Empire Australasia – July 2019

hove over the horizon, the industry was changing again. CAA,

led by the ferociously ambitious Mike Ovitz, was the new

powerhouse agency in town. Ovitz’s Armani-clad shock troops

flooded the business. Deals were done at discreet power-lunches

rather than at dope-tinged dinners up in the hills. Talent was

managed by teams rather than individual agents. The

corporatism that was defining Reagan’s America asserted itself

ever more strongly in Hollywood, and Mengers became a

woman out of time. Applying the tin lid to Mengers’

professional collapse, Barbra Streisand signed with CAA.

In March 1986 she called her clients with the news she was

retiring. “It’s not fun anymore,” she told Michael Caine, whose

career she had looked after for nearly 20 years. A brief return a

few years later, to William Morris, was a disaster. Phone calls

to her previous clients, many of whom she had expected to

re-sign, went unanswered, or she was politely declined.

She withdrew to her house where the parties continued,

but slowly became smaller affairs, a few people arranged

around a pair of couches in her living room. She could still

attract the A-list. Sean Penn, Jennifer Aniston, Carrie Fisher

and Robert Downey Jr. were among attendees. But events

had the air of being a slowly misting window looking onto

a Hollywood that had all but ceased to exist.

“I remember the last time I saw her very clearly,” says

Medavoy. “I went to her house for lunch. We talked for a

little bit and she said, ‘Do you mind if I pull out a cigarette?’

Obviously, it was weed. She said, ‘You know, I need to lie

The Chopper

Manoeuvre

Invited back to his high school for

a reunion, wild-man producer Don

Simpson arrived via helicopter, landing

on the football pitch. He emerged with

a Playboy model on each arm, shook

hands with each teacher and fellow

alumni, then immediately returned to

the helicopter and took off again.

The Deep Freeze

Producer Joel Silver had an ear-splitting

row with an executive on Hudson Hawk.

So he set off to the nearest ice-cream

parlour to unwind, ordering a scoop of

every single dessert on offer. “Our table

of three is STACKED with every variation

of banana split and sundae,” wrote

Richard E. Grant, who was there, in his

diary. “This binge cools him down and

I sorely wish the script went halfway to

capturing this sort of frenzy.”

The Nozzle

Douche

Agent Bill Haber was rebuffed by future

studio head Sherry Lansing in the

mid-1970s. So Haber, a master of the

charm offensive, told her she was going

to be showered with gifts — and

proceeded to deliver 50 shower caps to

her office. Then 50 umbrellas, and so on

for 10 days, until she laughingly gave in,

indicating that she was throwing in the

towel by sending him one.

The Power

Flowers

For years, a tale swirled around

Hollywood about producer Jon Peters:

that he used the Sony jet to send flowers

to Norwegian-Swedish supermodel

Vendela Kirsebom, leaving Bruce Willis

stranded at an airport. It seemed like an

urban myth, until 2017, when Peters

confirmed in an interview that it was true

— and that it paid off. NICK DE SEMLYEN

SUE MENGERS: NOT THE ONLY

HOLLYWOOD PLAYER WITH

A FLAIR FOR THE THEATRICAL

down.’ So we went to her bedroom and I
stayed for about 15 minutes and then left.
And that was it. Shortly thereafter she
died. I felt sad for her. But I felt I didn’t
really know who she was — with her it was
all about fiction. It had been a totally
male-dominated industry and she
absolutely had to fight her way to the top.
But was the character she’d created real? I
don’t know. I know she’d be really happy
you were writing a piece about her. I
wouldn’t want to deny that for her.”
On 15 October 2011, Sue Mengers,
who had beaten the odds to become one
of the most powerful, divisive, coruscating
figures in Hollywood, and had proved that
women could make it all the way to the
top, passed away aged 81. Boaty
Boatwright and a few of Sue’s former
clients, her sparklies, took her ashes to
Paris, where she had had happy times with
Jean-Claude, and scattered them. “It took
a while,” Boatwright said, adding, in a
sting worthy of the deceased, “Let’s face
it, she was a big girl.”
In every sense, she was. But then,
ALAMY, GETTY, SHUTTERSTOCK maybe it was the pictures that got small.