columbia, was illustrated with a photograph of the Hirschfield children at a Gottlieb pinball machine, which was set up in the Columbia boardroom in front of a display case full of Oscars. "When I came to Columbia." Hirschfield was quoted as saying, "it just never occurred to me that we'd fail. . . . My wife gets angry with me. She says. 'You're a success. Why don't you show any emotion?' I tell her, 'That's what I'm supposed to be.' "
As Alan Hirschfield's press clippings accumulated, they began to raise eyebrows, especially in Hollywood, which had always been extremely sensitive to the nuances of acclaim. What was responsible for Columbia Pictures Industries' recovery? Was it Hirschfield's adroit management of the corporation's financial structure? Or was it David Begelman's adroit selection of profitable movie projects? Hollywood voted heavily in favor of Begelman, one of its own, and against Hirschfield, the intruder from Wall Street. Hollywood insiders were particularly rankled to see Alan Hirschfield applauded as broadly as he was in some articles, as if Hirschfield himself had made Funny Lady and Shampoo and Tommy and Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
It is Hollywood's nature to be touchier about such things than are other American industrial subcultures whose products are more tangible and prosaic than Hollywood's. This touchiness—hypersensitivity born of insecurity—is one of the differences between an industry which makes, say, refrigerators, and an industry whose principal product is, in essence, fantasy. The reasons for the success of a piece of fantasy—a movie or a TV show—rarely are as identifiable as the reasons for the success of a refrigerator. A movie is shaped by disparate and often indistinct collaborative elements, and represents an amalgam of highly subjective and even arbitrary creative and financial decisions.
The allocation of credit for a movie's success, therefore, is inherently imprecise, elusive, and subject to elaborate manipulation, particularly among people in the positions of David Begelman and Alan Hirschfield . Unlike the actors, the Begelmans and the Hirschfields are one or more steps removed from the actual making of the picture, and thus their contributions to the success of the venture are ambiguous. How much acclaim does the head of the studio deserve? Or the president of the parent corporation who put up the money and perhaps was instrumental in structuring the project? Or the key member of the corporate board of directors, who approved the expenditure of funds and the concept of the movie? Since it is difficult to evaluate their contributions by objective criteria, the executives normally vie with each other, even if only subtly, for the most acclaim they can garner, whether they deserve it or not.
Acclaim is as important to executives as it is to stars, for it is through acclaim that most show-business executives obtain and consolidate their power. The acclaim for making a successful movie or TV show, whether the executive deserves it or not, usually is accompanied by the power to make more movies and TV shows. The acclaim for making several successful movies or TV shows, whether the executive deserves the acclaim or not, often leads to the opportunity to run an entire studio or network. And whether it is deserved or not. the acclaim for rescuing a studio or network from financial ruin (the kind of acclaim that had begun to become an issue between David Begelman and Alan Hirschfield by the summer of 1977) usually opens even larger vistas—the chance to be a genuine mogul of show business, to become truly rich and famous, to play a major role in determining how the nation and indeed the world are entertained. For men like Hirschfield and Begelman, who long had aspired to power in show business, and who had achieved a lot but wanted much more, the stakes could hardly have been higher.
Every executive learns eventually, of course, that power in Hollywood
As Alan Hirschfield's press clippings accumulated, they began to raise eyebrows, especially in Hollywood, which had always been extremely sensitive to the nuances of acclaim. What was responsible for Columbia Pictures Industries' recovery? Was it Hirschfield's adroit management of the corporation's financial structure? Or was it David Begelman's adroit selection of profitable movie projects? Hollywood voted heavily in favor of Begelman, one of its own, and against Hirschfield, the intruder from Wall Street. Hollywood insiders were particularly rankled to see Alan Hirschfield applauded as broadly as he was in some articles, as if Hirschfield himself had made Funny Lady and Shampoo and Tommy and Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
It is Hollywood's nature to be touchier about such things than are other American industrial subcultures whose products are more tangible and prosaic than Hollywood's. This touchiness—hypersensitivity born of insecurity—is one of the differences between an industry which makes, say, refrigerators, and an industry whose principal product is, in essence, fantasy. The reasons for the success of a piece of fantasy—a movie or a TV show—rarely are as identifiable as the reasons for the success of a refrigerator. A movie is shaped by disparate and often indistinct collaborative elements, and represents an amalgam of highly subjective and even arbitrary creative and financial decisions.
The allocation of credit for a movie's success, therefore, is inherently imprecise, elusive, and subject to elaborate manipulation, particularly among people in the positions of David Begelman and Alan Hirschfield . Unlike the actors, the Begelmans and the Hirschfields are one or more steps removed from the actual making of the picture, and thus their contributions to the success of the venture are ambiguous. How much acclaim does the head of the studio deserve? Or the president of the parent corporation who put up the money and perhaps was instrumental in structuring the project? Or the key member of the corporate board of directors, who approved the expenditure of funds and the concept of the movie? Since it is difficult to evaluate their contributions by objective criteria, the executives normally vie with each other, even if only subtly, for the most acclaim they can garner, whether they deserve it or not.
Acclaim is as important to executives as it is to stars, for it is through acclaim that most show-business executives obtain and consolidate their power. The acclaim for making a successful movie or TV show, whether the executive deserves it or not, usually is accompanied by the power to make more movies and TV shows. The acclaim for making several successful movies or TV shows, whether the executive deserves the acclaim or not, often leads to the opportunity to run an entire studio or network. And whether it is deserved or not. the acclaim for rescuing a studio or network from financial ruin (the kind of acclaim that had begun to become an issue between David Begelman and Alan Hirschfield by the summer of 1977) usually opens even larger vistas—the chance to be a genuine mogul of show business, to become truly rich and famous, to play a major role in determining how the nation and indeed the world are entertained. For men like Hirschfield and Begelman, who long had aspired to power in show business, and who had achieved a lot but wanted much more, the stakes could hardly have been higher.
Every executive learns eventually, of course, that power in Hollywood
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