New York Post, Tuesday, August 13, 2019nypost.com16
A STAR IS A STAR IS
BURNED?A STAR IS
BURNED?BURNED?BURNED?BURNED? Leo- Leo- Leo-
nardo DiCaprio nardo DiCaprio nardo DiCaprio nardo DiCaprio nardo DiCaprio
fought to suppress fought to suppress fought to suppress
his bawdy turn in his bawdy turn in
“Don’s Plum,” the “Don’s Plum,” the
filmmakers claim, filmmakers claim,
but the actor later but the actor later
said he worked said he worked
“one night” on the “one night” on the “one night” on the
flick and never flick and never
thought it would be-thought it would be-thought it would be-
come a feature film.By STEVEN GREENSTREET
and TAMAR LAPINO
NCE upon a time in Holly-
wood, two stars on the rise
made a movie with their
pals — then fiercely fought
for decades to keep it from seeing
the light of day.
The actors were Leonardo Di-
Caprio and Tobey Maguire, and
the flick is “Don’s Plum” — an ad-
libbed, mid-1990s indie film that
has been banned from ever being
shown in the United States and
Canada.
“ ‘Don’s Plum’ was a group of
friends saying, ‘Let’s all make a
movie,’ ” one of its producers,
Dale Wheatley, told The Post. “In
many ways, [it] was a love letter to
our friends.”
Although rumors and articles
have circulated about “Don’s
Plum” over the years, The Post ex-
clusively has obtained court docu-
ments, footage of depositions
from the actors, images and other
materials that tell the full story of
the movie DiCaprio and Maguire
never want you to see.
Shot over six days between
July 1995 and March 1996 in
grainy, “Clerks”-like black and
white, it tells the story of a
group of 20-something guys
who gather every Saturday
night at the Los Angeles
diner that the film is
named for, each with a
new girl.
DiCaprio plays rude,
standoffish Derek,
whose standout lines
are: “Do you girls mas-
turbate at all?” and “I’ll
f--king throw a bottle at
your face, you goddamn
whore.”
Maguire’s character, Ian, reveals
his unusual masturbation habits
in one scene, although the clip
was cut from the final version
of the film at his behest.
The characters whom the
stars portray are “not neces-
sarily who [DiCaprio and Ma-
guire] are,” said another of
the producers, Tawd Beck-
man.
“But, of course, it is so
free-flowing and it seems
so natural that an audience
is gonna look at that, look at
DiCaprio, look at Maguire,
and say, ‘Oh, that’s who they
are.’ ”
It’s for that reason that
Wheatley, Beckman and
others suspect DiCaprioand Maguire don’t want US audi-
ences to ever see their “Don’s
Plum’’ characters.
In depositions given as part of a
1998 lawsuit — which resulted in
the film being banned in the US —
DiCaprio and Maguire said it was
because they never meant for the
film-school-like project to become
a full-length Hollywood feature.
But others involved in “Don’s
Plum,’’ including Wheatley, say
they have had to live with the fall-
out of the failed movie: including
ruined careers, destroyed friend-
ships, divorce and thoughts of
suicide.I
N his “Don’s Plum” days, Di-
Caprio was fresh off an Acad-
emy Award nomination for the
movie “What’s Eating Gilbert
Grape.” As for Maguire, a few
years away from “Spider-Man,’’ he
was trying to build himself as a
marketable performer in Holly-
wood, having just made waves in
“This Boy’s Life,” which also
starred DiCaprio.
The pair had a
growing reputa-
tion as obnoxious,
skirt-chasing
party boys — part
of the so-called
“Pussy Posse,” a
moniker bestowed
on their male
clique by Nancy
Jo Sales in her
seminal 1998 New
York magazine
piece, “Leo, Prince
of The City.”
“The group’s
core members
constitute a frat
house of young
men, some of whom are actually
famous, like Leo,” Sales wrote.
“And then there are the other guys
in Leo’s pack, who make up a kind
of former-child-actor brigade.”
Sales mentioned “Don’s Plum,”
saying it “may provide an inadver-
tent glimpse behind the curtain
shrouding the secret society of
Leo and his friends, mostly be-
cause it was made and largely ad-
libbed by Leo and his friends.”
Just weeks after moving to Los
Angeles, wide-eyed Canada trans-
plant Wheatley said he fell in with
the “Posse” — including DiCaprio,
Maguire, Kevin Connolly and R.D.
Robb — after an introduction
from Jeremy Sisto of “Clueless”
fame.
Wheatley said he was star-
struck the moment he laid eyes onDiCaprio — and had his own aspi-
rations of making it big.
“I was obsessed with success,”
Wheatley said. “I didn’t come to
LA to stare up at the Hollywood
sign. I wanted to make something
of myself.”
Wheatley ended up collaborat-
ing with aspiring filmmakers Da-
vid Stutman and Beckman on
“Don’s Plum.”
DiCaprio involvement was key,
he said.
“Having that guy in your corner
obviously means that the rest are
probably going to follow him,”
Wheatley said.
Former child actor Robb, who
appeared in 1983’s “A Christmas
Story,” was tapped to direct. Later,
as Sales would note for New York
magazine, he was “ ‘expelled’ from
the [Posse], according to someone
still inside it, for attempting to
spin the film’s straw into the Leo
gold of a commercial release.”
Robb didn’t respond to multiple
requests for comment.
The amateurs
eventually brought
on two experienced
producers, John
Schindler and Gary
Lowe, to help.
As the group
filmed in the LA
diner, Wheatley
said, he was
amazed at the “im-
provs that were
coming out.”
On DiCaprio’s
last day on set,
“We’re outside by
the car, and I’m just
overwhelmed with
gratitude,” Wheat-
ley said.
“I just can’t believe what he has
done for us. And I’m expressing
that... and I give him this really
big hug. And then he just says,
‘Just make me look good.’ ”
After DiCaprio’s two days of
filming on “Don’s Plum,” the actor
flew off to work on 1996’s “Mar-
vin’s Room” with Diane Keaton,
Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro.
Wheatley was fired up about
having done what he believed was
nearly impossible — a feature
flick on his first try.
“There was this idea that we’re
going to make millions of dollars
from this film,’’ Beckman said.
“And everybody’s going to be big.”B
UT when DiCaprio learned
his pals wanted to turn the
project into a feature film,