Theater: You Can Get Rich, But Making a Living Is Hard
Episode Notes
Transcript
I was very excited to get Julian Schlossberg on the show this week to talk about his new book, Try Not to Hold it Against Me: A Producer’s Life, in large part because he is intimately involved with a part of showbiz that I do not understand at all, at least financially: Broadway and live theater. But Julian’s career stretches beyond the stage: he booked theaters in New York City where he helped Warren Beatty save McCabe and Mrs. Miller from obscurity; he had a radio show that brought him into the orbit of George C. Scott, among others; and he did some time at Paramount, one of his more frustrating experiences in his career. After you listen, make sure to check out his book; Elaine May, the director of Mikey and Nicky and a comedic power, wrote a very nice (and funny!) introduction for it. And, as always, share this episode with a friend!
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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
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Welcome back to the Bulwark Coast of Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch. I’m culture editor. The Bulwark. And I’m very pleased to be joined today by Julian Schlossberg, who has a new book out, try not to hold it against me, a producer’s life, which is it’s a super interesting look at really every facet of the entertainment industry.
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You know, Julian has has had a really fascinating life. And I I wanna talk to him a bit getting started here about his work in live theater, in Broadway, and off Broadway, and kind of what some of the differences there are? Thank you for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.
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Well, thank you. And I yes, it is true. I’ve had a varied or checkered career as they say.
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Well, it’s it is it’s fascinating. Again, get to I’m gonna get to live theater here in a second. And the way I was gonna describe your career and then didn’t really want to because I wasn’t sure how you would take it was all over the place. Because and I mean that I mean that in the nicest way possible because you you are in you’re in TV, you’re in movies, you’re in live theater here. You have a little whine about the music industry that I’ll I’ll talk about in a sec.
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But you you have a you have a wide and varied background here, which I think is is wonderful for listeners of this show. I think there’s a lot they’re gonna learn from from
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YouTube. Yes. It is. You know, I I really thought at the beginning. I don’t have a law degree.
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I don’t have a medical degree. I don’t have a dental degree. I have a college degree. But that’s not really enough for the entertainment business. That’s for sure.
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So I thought the best thing to do is to learn everything I could to study and learn all aspects of the entertainment business. I didn’t do that with the idea that I go into all of the aspects of the entertainment business, but I ended up doing that. Because I thought knowledge is power. And if you really learn a lot about your craft or what you’re trying to do, Perhaps it will pay off and I think in a way it did. But, you know, as we both know, Sunny, you gotta work hard if you’re gonna make it in any business.
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But certainly the entertainment business.
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Yeah. That’s for that’s for sure. So let’s let’s talk about theater. There’s a line in your book that goes like this quote, There’s a famous saying about producing in theater. You can’t make a living, but you can make a killing.
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It’s true. It’s like wildcatting for oil. When you hit one, it’s a gusher, but you don’t hit often. And I I I really find this interesting because again, I don’t know much about the the financial aspects of live theaters, particularly Broadway, and and the money there. I know the very basics that if you have a if you have a big hit musical something like Ryan King, you can make a billion dollars.
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And and otherwise, it’s it’s almost hard to get out without losing your shirt. What could you alright. So from your perspective as a longtime producer on Broadway, on off Broadway, even off off Broadway. I think you’ve done some shows. I what how does that how how does the financing and money making suspect of theater work?
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Well, it’s a question that could probably could go on for hours about it. And as you know, Sunny, you see, when you watch a film or you go to the theater, you see eighteen or twenty two producers. What the hell? You know, you’ve need one good producer. Maybe too.
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You know, if it’s a musical, you need a couple. Because it’s a it’s an arduous job. I mean, you have to look for the prop. Pretty. You have to find the directory.
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You wanna work with the writer and the directory. You have to cast. And then you have to get involved in your self really with the advertising, the marketing, the publicity, and on top of it, the hardest part for me is that what I call the tin cup that is going around raising the money, which is clearly, from my point of view, something I cannot I can’t stand doing it. I I’m able to do it, but I’m never happy doing it. Now back to your question, which I remember when I was much younger.
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And that was about the financing. Well, you you hire a general manager who makes a budget for you. And he budgeted based on the the script that he has been given. Of course, as we both know that script can change, but at least you start out with a blueprint. And that blueprint says, okay, you have to raise x amount of money.
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Then the job is to try to find the way to do that. And at the same time hope that you can get a theater. And if you can get you have to try to also be able to find that director that you need because unless you’re gonna direct it yourself and very few producers direct how Prince was one who could do both. But most of the time, you can’t. You go out and you raise the money, and if you’re doing a musical, you have to sign stars for a year.
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That’s really hard in today’s market. And the reason you have to is that musicals on Broadway cost between and I’m just talking average fourteen to fifteen million dollars. Now think about that. If you’re making, let’s say, three hundred thousand profit a week, which is a lot of money. You’re not you’re just about gonna break even if you can do that.
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Mhmm. So you have to keep those people for a year. And if you can do that, then you have a shot at least of coming out. What also helps in theater is the touring, again, a musical. Musicals tour, scrape plays rarely do.
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It’s very sad because when I started, we could send out a a road company of a straight play. And certainly, Neil Simons always could because his was such huge hits. But by and large, you cannot. So yes, to answer your question, I’m trying to do it, is is the fact that you go out, you raise the money, and I mean, you hope that you’re gonna get an audience and it’s not an easy thing to get an audience in today’s world. Because the the public has has everything coming at them.
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Everything, everything to try to get people to come in. I remember a great song in midnight cowboy called everybody’s talking. I wanna call the world we’re living and everybody’s talking. Everybody’s talking right now. That’s what everyone seems to be doing.
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When I did this book, I I was told by the publisher please make a trailer. I said a trailer. What? They said, oh, yeah. I said, well, send me a couple.
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And they sent me Michelle Obama’s trailer. I thought, wow, if Michelle Obama is making a trailer, that’s the least I can do. Anyhow, I hope it enhances a little bit of Yeah.
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Well, it’s it’s just to just to drill down slightly deeper into the nuts and bolts. You know, you talk you talk in the in the book about selling shares to a play, which is, like, it it’s a it’s it’s kind of a fascinating almost you know, when people talk about getting a movie made, you know, they’re like, okay, we’re gonna get twenty million dollars from Paramount. We’re gonna get, you know, fifteen million dollars from United artists. We’re gonna put all that together. But when when you’re making a play, I mean, you’re actually going to people and saying, hey, will you put twenty five dollars into this.
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We put a hundred thousand dollars into this. I mean, how how does that process work just in terms of getting money and then paying it? Like, how do you pay it out? I’m when when the money comes in.
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You pay it out on the basis of profits. Nobody nobody gets any money from the from the the production, except the the talent, the people, the people who put the, you know, the the director, the writer, the actors, But after that, nobody shares until the investors get their money back so that I I get a very small fee until the money’s gets back. Once the money comes back, if that ever happens, then it’s rare. As I said, it’s like striking for a woman it does, The producer then has fifty percent of the profits, and the investors have the other fifty percent. But you don’t take your money until the investors have their money out.
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So that’s a that’s the good part of being an investor. At least you know that if it ever hits, you’re gonna get you’re gonna get your money first. And that’s that’s an important that’s an important aspect. People who invest in theater do it for very various reasons. One is, of course, the excitement of going to the opening night party, maybe coming to rehearsals going to advertising meetings and seeing how it happens.
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Others, maybe if it’s a musical, maybe to meet a chorus girl or two still in today’s world. But by and large, people invest because they love theater. They know that going in, this is not for them. You know, this is not gonna be they I’ve always said the same thing, Sunny, to anybody who’s come to me to invest. I say, all I wanna know is can you afford to lose the money?
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Because if you can’t, I don’t want the money. And now many producers wouldn’t too. And that that could be Jewish guilt for all I know. But whatever the reason, I can’t I can’t take money if someone’s just gonna say no. I do remember being visited once by an extraordinarily wealthy man who walked into my office, and it’s terrible to say, but Somehow you can meet someone and not like them before they open their mouth.
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He swaggered in and he was so damp sure of himself and he says, look, I wanna know the first thing. How much money can I make? I said, well, I wanna tell you the first
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thing. You can lose everything. That changed his too. He said, then why am I here? I said, I have no idea.
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And he left and that was that. Yeah. No. I don’t What can I make? You can make, as you said earlier, you can hit.
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I mean, if you have the lion king, if you have the book Morman. If you have wicked, you can go on and on and not just in New York, but the world. And then they make a movie out of it, on top of it. No. It’s and when you hit, you really hit.
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But very few people do. And I can’t say I ever did. I never did.
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Yeah. Well, when you mentioned the difference between touring for musicals versus straight plays, is it just a function of it’s hard to assemble the talent that you need to to do a local production of a giant musical like that. So people wanna see wanna see the touring company versus say, you know, I’ve you know, the the the the DC Shakespeare Theatre can put on an othello or a Hamlet just as well as, you know, maybe it’s not Patrick Stewart in the in the lead role of of McBeth or whatever. But, you know, it’s it’s a it’s it’s still it’s still a pretty good show. But for a musical, you really need like a very specific group of people.
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You need big sets. That travel? I mean, is is it mostly that? Yeah.
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Well, yeah. I mean, the big thing about musicals are that’s what the public wants to see when you go out. If they felt that they wanted to see straight plays, that’s what would be going out. But if you look at the season of any regional theater in this country, major one. They’ll all be musicals.
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They they usually almost no straight plays. On the other hand, that’s where money can be made. Many movie many plays lose money domestically and then make it back on the tour. Many years ago, I did I was an associate producer on Damn Yankee’s with a wonderful cast, Victor Gobber, and Phoebe Newworth. But then Jerry Lewis came in, and Jerry Lewis played the devil in damn Yankee’s And when we took Jerry Lewis on the road, it made a lot of money.
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Didn’t pay didn’t take any money in in New York because, you know, in New York, you’re playing against fifty, sixty theaters. You know, on the road, maybe there’s four or five. I ask you in Dallas what for example, it’s probably a handful. That’s all. Yep.
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But, you know, so the competition is unbelievable in New York. But when you get on the road, if you have a title of the public knows, they’re gonna come see it.
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Yes. I will say from personal experience to after taking my family to see the touring version of Frozen, That that sounds that sounds exactly right. Just a packed packed audience waiting waiting to see that. Alright. So
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No. Go ahead. Oh,
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I I was gonna I was I was I I just wanna one more one more question about the theater. What I I I again, what I what I found really interesting reading was putting together some of these one acts plays. I mean, you talk about getting a getting a a series that I think it was David Mammoth noonnoon and late May, which is which is just a like, I I like, an absolute killer. It’s the sort of thing that you you hear or I hear, you know, as a critic and as a a lover of movies. I’m like, that sounds amazing.
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But apparently, it’s still it’s still hard to it’s hard to get folks to show up even for that. Right?
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Well, that was actually one of my biggest hits.
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Okay.
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Okay. Here we go. And then we brought that one up. Yeah. But that was because of, you know, David Mammadah led me and and Woody Allen doing comedies, and we had Linda Levin, we had Debbie Monk, we had a great director, Michael Blake Moore, and we played over over a year.
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In fact, we did so well, Off Broadway. We broke every record in the history of Off Broadway at that time. And when Linda left, Linda had a six month contract, I was able to get Valerie offer to come in and we played another six months. So it was a it was a wonderful experience. And it it I I I had a a real problem, Sunny.
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In as much as I had two plays that opened simultaneously off Broadway, both breaking the house records and then both breaking the history of North Florida. Right? Now why would that be a problem? Because I thought, hey, I’ve spent my life in the movie business I should have been doing theater. I know what I’m doing.
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I’m a New Yorker. I’ll get I’ll do great. That’s the worst thing you can think of. I want one flop, two flops, three flops, right in the row after that and learned that, you know, you just had to begin as luck, buddy. You just had to begin as well.
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It’s tough. It’s tough. I I’m I’m going to ask a question. I know the answer to now, but I did not before I read your book. And it’s gonna it’s gonna sound like a dumb question.
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But I I think people will will be interested to know it if if maybe not. Maybe I’m maybe I’m just dumb. I always thought off Broadway meant location. Off off Broadway meant location. I did not realize that it was an actual it’s it’s more about the number of seats.
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Right? Could you could you explain what that distinction is to folks? What the difference between
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I can try. Yep. League of theater people I hope are not listening because they’ll say what is he talking about. But as far as I know, from approximately fortieth Street to fifty ninth Street is the Broadway area. And that is not determined by seats, but that’s truly by location.
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You know? On the other hand, there are theaters in the forties, for example, that are not on the in Broadway and sixth and eighth Avenue. There’ll be nine for tenth, and that is by seats. So that nine the reason that you’ll see ninety nine seats, one ninety nine, two ninety nine, three ninety nine, etcetera, is that once you go to the next seat, you pay much more money to the unions or to the non unions or to whoever you’re dealing with. So, yes, it’s both things that Off Broadway is determined by the amount of seats, but location also matters a great deal.
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Mhmm. And and so it is it’s a function also of
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union contracts. Then if you were if it’s a Broadway show, you have to pay more if it’s an off Broadway show less question.
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But but as you also said, seats are important too. Because it’s hard to say there were even a union guy, look, I I only have a thousand seats. They’re gonna say, I I don’t feel sorry for you, buddy. You’ve taken you’ve got an eight thousand potential a week of seat speed folk. But if you say I have a hundred and ninety nine, yes, it’s it’s much better.
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That way,
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Okay. Alright. Good. I I just I wanted to kind of explain that for folks because, again, something I didn’t quite understand until reading this. I think I think folks I
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hope would like to know. I’m right.
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Alright. So let’s let’s skip way back to to near the start of your career. Because another thing I found really interesting reading reading this book was when you were discussing booking theatres, booking the movie theaters in in New York City, booking the Walter Reed theatres and trying to trying to get those those set up. And one thing in particular that jumped out at me was The importance of matching theaters and audiences and advertising campaigns and audiences. And this sounds I mean, this is such an obvious thing.
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It’s such, you know, you you don’t wanna you don’t wanna tell folks that they’re gonna be seeing something that they’re not seeing and you want to bring movies to neighborhoods that that that are looking for that sort of thing. Can you can you tell the story for folks about why Elaine May was so mad at you when the when her when her movie was being previewed in DC and why it it kind of died on the on the vine.
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Yeah. It was well, I had never met Elaine and and she was told to call forgive the name dropping, but She was told to call me by Warren Beatty, who had been a friend of mine. And I was told Elaine said, I understand you’re okay for a studio executive. Meaning, I guess, many of the studio executives were not okay or at least that’s how it was put. Well, she said, I told her that there was gonna be a sneak preview of her film, Micky and Nikki.
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And she said, look, don’t put my name in the ad. If you do, they’re gonna think it’s a comedy. Just Peter Peter Fork, John Casa Bertez, Ned Beatty, that’s it, and a new movie. Don’t say, I’m in it. I said fine.
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And I went to the advertising meeting and the president of the company said, oh, we’re gonna put her name in. I said, no. No. No. No.
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She’s very specific. She does not want her name in. No. No. We gotta put her name in.
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I said, no. No. I’ve told her that anyhow, I was overridden as they say and her name went in. So at the end of the sneak preview, because people had expected a comedy, and it’s got some great laughs in it, but it’s a gritty, tough, realistic movie based on a true story, her family was somewhat involved with the mob as she grew up. And it’s based on that story.
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So at the end, people are buoying and walking out, and I am taken into the manager’s office where Elaine is there. And she says, you know what a liar is? And I said, what do you what do you mean? She said, you said, my name wouldn’t be in the ad, and my name was there, and they’re booing listen to that noise out there. That’s still going.
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And the president give him this. He said, I overruled him. I And as as Elaine wrote in her forward to the book because she’s become my closest friend, she wrote in the book He she was overruled by a man in charge of vice president. There’s I may just finish quickly. Yes.
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Yes. We we I was really upset. Because I had a great love for her talent and a great admiration for her as as a human being. And I went to her and I said, look, let’s go out to all the theaters that should be cross plugging the movie and make sure they’re doing it. And she said, okay.
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And as she writes in the book, you made me take buses because he said Paramount wasn’t knowing that I was gonna be doing this and I couldn’t charge to them. Anyhow, we went to the theaters to find out that the trailers weren’t on this screen. I made sure they were on the screen, and I took over the movie. And eventually, Peter Farqueline and I got the movie back from Paramount, and I’ve been distributed ever since, and and I’ve represented Elena and I’ve produced every one of her plays. Since and we became very close friends.
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So it was a terrible beginning. I was one of the most depressed people in the city. Until I was able to make it up to her. Yeah.
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It does have a happy ending. Again, you you have you have done work with her ever since and thank thank goodness. For that, I I wouldn’t leave back just just a hair to talk about the Warren Beatty story because this is another one that’s very interest thing to me. You know, everybody kind of knows the story about of Bonnie and Clyde. Right?
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Bonnie and Clyde comes out, it dies initially. Pauline Kale Champions said it it shows up back in theaters. It’s it’s a huge hit, huge zeitgeist changing film for really all of Hollywood. I did not realize that there was a similar story with McCabe and Miss Miller.
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Yes, it was. I I had, at that time, representing the Walter Reed Theatre’s in New York, The coronet theater was the prime theater in the New York City as was cinema one. They were the two best theaters on the east side and every distributor wanted them. And the reason they wanted them was that in those days, Sunny, people opened one theater in New York City that set not the city, not not the country, the world, how that theme film did in New York really often determined the rest of the history. And many times, those pictures would play, believe it or not, downtown Manhattan for a year.
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Before we’d even go into the neighborhoods. So this idea of fifteen hundred, two thousand prints, it didn’t happen. Warren opens McCabe and missus Miller with he starred and produced it with Bobble in directing and Julie Christie CoStarring. And he opens in the low state on Broadway and the low senate on the eighty sixth Street and it’s it’s it’s a disaster. People don’t come and it’s pulled in two weeks.
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It’s gone. And I get a call from a man I never knew except from a far Warren Beatty at that point. And he says, have you ever seen McCabe and missus Miller? I said, no. He said, I really would like you to screen it and I want your opinion.
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Now, as naive as I was, I knew he didn’t just want my opinion, but I had no idea what he did want. And anyhow, we I screened the movie. I thought it was a terrific film. And then he surprised me with, I want you to open it at the car and that. It was madness.
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I mean, the film just died. He’s asking for the best theater in the in the city, if not the second best. I said, I I I don’t know. He’s and he just never stopped. He he could jolt.
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He pushed. He said, look, We’re both young. That’s how long ago it was. We’re both young and we’re coming up in the business. You saw what I did on Bonnie and Clyde I’ll get you advertising.
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I’ll go on the air. I’ll do it. Just do it. Open it. And, damn it, he convinced me.
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He he pushed me because as I said, he did everything, and we opened it, and it was a big success in New York City. I don’t know how it did around the country. It certainly wasn’t in Bonnie and Clyde territory, but it was successful. And it’s considered of one of Altman’s best films, which I think it is.
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Yeah. I mean, I I like, it’s in the criterion now. It is a it is a much beloved I I think certainly in Altman’s canon and also Beatrice. The the
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the
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the business of opening movies in New York is very fascinating to me because again, as you say, you know, something opens on one one screen plays there for a long time. It is so different than now, but there there was also real competition between the theaters themselves for the movies. Right? I mean, what was it? What was it what was it like to like, what did you have to go to to studios and say, hey, we’ll give you this for this amount of time.
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I mean, how did how did those negotiations work?
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Well, it’s a very good question, but it’s a tough answer, not because I’m gonna hold back because as you can see, I’ll babble away. But But I what I would have to say was that it would so depend on the movie you’d be talking about. You see, for example, let’s take a movie like the great white hope. The great white hope James Earl Jones, an incredible movie. And and but where do you play it in New York?
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Well, You can play it on Broadway because it’s a rough crowd and they’ll go for a boxing film, etcetera. You can play it on the east side because it’s a well made intelligent beautifully and movie. So you play what they call day and day. That’s what you do. My biggest competition was cinema five, Don Rougoff’s Theatres, but he had no Broadway theater.
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So right off the bat, I had four. I had the Aston, the Victoria, the Demile, and then the Zoom felt. So I had the ability to take a movie like GreatWhite, Hope way he couldn’t. He couldn’t play it both places. So that helped me.
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That was a big edge for me. You try to place. You try to go after the movies you liked. Often you could scream them, but sometimes you couldn’t. And then you’d read a script and take your chances.
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And I I had I’ve had some great successes, but I had some unbelievable failures. And while no one wants to talk about failures, I don’t mind. I mean, after all, it was factoring the civil war, number one. And and secondly, I had successes, so why not? But I put in Harold and Moored.
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Okay. Harold and Lloyd, which has become one of the great classic movies. At the Barnett Theatre, at Christmas, which means that, Sunny, if you and I did an interview at the CarNet Theater, we could do business. That’s how I’m telling you anything could go in at Two weeks, Harold and Ward died, died, and it died around the country until a guy in Saint Louis played it thirty weeks, forty weeks, and then somebody I think in Boston. And all of a sudden, this film that had been a total disaster.
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Became this giant success. So at least I could say, hey, I saw it. Why didn’t you? You know? Another film was Wes Papa.
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West Papa was a wild movie, crazy film George Segal and Trish Vanderware and Ruth Gordon and directed by Oh, come on, Julian. You can do it, directed by well, I’m sorry, the director. Carl Riner. Carl Riner. Okay.
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There we go. And the same thing, it it it went in the coronet, played a couple of weeks, was taken out, but became a cult film. So they answer your question I think I’m trying to. It it it would often depend on the movie how much you liked it or the script. And also the availability of your theaters.
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You know, I was playing midnight cowboy for a year. That’s a car in that’s all I I couldn’t give the car in that way if I wanted to. Without pulling a movie, which I didn’t wanna do. So it it would be who, what theaters, and and also, producers and directors had favorite theaters. They would say, oh, I don’t want this.
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I want the Sutton Theatre or I want the Fine Arts Theatre. And then you’d have to if if if you had that theory, you’d try to find a way for them to get it. There were so many different permutations and variations that would be impossible to say how it was done, except that you hoped that you had enough contacts that they wanted your theaters. And the other thing I tried to do was to say Because you see, Walter Reed had a chain. It wasn’t just New York.
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And we we were in we were in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco. We were in Los Angeles, Dayton, Chicago, So we were all over the country, Atlanta, Washington, D. C. Had the town and the Capitol Hill. Two theaters you know about.
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And so often, I would try to say, well, look, I need a picture at the Capitol Hill. If you want this, you gotta help me. Why am I sure we can do that. I said, well, I’m not sure. I can do it.
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And somehow, either it happened or it didn’t. So it was it was a lot of the jiving and handling and going around and and trying to make deals, but I really did love it. I think it was one of my happiest times. I was only twenty seven years old when I had this job. So I was called by Variety, the youngest film buyer in the history of a theater chain.
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So it was an exciting time. And the great thing is people used to say to me, you you never went to your head. How come I said because it was the theaters. They didn’t want me. They didn’t care who the hell was booked.
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They wanted the theater. I never confused it. Never got confused by it. Yeah.
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It’s a again, it’s it’s a really interesting look at the business. If you if you’re fascinated by again, any aspect of the film industry or the entertainment industry, TV radio, we haven’t even talked about your radio show yet, you know, I have I I do a one hour show once a week on the business of Hollywood. You were doing four hours —
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Four hours. — almost. Yeah.
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I mean, I that’s, you know and it’s nationally syndicated. It’s great stuff.
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Excuse me. I had the advantage that you didn’t have. It was a call in show as well.
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Yeah. That’s true. That’s true.
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That that that gave me a time to rest and breathe. While they went on and on.
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Yeah. That’s always that’s always nice. Again, the name of the book is try not to hold it against me a producer’s life. Make sure make sure you pick it up. The there are so many things I I wanna ask you.
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I here’s just a very basic one. I mean, you were you you you write about your friendship with George c Scott, who is one of the, you know, I mean, one of the great actors of all time, one of my favorite actors. I love Patton and I love doctor Strange Club and everything else. And there’s there’s an interesting moment in your book where you you ask him what his his favorite role was, and I was surprised by the answer because I had always heard that this particular picture that you’ll you’ll tell us here in a sec, was was one of his least favorite acting experiences. Yeah.
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It was
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very surprising to me. I I was sure I knew the answer, Sunny. The answer was gonna be Pat. Of course. I mean, he he won the even though he said, I don’t nominate me, I’m not gonna do it.
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Don’t let me win. I’m not gonna take it. And he didn’t take it. So but he loved working with Shaffner, and they even did I was in the stream after that, you know. He loved working with Shaffner.
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And so I was sure he’d say patent And when he said doctor Strangelove, I was really surprised. But I think as I thought about it, he really didn’t have any comment ability in movies. He did on stage, but he hadn’t had of any success and he loved comedy. He really enjoyed doing comedy. And so I think that was part of it.
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I I I remember him telling me that he said to Kubrick You know, I’m going a little bit over the top here. I don’t really wanna do that. And Kubrick said, well, do one take that way. You know, the
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usual how he had to get sucked in. They do six more takes, but the director knew what he wanted. He wanted that one take. With over the top. So George,
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at that point, I don’t think was that thrilled about that particular moment, but as he I guess, as the the picture became so big, and I think comedy, because
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he was brilliant and plots as sweet. I mean, he was just great on stage in in Plaza Suite. And I think he loved comedy. He also directed comedies. I remember
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him directing a Noel Coward piece Broadway. So I think that’s probably why everyone knew he was a great dramatic actor, but I don’t think they knew how good he was
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in comedy.
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Yeah. Yeah. A, really, is again, it’s it’s wonderful. You know, it’s it’s it’s always interesting to hear people talk about when they were wrong. And I don’t I don’t wanna I don’t wanna pick on on but I this was a this was a a a really interesting little kind of regulatory moment.
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Where you’re talking about Saturday night fever. And, you know, you you you went to listen to the soundtrack, and you were like, I don’t
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think I love I love the soundtrack. But right. But I thought but that’s the music I grew up with. That’s early rock and roll to me. The BJ’s.
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That’s not that’s not today’s music. That’s not the the guy to whatever those groups are that that grateful dead or something like that. That’s the music of today in the seventies. But I was thrilled. I mean, because it’s the head of the studio said, what do you think?
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I said, I love the music. Said, oh, great. I said, no. Wait a second. I don’t think it’s today’s music, but, of course, I was happy.
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That it was the number one best selling album by the Beatrice. And my and I was in charge of that movie ostensibly for Paramount. I was the man in charge. I had about much to do with that success as you did. But I did do one thing.
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I went to John Bottom after a couple of scenes and I said, John, we’ve got to get this film on television. You’ve got to give me some coverage with this language. This language is really the streets. We gotta have some coverage, which meant that instead of saying really x rated words, you’d just said regular words like stinking. If you can get away with that.
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Of course, there was no at that time, no pay TV, no basic cable ever still free TV. And they were they were and still are under very strict FCC rules about language. You’d think by now they’d let it go because everyone’s watching whatever they want on free I mean, on on on streaming or free TV or I mean, not free TV or basic cable. So every once in a while, eighty one years shows up in my brain.
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Well, it it it’s interesting. You the your your whole the whole section on on Paramount and and kind of your your work with the studio is is interesting because it is it’s the most it’s clearly the section of the book where you feel the most frustrated by what’s happening. It, you know, it would talk a little bit about the your your annoyance at the inability to get things done, which again was was very different there than in theater or, you know, your radio show or or or elsewhere.
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Well, you see, I as I had mentioned earlier, I was coming from Walter Reed where I had a fair amount of power and I was the person who made the final decisions. When I went to I I even though I was a vice president and even though I was told, you’re the third highest paid person in the studio. I couldn’t say yes. I was I had all I could say was no. And I’ll get back to you.
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Those were my two things. So I was terribly frustrated because I wanted the ability to green light as I said, just one movie. Don’t I don’t have to have more than that. Just give me one movie that’s mine. That I can do and and I was refused.
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So that was extremely frustrating. And I went in to a man I respected Greatly Barry Dillard. And I said, Barry, I wanna resign. And he said, what are you talking about? I said, well, I’m I’m diametrically opposed to everything you’re doing here.
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And he said
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diametrically,
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I understand maybe a pose, and we both laugh. And but he wouldn’t let me out of I had a two year contract, and he wouldn’t let me out of my contract. So I had to stay for the extra year and did my best to, you know, try to come up with other ideas so that when I left because I knew I was not gonna renew. Well, Barry, once again, being, I think, a pretty smart character and for whatever the reason didn’t want me to go, he said, let me Let me make you an offer. What do you wanna do?
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I said, I wanna produce movies. He said, well, you’ll produce them here. I said, great. I that’s great. That’s what I want.
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So contract came in, and I would say, if I’m kind, it was onerous. If I’m not kind, it was impossible to sign. And so I negotiated with the head of business affairs. And I I was I wrote about this in the book, Sunny, because I kind of found it funny myself that I said it. The head said, look, you you you gotta understand everybody at Paramount knows you march to a different drummer.
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And I said, but I’m not in your parade. Dick Dick, I’m not in your parade, and I never signed the contract. And I And and I was very afraid to go out on my own. I had I was a a man in my thirties. I had always had a paycheck.
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I had the advantage at that point of not having a wife or children, so I could at least not worry about a mortgage or college. But I still was afraid to go out of my own. And two great writers, Elaine May and Herb Gardena, Herb wrote a thousand clowns, and I’m not rapporte, took me to dinner, and they said if you open up the store, we’ll help you fill the shelves. I never forgot that. And and they did, and they did.
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So I opened up Castle Hill, which was my company, is what Schlosberg means in German, actually schloss. If you go to Germany, there’s a lot of schlosses around schloss is that. And Berg is generally a mountain. B e r g. But I felt, you know, Paramount has the mountain.
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They’re not too thrilled with me. Maybe I’ll make it a help. And that’s how Kosta Hill came to pass. So
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One last one last thing I wanted to to bring up here. Towards the end of the book, you you talk about a project that you have been working on for a long time that hasn’t hasn’t hasn’t been published yet, hasn’t, hasn’t quite been fulfilled. It’s this interview project. Why don’t you tell folks what you’re working on? Maybe we can, you know, get some interest, I wanna Yeah.
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Get get someone out there to be, like, this is the thing we need on, you know, seeing that in our
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We would Thank you so much. That’s what would be lovely. The show is called witnesses to the twentieth century, and I was able and it still shocks me to get a hundred and forty of the most extraordinary people who lived a long life during the twentieth century. Even though I met Miley Cyrus, she was not interviewed. It had to do.
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You had to be around a long time. And I I was able to get president George h w Bush who, by the way, was the most gracious man you’d ever want to meet. And Sandra Day O’Connor and Clint Eastwood and Bishop Tutu. I mean, it’s an incredible group of people talking about the major events of the twentieth century. What they were and how they affected them and how in many cases they caused or were involved with the major events.
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So it’s a wonderful idea. I I do say myself, myself. And fortunately, my dear friend Elaine May is writing it and we’re gonna we start with nine it’s a fourteen hour series. We started nineteen hundred and go to nineteen ninety nine. I have seven secretaries of state.
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I have all of them in pretty much that were alive at the time right up to Alexander Hague and George Schulson, kissinger and Madeleine Allbright. It’s it’s really quite interesting how they saw the twentieth century through their eyes and and where they came from. What’s interesting to me, Sunny, when I do an interview, is often where the person came from. I know why they’re successful or I know they are successful because they’re on my show. But where did they come from?
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What was their background? And what did they plan? Did they plan this? And here was one of the most interesting things for me. Nobody that I met that was really successful.
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Not one person admitted to saying I planned it. I did not want. Now whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. But but I think it was. I do I really do.
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And when you get certain people saying things to you that you just can’t believe, Gorey Dow said, remember, he said There wasn’t one commander of World War two that was in favor of dropping the atomic bomb.
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What?
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What? I couldn’t believe it. He said, look it up. He said, Eisenhower. In the in the Europe.
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Nimitz, in the Pacific, were against it. I mean, shocking to me, shocking to me. So there was a lot of things that came out I mean, president Bush, George h w Bush senior, said that, you know, sometimes caught between the years, between Reagan, and Clinton, I I sometimes find it hard to believe I was president. I thought, wow, what an interesting thing to say. He duplicated the I went to his office in Houston.
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He duplicated the Oval Office. I was looking for what machine I mean, I couldn’t believe that I was walking into the Oval Office even though it was not the Oval Office. But he was so terrific. At the end of the interview, I said, president Bush, would you consider imitating Dana Carvey imitating you? He said, don’t ask me.
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I wouldn’t do it. And he actually imitated it. A wonderful, wonderful man. And I was very grateful for the time he he gave me. But so many of the people were so forthcoming.
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And I think it was because I had no time limit. Some people stayed two, three hours. Other people called and said, listen, I didn’t cover some things. Can I come back and talk to you? My god.
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I said, sure. Come on. It was I would say in many ways, the highlight of whatever I have as a career. I would say that was that was it. The talking to these incredible people and I always did it with no notes.
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They were so shocked. But, you know, I didn’t find no notes for a lot of reasons. As you know, as an interviewer. If you keep looking down, the person knows you’re reading. But if you’re looking in their eyes as you and I are doing now, you know, the brain is a muscle.
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It it responds to that stimuli. And so it’s a conversation. It’s not an interview. And that’s what I think I hope I did. I I think I did.
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In in watching it. So — Yeah. — have I babbled on enough?
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No. That’s great. That’s great. I I mean, do you do you guys do you and miss May have a location, a somewhere that that is, you know, has has progressed interest. I mean, where where can we where where are you hoping we can see this?
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I have to say that it’s we have finished editing six of the fourteen. So we’re over forty percent completed. And it’s been a lot of resistance from many of the places I’d like to sell. Because of committing fourteen hours. And I understand that’s a big commitment to make.
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So I think I’m gonna go back in twenty twenty three and that you’ll hear it first, Sunny. You’ll be the first person to know. I’m offering seven and seven. Tastes
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for two seasons. If
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you don’t want it, you can drop it. So maybe that’ll — Yeah. — convince them. I don’t know. It’s it’s very hard.
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That the country doesn’t seem to be interested in history. Our country doesn’t seem to care. And I lecture all over the country. At colleges. And what I’ve found is, and this, of course, is a generalization.
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But most young people don’t care about much before they were born. It doesn’t interest them. And I grew up. That really did interest me. I was interested in what happened.
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Even in film, I wanted to know more about Rudolph Valentino or DW Griffith. You know, I wanted I wanted to know more, but our country has a problem with history, period. Or else we couldn’t make the same mistakes as we keep making over and over and over. So I’m hoping that while I wanna entertain on this show, I’m gonna educate, I hope, and people maybe from the show will learn something that they don’t seem to know, which is the history of our country.
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No. I always like to close these interviews by asking if there’s anything I should have asked. If you think there’s folks should know about your career, your book, anything. Business Hollywood or Broadway or whatever in general, what what should I have asked that I I failed to? You
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didn’t ask me to come back. Kathleen Look at
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you back. You’ll get me. I yeah. I could I I could easily do another forty five minutes here. I mean, I again, the book the name of the book is try not to hold it against me or producers’ life.
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By Julian Schlosberg. You gotta you gotta pick it up. You can forward by Elaine May. You gotta you you can pick it up at Amazon and everywhere else books are sold. It is it is well worth your time if you want a, again, a a very interesting look over a very broad and diverse cross section of the entertainment industry.
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It’s it’s really it’s really kind of a a journey through the the the second half of the twentieth century of entertainment. So it’s very very much worth your time if you if you are looking for something to read.
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Well, I thank you for that and I wish we had talked about a fellow in Orson Wells, but maybe one other time.
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We can do that. We’ll do that on on another show. We
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can we’ll
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get you back
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on and talk about that. Thank you. My name Oh, thank you for being on the show, mister Schlosberg. Really appreciate it. My name is Sunny Bunch.
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I’m call director at the Bulwark, and I’ll be back next week with another episode. We’ll see you guys on.
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You love La la Kent on Vanderpop rules. Now get to know her on give them La la. With
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her assistant, Jess.
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LA It can become suffocating. Did something happen where you felt like I have to get out of here or do you just think it just happens sometimes? I think it just happens, but also just everything going on in my personal life. Like, I wanna get on this mic and be like, this is what I’ve been dealing it for fourteen months. Give them la la wherever you listen.
