Early '80's and a call to ask if I would want to meet with Eldridge Cleaver, former Black Panther and author of the seminal "Soul on Ice," a memoir of a a radical black militant in prison.
As a good liberal, I had read Cleaver's book and never believed he would be alive and well (and free) to meet with a William Morris agent. But now I saw "Ice" as a four-hour miniseries for CBS and called Dennis Doty, who was handling the network for packaging.
"You want to go to lunch with Eldridge Cleaver?"
He, too, envisioned the mini-series. I went to his office and we both called Donald March, a hip network exec who headed movies for CBS. We decided that instead of shlepping Cleaver to Fairfax and 3rd, we would all meet at a restaurant, more informal, more comfortable.
In the early '80s there were very few truly good restaurants in L.A. One was Scandia on Sunset near Doheny. And that's where we set the lunch.
Cleaver was warm and charming. Looking back on his persona that day, I saw that whomever guided George Foreman to "forget mean, forget bitter, crossover and get the bucks" had gotten to Cleaver — or so it seemed. A born-again-Christian, he was angelic as he told his story of his days in Soledad. I thought of the late Lenny Bruce who, 10 years earlier, could have prophesied: "… the way the world works Eldridge Cleaver will get out on a pass and be taken to Scandia by two William Morris agents and a CBS exec to discuss a miniseries …" It was that bizarre.
We discussed potential writers. Cleaver ordered the special of the day: beef bourguignon. When it arrived, he was delirious. He said that Scandia's version was the best he had ever eaten. Donald March was very gracious and said that he would call when he had a chance to review the proposal "with the troops."
March never called and, when I bumped into him at another network meeting, he said, "You've got to be kidding. He scared me to death. Please take it to NBC. Great story to tell your kids, though."
It was.