TELEVISION—SUCCESS, WRAPPED IN DISASTER

Partners was a comedy about a cop with a wife, teenage kids, and an annoying and wild partner. It was well-written, and when CBS turned down my show and immediately offered me this one, I was open to it. They offered me a boatload of money, made me an executive producer, promised casting approval, and agreed to shoot the series in LA, although the pilot would be shot in Vancouver. They had a big-name director, Brett Ratner, and big producers like Barry Sonnenfeld attached as well, and it was being produced by Columbia Television, and so I said yes. We cast great actors, including Jeremy Piven, who I had just worked with on Very Bad Things. He brought a lot of passion and was funny and wild, and I thought we would have a great chemistry. But when we got to Vancouver and began shooting, trouble began as well. Brett and Jeremy behaved very erratically on set, showing up hours late, yelling at people, and seeming unnaturally jacked-up on something. But the worst part was that some of the women on the set confided in me that Brett and Jeremy were sexually harassing them, and they were afraid. I was an executive producer on the show as well as the star, and I took all of this unprofessional behavior very seriously. I didn’t want to confront Brett or Jeremy directly because I had to work with them both up close and personal, and I wanted the show to be good, so I passed on the information to the other executive producers. They told me to just keep quiet about it and they would handle it. The misbehavior continued throughout, but we finally finished the show and came back to LA. I was called into a meeting with the other executive producers, as well as the head of Columbia Television, to discuss the show and the issues I had with Brett and Jeremy’s behavior on and off the set. They were angry with me for bringing it up because they thought the show had a good chance of getting picked up and they didn’t want any controversy to hurt our chances. I said I didn’t want that either, but if we did get picked up, we needed to make some changes to our team because I didn’t want to do a show with people who disrespect other people that way. A top-level executive at Columbia yelled at me, “Don’t you say a word about this!”

I said I wasn’t going to say anything.

“Don’t you say a fucking word to anyone, or we’ll sue you, do you understand?!” Sue me? Where the fuck did that come from? The threat sent a chill down my spine.

“I’m not going to say anything.”

“You better fucking not, or we will sue you!”

“I’m not going to say anything! And stop saying you’re going to sue me.”

“Don’t you tell your agent, Les Moonves, or anybody else because we have a lot of money riding on this and I will sue you if you fuck this up!” I left that meeting very shaken and surprised at how it went down. The number of times he brought up suing me was crazy, no matter how many times I told him I was not going to say anything to anyone. This was obviously way before the MeToo movement started helping people call out sexual harassment on the set, so I just curled up in a ball and shut my mouth. (Interestingly, both Brett and Jeremy have been caught up in MeToo revelations, both publicly accused of sexual harassment in the last few years, as has Les Moonves, the head of CBS.) A few days before CBS was going to announce whether our show had been picked up, I got a phone call from one of the executive producers. I picked up the phone and he immediately started yelling.

“Did you call Les Moonves? Did you call Les Moonves and tell him you didn’t want to do the show?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Did you call Les Moonves and tell him you didn’t want to do the show? Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t do that. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Les Moonves said you called him and told him you don’t want to do the show!”

“I didn’t call Les Moonves. Why would he say that?”

“He said you called him in New York.”

“How the fuck would I call him in New York? I have no idea how to call Les Moonves and never would call him anyway. So Les Moonves is lying.”

This stopped the producer’s ranting at me.

“Well then what the fuck is going on?”

“I have no idea.”

“I’ll call you back.”

I hung up in shock, blindsided and with no idea what was happening. The producer called back.

“Les said he didn’t speak to you, but you left him a message at his hotel that said you don’t want to do the show.”

“A message? I left him a message at his hotel? In my voice?”

“No. A message with the operator.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t leave him a message. Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Because you don’t want to do the show.”

“Yes, I do. Look, I have no idea what’s going on here or who left a message at Les Moonves’s hotel, but it was not me. Have Les call me and I will tell him that I didn’t leave any message and somebody is fucking around here, and I do want to do the show.”

A little while later, Les Moonves called and I explained to him that I did not call him or leave him a message.

“I didn’t think it was you. It was weird to get this message in my box.”

“Very weird. I don’t know what is going on, but I hope you pick up our show.”

“We’ll see. I like the show but, honestly, right now it is on the bubble.”

We said a very nice goodbye and I called the producer back and told him that the conversation went well, we cleared up that bizarre incident, and that the show was in the running. But my level of paranoia kicked into overdrive. Who the fuck left a message for Les Moonves with my name on it?

The day came for the announcement and Partners did not get picked up. I was disappointed because I thought it was a good show and good part, and I was hoping the Brett and Jeremy situation would get cleared up once we got a commitment for the series and went into production. But those feelings of disappointment quickly changed into terror when I got a call from my agent saying that Columbia Television was suing me for twenty-five million dollars for sabotaging the show. The next day there was an article in the LA Times with my fucking picture next to it saying the same thing, along with the accusation that I had called Les Moonves and told him not to pick up the show. Twenty-five million?! If you added everything I had in the world, it would come to about six million, so I didn’t know where I was going to come up with the extra nineteen million! They were going to wipe me out, everything. Our house and our savings were at risk, along with my reputation. I had no idea what to do. My new agent at ICM was absolutely no help, afraid and wanting to stay on the good side of Columbia Television—fucking wimp. All of a sudden, I had to find a lawyer, which I knew nothing about. I hooked up with a tough and smart litigator who thought the whole thing was ridiculous, and he was not only going to fight them tooth and nail but countersue them as well. He put together a case, getting phone records to prove there was no phone call or message from me, getting Les Moonves to give a deposition to testify about his phone call with me, and developing his countersuit against Columbia, claiming they were defaming my character and trying to blame me for the financial loss they suffered when the show didn’t get picked up. It was good to have someone fighting for me, but Jesus, it was so expensive! I had to pay for his time at hundreds of dollars an hour, his assistant’s time, photocopying, parking, and who knows what else. It felt like I was going to end up owing the lawyer twenty-five million dollars before it was over. I started to experience anxiety like I have never felt, bad enough that I got a prescription for Xanax (which didn’t do much of anything). Plus, they wanted me to hire a publicist so I could get my story out in the press and defend myself and my reputation. But that would be another huge expense, and I didn’t want to talk about it anyway. I just wanted it to go away. So I called my old friend Joe Roth and asked him how to make it stop. He said, “You need a rabbi.”

“A rabbi?”

“Someone to talk to both sides and help come to a solution. They are pissed at you, and you are pissed at them. You need a rabbi to help you find an ending.”

Joe engaged his personal lawyer, a powerful man with connections to Columbia Television, and came back with a solution. If I gave them back the money they paid me for the show, they would drop the lawsuit. My lawyer advised me not to take it, that we would definitely win, and they knew that and that is why they were offering this. If it was just about right and wrong and there hadn’t been so much money at stake, I would have loved to have seen justice in the matter, have the Los Angeles Times print a retraction and rewind the clock. But I couldn’t afford that risk, financially or emotionally, and I was relieved to get out of the situation with the same money I started with. But the damage was done, and that bullshit would follow me around for years. I still have no idea what happened or why, and I was stung that no one stood up for me when the accusations were so clearly false. I wish I had been braver about standing up for the people who were sexually harassed on the show and had asked for my help. I should have made a bigger stink about that part of the story, which got washed away in all of the other controversy, but I had no idea how to fight that fight by myself. Thank God for the MeToo movement. And Fuck Brett Rather, Fuck Jeremy Piven, Fuck Les Moonves, and Fuck that top-level executive at Columbia!

Luckily, I had an incredible life to fall back into. We had finally raised enough money to launch Boys & Girls Club of Malibu. Allan Young helped us find a great executive director who knew the programs Boys & Girls Clubs had and had experience in hiring staff. Soon the double-wide trailers were loaded onto huge tractor trailers and driven to the Malibu school campus blacktop, where they were met by a hundred of our fellow community members, there to use their skills to help build this community center for their children. Carpenters built a deck around the buildings, electricians and plumbers hooked up their systems, carpet was laid, walls were painted—it makes me cry with joy to remember that building being put together by all of us. Mel was there hammering nails, Laure and Robyn overseeing everything and feeding people. The school administrators helped to put the fencing in, giving up a piece of their territory because they knew our club would provide things for the kids that the school alone couldn’t. And when the doors finally opened, the kids flocked in—getting homework help, playing sports, learning leadership skills, organizing trips, meeting kids from other clubs, and all the incredible experiences Boys & Girls Clubs around the world offer. I was and still am so proud to be a part of the Boys & Girls Club family.

I was forty-two when Henry got into Harvard and flew away and out of our lives. Our nest was emptying, and we could see how quickly it would go by with Sophie and Ella too. But it was good to have him living his dream, and it gave us more time to focus on the girls. Driver’s licenses and jobs, sports, and more homework than I could even comprehend. Sophie tried her best at school, but her focus was on her friends and her music. Ella was now dealing with the trials and tribulations that young girls put each other through, but she never lost her positivity and love of learning. And Laure was running the show—getting the kids off to school and activities, running the house, taking care of our money, working full time as president of Malibu Foundation for Youth and Families, and then ending the day by making dinner for all of us. A force of nature.

My work in Media Literacy, Arts in Education, and Boys & Girls Club brought me into contact with politicians (you know, the people who actually control the purse strings). I found myself in a private meeting with John McCain, pitching the importance of Media Literacy. David Foster had a fundraiser for Al Gore, who we spent some personal time with. He was a brilliant man one-on-one, but he was a fucking lox as a public speaker. I joined Maria Shriver’s committee, fundraising for Arts in Education, while I continued teaching my class at the high school. I was still coaching Ella’s basketball team and loving the community, but Malibu had begun to change. The retired neighbors next door moved, and the new people tore down the little house and built a little mansion in its place. The hardware store at Point Dume closed and was replaced by something far less necessary. Laure and I spent more time in rich people’s houses, wooing them to donate to the Malibu Foundation or join the board, but I felt myself losing touch with the very community I was dedicating my service to.

Careerwise, I was laying low. Partners took it out of me, and I was happy to ignore show business and get back on the plan of living a life of creative and financial freedom. But then I got a call that Les Moonves wanted to meet with me. At his office at CBS, he told me how sorry he was about how things happened with Partners and reiterated that I didn’t have anything to do with the show not getting picked up. He apologized for not being able to speak out in my defense, but that Columbia Television executive was determined to sue me, and CBS did a lot of business with them, and that was just the way things worked. He also said that he still believed in me and thought I could be a big star on television, and that he wanted to make Community Center. He was going to introduce me to some great TV producers who could help me develop the show, and then we would make the pilot. My jaw was on the floor. I was so thankful, relieved, elated, dumbfounded, and humbled. And creatively, I had just had a rocket lit under my ass. I was going to do my show! Un-Fuck Les Moonves! (And then Re-Fuck Les Moonves for his horrible sexual attacks on the women he tried to grope in that very office!)

My (new) agent made an incredible deal—more money than I made on Partners, and I was the executive producer/writer/ creator/star, so it was my ship to steer. My first brilliant move was to connect with Mindy Schultheis and Michael Hanel, two novice producers. They knew what made good television right off the bat and have been producing great shows ever since. They were so funny, supportive, and smart. We hired great actors to play Henry, Sophie, Lenny, and Chicki, and shot the pilot on locations all around LA. It was an amazing feeling seeing it all come to life, these words that I had written, a story I had made up, now being acted out and filmed. The editing went great, the music clicked, and we turned it in to CBS. Within a couple of weeks, I got the call to fly to New York because they were going to announce that the show, now called Danny, had been picked up for a twelve-episode series commitment! I was on top of the world that I was going to get to run my own television show. This show was an artistic and personal expression of where I was in my life, with my community center and my kids, and now I was going to get a chance to tell the stories I wanted to. We hired a writing staff, pitching and shaping stories, and eventually writing scripts. We built huge sets on a soundstage. I hired a great crew and great directors. When we finally started shooting, the machine went into overdrive and my responsibilities were mind-boggling. Writing future shows, casting upcoming shows, shooting current shows, editing the shows we’d shot, and scoring the shows we’d edited, all while acting in every scene. I have never been so fully engaged in an artistic endeavor as the four months we spent making those episodes. They were stories taken right out of my life—teaching Henry to drive, Sophie managing the mean girls, struggling with government bureaucracy at the community center, dealing with my dad getting older—so I lived and breathed every frame of film on every episode. Our premiere on CBS was scheduled for September 18, 2001, and I was set to go on every talk show they could book to get the word out about the show. We were in the middle of shooting our eighth episode on September 11th. We had a late call that day, so I was sleeping when Laure woke me up and turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit the second tower at the World Trade Center. We watched and cried and were terrified. But I had to leave for work. When the crew got there, we were all in a daze and just gathered around the TV and radio to follow what the fuck was going on. One of the crew had a relative who worked in the towers, and he couldn’t get in touch with them. We tried to focus to shoot some scenes, but it was impossible. I cried my eyes out in my dressing room. Even though the studio wanted us to keep shooting, we decided to call it a day. We came back the next day to keep shooting the shows, but the air had definitely gone out of the balloon. The network preempted all television shows with wall-to-wall coverage of 9/11 for weeks. They rescheduled our premiere a week or two later but no one, including me, felt like watching a new TV comedy, and the show tanked. We were still shooting when we got the call that they were pulling the plug on the show after only airing one episode. The cast and crew had an incredible party that night, all of us drunk out of our minds. As I left, I got pulled over by a cop. Three cars, filled with my crew members, pulled up and surrounded us, pleading with the officer to let me go. And he did.

I was exhausted and relieved in some way that the show was over. I had had the greatest artistic experience I could ever imagine, spending millions of other people’s dollars on my vision of my story, employing hundreds of people and making dear friends for life. The fact that it didn’t have a long run on television doesn’t change any of that.