HOW TO FIRE A MOVIE STAR AND GET A JOB ... A 'MAD MEN' STORY.

　


　
     Two silly questions.
     First, do you remember Gregory Peck? Of course you do. Who could forget To Kill A Mockingbird, Roman Holiday, The Big Country, Twelve O’Clock High, The Guns of Navarone and The Yearling?     The man was a first magnitude star!

     Second question: Guess who was afraid of him; deeply and illogically intimidated by him?
     A giant multi-billion dollar corporation, that’s who!


     I’ve written about ’corporate cowardice’ before, but haven’t defined it for fear of sounding trite or banal. Usually it’s nothing more than being afraid to bring bad news to the boss. So it tends to be shrugged it off with a ’So what?’ or a ‘What else is new?’ Which is okay as far as it goes. But what has always fascinated me is the defensive/aggressive kind of cowardice that creates deniability; that’s always ready with a credible disclaimer.
     Let’s call it cowardice in camouflage.

    Around the time of the current ‘Mad Men‘ series on TV, a woman at a New York ad agency called me. She claimed she had a major client who ’needed’ my services as a television consultant. Judy Garland warning bells went off in my head (Clang! Clang! Clang!). Big agencies usually hated my guts because I abrogated their most profitable function: buying TV time for clients. And anytime they could take a shot at me, they did so happily.
     So what’s up with this one? I asked myself. A ’cold call’ from someone I don’t know, a mystery client and an agency that wants to slit its own throat? I figured it was some kind of set-up and reacted with suspicion leaking from my vocal cords..
     But over the next few weeks, the woman persisted with more calls. And I got perversely curious. I wanted to find out what her game was and why she was playing it. So after looking up her agency’s clients and its personnel -- and finding no old grudges or people whose relatives I’d murdered -- I agreed to have lunch with her.
     She chose a restaurant so far from Madison Avenue that not even a phone call could reach it.
     Odd.
     In fact, more than odd.


     She turned out to be a petite blond, kind of cute, in her mid to late thirties. (I’ll call her Joann) And with her -- unexpectedly -- was a big, bearish man in his late fifties: a senior vice-president of The Travelers Companies; the insurance giant based in Hartford, Connecticut. (Let’s say his name was Henry)
     He and I circled each other over pre-lunch martinis while petite Joann smiled and said nothing. I told him what I’d done for other companies; and he told me his CEO had asked him to do ’something prestigious’ on public television (which, of course, was right up my alley). I knew The Travelers had a recognized commercial presence on CBS through sponsorship of The Masters golf tournament: so I angled toward his stated interest and began to describe how I could work with his agency.
     I didn’t get far before he interrupted me.
     I’m not too happy with the agency right now. he said.
     Light bulb! Light bulb!
     I suddenly understood why we were having lunch closer to the South Bronx than I’d ever been or wanted to be This was no attempt to sandbag me … and it had only peripheral bearing on public television. This was a conspiracy to sandbag his own agency!
     How wild , I thought, No, how delicious!


     But wait.
    What was Joann doing there? Didn’t she work for the agency? Wasn’t her presence a direct conflict of interest?
     Yes, of course it was, That’s why two light bulbs went on!
     It was instantly clear that she was part of the deal. Henry wanted to move the account and to steal her at the same time.. Or .. she’d persuaded him to move the account and to take her with him. Whichever it was, it looked ethically questionable .. but not illegal.
     Treason in advertising wasn’t considered a sin in those days.
     Still isn‘t, probably.

     So what they wanted was Henry and Joann together. I wondered, of course, whether she was screwing him; but my instincts said no. And after checking her out with sources of my own, it seemed I was right. She was considered an uptight, straight-laced account executive. It was thought she and Henry had a slightly twisted father/daughter thing, but nothing sexual.
     I believed it; partly because he was about as attractive as Rush Limbaugh.
     So after a week or so of self-debate, I decided to play. It was, after all, a major account and a five-star name. I’d hire Joann whose principal task would be to keep Henry informed and happy. Following some minor negotiation, I had contracts prepared and ready for signature. That’s when Henry threw in a curve ball as a condition of the deal.
     He wanted me to fire Gregory Peck.

\
     Peck had been the company’s television spokesman for five years. During a lull in his acting career, his agent had negotiated a ‘sweetheart deal’ with The Travelers. It paid him a ton of money for not doing much: one or two institutional commercials every year and occasional appearances at company-sponsored events. He was, of course, given luxury accommodations for he and his wife, first-class airfare, limousines everywhere and an expense account that was generous, to say the least.
     And now, despite knowing him personally, despite his having socialized over the years with everyone in top management, and despite having hired him themselves, The Travelers wanted me to fire him.
     It was his stature that frightened and intimidated them, of course, because he was influential far beyond the world of film: president of The American Cancer Society, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a fixture of the Democratic Party, a prominent member of Richard Nixon’s ‘enemies list’, etc.
     If the company itself botched the task and Peck took it badly or -- even worse -- said something negative about The Travelers in public, it could be a public relations mess (not to speak of a road block on the career path of whoever botched it.).
     So there it was: corporate cowardice in need of camouflage; specifically in need of a hedge-bet in the form of a young, unknown messenger not quite affiliated with the company who might have misconstrued its intentions or even gone beyond the scope of his instructions: me.
     In a pinch, I could be disavowed, denied and (without a contract) disowned.
     I began to wonder who was sandbagging whom.


     But I agreed to do it, and called Peck’s Hollywood agent, a well-respected man who’d been in the business for centuries. He told me that --by coincidence -- he and Peck would be in New York the following week and would be happy to meet for lunch.
     Before I set it up, I insisted that Henry come to New York and wait in my office for the outcome. Joann would, of course, baby-sit him. I also arranged for the unsigned contracts to be in front of him.
     I must say, I had cojones back then..
     On the appointed day, I met Peck and his agent in the dining room of The Four Seasons, one of my favorite restaurants because of its elegance and tranquility. I was anything but tranquil, however, having lost a couple nights’ sleep trying to figure out conversational ‘openers’. (How’s this: Greg, any enemy of Dick Nixon’s is a friend of mine. Oh God, no!)
     The agent looked as I’d expected: a calm and collected old pro. And Peck? A dignified, intelligent and very handsome man. In fact, one of the most distinguished men I’d ever seen. The maitre’d seated us at a corner table and gave us menus. I don’t think I appeared nervous, but I was very close to conversational constipation. So with only an instant of forethought and no plan, I said:
     I’m hoping we can have a congenial lunch today even though Travelers isn’t going to continue its relationship with you.
     The old agent sat back in his chair, nodded once and smiled. Sadly or sagely. I couldn’t tell.
    Well, he said, I’m glad you don’t beat around the bush.
     And Gregory Peck said: So am I. But all good things come to an end. I see they have soft-shelled crabs today.
     And that was it. For the next hour and a half, we chatted about people, politics and French cooking.
    When I got back to the office, Henry looked as if he were about to collapse from apprehension. He was actually pallid. But before he could say anything, I delivered the little speech I’d prepared on the way back.
     ‘Gregory Peck sends his regards and says he will forever hold The Travelers and its management in high esteem.
      Now sign the fucking contract, Henry.’


      And that, Mad Men, is how you fire a movie star and get a job.
　



                                                      AFTER DINNER MINTS
.
　
　
Taking The Travelers account was, as you might imagine, a mistake. Joann turned out to be an incessant whiner and Henry an inveterate worrier. They were perfectly suited to each other. I resigned after eighteen irritating months.

I did earn the company significant recognition for underwriting a documentary series on PBS called ‘Six American Families”. The audience was upscale and sizeable, the reviews were great, and the company was happy about doing something that its Hartford competitor, Aetna, hadn’t.

I never found out exactly why they wanted to fire Gregory Peck. Maybe the CEO’s wife found out he was making more money than her husband.

The Travelers continued sponsorship of the Masters tournament on CBS for years until a clever ad agency -- after creating a red umbrella as the company logo -- rained on it.

　
Until next time, thanks for reading and please share the blog with friends. The more the merrier. The link is http://keywestwind.blogspot.com.