Maybe we could have our apple pie and eat it, too. We wanted to be together, creating. It was our destiny, what can I tell you. I figured if the network wanted Robin bad enough, hey, they could hire yours truly for the first-draft teleplay! I had credits, I had network visibility (having sold blow to most of the execs at one time or another),and I had their Blondie!
Needless to say, Robin thought it was a sensational idea. I mean, if you can't blackmail a television network, who can you blackmail? Those quaking, suntanned, excitable smurfs wouldn't know writing talent if it jumped up and bit them on their collective blue-suited ass. They don't want it good, they want it Tuesday.
I was going to be the kid who saw that they got both. Little did I know...
Witnesses to the accident were David Holman and his wife Judith Mabry, both from Hollywood. Holman and Mabry were in their non-operative Porsche coupe, which had been pulled off on the west side of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, just north of Croft, where they waited for the auto club tow truck they had summoned. At approximately three A.M., they heard a loud engine noise and turned to observe the accident.
Holman: "We were just sitting there, talking about the vicissitudes of show business in general and the disastrous party from which we had just come in particular. When we heard the howl of an engine and the squealing of tires behind us, of course we both looked around. We were terrified. I mean, we were sitting on the side of the road where the whole section of streetlights had been taken out by that mudslide last month. We were in darkness, and my Porsche is so old it barely has headlights, much less safety flashers. I thought we were going to be annihilated when I heard that car!"
Mabry: Where David usually tends to over-dramatize, like most writers, this time, he is being completely accurate. That party had been rotten. And we were chilled by the sound of the car. I think I screamed, I don't really know..."
Holman: "When the little Triumph crossed over the double yellow lines and headed toward that poor schlamozzle in the Jag ... it was like slow motion ...
I knew this was real life and not some special effect. For a moment, I thought I could see the faces in the Triumph; they seemed so happy, so bright - they were laughing..."
The witnesses both identified vehicle A and vehicle B on the hastily drawn map that Officer McConnell had prepared as a standard amendment for this report and they were signed and witnessed by Officer McConnell and myself. The attached standard Polaroids were taken as soon as the paramedics had removed all parties and before either of the two vehicles in question could be moved.
Vehicle A was subsequently pilfered and stripped clean by party or parties unknown as that vehicle contained a person classified as a class B celebrity, one Roberta Wankowsld, a-k-a. Robin Lamoureaux. The driver at the time of this report is still unidentified.
Me and Robin's meeting at the network was for lunch, there, at 2 P.M. We parked the rent-a-wreck down in the bowels of the underground parking garage, level H. I always remember what level we're on, even though they're all identical; Robin always bets that I won't remember and always loses. It's easy. A stands for asshole. B stands for bastard, C for crap, D for damn, E for euphemism, F for fuck, G for goddamn, H for hell, and so on. That day we were in hell.
The network reception area is open up to the fourth floor-glass from the parquet floor to the vaulted oak ceiling, and so many plants and trees and stuff that it looks like a John Wayne World War II movie. That day, the light in there was stranger than usual, too - sort of thick, it hurt our eyes. It didn't seem to bother anybody else, but Robin and I had to keep our Vuarnets on.
Through the big double maple doors, the network's inner offices are sort of like if Hugh Hefner was going to rebuild the Palace of Versailles - opulent space vistas with little doll groupings of modern oak desks and chrome and black leather couches. Famous French artists like Picasso, and I mean original, too. Not prints. My theory is that it's all designed to get you to feel like shit, like you're not worth being there in all that money and class and taste. Once they see your eyes fall and your head dip, they jump on you and ream you out. You're dead meat before you hit the floor.
So, here's how a meeting with the honchos of What You See on Television goes.
Ready? First, everybody mills around out in front of the office, bumping into each other, shaking hands (a few air-kisses, maybe), while the secretary finds out who wants what in the way of coffee. Then, when the one-line jokes and light ribbing about the new sport coat or the new poundage stop, everyone
flies into the office and quickly looks for a Power Seat. One near a phone if possible, not too low-you don't want to be peering up at them through your knees-alone, not on a couch but next to a table where you can take notes and set your coffee and, finally, someplace where you can eyeball, the door so that if anyone is about to come in, you know who and when.
Then, right after the embarrassing pause that always follows the Big Sit Down, you (or someone on your team) should lean in and say, "All right, guys, here's what we want." And then, you run it down to them, quick and sweet. This direct approach lets everybody know that you are there to help and are willing to wait until a quick, simple deal is cut. Then comes the exit japes, with a few departing light social promises which no one intends to keep, while everybody lines up at the receptionist's desk to look at her tits and get a parking ticket validated.
Some guys at TRW or somewhere a few years back figured that this approach works 78 percent of the time. And it worked that day.
"We are willing to begin discussions about the Crusader project," said Stu Rosenberg, Robin's new agent, "but only if we have a verbal agreement for a quarter million dollars per episode."
Chip Russell, the WASP network exec, looked up from his Bass Weejuns. A smile crossed his face.
Stu went on. "There, is something else that will impact the project and you might as well know right now." Stu turned to me.
"I'm in ... and I'm gonna do my own deal," I said (my agent had disappeared; I think he went down in a -, coke bust), "which is real simple: as long as Robin is involved, I write every word."
Our side grinned, their side went bugfuck.
Apparently, they thought I was just along for ballast. One network guy. Buddy Wickwire, a squeem with a weight lifter's build and bad breath, had been a honcho on a movie-of-the-week of mine and we hated each other. Besides having his, uhhh, roommate rewrite me, Buddy had burned me in a gram deal. The guy was a sleaze; I even heard he had AIDS. He glared across the mohair carpet at me, wanting to get those bone-crushing hands on my throat, i could tell.
Definitely. But cooler heads prevailed - Chip Russell's to be exact, who simply pointed out, "We have Ac makings-right in this room, now-of television history. So let s make it work."
Ahhh, the magic words. Robin shot me a little smile; I was already beaming.
See, when they say "let's make it work," you've got them. Because what happened (only you're not supposed to know) is they already SOLD IT to their bosses-the whole package. They went in and laid their asses on the line-the concept, the ideal casting, the budget, everything. The head honcho had, apparently, creamed his Armanis. These two guys were in for a pound. And I was going to be at least five ounces of it
"I think you're right. Chip," I said, shooting Buddy Wickwire a look. "And I'm the man who can write the shit out of it. Can't I, honey?" I turned to Robin.
With that, Robin shot me a look of such love that, I swear to you, I almost got down on my knees right there in that office and thanked God for the day He delivered my tormented and cheesy soul into her magic.