Fallen Under the Radar — My Resurrection of John Frankenheimer

I grew up knowing his name. As a child I used to regularly sneak downstairs to watch "Playhouse 90" on the tube. While not the only director credited, there was something consistent with a John Frankenheimer show; a diversity of themes. One production would be a comedy such as Kay Thompson's "Eloise" so rich and memorable, the next week a sci-fi drama "Forbidden Area," a Cornell Woolrich mystery, a Barnaby Conrad adventure, Fitzgerald's "Last Tycoon" all done live. 

It was also the birth of a new reality in writing, especially from Paddy Chayefsky whose work was labeled "kitchen sink drama." It defintely marked my first recognition of a name for both a writer and a director credit.   

For a kid obsessed with show business. there were also a treasure chest of "inside" behind the scenes shows with writers free to dramatize their world and the secret grief brought on by the emotionally damaged stars, despicable agents, insensitive studio bosses and the newly emerging and vultureous media. 

Ernest Lehman's "Comedian" with Mickey Rooney playing a TV star monster (Was it Gleason? Was it Berle? Was it Buttons?) adapted by the incisive writer Rod Serling. was devastating and memorable 50 years later. Gore Vidal,

Reginald Rose, Gerald Green, Paddy Chayefsky, Alvin Sargent, Frank Pierson, Tad Mosel, directors Arthur Penn, Franklin Schaffner, Delbert Mann, Yul Brynner, George Roy Hill, Sidney Lumet all began their careers in live television.

Yes, Yul Brynner began as a TV director who acted "on the side" until "King and I" would change his life and career forever.

The live television caravan continued with Budd Schulberg's "What Makes Sammy Run?" starring the brilliant Larry Blyden from a first novel masterpiece, the angst ridden "Velvet Alley," Rod Serling's behind the scenes exposé of the corruption of a Hollywood writer starring Art Carney as a Serling doppelganger. 

How mesmerizing to an 11 year old to hear that Hollywood writer-producer moaning that "they pay us a thousand a week every week until you need a thousand a week …"   This was the '50's when our Sparks Street row house cost $3,500.

Even on a 12-inch black-and-white RCA, this was live television with stars doing enormous and complicated stories — Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," live and "Journey to the Day" live, the first television drama that dealt with the hushed secret of group therapy. First major acting role for Mike Nichols. I remembered the writer of the teleplay, Roger Hirson, and, of course, the director. I wrote to the writer at age 13 and he sent me the script. Twenty years later I was in his New York townhouse having dinner as his agent. Ten years after that I would sign the director. 

I shivered at the opening theme by Alex North. My mother adored the show's iconic logo, she pointed to the ceiling, when watching with me, that one day we would get a chandelier over our dining room table that was as impressive as the "Playhouse 90" chandelier.

"May your wife walk on mink rugs, but first you'll get me that chandelier."

Frankenheimer laughed joyously revealing it was a wooden prop all of five inches wide.

"Playhouse 90" had an unusual opening that honored the writer and director  — unusual for any series — a star host announces who wrote and who directed tonight'a show  backed up with a voice over announcer further "billboarding" the writer and director and even the producer at the beginning of each 90 minutes, preceding the credits. 

While most live directors simply covered the basics, Frankeheimer's direction was evocative and naturalistic. He always said he was a director of "small and quiet" stories who accidentally (taking over "The Train" from Arthur Penn) became a"big" director. He meant the kind of material, small, quiet, not the action with which he became associated. 

So there was a period in the late 80's when I asked "What ever happened to the first director whose name I knew? I tracked him down. He had once, at the beginning, been with William Morris, but a battle over "Breakfast at Tiffany's" which he developed with writer George Axelrod, sent him fleeing. He claimed the Morris office took it away from him and gave it to Blake Edwards compelling him to join a young agent named Jeff Berg. 

And that was where he remained, the agency that morphed into ICM, and being solely handled by Berg until Berg became too important and Frankenheimer no longer. He was shifted to an agent who specialized in the old and forgotten. Even so, he was offered "French Connection 2" which brought him to France. 

"French 2's" mild success led him to a major Paramount feature "Black Sunday."  All the buzz was that this would be bigger than "Jaws."  Folliwng its weak opening, he became such a pariah that he remained in France and refused to return home. Passionate about food, fluent in French, he enlisted in Le Cordon Bleu classes and secured work as a chef.  He finally returned to the U.S. for "The Prophecy," from a horror novel that became a film horror.    

He had sold the Malibu ocean front place that John Houseman encouraged him to buy to Tom Hanks. He was living comfortably in Benedict Canyon, with his own tennis court.  Unhappy in his career, it wasn't difficult to imagine that he might be willing to exit ICM.  So I called around and found out where to write and sent a note. He called. 

We met at the Ivy. I didn't need a special signing lunch to reunite with the best crabcakes in L.A. but it didn't hurt. Frankenheimer's last three or four features had tanked, he hadn't worked in 28 months and yet he spoke first about his pride in maintaining a 33-inch waist, sadness about aging, his back trouble and loss of his lion's mane, his hair. This tough as nails artist and technician wore his vanity on his sleeve.

His looks were important, because, like the most popular kid in school, he was always the best looking man in the room and on any set. It was reported when he directed Rock Hudson in "Seconds" that Frankenheimer was the better looking of the two. He was indeed movie star handsome, even well into his sixties. He also had enjoyed a reputation as a lothario, with an open marriage and a multitude of affairs with his leading ladies.

He was Robert Kennedy's close friend and media advisor. Kennedy was staying at Frankenheimer's Malibu home the night he was assassinated, Frankenheimer having helmed all the campaign filming. He hated that Bobby was lumped by the media with Marilyn Monroe. It simply wasn't true. That was JFK's exclusive guilty pleasure. 

Bobby, he confided, despised Monroe, believed she was dirty. But being the son of Joe and brother of John and Teddy, while his staff was overwhelmed setting up the dynamics of the coming election, Bobby was "spending time" with Frankenheimer's Malibu neighbor's wife.

I spoke of my memories of his celebrated films, adoration of the famed

"Birdman of Alcatraz." "The Train, "Seconds" and especially "Manchrian Candidate," but also the obscure, early work.  I simply told him that, at this point in my career, I was able to totally devote time and energy into bringing him back to where he should be.

I didn't know how well I was doing until actress Sharon Stone entered the restaurant. This was the week that "Basic Instinct" was released and there was no female hotter. She screamed when she saw him and threw herself around his neck. He blushed. They kissed.  He introduced me as "my agent." Stone leaned across the table to kiss me. He had returned to WMA for me.

Of course I announced the signing in a memo and, for the first time, someone wrote back, copying the world in the most negative response possible. This was at a time when the agency was losing clients in a quicksand of defection and Mike Simpson, who headed the feature division, chided me for signing someone so off the radar. "We don't need a Frankenheimer. There is no future for him here or anywhere.  Energy should be focused on signing music video directors and the promising, young film school grads."

What? Music video directors and film school grads? The best of the crop couldn't shine Frankenheimer's shoes. A flurry of emails and memos followed. Others quickly reminded Simpson what this man had accomplished. How easy to dismiss a life's astonishing work.

For the rest of the year my life was consumed with Frankehiemer. Even off the radar, he was receiving scripts from producers, writers and agents who believed he could turn around their treasured baby. But the real movies, the firm offers and the studios who were making them, ignored or ridiculed my suggestion that he come aboard.  

Many industry types he had worked closely with who actually had pictures needing a director, including the outcast Robert Evans and former agent Jay Kanter, blasted him, his work ethic, his talent or even the very idea of bringing Frankenheimer into their lives once again. One producer with a near feature pickup that would be perfect for John, intimated that my representation of a notorious former alcoholic (who had been sober for more than a decade), would damage my credibility. And yet I was now the conduit who would determine what could change his life. 

I hated most of what was offered. After three or four near disasters, his next feature had to work. The wrong choice for a once major director who had most recently directed "Year of the Gun," "Dead Bang" and "52 Pickup" would be deadly. Each script offered appeared to be another nail in the coffin. A tennis-themed "Rocky" epic, a sleazy '40's era private eye cliche, jolly capers and tragic love stories without a character to care for. I had to bring him into something mainstream, I had to convince him first to return to television.

He had agreed to do an episode of "Tales from the Crypt" ("all the hot directors are dying to do it!") and I visited him on the set. As I walked in he was screaming at a  young P.A. and I asked if this was someone he brought to the show. No, it was a young Crypt staffer. "Oh, great, I thought, this guy will be telling Frankenheimer horror stories for the rest of his life."

Fun, amusing, charismatic in his down time, and a great lunch companion, he threw himself so deeply into his work that he was often a tyrant when shooting, abusive to the crew, brutally demanding to the actors. I felt terrible for secretly and critically ill Raul Julia suffering through his last movie "The Burning Season" in the 116-degree Brazilian rain forest toiling under the terror of Frankenheimer.

I brought him to the attention of the new hire at TNT, my friend from ABC Allen Sabinson.  He refused to meet. It was to the credit of HBO exec Bob Cooper, with support from Hutch Parker, that Frankenheimer accepted the property that would bring him back. He actually wavered on accepting the picture and Hutch Parker, the son-in-law of Sydney Pollack, met with John to push it over the top.  40 years before, Pollack, then an actor, had been mentored as a director by Frankenheimer and, unlike others, never forgot.

Cooper had first offered him "Teamster Boss: the Jackie Presser Story." While John had not worked in two years, and his phone wasn't ringing, he wasn't crazy for the script and bemoaned the offer. He had last made a million and a half as a fee for his previous film and they expected him to work for $250K?  He was obsessed with his "quote," he had to get his quote.  Madness. He passed. 

With all due respect to the property, it wasn't worth fighting for. What did excite me was that Cooper and Parker were (unlike everyone else in the industry) willing to hire him. There had to be a script in all of HBO's development that would be worth fighting for and a method of raising or adding to his potential fee. 

And it happened. 

That script was "Against the Wall." Yet another movie for television about Attica? I wasn't sold. I had lived through ABC's Attica picture in 1980 from Tom Wicker's book. An excellent film, among the best movies made for TV, why would there be a need for another? Still, John read the script and liked it.

Would there be more money than $250K?  We found a way and he accepted and threw himself into the work. He was upbeat and even warm to the crew, with few moments capturing the old Frankenheimer M.O.  He was back where he wanted to be and impressed by the chosen talent who were in awe of their director.  At craft services, you would hear "Can you imagine this is the guy who did Manchurian and Birdman?" 

Sabinson now heard the news, got a tape slipped to him while facing a massive undertaking and personal favorite project of boss Ted Turner. And he wanted Frankenheimer to consider it. Consider?  This was the same director he had refused to meet? 

It was "Andersonville," at first believed to be an adaptation of MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize winning historical novel, and then, discovering that David Rintel's adaptation strayed so far from the Kantor novel, TNT could save the rights payment and they denied any association with the Kantor masterpiece. 

Even before the telecast of "Against the Wall," the industry was buzzing about Frankenheimer's amazing work, his comeback, "Of course, we all knew he had it all the time, it's like riding a bike for the brilliant director." Yeah, right.

A New York visit had led to the signing of childhood hero novelist Leon Uris, who despite his hatred for all agents, for Hollywood and for much of mankind, had returned to the U.S.and to Manhattan, to work. I visited him in a two bedroom rental on West 60th Street, across from Lindoln Center as he was writing a nine hour musical for the theatre based on his novel "Trinity." 

He was willing to let me sell his existing novels and even to be marketed to write some screenplays. After all, he had written the screenplays for "Battle Cry" and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral." I gave Uris' "Mila 18" to Frankenheimer and to Harvey Weinstein.  A meeting  would be scheduled for all of us once Frankenheimer wrapped "Andersonville."

At the same time he was booked to do "Andersosnvlle," he was offered "The Burning Season," which had been a feature for Peter Guber but was now an HBO movie, and Parker believed John owed it to HBO for bringing him into the Attica movie. TNT wanted to follow "Andersonville" with the bio "George Wallace." 

He sat on my orange couch in my little Ventura Boulevard office when all of it was suddenly coming together in a whirlwind.  He was most excited that "Mila 18" and the interest of the brothers Weinstein would bring him back to features.

"I really don't know how I'm going to do everything back to back.  I think I'm basically lazy.  It feels like too much work."

"But you're throwing yourself into it, right?"

"Of course. Don't listen to me. This is the dilemma I wanted."

His back was always a factor. I joined friends who encouraged him to once and for all seek treatment. He promised he would.

For a brief period, following my traumatic exit from William Morris, I served as Frankenheimer's manager. He asked me the night of the "Attica" screening and we celebrated at Chasen's, our favorite hangout. In the restaurant he predicted the ultimate fantasy fulfilled for us both — shooting a major feature in Paris.  He promised it would happen.  I promised it would happen.

While Morris was continuing to represent him, he had no feeling for the young agent assigned and was talking once again to Jeff Berg. He returned to ICM and was, once again, assigned a young agent who specialized in "veteran" directors.

Activity breeds activity.  And it was very true for Frankenheimer, especially following his first Emmy. While Weinstein was considering "Mila 18" (and spoke of directing it himself), brother Bob offered the Dimension feature "Reindeer Games" to John. It wasn't great material at all, he confided, but it was real and it was firm. 

We had been meeting once a week at different restaurants all over the city. But now It seemed that he was always in the editing room, cutting film, but somehow managed to speak several times a week.

I co-founded the production company Benchmark Pictures and opened offices on Beverly Drive, around the corner from the agency. John sent me a  happy note. We agreed to set a lunch. One was set, then postponed, again set and canceled. He finally had an offer with his former quote — to take over a movie with a truly terrible script. 

All of us who cared jumped in with "don't do it," but he saw in it something that no one else did. A disaster that he quickly erased from his memory. It somehow didn't stop the merry-go-round. The new offers still came. This was luckily followed by "Ronin," an action film starring De Niro to be shot in Paris. Wait just a minute, that wasmy Paris!

A legend of the early Frankenheimer success was a reputation for burning bridges and eliminating former supporters from your life. Second and third back to back Emmys, industry colleagues asked "Why is he forgetting to mention you when picking up yet another Emmy?"  I was embarrassed but, somehow, not surprised. He did, however, grow angry that mutual friends, posed the same question to him. Didn't I "represent" a terrible time in his life?  He now wanted to forget. If not back on top, he was damn near.  There would be no more lunches.

I learned of his death by hearing it on the car radio.  It shook me as he was so vital, a bravura tennis player and youthful 72. It shouldn't have happened that way —  a direct result of the back surgery that all of us recommended. A DGA tribute was announced. I drove over.  I had neglected to RSVP and a young woman with a clipboard, born after "Manchurian Candidate" was made, told me "you're not on the list." I saw his widow Evans walking into the theatre that held thousands. I could have called out to her but chose not to. 

Out of all the thousands in the room celebrating the life of John Frankenheimer, present were those who refused to hire him, derided the suggestion and lectured me on wasting my time. And yet here they were, to witness the posturing and exaltation for whom they declared one of our greatest directors. And he never got to know that they had finally returned our calls. 

But I, the sole voice in his behalf, was not permitted to take a seat.

Instead I drove to our favorite hangout and had a drink in his memory.