The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion smelled of cigars and cologne.
It was April 15, 1971, tax day, as several comedian in the building had already noted and the 43rd Academy Awards ceremony was forty minutes from showtime.
Duke Hauser stood at the edge of the lobby, adjusting his bow tie.
He was wearing a classic black tuxedo, no sartorial excesses that were creeping into men's fashion in 1971.
Just clean lines, a white shirt, a black silk bow tie, and a pair of polished shoes, he didn't want to dress with something risky and risk looking too young, since it's well known the academy hates young men.
The woman on his arm was Cybill Shepherd, a twenty years old, blonde who had come to Los Angeles from Memphis a few months earlier.
She was currently, a nobody in Hollywood. She hadn't been in a released film yet.
"Hauser! Duke! Who's the girl?"
"Duke, over here!"
"Who's your date, Mr. Hauser?"
Duke smiled and guided Cybill through the flashbulbs with a steady hand on the small of her back.
"You okay?" Duke murmured as they passed through the doors into the pavilion's main corridor.
"I'm fantastic," Cybill said, "I just got photographed two hundred times and I don't even have an agent yet."
"You will by Monday."
"How do you know?"
"People in the industry are fast. You'll probably have an agent even before Monday."
She looked up at him. "Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Hauser."
Duke nodded, he had realize too late that he didnt have a date for the Oscars so he had to settle for an unknown girl that was going to have her movie released in a few months.
He was also courting the movie director to come to Paramount, and he choose his actress for free publicity.
The ceremony itself was conducted with polite applause and fixed smiles.
Duke sat in the Paramount section, third row center, close enough to see the stage, flanked by Gary Kurtz and Stanley Jaffe.
Cybill was on his left, radiant and composed, her hands folded in her lap.
Hacksaw Ridge had entered the night with eight nominations. Patton had ten. Who was going to be the biggest winner?
Duke had spent weeks trying not to care about the answer. He had failed completely.
The early categories came fast. Costume Design went to Cromwell. Art Direction went to Patton. Duke felt the tension in his chest get tighter with each envelope.
And then the tide began to turn.
"The Academy Award for Best Sound goes to... Hacksaw Ridge."
The Paramount section erupted.
Not the reserved applause of a studio that had expected to win, the raw, relieved, joyous eruption of a team that had spent months wondering if their work would be recognized.
Jaffe gripped Duke's forearm. Kurtz leaned over and said something that was swallowed by the noise. Cybill squeezed his hand.
Duke moved, his expression neutral, his eyes fixed as he gave a small speech as he was accepting the award.
Twenty minutes later. "The Academy Award for Best Film Editing goes to... Hacksaw Ridge."
Another eruption. Louder this time. The industry press, seated in the balcony, were scribbling. The editor went to receive the award.
"The Academy Award for Best Cinematography goes to... Hacksaw Ridge."
Duke closed his eyes. Just for a second.
He opened his eyes and joined the applause, and this time he allowed himself a small, private smile.
Patton took Best Picture.
George C. Scott won Best Actor and, as promised, refused the award, which generated more headlines than the win itself. Franklin J. Schaffner took Best Director.
Duke had expected all of it.
But now, with three gold statues in the Paramount column and the knowledge that Hacksaw Ridge, a war film had held its own against the most decorated war film in a decade.
The Governor's Ball was the real event. The ceremony was the public face, the party was where the deals happened.
The ballroom of the Beverly Hilton was a cavern of round tables draped in white linen, each one crowned with a centerpiece of white roses and gold candelabra.
Duke had been at his table for approximately five minutes, long enough to accept congratulations from three small studio heads, two agents, and an old actress, when a voice cut through the ambient noise.
"Hey. You. The kid with the three statues."
Duke turned and found himself face-to-face with Mel Brooks.
Brooks was fifty-four years old, and five-foot-seven.
"Me?" Duke said.
"Yeah, you. Duke Hauser. The Boy Mogul of Paramount. I've been hearing your name for years and I gotta tell you, I was starting to think you were a myth. Like Bigfoot but taller."
Duke laughed. It was involuntary, Brooks had that effect on people.
"Mel Brooks," Duke said, extending his hand. "I'm a fan of The Producers."
"Of course you are. Everybody's a fan." Brooks shook his hand with a grip that was surprisingly firm for a man who made his living telling jokes. "You got a minute?"
"For you? I've got several."
They found an empty corner near the bar. Duke followed, amused and slightly awed as he saw Brook charismatic joke with the people as he passed by.
He'd met a lot of charismatic people in his life. But Brooks was in a category of his own.
"So look," Brooks said, settling onto a bar stool and ordering a gin and tonic. "I gotta be honest with you. I came over here because I'm a little in the dumps tonight and I figured talking to someone who won three Oscars might cheer me up."
"What's got you down?"
Brooks's expression shifted, just for a second, just enough to reveal the serious man beneath the comedy. "I got nominated for Best Costume Design tonight. The Twelve Chairs. You know about it?"
"I know about it. Good film."
"It's a great film. But it didn't get the attention it deserved, and tonight it got shut out, and I'm sitting here watching same old tired prestige dramas and I'm thinking, this town doesn't know what to do with me. I'm too funny for the drama guys and too smart for the comedy guys and too Jewish for the..."
He waved his hand vaguely. "...the everybody-else guys."
"I know the feeling."
Brooks looked at him skeptically. "You? Mr. Three Oscars? You know the feeling?"
"Three technical Oscars. And four years ago I was a twenty year-old nobody who had to convice Joseph E. Levine for financing. Trust me, Mel. I know the feeling."
Something passed between them, a current of recognition, the shared understanding of two men who had basically clawed their way into a room that hadn't been designed for them.
"You know what I keep thinking about?" Brooks said. "Monsters."
"Monsters?"
"Yeah. The Universal monster movies. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man. When I was a kid, those movies scared the hell out of me. But they also made me laugh, because the monster was always the most sympathetic guy in the picture."
Duke set down his drink. He remembered a darkened theater, a young Gene Wilder in a lab coat, and a monster tap-dancing to "Puttin' on the Ritz."
"You know what would be really interesting?" Duke said, keeping his voice carefully casual. "A Young Frankenstein."
Brooks blinked. "Come again?"
"Young Frankenstein. Like the grandson of the original Dr. Frankenstein. He's a respected scientist, completely embarrassed by his grandfather's legacy. Insists on pronouncing his name different. Gets dragged back to Transylvania, finds the old laboratory, and despite his best intentions, ends up creating another monster."
Brooks stared at him.
"That's..." Brooks started. Stopped. Started again. "That's the greatest idea I've heard."
"Well, I'd love to see what you'd do with it."
"What I'd do with it? I'd get Gene Wilder, you know Gene? I'd get Gene to play the grandson, because Gene is the only actor alive who can be simultaneously brilliant and completely unhinged while being funny. I'd-"
He stopped himself and narrowed his eyes. "Wait. Are you pitching me? Is this a pitch?"
"This is a drink at a party," Duke said. "But if you're asking whether Paramount would be interested in a Mel Brooks comedy about Young Frankenstein, the answer is yes."
Mel quickly said, "With creative control." and stared at Duke to watch his reaction.
The two words hung in the air. Duke understood their weight. For Mel Brooks, for any director who'd been through the studio system, "creative control" was a big deal.
Duke looked him in the eye. "I hire directors to express themselver, Mel. That's the whole point. If I wanted to tell you what to do, I'd just make the movie myself and save the salary."
Brooks studied him for a long moment. Then his face split into a grin, a real one, wide and genuine.
"Alright, Hauser. Let's have dinner. This week. You pick the place."
"Musso & Frank's then, we can work out a date later."
They clinked glasses, gin and tonic against bourbon.
Duke was heading back to his table, riding the high of the Brooks conversation, when someone stepped into his path.
It wasn't a step, exactly. It was more of a desperate forward motion of a man who had been working up the courage to approach for the better part of an hour.
The man was young, late twenties, maybe thirty with a thin, intense face, round wire-rimmed glasses, and dark hair that fell across his forehead while wearing a clearly rented tuxedo.
Behind him, hovering, was a second man taller, broader, with a square jaw. He was also in a rented tuxedo.
"Mr. Hauser?" The thin man cleared his throat and tried again. "Mr. Hauser. I'm sorry to bother you. I know this isn't- I mean, I know you're busy, and this is probably the worst possible time to-"
"Take a breath," Duke said gently.
The man took a breath. The taller man behind him put a hand on his shoulder, steadying him.
"I'm Wes Craven," the thin man said. "And this is my friend Sean Cunningham. We're- well, we're filmmakers. Aspiring filmmakers. I mean, we've made some things, small things, nothing you would have-"
"But we're here tonight because Sean's cousin works for the catering company and he got us in and I know that sounds terrible but-"
"Wes." The taller man squeezed his shoulder. "Breathe."
Craven breathed. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier.
"Mr. Hauser, I'm a fan. A huge fan. Not just of your films but of your stories. Jaws. The way you built the tension, the way the shark was barely there but you almost felt it."
"And Cujo, the claustrophobia of the car, the mother and the child. I've read both of those books three times."
Duke felt something soften in his chest.
He remembered this feeling, standing in front of someone who held your future in their hands and trying to make them see what you saw.
"Thank you, Wes," Duke said. "That means a lot. Genuinely."
"The thing is and I'm sorry, I know I'm rambling- the thing is, I want to make horror films. And Sean here- Sean's a producer. A very good one. He's organized, he's practical, he knows how to stretch a dollar."
"It's true," Cunningham said. "I can make a nickel do the work of a quarter."
"And we've got a project," Craven continued, leaning forward. "It's called The Last House on the Left. It's based on Bergman'sThe Virgin Spring but transplanted to modern America."
"Two girls are abducted by a group of criminals. The violence would be visible. We force the audience to look at what violence actually is, what it does to people, how it corrupts everyone it touches, even the victims."
Duke's expression didn't change, but behind his eyes, something clicked into place. The Last House on the Left. He knew this film.
He knew what this film would become, and more importantly, he finally remembered what Wes Craven would become.
One of the most important horror directors in the history of cinema. The man who would create A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream.
The man who would reinvent the genre not once but twice.
He was standing in front of a future legend who was wearing a borrowed tuxedo.
"The budget's small," Cunningham jumped in, sensing that the window was open. "We're talking low six figures. We can shoot it in Connecticut, we've got locations scouted, we've got a cast in mind."
"What we don't have is distribution. And, frankly, what we don't have is someone who believes in us. Someone with the muscle to get the film into theaters and the credibility to make people take it seriously."
"We've been to every studio in town," Craven said quietly. "Everyone says the same thing. 'No audience for this.' But I know there is an audience for it."
Duke looked at Craven for a long moment.
"Wes," Duke said. "Sean. I want you to come to my office at Paramount. Monday morning. Ten o'clock."
Craven's mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Bring the script," Duke continued. "Bring your budget breakdown. Bring whatever materials you've got. We'll sit down, we'll talk about it properly, and we'll see if there's a way to make this work."
"You're- you're serious?" Craven managed.
"I'm always serious about movies."
Cunningham extended his hand, and Duke shook it. Then Craven extended his, and Duke shook that too.
"Monday," Craven said. "Ten o'clock. We'll be there. Thank you, Mr. Hauser. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Thank me when the project is established."
He watched them walk away and he thought about Joseph E. Levine, who had taken a chance on a kid from Texas with a romace script. He thought about how different his life would have been if Levine had said no.
It was past one in the morning when Duke got home.
The penthouse was dark except for the amber glow of the desk lamp, which he'd left on out of habit.
His Oscar statue, Best Sound, was sitting on the table where Jaffe had placed them before leaving for the night.
Duke loosened his bow tie, poured himself a measure of bourbon, and sat down at the desk. The phone was a heavy black rotary model, he dialed the number from memory.
It rang four times before Archie Goodwin picked up. His voice was sleepy and confused.
"'Llo?"
"Archie. It's Duke."
A pause. The sound of sheets rustling, a lamp clicking on, and the voice came back after three seconds. "Duke. It's four in the morning."
"I know what time it is. I need to talk to you about DC."
Another pause. Shorter this time. "Right. The acquisition. What about it?"
"I need a deep audit. Not the financial stuff, Jaffe's already handling that. I need a creative audit. I want you to go through every DC title, every character, every property, and I want you to separate the good from the bad."
"That's a big library, Duke."
"I know it is. And most of it is bad. The funny animal books, the romance titles, the war comics that haven't been relevant, I don't care about any of that. What I care about is the Trinity."
"Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman."
"The three most valuable fictional characters we now own. And right now, Archie, they're being treated like they're embarrassing. Have you read a recent Superman comic?"
"I have. It's..." Goodwin searched for the diplomatic word. "...unfocused."
"It's a mess. Superman is simultaneously fighting an alien invasion, dealing with a magic imp, and attending a PTA meeting. He's become a guy who does everything, which means he does nothing."
"And Batman? Wait are you drunk?"
"Batman's worse. They've got him in broad daylight, cracking jokes. I just came back from the Oscar after party so just barely drunk."
Archie sighed and ignored the party part. "What about Wonder Woman?"
Duke's voice softened. "Diana is important, Archie. She's the character who could unlock a new audience that no one in this industry is approaching, women."
Goodwin was quiet for a moment. Duke could hear him making notes, the scratch of pen on paper, quick and purposeful.
"Here's the directive," Duke said. "I want the Trinity treated the way we treat Blue Beetle and Captain Atom. With respect. With seriousness."
"I want writers who understand that Superman is about hope. Batman is about justice. Wonder Woman is about compassion. If a writer can't articulate those themes in a single sentence, they don't get the book."
"And the rest of the Justice League?"
"Same treatment. The Flash, Green Lantern, the Teen Titans, all of them. I don't want filler. I want stories that make people care. The Justice League isn't a 'silly club,' Archie. It's should feel like the greatest assembly of heroes in fiction."
"Understood." The scratch of pen on paper intensified. "Anything else?"
Duke paused. He took a sip of bourbon and set the glass down with care. "Yeah. There's one more thing. And this one's is why i'm actually calling before i forget."
"I'm listening."
"I want you to find Carl Barks."
The scratching stopped. "Carl Barks... the Disney guy?"
"Yeah, Barks is the man who turned Donald Duck from a one-note slapstick character into an adventurer, a treasure hunter, and revive him basically."
"He created Scrooge McDuck, Duckburg, the whole universe. He did it anonymously, Disney never credited him and he did it for a pittance."
"I know his work," Goodwin said, and there was reverence in his voice. "Every artist in the industry knows his work. He's a legend."
"He's a legend who was never paid like one. Disney never even gave him healthcare. Never even put his name on the books he drew. He's old, Archie, and he deserves better than what he got."
"What are you proposing?"
"I want Barks to take over Daffy Duck."
Silence. A long, considering silence, the kind that meant Goodwin was not confused but rather processing something unexpected and finding, to his surprise, that it made perfect sense.
"Think about it," Duke continued. "Daffy Duck is the Looney Tunes character with the most untapped potential. He's vain, he's ambitious, he's perpetually outmatched, and he never gives up."
"In the right hands, Daffy becomes an adventurer. A schemer. A lovable disaster of a duck who stumbles into situations that are bigger than he is and somehow, through sheer stubbornness, survives. Barks did that exact thing with Donald. He can do it with Daffy."
"And the slapstick?"
"The slapstick stays. You can't take the slapstick out of Looney Tunes. But underneath the gags, I want stories. I want kids to care about Daffy the way they care about Scrooge McDuck."
"I want the Looney Tunes to be Paramount's answer to Mickey Mouse and friends. Bugs Bunny should be as beloved, as ubiquitous, as commercially powerful as Mickey Mouse. And that starts with giving these characters to the best artist alive."
"What do I offer Barks?"
"Everything Disney didn't. A real contract. Healthcare. A pension. Royalties on every issue he draws. And his name on the cover, in big letters, where everybody can see it. Carl Barks deserves to be famous for what he created."
Goodwin was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was thick with something that might have been emotion, or might just have been the late hour. "Duke?"
"Yeah?"
"You're a good man."
"I'm a businessman, Archie. I just happen to believe that treating artists well is good business."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"No. They're not. Now go back to sleep. And call Barks in the morning."
"It is morning."
"Bye."
___
The Paramount Animation Studio occupied a converted warehouse three blocks from the main lot.
The walls were covered in storyboards, character studies, color palettes, and pencil tests.
Duke arrived at ten sharp, accompanied by Stanley Jaffe, who was carrying a leather portfolio.
They entered the main conference room, where a long table had been set up beneath a wall of storyboards. The boards depicted scenes from a story that everyone in the room knew by heart, a tale as old as time, about a girl who loved books and a beast who loved nothing, and how they saved each other.
Beauty and the Beast.
The storyboards were preliminary, rough pencil sketches on white card stock, pinned in sequence.
At the far end of the table sat the man responsible for those sketches.
Milt Kahl had spent forty years at Disney. He was, by universal consensus, one of the greatest animators who had ever lived.
He was also, by equally universal consensus, impossible to work with.
Kahl did not payed attention to fools. He did not payed attention to executives.
He did not payed attention to schedules, budgets, focus groups, marketing departments, or anyone who used the phrase "target demographic" in his presence.
Duke liked him enormously.
"Milt," Duke said, settling into his chair. "Show me what you've got."
Kahl didn't smile. He simply reached for a portfolio at his elbow, opened it, and slid three character studies across the table.
The first was Belle, a fully realized character study, drawn in Kahl's clean, confident line, with color notes in the margin. .
The second was the Beast. Massive, hunched, covered in dark fur, with horns and fangs and claws with beautiful, expressive eyes.
The third was Gaston. Broad, handsome, smug, every line of his body radiating the particular kind of confidence that comes from never having been told no. He looked a little like him, a fact Duke decided to ignore.
Duke studied the drawings for a long time. The room was quiet except for the distant sound of pencils scratching in the bullpen next door.
"These are extraordinary," Duke said.
"I'm not showing you any animation yet," Kahl said bluntly. "I know that's what you came for. I know Jaffe here wants to see frames, wants to calculate cost-per-second, wants to put numbers. And I'm telling you both, right now, that you're not getting that today."
Jaffe opened his mouth. Duke held up a hand.
"Why not?" Duke asked. Not confrontationally. Curiously.
"Because it's not ready." Kahl leaned forward, "This picture is going to be my last animated film before I retire. I want to make the most beautiful animated movie. And to achieve that, I need a pre-production phase that most studios wouldn't have the patience for."
"How long?" Jaffe asked, unable to contain himself.
Kahl turned to him with the expression of a man being asked to explain calculus to a golden retriever. "As long as it takes."
"That's not a-"
"Stanley," Duke said quietly. Jaffe subsided.
"I'll give you a date," Kahl said, turning back to Duke. "You guys already expected it by 1976 so give me until then. No notes from executives. No change to make something more merchandisable. You let me and my team do what we do, and in 1976, you will have a great film."
The room was very still.
"Stanley," Duke said, without taking his eyes off the drawings. "Give Milt everything he needs."
"Duke-"
"Hire the artists he wants. Source the materials he needs. And then..." He looked at Kahl. "Then we leave him alone."
"I'll keep an eye on the timeline," Duke added, glancing at Jaffe. "Stanley will check in periodically. Not to interfere but to support. If you need something, Milt, you tell Stanley, and Stanley makes it happen. That's the deal."
Kahl nodded once. "That's a deal I can live with."
"Good." Duke stood and extended his hand. Kahl shook it briefly.
He was not giving Kahl anything new, he was confirming the original deal for which he left Disney for Paramount.
He had actually come just to check the script and designs, but Kahl seemed to have misinterpreted his visit.
As they walked out of the animation studio, Jaffe fell into step beside Duke, his expression a complicated mixture of professional concern and grudging admiration.
"You know he's going to blow the budget," Jaffe said.
"Probably."
"You know he's going to miss the deadline."
"Possibly."
"And you're okay with all of that?"
Duke stopped walking. They were standing in the parking lot
"Stanley, a perfectly executed animated movie. It's a merchandising juggernaut. It's a theme park centerpiece."
"It's every little girl's Halloween costume from now on. It's a Broadway show and a soundtrack album and a line of dolls and a sequel and a legacy that will still be generating revenue when we're both in the ground."
He paused. "And beyond all of that beyond the money, beyond the strategy it's a beautiful story about love and courage and seeing the good in people. And that matters."
Jaffe looked at him for a long moment. Then he tucked his portfolio under his arm, straightened his tie, and nodded.
"I'll make sure Kahl has everything he needs."
"Thank you, Stanley."
"But I'm keeping the receipts."
"I wouldn't expect anything less."
They walked back toward the main lot, two men in the California sunshine.
___
Late but long chapter