering to send a car and driver for you? They’re worried about you.”
The truth was that we were, indeed, worried. He had had a well-publicized problem with substance abuse and had once driven his Mercedes into a tree. He was seriously injured and is lucky to have survived. He checked into a rehab facility and has been clean ever since.
JK He told me, “If you’re afraid that you’re going to lose your host in a ditch, I’ll make a deal with you. I still want to drive myself, but I’ll arrive fifteen minutes early just to reassure you.” True to his word, he drove onto the lot at 7:45 am each day, parked his car, and when he saw me, did a little dance with arms opened wide, saying, “Ta-dah—I’m here.”
DH After our four days of shooting at Universal, we started the two days of narration. We played back the rough-cut of the show, which had my voice as a “scratch track” on it, so that Richard could see the visuals as he read his lines. But some of them had to fit in very tight spaces, and when he had trouble speaking fast enough, he took it as a challenge.
He said, “David, if you can do it, so can I. Let me hear your scratch track in my headphones.” I had never seen anyone do that before. But it worked. He succeeded in reading the script with the exact timings we needed, sounding completely natural and not at all strained or mechanical. However I decided not to tell him that my speed had been faked. Our editor, Scott Doniger (who edited almost every program Joan and I did), had cut out breaths between words, in order to make my narration fit.
JK and DH By the time the show was finished, we were exhausted. The research had been exciting, even thrilling at times, when we uncovered elusive footage or stumbled across forgotten events. But it had been a very big undertaking, and just getting to the end felt like an achievement.
Joan and Richard discussing script.
Universal City, CA, 1995. Authors’ collection.
Universal was very happy with the program, as was the Starz network, on which it premiered. The Universal Story vividly shows how a second tier Hollywood studio3 survived against the odds, and eventually became one of the most powerful in the industry.
Glenn Close on the original Columbia Pictures lot.
Sunset-Gower Studios, Los Angeles, CA, 1998. Authors’ collection.
Somehow the agonies of production are overshadowed, and all but forgotten, if the show turns out to be a success. The Universal Story was well-received, and we soon recovered from the feeling of being knee-deep in quicksand.
In the fall of 1996, we received a phone call from our friend, Su Lesser, a vice president at Columbia Pictures. She had licensed clips to us for our first two Astaire shows, and we met soon after while she was on a business trip to New York. When the shows were nominated for Emmy Awards, she volunteered to throw a party at her apartment in LA and invited those from other studios who had also helped us. Su is a friend to this day.
She was calling about Columbia Pictures’ birthday. “The studio will turn seventy-five in January, 1999, and I think we should be celebrating with a documentary like the one you did for Universal. Would you be interested? I’ve already mentioned it to Jeff Sagansky4, and told him about you, and he was enthusiastic about the idea.”
Without too much hesitation—actually none at all—we said, “We’d love to do it.” We didn’t even pause to think about the magnitude of taking on another studio’s story.
JK On the day after Christmas, I happened to be in the office alone, cleaning up some paperwork, when the phone rang.
The voice on the other end said, “Hi. This is Jeff Sagansky at Columbia Pictures. Is Joan there?”
Somehow I recovered quickly enough. “Yes, this is Joan.”
“Su Lesser gave me your number. As you probably know, she’s suggested that you and your partner produce a seventy-fifth anniversary special about the studio. Are you still interested and do you have the time? I confess I haven’t seen the show you did about Universal. Could you send me a cassette? Su told me it’s terrific.”
“I think she’s a bit prejudiced, since we’re old friends, but yes, we have the time and we’d be happy to do it. By the way, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”
“The same to you. I’ll be in touch again after the holidays.”
However, January came and went with no further word. We asked Su what was going on, but she didn’t know, so we decided to take the lead. We called for an appointment to meet Sagansky, and booked a trip to Los Angeles.
JK and DH Sony Pictures was, and still is, based in Culver City on the old MGM lot, which we knew well from the shows we’d done on Spencer Tracy and James Stewart. Jeff Sagansky’s office was in the legendary Thalberg building. He shook hands and introduced us to Andy Kaplan, head of Columbia Television. Andy was cordial, but not particularly friendly. We wondered if his coolness was because he was being handed a project that he hadn’t initiated, basically being assigned to oversee it by his boss. However, Jeff said that he wanted to make this program a reality and it was up to Andy to find the money for it. By now both of them had seen The Universal Story, and had been impressed by it.
The meeting ended with a short discussion about who might host the show, and we were told, “Don’t worry about that. We have relationships with many stars that we can approach and we won’t have to pay them a lot of money.”
JK Our contract negotiations were not easy. In fact, at one point, Andy Kaplan told me that he was getting a “visceral” feeling that this project wouldn’t happen. I then called Jeff Sagansky and asked if the studio had changed its mind. He assured me it hadn’t. After that, our lawyer, Anita Shapiro, ironed out the rest of the deal with Michael Viebrock, the attorney at Columbia.
We were beginning to wonder if our relationship with Andy, to whom we were reporting, would be fraught with tension. As it turned out, we needn’t have worried. He was very supportive, always helpful, and always available.
JK and DH Columbia had a close relationship with HBO and Andy saw the possibility of them financing the project. He asked us to go with him to a meeting in Los Angeles with Chris Albrecht, HBO’s Chairman and CEO. We were flown out first class and put up at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills—very different from the way that documentary producers usually travel.
The meeting with Albrecht seemed to go well. He knew of our Universal Story, which had been broadcast by HBO’s competitor, Starz. But when we told him that Universal had been pretty much hands-off editorially, he said, “You won’t find it like that here.”
A few days later we were in Andy Kaplan’s office to get the bad news that HBO was not interested. But in the conversation he mentioned a new deal that Columbia now had to supply Starz/Encore with product, and we reminded him that Starz had been very pleased with The Universal Story. Maybe they would want this new program about Columbia. Within a week he’d made the sale, and we had the money to produce the show.
DH In order to get a full picture of the business side of the studio, Jeff Sagansky arranged for us to meet the renowned corporate investment banker, Herbert Allen, Jr. We spent an entire morning with him in his New York office, and were fascinated by the behind-the-scenes power that he wielded when he was instrumental in rescuing Columbia from the brink of bankruptcy a number of years back.
In fact, during Harry Cohn’s reign, while often tumultuous, the studio never was in the red. Only after he died, when top management seemed to change every few years, was the financial stability of the company on a roller coaster, several times plummeting to near-disaster. Herb Allen was able to give us the details that led to the downfalls and how he and producer, Ray Stark, managed to put the studio back on a sound financial foundation.
And then we lost our most powerful ally. In a typical Hollywood upheaval, Jeff Sagansky resigned. We were stunned; even though we had a contract and were in production, Jeff wouldn’t be there to see the project through to completion.
Fortunately Su was still there. We spoke with her every day, sometimes more than once. She made the vital process of getting screening cassettes of movies as easy as possible. And we soon became friends with Maria Blanco, who was responsible for making and sending us the tapes, often a dozen or more at a time. Su also pushed all the right buttons in all the necessary departments to get us through the maze of legal clearances. She was essentially one of our executive producers, along with Andy Kaplan. Unfortunately though, when it came time to finalize the on-screen credits, Columbia took the same position as Universal: no credits for any studio employees. Su was disappointed, but she could hardly argue the point when Andy, himself, was not getting a credit.
But we’re leaping too far ahead here.
JK It didn’t take long for us to remember how daunting it can be to tell the story of a studio, and how we needed to find a way to make an audience care about a corporation, however glamorous the business. Again, we felt as though we were drowning in a surplus of riches. Here was a producer’s dream of having access to all the material in the archives—thousands of feature films, television series, cartoons, shorts, serials, plus photos, posters, contracts, scripts, memos, etc.—offset by the nightmare of having to look at and analyze as many as possible, and then decide what should be used to move the story along.
DH Columbia started out in 1924 as a “Poverty Row” studio, with its headquarters on the notoriously low-rent Gower Street. At the other end of the spectrum, also founded in 1924, was the star-studded MGM, located on a luxurious lot in Culver City. They couldn’t have been further apart in all respects.
One of Columbia’s most colorful characters was its founder, Harry Cohn. He was known to have been rude, ruthless and vulgar. None of the Hollywood moguls was especially beloved, but Harry Cohn was probably the bottom of the heap. When he died in 1958, huge crowds turned out for his funeral, about which Red Skelton famously quipped, “You give the public what they want, and they’ll show up.”
But Cohn had a remarkable eye for talent, nurturing actors such as Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Jack Lemmon, Judy Holliday and Kim Novak, and—perhaps most importantly—director Frank Capra, who put Columbia on the map with It Happened One Night, which swept the Oscars for 1934. But Cohn also made blunders. After Marilyn Monroe appeared in a film for him, he decided not to sign her to a contract. “She can’t act,” he said.
JK and DH We found that one of the ways to grapple with telling this story was to do what we had done with Universal and create segments focusing on several stars and directors who made their marks while working at the studio. An obvious one was Margarita Cansino. She became one of Harry Cohn’s most famous “creations.” He changed the color of her hair, and her hairline, as well as her name—to Rita Hayworth. And he cast her opposite Cary Grant, Glenn Ford, Gene Kelly, and Fred Astaire, to name a few. With her smoldering sexuality, she became Columbia’s biggest moneymaker in films such as Gilda, Miss Sadie Thompson, Only Angels Have Wings, and Cover Girl. And the public was just as captivated by her off-screen life. Her marriage to Prince Aly Khan caused ripples around the world, and a tidal wave in the office of Harry Cohn when she announced she was giving up Hollywood for the life of a princess. Four years later, she and the Prince were divorced, and Cohn not only welcomed her back, but reveled in the publicity generated by her return.
It was fairly well known that Rita Hayworth lip-synched her musical numbers to other voices, such as Anita Ellis’s. But there had long been a rumor that in one scene in Gilda, Rita had done her own singing while strumming a guitar. We wanted to either confirm or deny the rumor. So we sent a cassette of the film to her daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, who lives in New York. She called back a few days later to say that the voice was not her mother’s.
DH Soon after we were hired to produce the program, we had dinner in Los Angeles with our friend, Roger Mayer and his wife, Pauline. They both had worked at Columbia years before, and he told us about an ill-fated project called Joseph and His Brethren.
He said, “It was at a time when Hollywood was captivated by Biblical epics, and Harry Cohn wanted one of his own. Rita Hay-worth was set to play the lead, and while work was being done on the script, director William Dieterle took a second unit film crew to Egypt and shot hours of footage of camels in the desert. But the project was bogged down with one problem after another. I wonder if any of that footage still exists.”
What actually happened was that by then Rita was married to singer Dick Haymes, and the last straw was when he decided he wanted to play Joseph. That’s when Harry Cohn threw in the towel and finally abandoned the film. It had cost him over two years and close to two million dollars.
A few months later, when we interviewed Jack Lemmon, he said that while he was a contract player at the studio, often butting heads with Cohn, he was tested for the part of Joseph.
“But I told Harry, ‘I’m not Joseph, for God’s sake. Find someone else.’ And Harry said, ‘Okay, you don’t have to play Joseph, but if you give me any more trouble, I’ll show that test all over the Bel Air circuit.’”
I had asked both Su Lesser and the studio’s head of Asset Management and Film Restoration, Grover Crisp, about both the footage from Egypt and also Jack Lemmon’s screen test. They couldn’t find any trace of either.
Then, just before I was leaving for a trip to Los Angeles, I received a call from Grover. He suggested I spend a morning with him looking at some film he’d found.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”
I always tell people that Grover is one of the “good guys” in Hollywood. He cares deeply about the Columbia film library and maintains and restores its pictures with a meticulous attention to detail. And indeed, he had “surprises” for me. He’d found costume, hair and makeup tests of Rita Hayworth doing a scene for Joseph and His Brethren, as well as Jack Lemmon’s test for it. And there were also screen tests of Harrison Ford, Warren Beatty, Kim Novak with Tyrone Power, Barbara Streisand with Omar Sharif, and Joan Perry, Harry Cohn’s wife-to-be. And finally, two shots of camels walking in the desert—all that was left of the twenty-seven-thousand feet Dieterle had filmed in Egypt. It was a treasure trove, all of which we used in the program.
JK Another of Harry Cohn’s “creations” was Kim Novak, who was groomed to replace Rita Hayworth as she grew older and her star began to fade. Cohn carefully crafted Novak’s sex-goddess image in Phffft with Jack Lemmon, and in Picnic, when she slow-danced in the moonlight with William Holden. Then, to make it absolutely clear that she had reached that lofty goddess position, Cohn cast both her and Rita Hayworth opposite Frank Sinatra in Pal Joey. Only one of them “gets the guy.” Of course, it’s the young, blond Kim Novak.
We tried to reach her, but she never responded to our letter. However, in addition to Jack Lemmon, we did interviews with Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper, Evelyn Keyes, Richard Dreyfuss, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Barbra Streisand, and producer Ray Stark; and we found archival recordings of Clark Gable, Jean Arthur, Irene Dunne, and directors Frank Capra, Orson Welles, and David Lean. I also attempted to convince socialite, Leonore Annenberg (wife of former US Ambassador to Great Britain, and philanthropist, Walter Annenberg) to participate in the program. She was Harry Cohn’s niece, and was raised by him from an early age after her mother died. I found a number for Mrs. Annenberg and she answered the phone herself. When I told her why I was calling, her response was immediate and abrupt. “I don’t discuss the Cohn family,” she said, and hung up.
However, we were able to get a glimpse into Cohn’s personal life thanks to some home movie footage of him, his second wife, Joan Perry, and their children. Our associate producer, Mary Bell Painten, tracked down his daughters-in-law, who not only had that footage, but also Cohn’s personal scrapbooks filled with news clippings and photographs.
JK and DH As with The Universal Story, the right host was crucial. And even though the studio had told us that they’d be able to find someone for not a lot of money, they discovered that it wasn’t all that easy. We wanted a big star who’d made a number of films there. Our top choice was Glenn Close, and fortunately everyone agreed.
DH The narration session was in New York at Sony’s Columbia Records on Manhattan’s West Side5, prior to the on-camera shoot in California. We were given a studio that had been built for Mariah Carey’s recording sessions; it was elaborate and comfortable. Glenn came in from Bedford Hills, just north of the city. She was not steeped in Columbia’s history, but was fascinated by the story and eager to learn more about it. We worked together well, and the day felt very relaxed.
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.
