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  Darryl and Richard Zanuck attended the New Talent School show, but slipped out before the barbecue on the Western street. With David Brown, the two Zanucks dined instead at The Bistro, perhaps the most fashionable restaurant in Beverly Hills. Richard Zanuck was accompanied by Linda Harrison, and Darryl Zanuck by a willowy French girl named Genevieve. The Bistro is owned jointly by some sixty stockholders, most of whom have a stake in the picture business and who include such impeccable Industry names as Billy Wilder and Frank Sinatra. The maître d’ and one of the stockholders is a tall stern-looking German named Kurt Niklas, who has a highly developed sense of the local pecking order, and the walls of the restaurant are lined with antiqued mirrors so that it is possible from any table to see anyone else in the restaurant without an undue show of inquisitiveness. The favored small table is in the corner, under the stairs; the favored table for parties of six or more, right next to it on the north wall. It was to this table that the Zanuck party was led. There is an almost studied indifference at The Bistro to Industry personalities, but practically every head in the room swiveled as the Zanucks took their places. They ordered dinner oblivious to the stares directed at them, talking all the time of the Studio and its various projects. Linda Harrison listened with rapt attention, nodding her head at every point, while Darryl Zanuck’s companion, who spoke little English, fiddled with a cigar, waiting for someone to light it. When no one did, she lit it herself. As the dinner wore on, the conversation switched to the Zanucks’ various athletic accomplishments. Puffing on a cigar, the candlelight glinting off his sunglasses, Darryl Zanuck reminisced about his polo-playing days.

  “Dad,” Richard Zanuck interrupted, “Dad …”

  “We played a tough game in those days,” Darryl Zannuck said.

  “Dad, Jesus, Dad,” Richard Zanuck said. “I’ll say it was tough. You remember that day, I was just a kid, I came into the bathroom upstairs and you were bent over bleeding into the tub. Jesus, it was like a slaughterhouse.”

  “Bleeding,” Darryl Zanuck said. “I should have been bleeding. I got a mallet in the face.”

  “I bet you finished the game, though, Darryl,” David Brown said.

  The elder Zanuck chewed on his cigar. Other sports were discussed and then Richard Zanuck’s days as a prep school football player at the Harvard Military Academy in Los Angeles.

  “I remember one game,” Richard Zanuck said. “It was against Compton. I wasn’t captain. We took a bus down there and they were the biggest bunch of guys I ever saw. A lot of big colored guys.” He poured some red wine. “I don’t think we had anyone as big as their smallest guy.”

  “I remember that game,” Darryl Zanuck said from across the table. His companion assumed an interested look. “I went down to watch it. I was sitting next to this guy and he said, ‘The only guys with any guts on that team are my son and that Zanuck kid.’ ”

  David Brown raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that,” he said.

  The following night, the convention came to an end with the cocktail and dinner party at director George Cukor’s home in the Hollywood Hills. Cukor greeted the delegates and then quietly disappeared. White balloons floated in the swimming pool and an orchestra played the score of Dr. Dolittle. Arthur Jacobs stood at the edge of the pool with Natalie Trundy, an intermittent actress who was also Jacobs’ intermittent fiancée, discussing the picture’s upcoming sneak preview in Minneapolis.

  “I’m not nervous,” Jacobs said.

  “Oh, no, you’re not nervous,” Natalie Trundy said. “Not very nervous.”

  “Fleischer’s nervous,” Jacobs said. “I’m not nervous. It’s only a preview.”

  “All I know,” Natalie Trundy said, “is that when we go to Minneapolis, I’m going to take along a big bottle of Miltown and slip it all into that vodka you drink so much of.”

  Jacobs stepped back and studied the balloons floating in the pool. “Fleischer’s nervous as hell,” he said.

  10

  “Hello, Mother,”

  Paul Monash said

  The week after the convention, Richard Zanuck left for Europe both to take a vacation in the South of France and to meet with executives on Studio pictures shooting in England and on the Continent. He was not scheduled to return to the United States until the first sneak preview of Dr. Dolittle in Minneapolis the second week of September. In his absence, business at the Studio functioned as usual. With Gene Kelly set as director, Hello, Dolly! began to take shape. The Studio had bought the musical two and a half years before for $2,100,000 and had signed Ernest Lehman both to produce and to direct. Based on the cost of other musicals, Zanuck estimated that Hello, Dolly! would cost between $12 million and $15 million, but the preliminary estimate based on Lehman’s first-draft screenplay placed the budget at $25 million.

  Immediately the Studio went to work to pare the budget back within reason. Department by department, item by item, costs were questioned; the number of extras was cut, the number of horses used in street scenes was cut, shooting days were cut, streets and buildings used in the exterior set of New York City were cut. Still the budget was too high. The biggest item was the exterior set of New York. It was originally planned to build the New York set at the Fox ranch in Malibu, but after months of surveys on costs and the arc of the sun (where would the sun be during the prime shooting hours if the set were constructed on a north-south axis? on an east-west axis?), the Malibu site was abandoned. In the first place, there was no way that the set could be constructed without the Santa Monica Mountains forming a backdrop for the New York skyline. Secondly, the cost of trucking building materials out to Malibu, on top of the already staggering construction estimates, would have made the set budget prohibitive. And lastly, there were the unions. Under union rules, crew members must report to the Studio proper before proceeding, by Studio vehicles, to the scene of location shooting. Though the ranch was owned by the Studio, it was an hour’s drive from the Westwood lot and by definition, under the various union contracts, a “location.” Thus, if the New York sets were built at the ranch, two hours a day would be lost driving to and from Malibu; this meant that it would take four days of Malibu shooting to accomplish what could be done in three elsewhere.

  The question was where. The first panicky suggestions were to shoot Hello, Dolly! in Europe, either in Spain or in Rome. Indeed a budget was drawn up on the basis of Roman shooting that showed a minimum saving of several million dollars. But the idea of European locations was emphatically vetoed by Zanuck. “Jesus, you can get away with shooting Cleopatra in Rome,” he told me one day, “but Hello, Dolly! is a piece of hard-core Americana. You shoot that in Rome and the unions back here will raise such a stink you’ll have a hard time getting over it. It would have tarnished the image of the whole picture.” Other suggestions were met with equal resistance. Lehman visited a number of back lots at other studios, and at one time was even considering the burned-out Atlanta railroad station from Gone with the Wind that still stood on the Desilu lot. But Fox was reluctant to spend so much money and then leave a set standing at another studio. Almost in desperation, the Studio decided to make do with the streets and parking lots of its main lot in Westwood.

  The problem was finding enough room. The set designed by Hello, Dolly!’s production designer, John DeCuir, was physically huge. It involved a complex of sixty buildings reproduced to resemble Manhattan’s Mulberry Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue. The total area required was fifteen acres. Through part of the set ran a 600-foot re-creation of the Sixth Avenue el, complete with a working steam engine and three cars. In some places, the buildings were to rise to a height of 130 feet, or eleven stories. They were to be supported by 120 pine telephone poles and nearly nine miles of steel tubing. Because of the stresses of the wind against the fragile mini-skyscrapers, it was necessary to embed all the supporting materials eight feet deep in concrete. Streets had to be paved with simulated granite blocks resembling those used in the period. It was an enormous undertaking and every availab
le foot of Studio space was used. The guest parking lot in front of the administration building was closed. The facing of the sound stages and even that of the administration building were transformed into lower Manhattan. Service roads were torn up and repaved to simulate the Gay 90’s. The one set, which would be struck at the completion of Hello, Dolly!, cost $1.6 million.

  While Hello, Dolly! was being readied for production, Dr. Dolittle was in the final stages of scoring and mixing prior to the Minneapolis sneak preview. The picture, as befitted its $18 million budget, was scheduled to be the Studio’s major contender in the Academy Award race, and both Arthur Jacobs and the publicity department were deep in plans and campaigns to promote the film. A few days after the convention, Jacobs prepared an agenda of items he was to discuss in New York with Jonas Rosenfield, the vice president in charge of advertising and promotion, and other Manhattan-based Studio executives. One section of the agenda was titled

  SPECIAL EXPLOITATION

  (To Be Discussed at New York Meetings)

  1. APJ and Jack Hirschberg [an Apjac press agent] are currently investigating the cost of a personalized simulated leather album to be called “The Dr. Dolittle Musical Omnibus” and to contain the 20th Century Fox sound track album, the Reprise Sammy Davis album, the Atlantic Bobby Darin album, the EMI instrumental album, and several of the more important singles, such as Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, Pet Clark.

  This would be a deluxe gift for key personnel both here and abroad and would have their names embossed on the album. We are currently getting costs from Jonas Rosenfield.

  2. JUNGLELAND: A permanent display at Jungleland of the DOLITTLE compound is being finalized by Jack Hirschberg. All Jungleland trucks will have DOCTOR DOLITTLE painted on them.

  3. “FABULOUS PLACES”: It has been suggested that the song “FABULOUS PLACES” can be made very valuable in conjunction with airlines and travel agencies. Last week at the Convention, it was agreed that the various foreign representatives will contact their domestic airlines to ascertain how far this could go in regard to:

  a. playing our sound track on the actual planes

  b. playing the tape at airports, etc.

  If the plans are fulfilled for Tony Newley to film “FABULOUS PLACES” at the Los Angeles Airport, this piece of film might well be used for travel agencies as well as airlines. APJ will personally discuss this with TWA next week, as well as the idea of having a special DOLITTLE plane from TWA to cover the premieres in conjunction with JAL.

  The foreign representatives were also going to see if the various airlines will use the DOLITTLE brochures in the seat pockets on each flight. It is now available in English, French and Spanish.

  4. Vincent LaBella of the Fox Rome office is having samples of Pushmi-Pullyu cuff links and tie clasps made. Mass distribution of this should be explored.

  5. DISCUSS: Local Boards of Education to declare DOCTOR DOLITTLE DAY and release children from school.

  6. DISCUSS: Award from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

  7. DISCUSS: Award from the American Humane Association.

  8. Explore DOLITTLE figure in Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks in both London and Los Angeles.

  9. Explore special citation from Congressional Record.

  10. Discuss Vatican screening.

  As the end of the summer approached, the Studio’s television arm was working at top speed getting ready for the fall season. Fox had more shows and more programming hours than any other studio. One of its new shows was an hour-long Western called Custer. The title part in the series had been assigned to an unknown young actor named Wayne Maunder. Maunder’s contract was an exclusive seven-year pact and called for an initial salary of $250 a week, with a $500 bonus for every segment of the series in which he appeared. The initial word-of-mouth on the series was that it was a hit (the new season was supposed to start another Western cycle on TV) and Maunder’s agents, the Ashley-Famous Artists Agency, were beginning to get restive at the terms of his contract. So that the series could get into production, Maunder had signed what is known as a “short-form contract,” which is in essence a letter of agreement that functions legally until a standard contract, with all its clauses and provisos, can be prepared. Late one afternoon in the latter part of August, two AFA agents, Ed Rothman and Robert Wald, walked into Owen McLean’s office. Their mission was to pry better terms for Maunder out of the Studio before letting him sign the long-form contract. With McLean were Jack Baur and two Studio attorneys, both with copies of Maunder’s short-form contract on their laps.

  A short young man with a strained and husky voice, Rothman sat down on the couch, pulled out a pen and balanced a yellow legal pad on his knee. McLean leaned back in his desk chair, a set negotiating smile on his face. He and Rothman exchanged pleasantries about the difficulty of finding parking spaces on the Studio lot since the beginning of construction on the Hello, Dolly! set. “Well,” McLean said finally.

  Rothman, who was also an attorney, sighed. “Well, going in we didn’t have a lot of bargaining power,” he said.

  “What makes you think you have now?” McLean said.

  “You know what the standard Fox contract is called in the trade?” Rothman said, fencing. “A slave contract.”

  McLean examined his fingernails, smiling benignly. “I don’t recall you calling it that before the boy was signed,” he said. “And you seem to have forgotten that we exercised our option before the series was even sold, So I don’t think it’s exactly a slave contract.”

  “But he’s the star of a series now,” Rothman persisted. “There are all kinds of ancillary rights when you’re the star of a series, and you’re not giving them to him.”

  “Ed, explain ancillary rights,” Baur said.

  “Come on, Jack, you know what I mean,” Rothman said. “The series is a hit, he’ll get invited on all the variety shows. I mean, do you have the right to put him on the Dean Martin show, say, for $250, charge Martin $7,500 and pocket the difference?”

  “We sure do,” McLean said.

  “Well, we think there ought to be a bonus clause for things like radio and television guest appearances,” Rothman said.

  McLean placed his elbows on his desk and sucked his lips tight against his teeth. “Ed,” he said patiently, “let’s not try to renegotiate this contract now. Look, the boy was happy when we brought him out here and happy as hell when we picked up his option. And don’t forget, we paid his dental bill—which we didn’t have to do.”

  “I was told you didn’t,” Rothman said. “I was told you loaned him the money for the dental work and took it out of his salary.”

  “You were told wrong,” McLean said equably. He was obviously enjoying the session. “We paid $2,000 for the dental work. Out of our pocket. His mouth was in such lousy shape he probably couldn’t even get out of bed by now. Every tooth in his head was infected, his gums, everything.” He shook his head distastefully. “And this happened even before he came to Fox.”

  Rothman raised his hand. “All right, all right, I’m overwhelmed by your charity. It’s not unusual for a studio to try to keep everything and it’s not unusual for a good agent to try and loosen up the contract a little.”

  McLean smiled. “No chance.”

  Rothman perused his notes. “What about loanouts?” he said. “We want him to have a piece of what you get if you loan him out to Metro, say, for a picture.”

  “Negative,” Baur said. “It’s inherent in all our term contracts that we can loan an actor out anywhere we want.”

  “We haven’t asked the boy to guide any tours yet,” McLean said. The proceedings seemed to amuse him vastly.

  “We have an exclusive deal,” Baur said. “If we want to send him down to the beach to ride a surfboard, we can do it.”

  “And he doesn’t get anything, I suppose,” Rothman said.

  “Correct,” Baur said.

  “Look, Ed,” McLean said, “have you ever heard of a Fox contract where a guy part
icipated in loanouts?”

  Rothman shrugged sadly. “I can’t recall,” he said.

  “And you won’t,” McLean said. “And you know and we know you wouldn’t be in here if this series hadn’t sold, right?”

  Rothman nodded his head back and forth. For a moment, no one spoke. Then Rothman seemed to catch his second wind. He said that as Custer was a Western, Maunder would very probably be inundated with rodeo offers on weekends and when the show was not shooting. A rodeo appearance meant merely that Maunder would ride around the arena in costume, but many rodeos offered television stars up to $5,000 a day just for showing up. Rothman contended that a clause should be written into the contract guaranteeing Maunder any rodeo earnings.

  McLean shook his head. “The first time someone offers this boy $5,000 a day for a rodeo, you’re going to come in here bitching like hell trying to renegotiate this contract.” He sucked on his glasses and smiled again. “It hasn’t happened yet, so let’s save something for then—if he gets it.”

  Rothman hunched his shoulders and folded up his notes. “You guys are tough people to deal with,” he said.

  McLean shook his hand. “You’ll be back,” he said. “I can count on it.”

  When Rothman and Wald were gone, McLean put his feet on the edge of his desk. “They were just fishing,” he said. “It’s a rule of nature. You put an unknown in a series, you sell the series, automatically his agents are going to be in here trying to get a new deal, they want this, they want that. If we start giving them all those things, we’ve got no place to go, we’ve got no leverage. Say we gave this boy the bonus, the rodeos. Then if he started getting difficult, he won’t do this, he won’t do that, he won’t make this appearance, he won’t do that picture, we’ve got nothing to lean on him with. Look, we’ll let him do a rodeo or a guest shot if it doesn’t conflict with his schedule, we’ll let him do it and let him keep the money.” He tapped his chest. “But out of the goodness of our heart. We won’t write it in any contract. You do that, you lose your leverage.”