Indecent Exposure (50 page)
- Early the following morn
ing, the telephone rang in a suite in Vail, Colorado, where Cliff Robertson and his daughter, Heather, were staying for several days. It was Ray Stark, calling from his house in Sun Valley, Idaho. Stark assailed Robertson for talking to the
Post
and implored him not to speak further on the matter publicly. - "The SEC was perfectly happy with Columbia's investigation," Stark said. "What's the point of bringing it all out? You don't want to be responsible for a man [
Begelman
] putting a pistol in his mouth, do you?" - Cliff scoffed at the notion that Begelman might kill himself. After a lengthy conversation, during which Stark did most of the talking, Robertson said he intended to conduct himself precisely "in line with what a citizen should do in this situation. And now I'm going to ring off and go skiing with my daughter." There was a long pause at the other end of the line.
- "All right Cliff,
Happy New Year." - During the four-day, quasi-holiday week between Christmas and New Year's, Alan Hirschfield had only three important meetings.
- On Tuesday, he submitted to a long interview with Andrew Tobias of
Esquire.
Still sensitive about talking to the press, Hirschfield insisted on talking at Tobias's Central Park West apartment instead of the Columbia offices. - On Wednesday, over lunch at the Harmonic Club, Hirschfield explained the latest Columbia developments to Eric Plcskow, the president of United Artists, and assured Pleskow that Columbia remained interested in affiliating with him and the other top officers who were about to leave UA. Pleskow said that he and his colleagues were hesitant to join a company whose atmosphere was as fractious and lines of authority as murky as Columbia's.
- On Thursday, Hirschfield conferred with Herbert Allen—their first meeting in weeks at which neither man yelled at the other. Herbert said that if Alan wanted to repair his relationships with the directors he would have to approach them individually. He could no longer use Herbert as his emissary to the others. Herbert suggested that he start with Matty Rosenhaus, whose anger, Herbert said, was the deepest of that felt by the several alienated directors. Hirschfield said he would think about it. He dreaded meeting privately with Matty Rosenhaus, wh
om he loathed. At his best, Rose
nhaus was a self-righteous buffoon,
Hirschfield
felt, and he was usually not at his best. But Hirschfield's aides unanimously advised him to see Rosenhaus. - "Look, Alan, you're a charming fellow," Allen Adler said. "Go sec Matty. Don't call him in to see you. Go see
him.
Sit on his back lawn. Talk to the man. Hear him out. Let him vent his spleen. It's your only chance." - Joe Fischer said, "So he's an asshole. What else is new? What you have to do is stop treating him like an asshole. You've eaten a lot of shit
already. It won't hurt you to e
at a little more. It might help put the lid on."
Clive Davis said, "You've got to be able to get your point across to these people individually. From every discussion I've had with them, the board doesn't know you as you really
are
. Their picture of you is erroneous. It's very clear that the way they sec you is not the way you are. You've got to make every effort, not just at board meetings when they're massed and you're there with your colleagues, to meet with them individually, to try to see whether there
are
any chinks in their armor, to see whether there's any opportunity." - Hirschfield
telephoned Rosenhaus at his winter home in Florida on Tuesday afternoon, January 3, and arranged to visit him there the following Monday. - From his call to Rosenhaus he went immediately into a meeting with financial columnist Dan Dorfman, whose calls he had been avoiding. Dorfman was preparing an article on the
Begelman
affair for the coming week's
New York
magazine and had obtained statements from Rosenhaus, Allen, and other directors that were highly critical of Hirschfield. He wanted Hirschfield's side of the story. - "There was an honest disagreement over the propriety of bringing Begelman back,"
Hirschfield
said. "I think I've done a good job. This company's record speaks for itself. If what you say is true, I'm sorry to hear it, I'm sorry they're airing it in public." - Rona Barrett had been on vacation during the holiday period and thus had not reported on David Begelman's reinstatement or the revelation of his forgeries.* Her last broadcast on Begelman had been in late November when she predicted that Columbia would
- *
Asked later why site did not break the story of the forgeries. B
arren said she had learned of the Cliff Robertson forgery around December 1 but had been unable to "get proof and therefore was prohibite
d by ABC's lawyers from using the story. - make Beg
elman a producer, "exonerate" hi
m of wrongdoing, but by not reinstating him, leave the studio "without any strong hand at the helm." Her next comments came on Tuesday, January 3. - A comic scenario is currently being played out in the corporate corridors of Columbia Pictures that would make a dandy little film farce, should any producer like to do to movies what
Network
did to television. The situation in question centers around the return of David
Begelman
to the presidency of Columbia Pictures. His recent reinstatement has caused executives who abandoned support of
Begelman
during the controversy to quickly learn some new routines now that all has been forgiven. The name of the game a
t Columbia now is: tell David we
love him—and the refrain reads: and we always did. Just how many can fool some of the people enough of the time remains to be seen. What is for certain is that over the next few weeks and months, no less than seven major periodicals are planning in-depth reports on
Begelman
, the man and his machinations. Therefore, don't look for the heat to be out of this kitchen yet. - Having been scooped by
The Wall Street Journal
and
The Washington Post, The New York Times
was groping for an original approach to the
Begelman
story. The financial editors, national editors, and editors of the Sunday magazine all were mulling over the Columbia developments. Then one of the editors of the magazine, Lynda Obst, got an idea. Obst, twenty-seven years old, was one of several new editors the
Times
had hired a year earlier to rejuvenate its tired, staid magazine. A doctoral candidate in psychology at Columbia University, Obst had edited the
Rolling Stone
history of the sixties and contributed the text for the Broadway musical show
Beatlemania
before joining the
Times.
Hollywood was one of her beats on the magazine, and having edited a cover story in the summer of 1977 called "The New Tycoons of Hollywood," she had taken a special interest in the
Begelman
case. Just after Christmas, while at a party at the home of literary lawyer and agent Morton Janklow, Obst overheard a conversation about the strife within the board of directors of Columbia Pictures over the
Begelman
affair. From the conversation she inferred that the most important aspect of the story was what had happened in New York, not what had happened in Hollywood, and it was the "New York angle" that the
Times
magazine chose to pursue. - To research and write the article under Obst's supervision, the
Times
retained Lucian K. Truscott, IV, a young free-lance journalist best known for his extensive writing (much of it in
The Village Voice)
about West Point and the problems he had had as a cadet there. Like many of the so-called (and inaptly labeled) "new journalists," Lucian Truscott liked his audiences to feel that he was revealing himself completely. - On his Army career:
- "I fell a
part as a leader and as a man. I
began drinking heavily and eating huge quantities of mescaline and methamphetamihe. I guess I had problems with authority figures all my life, and in the Army, the problems got worse, not better." - On the Ali-Frazier fight:
- "I hate fight fans. They are liars and cheats and thieves and murderers and chicken
-
shitted, lowlife, contemptible sons of bitches. Worst of all, they are just plain dishonest, which is probably the most revealing comment you can make about their despicable souls. I am one of them. . . ." - On journalism:
- "I
have a reputation in the journalism business for moving fast and loose. . . . Everything I write I filter through my own pockmarked psyche. You have a right to read me as well as my words." - In early January of 1978, after completing a novel about West Point, Lucian Truscott turned his "pockmarked psyche" to the Columbia Pictures scandal on behalf of
The New York Times.
It was an assignment that the
Times
would come to regret. - Had Columbia Pictures not restored David
Begelman
to the presidency of the studio, and had the press not exposed Begelman's acts as forgery and embezzlement rather than questionable expense-account claims, it is likely that the interest of law-enforcement agencies in the
Begelman
case would have waned and eventually disappeared. Columbia—informally, at least—had declined to prosecute; it did not want to call any more attention to the matter than
was absolutely necessary. And
Begelman had repaid the money. Therefore, without a complaining victim. Detectives Joyce
Silvey
in Beverly Hills and Robert Elias in Burbank were content to defer action for the time being and let the Securities and Exchange Commissi
on monitor the case. The SEC, in
turn, was content to let Columbia's outside lawyers and accountants conduct their own investigation without interference. The SEC and the two police departments (like law-enforcement agencies generally) were swamped with fraud cases involving seriously aggrieved victims and massive amounts of money, and felt compelled to allocate their meager investigative resources accordingly. Moreover, there was a tacit assumption among the few law officers familiar with the Begelman case that Columbia Pictures, knowing what it knew, would not reinstate
Begelman
. - However, when the company did reinstate him, and when the first press accounts indicated that law-enforcement agencies might have been negligent, the case for the first time attracted the attention of high officials of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, who in turn queried the police. Like everyone else, law enforcement people hate bad publicity. Detectives
Silvey
and Elias determined that the Burbank Police had primary jurisdiction, and on Tuesday, January 3, Elias telephoned Columbia Pictures in New York and asked for a formal letter stating whether it wanted to prosecute. Elias also called
Begelman
’
s lawyer, Frank Rothman, who drove to Bur-bank that same day and promised Elias that
Begelman
would cooperate with any police investigation. - The SEC's interest was heightened, as well. The agency's director of enforcement, Stanley Sporkin, previously had not intervened in the case personally. Columbia's lawyers had dealt with Sporkin's aides. But the reinstatement and accompanying publicity caught Sporkin's eye, and he asked for a private, informal meeting with Alan
Hirschfield
. On Wednesday, the day after Rothman and Elias met in Burbank,
Hirschfield
flew to Washington with Todd Lang and Peter Gruenberger and spent three hours briefing Sporkin, who was interested primarily in the pressures that had induced Hirschfield to return
Begelman
to hi
s job. Hirschfield explained the
circumstances. Sporkin said that the SEC might have to launch its own investigation. - On Friday, Leo Ja
ffe dispatched a letter to Detective Elias in California. "Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. has no intention of filing charges against or in any way seeking prosecution of David Begelman.
..." - Hirschfield, at lunch with Clive
Davis at the Palm Court of the Plaza, ruminated about how he might induce an ou
tsider to make a bid for the All
ens' share of Columbia Pictures.
"I
know I can't deal with this situation over the long haul,"
Hirschfield
said. "It's a makeshift arrangement. I know in my heart that I can't live with these people permanently."
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