dispute. It had by this time received a go to production as a CBS movie-for-television. Because it had been originally developed by me before my tenure at BNB , the terms of my contract with Mace vested me with 75% of the profits and Mace with 25%. This was proportionately diluted by the 50% of the profits held by Filmways and the 10% profit share held by Avedon & Corday, half of which was paid by Filmways and half by BNB. Thus, Filmways had 45%, I had 75% of 45%, and Mace had 25% of 45%.
In those days, the profits on an efficiently produced movie of the week normally ran between a quarter and a half million dollars. It was a nice little business in the days before network ownership of just about everything, but it never contained the upside potential of a television series or a theatrical motion picture. I had been turned down everywhere in my desire to make Cagney & Lacey a series. Making it as an M.O.W. was truly a last resort.
Several weeks before, after being rebuffed by Universal talent head Monique James when I had inquired about loan-out possibilities for the services of Sharon Gless, Peter Frankovich of CBS had suggested Loretta Swit as the actress to play Cagney. Swit was a CBS star in her role as Hot Lips on M*A*S*H* , which was then still one of the network’s premiere hits.
“Look, Swit’s a great choice,” I told Frankovich. “She’s the right age, the right look, and has a good sense of comedy, but she’s already committed to a series for you guys. You’re blowing me out of the water here. You’re killing any chance this has of becoming a back-door 6 pilot.”
“Barney, Barney, Barney,” came the head-shaking reply. “You’ve already tried to sell this project as a series, and you failed. What you did do is sell it to us as an M.O.W. That’s what it is. That’s all it will ever be. We want Loretta Swit. We have a commitment with Loretta Swit , and we’re willing to turn that commitment over to you. Unless you can come up with a name we like better, then that’s who we expect you to use.”
Dealing the actress to me got CBS off the hook for a pay-or-play 7 commitment to Swit, and it gave them a recognizable star in an otherwise (to them) undistinguished movie project. There were not many chances that I would come up with a piece of casting they would like better.
I knew all of this, of course, while meeting with Sam, Mace, and Ramer. I was concentrating on regaining rights to projects with upside potential, including This Girl for Hire . Mace, typically, was looking for quick cash. In the course of the negotiating process, I picked up a couple of properties I thought had real prospects for the future and, in exchange, reversed positions with Mace, allowing him to gain the lion’s share (2/3 of “our” end) of the (we all thought) limited profits, in what we all then believed was the soon-to-be one-shot appearance of a CBS M.O.W., Cagney & Lacey .
It was a small enough piece of change that at one point, growing exasperated with the process of having to have this meeting at all, Mace simply got up and stormed out of the room, saying, in reference to Cagney & Lacey , “Fuck it! Take the whole, damn thing. I don’t give a shit.”
There was only an instant of stunned silence, and then Bruce Ramer was running down the hall after his client, shouting back at us over his shoulder that what Mace had just “offered” was not on the table.
Ramer and his client were soon back in the room, and negotiations resumed. To this day, whenever I see Bruce Ramer, I think of the multi-millions that his hallway sprint cost me.
There were other niceties in our deal: despite the level of ownership now being skewed in Mace’s favor, Cagney & Lacey would be my project to supervise, and, in remembrance of my experience with Mace’s sabotage of American Dream , I had him contractually excluded from any and all creative discussions with either Filmways or CBS regarding this M.O.W.
Finally, I was to be
In those days, the profits on an efficiently produced movie of the week normally ran between a quarter and a half million dollars. It was a nice little business in the days before network ownership of just about everything, but it never contained the upside potential of a television series or a theatrical motion picture. I had been turned down everywhere in my desire to make Cagney & Lacey a series. Making it as an M.O.W. was truly a last resort.
Several weeks before, after being rebuffed by Universal talent head Monique James when I had inquired about loan-out possibilities for the services of Sharon Gless, Peter Frankovich of CBS had suggested Loretta Swit as the actress to play Cagney. Swit was a CBS star in her role as Hot Lips on M*A*S*H* , which was then still one of the network’s premiere hits.
“Look, Swit’s a great choice,” I told Frankovich. “She’s the right age, the right look, and has a good sense of comedy, but she’s already committed to a series for you guys. You’re blowing me out of the water here. You’re killing any chance this has of becoming a back-door 6 pilot.”
“Barney, Barney, Barney,” came the head-shaking reply. “You’ve already tried to sell this project as a series, and you failed. What you did do is sell it to us as an M.O.W. That’s what it is. That’s all it will ever be. We want Loretta Swit. We have a commitment with Loretta Swit , and we’re willing to turn that commitment over to you. Unless you can come up with a name we like better, then that’s who we expect you to use.”
Dealing the actress to me got CBS off the hook for a pay-or-play 7 commitment to Swit, and it gave them a recognizable star in an otherwise (to them) undistinguished movie project. There were not many chances that I would come up with a piece of casting they would like better.
I knew all of this, of course, while meeting with Sam, Mace, and Ramer. I was concentrating on regaining rights to projects with upside potential, including This Girl for Hire . Mace, typically, was looking for quick cash. In the course of the negotiating process, I picked up a couple of properties I thought had real prospects for the future and, in exchange, reversed positions with Mace, allowing him to gain the lion’s share (2/3 of “our” end) of the (we all thought) limited profits, in what we all then believed was the soon-to-be one-shot appearance of a CBS M.O.W., Cagney & Lacey .
It was a small enough piece of change that at one point, growing exasperated with the process of having to have this meeting at all, Mace simply got up and stormed out of the room, saying, in reference to Cagney & Lacey , “Fuck it! Take the whole, damn thing. I don’t give a shit.”
There was only an instant of stunned silence, and then Bruce Ramer was running down the hall after his client, shouting back at us over his shoulder that what Mace had just “offered” was not on the table.
Ramer and his client were soon back in the room, and negotiations resumed. To this day, whenever I see Bruce Ramer, I think of the multi-millions that his hallway sprint cost me.
There were other niceties in our deal: despite the level of ownership now being skewed in Mace’s favor, Cagney & Lacey would be my project to supervise, and, in remembrance of my experience with Mace’s sabotage of American Dream , I had him contractually excluded from any and all creative discussions with either Filmways or CBS regarding this M.O.W.
Finally, I was to be
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