Notes
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All citations beginning CP, followed by a box number and a folder number, refer to the Paddy Chayefsky papers (1907–1998, bulk 1952–1981), archived at the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York, NY.
1. The Imposter
Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood couldn’t “sing for shit”: Shaun Considine, Mad as Hell: The Life and Work of Paddy Chayefsky (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 249.
They were three Jewish show business veterans kibitzing around a table: This story is derived from an author’s interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012, and from Chayefsky’s own fictionalized account of the event in the pilot treatment of The Imposters (CP, Box 127, Folder 8).
“television has been a kind medium”: Paddy Chayefsky, Television Plays (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955), pp. ix–xiv.
“Are people any wiser than they were a hundred years ago?”: Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays (New York: Applause Books, 1994), p. 79.
Chayefsky wandered away from rehearsals and encountered a leftover sign: Tom Stempel, Storytellers to the Nation: A History of American Television Writing (New York: Continuum Publishing, 1992), p. 49.
“Sooner or later,” he declares, “there comes a point in a man’s life”: Chayefsky, Television Plays, p. 154.
“You don’t like her. My mother don’t like her”: Ibid., p. 182.
“it tried to show love to be a very real emotion”: Paddy Chayefsky, “Playwright Turns Self-Critic,” TV Guide, Oct. 22, 1955.
“We thought that ‘Marty’ was based upon, a lot, on Paddy Chayefsky”: Interview for PBS, The Golden Age of Television, Aug. 29, 1981.
born on January 29, 1923, in the Bronx home of his parents: CP, Box 166, Folder 3.
“the rich Bronx—in the Riverdale section—not the Odets Bronx”: J. P. Shanley, “Big Decision on a Bronx Gridiron,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 1954.
His bar mitzvah was held at a storefront synagogue on West 234th Street: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 12.
“My parents weren’t writers but they were great readers”: Carol Taylor, “I’m Never a Prima Donna at Work,” World-Telegram and Sun (New York), June 7, 1958.
a machine-gun-wielding infantryman in the army’s 104th Division: CP, Box 166, Folder 3. According to his discharge papers, Chayefsky incurred the injury on Nov. 23, 1944.
“We were out on patrol”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 22.
“Paddy is built like an office safe”: Joshua Logan, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me (New York: Dell, 1978), p. 116.
“I thought I was the sloppiest soldier in the Army”: Helen Dudar (with Sally Hammond and Jack Fox), “A Post Portrait: Paddy Chayefsky,” New York Post, Jan. 4, 1960.
“I copied it out word for word”: Elliot Norton, “Chayefsky Learned by Copying a Play,” Boston Daily Record, Mar. 14, 1958.
“I stormed and ranted”: Philip Minoff, “Chayefsky Churns Ahead,” Cue, Nov. 28, 1953.
“Nobody called me to tell me what night they were putting it on”: George Anthony, “Chayefsky’s Latest—All Fabricated, All Fiction and All True,” Toronto Sun, Mar. 14, 1976.
“the most perishable item known to man”: Rod Serling, Patterns (New York: Bantam, 1957), introduction.
“He had the gift of melding significance and meaning and humor”: Author interview with Carol Serling, May 23, 2012.
“My position is nonnegotiable”: John Brady, The Craft of the Screenwriter (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), p. 37.
All his demands were accepted: Reg Ovington, “TV’s Fair-Haired Boy,” Pictorial TView, Mar. 27, 1955.
“studio story editors better spend more time at home”: Ronald Holloway, review of Marty, Variety, Mar. 22, 1955.
“the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the unattached male”: “Cinema: The New Pictures,” Time, Apr. 18, 1955.
“The industry has no pride and no culture”: Joe Hyams, “Chayefsky Assails TV as Stupid and Doomed,” New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 2, 1957.
“frankly demanding to be relieved of the epithet”: Paddy Chayefsky, “Not So Little,” New York Times, July 15, 1956.
“a short, stocky and heavy-shouldered chap”: Minoff, “Chayefsky Churns Ahead.”
“a squarish, hefty young playwright”: “People Are Talking About…,” Vogue, Oct. 15, 1955.
“a chunky, Bronx-born, reformed éclair addict”: Dudar, “A Post Portrait.”
“Mr. Chayefsky did not wear a hat”: Don Ross, “Chayefsky Is Bearded and Busy,” New York Herald Tribune, Jan. (possibly Feb.) 22, 1959.
“Once they got control, it would be so dehydrated”: “Chayefsky Walks Out on Psychiatric Series in Hassle over Control,” Variety, Oct. 25, 1958.
“They did everything possible to divert our attention”: Dudar, “A Post Portrait.”
he was “sick of” Broadway due to “economic futility”: “Irked Chayefsky Says He’s ‘Sick’ of Broadway, Will Work Elsewhere,” Associated Press, June 3, 1962.
“I should never have tried to direct it, too”: Frances Herridge, “Chayefsky Says It with Humor,” New York Post, Nov. 23, 1964.
“so rich, deep, comic and pitiable”: Clive Barnes, “Theater: ‘The Latent Heterosexual,’” New York Times, Mar. 22, 1968.
“the best platform to express meaningful drama”: Kay Gardella, “A Chayefsky Deal with CBS,” Daily News (New York), Dec. 8, 1967.
they struck a deal with CBS in July 1969: Val Adams, “Chayefsky Writing CBS-TV Pilot,” Daily News (New York), July 15, 1969.
a three-part TV Guide series he had been reading that summer: Richard Warren Lewis, “The Man on the 34th Floor,” TV Guide, July 12–18, 1969; July 19–25, 1969; and July 26–Aug. 1, 1969.
“We’re not in the business of good drama”: CP, Box 127, Folder 8.
“Well, Charley, what do you feel like doing?”: Ibid.
“Mike said, ‘I’m sorry—we can’t do this’”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
“the hospital represents American society”: CP, Box 127, Folder 3.
The Latent Humanitarian: A. H. Weiler, “What’s Up, Doc? Murder!” New York Times, Aug. 2, 1970.
“They didn’t bother you”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
he “just couldn’t work” with Ritchie: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 278.
“I’ve lost my raison d’etre, my purpose”: Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Screenplays Vol. II (New York: Applause Books, 1994), pp. 53–54.
in April 1972, Chayefsky gave a brief acceptance speech: Paddy Chayefsky, Academy Awards acceptance speech, Apr. 10, 1972, aaspeechesdb.oscars.org/link/044-22/.
“Those other four guys, they got mothers, too”: Ernest Tidyman, Academy Awards acceptance speech, Apr. 10, 1972, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uad8qcBIRS4.
“someone had asked him to go up to Hefner’s”: Author interview with Warren Beatty, Nov. 8, 2012.
newer and more unconventional treatments, including the drug Elavil: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 289.
“She was a perfectionist”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky, Mar. 1, 2013.
In one instance she went into a frenzy: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 335.
“It almost gave her withdrawal a cause”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky, Mar. 1, 2013.
“He was a fortress, my dad”: Ibid.
Dan remained by himself in the family apartment: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 294.
“I was just very self-destructive and very lost”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky, Mar. 1, 2013.
“he brought this bonfire to his office”: Ibid.
he was not some “new-Mobe militant or placard carrier”: CP, Box 140, Folder 24.
“Six million went up with a snap of the finger”: G. Y. Dryansky, “Chayefsky: ‘Save the Jews,’” Women’s Wear Daily, 1971.
“I don’t know that it’s that guy”: Author interview with David Steinberg, May 10, 2012.
“These Arabs would like you to believe”: Display advertisement, New York Times, Dec. 17, 1973.
a screenplay set in the West Bank about a pair of police officers: CP, Box 123, Folder 3.
“There is a Jew dog here!” CP, Box 126, Folder 5.
“I’ll tell you about your civilized world!”: Ibid.
“Now, one might say it was in the contract”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
“they said they couldn’t make it in Jerusalem”: Author interview with Maurice Spanbock, June 21, 2012.
“they broke up the fee for the whole bundle”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
the IRS said The Goddess was Columbia’s property: “Limit Indies Loan Credits,” Variety, Feb. 21, 1973.
a tax bill of $86,770, plus a $5,248 penalty for late filing: “Chayefskys Are Losers,” Variety, Feb. 13, 1973.
“the main character is a revered and retired old rabbi”: CP, Box 137, Folder 10.
Your Place or Mine: CP, Box 137, Folder 6.
“He said he could not master it”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky, Mar. 1, 2013.
2. Strangelove-y as Hell
“I’m going to spend the day with you”: Author interview with Richard Wald, Feb. 2, 2012.
HUT ratings. Audience flow. The dark weeks: CP, Box 91, Folder 9.
“I expected grunts”: Author interview with Richard Wald, Feb. 2, 2012.
“it is an indestructible and terrifying giant”: CP, Box 93, Folder 4.
“the American people are angry and want angry shows”: Ibid.
Chayefsky recorded the clockwork precision of their schedules: CP, Box 91, Folder 2.
a 60 Minutes segment from March 10, 1974, titled “The Ratings War”: CP, Box 91, Folder 3.
“Cats, Dogs and Underdogs”: Les Brown, “Livelier and Longer TV News Spurs Hunt for Talent,” New York Times, Apr. 22, 1974.
“You win because you have a competitive edge”: Pat Polillo, Remarks to National Association of Television Program Executives convention, Los Angeles, Feb. 19, 1974.
“The Atlanta trip made it clear that there was nothing”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
“the concept of RATINGS UBER ALLES”: CP, Box 91, Folder 9.
“FAUST + MEPHISTOPHELES today”: CP, Box 91, Folder 10.
“If you can get in four good hours a day”: Brady, Craft of the Screenwriter, p. 60.
haphazardly furnished with a piano: Ibid., pp. 31, 60.
The view his workspace offered: Joan Barthel, “Paddy Chayefsky: ‘TV Will Do Anything for a Rating. Anything!’” New York Times, Nov. 14, 1976.
“BY THE END OF THE PICTURE”: CP, Box 92, Folder 2.
“a tough, but righteous fellow”: CP, Box 91, Folder 1.
a nod to the baseball pitcher Harold “Prince Hal” Schumacher: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 31, 2012.
“His method of doing this is to adopt a tabloid attitude”: CP, Box 92, Folder 1.
“ten minutes into the news cast he flips out”: Ibid.
“this time, his flip is not an unruly, profanity-ridden flip out”: Ibid.
“we put a raging prophet on the air, a prophet in the biblical sense”: Ibid.
“In keeping with Channel 40’s policy”: Jon Dietz, “On-Air Shot Kills TV Personality,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 16, 1974.
“like that girl in Florida”: CP, Box 95, Folder 5.
a set of screenplay notes dated July 16, 1974: CP, Box 93, Folder 1.
“tall, willowy and with the best ass ever seen”: CP, Box 94, Folder 4.
“Howard doesn’t need the encouragement. He gets madder and madder”: CP, Box 93, Folder 1.
“She looks him up and down”: Ibid.
“Leader of the People guy”: CP, Box 92, Folder 6.
“the individual human will be just a piston rod in the whole vast machinery”: CP, Box 93, Folder 1.
Chayefsky wrote year-by-year biographies for his characters: CP, Box 91, Folder 9.
Surgeon’s Hospital, Pedro and the Putz, Celebrity Canasta: CP, Box 92, Folder 5.
a page-long list of synonyms for the verb corrupt: CP, Box 92, Folder 10.
a separate, three-page list of the increasingly ominous political calamities: CP, Box 93, Folder 1.
“the states of human consciousness”: CP, Box 62, Folder 3.
“If their show is a hit, they already have attention—Ransom?” CP, Box 93, Folder 3.
“if he assassinates Beale and takes film of it”: Ibid.
“We’ve got to replace Beale”: Ibid.
“THE SHOW LACKS A POINT OF VIEW”: CP, Box 93, Folder 2.
“This story is about Howard Beale”: CP, Box 92, Folder 6.
“She sank into an overstuffed chair”: Ibid.
“What was this, some kind of demented gag!” CP, Box 92, Folder 8.
“He was hoping I’d fall on my face with this Beale show”: CP, Box 94, Folder 1.
Howard Beale is found by his housekeeper: CP, Box 92, Folder 5.
Beale’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Celia: CP, Box 92, Folder 9.
a psychiatrist, Dr. Sindell: CP, Box 94, Folder 1.
“Its propagandist potential hasn’t even been touched”: Ibid.
The Madame Defarge Show and something called Rape of the Week: CP, Box 95, Folder 1.
“You and Ed Murrow and Fred Friendly”: CP, Box 92, Folder 7.
“If I could stand the taste of liquor I’d be a lush”: CP, Box 92, Folder 9.
“it was nipple clear that she was bra-less”: CP, Box 92, Folder 8.
“Sounds like good family entertainment”: CP, Box 92, Folder 10.
“I’ll try to make a home with you”: CP, Box 93, Folder 7.
“We’re born in terror and we live in terror”: CP, Box 93, Folder 6.
“Wayward husband comes to his senses”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 216.
“We can hear the CLICK of the door being opened”: Ibid.
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad”: Ibid., pp. 173–74.
“Since that production,” the article said, “nothing”: Richard Hatch, “Follow-Up on the News: Paddy Chayefsky,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 1975.
“She had the kind of skin that doesn’t need powder or makeup”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 334.
“I got the wedding; Paddy got the honeymoon”: Author interview with Mary Lynn Gottfried, Mar. 31, 2012.
Susan offered Paddy her comments, recorded on a memo pad: CP, Box 95, Folder 2.
Chayefsky received an offer on June 24: CP, Box 213, Folder 10.
“People thought about making good movies to make money”: Author interview with Mike Medavoy, Mar. 12, 2012.
A deal offered by United Artists for the Network screenplay in the fall of 1974: CP, Box 182, Folder 1. As executed, the deal paid Chayefsky in six installments of $50,000: on signing; on delivery of the script; on approval of the film’s budget and director; on approval of its principal cast; on completion of principal photography; and the final deferment.
the studio gave a substantial 42.5 percent of any net profits from the picture to Chayefsky’s Simcha Productions: CP, Box 214, Folder 2. Those profits were then split between Chayefsky and Gottfried, who also received a producer’s fee of $110,000 and a further $15,000 for “script supervising services.”
An internal MGM memo cited “an off-the-record speculation”: CP, Box 96, Folder 3.
Network “is all madness and bullshit philosophy”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 310.
“I turned to both of them and I said, ‘Are you serious?’”: Author interview with Mike Medavoy, Mar. 12, 2012.
Summarizing a May 15 meeting with the United Artists executive Dan Rissner: CP, Box 215, Folder 8. Chayefsky was not particularly consistent about the spelling of the name of the Great Ahmed Kahn. In the closing credits of Network, his surname is given as “Kahn,” while some screenplay drafts and script pages render it as “Khan.”
“He says, ‘Listen, guys, it’s a great script’”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
“They didn’t want to have anything to do with it”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 312.
“he made it plain that UA would look like assholes”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
Variety reported that MGM and United Artists had made a deal: “Chayefsky’s ‘Network’ Via Metro and UA,” Variety, July 2, 1975.
3. A Great Deal of Bullshit
a budget of about $4 million: According to the film’s production designer, Philip Rosenberg, the budget for Network may have been as little as $3.5 million.
One list of candidates compiled by Chayefsky: CP, Box 95, Folder 6.
Chayefsky wrote that the directing of Shampoo was “blunt and obvious”: CP, Box 94, Folder 3.
William Bernstein … wrote to Chayefsky’s lawyer, Maurice Spanbock: CP, Box 96, Folder 3.
“We said, ‘Here it is. You name the part’”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, March 20, 2012.
Van Devere wrote directly to Chayefsky: CP, Box 96, Folder 3.
on July 31 he finally wrote to her: Ibid.
“I advise all the children who want to go on the stage”: “Young Veteran on ‘Warpath,’” no publication, no date [probably 1937].
“As a Jew, I’m very judgmental”: John Lombardi, “Lumet: The City Is His Sound Stage,” New York Times Magazine, June 6, 1982.
A 1953 feature in Life magazine: “Director Participation: Sidney Lumet Kisses, Fights, Dies, Running Two Top TV Shows a Week,” Life, June 8, 1953.
“I spent nights puzzling the problem”: “Good Men and True and All Angry,” Life, Apr. 22, 1957.
front-page news in the summer of 1963: “Sidney Lumet Takes Overdose,” New York Post, Aug. 26, 1963.
Lumet later joked that what he’d indulged in: “Lumet Did Wed Lena Horne’s Girl,” Daily News (New York), Dec. 21, 1963.
finally admitting to their nuptials: Ibid.
Lumet was “everybody’s second choice”: Pauline Kael, “The Making of The Group,” in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (London: Calder and Boyards, 1970), pp. 70, 82.
“I found that I was getting something back”: Randolph Hogan, “At Modern, Lumet’s Love Affair with New York,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 1981.
“I never left television; it left me”: Lumet made remarks to this effect in interviews in the New York Post, Dec. 6, 1975; the (Los Angeles) Herald-Examiner, Nov. 14, 1976; and the Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 13, 1981.
Amjen Entertainment, would ultimately receive 12.5 percent of the film’s net profits: CP, Box 214, Folder 2.
“Paddy is a tough writer and creator”: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
“Most of the directors who worked in New York”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
“His cynicism was partly a pose”: Sidney Lumet, Making Movies (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 42.
“I think of Faye Dunaway as an enchanted panther in a poem”: “A Panther of an Actress Springs Back to the Top,” People, Dec. 30, 1974.
gossipy newspaper columns and their readers: Hy Gardner, “Where Did Faye Fade To?” Glad You Asked That (column), Jersey Journal, Sept. 25, 1970.
a poetically apt summation of the actress: Brad Darrach, “A Gauzy Grenade Called Dunaway,” People, July 29, 1974.
“You have, I guarantee, never seen such certifiable proof of craziness”: Tom Burke, “The Restoration of Roman Polanski,” Rolling Stone, July 18, 1974.
“The fact is a man can be difficult and people applaud him”: Faye Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p. 260.
a one-room frame house on the Florida farm: Ibid., p. 11.
“I would never allow myself to be in the position”: Ibid., p. 39.
she passed up a Fulbright Scholarship: Ibid., p. 66.
“a creature who wanted freedom, and a bra just didn’t fit”: Ibid., p. 127.
“These were women who found out who they were”: Ibid., p. 162.
she had to give back $25,000 of her $60,000 salary: “Biography: Faye Dunaway,” Movie News, Mar. 1972.
“I couldn’t stand how I was—my manners, my gestures”: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 118.
“I used men as buffers against the world”: Production notes for Network, as printed in the novelization of Network by Sam Hedrin (New York: Pocket Books, 1976), p. 184.
“She wasn’t beautiful”: Marcello Mastroianni with Oriana Fallaci, “X Ray of a Man,” McCall’s, Sept. 1971.
Dunaway married Peter Wolf: Time, Aug. 19, 1974.
“I could no longer represent her if she didn’t do this film”: “A List: Art of the Deal,” W, Feb. 2006.
“one of the most important female roles to come along”: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, pp. 293–94.
“‘Where’s her vulnerability? Don’t ask it’”: Lumet, Making Movies, p. 41.
Max Schumacher should be played by Robert Mitchum: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 296.
a press release announcing that Dunaway would star: Press release from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists, Sept. 24, 1975.
Dunaway’s salary of $200,000: Parade, Aug. 14, 1977.
An item published in Variety: “A Spoofing ‘Network,’” Variety, Sept. 24, 1975.
“I was halfway through when I hit a hidden rock headfirst”: “William Holden Talks About … The Film I’ll Never Forget,” National Enquirer, Jan. 21, 1973.
“the hairline is receding, the skin has leathered”: Arthur Bell, Bell Tells (column), Village Voice, June 12, 1978.
“a whisky baritone buried by a coffee-table carton of Carleton cigarettes”: Jan Hodenfield, “Holden’s Network of Sighs,” New York Post, Nov. 1976.
“A crazy-faced middle aged man”: Rex Reed, “Holden: Movies Have Grown Up. So Have I,” Sunday News (New York), Nov. 21, 1976.
a family that claimed George Washington and Warren G. Harding among its relations: Alan Chester, “Game Farm for Holden,” CNS News Service, Newark Sunday News, Nov. 5, 1967. Holden’s mother was a descendant of Martha Bell, mother of George Washington, and his maternal grandfather, Samuel Bell, was a cousin of Warren G. Harding.
a fifty-dollar-a-week contract with the studio: William Holden, “The Player,” New Yorker, Oct. 21, 1961.
changed it to Holden: Sidney Skolsky, “Tintypes: William Holden,” New York Post, Oct. 12, 1974.
Rouben Mamoulian chose him from among some three thousand contenders: Chester, “Game Farm for Holden.”
“I’ve put up with a lot of asinine suggestions”: Holden, “The Player.”
a contract that paid him $3 million: “Liz’s ‘Cleo’ 10% Mebbe Soon; But Holden Coin Tops,” Variety, no date [1963?].
investments in nearly every part of the globe: Joe Hyams, “‘The Wasted Life’ of William Holden,” New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 28, 1960.
“I’m living in Switzerland”: James Bacon, “American in Alps: Holden Plans Films in Hollywood, Europe,” Associated Press, Newark Evening News, no date [1960?].
1,200 acres of ranch land near Nairobi: Chester, “Game Farm for Holden.”
played host to the likes of Bing Crosby and Lyndon B. Johnson: “William Holden: The Man,” Palm Springs Life, Nov. 1975.
the couple announced their separation: “William Holden, Wife Separate,” Associated Press, Aug. 26, 1963.
they briefly reconciled: Dwight Whitney, “To Africa, with Love,” TV Guide, Mar. 22–28, 1969.
finally divorced in 1971: Toni Holt, Column, Daily Mirror, July 9, 1971.
Holden was involved in a fatal car accident: “William Holden Is Involved in Fatal Car Crash in Italy,” Associated Press, New York Times, July 23, 1966.
ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing in the crash: “Holden Freed in Auto Death,” Associated Press, New York Times, Oct. 27, 1967.
Holden “had sought some solace in the bottle”: Whitney, “To Africa, with Love.”
he had quit drinking altogether: Earl Wilson, “Holden’s a Teetotaler Now,” It Happened Last Night (column), New York Post, Mar. 2, 1976.
Holden had recently been seeing the actress Stefanie Powers: Aljean Harmetz, “The Happy Journey of Holden and Powers,” New York Times, May 12, 1977.
“the one real embarrassment, the chief invasion of privacy”: William Holden, “Love in a Fishbowl: Movie Clinches Embarrass William Holden,” UPI, Newark Evening News, Sept. 17, 1962.
a generous bonus plan: CP, Box 214, Folder 2. According to the bonus schedule, Holden received $50,000 when the grosses for Network reached $2.5 million; Dunaway’s Port Bascom production company received $50,000 when the grosses reached $5 million; Holden received another $50,000 when the grosses reached $7.5 million; and so on.
“Bill Holden is Bill Holden”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
“I’m all excited he returns my call”: Author interview with Barry Krost, Mar. 30, 2012.
Born Frederick George Peter Ingle-Finch in London in 1916: Elaine Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch: A Life of Peter Finch (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980), p. 29.
met George Finch at an officers’ dance during World War I: Ibid., p. 28.
put him in the care of Buddhist monks: Ibid., p. 37.
Peter had his head shaved and was dressed in yellow silk robes: 20th Century–Fox studio biography of Peter Finch, 1960, Peter Finch file, New York Public Library, Billy Rose Theatre Division.
an adventure, “sometimes in thinking and learning”: “Actor Apprenticed to Buddhist Monk,” Warner Bros. Rambling Reporter, June 18, 1959.
“it would destroy the British Empire”: David Galligan, “Peter Finch: A Lot of Phantasmagoria,” The Advocate, Mar. 23, 1977.
known as “Finch’s Follies”: 20th Century–Fox studio biography of Peter Finch, 1960.
a lunch-hour production of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid: Richard Whitehall, “Peter Finch: Britain’s Best,” Personality of the Month (column), Films and Filming, July 1960.
After moving to London in 1948: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 130.
he was also slated to play Julius Caesar in Cleopatra: “Man in Waiting,” New York Times, May 31, 1964.
“Errol used to say we were the last ones in London”: David Barry, Arts & Pleasures (column), Women’s Wear Daily, Oct. 11, 1976.
“He had a streak of mad anger”: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 266.
An affair that Finch conducted during the 1950s: Richard Brooks, “Olivier Worn Out by Love and Lust of Vivien Leigh,” Sunday Times (London), Aug. 7, 2005.
divorce from his first wife: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 213.
divorced his second wife: “Peter Finch’s Wife Granted Decree,” Daily Mirror, Dec. 11, 1965.
Shirley Bassey was named a corespondent: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 280.
he himself had been the product of her adulterous liaison: Ibid., p. 259.
“Nobody can take away my car or my home or my swimming pool”: Roderick Mann, “A Barefoot Life for Peter Finch,” Sunday Express (London), Apr. 3, 1966.
an eleven-acre farm of citrus, banana, allspice, and timber trees: Vernon Scott, “Finch Farms: Raises Crops in Jamaica,” UPI, Newark Evening News, Sept. 17, 1967.
their first encounter was either at a party: “Queen’s Cardinal,” New York Post, Sept. 21, 1974.
or at a fence that Finch was climbing: Earl Wilson, “The Women in Peter’s (Film) Life,” New York Post, Nov. 13, 1976.
he married Eletha in 1973 at a civil ceremony in Rome: “Peter Finch Weds in Rome,” Associated Press, New York Post, Nov. 9, 1973.
“All women want to nest a little”: Enid Nemy, “Peter Finch, A Loner on the Loose,” New York Times, Sept. 22, 1968.
“I hear he has a fondness for black girls”: Parade, Nov. 21, 1971.
“his need for the gutter”: Yolande Finch, Finchy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), p. 27. The none-too-subtle subtitle that appeared on the book’s cover was A Drunkard, a Womanizer, a Genius.
“The truth is, you try to get actors jobs”: Author interview with Barry Krost, Mar. 30, 2012.
“Howard said, ‘Bingo’—he’d got the part”: Ibid.
“to be perfectly candid … we were pretty ready to shoot the movie”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
“‘Give me my bloody wallet’”: Author interview with Barry Krost, Mar. 30, 2012.
“Paddy did run the show”: Author interview with Juliet Taylor, Mar. 5, 2012.
“He didn’t have any of the Western thing going on”: Ibid.
“a handsome matron of fifty”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 167.
Lumet had had his eye on Candice Bergen: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
in a single appointment on the morning of November 10: CP, Box 95, Folder 6.
“she had us weeping”: Bob Weiner, “A Straight Arrow Pierces the Heart,” Sunday News (New York), Nov. 14, 1976.
“A bobby grabbed my wrist”: Author interview with Marlene Warfield, Jan. 16, 2013.
Roberts Blossom … whom they cast this time as Arthur Jensen: CP, Box 95, Folder 6.
who had played Frederick Douglass in a one-man show: “Arthur Burghardt to Dramatize Douglass on ABC,” Jet, July 8, 1976.
“At one point, this character bursts in the front door with a gun”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 9, 2012.
“I went looking very much like a deposed street punk/gangster”: Author interview with Arthur Burghardt, Feb. 11, 2012.
“how much of that was Sidney’s and Dad’s old friendship”: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, Feb. 21, 2012.
“The expense of my fee is absolutely inconsequential”: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
“the cinematographers were, for the most part, World War II vets”: Author interview with Tom Priestley Jr., Feb. 3, 2012.
“nobody from our production has had an opportunity to discuss the use of a wig”: CP, Box 96, Folder 7.
4. The Daily Parade of Lunacies
A Christmastime bombing at LaGuardia Airport in Queens: Peter Kihss, “Bombing Damage Is Put at $750,000,” New York Times, Jan. 6, 1976.
fires raged in South Brooklyn, where a series of fuel-oil tanks had exploded: David Vidal, “A Second Explosion Fans Fuel-Oil Fire in Brooklyn,” New York Times, Jan. 6, 1976.
stripped its streets of more than 4,200 police officers: Francis X. Clines, “994 More Job Cuts Proposed by Police,” New York Times, Jan. 6, 1976.
Zabar’s had sold out its supply of a new home appliance: Keith Love, “Store Cuts Cuisinart Price but Can’t Replenish Stock,” New York Times, Jan. 7, 1976.
a single-room-occupancy hotel on West Forty-Third Street that had previously served: David W. Dunlap, “An Aging Midtown Hotel That Will Not Go Gently,” New York Times, Nov. 7, 1993.
they found the hall unheated and had to flee: Kay Chapin, diary entry, Jan. 5, 1976.
“Bill and Peter took to each other instantly”: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 325.
“I’m a pain in the ass and I know it”: Ibid., p. 321.
“Sidney knows specifically what he wants and is very adept”: Chapin, diary entry, Jan. 6, 1976.
The company spent the next few days in the ballroom: Chapin, diary entries, Jan. 7 and 8, 1976.
he had given up his own acting career because he realized: Chapin, diary entry, Jan. 8, 1976.
“he looked everywhere but directly into her eyes”: Lumet, Making Movies, p. 66.
“I shot it,” she said, “and it scared the hell out of me”: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, Feb. 21, 2012.
wrapped for the day at 10:00 A.M.: Network shooting script, Museum of the Moving Image, New York, NY.
“Paddy wants it less theatrical”: Chapin, diary entry, Jan. 16, 1976.
While playing a scene with Dame Edith Evans: Ibid.
In New York, it was simply not practical or affordable: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
Union rules … created further financial complications: Author interview with Richard Wald, Feb. 2, 2012.
“we couldn’t get cooperation from any of the networks”: Author interview with Owen Roizman, Jan. 25, 2012.
MGM and United Artists executives stated in a January 9 memo: CP, Box 96, Folder 3.
“It took a lot of work for the script girl and Sidney”: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
the Hotel Toronto on University Avenue: CP, Box 96, Folder 6.
“just then, Paddy and Bill Holden came walking by”: Author interview with Owen Roizman, Jan. 25, 2012.
Principal photography for Network began on Monday, January 19: Network shooting script.
he wanted the visual look of Network to proceed in three distinct phases: “Network and How It Was Photographed,” American Cinematographer 58, no. 4 (Apr. 1977).
“The movie was about corruption”: Lumet, Making Movies, p. 85.
“‘Cut, print, move on.’ That was his slogan”: Author interview with Fred Schuler, Jan. 28, 2012.
“He was, like, in a frenzy”: Author interview with Tom Priestley Jr., Feb. 3, 2012.
Lumet as prowling “like a caged tiger”: Chapin, diary entry, Jan. 20, 1976.
“He wasn’t a fusspot when it came to technical things”: Author interview with Owen Roizman, Jan. 25, 2012.
“they called it the Paddy light”: Author interview with Fred Schuler, Jan. 28, 2012.
“I told the guard to take in Peter Finch’s disheveled state”: Lumet, Making Movies, p. 43.
“In his mind, he wanted to retire”: Author interview with Diana Finch-Braley, Aug. 26, 2012.
“The physical transformation of Peter on the set was remarkable”: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 325.
“He was what you’d call a Method actor, without ever studying the Method”: Author interview with Diana Finch-Braley, Aug. 26, 2012.
“Like Daniel and the burning bush”: Ibid.
Take 3 was halted at the one-minute mark: Network shooting script.
it was back to “Mad as hell”: Network shooting script, and CP, Box 95, Folder 6.
“I want all of you to get up out of your chairs”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 173–74.
Lumet attempted it only twice, and Finch completed it only once: Network shooting script, and Lumet, Making Movies, p. 122.
“No reloading … No time lost between takes”: Lumet, Making Movies, p. 122.
“he just ran out of gas”: Sidney Lumet, Network DVD, director’s commentary.
from the first half of Take 2 and the second half of Take 1: Lumet, Making Movies, pp. 122–23.
a painted piece of canvas: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
a reporter for the Toronto Sun found Chayefsky in the CFTO-TV cafeteria: George Anthony, “Chayefsky’s Latest—All Fabricated, All Fiction and All True,” Toronto Sun, Mar. 14, 1976.
“the first known instance of a man”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 222.
“Everybody in the place—everybody in the studio”: Author interview with Arthur Burghardt, Feb. 11, 2012.
“you’ll see that Faye fumbles a few places”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
“he was thinking of replacing Faye”: Ibid. Asked whom Lumet planned to replace Dunaway with, Heim politely replied, “I won’t tell you that. He did, but I won’t tell you. Nothing personal.”
“I said, ‘Walter, let the government sue us!’”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 190–91.
“I could not afford to stumble on a single word”: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 300.
“There were long talks about it”: Ibid., p. 301.
Chayefsky had already deleted a scene: Network script, with Dan Melnick notes, dated June 2, 1975, archived at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.
“She wouldn’t budge”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
a February 2 letter from Gottfried to Dunaway: CP, Box 96, Folder 4.
“some dreadful grief”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 192–93.
on Wednesday, February 4: Network shooting script.
the Apthorp building: CP, Box 95, Folder 6. Lumet says on his DVD commentary for Network that the scene was filmed in the apartment of “Alfred Maysles.” He may have meant the Grey Gardens and Gimme Shelter documentarian Albert Maysles, but he was more likely referring to his brother and codirector David Maysles, who lived in the building.
Scene 127: Network shooting script.
“This isn’t just some convention weekend with your secretary, is it?”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 192–93.
“‘I know more about divorce than you do’”: Lumet, Making Movies, p. 43.
“The word, of course, is emeritus”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
there is “no America” and “no democracy”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 204–5.
“a lot of pressure was put on the president of the Exchange”: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
the Network cast and crew had overlapped with Robert Altman and his team: In her diary, Kay Chapin records a January 28 visit by Altman, his production manager, and his assistant director to the cafeteria of CFTO-TV, where Network was being filmed.
“that little guy who smiled every three or four years or so”: Author interview with Ned Beatty, Mar. 8, 2012.
“‘I’ve got another offer, and it’s for more money’”: Ibid.
Chayefsky described with precision and specificity how the sequence should look: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 205.
“You’d have to put smoke in the room, and backlight the smoke”: Author interview with Owen Roizman, Jan. 25, 2012.
“He’s not just doing any ape”: Author interview with Ned Beatty, Mar. 8, 2012.
“how perspicacious of you to facilitate this scene”: Author interview with Tom Priestley Jr., Feb. 3, 2012.
“She flubs a lot and had a hard time getting through a long speech”: Chapin, diary entries, Feb. 2–6 and Feb. 9 and 10, 1976.
“knee deep in dog shit”: Chapin, diary entry, Feb. 19, 1976.
Filming there was scheduled for three days: Chapin, diary entry, Feb. 2–6, 1976.
He had special nicknames: Chapin, diary entry, Mar. 5, 1976.
he seemed either to have trouble remembering his lines: Ibid.
“watch somebody get guillotined, hung, electrocuted, gassed”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 119–20.
“fondling, fingering, noodling and nuzzling”: Ibid., p. 147.
“lying naked on a maelstrom of sheets”: Network shooting script.
“All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 210.
“I said, ‘Bill, I want you to do just one thing’”: Lumet, Network DVD, director’s commentary.
“isn’t connected as a woman, doesn’t feel like a woman”: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 302.
“Something happened in the focusing process”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
The empty upper floors of the tower: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
“He opened up the window and screamed out”: Author interview. This person asked not to be identified for attribution, for obvious reasons.
“Remember that this was not a set”: “Network and How It Was Photographed.”
“Some of the extras are black. And some of them are women”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
“Not to get into any kind of a battle with him”: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
a reporter from the Sunday News came to visit the Network set in early March: Kathleen Carroll, “Hollywood Zaps the Boob Tube,” Sunday News (New York), Mar. 14, 1976.
in his acerbic stage directions, described it as a “shambles”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 181.
the site of a 140-year-old farmhouse: http://www.drdaviesfarm.com/history.htm.
the “increasingly desperate, imperialist ruling clique”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 134.
“This scene should come out”: Network script with Dan Melnick notes, dated June 2, 1975.
“a fire-eating militant with a bandolier of cartridges”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 181.
“there was so much challenge to my individuality from Dad”: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, Feb. 21, 2012.
“Fugginfascist!”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 196.
“I’m coming down the stairs screaming this line of propaganda”: Author interview with Kathy Cronkite, Feb. 21, 2012.
actually an office building in Melville, Long Island: “Hollywood on the LIE,” Newsday, Mar. 14, 1976.
“a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 178.
“It tasted very good”: Author interview with Marlene Warfield, Jan. 16, 2013.
The U.S. Supreme court was about to review the case: “Actor Is Released after 28 Months in Draft Evasion,” Associated Press, New York Times, Feb. 16, 1974. On May 28, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled, in an 8–0 decision, that a writ of mandamus issued by a federal judge in Indiana that prohibited Kunstler from representing Burghardt had been “improvidently granted.”
“I knew that black people were far more relevant to the world”: Author interview with Arthur Burghardt, Feb. 11, 2012.
“I’m never at ease in love scenes”: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 301.
“We would open with a high shot of the two in bed”: Considine, Mad as Hell, pp. 324–25.
The official filming log from that day is consistent: Network shooting script.
“it was a very uneventful shoot that day”: Author interview with Philip Rosenberg, Mar. 23, 2012.
“Bill could not make it through a scene without dissolving into laughter”: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 301.
“you have to lie there, faking that you’re pumping into her”: Lumet, Network DVD, director’s commentary.
“You could have shown a little more”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
“She was wearing a sheet for the most part”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
a lion’s tooth from Holden and a Gucci checkbook wallet from Finch: Chapin, diary entry, Mar. 5, 1976.
“You have to be disciplined”: Author interview with Marlene Warfield, Jan. 16, 2013.
“Faye Dunaway ducked the ‘wrap-up’ party of the film”: Earl Wilson, It Happened Last Night (column), New York Post, Mar. 22, 1976.
“the rain-swept streets of the Upper East Side”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 176.
“One day when we were talking about it, Sidney comes in with an idea”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 19, 2012.
“‘You want a crane? Sure, no problem, you got a crane’”: Author interview with Fred Schuler, Jan. 28, 2012.
three nights of filming, from March 23 through 25: Network shooting script.
“fire trucks with water hoses to wet down the buildings”: “Network and How It Was Photographed.”
“You are a man of your word and of your words”: CP, Box 96, Folder 3.
“Sunday night, I got a call from Howard Gottfried”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
5. A Storm of Humanity
the handiwork of Stephen Frankfurt: Leslie Kaufman, “Stephen Frankfurt, Artist on Madison Ave., Dies at 80,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 2012.
“I know I am in for a storm of humanity”: CP, Box 96, Folder 6.
a marketing campaign budgeted at nearly $3 million: Arthur Unger, “Film Jars TV Industry,” Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 2, 1976.
This compilation of personal biographies, cast and crew rosters: Network production notes, Apr. 12, 1976.
“DO NOT EVER refer to this film NETWORK as a ‘black’ comedy”: CP, Box 96, Folder 4.
“Dear Mr. Chayevsky [sic]”: CP, Box 214, Folder 1.
“The adaptor must remain entirely outside the telling of the story”: CP, Box 96, Folder 7.
“What’s this shit got to do with anything?”: CP, Box 96, Folder 1.
“the bitterest attack yet on television”: This Women’s Wear Daily article was attributed to Louise J. Esterhazy, the pseudonym used by John Fairchild, the publisher and editorial director of the newspaper and the grandson of Fairchild Publications founder Edmund Fairchild.
“the most controversial movie ever made about television”: The original Newsday article was written by Bill Kaufman and Joseph Gelmis and published under the titles “‘Network’ Film Roughs up Television” and “‘Network’ Zeroes in on the Tube.”
“you must have some idea of the hysteria attendant on the opening of a film”: CP, Box 96, Folder 6.
“People in broadcasting,” Shales wrote, “are calling it ‘preposterous’”: Tom Shales, “‘Network’: Hating TV Can Be Fun,” Washington Post, Oct. 24, 1976.
an outwardly joyous Chayefsky was in the Milton Berle Room: Clarke Taylor, “Paddy May Have a Hit on His Hands,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 21, 1976.
“a searing but unfair indictment of television morality”: Unger, “Film Jars TV Industry.”
“such an incompetent movie, such a poor job, that any point it tried to make was lost”: “How Television Rates ‘Network,’” W, Nov. 12–19, 1976.
a “first revolt against bullshitism”: CP, Box 140, Folder 3.
“I’m just beginning to get some negative feedback on my movie”: CP, Box 96, Folder 6.
“Has this caused you any embarrassment or professional discomfort?”: Ibid.
“I should have had my head examined”: Author interview with Barbara Walters, Apr. 12, 2012.
the very first sentence of its front-page story: Robert D. McFadden, “Barbara Walters Accepts ABC’s Offer,” New York Times, Apr. 23, 1976.
“I went on the night of Yom Kippur”: Author interview with Barbara Walters, Apr. 12, 2012.
Diana Christensen was the “Great American Bitch”: Attributed to Deborah Rosenfelt, as cited in Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 312.
“People will think they’re getting the inside story, and they’re not”: Shales, “‘Network’: Hating TV Can Be Fun.”
“If people accept the film as reality,” she said, “it will be dreadful”: Unger, “Film Jars TV Industry.”
“you had to be tough as nails”: Author interview with Barbara Walters, Apr. 12, 2012.
“They hated it. Oh my God”: Author interview with Richard Wald, Feb. 2, 2012.
Chayefsky said he was “upset to hell”: Earl Wilson, “Paddy Was Affectionate, Says Paddy,” It Happened Last Night (column), New York Post, Nov. 9, 1976.
“My rage isn’t against television”: Allan Wolper, “Paddy Chayefsky: TV Goes to the Movies,” SoHo Weekly News, Nov. 11, 1976.
“the look of a satyr who has retired from active duty”: Howard Kissel, “Chayefsky and Television: Rating Each Other,” Women’s Wear Daily, Nov. 12, 1976.
“Television is democracy at its ugliest”: Barthel, “Paddy Chayefsky: ‘TV Will Do Anything for a Rating. Anything!’”
the principal members of its creative team gathered for a 10:00 A.M. press conference: Ray Loynd, “… And the Stars Talk,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Nov. 14, 1976.
“I consider them decent, respectable, sensitive people”: Carmie Armata, “Chayefsky on ‘Network,’” Focus on Film, No. 26, 1977.
“It’s also brilliantly, cruelly funny, a topical American comedy”: Vincent Canby, “Chayefsky’s ‘Network’ Bites Hard as a Film Satire of TV Industry,” New York Times, Nov. 15, 1976.
“a ruthless exploration of the ‘aesthetics’ and ‘art’ of television”: Judith Crist, “The Day TV Went Mad,” Saturday Review, Nov. 13, 1976.
The Daily News gave it two thumbs-up as well: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 328.
“a satiric send-up of commercial television”: Vincent Canby, “‘A Surreal Attack on American Life,’” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1976.
Network “inherits the Glib Piety Award direct from the hands of The Front”: John Simon, “Vicious Video,” New York, Nov. 22, 1976.
“So this is a slashing comment on network television”: Robert Hatch, Films (column), The Nation, Dec. 4, 1976.
“drastically out of control—dramatically, cinematically and intellectually”: Frank Rich, “‘Network’ Caught in Its Own Web,” New York Post, Nov. 1976.
“Paddy Chayefsky blitzes you with one idea after another”: Pauline Kael, “Hot Air,” The Current Cinema (column), New Yorker, Dec. 6, 1976.
“As satire or as serious comment, the movie seemed oddly pious and heavy-handed”: Michael J. Arlen, “What We Do in the Dark,” The Air (column), New Yorker, Dec. 6, 1976.
An item in New York magazine straightforwardly declared: “The ‘Network’ Guessing Game: Who’s Who?” New York, Nov. 29, 1976.
Lin Bolen, who had spoken briefly by phone with Dunaway: Vernon Scott, “Producer Lin Bolen Denies She’s ‘Network’ Character,” UPI, Milwaukee Sentinel, July 31, 1978.
Time magazine published its own battlefield update: “The Movie TV Hates and Loves,” Time, Dec. 13, 1976.
“P.S. I’m quitting my job”: CP, Box 96, Folder 6.
6. Primal Forces and Phantasmagoria
a New York Times essay proclaiming the arrival of the new “cynical cinema”: Vincent Canby, “Cynical Cinema Is Chic,” New York Times, Nov. 21, 1976.
grossing more than $20 million in its original theatrical release: CP, Box 214, Folders 8 and 9. According to quarterly statements from United Artists, Network had grossed $7,255,587.60 by Mar. 26, 1977; $11,841,862.53 by June 25, 1977; $16,859,744.68 by Sept. 24, 1977; and $20,868,133.31 by Dec. 30, 1978, at which point it had been in theatrical release for more than two years.
“footage showing the tragedy of Danang, with the blood of civilians flowing”: Guy Flatley, At the Movies (column), New York Times, Nov. 12, 1976.
the “ever so slight a suggestion of a harrumph”: Jan Hodenfield, “Holden’s Network of Sighs,” New York Post, Nov. 1976.
a joint interview with Holden in the upscale pages of W magazine: Christopher Sharp, “Dunaway and Holden: A ‘Network,’” W, Nov. 26–Dec. 3, 1976.
“If you blink, you miss it, but it is a lucky break”: Bob Weiner, “A Straight Arrow Pierces the Heart,” Sunday News (New York), Nov. 14, 1976.
they lived in an apartment on West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip: Barbara Wilkins, “Peter Finch Used to Grow Them, but Now He Is Going Bananas in ‘Network,’” People, Dec. 6, 1976.
“This is the place where all the deals are made”: David Barry, Arts & Pleasures (column), Women’s Wear Daily, Oct. 11, 1976.
a lead role as Yitzhak Rabin: New York Post, Jan. 15, 1977.
“We’re all so dreadfully egocentric in this business:” Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 330.
“Peter wanted to win that Oscar”: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 334.
“He would turn to my mom and he would say”: Author interview with Diana Finch-Braley, Aug. 26, 2012.
preferred to walk four or five miles a day: Wilkins, “Peter Finch Used to Grow Them.”
“He always knew somebody—because he was Peter Finch—would buy him breakfast”: Author interview with Barry Krost, Mar. 30, 2012.
“The problems and the potential power of TV exist everywhere”: David Sterritt, “Peter Finch Won’t Accept Superviolent Roles,” Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 10, 1976.
“There had to be a suggestion that he was eminently sane”: David Galligan, “Peter Finch: A Lot of Phantasmagoria,” Advocate, Mar. 23, 1977.
a book about his experiences, which he planned to call Chutzpah: Production notes for Network, as cited in Network novelization by Sam Hedrin, p. 188.
“There is a lot of phantasmagoria in my life”: Galligan, “Peter Finch: A Lot of Phantasmagoria.”
Chayefsky … had gone to the hospital to visit Fosse: Richard Eder, “Lumet Discovers Marvels and Puzzles in Shooting ‘Equus,’” At the Movies (column), New York Times, Dec. 31, 1976.
the New York Film Critics Circle named Chayefsky the author of the year’s best screenplay: Daily News (New York), Jan. 4, 1977.
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association also chose Network: http://www.lafca.net/years/1976.html.
“Paddy Chayefsky, when he gets his dander up on something”: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Jan. 13, 1977, archived at the Paley Center for Media, New York, NY.
“Peter talked about death”: Dundy, Finch, Bloody Finch, p. 338.
“I was walking down the staircase toward him”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 330.
There, he was pronounced dead of a heart attack: Murray Illson, “Peter Finch Is Dead on Coast at 60; British Actor on Stage and Screen,” New York Times, Jan. 15, 1977.
“I had four phone lines at home”: Author interview with Barry Krost, Mar. 30, 2012.
“The sudden and untimely passing of Peter Finch has come as a blow”: Illson, “Peter Finch Is Dead on Coast at 60; British Actor on Stage and Screen.”
assembled at the Palm restaurant to pay an impromptu tribute to Finch: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 330.
“If the film industry told the truth, it would admit that deceased 60-year-old actors”: Russell Davies, Guardian, Jan. 16, 1977.
An official memorial service for Finch: “Finch Eulogized at Funeral for Professionalism in Film Roles,” New York Times, Jan. 19, 1977.
“a black-and-white painting with pen and ink, of this man”: Author interview with Diana Finch-Braley, Aug. 26, 2012.
“a two-hour meat parade”: Tom O’Neil, “1970 Flashback: George C. Scott Slaps Oscar,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 23, 2011.
“the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry”: Sacheen Littlefeather, Academy Awards speech, Mar. 27, 1973, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QUacU0I4yU.
“I don’t want any nonsense on my show”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
a dislike of “sentimentality”: Liz Smith (column), Daily News (New York), Apr. 5, 1977.
“It was made by the board of governors of the Academy”: William Friedkin, “IAmA Hollywood film director (Killer Joe, The Exorcist, French Connection). I’m William Friedkin. AMA,” http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/u2y5r/iama_hollywood_film_director_killer_joe_the/c4sac3g.
“I knew that she had a reputation as a bit of a loose cannon”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
“People were going to change, and they just didn’t know it”: Author interview with Marlene Warfield, Jan. 16, 2013.
“We agreed that I would tell Friedkin”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 20, 2012.
“Eletha, will attend Oscar ceremonies in case her late husband wins”: New York Post, Mar. 17, 1977.
Box 13, Row F, Seat 46: CP, Box 96, Folder 6.
People published a cover story on Dunaway: Brad Darrach, “Will She Win the Big O?” People, Mar. 28, 1977.
“They gave the best supporting actor thing right off the bat”: Author interview with Ned Beatty, Mar. 8, 2012.
“It’s very heavy” … “and I’m the dark horse”: Beatrice Straight, Academy Awards speech, Mar. 28, 1977, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3g7kclmm0I.
Chayefsky was going to confess his dislike of “modest acceptance speeches”: CP, Box 140, Folder 1.
“it’s time that I acknowledge two people whom I can never really thank”: Paddy Chayefsky, Academy Awards speech, Mar. 28, 1977, http://collections.oscars.org/ics-wpd/exec/icswppro.dll?AC=qbe_query&TN=AAtrans&RF=WebReportOscars&MF=oscarsmsg.ini&NP=255&BU=http://aaspeechesdb.oscars.org/index.asp&QY=find+acceptorlink+%3d049-21.
“I didn’t expect this to happen quite yet”: Faye Dunaway, Academy Awards speech, Mar. 28, 1977, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePkEsHmwCZE.
“She was panic-struck”: Author interview with Barry Krost, Mar. 30, 2012.
250 million people watching the ceremony around the world: Jon Nordheimer, “‘Rocky’ Gets Oscar as Top Film; Finch, Dunaway Win for Acting,” New York Times, Mar. 29, 1977.
“I want to say thanks to members of the Academy”: Eletha Finch, Academy Awards speech, Mar. 28, 1977, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnL3uE-TzFw.
“We were sitting with a bunch of executives—accountants, really”: Author interview with Alan Heim, Apr. 5, 2012.
“‘I’ve got this idea for a picture that I wanted to do’”: Author interview with Terry O’Neill, Aug. 15, 2012.
“as Peggy Lee sang, ‘Is that all there is?’”: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 319.
the Beverly Hills Hotel sent a note to the room: CP, Box 96, Folder 6.
in the possession of Howard and Mary Lynn Gottfried: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, Mar. 31, 2012.
7. Corrupt and Lunatic Energies
news clippings that all … referenced Howard Beale’s combustible catchphrase: CP, Box 96, Folder 7.
the story of Anthony Kiritsis, a failed businessman: Time, Feb. 21, 1977.
a Mad magazine parody of the movie: Mort Drucker and Stan Hart, “Nutwork,” Mad, no. 192, July 1977.
“They shouldn’t have appropriated my idea”: J. A. Trachtenberg, “How Suite It Is,” Women’s Wear Daily, Dec. 20, 1978.
“I just made it up”: Brady, Craft of the Screenwriter, pp. 69, 70, 78.
“It’s the world that’s gone nuts”: Paddy Chayefsky, interview with Dinah Shore, Dinah!, recorded Jan. 19, 1977, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNa019FaNW0.
a $500,000 offer to write a screenplay about the Israel Defense Forces’: CP, Box 182, Folder 5.
“the subject was simply too painful for me to write about”: Brady, Craft of the Screenwriter, pp. 64–65.
“The assassination, of course, was a fraud”: Ray Bradbury, “Second Coming of ‘Network,’” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 2, 1977.
“Among other things, it gives us a chance for NETWORK two”: CP, Box 11, Folder 15.
“I was mooching on his opinion”: Author interview with Warren Beatty, Nov. 8, 2012.
“We’ve got a guy who falls in love with his role in history”: CP, Box 135, Folder 7.
“an associate professor in behavioral psychology”: CP, Box 94, Folder 2.
“bipedal, protohuman creature”: Lois Gould, “Special Effects,” New York Times, June 18, 1978.
“Paddy decided he wanted a million bucks”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, July 6, 2012.
traveling to hospitals and universities and meeting with scientific experts: Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States: A Novel (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. ix–x.
“a warm return to your mother’s womb”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 354.
a short, incomplete treatment of his proposed film: CP, Box 185, Folder 2.
“We reached the point where Paddy really has nothing else to say”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, July 6, 2012.
Chayefsky nonetheless had his million-dollar deal: CP, Box 182, Folder 7.
“At least this proves I’m mortal”: Considine, Mad as Hell, pp. 356–57.
“I’ve got two children to raise”: “Eletha Acts,” Page Six (column), New York Post, Apr. 6, 1977.
The value of that estate … was placed at $115,000: “Finch’s Widow Hits Will,” Daily News (New York), May 16, 1977; “Finch Progeny Challenge 2d Wife,” Variety, July 27, 1977.
split from her husband, Peter Wolf, by that summer: Page Six (column), New York Post, Aug. 16, 1977.
an affair with Terry O’Neill, the photographer: Page Six (column), New York Post, Feb. 3, 1978.
$1 million to star in Irvin Kershner’s thriller Eyes of Laura Mars: Parade, Aug. 14, 1977.
$750,000 to appear … in a remake of the boxing drama The Champ: “Champ to Star Faye Dunaway and Jon Voight,” New York Times, Apr. 29, 1978.
“She just didn’t like me” … “and I didn’t like her”: “A List: Art of the Deal,” W, Feb. 2006.
the portrait of Dunaway that ran on its cover: “New Mag’s Cover Girl Unmasked,” New York, Feb. 27, 1978.
“I have been an actor for 38 years”: Harmetz, “Happy Journey of Holden and Powers.”
The couple sent Christmas cards to Chayefsky: CP, Box 9, Folder 7.
had been told to avoid caffeine, tobacco, and salt and to exercise more: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 357.
“the P.L.O. says Israel has no right to exist”: Display advertisement, New York Times, Sept. 21, 1977.
“the only comment you keep hearing is ‘Kill the enemy’”: Richard F. Shepard, “Redgrave Film on P.L.O. Stirs a Controversy,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 1977.
“I believe the Palestinian people have been denied the right to be heard”: “Redgrave Defends P.L.O. Film,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1977.
members of the Jewish Defense League from turning out at the 1978 Oscars: Aljean Harmetz, “‘Annie Hall’ Wins 4 Academy Awards,” New York Times, Apr. 4, 1978.
a role that Faye Dunaway had turned down: Dunaway, Looking for Gatsby, p. 320.
“the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums”: Vanessa Redgrave, Academy Awards speech, Apr. 3, 1978, archived at the Paley Center for Media, New York, NY.
“Paddy just went nuts after her speech”: Author interview with Mike Medavoy, Mar. 12, 2012.
“everybody ran to Paddy and wanted to say something”: Author interview with Sherry Lansing, Mar. 14, 2012.
“Before I get onto the writing awards, there’s a little matter I’d like to tidy up”: Paddy Chayefsky, Academy Awards speech, Apr. 3, 1978, archived at the Paley Center for Media, New York, NY.
“Arthur didn’t speak to me for five years”: Author interview with Shirley MacLaine, Nov. 16, 2012.
numerous appreciative letters and correspondence that applauded him: CP, Box 19, Folder 17.
“My husband would be proud of you”: CP, Box 96, Folder 7.
“You damned near made me cry with your gutsy but courteous put-down”: CP, Box 19, Folder 17.
“Miss Redgrave’s acceptance speech did not appear as a grandstand play at all”: Ibid.
“the fustian fancies later delivered by Paddy Chayefsky”: Vincent Canby, “In the Afterglow of the Oscars,” New York Times, Apr. 16, 1978.
Columbia Pictures tested the project with such names as The Atavist: CP, Box 60, Folder 6. Among the titles that were field-tested by Columbia Pictures, Altered States was deemed to possess a “critical weakness,” according to a studio memo: “This title conjured up the greatest variety of interpretations—almost all of them bearing no relation to the proposed movie. Brain-washing, war between the states, witchcraft.… A number of people perceived that it would be a movie dealing with drugs, but in the illicit sense rather than the experimental sense. The lack of a clear message produced the lowest degree of interest.”
“all the electronic-spin resonance tests”: Gould, “Special Effects.”
“a few passages of spectacularly bad writing”: Alan Harrington, “Madness in the Deep,” Saturday Review, July 1978.
a medical expert who had helped him with the novel was suing him: CP, Box 62, Folder 2.
his lawsuit said was “a substantial contribution” to the screenplay: “St. Vincent M.D. Sues Chayefsky,” Variety, May 31, 1978.
requiring Chayefsky to exhaustively inventory every document, draft, and discarded page: As thoroughly catalogued in CP. The case was settled in 1982 after a two-week jury trial, with Lieberman receiving a payment of $40,000.
Melnick had risen to the studio’s presidency: Aljean Harmetz, “Melnick Named President of Columbia Pictures,” New York Times, June 2, 1978.
STUNNING, BRILLIANT, BREATHTAKING—BUT WE CAN FIX IT: CP, Box 19, Folder 17.
“I think you know how sad I am that ‘Altered States’ did not work out”: CP, Box 11, Folder 15.
a “flaming cloud of gasses, hydrogen and helium”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 256–57.
“He was sort of waiting for us to do something”: “The Filming of Altered States,” Cinefantastique 11, no. 2 (Fall 1981).
“He had the power to veto everything”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 363.
CBS, which paid $5 million for three showings: Variety, June 1, 1977.
once contemplated the idea of replacing “bullshit” with “bullsoup”: Val Adams, “Television Hopes to Go ‘Network,’” Daily News (New York), Dec. 23, 1976.
“The use of BS is a focal point of the movie”: “Taking Bed and Bawdy out of ‘Network,’” New York Daily Metro, Sept. 26, 1978.
Principal photography for Altered States began on March 23, 1979: CP, Box 182, Folder 9.
“I was the 27th person they offered it to”: “The Filming of Altered States.”
Melnick helped get Altered States reinstated at Warner Bros.: Aljean Harmetz, “Melnick Production Unit Leaves Columbia for Fox,” New York Times, Jan. 23, 1980.
“eight voluble academics gabble away”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, pp. 248–49.
Almost immediately, Chayefsky and Russell disagreed: “The Filming of Altered States.”
“the point where we have teetered into non-salvageable”: CP, Box 60, Folder 5.
“you will be able to forestall a crisis”: CP, Box 60, Folder 4.
“Paddy said to me, ‘Howard, I can’t work with him’”: Author interview with Howard Gottfried, July 6, 2012.
“the marriage took Hollywood by surprise”: “Actor Peter Finch’s Widow, 41, Weds Young Hollywood Actor, Age 21,” Jet, Oct. 18, 1979.
“eventually I fought my way back”: “A New Start,” Parade, Nov. 18, 1979.
Chayefsky attempted to send a check for $200 to the Gordonstoun school: CP, Box 96, Folder 7.
“Bill did more in his life, on and off the screen”: Stefanie Powers, One from the Hart (New York: Gallery Books, 2010), p. 190; also Linda Charlton, “William Holden Dead at 63; Won Oscar for ‘Stalag 17,’” New York Times, Nov. 17, 1981; and Andrew M. Brown, “When Alcoholics Drink Themselves to Death,” Telegraph (London), Apr. 7, 2011.
“Faye Dunaway is doing the ‘I want to be alone’ bit”: Page Six (column), New York Post, July 20, 1979.
the actress had been dropped from an upcoming cover of Los Angeles magazine: Jack Martin, “Faye’s ‘Too Fat’ to Be Magazine’s Cover-girl,” New York Post, Aug. 22, 1979.
the closure of a troubled clothing store and antiques emporium: Jack Martin, “Pity Poor Old Faye: Nobody Wants to Buy Her Antiques,” New York Post, Sept. 21, 1979.
“I really like things to be done right … I’m like Joan in that way”: Peter Lester, “Faye Dunaway Surfaces with Sympathy for Joan Crawford Despite a Harrowing Movie Portrayal,” People, Oct. 5, 1981.
“Dunaway starts neatly at each corner of the set in every scene”: Variety review of Mommie Dearest, http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117793196?refcatid=31&printerfriendly=true.
“These scenes have been in the finished motion picture since it was released”: CP, Box 96, Folder 4.
“I feel almost totally alienated from what’s going on today”: Ronald L. Davis, “Interview with Paddy Chayefsky,” Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.
“This one has everything: sex, violence, comedy, thrills, tenderness”: Richard Corliss, “Cinema: Invasion of the Mind Snatcher,” Time, Dec. 29, 1980.
“it is at least dependably—even exhilaratingly—bizarre”: Janet Maslin, “Screen: Ken Russell’s ‘Altered States,’” New York Times, Dec. 25, 1980.
a historical drama about Alger Hiss: CP, Box 182, Folder 11. The drama would not have included Hiss, who was still alive at the time, due to concerns about defamation of character and invasion of privacy. But Whittaker Chambers would have appeared in the play, as would a fictional lover of Chambers’s, called “Mr. X.”
Some friends said this was not his natural hair: Considine, Mad as Hell, pp. 393–95.
On July 4 he was admitted for treatment: CP, Box 166, Folder 12.
“They weren’t delusional or hallucinatory”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky. Mar. 1, 2013.
“I tried. I really tried”: Considine, Mad as Hell, p. 396.
“I once read his palm when I was young”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky, Mar. 1, 2013.
“Our family has never taken death all that seriously”: CP, Box 182, Folder 8.
Chayefsky’s funeral service was held on August 4: Herbert Mitgang, “Chayefsky Praised for Passion in Exposing Life’s Injustices,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 1981.
“Paddy and I had a deal”: Author interview with James L. Brooks, Nov. 9, 2012; and Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), pp. 405–6.
“I just hope the world lasts that long”: John Brady, “We Were Writing for Criers, Not for Laughers,” American Film, Dec. 1981.
8. It’s All Going to Happen
“There will be soothsayers soon”: Brady, Craft of the Screenwriter, p. 69.
“This tube is the most awesome goddam force in the whole godless world!”: Chayefsky, The Screenplays Vol. II, p. 183.
“No predictor of the future—not even Orwell”: Author interview with Aaron Sorkin, May 2, 2011.
“Chayefsky’s warning was made to people who knew everything he said was true”: Author interview with Peggy Noonan, Mar. 12, 2013.
“I have seen everything in that movie come true”: Author interview with Keith Olbermann, Nov. 8, 2012.
First came the 1986 maneuvering by the sibling corporate titans: “Business People: Corporate Newsmakers of 1986; Tisch’s Regimen Built Trimmer CBS,” New York Times, Dec. 26, 1986.
when CBS fired 215 employees from its news department: Peter J. Boyer, “CBS’s Tisch Responds,” New York Times, Mar. 10, 1987.
“thirty million dollars bought you maybe sixty Walter Cronkites”: Author interview with Keith Olbermann, Nov. 8, 2012.
his “urbane small talk” with Samuel Goldwyn, Eva Gabor, and Groucho Marx on Person to Person: “Edward R. Murrow, Broadcaster and Ex-Chief of U.S.I.A., Dies,” New York Times, Apr. 28, 1965.
“we’ve got to shout these truths in which we believe from the rooftops”: Chris Matthews, “And That’s the Way It Was: ‘Cronkite,’ a Biography by Douglas Brinkley,” New York Times, July 6, 2012.
“we are not above climbing over the rubble each week to take an entertainment-size paycheck”: Don Hewitt, Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), p. 168.
abolished its long-standing Fairness Doctrine: Robert D. Hershey Jr., “F.C.C. Votes Down Fairness Doctrine in a 4–0 Decision,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 1987.
“It was everyone’s basic understanding … that the information business was a business”: Author interview with Bill Wolff, Dec. 27, 2012.
“There’s a segment of the viewing population which likes to either have their opinion validated”: Author interview with Anderson Cooper, Nov. 13, 2012. Among broadcast journalists, Anderson Cooper has unique connections to Network: his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, was married to Sidney Lumet from 1956 to 1963; the couple dated again briefly after the death of Wyatt Emory Cooper, Anderson Cooper’s father, in 1978. Vanderbilt and Cooper are also cousins of Beatrice Straight.
“If I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, I’m going to say that”: Author interview with Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 12, 2012.
Glenn Beck … has claimed Howard Beale as an influence: Brian Stelter and Bill Carter, “Fox News’s Mad, Apocalyptic, Tearful Rising Star,” New York Times, Mar. 29, 2009.
“I thought, wow, none of those stories end well”: Author interview with Stephen Colbert, May 12, 2011.
“it was three white, middle-aged guys saying what the news was”: Author interview with Anderson Cooper, Nov. 13, 2012.
“I don’t know what diversity there is”: Author interview with Gwen Ifill, Dec. 18, 2012.
At the end of 2012, each of the three network programs: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/12/04/world-news-slashes-total-viewing-gap-by-with-nbc-nightly-news-by-double-digits/160248/.
numbers that the cable competition simply cannot touch: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/the-top-cable-news-programs-in-november-2012-were_b156891.
“We ran Countdown several times on NBC”: Author interview with Keith Olbermann, Nov. 8, 2012.
“There is still a tremendous appetite for straight, sober information”: Author interview with Bill Wolff, Dec. 27, 2012.
“Chayefsky is chiding the audience”: Author interview with Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 12, 2012.
“He looks like Liberace, in capes and everything”: Author interview with Anderson Cooper, Nov. 13, 2012.
“It wasn’t easy back in the seventies, and it’s certainly not easy now”: Author interview with Oliver Stone, Nov. 19, 2012.
“Could I imagine a great movie getting made today? Yeah”: Author interview with James L. Brooks, Nov. 9, 2012.
“society was still really informed by that perspective on the world”: Author interview with Ben Affleck, Jan. 21, 2013.
“we’re not nearly as important as we think we are”: Author interview with Bill Wolff, Dec. 27, 2012.
“the same award that was given to Paddy Chayefsky thirty-five years ago”: Aaron Sorkin, Academy Awards speech, Feb. 27, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VP5mFHl_lY.
“You wish Chayefsky could come back to life long enough to write The Internet”: Author interview with Aaron Sorkin, May 2, 2011.
“You can’t build for the future with nice, polite people”: Logan, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me, p. 125.