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Authors: Barney Rosenzweig
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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.
Chapter 8
SERENDIPITY IN CHINATOWN
The announcement that Corday had become the vice president of comedy development at ABC was made official, and I gave her a major party at our home to celebrate. My new deal at Paramount was a rich one, quadrupling my previous draw under Mace and assuring me big bucks in success. It also provided me with a suite of offices only slightly less ostentatious than those of Benito Mussolini.
The contract with Paramount was for my exclusive services with one exclusion: “ Cagney & Lacey , a movie-for-television.” The Writers Guild was about to declare one of its periodic strikes against management and my new offices needed painting; it seemed like a good time to suspend and extend my Paramount contract and make a movie for CBS.
We had a Cagney (Loretta Swit). Our search began for a Lacey. Ms. Swit had her choices, a not-so-long list of perhaps twelve names. CBS had its preferences as well, mostly stars of other series on their network (the most noteworthy among them being Michele Lee of Knots Landing ).
We also had a license fee from CBS of $1,850,000 and a budget, based on what Filmways figured it would cost to shoot the entire film in New York, at $2,250,000. The potential deficit of $400,000 was way too much for a simple movie-for-television.
We re-budgeted for filming in Los Angeles with less than a week of establishing shots and second unit work in the Big Apple. The figure came down $200,000, but the bottom line was still too rich for Filmways’ coffers. They asked me to rewrite, setting the show in Los Angeles. I refused.
During this minor impasse, Richard M. Rosenbloom, Filmways vice president and line producer, and I filled a day or so selecting director Ted Post and interviewing actresses for Lacey. One strong candidate emerged: Tyne Daly. She was also on Swit’s list, but conspicuously absent from the network’s.
At this juncture, Tom Brodek reminded me of the not-too-unpleasant experience I had had making American Dream in Chicago with a crew composed almost completely of local talent. His point was that you could do the same thing in Toronto, where there was an existing film community. Furthermore, in Canada, because of the monetary exchange rate in the early 1980s, when you arrived on a Monday with a million dollars, on Tuesday you had a million, two hundred thousand. We were talking about shooting Los Angeles to look like New York,why not Toronto? It might even be easier; like New York, Toronto has bundled-against-the-cold citizens in the background and slate gray skies similar to New York. Better yet, there were no palm trees.
We sent production manager Stan Neufeld (no relation to Mace) off to Canada to scout out the situation and thus began the trend
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.
Chapter 8
SERENDIPITY IN CHINATOWN
The announcement that Corday had become the vice president of comedy development at ABC was made official, and I gave her a major party at our home to celebrate. My new deal at Paramount was a rich one, quadrupling my previous draw under Mace and assuring me big bucks in success. It also provided me with a suite of offices only slightly less ostentatious than those of Benito Mussolini.
The contract with Paramount was for my exclusive services with one exclusion: “ Cagney & Lacey , a movie-for-television.” The Writers Guild was about to declare one of its periodic strikes against management and my new offices needed painting; it seemed like a good time to suspend and extend my Paramount contract and make a movie for CBS.
We had a Cagney (Loretta Swit). Our search began for a Lacey. Ms. Swit had her choices, a not-so-long list of perhaps twelve names. CBS had its preferences as well, mostly stars of other series on their network (the most noteworthy among them being Michele Lee of Knots Landing ).
We also had a license fee from CBS of $1,850,000 and a budget, based on what Filmways figured it would cost to shoot the entire film in New York, at $2,250,000. The potential deficit of $400,000 was way too much for a simple movie-for-television.
We re-budgeted for filming in Los Angeles with less than a week of establishing shots and second unit work in the Big Apple. The figure came down $200,000, but the bottom line was still too rich for Filmways’ coffers. They asked me to rewrite, setting the show in Los Angeles. I refused.
During this minor impasse, Richard M. Rosenbloom, Filmways vice president and line producer, and I filled a day or so selecting director Ted Post and interviewing actresses for Lacey. One strong candidate emerged: Tyne Daly. She was also on Swit’s list, but conspicuously absent from the network’s.
At this juncture, Tom Brodek reminded me of the not-too-unpleasant experience I had had making American Dream in Chicago with a crew composed almost completely of local talent. His point was that you could do the same thing in Toronto, where there was an existing film community. Furthermore, in Canada, because of the monetary exchange rate in the early 1980s, when you arrived on a Monday with a million dollars, on Tuesday you had a million, two hundred thousand. We were talking about shooting Los Angeles to look like New York,why not Toronto? It might even be easier; like New York, Toronto has bundled-against-the-cold citizens in the background and slate gray skies similar to New York. Better yet, there were no palm trees.
We sent production manager Stan Neufeld (no relation to Mace) off to Canada to scout out the situation and thus began the trend
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