Indecent Exposure (56 page)
- While Heiskell sensed that
Hirschfield
needed help, he was uncertain what to do. Heiskell was totally bewildered by Columbia's handling of the Begelman affair. It was entirely foreign to his experience and, he suspected, to the experience of most major corporations. If an embezzler had been caught in the upper reaches of Time Inc., there would have been no controversy. The offending party simply would have been removed from the company. The law-enforcement authorities might or might not have been called. A psychiatrist might or might not have been consulted. There surely would have been a thorough investigation. But whatever the circumstances, the embezzler would have been removed. There was simply no other way to approach such a situation, Heiskell felt. Except that Columbia Pictures seemed to have found another way; thus Heiskell's bewilderment. He was too well-mannered to press
Hirschfield
for private details, however, so he merely wished him well. - "Y
ou have friends at Time," Heiske
ll said.
Hirschfield
left, feeling defensive and a bit silly. - Hirschfield had lunch on Tuesday with Samuel Lefrak, the New York real-estate magnate. Lefrak had a lot of spare cash and wanted to invest in the movies. What did
Hirschfield
think of remaking
It Happened One Night
with Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford? Alan thought it was a pretty good idea and promised to look into it. - After lunch, he conferred with Herbert Allen, Leo Jaffe, and Irwin Kramer in the Allen & Company offices.
- Not for the first time, Hirschfield said, "There's a serious morale problem at the studio. People
are
embarrassed to be working for David. And there are lots of rumors that now that he's back I'm going to get bounced." - "I'm sick and tired of hearing abo
ut morale problems," said Irwin
Kramer, in one of his more belligerent moods. "Those people are getting paid lots of money. If they're gonna complain, they should be terminated. The hell with 'em." - "The problem at the moment,"
Hirschfield
said, "is the definition of my own role. Still, at this date, more than two weeks after the publication of Dan Dorfman's piece in
New York
magazine, that article remains the board's only public statement about me—that they have no confidence, that they mistrust me. That has caused substantial upset and a decline in the morale of the employees, and it's also causing outsiders to question the direction of the company. What about that wonderful public statement of support that was going to go out?" - "The whole problem, Alan, is caused by your failure to publicly support David," said Herbert. "It's critical for you to go to LA and make clear to the employees and everyone else that you
are
embracing David, that he has your confidence and support."
"I was just out there week before last and it didn't do any good. I'll consider going back, but the real problem is clarifying my own position in the company." - Irwin Kramer spoke up again. "I'm sick and tired of hearing you complain about problems, and the West Coast people complain about problems. Everybody ought to go back to work. I don't give a damn if you or anyone else walks out of this company. You're all replaceable."
"That's a rotten thing to say, and it's a destructive attitude for the company and its shareholders," Hirschfield protested. - "I don't give a damn," Kramer declared. "I'm sick of hearing all this. I don't care if the stock goes to two dollars. It doesn't make any difference to me. I can live without
Ihc
money."* - "That's an outrageous attitude for a director and the head of the audit committee to take,"
Hirschfield
shouted. "If that's your attitude, there's no sense continuing this discussion."
Hirschfield
got up and started toward
the
door. - "Don't go, Alan," Herbert said.
- *
Irwin Kramer later denied that
he ever said he didn't care If the sto
ck fell to two dollars and could live without the money. The statement as it appears in this conversation was attributed to Kra
mer by a person who attended the meeting and later made notes of it, and
by
a
second person who claimed to have he
ard Kramer make the same statement during a discussion separat
e from the meeting reported here. - "I
don't have to take this kind of abuse!" Hirschfield retorted, and left the room. - Just about all the trust that Alan and Herbert had ever felt had been destroyed. They spoke privately less and less, and began communicating mainly in writing and through intermediaries. On Wednesday, January 25, Hirschfield wrote Allen a letter about the executives leaving United Artists. "Needless to say, I feel that if we could make a deal with this group it would be a bonanza for Columbia; it would materially enhance the product availability in our domestic distribution organization and put us in a position in foreign markets which this company has never previously enjoyed." The sole purpose of the letter was to establish a written record of Hirschfield's views. If Columbia failed to land the Krim group, Hirschfield was determined not to share the blame.
- Allen Adler
had been busy in his role as Hirs
chfield's secret emissary to outsiders who might be induced to buy Columbia Pictures and overthrow the
Allens
. Adler had just conferred in Los Angeles with two men who were in touch with Philip Morris Incorporated and the Penn Central Corporation. Each wanted to meet Hirschfield and explore the possibility of making a run at Columbia. Appointments would be arranged soon. - "Hollywood is waiting for a Jeanie Kasindorf article in
New West
next week on the David Begelman forgery embezzlement affair," Liz Smith wrote in her column on Thursday morning. "Those who have read it say it is very strong, very thorough, very hard on the reinstated head of Columbia Pictures. The magazine's publisher, Joe Armstrong, feels he'll now be 'about as welcome as a pork chop at a kosher wedding in LA.' Then there is the big Hollywood producer pal of
Begelman
's who is going around telling one and all that there is nothing to fear from the projected Andrew Tobias dissection of the scandal set for
Esquire.
The producer says the piece is being killed because of his friendship with publisher Clay Felker. Said producer is probably in for a rude shock. The piece will run and now it may run stronger than ever." - Hollywood, indeed, was waiting anxiously for the
New West
and
Esquire
articles. The word was getting around that the
New West
piece contained explosive materia
l on Begelman's relationship to
Judy Garland. A nervous Herbert Allen telephoned Jeanie Kasindorf at home early Thursday morning demanding to know whether and in what manner he was being quoted in the article. Ironically, the Kasindorf piece itself was being buffeted by another storm unrelated to the article's substance. Its preparation during January coincided with the firing of the two top editors of
New West
magazine. As a result, several political factions at the magazine had a hand in editing the article—a process that senior editor Jonathan Kirsch promptly labeled "the gangbang edit." - Hirschfield
, Fischer, and Adle
r met Friday afternoon to plan a presentation the company was scheduled to make to the New York Society of Security Analysts on Tuesday, February 14. The New York Society, an organization of brokerage-firm members who analyze corporations as a basis for investment recommendations to their firms' clients, was the largest group of its kind in the nation and provided a daily Wall Street forum in which companies could tell their stories and be questioned by the analysts. Most major U.S. corporations appeared before the New York analysts annually, and the press covered each meeting. - Hirschfield
had decided to proceed with the appearance after receiving a memorandum from Jean Vagnini, Columbia's public-relations director: "This meeting will most likely draw a crowd of very anxious analysts. Because of their basic insecurities with the company, only a well-thought-out and 'sincere' presentation will be acceptable. Under the current circumstances, a cancellation would not be unexpected. However, if we don't show, the 'instability' of the company will be accentuated. If conducted properly, it could be a good
first
step of re-establishing support." - It would be another occasion to which
Hirschfield
would have to rise. - The man on the phone to
The Wall Street Journal
reporter would not give his name. He wondered, however, if the reporter knew that Alan
Hirschfield
, who had taken such a
moral stance on David Begelman,
wasn't so clean himself. It seemed that
Hirschfield
had his wife working for a market-research firm on Columbia Pictures' payroll, a firm called Wolf Associates or something similar. It sounded like a potential conflict of interest to the man on the phone. Hirschfield might stand to gain a lot personally by diverting Columbia business to the Wolf firm. And yet here he was playing "Mr. Clean" against the crook, Begelman. - The reporter investigated the allegations carefully and determined that there was no conflict of interest. First, Berte Hirschfield had not worked for Wolf for more than a year. Second, she had been proscribed while there from benefiting financially from whatever business Wolf did with Columbia. The restrictions on her, which had been designed by Columbia explicitly to prevent any conflict or even the appearance of one, were so onerous, in fact, that it was impossible for her to receive compensation commensurate with the value of her work.
- The reporter wondered whether other publications which the anonymous tipster might call would check the allegation so carefully before printing it.
- After many days of dodging Lucian Truscott, the writer retained by
The New York Times Magazine,
Hirschfield finally took a call from Truscott at home Saturday evening. He patiently reviewed the entire Begelman affair and its aftermath under Truscott's questioning. They agreed to talk again the following morning. - After the interview, a weary
Hirschfield
screened Mel Brooks's
High Anxiety
for his family in the basement projection room. - *In addition to Lucian Truscott's work for the magazine, the main news department of the
Times
newspaper had reporters working on the story as well. - The "tip of the iceberg" theme which the news media had been pursuing so avidly was given new impetus by a major front-page article in Sunday's
New York Times.
The article was prepared by a team of three ex
cellent reporters*—Robert Lindse
y, Jeff Gerth, and
Aljean Harme
tz—and carried the headline: "Critics of the Movie Business Find Pattern of Financial Irregularities." - Los
A
ngeles
, Jan. 28—Disclosure of financial improprieties by a senior executive of Columbia Pictures have drawn attention to what some industry critics say is a pattern of questionable financial practices throughout the motion picture industry. According to Columbia and law enforcement sources, the film business is permeated by financial irregularities that extend from the executive suite to the movie backlot to the local theater box office. . . . - "Nobody can skim as well as Las Vegas because they invented it," said Richard Brooks, the Academy Award-winning writer and director. "But Hollywood is second. It's a time of corruption."
- The article failed, however, to document all the allegations in its provocative lead paragraphs with specific examples. It cited a lawsuit filed by actor
s Sean Connery and Michael Caine
against Allied Artists Pictures, alleging that the studio had cheated the actors out of profits due them from
The Man Who Would Be King.
Only deep in the article was it acknowledged that the Connery-Caine suit was not unusual. Rather, it was the latest example of a long-standing complaint by actors, directors, and others that the studios routinely manipulated financial records so as to minimize or eliminate money due the artists. The article implied that the artists' complaints were valid but cited no proof. Reciting at length the familiar facts of the Columbia Pictures case, the story quoted "critics of the industry" as saying that the
Begelman
episode "illustrates the kind of loose financial controls that characterize the industry and that permit such abuses." No other examples of embezzlement were cited, however, and though the article indicated that bribery, kickbacks, and other abuses were widespread, it failed to identify any specific instances of such conduct. Having failed properly to document its central assertions, the
Times
then went on to discuss allegations by theater owners that the studios were guilty of a number of antitrust and monopolistic practices. But the paper did not acknowledge that— reprehensible as such practices are—controversies over alleged monopolies are as old as the movie industry itself.
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