{"id":1025,"date":"2013-05-21T17:27:05","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T17:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/"},"modified":"2024-03-04T19:08:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T19:08:47","slug":"annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
\n
\n When Amy Wallace<\/strong><\/a> profiled then-Variety editor Peter Bart for Los Angeles<\/em> magazine<\/a>, she took on issues of access, personality, misdirection, industry politics, journalism and retaliation. To write about a guy who’s been called “the most hated man in Hollywood” demands guts and patience. To pull it off as she did requires a certain tact and grace. Wallace<\/a>, an expert on the psychology of Hollywood<\/a>, lifts the veil for us here in this installment of “Annotation Tuesday!” by taking us line by line through “Hollywood’s Information Man<\/a>,” which is as much about how journalists cover the filmmaking industry as it’s about how Bart operated about town.

\"Elon
Elon Green<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Our guest annotator is\u00a0Elon Green<\/strong><\/a>, who writes for The Awl<\/em><\/a> and contributes to Longform.org<\/a>. His comments are in\u00a0blue<\/span>, Wallace\u2019s in red<\/span>. He starts us off with a couple of questions for Wallace:

Storyboard: Not long ago, you told us<\/a>, \u201cA profile seeks to capture the essence\u2014the point\u2014of the person being profiled, and that is done, often, through narrative.\u201d Does the narrative become more important when, as is the case with Peter Bart, the essence seems so elusive?<\/strong>

Amy Wallace<\/strong>: I guess so, though a more important distinction in this story was that the narrative was double-barreled. There were the stories about Bart moving through the world of Hollywood. But there were also the stories that detailed my personal interactions with Bart. As I searched for the essence of Bart, I realized\u2014and this realization came during the writing process, late in the game\u2014that he was a man who wielded enormous power in Hollywood in large part because <\/i>his essence was elusive. He refused to be pegged. He wore many hats, and never failed to exploit the advantages that came with that shape-shifting ability. And, importantly, I realized that I had a lot of first-person experience with him that had allowed me to witness the way he wielded power\u2014by exerting it on me. This was at a time when it seemed every profile in Vanity Fair<\/i> started with the writer detailing what they <\/i>had eaten for lunch during an interview with Meg Ryan, and for that reason I resisted appearing in the piece for a long time. But then I realized that the way Bart was working me was a window into how he worked everyone. And once I realized that, punctuating the piece with our conversations really made sense.

This story is now 12 years old. What were you like back then? How do you imagine Bart saw you? <\/strong>

\"Amy
Amy Wallace<\/figcaption><\/figure>

I was 38 then, so I wasn\u2019t a kid. I had a lot of experience as a newspaper reporter. But I think one key thing that defined the way Bart saw me was that I had left newspapers to become a full-time magazine writer. I was shifting gears and trying to excel in a new form. And he already wrote for magazines\u2014he had a regular column in GQ<\/i>. He knew that, if he wished, he could help me break into national magazines and directly said as much (it\u2019s in the piece). The power dynamic\u2014him established, me striving\u2014was key to the way he interacted with me.

“Hollywood\u2019s Information Man<\/a>“<\/strong>
By Amy Wallace
Los Angeles<\/em> magazine
9.1.01

Peter Bart is on the phone, and he\u2019s threatening to sue.<\/i>

\u201cI really take umbrage at the gotcha nature of your interrogation,\u201d he says. His voice is taut. I can\u2019t see his knees, but I\u2019m sure at least one is twitching<\/i>. <\/i><\/a>This is great. It\u2019s not just vivid description; it lets the reader know you have met Peter. Whatever the story will be, it is not<\/i> a write-around. Was the Los Angeles <\/i>magazine name a help or a hindrance in persuading Bart to cooperate? And was access necessary?<\/span>Access was key to this story, and I explicitly told Bart that I wouldn\u2019t do the piece without it. My original idea for the story was that the world of Hollywood\u2019s trade papers fascinated me and I thought Bart was a great main character through which to tell that story. He was smart, had worked inside and outside the studios, had been a journalist and written books\u2013through him I would pull back the curtain and explain the odd symbiotic role the trades played then in the town they supposedly merely covered. I met with Bart for lunch and told him I wanted to write \u201ca New Yorker<\/i>-style profile\u201d of him. I said I wanted him to think about it overnight and not tell me until the next day, because if he said yes, I could guarantee he was going to get sick of me. I told him I was going to read every word he\u2019d ever written (not a small task), show up at every public event he headlined, and be a fly on the wall in as many situations as he would allow. The next morning he called and said, \u201cLet\u2019s do it.\u201d As for the twitching knee detail\u2014I ended up spending so much time with Bart in so many circumstances that I felt certain about the knee twitching. This was an important beginning because it not only said that I\u2019d met him\/spent time with him, it signaled to readers that I\u2019d spent SO much time with him that I felt that I knew him well. Whatever was coming, it was going to be a deeply reported piece.<\/span><\/span>

Bart, the editor-in-chief of Variety, the entertainment industry\u2019s dominant newspaper, is accustomed to being in charge. Studio heads woo him; strivers kiss his ass. Everyone wants his insight and his wisdom\u2014or prominent placement in Variety\u2019s big, glossy pages. In his weekly column, \u201cThe Back Lot,\u201d he alternately strokes and scolds moguls and movie stars, addressing them by their first names. When Bart telephones the powerful, he is put right through. Now he\u2019s calling me.<\/i>

\u201cI think to plunk documents out of context,\u201d he says, \u201con people whose lives are as busy as yours or mine is a little unfair. This is not consistent with the access and cooperation I have afforded you.\u201d<\/i>

Over several months I have encountered a dizzying variety of Peters. I have spent many hours with Charming Peter, who is smart, funny, fierce. I have gotten to know Judgmental Peter, who loves to size up others. I\u2019ve met Crude Peter, Brilliant Peter, Hypocritical Peter, Loyal Peter.<\/i>

Bart calls himself \u201cZelig-like.\u201d A setter of rules who hates to follow them, a lover of labels who resents being characterized, a seeker of the truth who doesn\u2019t always tell it, Bart believes he is immune to the conflicts that derail lesser men. It\u2019s one of the things that place him among the most despised and feared people in Hollywood. I listen to him speaking now. It\u2019s a Peter I\u2019ve never met.<\/i>

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in public life, people attack you,\u201d Intimidating Peter tells me. \u201cBut I\u2019m taken aback by a bogus document suddenly being slammed on the desk. I\u2019ll send you a note saying I will sue you, which I sure as hell will.\u201d <\/i><\/a>The opening ends here. You italicized it. Could you tell me about that? It reads like a pre-credit sequence. And did Bart ever send you that note?<\/span>He never sent me that note, though we did have a phone conversation after the piece appeared. But I\u2019ll get to that later. As I said in response to your opening questions, when I realized that Bart\u2019s interactions with me were relevant and revelatory, I started to look for ways to use them. And it occurred to me that they could become the scaffolding for the piece.<\/span><\/span>
IF YOU ARE A DOCTOR OR A GROCER or an airline pilot with no ties to the business that produces America\u2019s number-one export\u2014entertainment\u2014you probably have never heard of Peter Bart. But if you are among the 70,000 people in Los Angeles, New York, and around the world who can\u2019t start the day without knowing which big-name movie director just got a two-picture deal, Bart is an institution. <\/a>This is smart. It\u2019s an acknowledgement that you, the reader, most likely have no reason to care about Peter Bart. But I\u2019m going to make you.<\/i><\/span>Thanks. Yes, this was key to the piece. Bart was a huge power broker in Hollywood, but most people outside of the entertainment business had never heard of him. I had to make a case for why they should read 13,000 words.<\/span><\/span>

Over nearly four decades in Los Angeles he\u2019s been a reporter for The New York Times<\/i>, an executive at three movie studios, an independent film producer, a screenwriter, and an author of both novels and nonfiction. For the past dozen years he has been the editor of and most influential columnist at Daily Variety<\/i> and Weekly Variety<\/i>, the sister publications whose zippy headlines, who\u2019s-in-who\u2019s-out reporting, and largely anonymous sources routinely make and break reputations. In clout-conscious Hollywood, that makes Bart not just an observer but a player.

There are two keys to success in Hollywood: relationships and information. Bart traffics in both. He lunches almost every day with a studio chief, a marketing executive, a top manager or talent agency head, an entertainment lawyer or lobbyist. In the course of just a few weeks earlier this year he dined with screenwriter William Goldman; Ron Meyer, president of Universal Studios; Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Warner Bros. president of worldwide production; Michael Ovitz, CEO of Artists Management Group; Mike De Luca, former New Line president of production (and now production chief at DreamWorks SKG); Mike Medavoy, chairman of Phoenix Pictures; Tom Sherak, partner at Revolution Studios; Rob Friedman, vice chairman at Paramount Pictures; John McLean, executive director of the Writers Guild of America; Don Marron, chairman of PaineWebber; and Skip Brittenham, a partner in the entertainment law firm Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca & Fischer. <\/a>Did Bart give you this information?<\/span>Yes.<\/span><\/span>

These meals aren\u2019t interviews, according to Bart, but meetings between equals. After all, in his 17 years as an executive, most prominently at Paramount Pictures, Bart was one of them. He likes to think he still is. \u201cSome people say I owe Joe Roth a lot,\u201d Bart says of the former Disney chief who now runs Revolution Studios. \u201cBut I don\u2019t. Joe Roth owes me. I gave him his first job. \u201c(While Bart was president of Lorimar Film Company, Roth produced the 1979 dud Americathon<\/i>, but it was Roth\u2019s fourth film, not his first.) <\/a>I counted up the lies. There are at least eight (8) outright lies. This, I believe, is the first. They\u2019re sprinkled throughout the story like Easter eggs. Was this a conscious decision?<\/span>The decision-making was less about cataloguing untruths and more about exploring Bart\u2019s fundamental belief that he was the expert on his own truth at any given moment. It is often said that Los Angeles is a place people come to reinvent themselves. Bart had embraced that idea with gusto, not only by working in many different capacities in and out of the biz, but also by asserting various identities, whichever one fit best in whatever situation he placed himself in.<\/span><\/span>

\u201cThe same with John Calley,\u201d Bart says of the head of Sony Pictures. Bart has known Calley since the late 1960s, when Bart says Calley pitched him Catch-22<\/i>. Bart calls Calley \u201cthe country gentleman\u201d\u2014a vaguely catty reference to Calley\u2019s decision to leave the world of moviemaking for 13 years, only to return in 1993 as president of MGM\/United Artists. <\/a>Was the reference familiar to you, or did Peter explain it? It\u2019s not intuitive.<\/span>I asked Bart to explain it, and he did.<\/span><\/span> \u201cI owe John Calley a lot? John Calley owes me,\u201d he says, asserting that a positive column he wrote made Calley a contender for the post. \u201cI think I was very important in getting him his job at MGM.\u201d

In his weekly Variety <\/i>column and in bimonthly pieces in GQ<\/i>, Bart speaks as one who knows Hollywood and everyone in it. His vocabulary is a mix of the colloquial (he refers often to \u201cthe rules,\u201d \u201cthe game,\u201d \u201cthe fat cats,\u201d \u201cthe old farts,\u201d \u201cthe suits\u201d) and the arcane. Rare is the attractive woman whom Bart does not label \u201clissome.\u201d Most notably, in a town infamous for air kisses and false praise, Bart often writes what he means. DreamWorks\u2019 Jeffrey Katzenberg is \u201chyperactive,\u201d while a conversation with Sandy Litvack, a former top executive at Disney, is \u201cakin to poking one\u2019s head in an oven.\u201d Producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard \u201cexude about as much charisma as Wal-Mart managers,\u201d while George Lucas is \u201csimply so rich and mythologized that no one professes to be able to interact with [him] on a normal human level.\u201d

\u201cPerhaps,\u201d Bart wrote last year in a column addressed to Robert Redford, \u201cthere\u2019s something in your \u2026 head that says \u2018I\u2019m a star, I take up a lot of ego space; my movies should, too.\u2019\u201d He\u2019s made the same complaint to Warren Beatty, whom he calls the priapic prince. Bart has written several columns about Beatty\u2019s filmmaking and womanizing\u2014even going so far as to describe the sounds the actor-director-write-producer supposedly makes during \u201cmoments of sexual congress.\u201d

\u201cYou have to understand, if Peter is criticizing or praising you, the thing that\u2019s solid about it is this is a guy who knows our business,\u201d says Harvey Weinstein, Miramax\u2019s disheveled cofounder, whom Bart has called a slob more than once. \u201cHe said my shirt looked like I was a refugee from a food fight. He calls me roly-poly. But this guy put The Godfather<\/i> into production! It\u2019s my favorite movie of all time. So even if I\u2019m mad at him, I can\u2019t be mad at him.\u201d

Peter Guber, former chairman of Sony Pictures, goes further. \u201cPeter is riding in the general\u2019s car\u2014Variety <\/i>is the general\u2019s car. And you salute the general\u2019s car even when the general\u2019s not in it,\u201d Guber says. \u201cI say to him, \u2018Never let go of this job, because the wolves will attack. People are kept at bay by your power.\u2019 It\u2019s a tremendous platform and weapon, and people view it as such. So he\u2019s feared and respected\u2014or respected and feared\u2014depending on the person.\u201d

Besides, says Sherry Lansing, chair of Paramount Pictures, \u201cPeter has the power to affect the way people think.\u201d <\/a>When did you do the interviews with Guber, Weinstein and Lansing? Your preference, you\u2019ve said<\/a>, is to conduct secondaries \u201cideally before I sit down with the subject.\u201d And how has your interview style\/technique changed since this piece was written? <\/span>I conducted these interviews during the months I spent talking to Bart. This was a situation in which no one spoke to me until they\u2019d gotten Bart\u2019s permission to do so\u2014and made sure he was participating in the piece. So I couldn\u2019t fish around beforehand. Also, just to clarify my statement (which you quote accurately) that I like to do secondary interviews first\u2014mostly I think that\u2019s important for celebrity interviews, when you are only going to get limited time with the person and are unlikely to be allowed to follow up. In those situations, where you\u2019re only going to get one face-to-face, I find it\u2019s very helpful to have talked to secondary sources first, because 1) those people often give you great insights that help you frame better questions and 2) being able to tell James Franco that you\u2019ve already talked to the director of his next movie makes Franco (or whoever) feel like you\u2019re at least trying hard to get things right\/taking him seriously. Anyway, I don\u2019t know that my interview style\/technique has changed enormously. My basic technique is: Be prepared. Read\/watch\/know everything you can before you go in.<\/span><\/span>

That power derives in large part from his position at Variety<\/i>, the Industry\u2019s 96-year-old broadsheet that doesn\u2019t just cover entertainment news but helps make it. It is Hollywood\u2019s prime bulletin board\u2014what one marketing consultant likens to \u201ca high school newspaper that everyone has a tremendous need to see their names in.\u201d It\u2019s not just an ego thing. In a world built on illusions, being mentioned in Variety <\/i>lends legitimacy. It makes you seem real. In Hollywood, seeming is believing. <\/a>This isn\u2019t just a profile of Bart. Weaved in is a commentary on the local film industry, too. Do you make a point of including such context in your stories? <\/span>Many profiles\u2014the best ones, I think\u2014are a window into a world that the reader has never considered before. I make a point of looking for stories like that. Another example would be my Wired<\/i> profile of Dr. Paul Offit<\/a>, which also was a portrait of the anti-vaccine movement that he works so hard to counter.<\/span><\/span>

When Variety <\/i>reports that Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to star in a film, for example, savvy readers know chances are good that someone is merely floating DiCaprio\u2019s name. Why? To turn up the heat on Matt Damon, say, or some other foot-dragging actor the movie studio really wants to sign. Agents and publicists often complain that Variety <\/i>writes about deals before they\u2019re done. But those same people plant stories in Variety <\/i>all the time in hopes of clinching a deal or killing someone else\u2019s. <\/a>Was this type of manipulation common knowledge at the time? When I read the story for the first time, not long after it was published, I had no idea.<\/span>It was well known in Hollywood, but not outside of Hollywood. In fact, I\u2019d say an interesting thing about the way this piece was received within the entertainment business was that the reaction on many fronts was not, \u201cWow, I never knew that!\u201d but more, \u201cWow, we all know that happens\/Bart does that\/etc\u2026, but nobody ever SAYS so in public!\u201d This story in many ways was hiding in plain sight. Many people around town knew about the \u201cbombshells\u201d I reported. But no one ever had made them public before.<\/span><\/span>

Here, pecking order determines more than just who gets a table with an ocean view. The perception of who\u2019s on top determines which projects are produced, who will work on them, and how much money they\u2019ll make. More than any other entity, Variety<\/i> reflects and informs Hollywood\u2019s collective consciousness. Readers don\u2019t just parse the information on its pages; they dissect what stories are where, who is quoted up high, who is relegated to beyond the jump. With its trademark \u201cslanguage,\u201d Variety <\/i>helps its subscribers keep score\u2014an essential service in a town obsessed with rank. Whether you\u2019ve \u201cankled\u201d (quit) or been \u201cupped\u201d (promoted) at a \u201cpraisery\u201d (public relations firm), a \u201cdiskery\u201d (record company), or a \u201ctenpercentery\u201d (talent agency), if the story runs on Variety\u2019s <\/i>front, it means you matter. By extension, Bart matters to you.

In 1997 Emilio Estevez, the actor-director, was so distressed by Bart\u2019s dismissal of his film The War at Home<\/i> that he fired off a two-page letter that was widely distributed around town. The letter was intended to diminish Bart, but its vitriol only confirmed Bart\u2019s central place in the Industry.

\u201cIn you, I see a failed movie producer, hiding behind the protective veil of your post\u2026 It is sad and pathetic,\u201d Estevez wrote. He urged Bart to \u201c1. Simply not see my films. 2. Drop dead sometime soon. 3. Go fuck yourself.\u201d He signed off with this: \u201cEnjoy life from your bully pulpit, little man.\u201d
<\/span>

Not for nothing did one top executive in town famously dub Bart \u201cthe most hated man in Hollywood.\u201d For not only does Bart control the Industry\u2019s bible, but by virtue of his station he always gets something that everyone\u2014in and out of Hollywood\u2014desperately wants: the last word. <\/a>A narrative wink?\u00a0Bart does not, in fact, get the last word with you.<\/span>That\u2019s unintentional. I\u2019ve never thought of that.<\/span><\/span>

***

\u201cI have Peter Bart for you.\u201d<\/i>

The silken voice of Bart\u2019s assistant could not be more different from his own, which is slightly nasal, rapid-fire. His accent is so hard to place <\/i><\/a>Smart. We soon learn, of course, how cagey Bart is about his family origins.<\/span><\/span>and his delivery at times so oddly paced that some have speculated, half seriously, that he modeled it after Al Pacino\u2019s staccato in The Godfather. <\/i><\/a>Did you ask Bart to confirm\/deny?<\/span>Honestly, I can\u2019t remember. But whether he did or not, it\u2019s telling that people gossip about the possibility that he did.<\/span><\/span>

This is Condescending Peter calling, as he often does, to talk trash about other journalists. \u201cDid you read Patrick Goldstein\u2019s column today? What was he talking about? You know who\u2019s running out of ideas? Goldstein,\u201d he\u2019ll say, referring to the Los Angeles Times\u2019s movie columnist. When Charles Fleming, a former Variety reporter, writes an opinion piece in the Times about the ethical dilemmas of the Hollywood press corps, Bart sniffs, \u201cThis story epitomizes him. It\u2019s like a blur. A lot of undeveloped ideas.\u201d<\/i>

Today his target is Variety\u2019s archrival, The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cPoor little George Christy,\u201d Bart says, referring to the Reporter\u2019s gossip columnist. \u201cI\u2019m all for exposes, but George Christy? The level of small-time stuff he does, I mean, who cares?\u201d Christy is being investigated for accepting expensive gifts and movie credits\u2014which qualified him for Screen Actors Guild health benefits\u2014from the people he writes about. When the Reporter\u2019s own labor writer, David Robb, filed a piece on Christy, its publisher refused to run it. Robb and Anita M. Busch, the trade paper\u2019s editor, resigned in protest.<\/i>

Bart, however, sees the Christy affair as an indictment not so much of a journalist allegedly on the take but of the editor and the reporter who fought to reveal it. Both Robb and Busch once worked at Variety. It\u2019s hard to tell whom he loathes more.<\/i>

\u201cIt\u2019s a fascinating implosion,\u201d Bart says gleefully. \u201cIt reminds me of when Robert Altman directed a picture\u2013this was when he was drinking. At a certain point he would turn on his main characters and make them into hideous creatures. That\u2019s what Dave Robb and Anita Busch would have done here, too, but I wouldn\u2019t have it, and I fired them.\u201d<\/i>

Actually, he did no such thing. Variety\u2019s personnel department confirms Robb\u2019s and Busch\u2019s assertions that they both resigned. <\/i><\/a>Your story is reminiscent of the classic Fortune <\/i><\/a>profile<\/a> of Steve Florio, whom Elkind and Florio unmask as a serial fabulist. How concerned were you that readers would eventually dismiss everything that came out of Bart\u2019s mouth?<\/span>I wasn\u2019t concerned one way or another. First of all, he didn\u2019t dissemble about everything. He just liked to tell the most dramatic story\u2014as we say at one point in the piece, he likes to be at the red-hot center. And if that meant exaggerating, so be it. That was my impression.<\/span><\/span>

***

IT\u2019S OSCAR EVE, and Peter Bart has just arrived at his third party in less than 24 hours. \u201cI could use a drink,\u201d he tells his wife, as some of Hollywood\u2019s biggest movie stars preen before him: Julia, Russell, Kevin.<\/a><Just a note here that I\u2019ve told journalism classes over the years: This section was, for the longest time, my lede. I loved that it showed Bart in action, working a room, pulling strings, working long-time relationships and, yes, wearing many hats. That was the key to his identity, I\u2019d decided, and so this seemed to be the right lede. Until I realized I had something better in my notebook.<\/span><\/span>

Owlish in round spectacles, with tufts of thinning black and gray hair, Bart is five feet nine inches tall <\/a>Did you get this from Bart? I assume you didn\u2019t whip out a tape measure.<\/span>I think I asked him. And I\u2019m 5\u201910\u201d, so I have a pretty good take on whether 5\u20199\u201d rings true.<\/span><\/span> and has the trim, tanned physique of a tennis player. He looks for a moment as if he is standing at the edge of a pool, weighing whether to get wet. Actors tend to bore him, so it\u2019s not the press of famous flesh that\u2019s making him thirsty. Bart, who is 69 years old, has a complicated relationship with the industry. Never are his conflicts more glaring than during Hollywood\u2019s High Holy Days\u2014Academy Awards time\u2014when the movie business celebrates and contemplates itself.

Before Bart can order a vodka martini, however, he is spotted by Bill Maher, who steps up and gives him a nudge. \u201cWell,\u201d the host of TV\u2019s Politically Incorrect<\/i> says with gusto, \u201cif it isn\u2019t Hollywood\u2019s top fucking information man!\u201d

Having worn many hats during his long career, Bart delights these days in wearing several at once. When he wants to attend a Writers Guild of America meeting that is closed to the press, he dusts off his screenwriter credentials. (He claims to be the only editor who is an active voting member of the WGA. <\/a>You stress-test the majority of Bart\u2019s assertions. Were you unable to verify this? I take \u201cclaims\u201d to mean you were, at the very least, skeptical.<\/span>It\u2019s been so long that I have to admit that I can\u2019t recall precisely, but: We fact-checked this piece, as we do every piece at Los Angeles<\/i>, with utmost care. Given that, and given what I know of the magazine\u2019s research editor Eric Mercado, I would guess that this was impossible to prove or disprove.)<\/span><\/span> When he wants to cast a vote for Best Picture, he activates \u201cthe part of me that\u2019s an Academy voter.\u201d (His Academy membership is a holdover from his years as a producer.) When he wants to collect a speaking fee, he turns into a paid adviser, giving tips\u2014to cite one recent example\u2014to the film division of cable network HBO.

\u201cI have lived a split-level life in Hollywood,\u201d he wrote in the introduction to his 1999 book, The Gross: The Hits, the Flops\u2013the Summer That Ate Hollywood<\/i>. But he will commit to neither one. His \u201cdualities,\u201d as he calls them, <\/a>I love that you return to this word in the last line of the story. How did you settle on the thru-lines\/themes of this piece? And how do you do it more generally?<\/span>Big question. When it comes to this piece, I think I\u2019ve already shed some light above. But in every piece, there are themes that emerge and must be wrestled with. How do you do that? You gather all your reporting, you read it over, looking for echoes. You spend a lot of time thinking about what seemed to resonate most in the moment. There\u2019s no magic to it. You put in the time and think.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0are not liabilities but the keys to his success.<\/span>\u00a0\u201cI enjoy the fact that my relationships with people have so many different colorations,\u201d Bart says. \u201cI\u2019ve never thought of myself as just a whatever-I-was. I always think it\u2019s fun to try and reinvent yourself.\u201d

On the weekend of the Academy Awards ceremony, Bart\u2019s many identities come out to play. Three days of self-congratulatory events unfold like so many garish, pungent flowers. Some on the A-list grumble about the chaos of Oscar-party fever\u2014the long waits for valet parking, the glut of hors d\u2019oeuvres\u2014but those who are not invited are so mortified about what their omission implies that some leave town to save face. <\/a>It\u2019s a tart, economical sketch of an insecure industry. Is this still true? Does this piece feel dated to you?<\/span>The main way that the piece has become utterly dated is that the trades are no longer as powerful as they were then. Variety<\/i> is trying to reboot at the moment and the Hollywood Reporter<\/i> is a glossy vehicle for luxury advertising (that actually caters brilliantly to this same insecurity I describe here, by celebrating power-brokers and putting their pictures on high-quality paper). What hasn\u2019t changed at all is the you\u2019re-only-as-good-as-your-last-project mentality. What hasn\u2019t changed is how being perceived as successful is half the battle. And the fear\u2013the fear hasn\u2019t changed. If anything, as new ways of consuming entertainment have threatened the revenue\u00a0streams of traditional Hollywood, it\u2019s only grown.<\/span><\/span>

Variety\u2019s <\/i>top man doesn\u2019t have to worry. It all begins with Friday night\u2019s annual celebration at the Beverly Hills mansion of agent-to-the-stars Ed Limato. The dinner is a magnet for Oscar nominees as well as Limato\u2019s top-drawer clients. The embossed invitations are hard to come by, and the media are, officially, not welcome. Bart is an exception. This year, as every year, he RSVP\u2019d yes.

Saturday afternoon, literary agent Bob Bookman throws a garden party for screenwriters and agents at his Hancock Park home. Bart makes an appearance. Then he stops home, dons a cobalt blue dress shirt and black blazer\u2014the dark-on-dark uniform of Hollywood\u2019s male elite\u2014and heads back to Beverly Hills for Miramax\u2019s bash at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. <\/a>This is clever. We get a sense of Bart\u2019s circle; how, via his wardrobe, he endeavors to present himself; and his schedule. Did you accompany Bart? And how much time did you need to spend with him before you got to sufficiently know him?<\/span>I was at the Miramax party, but not at Bookman\u2019s beforehand. Bart told me he\u2019d stopped home to change. There\u2019s no substitute for being with your subject. As much as you can be until you feel you\u2019ve figured them out.<\/span><\/span> The event is known for skits that spoof the Oscar contenders, and to gain entrance the media must agree to leave all spoofing off the record. For Bart the restriction is moot: He never carries a reporter\u2019s notebook.

He pushes through a ring of admirers who surround the night\u2019s host, Miramax\u2019s Harvey Weinstein. Barrel-shaped and garrulous, Weinstein is one of Bart\u2019s favorite sources. He is also a principal in Miramax\/Talk Books, and he has bid to publish Bart\u2019s books. Bart and Weinstein shake hands, but there are others waiting, and Bart backs away. \u201cThere\u2019s something kind of primitive about him,\u201d Bart says. He means it as a compliment. <\/a>As with the Calley remark, you disclose Bart\u2019s interpretation. Had you heard Bart call someone that before?<\/span>I could just tell by the twinkle in his eyes when he said it. \u201cPrimitive\u201d was an Alpha-male quality, and one that he prized. Also, I knew they liked each other.<\/span><\/span>

Bart scans the crowd and heads straight for movie producer David Brown, whose many films range from Jaws <\/i>to last year\u2019s Chocolat<\/i>. Brown contributed a blurb to the jacket of Bart\u2019s most recent book, calling it \u201cmust reading for all who care.\u201d Bart greets Brown warmly, then maneuvers toward producer-director Irwin Winkler. Their friendship dates to the 1970s, when Bart\u2014then vice president of production at Paramount Pictures\u2014set up Winkler\u2019s movie The Gambler<\/i>. A quick hello, a pat on the shoulder, and Bart keeps moving. Near a buffet table piled with crab cakes and Peking duck, he makes a lunch date with Ted Field, a music and film mogul to whom Bart gave his first break in the movie business. It was the early \u201980s, and Bart was senior vice president of production at MGM.

\u201cWhen I was at MGM I said to Ted, \u2018Why don\u2019t you get a picture going? Here\u2019s an idea. If you want it, it\u2019s yours,\u2019\u201d Bart says, explaining how he sold Field a treatment that he had written with his youngest daughter, Dilys. The treatment became the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds<\/i>, and the sale helped pay Dilys\u2019s way through Stanford University.

Completing his first lap around the room, Bart returns to his table, nods fondly at his wife, and finally takes a few sips of vodka. <\/a>These paragraphs have the effect of the Steadicam Copa shot<\/a> in Goodfellas<\/i>.<\/span><\/span>By the time Nigel Sinclair, cochairman of the British film company Intermedia, stops by to pay his respects, Bart is coiled less tightly. So, as he often does, he launches into a ribald tale from one of his past lives. In this one a panicky crew member calls Bart from the set of the 1972 movie The Getaway<\/i> to say that the film\u2019s two stars are having an affair. What made this report especially juicy at the time: One of them, Ali MacGraw, was married to Bart\u2019s friend and then boss at Paramount, Robert Evans.

\u201cI was the guy who got the phone call: \u2018Ali went into Steve McQueen\u2019s trailer 24 hours ago, and they haven\u2019t come out. What should we do?\u2019\u201d Bart says, enjoying the story he has dined out on for 30 years. \u201cI said, \u2018Take a hint from this.\u2019 And I hung up.\u201d <\/a>This is a marvelous scene. You once said<\/a>, \u201dIf we had our druthers, we journalists would always want to encounter our celebrity subjects in an environment they would naturally be in.\u201d Is this it, for Bart? And does that philosophy of immersion extend to profiles of noncelebrities?<\/span>I would argue that Bart\u2014though powerful in his rarefied world\u2014WAS a noncelebrity, which is precisely why I could spend as much time with him as I did. Celebrities rarely let you spend more than a few days at most in their presence. But even when the time is limited, it\u2019s always better to meet your subject in a place where they actually spend time when you\u2019re not there. And when you can see how they interact with people in their world, even better.<\/span><\/span>

***

Mentor Peter <\/i><\/a>Who came up with the idea for the different Peters?<\/span>I was having a long conversation with my friend J.R. Moehringer about the story, and I was nattering on about all the different scenarios I\u2019d seen him in and I must\u2019ve said something like, \u201cThere\u2019s Condescending Peter and Bossy Peter and Flattering Peter and\u2026\u201d We both went silent and then: BAM! He and I have talked about that moment for years as one of the great \u201cYour peanut butter is in my chocolate\/your chocolate is in my peanut butter\u201d moments (that\u2019s an archaic Reese\u2019s Cup ad, for those of you who don\u2019t recall it). It was enormously satisfying and fun and underscores another piece of advice about striving for greatness in magazine writing: Develop a great panel of advisers.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0is at Le Dome, telling me what to eat.<\/i>

He\u2019s invited me to lunch at the frumpy power restaurant on the Sunset Strip. <\/i><\/a>I have never heard\/seen \u2018frumpy\u2019 used to describe anything other than a dress or a woman. How many adjectives did you audition before settling on this?<\/span>If you\u2019d ever been at Le Dome \u2013 or at the Plaza Hotel in NYC before they renovated and made condos, for that matter\u2014you would have reached immediately for frumpy. It just fit.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0With a flourish he orders us each a chicken burger with mixed greens\u2014the favorite meal, he says, of his own mentor, Robert Evans. \u201cThere\u2019s no bun, so it\u2019s the Atkin\u2019s diet,\u201d he tells me. \u201cNot that you or I are in dire need of diets. You look like a jock.\u201d<\/i>

Then he offers a career advice. \u201cI\u2019d like to see you do books. You are a disciplined writer, and for someone who can write and be disciplined about it, doing books and magazine articles is a wonderful thing. That\u2019s why I like writing for GQ every other month. I would love to see you do that sort of thing,\u201d he says, taking a bite. \u201cThe New Yorker is looking for someone. Everybody is.\u201d<\/i>

For a moment I find myself basking in Mentor Peter\u2019s regard. Then Withholding Peter takes over, delivering a critique of the magazine for which I actually work. \u201cThe last issue\u2014I really liked it, but I wonder if it\u2019s a little overdesigned. Where are the big stories you want to read? Having said that, I liked the energy. But even your last story was just \u2026 THERE. I wish you guys nothing but the best,\u201d he says, chewing slowly. \u201cI just hope your magazine succeeds.\u201d <\/i><\/a>Okay,\u00a0this seems like a good time to ask: Was Bart at all resistant to participating in this story? He acts is if there is nothing in it for him.<\/span>No, he wasn\u2019t resistant. I was his biographer. I followed up on every story he told, I read not just every column he\u2019d ever written but even his novel about Mormons, I was calling around town asking everyone who mattered to weigh in. I think if that kind of attention matters to you, you might feel you were getting something out of it.<\/span><\/span>

***

BART\u2019S 17 YEARS INSIDE THE MOVIEMAKING MACHINE is the foundation on which he\u2019s built the rest of his career. His management style stems from it. His books and columns draw credibility from it. More than anything else, it confirmed his belief in a credo he\u2019d had drummed into him since childhood: Self-invention is the route to power.

\u201cI was raised with one adamant dictum: Don\u2019t allow yourself to be imprisoned in any socioeconomic category, religious category, ethnic category, whatever,\u201d Bart says one afternoon. We are sitting in the peach-colored living room of his home in Fremont Place, the Mid Wilshire enclave that was one of Los Angeles\u2019s first gated communities. The eight-bedroom house used to belong to Harry Cohn, the producer and movie-studio founder whom Bart likes to call \u201cthe mean-spirited czar of Columbia.\u201d Bart and his wife <\/a>Did you talk to her?<\/span>Yes, but not in depth. After the story ran, however, I heard from Bart\u2019s ex-wife\u2014the mother of his children. More on this later.<\/span><\/span> have refurbished Cohn\u2019s screening room to its original 1920s splendor, and he delights in referring to a separate alcove as \u201cHarry\u2019s phone room.\u201d But there\u2019s another commonality that Bart does not wish to talk about. Cohn, like many of Hollywood\u2019s founding fathers, was Jewish. When I ask Bart about his own ethnicity, he turns elusive. It\u2019s peculiar, to say the least. <\/a>This sentence sticks out. You generally keep your opinions to yourself.<\/span>Well, it WAS peculiar, the way he refused to talk about what to most people is just their boilerplate origin-story. He simply refused to do it.<\/span><\/span> Of all American industries, Hollywood has historically been a place where Jews have not only achieved acceptance but thrived. But following his parents\u2019 dictum, Bart keeps his ancestry a secret.

Here are a few things Bart would tell me about his upbringing: Peter Benton Bart was born in 1932 and raised on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side. His only brother is six years older. His parents were public-school teachers who had immigrated to the United States, though their son won\u2019t say from where. (\u201cThey were very Americanized,\u201d he says.) The elder Barts were fiercely irreligious and ferociously anticommunist. (\u201cThey told me if I was caught playing with a communist, they wouldn\u2019t feed me.\u201d) For reasons he never understood, they served Chinese food \u201cmorning, noon, and night.\u201d (\u201cThey weren\u2019t the kind of people you sat down with and said, \u201cTell me the origins of this fetish.\u2019\u201d) <\/a>I\u2019ve read this repeatedly and I still don\u2019t know what he means. Explain?<\/span>Meaning, he never knew why they had a fetish for Chinese food. He was painting the picture of an eccentric upbringing that taught him not to ever do what was expected of you.<\/span><\/span> Although not wealthy, the family enjoyed some luxuries: a nanny, private schooling for the kids, and a vacation home in Martha\u2019s Vineyard.

Here are a few things Bart wouldn\u2019t tell me: Both his parents were born in Austria. His mother, whose maiden name was Clara Ginsberg, arrived at Ellis Island in 1914. Her passenger record includes this notation: \u201cEthnicity: Austria (Hebrew).\u201d There is no record of a Max S. Bart entering the United States through Ellis Island. Bart\u2019s father may have traveled under another name. But there is a listing for a Moses Bart, which was the name of Bart\u2019s paternal grandfather. Moses came to America in 1913, when he was 57 years old. His ethnicity: \u201cAustria, Hebrew.\u201d <\/a>These two paragraphs\u2014wow. You\u2019re speeding down the highway at 85 mph and, out of nowhere, you slam the brakes.\u00a0It\u2019s a hint of what\u2019s to come in the last section, during which you more or less turn into an interrogator. Is this meant to be a hinge point in the story?<\/span>I found these documents online, after much searching. What was fascinating to me here was not whether or not he was Jewish\u2014because whatever he was didn\u2019t matter one way or another\u2014but that he would go to such lengths to deny a simple truth. Because, it seems, he was adamant that no one should be able to define him by anything other than the elements he chose to accentuate.<\/span><\/span>

Bart has kept even his closest friends confused about his past. \u201cHe was brought up a Quaker, wasn\u2019t he?\u201d asks Evans. It\u2019s an honest mistake. You can\u2019t spend more than an hour with Bart without hearing about his attending Friends Seminary and Swarthmore College\u2014both Quaker institutions.

\u201cI don\u2019t want to talk about it,\u201d Bart says of his religious heritage, as one of his knees begins bouncing up and down. <\/a>There\u2019s the twitch.<\/span>Yep.<\/span><\/span> \u201cI resent people\u2019s militancy on these issues. Everyone wants to peg everyone else because everyone is predictable. And I\u2019m not.\u201d

Over several months he will volunteer that he has never once dated a Jewish girl,<\/a>This was the line in the story that prompted the letter<\/a> from Duffie Bart, aka Dorothy Callman, Bart\u2019s ex-wife. She wrote: \u201cMy name is Dorothy Callman. I am Jewish. We dated for three years, were married for close to twenty.\u201d<\/span><\/span> never attended a seder, and has been inside a synagogue only once, for the bar mitzvah of then-agent Michael Ovitz\u2019s son. (\u201cI wanted to see what one was like.\u201d) \u201cListen, I got berated by the vice president in charge of business affairs at Paramount,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause I did not take off Jewish holidays. And I was affronted. I basically told him to mind his own damned business.\u201d

At one point he tries to explain his discomfort by comparing himself to his longtime assistant, a light-skinned black woman: \u201cShe struggles with this, too. She feels she\u2019s a black person. But she\u2019s about as black as Felix [Bart’s Siamese cat]. I feel she is a bit victimized by, again, that need to identify with some subculture that will help you.

\u201cYou talk to a lot of the better-educated, wealthy black people. You know, they\u2019re not very black. The big distinction is between the people they call \u2018niggers\u2019\u2014who are the ghetto blacks, who can\u2019t even speak, can\u2019t get a job, and bury themselves in black-itude\u2014and those people who are better looking, better educated, smarter, and who own the world: the black middle class,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of people in Hollywood\u2014let\u2019s say if they happen to be Jewish people who come from Brooklyn\u2014they are most comfortable with those people. Which is fine. It just doesn\u2019t happen to describe me.\u201d

A few minutes later he asks, \u201cCan you and I make a deal about this whole thing about religion? I would love it if we could dodge it in some way that you don\u2019t think is dishonest.\u201d He will repeat this request more than once. <\/a>Interesting that Bart tried to talk you out of mentioning the Jewish remarks, but was apparently just fine with the rest.<\/span>Yes, I agree. I remember, as he was beginning his analysis of black people, looking down at my cassette recorder, with its big red light shining brightly to indicate it was on. And I thought: He knows I\u2019m recording this. This is one of the most formal interviews we\u2019ve done (as opposed to me following him around or sitting in on a meeting). What is he thinking??<\/span><\/span>

***

Pundit Peter is in my living room, on television.<\/i>

When network news shows need someone to speak for Hollywood\u2014on the impact of possible strikes, for example, or Washington\u2019s campaign against violent entertainment\u2014they often turn to Bart. Tonight the man Bill Maher introduces as a \u201cformer big-time studio honcho prexy\u201d is making his second appearance on Politically Incorrect.<\/i>

The show is an ideal forum for Bart. He loves a good sword fight. Dapper in a black dress shirt and beige suit, Bart fences with Monica Crowley, a political commentator for Fox News, and actors Martin Short and Alec Baldwin, the topic: Richard Nixon. \u201cNixon was famous for being a self-made man who only admired self-made men,\u201d Maher says. \u201cWhat do you think Nixon would have thought of George W. Bush?\u201d<\/i>

\u201cHe would have said he was a patrician nothing,\u201d Bart says. Then Bart assesses his fellow panelists and proclaims, \u201cI\u2019m the only Republican here.\u201d <\/i><\/a>Of all the lies, this my favorite. This is a quadruple lutz. He\u2019s lying about his own registration, as you note, but Crowley\u2014Nixon\u2019s onetime pen pal\u2014is no liberal! It\u2019s audacious.<\/span>Only Bart gets to say what Bart is.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Bart, too, prides himself on being self-made. He\u2019s also self-made-up. He\u2019s been a registered Democrat since 1994.
<\/i>
***

BART DESCRIBES HIS CHILDHOOD as \u201cannoyingly happy,” except there was a definite imperative to perform. My parents never said, \u2018This report card isn\u2019t good enough.\u2019 But you weren\u2019t supposed to fuck up.\u201d\u00a0Bart attended the academically rigorous Swarthmore, where he succeeded upperclassman Victor Navasky, now the publisher of The Nation<\/i>, as editor of the college newspaper. Bart majored in politics, did a brief stint as a copyboy at The New York Times<\/i>, and then had a fellowship at the London School of Economics. He was hired by The Wall Street Journal<\/i> in 1956. A few years later he returned to The New York Times<\/i> as a reporter to cover advertising and the media.

He married a publicist named Dorothy Callman in 1961, and their first daughter, Colby, was born a year later. In 1964 Bart was made a national correspondent in Los Angeles. That\u2019s when he first met a former actor named Robert Evans. In 1966, a few months after Bart\u2019s second daughter, Dilys, was born, he wrote a profile of Evans for the Times<\/i> that portrayed him as a tireless producer, an elegant operator. The very next day, on the basis of the article, Charles Bluhdorn, who had recently bought Paramount Pictures, hired Evans as a vice president; Evans had yet to make his first picture. In 1967, when Evans rose to become Paramount\u2019s youngest-ever production chief, he hired Bart as his number two. Together they decided what movies would get made. <\/a>Where did you get this info?<\/span>I\u2019d written a lengthy profile of Robert Evans for the Los Angeles Times<\/i> not long before this piece, so I knew Evans. I interviewed him for this piece, too. But this story is something of a legend. It\u2019s been told before.<\/span><\/span>

They were an unlikely pair. Movie-star handsome, Evans was a wheeler-dealer with a passion for filmmaking and a seductive personal style. Bart was college educated, East Coast, intense. He trumped others with his command of the facts. Evans understood actors\u2019 fragile, self-absorbed psyches, but he didn\u2019t like to read. Bart read everything and wasn\u2019t afraid to say what he liked. Each man saw in the other something he did not see in himself. <\/a>Evans is such a large part of the story. Why did you decide to keep his quotes to a minimum?<\/span>As I recall, Evans\u2014usually full of bravado and a quote machine\u2014was guarded with me about Bart. He confirmed things I asked about, but didn\u2019t push the story much further.<\/span><\/span>

More than three decades later Bart remains loyal to Evans, who has weathered a cocaine conviction, the murder of a business partner, and persistent money troubles. Although still widely considered an invaluable sounding board\u2014for years Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Towne have sought his advice\u2014Evans, now 71, hasn\u2019t produced a hit film in more than 20 years. He spends much of his time rattling around his overgrown French Regency estate that was once Greta Garbo\u2019s Beverly Hills hideaway. Bart, though, still believes in him.

\u201cTurn him loose on somebody and, I\u2019ll tell you, it\u2019s amazing,\u201d Bart will say today, <\/a>Not \u201csaid\u201d or \u201csays\u201d, but \u201cwill say.\u201d It\u2019s wonderfully disorienting, and creates an illusion of reporter-as-psychic.<\/span>The implication is that he says this kind of thing a lot.<\/span><\/span> admitting that part of him still longs for when he and Evans worked side by side. Alone neither enjoyed the same success. When Evans signed a new production deal with Paramount in 1991, Bart ran a banner headline on Variety\u2019s <\/i>front page along with a story about Evans\u2019s \u201ccomeback.\u201d But the comeback never materialized. Sometimes, Bart says, \u201cI feel a little bit guilty. I feel like if we became a team again, we could get things done.\u201d

Evans says Bart has not changed at all since Paramount. \u201cHe was always frank,\u201d he says. \u201cAlways combative. He wasn\u2019t a fence straddler. He was a bit sarcastic. Biting. He always had an inner pleasure in ruffling feathers.\u201d <\/a>Did you speak to Evans on the phone or in person?<\/span>In person. Went to his fantastic\/crazy house in Beverly Hills.<\/span><\/span>

The film industry was in the toilet when the former actor and his journalist sidekick took over at the studio. They faced enormous pressure to turn things around. Bart knew little about movies, but he was well suited to the job. Whether as a child of demanding parents or as a reporter meeting daily deadlines, he had learned how to thrive under stress: Do your homework and stand your ground.

\u201cThe head of distribution comes in one day and sees me watching the dailies of Paper Moon<\/i>. He says, \u2018This movie is in black and white?\u201d Bart recalls of the Depression-era story that would pair the father-daughter team of Ryan and Tatum O\u2019Neal. Bart had discovered the book on which the movie was based and had approved its being shot in black and white\u2014not the usual recipe for commercial success. \u201cI said, \u2018No, no, it\u2019s in color. I\u2019m just watching dailies in black and white. Don\u2019t worry.\u2019 And we finished the movie. These are the lessons of selective deviousness.\u201d <\/a>Is this true? It feels like a tall tale.<\/span>This was one of those stories that was difficult to check. But by this point I think readers get the idea: it\u2019s probably mostly true, but Bart likes to tell a great story.<\/span><\/span>

Then as now, Bart was exacting. \u201cIn the go-go days of the \u201970s, when everybody was running around smoking a joint or trying to look like they were, Peter was a little more buttoned down,\u201d remembers Irwin Winkler. \u201cHe was thoughtful, well read\u2014almost like a boarding school headmaster.\u201d

One day while driving to work with Evans, Bart championed a project so eccentric that it could have cost them their jobs. \u201cWe needed to get some hits going, and Peter was telling me about a script he\u2019d read the previous night,\u201d Evans remembers. \u201cHe said, \u2018It\u2019s about an 18-year-old boy who falls in love with an 80-year-old woman.\u2019 I said, \u2018Stop the car. Are you crazy? He says, \u2018When you get to your office, lock yourself in the bathroom and read the script. And if you think I\u2019m wrong, I\u2019m wrong.\u2019\u201d The script became the cult film Harold and Maude<\/i>.

Evans and Bart (along with chief corporate officer Stanley Jaffe, president Frank Yablans, and others) presided over the resuscitation of Paramount. Marrying an extraordinary generation of young directors\u2014Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski, Peter Bogdanovich\u2014with commercial topics, they helped change the very notion of the Hollywood film. As Peter Biskind writes in his book Easy Riders, Raging Bull<\/i>s, the \u201970s were a golden age for moviemaking, \u201cthe last time Hollywood produced a body of risky, high-quality work\u2013as opposed to the errant masterpiece\u2013work that was character- rather than plot-driven, that defied traditional narrative conventions \u2026 that broke the taboos of language and behavior, that dared to end unhappily.\u201d Much of that work came out of Paramount: Rosemary\u2019s Baby; Goodbye, Columbus; Love Story; The Godfather; Don\u2019t Look Now; Chinatown; The Godfather II; The Conversation. <\/i><\/a>This sort of accomplishment laundry list is a necessary evil, right?<\/span>Kit Rachlis, who was then the editor-in-chief of Los Angeles<\/i> and the brilliant man who edited this piece, was a big believer in the power of lists. Here and in the previous accounting of who Bart lunched with over a two week period, the idea was that the sheer weight of the details would make the point better than our characterization of them. It\u2019s an old-school New Yorker<\/i>-ish technique.<\/span><\/span>

Bart had left journalism in his mid thirties because he was weary, he says, \u201cof writing about people who were doing things. I wanted to try doing something myself.\u201d <\/a>Great foreshadowing.<\/span><\/span>His timing was perfect. In those days a junior production executive could have impact. Evans says it was Bart who acquired The Godfather<\/i> and who suggested that Coppola direct it; Bart would later convince a reluctant Coppola to make The Godfather II<\/i>. \u201cIn the \u201960s and \u201970s, studio business was conducted in an offhand, even anarchic, style,\u201d Bart has written. \u201cThe mood of that era was to thumb your nose at the rules.\u201d He fit right in.

Bart was building relationships with Hollywood\u2019s future power players. Jeff Berg, now the head of International Creative Management, was a young agent when they met in 1970. Berg used to come over and read Bart\u2019s daughters bedtime stories. That bond has helped make peace on the countless occasions since then when the two have stopped speaking.

\u201cHe has a very bitter wit, which is an acquired taste,\u201d says Berg. \u201cHe is very quick to call his friends to task as well as his foes. When you get nailed in Variety <\/i>you try to kiss it off, but it\u2019s part of the fossil record. Still, he never apologizes. What he’ll do is say \u2018I haven\u2019t heard from you in a year or so. Why don\u2019t we have a drink?\u2019\u201d

Whether Bart\u2019s rough edges played a part in his departure from Paramount in 1974 is a matter of debate. There has been speculation that he was forced out when Barry Diller was installed as the studio\u2019s new chief. Bart denies this, and Evans also pooh-poohs it, saying Bart left to head up an independent film production company and finally make the kind of big money that had eluded him at Paramount. Whatever the truth, Bart likes to poke at Diller. At dinner parties and in his Variety <\/i>column, he has told and retold a story (that both Evans and Diller have denied) about Charles Bluhdorn, the owner of Paramount Pictures, trying to marry off Diller so nobody would believe the persistent rumor that he was gay.

\u201cDiller has always had one of the easiest rides with the press,\u201d Bart will say <\/a>There\u2019s the writer-as-psychic again.<\/span>I disagree. The hope is to convey not that I\u2019m a psychic but that this is the kind of thing, if you spend hours with Bart, you will hear again and again.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0with a mixture of disdain and awe. \u201cPeople will go up and ask him something, and he\u2019ll say \u2018That\u2019s a stupid question.\u2019 And their reaction is \u2018He\u2019s such a smart man.\u2019\u201d Bart has a different assessment: \u201cHe treats everyone like shit.\u201d

***

Evasive Peter is ducking the press.<\/i>

He\u2019s flown to New York City to host \u201cThe Front Row,\u201d a business symposium that Variety holds each year to make money and boost its profile. This year\u2019s lineup includes Diller, now CEO of USA Networks; News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch; Sony Corp. CEO Howard Stringer; and Viacom president Mel Karmazin, with Bill Clinton delivering the keynote. Bart is both point man and emcee.<\/i>

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m the producer of some B movie,\u201d he says. So when Credit Suisse First Boston, the investment bank cosponsoring the event, suddenly gets cold feet about being affiliated with Clinton (and removes all signage bearing its name from the conference venue), Bart does damage control. It\u2019s a good story\u2014a prominent bank, active in the entertainment industry, distancing itself from the former president. But the story won\u2019t break in Variety. Bart makes sure of that.<\/i>

\u201cYou feel like a shit, playing hide-and-seek with the press,\u201d Bart says, on the eve of the symposium. He spends the day avoiding the few journalists who have gotten wind of the brouhaha. \u201cIt\u2019s hard when you can\u2019t be completely candid. But in this case, I think that\u2019s probably the best course.\u201d <\/i><\/a>No matter how many times I\u2019ve read this story, these four paragraphs always seem anomalous. What is the narrative purpose?<\/span>I just found it fascinating that even as he was editor of a trade paper, even as he insisted on calling Variety<\/i> a newspaper (thus giving it more credibility as a serious journalistic product), he could easily switch gears\/hats and evade the press.<\/span><\/span>

***

ON A FRIDAY MORNING BART SITS IN HIS WINDOW-lined office on the first floor of the Variety <\/i>building on Wilshire Boulevard. A French-language poster of Islands in the Stream<\/i>, a movie he produced in 1977, fills one wall, while another wall displays the grip-and-grin photos you see in the offices of politicians: Bart with director Steven Spielberg, lobbyist Jack Valenti, celebrity lawyer Robert Shapiro. On his desk there is no computer, just an electric typewriter. On a bookshelf sits one of those kitschy fake grenades mounted on a plaque. COMPLAINT DEPT., it reads. TAKE A NUMBER.

Bart motions executive editor Elizabeth Guider and managing editor Timothy M. Gray toward a circular table. It\u2019s time to talk headlines. <\/a>This is an extraordinary level of access. How far along in the reporting were you? At this point, were you and Bart getting along?<\/span>I don\u2019t recall exactly how far along I was, but this was one of the things I specifically asked for at the beginning of reporting the piece because, as I\u2019ve said, I thought the piece was really a window into the peculiar animal that was a trade paper, and Bart was just my main character in that piece. Obviously, what my reporting later revealed turned this into a very different story in the end. But this was likely quite early on, as I was getting to know Bart.<\/span><\/span>

Variety\u2019s <\/i>pun-filled headlines are famously deft and often hilarious\u2014\u201cSticks Nix Hick Pix,\u201d from 1935, is considered the classic\u2014and Bart understands they are central to the paper\u2019s appeal. A few weeks after he arrived at Variety <\/i>in 1989, he got people talking by topping a story about a feud between playwright David Hare and New York Times<\/i> theater critic Frank Rich with this bombshell: \u201cRuffled Hare Airs Rich Bitch.\u201d Nearly 12 years later, while he leaves much of the day-to-day editing of Variety <\/i>to others, he still weighs in on front-page headlines.

Bart sometimes writes the heads himself, as he did for a recent piece about teen movies\u2019 waning box office receipts: \u201cNo Pop in Zit Pix.\u201d But the soft-spoken Tim Gray is Bart\u2019s ace in the headline hole. It was Gray, for example, who wrote \u201cOvitz No Govitz at MCA\u201d (for a story about the agent not becoming MCA\u2019s chairman). For the grossest of these (\u201cMovies Get a Bad Case of the Runs\u201d) Bart has coined a term: \u201csecretional headlines.\u201d

\u201cWe are now in the post-secretional period,\u201d Bart says, grinning. \u201cIt ended after we described some relationship as \u2018warm and runny.\u2019\u201d
Guider frowns. \u201cIt was awful,\u201d she says.

\u201cIt\u2019s a Britishism,\u201d protests Bart. \u201cIt\u2019s not lewd.\u201d

Today\u2019s challenge is a story about 20th Century Fox\u2019s decision to premiere director Baz Luhrmann\u2019s movie musical Moulin Rouge<\/i> at the Cannes Film Festival. There are a lot of elements\u2014the studio\u2019s gamble, the festival, the painter Toulouse-Lautrec\u2014and Gray has assembled a list of contenders that seek to hit them all: \u201cThe Thin \u2018Rouge\u2019 Line,\u201d \u201cSchmooze and \u2018Rouge,\u2019\u201d \u201cCannes: Le Trek for Lautrec,\u201d and \u201cBed, Baz, and Beyond.\u201d

\u201cOnly someone truly demented would write \u2018Bed, Baz, and Beyond,\u2019\u201d Bart says approvingly, scanning the list. \u201cBut shouldn\u2019t we say something a little more explanatory?\u201d

\u201cRiviera\u2019s Risk with \u2018Rouge\u2019?\u201d Gray offers.

\u201cFox\u2019s Riviera Risk,\u201d Bart counters.

\u201c\u2018Moulin\u2019 Not Foolin\u2019 Around?\u201d asks Gray.

Bart gets up and goes to his typewriter, pounds the keys, and rips out a page. He hands the sheet to Guider, who reads aloud: \u201cWill Frogs Flog Fox on Riv?\u201d Everybody laughs. By meeting\u2019s end the headline has been reworked ten times. \u201cFox Takes Risk on the Riviera,\u201d it says. \u201c\u2018Rouge\u2019 schmooze cues renewed rapport between H\u2019w’d, Cannes.\u201d <\/a>Do you think Bart, Guider and Gray were, to some extent, performing for you? It\u2019s so perfect, almost choreographed.<\/span>Absolutely, everybody was on best behavior and being supremely witty. But even still, you got a glimpse into how they interacted and how the decisions got made.<\/span><\/span>

In meetings like these and as a public speaker, Bart is irresistible. He takes control of a room, interweaving economic analysis, authoritative opinions, and barbs. At this year\u2019s Festival of Books at UCLA, he appeared on a panel moderated by Kenneth Turan, the Los Angeles Times\u2019s<\/i> chief movie critic. When Turan asked Bart what he\u2019d most like to change about Hollywood, Bart responded, \u201cI think that film critics should dress better.\u201d Amid hoots of laughter from both the audience and the rumpled Turan, Bart then got serious.

\u201cWhat the present moment in Hollywood history shows is that the system is not working either artistically or financially,\u201d he said, singling out two films as proof. \u201cTown & Country<\/i> just opened to a sterling $ 3 million, which is the price of the movie\u2019s catering bill. Driven<\/i> is so lame, Stallone\u2019s likeness isn\u2019t even featured on the poster. This is corporate Hollywood. And I do have a certain fondness for that epoch when movies were made because of a director\u2019s passion, not because McDonald\u2019s or a toy company or German [financiers] were interested.\u201d <\/a>You got a lot of excellent quotes by observing Bart, not simply interacting with him.<\/span>Yes, the great thing was that I had both.<\/span><\/span>

Bart gets Hollywood. Even those he\u2019s treated harshly say it\u2019s true. \u201cHe\u2019s knowledgeable enough about film to go right to the heart of the matter every time,\u201d says Dan Cox, a longtime Variety <\/i>reporter whom Bart fired earlier this year. \u201cThat\u2019s what Peter is brilliant at.\u201d
As a teenager Bart dreamed of being Somerset Maugham, \u201ctraveling the world and writing short stories and novels about extraordinary people and situations.\u201d In many ways, Variety <\/i>gave him his wish. As its editor\u2014a job that pays him about $500,000 a year including bonuses, plus a green BMW convertible and a lavish expense account\u2014he has become Hollywood\u2019s informal ambassador to the world. He travels frequently: to Australia for a speaking tour; to Italy, in part to research a GQ<\/i> article about director Martin Scorsese; and almost every May, to France to attend the Cannes Film Festival. He is currently completing a book of short stories, one of which\u2013\u201dDangerous Company: In Hollywood, Getting Laid Can Be a Career Breaker\u201d\u2014appeared in GQ this summer. His fourth nonfiction book, an anecdotal guide to the movie business written with his good friend, producer Peter Guber, will be published by Putnam in March.

For all Bart\u2019s past lives, this one most suits him. \u201cPeter has the best job he\u2019s ever had, for Peter,\u201d says Variety <\/i>publisher Charles Koones. <\/a>This hilariously condescending.<\/span><\/span>

When Variety <\/i>first came calling, Bart had returned to writing\u2014the lowest rung in Hollywood. In the years since he left Paramount he\u2019d gone back and forth between producing movies, writing novels and screenplays, and serving as an executive at Lorimar and MGM. In 1989 he completed Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM<\/i>. Lively and caustic, the book skewered many of Bart\u2019s colleagues and would become a best-seller. Around the same time, Reed Elsevier, a Dutch company that had bought Variety<\/i>, was looking for a new editor. Its headhunter saw in Bart the perfect hybrid, while Bart\u2014then 57, ancient by Hollywood standards\u2014saw a chance to reinvent himself once again.

\u201cThey wanted someone with lots of experience in both journalism and the Industry,\u201d he says. \u201cThe headhunter gave them a list with only one name on it: mine.\u201d (Actually, there was another name on the list: Caroline Miller, now the editor-in-chief of New York<\/i> magazine.)

***

Controlling Peter is checking up on me.<\/i>

\u201cI hear you\u2019re calling all sorts of strange people. I mean, Jerry Weintraub?\u201d he asks. Weintraub, a movie producer and a former colleague at MGM, is not one of Bart\u2019s favorite people. \u201cThe last time I saw a movie with Jerry Weintraub,\u201d Bart wrote in a Variety column earlier this year, \u201che arrived with a bottle of Stolichnaya. \u2018How did you like the movie?\u2019 I asked him during final credits. \u2018What movie?\u2019 he replied.\u201d<\/i>

Two months after that column appeared, I left a message for Weintraub. The next morning Weintraub called Bart, and now Bart is on the phone to me. \u201cWe have never gotten along,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re trying to find a non-fan club, I think he would be it.\u201d<\/i>

Bart predicts that Weintraub will not speak to me. Sure enough, Weintraub\u2019s publicist soon calls to say his client is much too busy to talk. That\u2019s odd, I say, since his client found time to call Bart. <\/i><\/a>I note that, throughout the story, you do not give your lines quotation marks. It helps maintain a certain dispassionate distance, especially when you\u2019re pushing back like this.<\/span>Also, I was taking notes as we talked, but I was only writing down what he said, so while I remembered what I said, I didn\u2019t have it verbatim.<\/span><\/span>

A few hours later Weintraub\u2019s gravelly voice is in my ear. \u201cI didn\u2019t want you to think I wouldn\u2019t call back,\u201d he says, adding that he has nothing to say. What, I ask, is Bart\u2019s reputation in the Industry?<\/i>

\u201cI have no idea,\u201d he replies. \u201cI\u2019m 63 years old. I\u2019ve been doing this for 43 years. You think you\u2019re going to get me to talk about something I don\u2019t want to talk about?\u201d<\/i>

Why, then, did he call Bart?<\/i>

\u201cThat\u2019s my business,\u201d he barks.<\/i>

When told of this exchange, Bart sums up Weintraub this way: \u201cHe\u2019s definitely in the life-is-too-short category.\u201d
<\/i>
***

BART WAS HIRED TO RUN Weekly Variety<\/i> out of New York in 1989. The publication was losing $3 million a year. Circulation had dropped from 52,000 in 1980 to less than 29,000. The Hollywood Reporter<\/i> was competing both for scoops and for advertising dollars.

Bart\u2019s impact was felt immediately. He upgraded from newsprint to glossy paper, changed the color of the logo, and set about dismantling the old staff and assembling the new. Nearly two years later Bart was put in charge of Daily Variety<\/i> as well. He merged the staffs and returned to Los Angeles.

Bart absolutely refuses to call Variety<\/i> a trade paper, even though it gets 90 percent of its ad revenue from the Industry. It is, he asserts, a newspaper\u2014\u201ca vivid chronicle of our pop culture.\u201d Bart has made Variety<\/i> more global, more sophisticated, more fun to read. Today the paper embraces the flail scope of the entertainment economy, from tech news to broadcasting and cable, from magazines to books, from movies to theater. Its critics\u2014particularly Todd McCarthy, who reviews films\u2014are well respected, and it has Washington correspondents, a London office, and writers stationed around the world. <\/a>Strange to read this a decade later, as Variety <\/i>is much-diminished and McCarthy is gone<\/a> after 31 years. It\u2019s a different world.<\/span>Indeed. An entirely different world. Except, as I note, for the insecurity. Hollywood remains rife with it.<\/span><\/span>

Bart has become one of those people everyone loves to psychoanalyze, partly because he lives to be in the red-hot center and is so willing to offend. You can see it in his frequent, lecturing \u201cMemo To\u201d columns, in which he gives unsolicited advice to the likes of Robin Williams (\u201cRobin\u2014enough of the message stuff\u201d) and Leonardo DiCaprio (\u201cGo to college, Leo\u201d). You can see it, too, in the way he runs Variety<\/i>.

Staffers praise him for hating all the right things: lawyers, committees, focus groups\u2014anything that obstructs Variety\u2019s<\/i> (and his own) ability to act quickly, on instinct. But he also brings the imperious manner of a studio exec into Variety\u2019s <\/i>newsroom. He walks out of meetings in the middle, without explanation. He has nicknames\u2014many of them unflattering\u2014for everyone. Years ago Bart emptied a wastebasket on a reporter\u2019s head. (\u201cThat was very calculated,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew it was the only way to get his attention.\u201d) <\/a>Did this story come from Bart? He seems quite proud of it.<\/span>I heard it from someone else, then asked Bart about it. That was his response.<\/span><\/span>

Max Alexander, a former editor for Weekly Variety<\/i> in New York, moved to Los Angeles at Bart\u2019s behest, first to be managing editor and then executive editor. Alexander calls Bart \u201cprobably the smartest person I\u2019ve ever worked for.\u201d But Bart was always restless. Alexander remembers visiting the Barts at their rented English Tudor house in Benedict Canyon\u2014a low-slung hunting lodge of a place. \u201cIt was all furnished in chintz fabric,\u201d says Alexander, \u201cwith beautiful wraparound sofas that matched the drapes. There were hunting scenes and tapestries. It had a medieval feel to it.\u201d A year later the Barts moved to another house nearby, \u201ca contemporary, Mies van der Rohe kind of house. Now it was Barcelona chairs, chrome, glass, swatches of color by painters who\u2019d committed suicide. I asked, \u2018What happened to the tapestries? Peter waved his hand and laughed and said, \u2018It was just time for a change,\u2019 and I realized this is the essence of this man. He likes to suddenly sweep the table clean.\u201d <\/a>Interesting. You don\u2019t often see descriptions of locations in a quote.<\/span>I know. I love this guy\u2019s cinematic memory. He painted the scene for me.<\/span><\/span>

Stephen West can attest to that. In 1991 Bart hired West away from the Los Angeles Times<\/i>, where he was assistant business editor. After five years as Daily Variety\u2019s<\/i> executive editor, West was summoned without warning to Bart\u2019s office and told his job had been eliminated.

\u201cThere\u2019s the good Peter and there\u2019s the bad Peter,\u201d <\/a>This is so perfect. Until this point in the story, I assumed your use of the different Peters was simply a clever narrative device. Turns out, Bart\u2019s contemporaries use it, too.<\/span>That gets to my earlier point about, when you\u2019re sitting down to write\/figure out themes in a piece, re-read all your stuff. Often, if you pay attention, there are clues to be found in what\u2019s repeated.<\/span><\/span> says West, now media editor at Bloomberg News in San Francisco. He still admires Bart, despite what he wryly calls his own \u201cpublic execution.\u201d \u201cPeter really is like Mao Tse-tung, in that he loves perpetual revolution. He\u2019s never satisfied. Even when things are running well, he wants to change it.\u201d

The scenario would be played out again and again. Bart, who is known to address his male staffers with the paternal \u201cmy boy,\u201d would eventually turn on nearly all of them. Paying homage to director Spike Lee\u2019s Mo\u2019 Better Blues, staffers coined a term for the inevitable moment when Bart would blow: \u201cM\u2019Boy Better Blues.\u201d <\/a>Did this come from an unlucky staffer?<\/span>I talked to so many Variety<\/i> employees past and present that I ended up keeping a chart of which details each of them could confirm. We used nothing that we didn\u2019t have multiple sources for. The reason: I knew Bart was a firebrand who rubbed some people the wrong way and I didn\u2019t want to just traffic in revenge stories. I wanted to show the real him, and I devised a system by which I needed to hear a particular detail at least two and preferably three times, from separate people, before I used it.<\/span><\/span>

\u201cIf someone said, \u2018Peter would like to see you in his office,\u2019 you\u2019d walk in not knowing if you were going to get your ass kissed, your head handed to you on a plate, or an invitation to dinner,\u201d says one former Variety<\/i> writer. \u201cIt\u2019s a management technique\u2014so when it\u2019s time to crack the whip, everybody is already ready to flinch.\u201d

Bart so relishes flouting political correctness that he lets loose on everyone: the French, Germans, blacks, Jews, lawyers, agents, actors, publicists, feminists, fat people. A gay man says that Bart asked him about his health during a job interview. Another former Variety <\/i>reporter heard Bart say, \u201cI\u2019m not hiring any more fags, because they get sick and die.\u201d According to more than half a dozen people, he peppers meetings at Variety<\/i> with derogatory terms: fags, bitches, cunts, Nips. <\/a>You allude to fact-checking in the story itself. What was the process like?<\/span>Meticulous. I\u2019m pretty organized and anal retentive when it comes to research and sourcing, but Eric Mercado was a true collaborator in terms of triple-checking and running down other sources I hadn\u2019t had. He caught a few things, as I recall, before publication. Of course, we also had a lawyer read it (after Bart started making threatening noises). We felt very confident about all our facts before we went to press.<\/span><\/span>

Yet Bart, as always, is confounding. In contrast to the comments people attribute to him\u2014which he denies making\u2014staffers say he has treated ailing gay employees well. During his tenure Variety <\/i>has begun acknowledging longtime companions in obituaries of gay people. Bart has promoted women and tried, with limited success, to diversify Variety\u2019s <\/i>mostly white staff.

\u201cIs Peter homophobic? Possibly. Racist? Possibly. Misogynistic? Possibly,\u201d says one former Variety <\/i>employee who knows him well. \u201cBut most of the stuff that gets traced to him isn\u2019t about that. It\u2019s about his desperate need to draw fire and rile stuff up. He can\u2019t bear to be ignored even for a minute.\u201d

***

Bart hates to take notes.<\/i>

\u201cI don\u2019t like to,\u201d he says. \u201cI just find when you take out a notebook, it just changes the atmosphere.\u201d Nevertheless, in his column he frequently quotes conversations he has had with Hollywood figures. The quotes, which he also inserts in reporters\u2019 stories, are nearly always unattributed. He often dictates them off the top of his head, which may explain why some of Variety\u2019s anonymous sources sound a lot like Inventive Peter.<\/i>

Bart favors the terms fat cats and suits. So do a fair number of people who sound off in his columns. He loves to use damned, as in \u201cYou know damned well he intends to deliver for his clients.\u201d When run through Bart\u2019s typewriter, lots of people around town start cussing just like that, from \u201ca senior marketing official at Paramount\u201d to \u201cone major agent\u201d to \u201cone of the town\u2019s top lawyers.\u201d<\/i>

Read enough of Bart\u2019s work and you begin to hear the echo. <\/i><\/a>A strength of the piece is your granular familiarity with Bart\u2019s writing. What was your process\/timeframe for reading all the books, columns, etc.<\/span>Days, nights, weekends, for months. I immersed.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0In his own voice he will write, \u201cIt\u2019s all about those statuettes, stupid,\u201d or \u201cIt\u2019s all about the waivers from SAG.\u201d A few months later he\u2019ll quote one \u201ccandid\u201d CEO (\u201cIt\u2019s all about intimidation\u201d) or \u201cthe production chief of one major [studio]\u201d (\u201cIt\u2019s all about money\u201d).<\/i>

\u201cI have,\u201d he says, \u201can incredible memory.\u201d <\/i><\/a>The profile is written quite straight; outwardly, you seem neither pro- nor anti-Bart. That\u2019s what makes this sentence\u2014and your decision to break up the quote in this manner\u2014so damning. Isn\u2019t it a subtle form of editorializing?<\/span>By putting \u201che says\u201d in the middle as opposed to at the end you\u2019re hearing a judgment? I don\u2019t think that was intended. It was more a rhythm thing\u2014the last line of a section, it wanted to end on him, not me. And it just sounded better.<\/span><\/span>

***

IF PETER BART HAS A MOTTO, IT IS this: \u201cI know now there is no one thing that is true. It is all true.\u201d The words are Hemingway\u2019s, from his novel Islands in the Stream<\/i>. Once Bart quoted them in a column, adding, \u201cNow there\u2019s a manifesto for you.\u201d
<\/a>The final stretch is the payoff, where you take the gun off the table and empty the chambers. Did you always envision closing out the story this way?<\/span>Not always because, as I\u2019ve said, I didn\u2019t set out to write this kind of a piece. When I began, I didn\u2019t know Bart had peddled a script, for example. I didn\u2019t think of this as investigative as much as explanatory\u2014using Bart to explain the role of the trades. But the further\u00a0I went, the more his personal choices became the story, both because they were brazen but also because they said so much about how Hollywood works.<\/span><\/span> Everyone knows that in Hollywood people lie as a matter of course, exaggerating their accomplishments, minimizing their failures. They don\u2019t fret about it. Building up one\u2019s own buzz is part of doing business\u2014a means to an end. <\/a>It\u2019s an incredible juggling act. You keep one eye on Bart, the other on the industry that enabled him. It\u2019s a mini-What Makes Sammy Run?<\/i>.<\/span>Bart is notable, though, because he is editor of the industry\u2019s most important publication, so his fibs, amplifications, and outright lies masquerade as candor.<\/span><\/span>

\u201cI have covered \u2026 wars,\u201d he recently asserted in a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times<\/i>. When pressed, though, he admits he hasn\u2019t. He frequently refers to his time as \u201ca young kid studio executive,\u201d even though he was 35 when he got his first studio job and 53 when he left his last one. One publicist recalls Bart calling her angrily after she asked for a correction to a Variety<\/i> article. \u201cI ran three studios,\u201d yelled the man who did no such thing, \u201cand I will not be dictated to by a fucking flack!\u201d

One former colleague says Bart had a term for the kind of embellishment he practices: \u201cnovelizing.\u201d Another who remains fond of Bart says, \u201cHis relationship to the truth is very plastic. I\u2019d go on interviews with him and he\u2019d write something and I\u2019d think, \u2018Were we in the same room?\u2019 He\u2019s just a storyteller. The narrative needs are more immediate to his imagination than what actually happened.\u201d
Bart\u2019s philosophy permeates Variety<\/i>. There\u2019s the way he praises friends, associates, and even his own movies without acknowledging his involvement. He\u2019ll call Richard Heller \u201ca scrupulous New York practitioner\u201d without noting that Heller has been his lawyer for 25 years. Ronda Gomez is \u201cone of the town\u2019s veteran literary agents.\u201d She was also his assistant at Paramount Pictures. Michelle Manning, president of production at Paramount, is \u201cone of the sharper young executives in town.\u201d A year before he wrote that, Manning also bought the movie rights to a Bart project, but he doesn\u2019t mention that. If a reporter or an editor at a major daily newspaper flaunted the basic rules of journalism the way Bart does, they\u2019d be shown the door.

Most people in show business deceive to gain advantage\u2014to downplay their cost overruns, say, or to boost their salaries. Bart, too, misrepresents for strategic advantage, but he also lies for no apparent reason. <\/a>You could argue this applies to many of his other lies, too. A guy who helped get The Godfather<\/i> made doesn\u2019t need to pretend to have been a war correspondent.<\/span>Yes, exactly. It suggests that once you get in the habit, lying becomes second nature.<\/span><\/span> Consider what happened when we discussed the infamous Patriot Games<\/i> incident of 1992, when Variety <\/i>film critic Joe McBride wrote a blistering review of Paramount Pictures\u2019 Tom Clancy adaptation. The studio, apoplectic over the review\u2019s potential dampening of interest among overseas exhibitors, pulled its advertising from Variety<\/i>. Bart got mad, but not at the studio. He decreed that McBride would no longer review Paramount films.

The New York Times <\/i>wrote a story about the McBride dustup that said Variety <\/i>staffers were aghast that their boss would curry favor with Paramount. The article quoted from a private apology that Bart had sent to Martin S. Davis, the studio\u2019s then chairman and CEO. \u201cMarty Davis and I have known each other for 25 years,\u201d Bart told the Times<\/i>. \u201cI simply dropped him a friendly note.\u201d
Nine years later, however, when I first ask Bart about the note, he insists it never existed. \u201cI never wrote any,\u201d he says, adding that he disliked Davis intensely, so \u201cthe idea that I would contact these people was bizarre.\u201d How to explain the Times<\/i> story, written by veteran reporter Bernard Weinraub? \u201cIt was a reminder to me about the nastiness of journalists toward each other,\u201d Bart says, shaking his head.

A few weeks later I obtained a copy of the letter. Bart\u2019s lie didn\u2019t make sense. Had he forgotten that it was typed by his own secretary on Variety <\/i>stationery? (Bart\u2019s secretary at the time had a couple of well-known idiosyncrasies\u2014using a double dash in phone numbers, spelling out fax with spaces between the letters\u2014both of which are in evidence.) <\/a>This is gorgeous detail. Did you talk to the secretary?<\/span>For obvious reasons, I can\u2019t say who I did or didn\u2019t talk to in this section.<\/span><\/span> Did he really think that he could alter the \u201cfossil record,\u201d to borrow Jeff Berg\u2019s phrase, and rewrite history?

When I presented a copy of the letter to Bart\u2014the first of two occasions that he would later denounce as \u201cgotcha\u201d journalism\u2014he declared it \u201cblatantly bogus.\u201d <\/a>What was the second occasion?<\/span>The one in the lede.<\/span><\/span> He disputed the signature. He suggested the letterhead had been faked. \u201cEditorial director, Variety Inc.?\u201d he said, reading the words under his name. \u201cI don\u2019t ever remember having that title.\u201d (Variety\u2019s <\/i>masthead from that period shows that, in fact, he did.) \u201cI agree with the contents of the letter,\u201d he said after perusing it for a minute, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t write it.\u201d

Later he would call me to clarify. Even if he had written the letter, he said, \u201cthat incident is not relevant to me, only because it never recurred. I\u2019d think it was interesting if it were a syndrome. But since it\u2019s a stand-alone\u2026\u201d It sounded like an acknowledgment, sort of. His voice trailed off.

What was more striking than Bart\u2019s dissembling, however, was a part of the letter that The New York Times<\/i> hadn\u2019t seen fit to quote. In one paragraph, it captures how Bart perceives his place in Hollywood: \u201cI know that you and Stanley [Jaffe] feel that Variety <\/i>has developed an anti-Paramount tilt in its coverage. This distresses me\u2014we go back together many years and I personally feel a keen sense of camaraderie. Clearly you feel, however, that the \u2018old comrades\u2019 aren\u2019t taking care of each other. If that\u2019s your feeling, you and Stanley deserve better and I intend to take personal charge of this situation to set it right.\u201d

\u201cTaking care of each other\u201d\u2014that is Bart\u2019s defining editorial principle. That doesn\u2019t mean he rolls over, necessarily. If he thinks a top executive needs a kick in the pants, he\u2019s happy to administer it. But he\u2019s no adversary. He\u2019s more like a teammate, or even a coach. He may be editor-in-chief of Variety<\/i>, but he is still one of them.

People who have worked with Bart say he would call his favorite sources\u2014Guber, Ovitz, Weinstein, Evans, producer Arnon Milchan\u2014and vet stories that mentioned them, letting them make adjustments. When confronted by the reporters whose bylines topped the altered stories, Bart would say he got better information after deadline. \u201cThis is my paper,\u201d one remembers him saying. \u201cI\u2019ll do as I please.\u201d

Bart has internalized Hollywood\u2019s A-list mentality, mistaking the highest-placed source for the best source, even when the higher-up has much to gain by what they\u2019re leaking. When Milchan was negotiating to take his production company from Warner Bros. to 20th Century Fox, for example, the reporters working the story established that Warner Bros. had capped its offer at $ 100 million. Bart added another knowledgeable source, who put the number at $130 million. The source, the reporters were shocked to learn, was Milchan, whose bargaining position was sure to be strengthened by the $30 million boost.

\u201cIt might have been,\u201d Bart says, \u201cthat I just called him and asked him what the number was.\u201d But didn\u2019t that help Milchan? \u201cPeople like that, they don\u2019t need my help. They\u2019re doing fine. And let\u2019s be pragmatic. You can\u2019t use a newspaper to help your friends. You\u2019ll end up getting fired.\u201d <\/a>I love that you introduce another wrinkle in Bart\u2019s character so late in the story. Delusional Peter? Not-Self-Aware Peter?<\/span><\/span>

In almost the next breath, though, Bart says friendship does guide him. He recalls visiting Guber\u2019s office one day when Guber was chairman of Sony. \u201cThe purpose of my mission was to yell at him. You don\u2019t like to see a friend messing up,\u201d Bart says. \u201cI was telling him among other things how badly he was handling the press and how he was not being confrontative enough with the problems at Sony. It had nothing to do with reporting. No notes were taken. It had nothing to do with journalism.\u201d Bart insists, however, that despite offering such counsel, he directed his reporters to grill Guber\u2019s regime as they would any other.

\u201cIs Guber a friend of mine? Certainly. I have never denied that,\u201d Bart says. \u201cWas he an effective president of Sony? No.\u201d Those who attended a gala tribute to Bart at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1997, meanwhile, remember that Guber began the roast with this joke: \u201cWill everyone here who owes Peter a favor for having killed a negative story please remain seated?\u201d The room\u2013filled with Hollywood\u2019s heaviest hitters\u2014erupted in laughter. Everybody stayed in their seats. <\/a>Did you get the story from Guber and confirm it with other sources?<\/span>I got the story from people who were in the audience \u2014it was a full house. That\u2019s why we attributed it to them.<\/span><\/span>

***

Nervous Peter has questions.<\/i>

The magazine\u2019s fact checker has just spent the day going over the story with him, and he wants to discuss a few things with me. \u201cWhen we entered into this thing, I said to you, \u2018When I write about people, I don\u2019t write about religious beliefs or sexual orientation,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI honestly felt you would respect that.\u201d I remind him that all along I have told him that the profile would take into account his history.<\/i>

\u201cWhat concerns me is if you are characterizing me as a runaway Jew,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not that I don\u2019t acknowledge it. I just don\u2019t talk about it. It\u2019s not a part of my life. Isn\u2019t this the equivalent of outing someone?\u201d he asks.<\/i>

I tell him I don\u2019t equate revealing a person\u2019s homosexuality with saying his parents were Austrian Jews.<\/i>

He then changes course. \u201cDo me one favor,\u201d he says. \u201cTo avoid me being blackballed, quote me saying, \u2018I have no problem saying my ethnicity is Jewish.\u2019 Otherwise you\u2019re going to get me into trouble with all these people.\u201d<\/i>

When I tell him I can do that, but that I\u2019m sure my editor will insist that we put the quote in context, making it clear that it came after a call from a fact checker, he snaps: \u201cIs he some kind of professional Jew, too?\u201d <\/i><\/a>How did you react to this? For all intents and purposes, the story was done. It was fact-checked. For some reason, Bart chose not to leave well enough alone. How much did it change the tenor of the story?<\/span>Not much. The story was already mostly done. It was as if he were confirming the emphasis I\u2019d already placed on these themes. Putting this in was like adding a coda.<\/span><\/span>

***

IT HAS LONG BEEN RUMORED\u2014but never proved\u2014that the editor of Variety <\/i>writes scripts on the side. Bart has always denied this, but people still whisper. Earlier this year The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s<\/i> David Robb, who has never hidden his antipathy for his former boss, wrote an article about it.

In March, after Bart attended a Writers Guild meeting that was closed to the press and then published a report on Variety\u2019s <\/i>front page, Robb investigated why Bart was still an active guild member. He discovered that to remain active, Bart had to have sold a script within the past four years. Robb thought he\u2019d found what to Bart\u2019s enemies amounts to the Holy Grail: proof that Bart was engaging in journalism\u2019s most serious conflict of interest\u2014profiting from those you cover.

Robb, however, never laid his hands on the offending script. If he had, he might have been disappointed. According to Bart, the script he sold within the last four years was Nobody\u2019s Children, a drama about a gang of gypsy thieves that he wrote in the early \u201980s. Bart says the transaction that kept him active in the WGA was merely the extension of a preexisting option\u2014one that was entered into long before he came to Variety<\/i>.

\u201cDave has this fascination, trying to prove that I am still writing and selling scripts,\u201d Bart says, adding that these days the mere act of reading a script makes him physically ill. When it comes to screenplays, he says, his \u201centire oeuvre\u201d was written before he got to Variety<\/i>. \u201cI\u2019m not writing or selling scripts. I don\u2019t even want to write and sell scripts. But Dave is still trying to find another script.\u201d
For the record, Variety <\/i>has a policy that prevents its reporters from being seduced by Hollywood while they are covering it. As Bart explained it to me, \u201cYou cannot shop a script while you\u2019re writing for us. Obviously it\u2019s different if you write a book or a novel and it sells to a movie studio. I have no problem with that, except I\u2019m not going to write the script. I don\u2019t think the line is that blurry.\u201d
Things were about to get blurrier, though. One night I came home and found that a manila envelope had been forced through my mail slot. Inside was a 108-page script. <\/a>You gave this source total anonymity. Was that at the source\u2019s request?<\/span>Let me put it this way: The script appeared, shoved through my mail slot. My responsibility was to confirm that it was for real. I did that with Bart himself. Bart, then, was my source.<\/span><\/span>

By this point I had heard many accounts of how Bart had earned people\u2019s enmity. Even if I took them all at face value, which I didn\u2019t, these stories never implied that Bart was a dimwit. In a town full of blowhards, where money is often a substitute for intelligence, Bart is considered supremely\u2014if sometimes vengefully\u2014bright. But, as I was about to discover, he was not bright enough to compensate for his Achilles\u2019 heel: his loyalty to his friend and mentor, Robert Evans.

In 1998 Variety <\/i>reported that Michelle Manning at Paramount Pictures had acquired the rights to a novel written by Bart. The novel was called Power Play<\/i>, and the plan was for Evans to develop it. It was set in Las Vegas and focused on a power struggle between established casino owners and Indian tribes. Bart had used a pseudonym, the article said, \u201cto avoid any potential conflict of interest.\u201d
I\u2019d read all of Bart\u2019s novels but had never heard of Power Play<\/i>. When I first asked Bart about it, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s not a novel. It\u2019s a novella. It needs work. I never finished it.\u201d When I asked to read it, he told me he had no idea where it was. \u201cI did it to try to help Bob out. And Bob never did anything with it,\u201d he said, referring to Evans.

So no script was ever written? \u201cNot to my knowledge,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the old days I\u2019d have swung into action, gotten a director assigned, gotten it off the ground. But I don\u2019t do that for a living anymore. And it\u2019s not what I should do.\u201d

Then the script arrived. It was called Crossroaders<\/i>, but it was the same story as Power Play<\/i>. Its title page read: \u201cBy Leslie Cox\u201d\u2014the maiden name of Bart\u2019s current wife\u2014\u201cBased on the novel by Peter Bart. September, 1996.\u201d

I call Bart and arrange for a final interview. Over several months I had come to know many Peters, but when he welcomes me to his office I don\u2019t know which one to expect. I tell Bart I have a copy of the 1996 script he wrote. \u201cThe script I wrote,\u201d he repeats, neither confirming nor denying. I look into the face of the man with the incredible memory. It is blank. But one knee starts jiggling, and he fiddles idly with the band of his watch. <\/a>The final nod to the story\u2019s second paragraph, fulfilling your promise to the reader\u2014that you have seen Bart twitch.<\/span><\/span>

\u201cBoy, you got me. Did I write a script? Now I\u2019m facing memory loss,\u201d he says, as I pull a copy of Crossroaders <\/i>out of my bag. He looks it over. \u201cLet\u2019s just say this is a script that has Leslie\u2019s name on it. What does that indicate? Therefore\u2014therefore, what?\u201d

I repeat that I know he wrote it. \u201cI may have written this,\u201d he says. But, I counter, you said you hate writing scripts. \u201cI do. Maybe this taught me never to do it again. I\u2019d love to read this. Is it any good?\u201d

Persuasive Peter, Argumentative Peter, Smooth Peter\u2014they\u2019re all here, and they\u2019re taking turns. \u201cYou know something? In all honesty, I do not remember writing this,\u201d he says. \u201cI guess it was written to work out the novel. That would be my answer.\u201d

Bart summons his assistant to look for the novella\u2014the one he told me he couldn\u2019t locate. She beelines for a cabinet behind his chair and retrieves a slim bound volume with a navy blue cover. She hands it to him. The search takes less than 20 seconds. <\/a>Did you look at your watch?<\/span>I had it on tape.<\/span><\/span>

\u201cThis is an 86-page novel,\u201d he says. \u201cThis was what was bought. It was the only thing that was ever submitted to Paramount.\u201d He admits that he probably spent a weekend transforming the Crossroaders script into the wisp of a novel he holds in his hand. I look at the novel\u2019s cover page, which displays not the pseudonym the Variety <\/i>article had promised but the words \u201cBy Peter Bart.\u201d When I tell him the whole thing looks like an elaborate way of circumventing the rules, effectively selling a script by ginning up a novel, he objects.

\u201cI don\u2019t think it looks that way,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re saying therefore that I wrote and marketed the script, you can say it, but I would deny it. I contend to you that a novel was written of this, and that\u2019s what Bob bought. There\u2019s no rule that says you can\u2019t write a script that no one sees.\u201d

Except, of course, that Evans\u2014the man developing the project\u2014did see the script. \u201cI\u2019m sure Bob has,\u201d he says, but I\u2019ll tell you about Bob.\u201d He laughs. \u201cBob having it is like the crypt.\u201d

As the interview winds up, Bart is almost playful. He jokes that I\u2019m a \u201ctroublemaker\u201d and \u201cmean.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s really scary,\u201d he says, \u201cwhen you start remembering things about me that I don\u2019t remember.\u201d <\/a>Did you record the conversation, or are you a great note-taker?<\/span>This, like all my face-to-face interviews with him, was recorded.<\/span><\/span>

***

The next morning Litigious Peter picks up the phone. He\u2019s still at home. His voice is tight and angry. He accuses me of using material stolen from his files. He feels betrayed that I gave him no warning. The details of why he wrote a screenplay as a warm-up for a novella are coming back to him, he says, though \u201cvaguely.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m glad I did it that way,\u201d he says. \u201cThe book sure is lean.<\/i>

\u201cOne thing I\u2019m not is self-destructive,\u201d he says. \u201cTo break my own rules is just stupid. I was trying to get Bob\u2019s career going.\u201d He pauses. \u201cI would appreciate it if you could tell me how you\u2019re going to handle this, so I can send to the magazine this legal document that will say I will sue you.\u201d<\/i>

A week later Conflicted Peter calls.<\/i>

\u201cI haven\u2019t heard from my nemesis for a while. Have you given up on this project, I hope?\u201d he says, his voice almost warm. \u201cI must say, I\u2019m still a little nettled.\u201d<\/i>

Despite his better judgment, he has more to say. \u201cIt\u2019s always a favor that kills you. No one ever did see that fucking script. In retrospect, I shouldn\u2019t have done it. I will guarantee you that I will never do it again.\u201d
<\/i>
***

IN HIS CROSSROADERS SCRIPT, Bart sets a key scene at a press conference in Las Vegas\u2019s most decadent gambling casino. The casino\u2019s owner takes a few questions from the assembled media, then invites them to do some gambling\u2014on him. The offer prompts this ethical debate:

FIRST REPORTER (to a colleague): The son-of-a-bitch has no shame. I mean, he\u2019s prepared to buy out the entire press corps if necessary.

SECOND REPORTER: He\u2019s an asshole. (A pause.) On the other hand, since it\u2019s on the house, I don\u2019t think fifteen minutes at the Money Wheel will compromise my scruples. <\/a>Savvy! The script becomes something more than a MacGuffin. You use it to comment on Bart\u2019s character.<\/span>Yes. And now, my memory of the brief phone call Bart placed to me after the story appeared. He said something like, \u201cHow could you do this to me?\u201d I said something like, \u201cDo what?\u201d Him (again, I don\u2019t have this on tape, this is from memory): \u201cYou made me look like a racist.\u201d Me: \u201cI think that we worked hard to make clear that you like to flaunt political correctness and are an equal opportunity offender.\u201d Then I went on to say that we had worked very hard to triple-check everything in the piece and that if there were an error, all he had to do was tell me and we would correct it. He never asked for a correction.<\/span><\/span>

As so often happens with Bart, there is a duality. Both reporters are him.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Amy Wallace profiled then-Variety editor Peter Bart for Los Angeles magazine, she took on issues of access, personality, misdirection, industry politics, journalism and retaliation. To write about a guy who’s been called “the most hated man in Hollywood” demands guts and patience. To pull it off as she did requires a certain tact and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"topics":[],"authors":[136],"issue":[],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annotation-tuesday","authors-elon-green"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnnotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood - Nieman Storyboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood - Nieman Storyboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Amy Wallace profiled then-Variety editor Peter Bart for Los Angeles magazine, she took on issues of access, personality, misdirection, industry politics, journalism and retaliation. To write about a guy who’s been called “the most hated man in Hollywood” demands guts and patience. To pull it off as she did requires a certain tact and […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nieman Storyboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-21T17:27:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-04T19:08:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/elon_green-1.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"226\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"150\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"commonmedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"commonmedia\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"84 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"commonmedia\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226\"},\"headline\":\"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-21T17:27:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-04T19:08:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":16880,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/elon_green-1.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Story Annotations\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/\",\"name\":\"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood - Nieman Storyboard\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/elon_green-1.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-21T17:27:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-04T19:08:47+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/elon_green-1.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/elon_green-1.jpeg\",\"width\":226,\"height\":150,\"caption\":\"Elon Green\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/21\\\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/\",\"name\":\"Nieman Storyboard\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Nieman Storyboard\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/02\\\/NiemanKOLogo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/02\\\/NiemanKOLogo.svg\",\"width\":1,\"height\":1,\"caption\":\"Nieman Storyboard\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226\",\"name\":\"commonmedia\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"commonmedia\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/wp\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/author\\\/commonmedia\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood - Nieman Storyboard","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood - Nieman Storyboard","og_description":"When Amy Wallace profiled then-Variety editor Peter Bart for Los Angeles magazine, she took on issues of access, personality, misdirection, industry politics, journalism and retaliation. To write about a guy who’s been called “the most hated man in Hollywood” demands guts and patience. To pull it off as she did requires a certain tact and […]","og_url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/","og_site_name":"Nieman Storyboard","article_published_time":"2013-05-21T17:27:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-03-04T19:08:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":226,"height":150,"url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/elon_green-1.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"commonmedia","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"commonmedia","Est. reading time":"84 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/"},"author":{"name":"commonmedia","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/person\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226"},"headline":"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood","datePublished":"2013-05-21T17:27:05+00:00","dateModified":"2024-03-04T19:08:47+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/"},"wordCount":16880,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/elon_green-1.jpeg","articleSection":["Story Annotations"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/","name":"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood - Nieman Storyboard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/elon_green-1.jpeg","datePublished":"2013-05-21T17:27:05+00:00","dateModified":"2024-03-04T19:08:47+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/elon_green-1.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/elon_green-1.jpeg","width":226,"height":150,"caption":"Elon Green"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2013\/05\/21\/annotation-tuesday-amy-wallace-and-one-of-the-most-despised-and-feared-people-in-hollywood\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Annotation Tuesday! Amy Wallace and one of "the most despised and feared" men in Hollywood"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/","name":"Nieman Storyboard","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#organization","name":"Nieman Storyboard","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/02\/NiemanKOLogo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/02\/NiemanKOLogo.svg","width":1,"height":1,"caption":"Nieman Storyboard"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/person\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226","name":"commonmedia","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"commonmedia"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp"],"url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/author\/commonmedia\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4296,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/4296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}