Nice guys may finish last in most of the world, but in Hollywood they rarely even get to the starting line. After all, this is a town where they teach back-stabbing and chest-thumping at summer camp, where "Show me the money!" competes with "I'm the king of the world!" for slogan of the decade.
All of which makes David Brown something of a miracle. Brown might well be the most successful producer alive -- even if, at 83, he gets some points for longevity. Along with his former partner Richard Zanuck, he produced Jaws, The Sting, A Few Good Men and a string of other hits. He's made half of Hollywood famous. He gave Steven Spielberg his first directing job (The Sugarland Express), found the script for Elvis's first movie (Love Me Tender) and talked George C. Scott into playing Patton. Yet if they gave an Academy Award for most self-effacing mogul, Brown, '36, would walk away with all the nominations. He even willingly plays second banana to his wife, the one-woman publishing conglomerate named Helen Gurley Brown. "When I go off to a premiere without her, there's not a flashbulb to be seen. When I go with her, it's 'Helen! Helen! Helen!'" he says. "That's fine with me."
Brown -- even his name sounds boring -- never planned to head for Hollywood. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in communication, he returned to his native New York and became a reporter. He started off as a theater critic at Women's Wear Daily, then became an editor at Pic, Liberty and Cosmopolitan magazines, mastering the art of the over-the-top cover line long before his future wife joined the Cosmo staff. In 1951, the legendary Daryl F. Zanuck, on the lookout for someone with an eye for a good narrative, hired him to head the story department at 20th Century Fox. "For three or four weeks before I left for Hollywood, I took a crash course in moviegoing," Brown says. "I had never been very interested in film. I preferred plays."
He made the transition to Hollywood easily enough. By 1960, he had risen to the No. 2 job at Fox, though he never got the brass ring: studio chief. "I would say that one reason you were not chosen," writer John O'Hara once suggested to Brown, "is that you are not enough of a son of a bitch." He also had his share of flops, from the disastrously expensive Burton-Taylor Cleopatra in 1963 to Canadian Bacon, a 1995 comedy starring John Candy. Then there were the inevitable studio shake-ups. Brown was fired -- twice -- from Fox. "Our names were taken off the parking places right in front of us. Our offices were padlocked," he says. "That was terribly painful."
Brown never let those speed bumps slow him down. A warm, jovial man with bright eyes and an impressively manicured mustache, he's still spry enough to swim with the sharks. He's learning how to use a PC. "I feel ridiculous not knowing what's on the Internet," he says. He's also deeply involved in two new producing projects: a Broadway musical version of Sweet Smell of Success and the film adaptation of Frank McCourt's huge bestseller Angela's Ashes, due out in December. "You retire at 65," Brown says. "I'm too old to be retired."
On an overcast Manhattan morning in June, Brown chatted about his youth, his films and his marriage. Excerpts:
How did a nice boy from Long Island end up going to school all the way out in California?
I got into a fight with my parents, and I wanted to get as far away from home as possible. I looked at all the catalogs and decided there were two universities: University of Edinburgh and Leland Stanford Jr. University. I discussed this with my father. He said you really ought to opt for the weather. Scotland is pretty raw. The tuition was $114 a quarter. And you could sign for it.
What was Stanford like in the mid-1930s?
It seemed like a movie set: the look of the campus, the endless beauty of it. Those were the halcyon days of prewar America, which, oddly enough, was a very gentle time. Our only recognition of the gathering storm in Europe was an anti-war hop. Palo Alto was a long way from the world. And it was a dry campus. Under the deed of Leland Stanford, no alcoholic beverages could be served, even in Palo Alto. So we all went down to Menlo Park to get drunk.
Were you interested in movies even then?
I wanted to become a physicist. But I couldn't deal with physics and higher mathematics, so I decided on the softest discipline I could think of, which was journalism. After going to journalism school at Columbia, I got a job as a copy editor and second-string drama critic at Women's Wear Daily. I got to see the good plays: T.S. Eliot and Clifford Odets. I was paid $25 a week in cash, in an envelope. No deductions. Social Security came in a little later.
What was Hollywood like when you arrived in 1951?
It was very elegant. People dressed. We went to elegant brunches. I always wore a suit. There were great parties, like the party welcoming back Ingrid Bergman from Europe. It was in the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and it had movie stars everywhere you looked: Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Marlene Dietrich. Those were great days for stars, because in those days, stars were stars: they dressed like stars, they acted like stars. They weren't slobs. But I never could get used to Hollywood. I had in my contract first-class transportation back to New York at all times until 10 years ago.
You seem to have a golden touch. How did you spot talent like, say, Steven Spielberg?
As we were being fired from Fox for the second time, a young man named Steven Spielberg came in with a project about stunt flying in the early years. When we got to Universal, he brought us The Sugarland Express. Lew R. Wasserman, the graying chief honcho of Universal, said audiences may not be interested in this -- it was an anarchistic type of movie -- but if you want to make it, make it. And we did. We knew the kid had it from the first shot down in San Antonio. Most young directors shoot easy stuff on the first two or three days. Not Steven. He took the most difficult setup, a night shot on a highway in Texas in winter. His talent was obvious to us. That's why we went after him for Jaws.
You produced several movies with Marilyn Monroe. What was she like?
She used to come into my office and sit on my lap. Occasionally she would come in and just vamp for a little while. Nothing serious, unfortunately. She was exactly like what she was like on the screen: whispery and Marilyn. This was a world in which sexual harassment was not only permitted but encouraged. She was a plaything of the executive suite. That was part of the game: casting couches and all the rest of it. She was an abused person, but she didn't act abused. And she was very smart. She read. It was no accident that she married Arthur Miller or wanted to do The Brothers Karamazov. She had dreams of glory, and she was willing to be educated.
How did you come to put Elvis in films?
Spyros Skouras, the head of Fox, whispered in my ear in a Greek accent: "Dave, there's somebody named Elvis Presley. Check him out." We didn't know who he was. We put him in a shelf property named The Reno Brothers, which we retitled Love Me Tender. That was the beginning of his movie career. I once told his manager, Colonel Parker, that I had another script for Elvis, and he said to me, "Don't send me a script, David, just send me a million dollars!" Which was an ungodly sum in those days. But Love Me Tender recovered its entire modest cost in one week.
Hollywood is a notorious snake pit. How have you managed to succeed without amassing an army of enemies?
I keep my word, even when I make a mistake. I never lived beyond my means, and therefore I never had to be a slave to Hollywood. I always had this feeling that I could go back to journalism. Unlike many Hollywood people, I had another career.
You've rubbed elbows with the infamous as well as the famous. Who was the bigger megalomaniac: Imelda Marcos or Richard Nixon?
Nixon. Imelda was just greedy, like Evita Perón. She never forgave Helen for putting in Cosmo that she was the second-richest woman in the world. But Nixon, with those secret tapes? I liked him very much after he ceased to be president; I saw him several times on social occasions. He knew more about politics than anybody. He endeared himself to me when, on one of our visits to San Clemente, he said the one thing he would miss about the White House was the projection room.
Being married to the grande dame of female sexuality must have been a challenge. How did you make it work?
Fear. Helen is a tough lady. She's from the hills of Arkansas. She's very strict about my relations with other women. When a girl I was very much in love with died, I was going to the funeral. She asked, "Whose funeral?" I said it was somebody I loved very much. And Helen's response was, "Just as long as she's dead." I can have lunch with other women, but not dinner, unless Helen's out of town. And they have to be at certain restaurants where she doesn't go. She knows everyone I have lunch with every day, wherever I am in the world. And we're still lovers after all these years.
Is it true that you resisted marrying her?
I had been married twice before Helen. I loved those women, but they were bad experiences for me. I was afraid of marrying again. I was a loser. I loved the fact that she wasn't in the movie business. I was terrified, until I got married. It seemed right on the second day.
Not the first day?
The first day was too busy.
What keeps you going after all these years?
Denial. Being a Depression kid, I've always worked out of fear. I've never taken success for granted. I have very few outside interests, except ham radio. I have found that people who are very old are cool before they're cold. They're cool because they share with the young generation an unwillingness to dissemble. They can't be threatened at that age. When you get to be 83, you are no longer rigid. You've seen everything. You take nothing for granted. I know it's an aberration to be 83 and active in the world. My plan is to keep going.
How did you manage to snag a property as hot as Angela's Ashes?
No one wanted it before it climbed up bestseller lists around the world and then won the Pulitzer. A movie about bleak Irish Catholic childhood? It had been turned down roundly by studios. But it just leapt off the page. We put up six hefty figures of our own money to make a preemptive bid for the rights, and we got it.
How did the filming go?
We shot in Ireland: Cork, Limerick and Dublin. The only production problem we had was we couldn't find a slum. Ireland has become such a rich country. The hotels, the restaurants -- it's like Manhattan. So we built this incredible slum on this large parking lot in Dublin. Frank McCourt cried when he saw it.
Of the movies you produced, which is your favorite?
The Verdict. The Sting is a great movie, but I'm thinking of movies that touched the heart. Paul Newman's performance, Sidney Lumet's direction -- they meant a lot to me.
Who would you cast to star in your life story?
Harrison Ford, because he has an urbanity and a simplicity that I feel I might have. But I don't think my life would make a very good movie. I don't see where the conflict would come. There has to be a single dramatic theme, something that you overcome, something besides just being successful. It's been a great life.
Marc Peyser, '86, writes for Newsweek from New York.
