Originally appeared in Conde Nast Portfolio January, 2008
BY: Amy Wallace
He’s Mark Zuckerberg’s coach, Bill Gates’ editor, Bono’s business partner, and an owner of Forbes. But Roger McNamee—the guitar-strumming soul of one of the quirkiest private equity shops in Silicon Valley—still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.
Originally appeared in Portfolio, October 2007
BY: Amy Wallace
In May 2002, Richard Parsons, then co-chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner, received a scathing letter from the widow of Jerome Siegel, the man who invented Superman. “Dear Dick,” wrote Joanne Siegel. “Have you been aware that your representatives have gone too far?”
In the mid-1930s, when she was in her late teens, Siegel had been the sketch model for Lois Lane. Now she was accusing Parsons’ company of trying to fleece her and her daughter of their share of Superman revenues. She called AOL Time Warner “greedy” and alleged a “heartless attempt” to rewrite history. “Just like the Gestapo, your company wants to strip us naked of our legal rights…. Is that the reputation you want?”
In the five years since Parsons received that three-page screed, Siegel’s outrage has found a more formal outlet: two lawsuits, both championed by a controversial Malibu litigator named Marc Toberoff. The 52-year-old attorney has made a career of taking on big entertainment companies on behalf of creators and their heirs. He has been especially successful against what is now Time Warner.
Originally appeared in The New Yorker February 2, 2004
BY: Amy Wallace
In 1998, a script entitled “Phone Booth” started making the rounds in Hollywood. It had a simple premise: a smarmy New York City publicist picks up a ringing pay phone and learns that a sniper will kill him if he hangs up. The story, which takes place entirely in and around a booth on Fifty-third Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, was seductively “high-concept,” meaning that you could explain it in a sentence or less. Such scripts are relatively easy to sell to moviegoers, which is why Tom Cruise’s production company flirted with buying it, and why Twentieth Century Fox paid seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to take it off the table. Steven Spielberg briefly considered directing it, as did Mel Gibson, who also planned to star. Michael Bay, the king of blow-it-up cinema, was in line for the director’s job, and then the Hughes brothers were. Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and Robin Williams were interested in starring, but the studio wanted to go younger, so Will Smith came aboard. After he dropped out, Jim Carrey stepped in, with Joel Schumacher as director. Then Carrey took a pass. Click to continue »
Originally appeared in the New York Times December 21, 2003
BY: Amy Wallace
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It was dinnertime when the 80 or so invited guests began arriving. Handing off their Benzes and Boxsters to uniformed valets, many of Hollywood’s most important agents, producers and studio and network executives followed a brick path to Sandy Grushow’s front door. Mr. Grushow is the president of 20th Century Fox Television, and his clout was reflected in the 8,000-square-foot Tudor house he shares with his wife, Barbara, and their two children. A pianist played standards on a baby grand in the foyer. An army of waiters in taupe Nehru jackets offered hors d’oeuvres on glistening platters.
“Mini-Reuben sandwich? Knish?” a waiter asked the guest of honor, Rabbi Steven Z. Leder. Rabbi Leder opted for a corned beef and Swiss about the size of a postage stamp, then climbed a few steps up the Grushows’ elegant staircase and quieted the crowd. Click to continue »
Originally appeared in Los Angeles Magazine March 1, 2003
BY: Amy Wallace
Robert Newman knows every movie theater in Los Angeles — where it is, what kind of seating it has, how many trailers it shows. Six of those theaters are on his speed dial. The numbers link him not to a recording but to a person who can tell him how big the screens are, which shows are most crowded. He loves crowds. He has never understood private screening rooms. He won’t watch a movie with just ten people if he can help it. He tries to see everything, preferably on opening weekend. If he hates a movie and walks out, at least he got a feeling for the audience, what the vibe was. “You walk in,” he says. “You have a point of view. The trailers go on. Okay. Done. Count me in.” Click to continue »
Los Angeles Magazine
December 1, 2001
BY: Amy Wallace
Bitter sweet dreamers: in their comedies Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and now The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson and his friends Owen and Luke Wilson skirt irony in favor of sincerity. They are the perfect funnymen for an unfunny world.
Originally appeared in Los Angeles Magazine September 1, 2001
BY: Amy Wallace
Peter Bart is on the phone, and he’s threatening to sue.
“I really take umbrage at the gotcha nature of your interrogation,” he says. His voice is taut. I can’t see his knees, but I’m sure at least one is twitching.
Bart, the editor-in-chief of Variety, the entertainment industry’s dominant newspaper, is accustomed to being in charge. Studio heads woo him; strivers kiss his ass. Everyone wants his insight and his wisdom — or prominent placement in Variety’s big, glossy pages. In his weekly column, “The Back Lot,” he alternately strokes and scolds moguls and movie stars, addressing them by their first names. When Bart telephones the powerful, he is put right through. Now he’s calling me.
“I think to plunk documents out of context,” he says, “on people whose lives are as busy as yours or mine is a little unfair. This is not consistent with the access and cooperation I have afforded you.”
Over several months I have encountered a dizzying variety of Peters. I have spent many hours with Charming Peter, who is smart, funny, fierce. I have gotten to know Judgmental Peter, who loves to size up others. I’ve met Crude Peter, Brilliant Peter, Hypocritical Peter, Loyal Peter.
Bart calls himself “Zelig-like.” A setter of rules who hates to follow them, a lover of labels who resents being characterized, a seeker of the truth who doesn’t always tell it, Bart believes he is immune to the conflicts that derail lesser men. It’s one of the things that place him among the most despised and feared people in Hollywood. I listen to him speaking now. It’s a Peter I’ve never met.
“When you’re in public life, people attack you,” Intimidating Peter tells me. “But I’m taken aback by a bogus document suddenly being slammed on the desk. I’ll send you a note saying I will sue you, which I sure as hell will.” Click to continue »
