Oh My Godzilla

I never had more fun working on a movie that I did on Godzilla.

For the most part, marketing movies is a long and hard process. It takes months…there are always problems…and you seldom get what you want. Godzilla was exactly the opposite. We secured the rights to the movie and got everyone (marketing, sales and production) in a room together and came up with a strategy. It was done in a matter of weeks with a real team effort from everyone at New World.

Understand that this was a Godzilla movie dubbed for the the US market…bad lip sync, toothpick models and a small man in a rubber suit. You know…everything you'd expect a Godzilla movie to be. But the ‘big guy’ was coming back to the big screen, and we had to make sure that people knew it.

Only the hard core Godzilla fans knew that Raymond Burr was in the first Godzilla movie. We put together a small cast and shot a few new scenes with Mr. Burr. We used footage from two other New World classics, The Philadelphia Experiment and Def Con 4 .

Most importantly, we wanted to make sure that the audience had a good time, so my wife Jill had a great idea and we put ‘Bambi Meets Godzilla’ on the head of the film. If you haven’t seen this, you’re in for a treat.



Next, we were faced with a monster of a PR challenge... so we decided that it was time to put Godzilla on the road. We made arrangements to bring in the actual costume from Japan. Godzilla may look 100 feet tall on film, but as costume he barely broke 5' . And the suit was 100% rubber, which means that it was very very heavy. We hired a small stuntman (which is not the easiest thing to do). After he fainted in the costume during rehearsals, we threw in an extra oxygen tank to make sure he didn't collapse live on national television.

Godzilla returned to NY, for a visit with Regis Philbin, who had just started his syndicated show, and then it was on to Times Square and a BBQ at Shea Stadium. But the fun didn’t stop there. We had put together a big deal with Dr. Pepper and they saturated TV with a huge (naturally) campaign to support one of the most obvious product placements ever filmed. We were shameless.

But for me, the best part wasn’t the 250 ‘beach patrols, or the Godzilla parties, or the merchandise or the classic poster or the 10 foot standee…it was the song.

My wife Jill is a terrific singer, and she had an old demo that I thought was just what we needed. And it was free. We laid down some updated instrumentals for one of the few movie monster love songs ever to have been re-recorded.

The campaign worked. We got tremendous PR, the promotional screenings were packed and the movie was a hit.

I Was Afraid to Love You, the love theme from Godzilla went gold! And I should know. It cost me $250 to have the record goldplated and framed for my wife.

Dress British

My life as a personal manager started at company in Beverly Hills called D'Blity.

D'Blity was an acronym for Dress British, Look Italian, Think Yiddish!

A group of very talented comedians from Chicago's Second City had come out to LA to claim fame and fortune. I was working at Columbia Pictures TV for Ed Fishman and Randy Freer on an NBC game show called The Fun Factory. We hired them for the show. They were very talented and funny writers and performers. It was a daytime comedy-game show. It was the first and last of the genre.

I was lured away by their manager...a smooth talking man named Stan Sirotin. I would come to find out later that smooth was the least of his issues. But I packed my bags and left game shows to become a manager. Personal management is a hard business. It's faith, compromise, baby sitting and full time problem solving. It is also a business of feast or famine, and the feast was about to end.

Stan was the expert. His wife Beryl kept the books. I was a manager and next door to me was Jerry Cutler. Jerry was part manager, part client and full time Rabbi for the Synagogue for the Performing Arts. If Jerry wasn't auditioning for a congregant, he was giving Bar Mitzvah lessons to Charlie Matthau. We were down the street from a Chinese take out place and a block away from the Friar's Club. It was a perfect recipe for disaster.

Stan fashioned himself as a real Hollywood deal maker. One minute he was helping negotiate a deal for a Johnny Carsey's wife (Marcy) for her first job at ABC as the Manager of Comedy. The next minute, he was renting Neil Diamond's house in Malibu. But Stan's greatest gift was also his worst. He didn't know how to tell a client that some jobs were better than others. He recommended everything. For Stan, it was 'all great' because there was a commission.

He talked Mert Rich into doing a local show on KNBC called The Busing Game. The title alone screamed...stay away. Not Stan. He bought the rights to a movie called Spade Cooley, because he was told that Dustin Hoffman was interested. They guy who sold him the rights was a producer of pornographic movies from the Valley.

And it went on like that for about 6 months. Each day was a new adventure, into Stan's own little Hollywood. The breaking point for me came one day when I looked out my window. Across the railroad tracks was the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Each day, one of the maintaince guys would come out and hose down the sidewalk. Nobody in LA ever uses a broom. Anyway, it pouring and this guy walks out in rain gear and an umbrella and starts hosing down the sidewalk.

It was time to go.

And I went from the famine to feast. Within a few days, I hired by Howard Rothberg who represented Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Dom DeLuise, Larry Gelbart and Richard Dimitri. At D'Blity I couldn't get my calls returned...and literally the next week my phone didn't stop ringing.

PS. That small group from D'Blity went on to great success. Execpt for Stan. He had some legal troubles a few years later in Pasadena and the last anyone heard had moved to France.

The clients did much better. Mert Rich is an award winning TV producer and writer in Los Angeles. Marcy Carsey went on to become one of the most successful TV executives, and with her partner Tom Werner created some of the best shows on TV, including The Cosby Show and many more. Mitch Markowitz's writing career took off with movies like Good Morning Vietman and Crazy People, Dick Blasucci is the executive producer of MAD-TV, Bette Thomas directs feature films, and Doug Steckler became a big star on LA Radio.

And I moved to Seattle where it rains all the time.

Bette Midler's First TV Appearance

If you're lucky, there are a few times during a career in this business when you get to see a real star emerge for the first time. I've been lucky a couple of times.

The first time for me was late March 1970.

I saw and heard Bette Midler in the back of the Little Theatre with Budd Friedman, Karen Prettyman, Bob Carman audition for The David Frost Show.

Her accompanist was a skinny kid named Barry Manilow and she was there because Karen had seen her a few nights before singing at the Continental Baths on 10th Avenue

When the audition was over, we all sat in the back of the theatre eating french fries from Nathans. The date was set, April 7, 1970. Bette Midler was one step closer to becoming a star.

That was when she made her first national television appearance on The David Frost Show.

She was nervous. Although it's hard to imagine now, but she stood like a statue next to the piano and sang Chapel of Love. He voice was powerful, and the audience rose to their feet. It was an amazing debut.

She made three more appearances on the show on May 7th, June 1st and June 5th. Sometime after her first appearance, Bob Carman called The Tonight Show.

Bob was the dean of NY television talent producers, and had worked closely with Johnny Carson for years. Carson had actually worked much earlier in his career at The Little Theatre taping a show called Earn Your Vacation. No doubt that Bette Midler's talent got her on The Tonight Show, but it was Bob's call and a copy of her performance on The David Frost Show that sealed the deal.

While it's true that Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show launched her career, it always annoyed me a bit that I never heard her publicly give credit to Karen Prettyman and Bob Carman who gave her that first opportunity.

But I am glad I was in the studio that day to be among the first to see Bette Midler live.

The Oscars Part I

I became a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1987, and have enjoyed every minute of it. It’s a lifetime membership...as long as I keep paying my yearly dues.

As a member of the Public Relation’s branch, I was nominated for membership by two existing members and then voted by the entire branch. My boss was one of the people who nominated me, and it didn’t hurt that he was also the President of the Academy at the time.

There are lots of benefits to being a member, but the three best are; getting nomination screeners at home, attending screenings and going to the Oscars.

I had been member about 7 years when we moved to Seattle. I was able to keep busy and remained involved, but I wasn’t in LA very much. A friend of mine was a member of the PR Branch membership committee and told me a funny story.

During their annual membership meeting, they review all current members. When they came to my name, one of the group chimed in, “I heard he was dead”. My friend started to chuckle and assured the group that I was very much alive and working. The next year when I went to the Oscars, I made sure I said hello to that fellow member to let him know that the reports of my death were premature.

We almost never paid for movies when we lived in LA. There were Academy screenings every week, or studio screenings all the time. During the ‘award season, my Academy card would get us into any theatre in town. It was a far different story when we moved to Seattle. The first few years, I couldn’t even use my card in theatres up here. And I become a ‘regular movie customer’. It is an experience I strongly recommend to my friends who are still in the studio system. I am not complaining it just took some time to ‘adjust’.

There are only about 8 members who live in the Seattle area. So when I first went to use my membership card to get in it was always an interesting process. The kids at the box office would swipe it on the credit card machine. That usually led to a long stare at the card and then a call to the theatre manager, who repeated the same process. Eventually I would get inside.

Every fall, the ‘screeners’ start arriving at our doorstep for consideration. We get all of the major films, most of which are still in theatres. After 20 years, we have quite the movie collection. When the practice first started, we used to get lots of swag and very elaborate packages for the films. One year, Paramount sent their entire collection in a box set that my name engraved on a silver plate on the box. It was really getting out of hand.

The Academy tried for years to stop it, but no amount of pleading or threats worked. Then they hit on the solution; any studio that continued to excessively promote their films with elaborate packaging or gifts of any kind would be denied their allocation of tickets for the Oscars.

Now we get the movies in recycled sleeves. The scripts come as paperback booklets and the tradition continues. I 've cast my vote, and now I am getting ready for this year’s Oscar Awards.




The Oscars Part II

Going to the Oscars is fun. Seats are awarded by lottery system, and we’ve gone to the awards ceremony every year since 1987.

Since we only get two seats, it’s a family ‘contest’ about who comes with Dad. I always get the cheapest seats…$50 each. The orchestra is reserved for the nominees and the studios. For me, the show is on the red carpet and in the lobby. I spend very little time in the ‘nosebleed’ section.

Where else can you go to the men’s room and stand next to Steve Carrell. Or say hello to Jennifer Aniston getting away from the photographers on the third floor lobby.

I have a specific red carpet strategy. Security guards are constantly asking people to move inside and keep walking. The later it gets the more ‘insistent’ they get. We just like to zig zag to make sure that we see everyone. What should be a 7 minute stroll usually takes about 30 minutes. Then we plant ourselves on the side of the stairway leading up to the Theatre. It’s great fun to see old friends and famous people walking up the promenade to the theatre entrance.

We take our seats about 10 minutes before the show starts. After the first break, it’s down to the first floor lobby. There are bars all around and people are all over. The Oscars are the olympics of ‘people watching’ and oh the people you see. I go back to my seat from time to time, mostly to catch the performance numbers. Once in a great while there are interesting acceptance speeches. But I enjoy watching the winners come back to the lobby from the press room Oscars in hand, and start calling on their cell phones and celebrating with friends and colleagues.

By the end of the night, everyone is hungry. Those who have won go to parties. The rest wait to get their cars from the valet. Then it’s the annual question. Where to eat at 11pm wearing an evening gown and tuxedo?

We usually wind up at Jerry’s Deli on Ventura Boulevard…

The Movie Toothfairy

Larry Gelbart is one of the finest writers in the world; from Your Show of Shows, to MASH, Sly Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Tootsie and so many more. For for a brief period of time in the late 70's, I had the privilege of working for him.

It's also hard to write about a writer of Larry's stature without feeling absolutely unworthy. So, let me just tell you one of favorite stories about Larry.

I was working for his personal manager, Howard Rothberg. Howard worked out of his house high in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset, with a view of LA from downtown to the ocean. I was in the big time, and learned more about the industry my first day in that office than I learned the entire previous year.

The client list was a who's who of Hollywood; Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Larry Gelbart, and Dom DeLuise. It was funny and fun...but also very intense.

I was sitting in the office, and a messenger came by from Warner Brothers. It was his participation (profit) check from 'Oh God'. Although I had seen big checks before, I had never seen that much money on one check . I called Larry and his wife Pat answered and wanted me to run the check over to his house ASAP. Ten minutes later I was knocking at the door and gave Pat the check.

The next day Larry called and (like an idiot) I asked him "So, what did you do with the check?" He paused a minute, and I could see him through the phone as a little smile came over his face and he said...

" I put it under my pillow," he said, "to see if the Movie Tooth Fairy would bring me another one!"

Pure Gelbart.



Enjoy this interview from 1998.

Moms Mabley

The first time I saw Moms Mabley I was 15 on a date. She was the opening act for The Temptations at Madison Square Garden.

It was also in the middle of the famous 1968 New York City garbage strike. We were sitting on the top level at The Garden, and Moms walked on stage to a thunderous cheer. Then she told this joke:

"I have the solution for this damned garbage strike. I want all you brothers and sisters out there to go to the hardware store and buy some white spray paint. Then go spray all your garbage white. When you've done that let me know and I'll call Governor Rockefeller and tell him to get all this white trash outta here".

Less than I year later, I am working at the David Frost Show. A group of us are outside the studio, and a brand new Rolls Royce pulls up. Out comes most elegantly lady I had ever seen. She was wearing a full length mink coat and a very large diamond ring with a pearl necklace. I had no idea who she was. At 16, I was still a few beers short of a six pack. At first, I assumed she was going to Sardi's, but she turned and walked into the studio.

My assignment that night was the dressing rooms and make-up. I was to escort the stars to their positions on stage. I loved that part of my job, because I got to hang out with two incredible women, Franny Barbero and Bobbi Armstrong. Franny was the wardrobe mistress and Bobbi was the make-up artist. There are some really interesting stories to tell about them, but we'll save that for another time.

Anyway, I go into the dressing rooms; and there is Franny, Bobbi and the woman who drove up in the Rolls Royce. They're all old friends and just talking away. They sat down to play cards. They introduced me to "Jackie" Moms Mabley. The expression on my face was: 'no way, impossible...can't be. I just stood there and watched as these three old show biz friends played cards and enjoyed each other's company.

She told them about the Rolls, which was a gift from Tom Jones. I just could not believe that this elegant woman with the jewels, fur and Rolls Royce was Moms Mabley.

Franny gave her the 30 minute warning, and she went to her dressing room. The elegant lady with the fur coat, diamonds and pearls emegred a few minutes later.

She was transformed...and there was Moms Mabley standing right before my eyes. She took out her dentures, took off the rings and was sitting there in her housecoat and slippers while Bobbi did her make-up.

She went on stage and had the audience in the palm of her hand. I don't think David knew what to do, but he tried his best to interview her. It was obvious who was in control of the audience that night.

The world needs more performers like Moms Mabley.

Dinner at Spago

This is a true story about a PR stunt for the movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun that seemed more like a fire drill than anything else.

And I was driving the fire truck.


New World Pictures was a ‘mini-major’ with very high visibility in the industry. A great team led by Harry Sloan (who is now running MGM), Larry Kuppin and Bob Rehme bought it from Roger Corman two years before. The studio was releasing 20 films a year. The TV group had projects with HBO and the networks, and we had just started a Home Video Division. It was a busy place.

We were putting together the final PR and promotion plan for the ‘soon to be’ cult classic, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, when Tony Angelotti and I were called to Co-Chairman Bob Rehme’s office.

Bob was at Spago for dinner the night before and noticed that there was construction across the street on Sunset. He looked at Tony and me and said, “Guys, we should try to get a banner for Girls Just Want to Have Fun on that new building…everybody at Spago will see it”. We nodded our heads in agreement, because you just never said no to Bob.

Spago was ‘the’ place in Hollywood. And it sounded like a good idea. We left the office and Tony looked at me, and with a twinkle in his eyes said, “Now what?” Roger Armstrong from our PR agency had the bad luck to be in the office for a meeting.

How do you get a banner on a building that is under construction? Money. We certainly didn't want to go back to Bob and tell him that it was too expensive...so we brainstormed and came up with what we thought would be a less expensive solution.

A big balloon with the logo on the side… like a baby Goodyear blimp. Roger was on it, and found the balloon. And we cut a check. He got the permission from the building owner. And we cut a check. Roger worked out the details with the construction company. And we cut a check. He went out to the site and worked out the logistics with the foreman. And we cut a check.

We were set, and naturally over budget. We called Bob and told him the good news (but we left out the budget part). He was happy. Roger called from the building. He had good news and bad news. The balloon is up, but no one can see it because there are no lights on the building, and by 6 pm it’s dark.

Oy! We make an executive decision, and rent a big Kleig light. Roger rents three parking spaces, and we park it in the Tower Records parking lot across the street and shine it on the balloon. More checks to cut.

Perfect… now the Hollywood ‘A’ list at Spago can see Girls Just Want To Have Fun while they enjoy their goat cheese pizza and wine.

Well, almost. Spago was right on Sunset Boulevard… in the heart of the ‘Sunset Strip. To the south lay the Los Angeles basin with its incredible views of lights stretching to the Pacific Ocean. But to the North, were the Hollywood Hills.

And that was the problem. As soon as the spotlight went on, the shots started. Some of the more 'colorful' sharpshooters of the Hollywood Hills were using the Girls Just Want to Have Fun balloon for target practice.

After three days and nights of trying to patch and repatch that damned balloon we had all enough and took it down.

And if that wasn't enough. Bob never went to Spago.