Name-dropping, producing, and winning
Julian Schlossberg chats about his second movieland memoir
Julian Schlossberg just published a second volume of memoirs. The first, “Try Not to Hold it Against Me: A Producer’s Life,” came out last year. His follow-up, the creatively titled “My First Book — Part 2: A Producer’s Life Continues,” was just released.
You may ask who wants to read not one but two books about a producer? The list is longer than you might imagine, especially when it comes to this producer:
First, anyone who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, a period Schlossberg recreates with love and affection, will find much to love — and relate to — here. It was a time when kids’ admission to neighborhood movie theaters was a quarter, and Saturdays were an all-day affair (double features, serials, cartoons, and newsreels) watched over by a matron dressed in white, shushing anyone who dared raise a ruckus.
Back then, too, if you couldn’t wait for a first-run film to make it to a local theater (they opened first in large markets where they might play for a year or more before making it to the suburbs), it was still safe for a child to make a trip into Manhattan on his or her own.
Second, anyone who grew up in the Bronx with memories of the Loew’s Paradise Theater, Alexander’s on Fordham Road, or Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlour, across the Concourse, is sure to enjoy the read.
Third: Anyone who likes reading about the entertainment industry. Schlossberg has been involved in myriad successful projects on television, film, and Broadway. His shows have won six Tony Awards, two Obies, and seven Drama Desk Awards, among other honors.
He’s worked with some of the industry’s greats, including Elaine May (who wrote the foreword for both books), Woody Allen, David Mamet, Ethan Coen, Larry Gelbart, and George C. Scott. The list goes on, which is still another delicious reason to enjoy his books: the name-dropping.
It can be minor, as when he describes how he was first contacted by Ms. May: “She told me that our mutual friend, Warren Beatty, had told her to call me — that I was okay for a studio executive.”
Or it can be the super nova of name-dropping: He was invited to a small birthday party for Barbra Streisand at her home, but then Liza Minelli was going to host it at her home. But now it was going to be a much larger party, so Schlossberg canceled.
But then Barbra called back. Said she’d run into Jack Nicholson and discovered they share the same birthday (though not birth year) and it was his idea to have a joint party. Please come.
So he changes his mind and immediately on arrival is greeted by Barbra and Liza, who take him into a room to share the original design of Radio City Music Hall drawn by Liza’s father, the director Vincent Minelli, hanging on the wall.
Afterward, he sits alone in an empty room eating when he’s joined by — wait for it — Michelle Pfeiffer, whom he’d never met.
They briefly make small talk, and when Julian leaves the room, “I saw Mike Nichols beckon to me.” They were soon joined by the aforementioned Nicholson. Meanwhile, Julian spots Pfeiffer leaving, and thinks it’s time to go himself. But before he leaves, he feels a tap on his shoulder. It’s Pfeiffer, who tells him, “I was at the elevator and realized I hadn’t said good-bye
Not sure if name-dropping records are kept, but that has to be right up there with the best. So when I speak to Schlossberg on Zoom, I ask if he was just showing off.
Schlossberg said no. “I wanted to tell that story for a lot of reasons, but showing off wasn’t it. But I can see why anyone would think that was part of it. What interested me was that Vincent Minelli, the man who directed ‘Meet Me in St. Louis,’ had done this [type of work] before he started directing.”
But then you added Michelle? “The point of that story is that she had not gone Hollywood, that she was not that kind of star. That was the point of the story.”
Still, not bad for a Bronx boy whose mother, Charlotte, was a teacher, and dad, Louis, worked mostly in the garment industry. Julian “went to Hebrew school, kicking and screaming, but I did go. I wanted to be playing ball. Eventually, I asked my mother, ‘Why am I going to Hebrew school if neither you or dad go to temple?’
“‘She said, ‘Well, it’s for your grandmother.’ So I went to my grandmother and said, ‘Why do I go to Hebrew school?’ She said, ‘I don’t care if you go to Hebrew school.’ I said ‘Great’ and ran back to my mother and told her ‘I spoke to grandma and she said I don’t have to go to Hebrew school. She doesn’t care.’ My mother said, ‘You’re going to Hebrew school.”
Case closed.
Like many Jewish moms, “There was no question she wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, something professional — we never decided what the profession was going to be. But I made the mistake at 10 years old of buying Variety at the newsstand.” And his future was set.
After military service and college, Schlossberg landed first with ABC and then the Walter Reade Organization, where his job was to sell the company’s films to television stations in small and medium markets. This was, of course, before cable and streaming and local markets had hundreds of hours to fill each week.
“It was kind of a strange feeling. You’d go into these small markets where they’d never seen a Jew before. I made no bones that I was from New York, and, of course, if I was from New York, I must be Jewish.
“I was single at the time, so I would date a young woman. And occasionally — more than once, it happened — that they said, ‘Can I touch your head?’ They were looking for horns.”
There were no major incidents, but there were uncomfortable moments. “I wondered at times if something negative was going on because I was Jewish, or the person was not a very nice human being. I had some bad incidents in the army, but never on the road. The only thing from that I remember is the horns.”
Next, Schlossberg landed a sort of high executive position at Paramount. The trouble was he could say no to a script, but he didn’t have the power to say yes. He was unhappy, so he tried unsuccessfully to get out of his contract. Finally, at the end of his term there, two friends — Ms. May and playwright Herb Gardner (“A Thousand Clowns,” “I’m Not Rappaport”) “encouraged me to do my own thing.
“They took me to dinner and told me, ‘We’ll help you.’ Herb turned to me and said, ‘You open the store, and we’ll help you fill the shelves.’”
So Schlossberg opened his own production company, Castle Hill, which raises the question: What exactly does a producer do?
“Right now, as you know, you look at a movie or a television show and you see 82 producers. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. It could be the star’s lawyer, his mistress, his girlfriend, his agent, his lawyer. They have nothing to do with the project.
“What a real producer does is find the product, the thing he wants to produce. Then he works with the writer to get the script correct. Then he hires the director and then with the director does the casting. He’s at the rehearsals all the time. And he’s in charge of advertising, the marketing, the press and the selling of the product. That’s what a real producer does.”
I wondered to what he attributed his success. “I think in a business that’s often filled with lies, I tell the truth,” he said. “Also, I think the fact that I truly revere talent makes a difference. It’s not like I say that as a producer to make people like me. I truly care for the people who perform, who write, who direct. I think that comes across. I hope it does. But it certainly enabled me to meet — as you know from the books — some of the biggest names in show business and befriend them, or vice versa, be befriended by them.”
His success spurred people to seek his advice. He recalled one young man who “was a very famous rock ’n’ roll promoter in Buffalo.” He told Schlossberg that he wanted to learn the movie business.
Julian told him: “You come to my office tomorrow with a yellow legal pad and sit there while I’m on the phone. You can sit on the couch there,” listening in on an extension. “But don’t say a word. When we hang up, you can ask me questions.
“He was very articulate. He was a lot of fun. He had great taste.”
He was Harvey Weinstein, and no, “I never saw the side of him that turned out to be very, very sad.”
As Weinstein discovered, times have changed, which prompted me to ask Schlossberg if he thinks he could have been as successful if he were starting today.
“No,” he said. “There’s not a question in my mind that I would not be as successful, for many, many reasons. Basically, I don’t relate to any of the product being made today. It means nothing to me, and I would not want to make those kinds of movies.”
He says a friend offered him a film franchise that would have made him a lot of money, but he turned it down. “I’d have to spend a year of my life doing something I don’t believe in.
“I don’t care about action movies. I don’t mind watching a few of them if they’re good, like the ‘Bourne Identity.’ But ‘Iron Man Eight’ and ‘Wolverine 12’ mean nothing to me. I think I was lucky to be born when I was, because I don’t think this would be my time.”
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