CHAPTER 28
I decided on a personal national campaign, seventeen cities in thirty-five days. It wouldn’t be a crusade, because I could no longer make Stacy out to be a hero. And I didn’t want to have a confrontation with CBS that would serve no positive purpose. It had to be a pilgrimage. My plan was to get on every radio and television talk show that would have me. While pitching the merits of Mike Hammer, I would encourage people to write the network asking to save the series. Columbia Television, my partner, had a vested interest in seeing the show back on the air, so Herman Rush gave me $20,000. I ended up spending another $40,000 out of my own pocket.
The first mistake I made was taking my girlfriend with me. Kristen was twenty-two, starstruck and preferred Hollywood to the pressure of the campaign. The second mistake was telling Stacy I wouldn’t smile until he was out of prison. I went six months without smiling, which would end with Kristen and me breaking up. She couldn’t handle my dour look. I sent Stacy a telegram Monday through Friday. He’s a Gemini, like me, and I wanted to keep him in a positive mood.
I was an evangelical preacher on a country circuit espousing a fundamental gospel: once a man has paid for a crime, he should be allowed to go on with his life. It was a message of understanding. I thought Bud Grant at CBS was the man who would make the final decision on Hammer, but then I learned he had passed the buck to Harvey Shephard, VP in charge of programming. I had lots of moles at the network, and one of the secretaries told me no one was reading the letters stimulated by my campaign; they were sending them to a dead-letter file in a basement warehouse. That pissed me off, so I got Harvey’s home address.
I renewed my effort, beseeching TV viewers and radio listeners to write Harvey letters telling how good they felt about Stacy’s rehabilitation and how much they missed Mike Hammer. On television I had them flash Harvey’s home address and on the radio I repeated it a half-dozen times. My goal was to drive Harvey nuts with thousands of letters, enough that he would be forced to seriously consider placing the series back on the air. It was a 24/7 nonstop campaign.
I got sick in Cleveland and considered canceling the rest of the schedule. Yet I thought it was working, so we continued. Kristen was unhappy, and when my money began to run short she was even more unhappy because we had to bypass four-star hotels for cheaper places. It was like driving cross-country without a spare tire.
Chicago was the halfway point of the tour. We were tired when we arrived at O’Hare. I have flat feet and use arch supports in my shoes, but I was wearing slippers. We were walking down the concourse when a man with plastic limbs dashed by and—swoosh!—grabbed three pieces of our luggage without breaking stride, then was gone like a UFO. The luggage he stole contained my arch supports.
I saved Oklahoma City for last. I wanted Kristen to meet my parents, but when we deplaned, no parents were at the gate. I thought maybe they had decided to meet us at the hotel. We caught a cab and drove into the city. No parents were at the hotel. I went to the desk to see if they had left a message. No message. I called them. No answer. Four hours later my father called. My mother had unplugged the telephone because she thought they needed to take a nap before our arrival. I never saw them. I asked my dad to come to the hotel alone, but he said he couldn’t. What he really meant was that he wouldn’t.
We returned to L.A. just in time for Kristen to break down. She couldn’t take it anymore, poor girl; she couldn’t handle it. My house was not finished, and we had to check into another hotel, the last thing either of us wanted to do. The next day she was gone.
I leased a mansion in Stone Canyon, three houses from the Bel Air Hotel. It was sumptuous, with a volleyball court and bleachers, a half-size Olympic swimming pool and tennis courts. They meant nothing to me. I still wasn’t smiling, nor would I until Stacy was released.
The network gave me no encouragement regarding the future of the show, not a hint. Nobody said, “Congratulations, Jay, you put on a good road show. Maybe you saved Mike Hammer.” But I didn’t need accolades. I had faith, like a Muslim before his execution. I just believed.
Harvey Shephard said he was unmoved by the tons of mail. When People asked him how many letters he and CBS had received, he said he didn’t know. A CBS insider told me 400,000 people had responded to my message. Whatever Harvey really thought, the series went back on the air May 4 with nine weeks of reruns. I felt vindicated, even when Harvey proclaimed the letters had nothing to do with the decision. Someone somewhere in the CBS hierarchy had noticed them, even if Harvey had not.
Reruns, however, were not what I was after. Rerun audiences are weak compared to audiences watching original programming. Yet the networks were going into the summer season where almost everything aired was a rerun. It was now beyond my control. I could only hope that the summer audience would stick to Mike Hammer. It was a ratings game, which made me nervous. After two weeks, we were in third place. Harvey told People if the show didn’t finish in front of NBC’s Hunter, the future for Hammer looked bleak.
I decided to go see Stacy at Reading Gaol. I had begun to feel guilty. My enthusiasm for Mike Hammer had been so intense that it had become my life. I had pushed everyone for perfection, including Stacy. On a normal day I worked seventeen hours, and Stacy had kept up with me every step. I once asked him, “How do you do it? How do you keep up with me?”
“I learned at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, when I was studying acting, how to nap five minutes an hour,” he said.
Now I realized RADA was a cover for cocaine.
A couple of London newspaper reporters were waiting as I came out of customs at Heathrow. They started firing questions like Roman candles.
“It was my fault,” I told them. “I pushed Stacy too hard. I tried to make him stay up with me, but he couldn’t do it without some help. I didn’t realize it, but he was like a tired truck driver who has to continue his trip. The little cocaine he used was like NoDoz, heavy caffeine. He didn’t take it as a recreational drug; he took it to keep up with me, his producer. I drove him too hard.” I choked back tears; I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help myself.
I checked into the Dorchester. The next day I drove to Reading, a grim, overcrowded Victorian prison about thirty miles from London. When I saw it, I knew why Oscar Wilde had written De Profundis while he was jailed there. The place hadn’t changed much in eighty-five years.
Stacy had been incarcerated five months. He was limited to one guest per month; I was May. I was ushered into a drab room, much like a set in a television drama about prison life. Several tables neatly checkered the room, occupied by inmates and their guests. Stacy was waiting alone at one of the tables. I hardly recognized him. Reading Gaol had done wonders for his weight, but it was a hell of a way to diet.
Network television executives aren’t spineless, but sometimes they’re close to it. Back home I “took” a meeting at CBS, pitching hard for the women who wrote letters on behalf of Mike Hammer, a quantitative element we had never considered. Everybody thought Hammer was a guy show. After lengthy debate, the TV hotshots said okay, they’d give Mike Hammer another chance. I felt redeemed. Then they threw me a curve.
“We’re not sure if people interested in Hammer are interested because of Hammer or because of Stacy or because of you, Jay.” I don’t remember who was speaking; there were too many of them. CBS had more executives than stars. The bottom line was they wanted to test it.
Test Mike Hammer? Are you guys out of your fucking minds? I had produced three successful Hammer movies and over a dozen series episodes, and they were talking about testing.
“We’ll let you do a two-hour movie, The Return of Mike Hammer. We’ll give you a good time slot. If women want to see Hammer continue, then you’ll get significant ratings and we’ll give you a thirteen-episode trial.”
It was more than a curve; it was a trick ball. They were putting me in an eight p.m. slot, the hour women dominated the clicker. Come on! I wanted to keep the women Hammer had, but it was still basically a guy show. Guys weren’t going to watch the show at eight. They had me at home plate with a stick for a bat; I had to figure out a way to knock the ball out of the park. I left the meeting and set to work on The Return of Mike Hammer.
I called Nancy Reagan. It wasn’t that I was trying to use her; one couldn’t do that. Rather, I tried to influence her efforts to warn kids about the adverse effects of drugs. I had suggested the slogan “Just say no to drugs,” which to my surprise became her campaign theme.
After I got him out of prison, my next major concern was the swift rehabilitation of Stacy Keach. I was sincere in my belief that a person should not be stigmatized for life because he made one mistake. That Stacy was a celebrity was both an asset and a liability. Had he not been a television star, his conviction and incarceration already would have been forgotten. But he was famous, and the issue wouldn’t go away. Under the circumstances, I thought we should exploit his mistake positively before fame became infamy.
Nancy, fully aware of the trials and tribulations actors had to deal with, helped us considerably, knowingly and unknowingly. Almost by rote, Stacy became the poster child of her own campaign. There’s no doubt in my mind that her support of Stacy helped CBS make its decision to give Mike Hammer another chance.
When it was announced that Nancy would be honored at an industry dinner for her “Say no to drugs” campaign, I made certain Stacy was invited. The affair was held at the Sheraton Universal Hotel at Universal City, adjacent to the huge Universal Studios complex.
The audience was a who’s who of Hollywood. My table was behind Lew Wasserman’s and next to Jimmy Stewart’s, which meant my efforts in the war on drugs had been sufficient to keep me from being relegated to the bleachers.
Frank Sinatra was tabbed to present Nancy her award, an apt choice after his dynamic performance a few years before as a heroin addict in The Man with a Golden Arm. He was in top form. At the podium, he said, “Before I give this award to my friend Nancy Reagan, I first would like to give another award to a man who has more guts than anybody I know. His name is Stacy Keach.” He then homed in on Stacy. “And, Stacy, if you ever need anything, just give me a call. My name is Sinatra, S-I-N-A-T-R-A. Stand up and take a bow, Stacy.”
Sheepishly, Stacy stood. He received a standing ovation; indeed, the applause was greater than Nancy’s when she received her award a minute later. Here was a guy who’d just spent months in a British penitentiary for drug smuggling and now his professional colleagues were honoring him. I was proud. Stacy’s life had turned around.
I was a difficult producer. I had no background in producing; I had not worked my way up through the ranks learning the ropes. I made myself a producer the same way I made myself a publicist and a manager—by trial, error and force of will. Looking back, it was my misfortune to hook up with Columbia Studios. They wanted things done on the cheap. I strove for perfection, a difficult goal when your studio is sending you personnel that is sometimes as cheap as the budget.
Some satirists once put together what they named Hammer Lawn, a takeoff on Forest Lawn Cemetery. It had miniature tombstones engraved with the names of producers I fired from the Mike Hammer shows. Inexperienced, I didn’t know a good producer from a bad producer. I just knew when someone wasn’t doing what I wanted them to do. I ran off a lot of bad men, but I ran off some good ones too.
Producing was the third phase of my career, but I didn’t really love it, which is what it takes to be successful in Hollywood. It was a thankless job. I had to be in charge of everything, and I never learned to delegate authority. It wasn’t like Sergeants 3, where there was always time to kill, rehearsal time, preproduction time, production time and postproduction time. Television was a different world. Time meant everything, and the budget was set in concrete.
People published an article on me. Referring to the production of the Mike Hammer series, the writer said, “Bernstein was as much fun to have around as Mike Hammer at a mob picnic.” He claimed more than twenty-five people, “four of them producers, either left the show or were fired.” I didn’t argue with his statistics. Fortunately, he interviewed Larry Brody, my supervising producer and top writer. Larry said, “I’ve worked for monsters, and Jay is only a monster if you haven’t encountered the real monsters. He’s not a megalomaniac and he doesn’t take pleasure in manipulating people. He’s a yeller and a screamer. He’s also honest, and when an honest man is a yeller and a screamer, you’re subject to confrontations. People in this business aren’t used to confrontations. They’re happier being stabbed in the back.”
I wasn’t any better on The Return of Mike Hammer. I ranted and raved, but I got the movie finished. It was good, but was it good enough to get a rating and go into series? I’d done everything I could, from getting the writers to packaging the talent. It was a strong story. Lauren Hutton was excellent as a counterpoint to Stacy. Short on budget, I persuaded Dionne Warwick, Dabney Coleman, Mickey Rooney and Bruce Boxleitner to play cameos for virtually nothing.
Once finished, however, everything was out of my control; a high rating or a low rating was up to the television audience. They would either like the show or not like it. They would either watch it or click to another channel. My emotional problem was the airdate—it was three months away. I had to wait it out, and as a consequence I fell into a severe depression. I retreated hermit-like into my home.
Stan Moress came by. He was getting ready to leave for Australia. After leaving public relations, he had developed a thriving management business, discovering diversified talents like the Miami Sound Machine and Gloria Estefan. He had not been without personal problems, however, and had succumbed to the pressures of the business. Recently he had been in rehab for drug and alcohol use. Having completed his regimen, he was feeling well and positive. I, of course, was his opposite.
“I’m going to be gone for a while also,” I told him.
He was surprised. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t handle the pressure anymore. It’s too much.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow, about ten in the morning.”
The truth is I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do. The letdown after all my work to save Hammer had overwhelmed me. Was I suicidal? I don’t know, but Stan thought I was. I wished him a happy and successful trip to Australia, and he left.
The next morning I packed a bag. I had no plan. I was going to get in my car and drive. I didn’t know when or if I was coming back. It all depended on whether Hammer was successful or not. My doorbell rang. It was Stan. “You’re supposed to be on a plane,” I said.
“I’m going with you,” he responded.
“I thought you had business in Australia.”
“This is more important.”
An hour later, we were in my car, Stan behind the wheel. We had no destination. Once we stopped and played miniature golf. In Ojai we checked into a hotel filled with superannuates, which seemed symbolic. We were there ten days. Stan was no longer drinking, but I made up for him. That’s all I did—I just sat there and swigged booze. I had no desire to go out; my career, that is, Hammer, was out of my hands. I had to wait for its telecast, and then the ratings. One day Stan coaxed me out of my room. We went down to a lake and watched the ducks carouse and float about. It was a depressing time, but I will never forget Stan’s patience.