Actually, to say that Fritz Manes was a friend of mine would be untrue -- he was a compatriot, patriot, boon companion and drinking buddy.
But that was all years ago -- I was sorry to read of his passing in the New York Times this week (the Los Angeles Times seems to have forgotten his story!)
Many years ago Fritz and I spent, oh, a year or so together working on a movie that (like so many!) never happened. It wasn’t Sony Pictures’ fault -- it had spent almost $1.5 million just prepping the movie. Maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault -- these things just happen in Hollywood. But I’ll tell you the story and let you decide...
In the early ‘80s, I’d been, among other things, Newsweek Magazine’s defense correspondent. A cool job, considering that the “Reagan Defense Buildup” was in its infancy and I got to cover hot new stuff like the F/A-18 attack fighter, the AH-61 Apache attack helicopter and numerous other top-secret programs like the Predator drone (believe me, it goes back that far!)
Now, everyone knew the billions the Republicans’ were spending on defense (driving us deeper into a deficit only Clinton could bring us out of!) would end up making great movies -- you may recall some of the hits like “Navy Seals” (starring Charlie Sheen), “Iron Eagle I, II & III,” “Firebirds” (starring Academy Award-winner Tommy Lee Jones) and, of course, the legendary “Top Gun.”
Ironically, “Top Gun” director Tony Scott’s assistant at the time, Catalaine Knell, was my then-wife’s former assistant and, after my first divorce, one of his producer’s became my second wife.
Hey, Tony always had good taste in women!
Shortly after, however, I was called from Newsweek to become a vice president of the Walt Disney Company and, knowing that studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg had been one of the movers behind “Top Gun,” I pitched him another idea -- “Top Gun II,” only without Scott, Tom Cruise or Paramount, his former employer.
How could I do that, he pondered? I explained that, as Newsweek’s defense writer, I had an “in” with the Marines. If he could see what these wild, new fighters, the AV-8B Harrier jumpjets could do, hovering in midair and backing out of caves, it’d make “Top Gun” look like WWI’s “Wings.”
Katzenberg never believed me; my new boss, Academy Award-winning producer Michael Douglas and his partner, ex-HBO president Rick Bieber did. Apparently, Rick had been trying for years to make a movie about the ravages the Thai pirates were inflicting upon the “boat people” of Vietnam. Graft a secret squadron of Harriers assigned to protect the boat people and you have a “Top Gun” II-like winner!
Anyway, my then girlfriend “CSI” producer Cyndy Chvatal and I found a writer named Tim McCanlies to put our vision in a script called “Thai Pirates” (later changed to “Flyby” by studio head Michael Nathanson).
