Infamous Players

Not long after joining Paramount, I was privy to a debate between two key executives of its corporate parent, Gulf & Western. One argued that Charles Bluhdorn had the soul of a romantic but the mind of a criminal. The other contended that he had the soul of a criminal but the mind of a romantic. Listening to them, I realized that the Führer, as he came to be called by some of his associates, was both inspired and crippled by these contradictory traits. As a wannabe Don Quixote, he desperately yearned to foster great movies, build a global business empire, teach the glories of capitalism to the leaders of the Dominican Republic and even Cuba, and transform himself into a modern Renaissance man.

Not only did Bluhdorn harbor the Big Dream, but it all but burned a hole in his consciousness. When I was in proximity to him, I sensed a curious heat—his mind was whirling too intensely, his heart beating too fast. The ideas came bursting out in a disorderly, unedited, uncensored clump—great ideas, terrible ideas, and vulgar ideas. But like a small child, he seemed incapable of assessing or prioritizing them, nor could he keep himself from impulsively putting them into action. Further, no moral compass was ever in evidence: a strategic objective was put on the table and its implementation became an instant imperative. Questions of ethics, or even efficacy, were not part of the equation. Anything was possible in the Bluhdorn universe. And any tactic, whatever its implications, was an open option.

If Charlie Bluhdorn was a man possessed, he never tried to disguise that fact. Michael Korda, the acerbic editor in chief of Simon & Schuster, a distinguished publishing house acquired by Bluhdorn, described him as a man who “had a wild look in his eyes and the red complexion of someone whose blood pressure was off the scale. Bluhdorn’s teeth seemed either too big or too many, like those of a shark. Huge and glistening white, they filled his mouth like bathroom tiles.”

The fact that Bluhdorn would end up owning a renowned book publisher was perplexing to Korda. Gulf & Western’s array of scattered holdings included the New York Knickerbockers basketball team, Madison Square Garden, Dutch Masters Cigars, a zinc mine, vast sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic and in Florida, an auto parts business that comprised the original core of the Bluhdorn empire, and, of course, now Paramount Pictures.

Bluhdorn’s buyout of Paramount was almost an inadvertency. He had been looking for other random industrial companies to scoop up when a search committee headed by an exhibitor named Sumner Redstone contacted him to see if he’d have any interest in a movie company. Despite its history, Paramount was floundering. It needed both money and initiative. Its head of publicity, a dour man named Martin Davis, was especially ardent in courting Bluhdorn because he had heard the financier loved Hollywood movies. Davis also intuited that if Bluhdorn got involved, it would mean a new career for Davis, too.

Bluhdorn was thrilled by the notion of owning an old Hollywood company. There’s disagreement as to the true cost of his investment, but insiders said Bluhdorn paid only $100 million for the takeover.

Paramount, Korda knew, had come to represent an obsessive toy for Bluhdorn, but that obsession surely didn’t extend to books. Indeed, shortly after gaining control of Simon & Schuster, the Gulf & Western chairman toured the company offices and complained to Korda that he saw too many employees reading at their desks. “When are these people going to get down to work?”

It didn’t take long for Korda or the rest of us to realize that Gulf & Western was not a conventional corporation. Bluhdorn ran it like a personal fiefdom. He regularly took personal loans from theG&Wtreasury. When he traveled the world on his corporate jet (which he did almost constantly) he carried no personal money, but lavished millions of dollars on art for his personal collection in addition to buying the rights to movies. Upon his return he would hurl packets of receipts at his financial flunkies and they would duly record his expenses (an SEC investigator was stunned years later to come upon these records and learn that Bluhdorn had reimbursed the company for his personal purchases, including the art).

He spent much of his workday trading in securities including G & W stock. On several occasions when I visited his office, I would find him in a veritable trading frenzy, aides scurrying. He would often shout orders, as though he were actually on the floor of a commodities exchange.

His skills as a trader were formidable. Bluhdorn would shortly build up a portfolio approaching $850 million (worth several billion in today’s dollars). These were Gulf & Western funds—his personal portfolio was of even greater value.

Though the Gulf & Western chairman was spending so much of his time trading, rather than managing, he had no concern about scrutiny from his board of directors because he saw to it that it was a “friendly” board.

Eight of his sixteen board members worked directly for G & W or its subsidiaries; three had formerly worked for Bluhdorn and remained large shareholders; two were lawyers whose firms drew large retainers from G & W; and two were large shareholders in companies acquired by G & W. That meant the only independent director was an obscure rumpled little man named Irwin Schloss, who claimed to be an investment banker but was a Bluhdorn sycophant.

Bluhdorn’s operating philosophy was no secret to government regulators. During my years at Paramount there were constant rumors of SEC investigations and even speculation that the boss might end up in jail. One SEC probe focused on Bluhdorn’s obsession with the old A & P chain of markets, a sprawling and badly run company which Bluhdorn felt symbolized capitalistic ineptitude. He was desperate to add it to his collection of holdings, and he played with its stock relentlessly. Contrary to SEC regulations, however, he steadfastly refused to publicly declare his takeover attempt. Under SEC pressure, Bluhdorn finally relented and sold his A & P shares, charging that the government had acted to protect the “business establishment” from the incursions of the new class of “Jewish money.”

Bluhdorn’s representations startled associates, since he had always steadfastly denied any connection with a Jewish identity. “New money,” he later explained to me, was always wrongly characterized as “Jewish money.”

Clashes with government regulators also focused on another Bluhdorn favorite—the Dominican Republic. Everything about the island nation fascinated him—its climate, its politics, the paramilitary protection provided him on his visits, and, especially, its sugar crop. He purchased a vast beachfront estate on the island and regularly entertained present and prospective business associates.

On two occasions I found myself on the invitation list along with an exotic mix of corporate players, film producers, fashion designers, and mysterious Europeans who always identified themselves vaguely as “bankers,” but didn’t look like bankers. A few of the “bankers” at Bluhdorn parties would shortly end up in jail, as I was later to learn. But at the Dominican soirees, the food was sumptuous, the alcohol flowed freely, and guests seemed relaxed in the tropical heat.

Yet while the atmosphere on Bluhdorn’s estate was hospitable, it was also vaguely threatening. If a guest wandered toward the periphery of the property, he encountered machine-gun-bearing security guards attired in paramilitary uniforms. The cadre of personal security men was buttressed by soldiers dispatched by the government.

As far as the Dominican government was concerned, Bluhdorn was not only an occasional tourist but a major benefactor, and the SEC knew the reasons. G & W was the sugar daddy to the regime, advancing aid on an as-needed basis. In one transaction, G & W advanced the Dominicans $40 million in sugar export money to help bolster the regime’s balance of payments. In return for this convenient prepayment, the government “adjusted” G & W’s foreign exchange rates to enhance the unrestricted profits the company could take out of the country. The SEC remained on full alert to Bluhdorn’s Dominican dealings, at one point declaring that Gulf & Western failed to disclose the full scope of its profits from sugar revenues.

Eager to bolster his public image, Bluhdorn agreed to establish a $39 million economic and social development set up in the Dominican Republic. He also funded construction of an elaborate replica of a historic Italian village. Called Altos de Chavón, the faux sixteenth-century town, replete with amphitheater, was designed to be a major tourist attraction, but for some years remained in obscurity because of the financial and political intrigues associated with its construction.

To the Hollywood community, Charlie Bluhdorn was an outsider—indeed an intruder—and Bluhdorn knew it. Now he was determined to close a macho deal with mainstream talent and thus persuade the town that he was indeed a player. When he learned that Howard W. Koch, the outgoing production chief at the studio, had earlier optioned the rights to Neil Simon’s hit play The Odd Couple, Bluhdorn saw his opportunity.

The Gulf & Western chairman flew to Hollywood, checked in to a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel for a week’s stay, and summoned Koch and his successor, Bob Evans, to a meeting. “The Odd Couple can be a big hit for us,” he declared, building excitement as he spoke. “Who is going to star in this film?”

A wary man, Koch started to respond and then halted. He didn’t want to upstage his youthful successor, Evans. “I’ve started talks with Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason,” Koch stammered. “I haven’t made any offers. No one is committed to anything.”

Evans shook his head. The task of recruiting two such famously difficult actors would be painful, he pointed out, and so would the ultimate cost of the film. Art Carney and Walter Matthau had starred in the Broadway play—perhaps that team would make more practical targets.

Bluhdorn had been taking a series of phone calls, listening to the discussion intermittently. Slamming down the phone now, he barked, “That was an agent from William Morris. Do you know a Hershman or Hirshan or something like that? He says he wants to come in tomorrow to talk about The Odd Couple. He wants to bring Jack Lemmon along with him.”

The next morning Leonard Hirshan and his client arrived promptly at the studio, and Bluhdorn was ebullient about meeting Lemmon, shaking his hand fervently, assuring him he was his favorite actor. The William Morris agent, a genial sixfooter (an exception among the mostly short and stubby functionaries of that company), thanked Bluhdorn and said that he and his client were delighted to meet with the Paramount contingent over such an important project. “The Odd Couple is a great play,” said Hirshan, “and my client is perfect for the role.”

Jack Lemmon smiled uneasily, not knowing quite what he was supposed to say in this meeting. His agent had urged him to be there to underscore his passion for the show. From what he had heard about Bluhdorn, Hirshan knew there was a deal to be made and that the star’s presence would impress the Paramount newcomer.

Neither Hirshan nor Lemmon seemed offended, however. “Jack’s deal is $1 million against 10 percent of the gross,” Hirshan announced calmly, as though he were giving out a telephone number.

Again, Evans sucked in his breath. This was a very rich deal, and he wanted time to find out what Lemmon had received on his previous pictures, then construct a counteroffer, but Bluhdorn had no interest in a delay. “You’ve got a deal,” he announced, placing his hand on Hirshan’s shoulder.

Lemmon beamed, but there was more on Hirshan’s agenda. “I think you all should understand that Walter Matthau is perfect for the role opposite Lemmon, and his price is $350,000 against 10 percent of the net,” he said.

“We need a moment,” Evans broke in, grabbing Bluhdorn’s arm and guiding him to the bedroom of his suite. “We’ve listened to their proposals,” said Evans. “Now let’s take a breath and come back to them with our counter. This is a very rich deal.”

Bluhdorn’s nostrils were flaring, however. He was a dealmaker by instinct, and there was a headline-grabbing deal to be made, with a star standing by to see it through.

Bursting back into the room, Bluhdorn tossed out his suggestion about Wilder. Hirshan responded that he didn’t represent the great filmmaker, but promised to do some investigating about interest and availability.

“You did good work here,” Bluhdorn told Hirshan. “I want you to become my head of production in London.” The William Morris agent stared down at Bluhdorn, startled. He did not reply. “Didn’t you hear me?” Bluhdorn persisted. “London, production chief.”

Hirshan saw Evans staring across the room at him, trying to figure out what his boss was offering. “I am a talent agent,” Hirshan calmly explained to Bluhdorn. “That’s what I’m good at. I intend to stay a talent agent.”

Later in the week, Hirshan saw Bluhdorn again to inform him that Billy Wilder wanted $1 million to direct The Odd Couple . When Bluhdorn became apoplectic at the price, Hirshan quickly changed the subject, advancing the name of his client Gene Saks, a stage director who he said would be acceptable to his other clients, Lemmon and Matthau.

One catch was that Bluhdorn wanted The Odd Couple to go into production in March and there was no screenplay. Further, Saks had committed to direct a play in London scheduled for June.

These seemed like serious obstacles to Evans, but not to Bluhdorn. Under prodding, Neil Simon agreed to adapt his play and prepare a script in eight weeks—for an incremental payment. And Saks agreed to compress his shooting schedule to free him for his London show.

Within one week, The Odd Couple had become a reality, but the details of the deal defied precedent. When Evans related the events to me, he was exasperated. “Bluhdorn’s so hungry to be a player that he gave away the store,” Evans said.

“It’s not just the numbers,” Evans said. “Gene Saks is going to rush the shoot to do his cockamamie play in London, and he can walk off the movie if he runs behind schedule. Besides, the agents in this town are going to laugh at us. We’ve just committed to a pay-or-play deal with two stars and a director and we don’t even have a script.”

The Odd Couple was completed on schedule, and Howard W. Koch, the producer, supervised the editing. The movie went on to become a major hit. And neither Bluhdorn nor anyone else ever brought up the topic of Leonard Hirshan becoming Paramount’s head of production in London. Indeed, Hirshan was to remain at the William Morris office for three more decades before departing the agency to become Clint Eastwood’s manager.

It didn’t take me long after arriving at Paramount to realize that, while Charles Bluhdorn had a genius for trading, he had a blind spot when it came to judging people. Bluhdorn’s personality was so dominant, his presence so overwhelming, that he all but suffocated those in his company. When Bluhdorn interviewed a prospective executive, he usually did all the talking. He would pose a thoughtful question, but then deliver his own answer.

Given these traits, Bluhdorn was incapable of assembling a management staff that could implement his strategic objectives and compensate for his own shortcomings. If anything, his executives exacerbated his problems rather than tempering them.

If Bluhdorn had set out to find an array of executives who were unfit to work together, he could not have done a better job. Members of the team didn’t complement one another and didn’t trust one another.

There were several common denominators in the Bluhdorn picks. None of the executives he hired had ever performed the responsibilities to which they were now assigned. None had the appropriate qualifications. Educational background did not figure in; most had never progressed beyond high school.

Stanley Jaffe was a mere twenty-eight years old and had just finished producing his first feature film, Goodbye, Columbus , when Bluhdorn anointed him president of Paramount. His closest claim to executive experience stemmed from the fact that his father, Leo, had served as president of Columbia Pictures. Leo Jaffe was a short, soft-spoken accountant, whose rise to corporate power surprised others in the industry, including himself. His son, Stanley, was well read and thoughtful but, unlike his father, had a trigger temper.

Stanley had come of age in the sixties but was definitely not a sixties person. He was the product of an affluent and conservative Jewish background. A family man, he did not smoke pot or favor rock ’n’ roll and did not sport long hair—in fact, he had almost no hair at all. His taste in movies was somewhat literary—thus he chose a Philip Roth novella, Goodbye, Columbus, as his first film project.

I had been the first at the studio to read the screenplay, written by Arnold Schulman, and got to know Jaffe pretty well as he toiled on the picture. He was serious about his responsibilities, but was not either charismatic or imaginative. Indeed, I found his personality rather rigid. He rarely smiled. The give-and-take of a film set seemed to intimidate, not inspire him. Bob Evans liked dealing with Stanley, as did I, but no special personal link emerged. Evans was pleased, if surprised, when Bluhdorn named him president. At least Jaffe was someone he could deal with on a rational level. Or so it seemed.

Jaffe did not particularly like Martin Davis, who now held the title of president of the parent company and was almost always hovering at Bluhdorn’s side. Davis was a gruff, flintyeyed man who always seemed to be muttering one-sentence admonitions in his boss’s ear. When Bluhdorn went on one of his rants, leaving a roomful of executives in confusion or even tears, Davis would try to clean up the mess, but his idea of diplomacy was itself edgy and harsh. Davis did not approve of most of the executives his boss was appointing and made no effort to conceal his attitude. Once, when I told Bluhdorn that I disagreed with one of his decrees, Davis murmured to me, “Charlie never considered you management material.”

While Davis now stood between Jaffe and Bluhdorn, it quickly became apparent that Bluhdorn did not want Davis’s input when it came to movies. Bluhdorn looked to Jaffe to run Paramount and to his sharp young general sales manager, Frank Yablans, to move the goods. If Jaffe could keep Evans and Bart under control, he reasoned, Yablans, a fiercely ambitious thirty-two-year-old, could run the distribution and marketing machine.

A bald, short, bullet of a man, Yablans knew how to manipulate exhibitors and stoke their appetites. Yablans also understood that the movie business was unique in that every new film represented a start-up business—one that demanded its own distribution and marketing.

Yablans had cultivated his reputation for corporate ferocity. Growing up poor in Brooklyn, his first job, at age twelve, was plucking chickens at a meat market. Rivals in the distribution business enjoyed relating the story of how Yablans had once called a theater owner in Washington, DC, who had just been released from intensive care following a heart attack and yelled expletives at him because he’d been selling tickets to a Paramount movie at a two-dollar discount.

Jaffe, refined and introverted, did not like Yablans’s style. The sales manager liked to boast that he’d saved Paramount by demanding big advances for Bluhdorn’s bombs like Paint Your Wagon and Darling Lili. He’d created “event pictures” out of films that were singular nonevents. In so doing, Yablans kept rising in the distribution pecking order. As sales manager, he’d integrated the clashing advertising and distribution structures into a strong marketing unit and fired road-weary executives who had formerly ruled those divisions.

While Jaffe understood Yablans’s ambition, and distrusted his motives, he never considered Yablans a threat to become his replacement. Yablans didn’t have the politesse to be president of a public company. Or so he thought.

For his part, Yablans did not feel Evans had the tact or discipline to run a Hollywood studio, but he knew Charlie Bluhdorn admired his style. Yablans was unattractive and arch, and whereas Bluhdorn addressed Yablans crudely, as though he were a waiter in a restaurant, he treated Evans like a naughty son. To Yablans, Evans was a snobbish rich kid whose tastes were too elitist for a business that fed off the pop culture.

In Bluhdorn’s eyes, the team of Evans, Bart, Yablans, and Jaffe, though an odd mix of personalities, had the potential to pull Paramount out of its malaise. He knew his own instincts in picking movies were problematic, but now there would be a new plan, and his team was in place to implement it.

Jaffe was intensely nervous as he assumed his new presidential duties. Attired in a dark pinstripe suit, he greeted his staff with a cautious, respectful speech. This would be a new moment for Paramount. Better times were ahead.

But not immediately. On the fourth day at his new job, Bluhdorn summoned Jaffe to a screening of a first cut of The Adventurers, an adaptation of a Harold Robbins potboiler. The movie was both expensive and long (three hours). Bluhdorn had committed to the movie soon after buying the studio—who could resist a Robbins bestseller? he argued.

When the screening ended, the chairman faced his audience of twelve and demanded their opinions. First in line was his driver, an elegant and reserved black man named Owen. He said he loved the movie, then went quiet. Bluhdorn next called on the heads of advertising and foreign distribution, both of whom confirmed Owen’s positive assessment.

It was now Jaffe’s turn. This was his first week but already his moment of truth. Jaffe responded in a quiet and quavering voice: “The movie is terrible. It is un-releasable.”

The chairman didn’t blink. He continued around the room and all the other responses were positive. Jaffe anticipated a screaming denunciation behind closed doors, but none was forthcoming. The atmosphere was tense but restrained.

Upon its release, The Adventurers was uniformly panned by critics. One columnist wrote that “Bluhdorn’s bombs” were still in evidence. Filmgoers stayed away in droves.

When Jaffe first visited us in Hollywood, he requested time for a leisurely “think session.” He still seemed a bit shaken by his experience with The Adventurers. “I love Charlie,” Jaffe told me. “He’s a catalyst. But he can also be a catalyst for chaos.”

Bluhdorn may not be able to fully restrain his dealmaking impulses, Jaffe said, but in any case our mandate was clear. Paramount should aim high. The studio must make quality movies. We should go after the big stories, not the big deal or the big name. We should make “people pictures.”

The meeting ended on a positive note. Here we were, three young guys, somewhat miscast for our new roles, both excited and daunted by the power that had been put in our hands. Problems and pitfalls loomed all around us, but still the moment was ours.

The first potential movie from our new team already showed promise, at least on paper, and it was a project we all seemed to agree on. Stanley Jaffe’s first movie, Goodbye, Columbus , had starred a young actress named Ali MacGraw, and she now was interested in a screenplay titled Love Story. Also circling it was Larry Peerce, who had directed Goodbye, Columbus and who was friendly with Jaffe.

I liked Love Story, despite its blatant sentimentality—or maybe because of it. In a sense it represented the culmination of our earlier discussion: it was a “people picture,” eminently accessible to ordinary filmgoers.

It was hardly a reflection of a new cinematic sensibility, but for a new regime, indeed for a “new” company, it was a safe bet. Even its title seemed right—on-the-nose, but oddly appealing.