How I Convinced Gil Cates to Make Billy Crystal an Oscar Host
November, 01, 2011 12:56 pm | Comments On #Arthur Axelman, Gil Cates, hollyblogs, Movies
I discovered one of my favorite artists Thomas Pradzynski on the walls of Gil Cates' magnificent home when Andrea and I had dinner one wintry evening.
Pradzynski primarily depicted Paris street scenes in oil, but on Gil's wall were his rare storefronts of New York.
So, not only did I experience this incredible artist, but also that two key events in the life of Gil Cates would transpire. He would learn that he was the top candidate to become Dean of the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television. August Coppola (Francis brother and Nicolas...
Read MoreRobert Radnitz, a 'Total Producer' in the Tradition of David O. Selznick
October, 30, 2011 3:16 pm | Comments On #Arthur Axelman, hollyblogs, TelevisionI never saw Robert Radnitz in slacks or a suit.
No matter what the occasion, in pitch meetings at studios and networks, at dinners or funerals, the white-haired, dashing producer ("A Dog of Flanders," "Misty," "My Side of the Mountain," "Sounder") wore only Fila white tennis clothes, a white polo, white shorts and white sneakers.
If it was chilly in his always dangerous Malibu Pacific Coast Highway cabana, he covered his tennis attire with a white cable sweater.
Moving seemlessly through features and television, Radnitz, high-...
Read More'Seidelman the Great' -- the 4-Hour Deal that Got Away
October, 25, 2011 12:09 pm | Comments On #TelevisionHoward Hausman, who ran features in New York, asked me to see Arthur Allan Seidelman, an East Coast stage director whose claim to fame at that moment was directing his and Arnold Schwarnegger's debut film "Hercules in New York." There were few other credits that meant anything in Los Angeles.
He pitched himself by dropping scores of names he had directed on the stage, off and on Broadway, in theater in-the-round and square, in stock and wherever he could. I asked him for a memo with a list of names he worked with who would speak in his behalf.
He returned with an extensive and impressive list. One of the names was James Broderick.
Today...
Read MoreWhatever Happened to 'TVTV'?
October, 17, 2011 6:46 pm | Comments On #Arthur Axelman, hollyblogs, Television, tvtv
In the early '70s, Bay Area cable companies began experimenting with a new breed of television journalists, a left-wing San Francisco collective of writers, editors, shooters and actors who called themselves "TVTV," short for "Top Value Television."
Cameras were still enormous, but each year's technical achievement decreased their size, cost and portability.
Financed by donations and a deal with four cable companies, these rag-tag band of guys (and girls) prided themselves in shooting their own concepts, some scripted but most created on the fly as if apart of a guerilla filmmaking improv group.
"The world is our studio!" was their credo.
"TVTV" pioneered the use of independent video based on wanting to...
Read More'A Cry for Help': The Making of the Tracey Thurman Story
October, 10, 2011 6:56 pm | Comments On #Arthur Axelman, hollyblog, Television
It's 1988, and in my morning mail I open up a copy of a New York Times article from Pam Bernstein in our New York office.
Thurman v. Torrington is the first federal case in which a battered woman sues a city (Torrington, Conn.) for the failure of the police to protect her from her husband’s violence.
Tracey Thurman, who remains scarred and partially paralyzed from stab wounds inflicted by her husband, won a $2,6 million judgement against the city.
Pam had signed Thurman and her lawyer as she believed, correctly, that both would be depicted in any potential dramatization of the case.
...
Read MoreLaVyrle Spencer Hits Gold and Pays Back
September, 30, 2011 10:44 am | Comments On #Television
She was a housewife in Stillwater, Minnesota, a teacher's aide in a local junior high and had an assortment of hobbies including gardening and photography. Her latest was trying to write a gothic romance novel like her favorite, Kathleen Woodwiss.
She completed the typescript manuscript and sent it off to the same paperback publisher of that favorite novel, “The Flame and the Flower.”
Unlike struggling would-be authors who submit without an agent to dozens of publishers, LaVyrle Spencer's first novel, “The Fulfillment,” got accepted, she almost immediately received an advance of $2,...
'The Mormon Murders' -- the Mini-Series the Latter Day Saints Shut Down
September, 22, 2011 11:55 am | Comments On #TelevisionThe enormous success on Broadway of "Book of Mormon" brings to mind the longest and most difficult mini-series development in the then-William Morris Agency's history.
Feature agent and former New York colleague Fred Milstein called me one morning and spoke about a series of forgeries and murders by a 28-year-old elder of ths Mormon church against fellow Mormons.
I could try to explain the convolutions of this story, but the most incisive and coherent analysis comes from a former LDS elder who calls himself "Stray Mutt." It is herein paraphrased.
...
My Ill-Fated Trip to Bill Cosby's House
September, 13, 2011 7:04 pm | Comments On #Arthur Axelman, hollyblog, TelevisionSo many of my tales seem to mention me feeling sick, headachy and miserable.
It probably had to do with childhood food transgressions; ironic, for such a healthy young man growing up in a home where no one took as much as an asprin. (Today I begin each day with heart medication and eight other pills.)
But on this week in New York I had chills, fever and probably a flu of some sort. And I had a 10 a.m. meeting at Bill Cosby's townhouse on East 61st and 2nd Avenue. No disappointment -- this is a magnificent, four story home not unlike his fictional Brooklyn TV townhouse, only in a better neighborhood.
...
Read MoreDavid Stein, an Artist Forged by Extraordinary Gifts and Flaws
September, 06, 2011 6:42 pm | Comments On #Arthur Axelman, david stein, hollyblog, TelevisionI had just arrived in Beverly Hills when director Gil Cates handed me "Three Picassos Before Breakfast," George Carpozi's collaborative biography of art forger David Stein.
Carpozi was an old-world tabloid writer and the book, unauthorized by the still incarcerated Stein, was the work of his "ex-wife" or as he called her, "the mother of my children."
Still, the facts were all there, and it was a mesmerizing story, with incredible color and glamour.
Stein, who had used many names and was born in Egypt as Henri Haddad, would set himself up...
Read More'Cary Grant Is on Line 2'
August, 26, 2011 10:47 am | Comments On #Arthur Axelman, Cary Grant, Movies, william morris agencyAs a newly minted Junior Agent, it's New York 1974 and I am waiting to hear about my business cards and an available office. Nothing is happening.
Near Owen Laster's massive space was a tiny room that had been used for storage and was filled with agency junk. I had the vision to see that, minus the debris, this could be my first office -- so with Janet Roberts' assistant, Don Faber and a floater named Angelo Crispo, we disassembled two old desks and a broken bookcase and removed a half dozen staplers, a paper cutter and three typewriters. It became mine.
I didn't send a memo, I didn't ask permission, I took it. I put up some photos and filled the desk drawers with my things and ordered supplies to be sent to "the Axelman office." It was called "commandeering" in those days, and you had to do it at...
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Description
A former senior vice president at William Morris for two decades, Axelman founded the movie for television packaging division, responsible for putting together the elements for more than 150 TV movies, features and series while representing winners of the Tony, Emmy, Oscar and Pulitzer Prize.
Since 2004, he has taught Entertainment Business and Law at UCLA.
He currently has written two half-hour pilots and co-created three reality shows with Diane Raymond.
He is at work on an agency-inspired tell-all novel.
