FIFTY

OUT OF love and concern, a scholarly friend of mine gave me a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy for my fiftieth birthday.

“Thanks,” I said, “but it’s a long poem.”

“Just read the first line.”

“‘Midway in the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood, where the straight way was lost.’”

“Get it?”

I got it but forgot it. I gave away the book and disregarded my friend’s warning. I knew what he was saying—I’d have to be a moron not to—yet wasn’t even close to accepting the truth. The truth was that in the first quarter of 1983 Columbia Records was enjoying its best quarter ever. Profits doubled. Michael Jackson’s Thriller had taken off like a bat out of hell. Self-reflection about my moral decay was the last thing on my mind.

Friends like Tommy Mottola were continually propping me up with praise. “No one could have nailed the Stones like you did,” said Tommy. “No one but you could have brought back Marvin Gaye.”

One of my first encounters with Marvin was in L.A. Boom Boom and I had been indulging in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel for days. I’d wake up, get smashed, call my New York office, complain about being overworked and underpaid, bang Boom Boom and take a nap. On one smoggy afternoon, my head fogged up with weed, Marvin dropped by. He and Boom Boom were already well acquainted. They liked hanging out and posing for pictures; they got off on their ebony-and-ivory appearance. Maybe they were more than friends. I didn’t ask.

Marvin was a tall, handsome man whose disposition would, at the drop of a hat, turn sour. He was well-spoken, highly intelligent, unusually charming. He and Boom Boom embraced before he began talking about his new songs. He wanted me to hear a couple. “Certainly,” I said. When he handed me a joint, Boom Boom stopped him.

“My God, Marvin, please—put that away.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Walter is vehemently anti-drug. He’s spent his life warning his artists about the dangers. He’s liable to make a citizen’s arrest. He goes crazy when he sees an illegal substance.”

“I had no idea,” said Marvin, looking puzzled.

“Don’t you realize,” I asked him, “that pot can lead to coke?”

“I have some of that too.”

“Great,” I said, setting things straight. “Bring it out.”

We spent the next few hours getting loaded as Marvin played his new songs, with titles like “Sanctified Pussy,” “Savage in the Sack” and “Masochistic Beauty.”

“Great stuff, Marvin, but radio will never play it.”

Next time I saw Marvin was in New York for his “Sexual Healing” tour. After his eighth consecutive sold-out Radio City concert, I hosted a party for him at Studio 54. Marvin was on top, or should have been. After years of neglect, he had won his first Grammy; he had stunned a national TV audience at the NBA All-Star game with the funkiest version of the national anthem since José Feliciano; Marvin was back.

Everyone was in awe of him. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards looked at him like a god. As the reigning monarchs of pop paid their respects, Marvin handled his aristocratic status with notable ease. During the days and nights of his New York dates, though, he appeared frantic. He concluded each concert by doing a striptease version of “Sexual Healing.” Throwing off his robe, he stood naked except for his briefs, an act sadly out of character for a character as cool as Marvin.

I had heard his entourage included dangerous men. When he invited me backstage at Radio City, I saw a veritable army of big bodyguards who looked armed to the teeth. The ambience was ominous. Marvin’s dressing room, though, was empty.

“In here, Walter,” a voice called from the bathroom.

I opened the door. He was seated on the pot. I closed the door.

“Come in,” he urged.

“I don’t have to see anyone take a shit,” I said, “even if he is one of my artists.”

“I’m not taking a shit, I’m taking a hit.”

I opened the door again and saw that he was, in fact, fully clothed, a cocaine spoon up his nose.

“Have some.”

“No, thanks. By the way, I’ve always been curious. Did you ever want to fuck Diana Ross?”

“Yeah, when she was sixteen. And Walter, please don’t give me that bullshit about how you don’t want any blow.”

“I do, but not yours.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re doing so much, you’re going to run out. Then when you run out, you’re going to get mad at me. With all these gentlemanly bodyguards you’ve employed, I don’t want you mad at me.”

“I can’t trust these guys, Walter. I can’t trust anyone. They’re trying to hurt me. They want to eliminate me.”

As he spoke, he kept zupping up the coke. His eyes were filled with fear.

“That’s crazy,” I said. “No one wants to hurt you. You’re much loved.”

“I can’t trust them, I can’t trust anyone. They’re lying to me, they’re stealing me blind.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

He got up, came over and whispered in my ear. “We can’t talk here. The room is wired.”

I looked at him like he was kidding but saw he wasn’t. His paranoia was raging. It was also contagious. I started feeling frightened myself.

“Will you meet me back in my hotel later tonight?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

I never showed up. Marvin Gaye was too out of control, even for me.

         

I liked controlling Allen Grubman, which is why I set him up with some of our biggest artists. In short order, the Grubber was representing Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. Dealing with a nonconfrontational lawyer made my life easier. I’d never have to worry about Grubman suing me. “I don’t know how,” he’d joke, though I believed the joke. Grubman also gave us first shot at new artists he was representing. It was a cozy arrangement, and also a little twisted. The guy would fall to his knees and beg me to do a deal. Nothing was beneath his dignity.

         

Nothing could keep me from wanting more money, power and prestige. All through the eighties, I had one foot out the door, hoping a competitor would lure me away with an offer I couldn’t refuse. Enter David Geffen, yenta supreme. Geffen was another wheeler-dealer who played with power brokers in the hopes of becoming one. In the early eighties, he was certain I was the logical man to head up MCA. During one of his morning calls in which he manically redrew the map of the entertainment industry, he called to say that the big bosses, Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg, were ready to meet me—and meet my exorbitant price.

I called Wasserman “Papa Doc,” a tribute to his benign dictatorship over all Hollywood, and I referred to Sid as “Shitty” Sheinberg. This didn’t endear me to them, but what the hell. They needed me to run their music division; I didn’t need them.

Geffen set up the meeting. I was prepared to answer questions about the future of the music business. I had been predicting, for example, that compact discs, a new innovation in which our Japanese partner Sony was heavily invested, would revolutionize the industry. At the same time, I’d been arguing with Sony that their double-well tape players made copying too easy. “Your hardware is undercutting your software,” I kept telling them, and anyone else who would listen. Wasserman surely wanted to hear my views on the technological future. Not true. Wasserman just wanted to discuss Jewish delis.

“If you want to find a good deli,” he said, “look inside to make sure it’s crowded. A lot of business means fresh food. Nate and Al’s has fresh food, much better than Canter’s. Have you been to Nate and Al’s, Walter?”

“Yes, Papa Doc, but what does this have to do with business?”

“A lot of business is done at Nate and Al’s.”

“You wanna go to Nate and Al’s, we’ll go to Nate and Al’s.”

At Nate and Al’s we hammered out the basis of a deal. Once again, I was set to leave CBS. The money was practically double my present salary. The only problem was my current contract had a year to go. I needed a release.

“Release me,” I said to Tom Wyman. “You’ve been a dime-a-dance executive for years. Now it’s my turn to take a whirl. You understand.”

Wyman didn’t argue. He said he’d authorize a release form. When it came, though, the form was the size of an epic novel. I speed-read it until arriving at one deal-breaking point: I could leave, it said, but I was not allowed to engage in any activities that even vaguely resembled the music business.

I went back to Papa Doc and explained the problem. If I left CBS for MCA, it might mean litigation.

“I’m not getting sued by CBS,” said Wasserman. “CBS Television is a buyer of MCA products. If you can’t work this out smoothly with Paley, the deal’s off.”

So I went to Paley, hat in hand.

“You’re strangling me,” I told the boss. “This release form is so restrictive you could sue me for listening to music while I’m riding in an elevator.”

“What did you expect me to do, Walter, roll over and play dead? You have a binding employment contract. If you want to break it, you’ll have to pay the price.”

“I’m willing to pay, but MCA isn’t.”

“Then you have a problem. My problem, Walter, is that I don’t understand you. I said I’ll match their offer. What else does Wasserman have that I don’t?”

“Movies.”

“You want to produce movies? Go produce movies. Your new contract will allow you to devote 20 percent of your time to independent movie production. Now is there anything else that requires my attention?”

“Adoption.”

         

PALEY ADOPTS YETNIKOFF!
Chairman of CBS Grants Music Mogul His 50th Birthday Wish

Boom Boom had mocked up the newspaper and presented it to me at my fiftieth birthday party, an event that reeked of industry decadence and Yetnikoff ego. It came off as a big surprise, thanks to Jagger.

Mick called to say he and Keith wanted to hang out. But when Jagger came by in his limo, Keith was nowhere to be found.

“Jump in, mate,” Mick urged. “We’re going to see Keith up at the penthouse on top of the Hilton.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“That’s the bloody life Keith likes to lead. The posher the better. Don’t forget to ask him about his solo work, Walter. You know how sensitive he is. He thinks you love me more than him. You must be a good record exec and love all your children equally.”

“I love them in proportion to their love for me.”

“You’ll love us even more when we’re all high.”

He was right. I got high and loved everyone. I was relieved that the MCA business was behind me. Irving Azoff had taken the job. After all was said and done, I saw Paley as less interfering than Papa Doc and Shitty Sheinberg. Riding up to the penthouse, I was feeling especially mellow. When the elevator doors opened, and the crowd screamed, “Surprise!” my mellow turned to balls-out merriment. The joint was jumping. The great and near-great had come to kiss my ass. Naturally Grubman and Mottola were first in line. But there were also competitors like Ahmet Ertegun, who whisked me into a private room for a taste of birthday blow. Henny Youngman and Robert Klein were telling jokes. Moishe Levy and Fred DiSipio were trading stories. Even the Big Duck from CBS, Tom Wyman, honored me with his presence. Boom Boom, the party’s prime mover, was in the center of the action. Male and female strippers strutted their stuff, satisfying the wide diversity of tastes. Boom Boom got a taste of one of the male strippers’ crotch when she used her teeth to fish out a telegram from Billy Joel wedged inside his jockstrap. “Happy 50th, Walter,” it read. “You redefine insanity.”

I partied till the following day. I was wrecked. Among the remaining guests was my friend the Dante scholar. Like everyone else, he was sloshed.

“You read the rest of the poem?” he slurred.

“I’ve begun.”

“There are three parts—Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.”

“I’m stuck in Hell.”

“And you like it.”

“Hell, yes. I like it a lot.”