B004YENES8 EBOK (5 page)

I could not risk offending them by going elsewhere; before proceeding with another producer-in-favor with their chief, Sagansky and Singer at least should have pointed out to Silverman that another female buddy cop show had been officially submitted to the network months before. By not doing that, it left open the possibility that our idea had been plagiarized.

Real damage had been done here. I threatened suit. Months later, in an NBC projection room—court order in hand—I viewed the film commissioned by Silverman. “Gentlemen,” I said to the audience of NBC attorneys as the lights slowly came up in the room, “I don’t want to be associated with this project even by lawsuit.”

The network’s lawyers were relieved and candid. They had read
Cagney & Lacey
and frankly couldn’t understand why their creative people chose to make the show they did—especially when they had this other choice.

Spelling/Goldberg had also made a two-woman cop pilot for ABC, complete with stiletto heels and plenty of cleavage. It was a spin-off of their private-eye show set in Vegas and also not worthy of a lawsuit. Goldberg may have read
Cagney & Lacey
, but he didn’t get it.

In desperation,
⁴
I had sent it to the movie divisions of the networks. There was nowhere else left to go. “Too episodic,” said the men at ABC. NBC was clearly not going to touch it now. In those days that left only CBS.

Finally, the Eye network responded: It was Peter Frankovich on the phone. “You should take this project to our series people, Barney. It’s more a series than an M.O.W.”
⁵

“I’ll be honest with you, Peter. It’s damaged goods. I’ve already been to your series people, and they turned me down.”

“Well, I won’t turn you down,” the TV movie exec went on. “I like it. Let’s develop a script.”

I never told him one already existed. Avedon was still on holiday, so Corday came in and together we pitched Frankovich our new story. Avedon returned, and the two women worked out all the story beats. It was given a go to screenplay, and Corday pulled out to begin her new career at ABC. She gave the best parting gift a writing partner can present to an erstwhile teammate: a job with a solo writing credit. With thirty to forty pages already written from their earlier collaboration and the rest thoroughly blocked out by the two of them, there is little doubt that, had Corday asked their guild to arbitrate, there would have been a shared credit on that script. Corday’s was a generous act and, as is so often the case in these matters, not fully appreciated. I don’t believe Avedon ever really forgave Corday for the split.

Chapter 6 

THE MAELSTROM 

The Frankovich/CBS endorsement was nice, but more “development” was not what I needed. Somehow I had to get something into production. It was all incredibly frustrating. The industry is (and was then) like a series of concentric circles, the kind of design formed in a pool of water when disturbed by a small object falling therein. Those in the maelstrom, and closest to the inner circles, were people like Wolper, Spelling, Goldberg, Lee Rich , and Grant Tinker;
they
were in the business. The rest of us were “in development.” (Today one would substitute JJ Abrams, David E. Kelley, John Wells, Jerry Bruckheimer, and maybe Steven Bochco; it is the same game now, only with different players.) We would joke then, only half kidding, that “development” was something invented by the networks to keep thousands of us believing we were in the business and therefore too preoccupied to go to the justice department.

My one-time USC pal Bernie Sandler had helped me get
Angel on My Shoulder
to then-ABC superstar Peter Strauss. It proved to be an easy sell to the actor. He had just done
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
on stage and was looking for something in that genre to combat his (he thought) too-serious TV image.

Even with this outstanding package, I could not get a commitment out of Leonard Hill at ABC. In frustration, after months of waiting for a green light from the network, I hired Bill Haber, cofounder of the powerful CAA agency, to represent the project. He brought back Hill’s remark: “Yeah, yeah, we oughta make it. Is there any way to get Barney out of the picture?”

Now, I could restate my case here: how I found the property, discovered it was in the public domain, shepherded the screenplay through multiple drafts, and contacted—and interested—Peter Strauss in starring in the vehicle. I could point out how my last M.O.W. for the very same network had been
One of My Wives is Missing
, a certified smash. What would be the point? It wasn’t personal. Hill had a finite number of films to make and an almost equal number of commitments to those guys in the maelstrom. If he said yes to me, he would have to face their wrath and their well-aimed complaints to his bosses. If he said yes to me, there would be one less film commitment for a powerful pal with whom he might partner once he went indy-prod with a multi pic-pac.

The same thing was holding up
American Dream
. It was all those Spelling/ Goldberg commitments and others like them. Rather than be candid about this, the network executives would try to get you into business with one of their open commitments. A secondary position was to stall, to keep having “problems” with the material, to continue demanding rewrites or other time-consuming changes; anything to keep from telling you that trade in this industry is indeed restrained and restricted to those in favor, those in the club, those closest to the center. I get it now. Eventually I got closer to that maelstrom; I got a peek at the Holy of Holies. But that was not what I was experiencing in those early days of development hell.

Corday and I would be at dinner, and I would be so nauseous from the beatings I was taking from Hill and Axelrod I could only consider ordering soup. I couldn’t imagine swallowing anything solid. My wife was ebullient and cheerful, feeling chatty about her new job at ABC and all of her bright and hardworking fellow development executives.

Crazed into a hyperbolic state, I would interrupt, “Barbara, I am sitting here like someone trying to deal with the fact that they are sending Jews to death camps by rail, and you lounge across from me wearing your SS cap, asking me to look at how efficiently you are operating the trains!”

My new wife took it in stride. Later that night she would ask if I was coming to bed.

“I’ve already been fucked by the network once today,” I growled.

Does this sound funny now? It wasn’t then. It was that week that I awoke from an epic nightmare. I was in a cold sweat. Maybe I was only half awake. Anyway, I would share it with Corday. She was my spouse and could not testify against me in a California court.

The dream-scheme:
I enter the fifth floor at ABC’s Century City offices. In my hand, held at my side, is a .357 Magnum revolver. I walk past Lana, the friendly receptionist, into Leonard Hill’s office and blow him away: two, three shots maximum. His body parts are splattered against the walls and windows. Then I walk down the hallway, the short distance to Axelrod’s office. I empty my revolver at point-blank range—more gore.

I drop the gun and am taken into custody. My defense will be not guilty by reason of insanity. I can prove those two bastards drove me crazy. I will be revered throughout Hollywood for my good deed.

While I’m undergoing treatment during my brief incarceration, I’ll write a book about the whole thing. It will be called
The ABC Murders.

Chapter 7 

A PRODUCER’S MEDIUM 

Dramatic episodic television was my niche. Its pace uniquely suited me. It was life-defining. I knew that from my induction at the age of twenty-nine, as a freshman producer on
Daniel Boone
.

It was
Cagney & Lacey
, of course, that brought me industry-wide recognition.

Besides the show itself, I received respect and admiration beyond my dreams for fending off the network’s onslaught of threat, intimidation, and cancellation. It moved me to the forefront of my profession, ahead of many with longer, and perhaps more impressive, lists of credits.

None of this recognition would come my way until the mid-1980s. No matter. I believed—even without corroboration—the veracity of my self-serving statement that I was good at this from the mid-way point of my first season as the wunderkind producer on
Daniel Boone
. I knew I could do it better than anyone.

Television is a producer’s medium. Episodic television is even more so. Many people are good producers and fine storytellers. Some are better than I. There are even those who can, and have, produced better individual episodes. That is not what this is about.

Week after week, show after show, week-in, show-out, twenty-two times a year— the maintenance of that qualitative control, the attention to character and to detail, the management of a series—that is where I always thought I was better than everyone else (although since leaving the business in 1995, the work on
The West Wing
by John Wells and on
Alias
, as well as
Lost
by JJ Abrams, has me reconsidering that statement).

I was the daddy, the confessor-priest, the citizen-general, the final arbiter of taste and judgment, the decision maker, the diplomat, the cheerleader, the storyteller, the promoter, the press agent, the boss. It was only a partial list.

The company was in jail, and I was the light that came in through the bars. I loved it.

It wasn’t just
Cagney & Lacey
. I felt that way about the work—my job.

It is a talent of sorts to convince oneself that what’s being done not only has impact, but import—that doing it properly, both creatively and technically, counts for something.

This is where Mr. Neufeld and I differed. I felt he was more obsessed with his public persona and paying homage at the altar of success. Still, he was there for me at a critical time. In failure, he was supportive and downright paternal. It was in triumph that we had our problems.

The awful years of development began to turn into a production horror story.

All at once—literally simultaneously—our tiny company got green-lighted on a movie-for-television to be shot in Los Angeles (
Angel on My Shoulder
, starring Peter Strauss, Barbara Hershey, and Richard Kiley ); a pilot for an hour dramatic series filming in Chicago (
American Dream
with Stephen Macht and Karen Carlson); and the multi-million dollar miniseries presentation of
John Steinbeck’s East of Eden
with an all-star cast, filming primarily in Savannah, Georgia, and in and around the Steinbeck Country of Salinas, California. All of this was in the early spring of 1979, and all of it overlapping. I was living in airports, while I imagined that Mace was alternately dreaming on the Mexican Riviera or scheming behind my back in Hollywood .

Our pilot film of
American Dream
made the ABC mid-season schedule. We were to have our first series on the air. Now, in success, my “Jewish renaissance man,” as I had come to refer to Mace, began taking credit for my work in articles and paid advertisements in the trade press. We quarreled. I was infuriated at what I perceived as a power grab, and what I would characterize as his betrayals on
American Dream
, including broken promises made to me regarding creative control . Mace Neufeld’s words resounded as I walked away from my dream show: “Barney, baby, it’s payday. What do you care? It’s only television.”

I would not continue in the relationship. We agreed to meet to effectuate a divorce.

My attorney and pal, Sam Perlmutter, was given instructions by me to “just get me out with my underwear.” The meeting took place down the hall from Mace’s office in an unassigned office cubicle with BNB production exec Tom Brodek , Sam, myself, Mace, and his attorney du jour, the powerful and connected Bruce Ramer. We were there to divide the knives and forks.

Negotiations were going better than I feared; perhaps, I thought, Mace was afraid of my bringing suit for what I characterized as his various earlier misrepresentations to me. Of course, Brodek could also be a calming influence.

Whatever the reason(s), I wound up in sole possession of several projects, Mace retained a few, and that left only
Cagney & Lacey
in dispute. It had by this time received a go to production as a CBS movie-for-television. Because it had been originally developed by me before my tenure at BNB , the terms of my contract with Mace vested me with 75% of the profits and Mace with 25%. This was proportionately diluted by the 50% of the profits held by Filmways and the 10% profit share held by Avedon & Corday, half of which was paid by Filmways and half by BNB. Thus, Filmways had 45%, I had 75% of 45%, and Mace had 25% of 45%.

In those days, the profits on an efficiently produced movie of the week normally ran between a quarter and a half million dollars. It was a nice little business in the days before network ownership of just about everything, but it never contained the upside potential of a television series or a theatrical motion picture. I had been turned down everywhere in my desire to make
Cagney & Lacey
a series. Making it as an M.O.W. was truly a last resort.

Several weeks before, after being rebuffed by Universal talent head Monique James when I had inquired about loan-out possibilities for the services of Sharon Gless, Peter Frankovich of CBS had suggested Loretta Swit as the actress to play Cagney. Swit was a CBS star in her role as Hot Lips on
M*A*S*H*
, which was then still one of the network’s premiere hits.

“Look, Swit’s a great choice,” I told Frankovich. “She’s the right age, the right look, and has a good sense of comedy, but she’s already committed to a series for you guys. You’re blowing me out of the water here. You’re killing any chance this has of becoming a back-door
⁶
pilot.”

“Barney, Barney, Barney,” came the head-shaking reply. “You’ve already tried to sell this project as a series, and you failed. What you did do is sell it to us as an M.O.W. That’s what it is. That’s all it will ever be. We want Loretta Swit. We have a commitment with Loretta Swit , and we’re willing to turn that commitment over to you. Unless you can come up with a name we like better, then that’s who we expect you to use.”

Dealing the actress to me got CBS off the hook for a pay-or-play
⁷
commitment to Swit, and it gave them a recognizable star in an otherwise (to them) undistinguished movie project. There were not many chances that I would come up with a piece of casting they would like better.

I knew all of this, of course, while meeting with Sam, Mace, and Ramer. I was concentrating on regaining rights to projects with upside potential, including
This Girl for Hire
. Mace, typically, was looking for quick cash. In the course of the negotiating process, I picked up a couple of properties I thought had real prospects for the future and, in exchange, reversed positions with Mace, allowing him to gain the lion’s share (2/3 of “our” end) of the (we all thought) limited profits, in what we all then believed was the soon-to-be one-shot appearance of a CBS M.O.W.,
Cagney & Lacey
.

It was a small enough piece of change that at one point, growing exasperated with the process of having to have this meeting at all, Mace simply got up and stormed out of the room, saying, in reference to
Cagney & Lacey
, “Fuck it! Take the whole, damn thing. I don’t give a shit.”

There was only an instant of stunned silence, and then Bruce Ramer was running down the hall after his client, shouting back at us over his shoulder that what Mace had just “offered” was not on the table.

Ramer and his client were soon back in the room, and negotiations resumed. To this day, whenever I see Bruce Ramer, I think of the multi-millions that his hallway sprint cost me.

There were other niceties in our deal: despite the level of ownership now being skewed in Mace’s favor,
Cagney & Lacey
would be my project to supervise, and, in remembrance of my experience with Mace’s sabotage of
American Dream
, I had him contractually excluded from any and all creative discussions with either Filmways or CBS regarding this M.O.W.

Finally, I was to be released from all exclusivity to BNB (at this point called Mace Neufeld Productions ) and set free to pursue the lucrative offer I had received from Paramount Studios. I was walking away with a lot more than my underwear.

What I didn’t know was that Mace had been in negotiations with long-time acquaintance Marvin Davis about getting the Denver oil magnate involved in the entertainment business. Davis, I would later read in
Variety
, would commit something like five million dollars to Mace before deciding to move on and take 20th Century Fox private. I’m guessing Mace saw no reason to share this windfall, so, with all due respect to Sam’s negotiating acumen against the more experienced and powerful Bruce Ramer, Mace was probably as eager to be rid of me as I was of him. It would not surprise me if Mace had convinced Mr. Davis (then a newcomer to Hollywood ) that it was he—and he alone—who had created “all this action” at BNB .

Anyway, I was out and happily so.

Golden Globe winners for John Steinbeck’s East of Eden: Jane Seymour, who won for Best Actress in a miniseries, is flanked by Mace Neufeld and Ken Wales. My Globe is in my right hand and out of camera range. Lesson: hold such stuff close.