Menu – Il Piccolino<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nbeing at Il Piccolino was like eating in his dining room.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that Jerry acted the king, he doesn’t bark orders.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, he’s capable…<\/p>\n
Like with that family story he told me.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t want to make him angry, he can be a BULL!<\/p>\n
Reminded me of my father.\u00c2\u00a0 He could be the nicest guy in the world, but if you pissed him off, if you disappointed him, if you didn’t give him the proper respect, he went OFF!\u00c2\u00a0 My dad could have played Joe Pesci’s part in "Goodfellas".<\/p>\n
And like my father, Jerry knows it all comes down to money.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s looking for it and it comes with control.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that he needs payback for a favor.\u00c2\u00a0 Every day he wakes up to fifty people asking for favors.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s quite an account to draw upon, if you think about it.<\/p>\n
So he’s fourteen and working at Goldberg’s.\u00c2\u00a0 A minor hotel in the Catskills.\u00c2\u00a0 And Sam LeFrak comes in for a meal and asks him WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?<\/p>\n
Which, of course, is what I asked Jerry about LeFrak.\u00c2\u00a0 Sam came for the kosher food, he didn’t trust the Concord.\u00c2\u00a0 But the Concord was THE hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 So Sam took Jerry to meet the owner.\u00c2\u00a0 He just heard from the great grandson last week. You see once you’re part of Jerry’s family…<\/p>\n
And speaking of family, he ultimately went to see his wife, Jane Morgan, appear at the Concord.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t want to, but the Mafiosi he knew demanded it.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that Jerry ever was in bed with the Mob, but it’s best to pay respect.<\/p>\n
It usually made Jerry too uptight to watch Jane perform.\u00c2\u00a0 He was anxious she might make a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 And when three bozos at the table behind him kept talking, he turned around, put his finger in front of his lips and said SHHH!<\/p>\n
They laughed in Jerry’s face.<\/p>\n
Whereupon Jerry jumped over the table and started beating the shit out of one of them.\u00c2\u00a0 A melee erupted.\u00c2\u00a0 Which only ended when a Mafioso whipped out a gun, scaring even Jerry.<\/p>\n
The owners of the Concord called up a judge.\u00c2\u00a0 They turned a hotel room into a courtroom.\u00c2\u00a0 They put up an American flag and everything.\u00c2\u00a0 And this Sullivan County judge said to Jerry…"He hit you first."<\/p>\n
And Jerry says that wasn’t right.<\/p>\n
And the judge interrupts him and slowly says once again, HE HIT YOU FIRST!<\/p>\n
THAT’S RIGHT YOUR HONOR!<\/p>\n
Case dismissed.<\/p>\n
But, but, BUT the talker said, what about my $300 suit, it’s ruined!<\/p>\n
The judge told Jerry to give him three hundred bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 Jerry said, "If I pay him $600, can I hit him again?"<\/p>\n
That’s 2 a.m. Catskills justice.<\/p>\n
And then there was Elvis.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the linchpin, he was the road to success.\u00c2\u00a0 The Colonel demanded Jerry show up with a million dollar check, and he did.\u00c2\u00a0 Then the Colonel asked him what kind of deal he had in mind…\u00c2\u00a0 Jerry said he didn’t, that he hadn’t thought that far!\u00c2\u00a0 And the Colonel said he wasn’t sure what was right either.\u00c2\u00a0 Then the Colonel offered a 50\/50 split.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, the Colonel and Elvis would split 50% and Jerry got the rest.\u00c2\u00a0 HUH?\u00c2\u00a0 Talk about another era in concert promotion!<\/p>\n
Eventually Jerry paid Elvis and the Colonel 80%.<\/p>\n
And he only paid Zeppelin 80% too.<\/p>\n
But I thought Peter Grant demanded a 90\/10 split!<\/p>\n
But Jerry’s deals with the arenas were so good, his 80% was worth more than the other guy’s 90%.<\/p>\n
And Frank Barsalona hated Jerry for stealing Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 And held a meeting of the regional concert promoters on Long Island with the agenda of freezing Jerry out.\u00c2\u00a0 And after the meeting, each and every promoter called Jerry to give him the details, and to say they still wanted to be in business with him.\u00c2\u00a0 Even Bill Graham, who labeled his acquiescence to Barsalona "a mistake".\u00c2\u00a0 Jerry asked Bill what he was thinking!\u00c2\u00a0 Jerry had all the acts!\u00c2\u00a0 Promoters need acts! <\/p>\n
Jerry took care of Bill.\u00c2\u00a0 Let him put his name on all his Bay Area gigs.<\/p>\n
And he also put Harvey Weinstein in business.\u00c2\u00a0 He got a call, could Jerry do a favor?\u00c2\u00a0 Let Harvey promote shows? Jerry said yes.\u00c2\u00a0 Allowing Harvey to clear $2500 a gig and act like a big shot.<\/p>\n
What a web of relationships, what a web of favors owed.<\/p>\n
But Jerry never understood music.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that’s one of the keys to his success, he never told acts what to do.\u00c2\u00a0 But he tired of reporting to talent.\u00c2\u00a0 He told Irving the problem with music is the act is the employer, whereas in movies, the producer’s the employer, he switched sides!<\/p>\n
Billy Wilder told him music was fifty percent of a movie.\u00c2\u00a0 The other half was story.<\/p>\n
And boy can Jerry tell stories. That’s what he’s all about.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a natural in the movie business.<\/p>\n
But his first film was with Robert Altman, a notorious cokehead who never yielded profits.\u00c2\u00a0 Lew Wasserman said to get final cut.\u00c2\u00a0 Jerry didn’t even know what final cut was.\u00c2\u00a0 When he demanded it of Altman, Altman went berserk!\u00c2\u00a0 And then Jerry realized he needed it, if Robert could be this out of control.<\/p>\n
And then Altman came back with a three hour movie.\u00c2\u00a0 And when Jerry said he had to cut it, Altman took "Nashville" to Pauline Kael, who said it was one of the four best movies ever made, but if Jerry cut it…<\/p>\n
Jerry did the same thing with MGM.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t like "Diner".\u00c2\u00a0 He took the negative and showed it to Kael.\u00c2\u00a0 She loved it, said he’d done it again.\u00c2\u00a0 Did the MGM brass want to fuck with America’s number one film critic, who could literally open a picture?<\/p>\n
They didn’t.<\/p>\n
And that’s how Jerry’s stories go.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re peopled with legends.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that he’s name-dropping, they’re just part of the story.<\/p>\n
Like Steve Ross.\u00c2\u00a0 Who was pissed at Frank Wells for selling "Cruising" to Lorimar.\u00c2\u00a0 Ross was about the buck.\u00c2\u00a0 And so is Jerry.\u00c2\u00a0 The problem with the music business today is you just can’t make enough MONEY!<\/p>\n
And speaking of money…\u00c2\u00a0 He told me at length about Warner paying 500 grand for a new "Exorcist" movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Frank Wells said Jerry, Friedkin and Bill Blatty could keep it even if the film never came to fruition.<\/p>\n
Friedkin and Blatty fought so much that there was no picture.\u00c2\u00a0 Jerry insisted on giving his share back.\u00c2\u00a0 But the other two?<\/p>\n
That’s the movie business.<\/p>\n
On Sunday Jerry has open house, five TVs blaring the NFL and a catered lunch.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re a friend, you’re so forever. He wants his friends around him.<\/p>\n
And you sit there for a while, and you hear the old names, like Merv Adelson and you ask yourself, is Jerry done?<\/p>\n
Then he tells me about the Liberace movie.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d heard about this on Stern, that it was going to star Michael Douglas. Huh?\u00c2\u00a0 And didn’t they just close the Liberace museum in Vegas?<\/p>\n
THEY CLOSED VEGAS!<\/p>\n
That’s what I love about moguls, they’ll speak the truth nobody else will.\u00c2\u00a0 Vegas is in trouble.<\/p>\n
And the movie isn’t about Liberace, it’s a STORY!\u00c2\u00a0 Of a guy who’s tortured that he’s gay and can’t come out, his audience is blue-haired old ladies.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, very interesting.\u00c2\u00a0 But what’s fascinating is Liberace gets his boyfriend to have plastic surgery to look just like him, so Liberace can fuck himself!<\/p>\n
Never heard that.<\/p>\n
That’s a story.<\/p>\n
In the straight world, they think it’s about education.\u00c2\u00a0 Graduate from the Ivy League and your life is made.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you think everything is to be learned in books, you’re sorely mistaken.<\/p>\n
And in the entertainment world, they think it’s all about power.\u00c2\u00a0 The Tommy Mottola game.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m God, you’re a peon.\u00c2\u00a0 You might reign for a while, then you’re hated.<\/p>\n
But power truly comes from camaraderie, having people love you, having people believe they can count on you, that you’ve got their back, that you come through.<\/p>\n
Jerry’s all about coming through.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes him feel good.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not runnin’ with your buddies…<\/p>\n
And all his buddies, from Clooney to George Bush, testified for the documentary of his life, airing on HBO in April.\u00c2\u00a0 They all tell the same stories.\u00c2\u00a0 Julia Roberts starts one, another famous face finishes it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, you see, they all know Jerry.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not two-dimensional, he’s positively three-dimensional.\u00c2\u00a0 He inhabits space.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s human, with flaws, but he’s lovable, you want to hang with him.\u00c2\u00a0 You can feel the respect.<\/p>\n
You feel connected.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel you’ve got open access.\u00c2\u00a0 Anything you need.<\/p>\n
But you don’t want to cross him…<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He didn’t shave. I’ve been against shaving ever since I saw that Paul and George hated it in a teen magazine back before I had whiskers.\u00c2\u00a0 I kind of see it like making the bed…why?\u00c2\u00a0 Especially if you’re just gonna sleep in it tonight! I put on my look.\u00c2\u00a0 To the best of my ability.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Wq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3624,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622\/revisions\/3624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}