Tag Archives: Paramount Pictures

Remembering the 1992 Los Angeles Riots

photo by waltarrrr

April 29 — the day the 1992 Los Angeles Riots began, and what I remember, or what I think I remember. I discovered earlier today that April 29 is also the birthday of the late film director Fred Zinnemann, who made the film “Julia” in 1977.

That film, one of my favorites (which starred Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards and Maximilian Schell), is based on a short story called “Pentimento” by playwright Lillian Hellman. The word pentimento means “an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed his mind as to the composition during the process of painting.”

In that movie it refers to the unreliability of memory. Those Rodney King riots happened now 20 years ago, but I’d like to think that what I remember about that time is accurate.

I was on vacation in Hawaii the morning of the 29^th, not happy that I had to return to L.A. that afternoon. Specifically, I was in Kihei, Maui. My best friend and sometimes partner Jeff King had been killed in a car accident the month before, and this was my first time getting away from all that in a real, physical sense.

I had to go to work the next morning and this was a flight that would get to Los Angeles late, around 11 p.m. As we stood in line waiting to board (this was very pre-9/11, way before TSA) I heard somebody say something like “they let those cops off. They’re already rioting in L.A.”

I took this as misinformed bravado. There were many younger people on this plane; perhaps it was still spring break in places, I don’t know. I mean, how could any jury let the cops off, we had all seen the videotape. It was just unthinkable.

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I did notice a quite messy but still quite attractive straight couple in the line. Both extremely blond and tan and I thought to myself, those two are high. Hanging on to each other for dear life, obviously very much in love or lust, the type you might tell to please get a room.

Get a room they did. In fact, they barricaded themselves in one of the two toilets reserved for the hoi polloi. It may have been the case that there were only two bathrooms on the entire plane, and they were using one for their mile-high club activities. Don’t forget that 1992 was long before the internet or common cell phone usage. I don’t recall getting any other L.A. Riot information on the flight back; the attendants were incensed at this couple and trying to break into this bathroom for what seemed like hours.

The couple never did come out, to my knowledge. Continue reading →

Paramount Planning Upgrades to Lot

link to LA Times story: Paramount Pictures plans $700-million upgrade to Hollywood lot

Jim A. sitting in front of Paramount Gate, earlier in 2011

Great to see that the powers that be at Viacom find the opportunity to reinvest and upgrade the studio a good idea.

I worked there in the late 80s to mid-90s; still probably the most fun location to ever have a paying job, at least in my working life. And that was before the on-lot Coffee Bean, which in my way of thinking adds much currency to the entire idea.

When reading this piece, it was like a deja vu: Frank Mancuso’s name was mentioned not once, but twice, and in reverence both times. It was like my old boss there (Deborah Rosen) had a hand in the story (maybe she did, who knows) – as it was her job to get favorable corporate communications for the studio. Interesting certainly that the names Brandon Tartikoff, Stanley Jaffe and Sherry Lansing were not brought up at all, and Brad Grey only in passing.

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That’s another thing about Paramount: as much fun as it was being a nice place to go to work, what with all the flowers, fountains, movie stars and whatnot, I and just about everyone I knew there (well, almost everyone) eventually got fired (including the aforementioned boss) – kind of like that water tower which isn’t really a water tower at all, just the top of an enormous meat grinder.

There is no grudge, I know all too well that everything ends. So I’m glad they’re in the process of creating jobs for future Paramount ex-employees.

John Campbell’s Retirement Par-tay…

There were at least two of these. Tasty.

Poster, in the Paramount Theater lobby

John Campbell (l) and Jim Arnold at JC's retirement shindig

What becomes a legend most? Well, it was too hot for a Blackgama fur coat, though I know he would have relished that. But certainly, after 33 years (the age of Christ, don’t you know) the absence of my friend John Campbell from Paramount will be felt far and wide in that company town.

Way too young to retire but did it, I suppose, because he could! How jealous am I? Tremendously! But yet, now I know John will have time to do things he was just too busy to do before, and that’s a good thing.
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There were hundreds of people at this party. I knew so few – John was maybe among the one or two folks I still know from when I worked at the studio from ’88 to ’96. Everybody got fired from there, including me. Somehow John figured out the secret of Paralongevity. He told us his M.O. was always to operate out of humor and love. That must be it.

The theater where they held the party and showed the “roasting” video (very well done and tres funny) still seems new to me even though it must be 16-17 years old now.

Good luck on future endeavors, John. I can’t wait to hear what’s next.

Spotted at the party: A.C. Lyles, in his ubiquitous suit. At 92, he didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Ronni Chasen, Lourdes Kelly, Brian McDevitt and my tenuous connection to the Gardner Heist speculation

Gardner Museum in Boston

Brian McDevitt

Continuing from yesterday – the weird coincidences between my script The Lourdes Kelly Story and the all-too-real murder of publicist Ronni Chasen in Beverly Hills last month.

When reading of the bizarre “suicide” of the person of interest at the Harvey Apartments near Santa Monica Boulevard and Western in L.A., reports said that other rumors regarding Chasen’s demise pointed to an art world fraud. (see comments section on that piece)

In The Lourdes Kelly Story, a feud between a high-powered female publicist and a crackerjack entertainment reporter ends in murder. The publicist’s fictional boyfriend is an art world conman whose most intense dream is to be a Hollywood screenwriter.

I based this character on someone I really knew, Brian McDevitt. As the Boston Herald story tells it, McDevitt had always been a suspect in the still-unsolved Gardner Museum Heist.

I met Brian in 1991, when I worked at Paramount and was tasked with helping put on a 50th Anniversary Celebration for the movie Citizen Kane. I got a call from him out of the blue. He said he was a staff writer on “The Wonder Years” and “was his name on a list or where would his tickets be sent?”

What?

Not wanting to piss off an important writer, I put his name on a list and told him if we had any extra tickets I would call him back. I thought, at the time, as an aspiring writer, it would be good for me to have a writer acquaintance who had an actual writing job and connections.

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I never checked his credential. Brian was the type of person who could sell you a sack of shit and not only have you believing that it was full of gold bullion but that it smelled like lilacs, too.

Of course, we did have a couple of extra tickets and Brian and his girlfriend made it to the CK party. After that, we developed a friendship. It evolved to the point where he was going to help me develop and hone my movie script; I would help him get a pitch meeting with Paramount brass who I interacted with (in my lowly way) every day (his script was about a Russian art theft…).

We would go to lunch, he would regale me with tales of WGA politics – he was involved somehow with them in administrating an early internet chatting protocol called a BBS.

He even gave me a script he said he’d written – it was a screenplay for Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, which was odd, since it had already been made into a movie in 1965 with Waugh, Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood as credited writers.

Then, one day all hell broke loose with the revelation in the trades that he had faked his WGA credentials and all his credits and was really just this Boston conman. He had apparently irritated the wrong person at the WGA, someone who actually had the interest and capacity to really check on his background. His crimes, lies, and the prison time, etc., all came tumbling out.

I remember calling his girlfriend that morning and telling her I just wanted to know “why.” I never heard from Brian again and I think he left Hollywood pretty much immediately.

In the Boston Herald piece, it says he died of kidney failure in 2004. Well, maybe. And perhaps that’s just a lie and he’s living the high life in Rio. I don’t know.

What I do know is that was the last time I ever trusted anyone in Hollywood, which is a valuable lesson to learn, even if it came a little later than it should have.

Yet – he was an absolutely delightful person. Pathological liar, maybe, but an engaging, smiling, articulate Irishman (you can’t tell from the B&W picture but his hair was mostly red). Wherever you are, Brian, I wish you well.

UPDATE 11/5/18 – If you’re a fan of true crime or art heists or whatever, let me direct you to this fabulous podcast “Last Seen,” which is about the Gardner Heist and Episode 8 is all about Brian McDevitt. Well worth your time! Produced by WBUR and The Boston Globe. Link:

http://www.wbur.org/lastseen