It was 1977, and Barry Diller — just some years into his tenure as CEO of Paramount Studios ‚ was sitting down for a preview of “Saturday Night Fever” on the Chinese language Theatre in Los Angeles when a publicist leaned in to offer him a chunk of recommendation.
“[John] Travolta’s the problem,” the publicist hissed at him, in response to Diller’s new memoir, “Who Knew,” out Tuesday. “He’s a television person. You don’t put a television person in a movie. The kid just doesn’t put asses in seats.”
Diller, who was simply 35 on the time and nonetheless attempting to show himself within the trade, recollects pondering, “Well, not old Hollywood asses.”
The film opened nationwide simply two weeks later, turning into an in a single day blockbuster. “There were vast lines around the block at every theater across America,” Diller writes. Paramount, which had dropped to a distant fifth place among the many main studios after Diller took over, jumped to No. 1 once more.
For Diller, it was candy vindication, particularly given what number of former executives from Paramount have been “actively mocking” him “as a parvenu who was destroying their institution,” Diller writes. However throughout his 10 years with the studio — from 1974 to 1984 — he championed among the most beloved movies of the final century, like “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”
He additionally, he writes, oversaw his fair proportion of bombs, together with William Friedkin’s “The Sorcerer” — a bloated, over-budget “nightmare” from “The French Connection” director that demonstrated “the sheer perversity of some Hollywood luminaries.”
After which there was “The Last Tycoon,” starring Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Jack Nicholson and Robert Mitchum and directed by Elia Kazan of “On the Waterfront” fame. “What could go wrong?” Diller asks. “Everything. I knew it wasn’t going to work when I saw the first assemblage.”
However “Saturday Night Fever” modified “how movies got made,” Diller writes. The script wasn’t pitched as a undertaking for a pre-established A-lister. “No stars, no pedigree, no package, no nothing — just a good idea,” Diller writes. Even director John Badham, a largely unproven TV man, was a threat.
“All these Frankenstein-like parts came together while all those around us thought we were amateurs,” Diller writes. “It was heady stuff, and quite a shock to the naysayers.”
Earlier than coming to Paramount, Diller had reduce his tooth at ABC throughout the Sixties and early ’70s, the place he invented the Film of the Week and the miniseries.
However the film trade provided him a brand new problem. Not like TV, it was a enterprise “where ego and self-promotion corroded everything,” Diller writes.
Even his boss, Charlie Bluhdorn, ran the corporate “like an old-time emperor.” Diller remembers that Bluhdorn would name him randomly with ridiculous concepts for brand spanking new motion pictures that he was sure would change into “the blockbuster of all time,” Diller writes. Like “the tale of Sitting Bull and Hitler at war with each other.”
Diller trusted his instincts, which weren’t all the time appropriate. The flicks he championed at Paramount have been typically “just darts thrown at the board,” he admits. “I had to pitch and roll with whatever came my way. That made me a mark for every promoter and rascal in the film industry.”
A few of his lesser achievements embrace “Lipstick” with Margaux Hemingway (“the essence of putting lipstick on a pig,” he writes), “The Big Bus” (“a parody of disaster movies that ended up just being a disaster”), and Roman Polanski’s “The Tenant” (a “small film that had an even smaller audience”).
Even Diller’s successes got here with controversy. Throughout an advance screening of “Marathon Man” in San Francisco in 1976, the viewers grew to become irate throughout the infamous “Is it safe?” scene, through which the Nazi villain (performed by Laurence Olivier) tortures Dustin Hoffman’s character with dental devices.
Viewers weren’t “prepared for such invasive violence to sweet Dustin’s teeth,” the writer writes. “They shouted and booed at what we were doing to them, and many charged up the aisles, enraged.” Diller claims he needed to be evacuated from a movie show for his personal security.
A few of his most formidable tasks, like a 1976 remake of “King Kong,” have been nearly derailed by unhealthy selections behind the scenes. It was delivered to him by the Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, who insisted “he’d acquired the remake rights, but of course, being Dino, he really hadn’t,” Diller writes.
Sooner or later De Laurentiis referred to as him and introduced, “I’ve found the actress to play [the lead in ‘King Kong’]. She’s right now a model with no acting experience, but I’m sure she’ll be a star.”
Diller was hesitant however curious, and requested if they need to give this up-and-coming mannequin a display check. “Yes,” De Laurentiis allegedly advised him. “But first I want to have her breasts augmented.” The mannequin was future Academy Award winner Jessica Lange.
Sam Spiegel, the legendary producer of classics like “On the Waterfront” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” approached Diller about adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel, “The Last Tycoon.” Throughout his conferences with Spiegel, who Diller describes as “a true satyr,” he realized greater than bargained for in regards to the producer’s intercourse life.
“He often said — and it was hard to know if he was joking — he only liked to have sex with virgins and, if he could find them, lesbian virgins,” writes Diller.
Run-ins with administrators could possibly be hostile, and typically expensive. After his 1978 epic “Days of Heaven,” Diller paid auteur Terrence Malick an infinite sum — $500,000 (or $2.5 million in 2025 {dollars}) — to, in Malick’s phrases, “just experiment with things.”
Each 4 or 5 months, Diller would name the director for an replace, and get little past, “I’m making progress.” Sometimes Malick would give him some imprecise sense of his subsequent movie, like “I’ve got this idea to follow a paraplegic in New Mexico in a footrace.” However past that, Malick wouldn’t give particulars, declaring that it was a “secret.”
Diller lastly reduce off Malick’s wage. “It would be twenty years before he directed another movie,” he writes.
The writer’s dealing with of actors may be a minefield. He obtained into scorching water with Robert Redford after Paramount used a shirtless picture of the star embracing Faye Dunaway in a full-page advert to advertise the political thriller “Three Days of the Condor” in 1975.
Redford referred to as Diller and insisted that “the ad had ‘disrobed him’ in front of his kids,” he writes. The actor requested for the advert to be taken down instantly, however Diller declined. “And that was the last we saw of Robert Redford for five years,” he writes.
After the large success of “Saturday Night Fever,” Princess Margaret requested to fulfill John Travolta “for tea” throughout her go to to Los Angeles. Diller made the request to Travolta, who responded, “I don’t do tea!” He was lastly cajoled into assembly the royal on the Beverly Wilshire. “And when he came back, he said, ‘She hit on me!’” Diller writes.
He admits that has hasn’t all the time had the most effective film judgment.
Diller thought “Grease” was a horrible follow-up undertaking for Travolta — even producer Robert Evans agreed, imploring Diller to “burn it” earlier than the footage ruined the actor’s profession — and pushed Travolta to star in “American Gigolo” as a substitute. Travolta resisted as a result of he was cautious of the “somewhat gay subtext.” (The position ultimately went to Richard Gere, and “Grease” was an enormous hit.)
Cocaine was rampant within the film trade throughout the ’70s and, Diller writes, Paramount’s units have been no exception. Throughout his go to to Robert Altman’s manufacturing of “Popeye,” starring Robin Williams, Diller realized that “everyone in our made-up village — and I mean everyone! — was completely coked out.”
He ultimately found that his personal driver, an affable New Yorker named Mario, was additionally a serious cocaine seller, “particularly to all my friends,” Diller writes. “I always wondered why they insisted that Mario drop me off first after our nights out. Once I left, Mario would open his trunk and deal out the drugs.”
In 1984, Diller joined twentieth Century Fox, the place he served as CEO till 1992. Certainly one of his first tasks was “Die Hard” — and he instantly objected to the casting of Bruce Willis. “Who cares about Bruce Willis?” he scolded the casting director. “No one really likes Bruce Willis!”
However Willis would quickly show to be the least of his worries. Producers Joel Silver and Larry Gordon requested to make use of an workplace tower owned by Fox for a pivotal ultimate “blowout” scene. “We won’t hurt anything,” they assured Diller. “It’ll only be one night.”
Later that night, Diller obtained a name from the studio’s actual property division, screaming that the filmmakers have been “destroying our building!” He drove to the shoot and realized it wasn’t an exaggeration. Diller confronted Silver, who simply shrugged and stated the scene had been “more complicated” than they anticipated, and so they’d want “about two weeks” to complete their cinematic destruction.
Diller modified his tune after seeing a tough reduce of the movie, telling the director, “Don’t touch a f–king thing. This is not a good movie. This is a great movie.” However he nonetheless wasn’t captivated with Willis, insisting the star’s face not seem in any of the promoting.
“No one likes him,” Diller continued to declare. “After they see this movie, they’re gonna love him, but coming in, they don’t like him.”
