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Michael Jackson Doc Gets SAG Warning, Wrongly

Roger Friedman
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The Michael Jackson documentary, “This is It,” got a warning notice from the Screen Actors Guild. Someone at SAG must have panicked that the movie has never been registered with them, and that the people in it aren’t getting paid through the union.

A Member Alert went up on the union’s website that reads in part: “The producer of the theatrical motion picture ‘This Is It’ (also known as ‘Michael Jackson’s This Is It’) is not yet signed to an agreement with Screen Actors Guild covering the terms and conditions for performers and background actors employed on the picture.”

Apparently, no one has told then that “This Is It” is a documentary made from footage taken of rehearsals of Jackson’s stage show. It was never intended to be a film. No one is acting in it.

Meantime, I am told that the film is coming along nicely in the editing room. Every day director Kenny Ortega shows assembly of footage to a variety of producers involved in the project. The word is that everyone is very happy with what they’re seeing.

Most importantly, they do say that we’ll see Michael giving cogent instructions to dancers and singers, and interacting with his crew and cast. This should end once and for all the accusations that Jackson was out of it to perform, or to do the shows in London.

Meanwhile, no one knows why the police investigation into Jackson’s death is taking so long. Many people close to Jackson right before his death still have not been interviewed by the police. Nevertheless, one Jackson intimate has been very much in touch with the police, and is warning friends that something “big” and “dangerous” is about to happen. Let’s hope so.

‘Antichrist’: Vile, Pornographic, and the Audience Laughs

Roger Friedman
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Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” was reviled at Cannes this year, although the jury gave Charlotte Gainsbourg an award for living through it. I didn’t see it, but reaction was so hostile that one of my colleagues, Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail in London, gave the director quite a dressing down at the press conference. Now I know why.

Last night, the U.S. publicist handling screenings did everything she could to keep me out of the first U.S. showing. She was rude, obnoxious, and disrespectful. She pretended I hadn’t even RSVP’d, and asked me to prove I had on my Blackberry. She was so over-the-top unprofessional that I thought, “What is she up to here?” Once I took my seat, though, I got it. Maybe she was trying to tell me something, like “Run!”

“Antichrist” is a horror, and a horror film. And a horrible film. It’s laughably sensational, pornographic for effect, and ridiculous. The sexual violence is so contrived and disgusting that the people who did make it into the Broadway screening room laughed out loud when the real fun began.

Only later did it seem all the more worse considering the screening room is in the Brill Building, the site where Ellie Greenwich wrote so many of her famous hit songs. I heard about her untimely passing at age 68 from a heart attack just as “Antichrist” ended. And it was an insulting irony.

Let me tell you what happens: a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) are in the throes of passion. Von Trier shows us Dafoe’s whole package, including gigantic testicles, and the penetration. Meanwhile, their toddler escapes from his crib, climbs to a window ledge, and falls splat onto the snowy pavement. Right there, you know it’s not a comedy, and not in Oscar contention.

What proceeds is a meditation on grief and depression. This must be very Danish. There’s also a lot of nudity and some more fornication before the couple (they are the only characters) go to a rustic cabin in the isolated woods. You know this means trouble, since only bad things happen in the woods.

There’s more sex, nudity and depression. A wolf speaks to the camera and says, “Chaos reigns.” And so it does. Dafoe suddenly announces he wants to kill Charlotte. (He may have exhausted positions with her.) She doesn’t like that. So she mutilates and tortures him. There is a lot of blood, especially from his smashed, yet aroused penis. It’s not good. In fact, it’s nauseating.

When Dafoe’s character retreats to attend his (massive) wounds, Charlotte ” who’s presumably lost her mind, or read the script ‘ mutilates herself sexually with a pair of scissors. Some people left the screening room at this point. A couple of people said, “What’s left?”

Well, plenty. More torture, lots of shots of Charlotte with no pants on, a further attempt at coupling. Willem tortures a crow in a cave while his leg bleeds because Charlotte’s skewered him. A fawn seems to be giving birth. The fox and the crow make friends with the fawn. Willem discovers that Charlotte used to put their dead son’s shoes on reversed left and right. Willem is still able to walk even though he’s bleeding from at least a couple of areas. Charlotte, who looks a lot like the young Patti Smith, bashes him with a shovel. If only she’d taken a little Zoloft.

“Antichrist” should be shocking, but it’s not. It’s just numbing. There’s also way too much of Willem Dafoe’s buttocks contracting during sex. I don’t know what I will say to him the next time I see him at a Yankee game.

As for Lars: sir, we’re too smart for this now. Piling on atrocities isn’t shocking anymore. It just makes you look like an amateur with nothing much to say. Who is the audience for this? Maybe IFC Films knows; they picked it up for distribution. My bet: very few of a paying audience will make it to the end.

However, I did like the talking fox. You can’t beat a good talking animal, even if you’re bleeding from every orifice. I hope there are more on the DVD.

“Antichrist,” by the way, is playing at both the Toronto and New York Film Festivals. They should be having a helluva good party in both cities.

Dominick Dunne, Ellie Greenwich: Greatness in Their Own Ways

Roger Friedman
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Getty photo

Getty photo

Dominick Dunne passed away yesterday at age 83. He was a great friend, something of a mentor and adviser, and a rare man of substance who loved the superficial. You’ll read a lot about him today, but I think of Nick covering the O.J. Simpson trial, making his way downtown every morning from the Chateau Marmont, taking notes. We discussed the how and why of O.J. a lot ‘ how and why he killed two people ‘ and Dunne always had the best theories. He skipped the Michael Jackson trial after covering Scott Petersen, but knew everything about Phil Spector. He relished the details, and was always helpful with hints and information he couldn’t incorporate into his own stories. It’s just impossible to think that he and his writer brother John Gregory Dunne are now each gone. The substantial people to whom we looked for direction seem to be vanishing quickly. I will really miss Dominick Dunne.

Ellie Greenwich had a heart attack and died at 68 yesterday after a bout of pneumonia. I didn’t know her, but like everyone, just loved the music she made. Her off Broadway show at the Bottom Line, “Leader of the Pack,” was a triumph. Her songwriting credits number into the hundreds. So many hits, from the Phil Spector stuff like “Baby I Need Your Lovin”” and “Be My Baby” to the Beach Boys’ “I Can Hear Music,” as well as her signature hit, “Leader of the Pack.” Her songwriting partner was Jeff Barry. They wrote one of the greatest songs in the pop canon, “River Deep Mountain High.” (Ike and Tina are good, but check out the Supremes-Temptations version.) What else? “Chapel of Love,” “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” “And Then He Kissed Me.”

Thanks, Ellie, for all of it.

Hollywood Seniors Tell Sally Field, Tom Hanks, Stars: Stop the Party

Roger Friedman
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Tom Hanks, Sally Field and a bunch of stars are about to give a charity party, even if it upsets the people it’s benefiting.

The charity is the Motion Picture and TV Fund, which operates the Motion Picture Home, Hollywood’s premiere retirement community for entertainers.

Every year on the night before the Oscars, DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg hosts a star-studded event to raise money for the Fund called “The Night Before.” But last winter the Fund announced it’s going to close the long-term care facility at its Woodland Hills campus and transfer more than 100 patients who expected to live out their lives there.

That hasn’t stopped Katzenberg. He’s throwing a similar bash on the night before the Emmy Awards, called The Evening Before. And some of the people connected to the home don’t want a fancy party while their friends are being evicted from the very place that’s supposedly being preserved.

A group called Saving the Lives of Our Own (www.savingthelivesofourown.org) has written letters to the party’s sponsors — Target, People magazine and Sprint — as well as to celebrity hosts like Sally Field, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jon Stewart and Hugh Laurie.

What do they want?

According to the letter, which they’ve given to yours truly:
* An immediate reversal of the decision to close the long-term care facility in acknowledgment of the commitment made to these seniors and their families
* That the MPTF allow fundraising donations specifically earmarked for the purpose of keeping the facility open
* Financial transparency from this non-profit charity in the form of an independent audit of the MTPF and all its related entities.

What will they do if they don’t get these things? The likelihood is that they will protest outside of Craft restaurant in Century City on the night of Sept. 19. They did it last February, on the night before the Oscars. The result was a lot of famous people declining to attend The Night Before.

Ken Scherer, CEO of the Fund, e-mailed me a statement via his publicist. He wrote: ‘MPTF social services and charitable assistance programs that supports over 5,000 industry members each year depend on the funds raised at events like the Evening Before and Night Before. Collectively these two events will raise over $6 million in 2009 to help at a time when more and more industry people are depending on MPTF for assistance.’

Still, Saving the Lives has attracted a number of high-profile supporters including Elliott Gould, Diane Ladd, Mykelti Williamson, and famed writer Larry Gelbart. The Screen Actors Guild National Board recently voted to oppose the closing of the long-term care facility.

In case you wondered, the Motion Picture Fund “home” has become quite the swell place for retirement in the Los Angeles area. The campus is divided into three parts called Country House Cottages, the Fran and Ray Stark Villas and the Frances Goldwyn Lodge. They have dry cleaning, a hair salon, a TV studio and lots of amenities that are rarely seen in assisted living campuses.

Some of the critics claim that if salaries weren’t so high, there would be more money for services. In fact, the top three Fund executives (including Scherer) earn a total of $1,313,948 according to the 2007 tax filing. The next five employees average $140,000 each. According to the 2007 filing, the Fund pays about $33.5 million in other salaries. It claims to have received $31.4 million in direct public support in 2007 and had net assets of nearly $172 million. By comparison, the famed Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale, the Bronx — similar in size — has about the half the amount in assets, and its top three execs are paid a total of 50% less. But they do have Kosher chicken.

The letter in its entirety:

Dear Ms. Sally Field,
We’re writing to you on behalf of Saving the Lives of Our Own. Grown entirely by word-of-mouth, web and Facebook, we are a grass-roots, volunteer coalition of over 4000 Entertainment Industry workers, and concerned community and family members committed to keeping the Motion Picture Television Fund Nursing Home open.

This historic nursing home, also termed a ‘long-term care facility,’ has cared for many of the greats of our industry, including Hattie McDaniel, Bud Abbott, Stanley Kramer, Norma Shearer and many, many others. The residents who live there now were promised that this would be the place where they would spend their final days on Earth, surrounded by their Industry peers.

You might have heard that both the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA recently expressed public opposition and concern over the closure. Our SAG supporters include Anne-Marie Johnson and Ken Howard, along with Elliot Gould, Diane Ladd, Frances Fisher, Bill Smitrovich, John Schneider, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit (whose 103-year-old mother is a resident), Connie Stevens, the entire SAG Senior Performers Committee and others.

Our goal is simple. We want to KEEP THE HOME OPEN. If you’ve ever had a relative in a nursing home, you know what kind of emotional and physical trauma they would endure if they were suddenly forced to move. You know that they might well not survive it. And this is what we’ve seen in the residents who’ve been transferred from the facility already ‘ five of the first fifteen died within days or weeks of leaving.

There is also a severe shortage of nursing home beds in Los Angeles County, and an even more serious shortage of comparable facilities where our elderly would be cared for in a similar and safe manner.

Saving the Lives of Our Own has two requests: transparency from the Fund and to be allowed to fundraise specifically for the purpose of keeping the long-term care facility open.

We have repeatedly been denied both of these requests.

We believe that the MPTF Board members are good and moral people who may’ve been misled into making this decision. We believe that financial misconduct or incompetence may have occurred, and that the MPTF Board may’ve been misled by administrators. These suspicions are based on these facts:

‘ This nursing home is not free to residents. Residents, families and insurers pay close to $130,000 a year to live there.

‘ The four top Administrators are among the highest paid in the nursing home industry, earning almost $2 million a year, plus bonuses.

‘ The land the Home sits on is already owned by the MPTF and so is the building itself.

‘ The MPTF recently completed construction of several new buildings on the campus, including state-of-the-art new administrative offices, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, while the long-term care facility remained unimproved.

‘ In advance of their surprise closure announcement, the MPTF reduced admissions at the Home. At its full capacity of 195 residents, the Home would make $14 million a year, more than enough to offset deficits. As of now, there are only 84 residents remaining.

‘ The MPTF was created in response to the Depression and has survived economic downturns before without abandoning the long-term care facility.

‘ The MPTF decision was bolstered by a financial report rubber-stamped by consultants they hired themselves.

‘ The MPTF’s expected decrease in fundraising hasn’t occurred, though they are still refusing to accept donations earmarked specifically for the long-term care facility.

So what was behind this decision to close this historic and world-class nursing home? We honestly have no idea.

But we need your help. We’re not asking for money, since, as we’ve stated, the MPTF is refusing to accept donations to keep the nursing home open.

What we would like is to respectfully request that you reconsider your announced participation in the MPTF sponsored event ‘The 3rd Annual The Evening Before,’ Saturday, September 19th, 2009, at The Lawn at Century Park until the Fund immediately reverses its closure decision, allows donations directly to save the long-term care facility, and honors our Industry’s request for an independent audit of the MTPF and all its related entities. As long-time donors to this non-profit charity, we believe you’ll join us in calling for that necessary transparency.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us at keepthehomeopen@gmail.com or at 818-481-3536 for more information, if you have questions, or would like to tour this historic home. Our website is www.savingthelivesofourown.org <http://www.savingthelivesofourown.org> , and you can also sign our petition at www.tinyurl.com/mptfhome <http://www.tinyurl.com/mptfhome> .

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Saving the Lives of Our Own

Music Legends Pass: Larry Knechtel, John Edward Carter

Roger Friedman
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You may never have heard of either Larry Knechtel or John Edward Carter. They have each passed away in the last few days, and they were true music legends. You know that music that marketers like to say is the “soundtrack of our lives”? These two guys were part of the reason that soundtrack exists.

Hohn Edward Carter was a founding member of both the Dells and the Flamingos. This means he sang the falsetto lead on two of the greatest singles ever recorded: “Stay in My Corner” for the Dells, and “I Only Have Eyes for You” for the Flamingos. He died on Friday at age 75 of lung cancer.

The Dells, from Chicago, were the original R&B group. Until Carter’s death, the group had been intact for almost 50 years. The lead singer is Marvin Junior, and you can hear his delicious rich vocals on all their hits, from “Oh What Night” to “Give Your Baby a Standing Ovation.” But the Dells are singularly important because they combined doo-wop and soulful R&B. They were like the bridge between the genres. If Marvin represented the soul side, then John Carter was the doo-wop. His tenor falsetto in the six minute version of “Stay in My Corner” is one of the most magnificent moments in the history of music. It’s interesting to listen to it again and again, and watch him make that connection between two generations of black music. Pure magic. In this clip from YouTube, sit and behold. Carter is on the right. Wait til the very end, as he sums it all up.

Larry Knechtel is best known for two things in his illustrious career. He was a member of Bread, and played keyboards and bass on all their hits from “Make it With You” to “Everything I Own” and “The Guitar Man.” He also played the piano solo on Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Knechtel was part of the Wrecking Crew, a group of musicians that included Leon Russell, Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye. They were Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound.” Knechtel also played on the Beach Boys‘ seminal album, “Pet Sounds,” on all the hits by the Mamas and Papas, 5th Dimension, and Byrds. He’s even the keyboardist on Elvis Costello’s masterpiece, “All this Useless Beauty.” Knechtel’s list of credits is extraordinary. He died of a heart attack the other day at age 67.

Check here for Larry Knechtel’s astonishing list of credits.

Don Hastings’ World is Still Turning

Roger Friedman
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‘

Getty photo

Getty photo

Yesterday, I happened to catch Dr.Bob Hughes on “As the World Turns” just as he was keeling over. He’s played by the best actor on soaps, Don Hastings, who’s 75 and has been on the soap since 1960. That’s right, next year is his (and co- Eileen Fulton’s) 50th anniversary with the show.

Let’s face it: no one writes about soap actors unless they leave and get popular somewhere else. I’ll bet Don Hastings knows all about this. Julianne Moore once played his daughter. Meg Ryan was his friend’s daughter. Marissa Tomei was on the show.

It’s harder to stay, and be the star. The show’s producer, Procter & Gamble, wants out of the business. They’re killing “Guiding Light” next month. Soaps get no respect.

So here’s to Don Hastings. He’s not on the show as often as he once was, but it’s August, and the younger stars are away. The show is featuring their “vets” for once. It’s very refreshing. Dr. Bob seems to have dementia, but it’s no doubt curable. Soap diseases are fatal until they’re not. Dead people always return from the grave. And Dr. Bob is about to celebrate 50 years. He’s great. If you watch him, he has a sly sense of humor. He knows the score. He’s got everyone’s number. Sometimes, he looks like his thought balloon is a snarky quip you’d love to hear. In a way, he’s the Leslie Nielsen of soaps. And this month, he’s being featured (along with his terrific soap wife, Kathryn Hays.) Good for him! A leading man at 75. It gives us all hope.

Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones: CD A Reality Now

Roger Friedman
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Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder are going to make their album together, at long last.

I wrote in my old column back on February 18th that this was going to happen. The legendary Quincy Jones will produce. Recording should start this fall.

Last night, Bennett signed an unprecdented new contract with Sony. He’s been on Columbia Records since McKinley was president. But recently the contract expired. I’m not sure Sony even knew that for a while. Tony could have gone anywhere. But the 83 year-old Bennett must have figured it’s one of those Devil You Know scenarios.

Anyway, we love Tony Bennett, we love Stevie Wonder, and Quincy Jones is the greatest, even if the Rock Hall of Fame won’t induct him. Who cares! This should be a landmark recording. And it’s going to be full of classics, although I do hope Stevie throws a couple of his own songs in there, too.

Bobby Brown – Whitney’s Ex – Set for Solo NY Show

Roger Friedman
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Getty photo

Getty photo

Stop the presses: Bobby Brown is coming to town.

The ex-Mr. Whitney Houston, often incarcerated, daddy to many, is set to do one and one show only at B.B. King’s in New York on October 23rd. It’s just one show, at 8pm. There’s nothing else scheduled in any other city.

What is this all about? We’ll have to wait and see. Once, in a galaxy long ago, Bobby Brown looked like he’d have a stunning career. First he was with New Edition. Then he went solo, and wild, with “My Prerogative” and “Every Little Step.” But then he married Whitney Houston, and the rest is misery. His first single after the marriage was called, disastrously, “Humpin’ Around.” The rest has been told in family court.

Will Bobby actually appear? Will he be able to do a whole solo set? Will the police make an appearance? Only time will tell.

Meantime, and more importantly, Whitney Houston is scheduled to tape a concert for “Good Morning America” in Central Park on September 1st. It will air on September 2nd. The last time Whitney performed for “GMA” was on the Lincoln Center plaza back in 2002. I remember it well. She was very late, and mostly not with it when she arrived. The whole thing was a disaster. This trip should be a triumphant comeback to “GMA” for the newly rehabilitated Houston. Her album, “I Look to You,” hits stores on August 31st, and it’s terrific.

Rock Hall of Fame $100,000 Concert Tickets

Roger Friedman
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$100,000 — one hundred thousand dollars — that’s what the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is soliciting from big names, VIPs and rock stars for their big Madison Square Garden shows on Oct. 29 and 30. The shows — billed as the 25th Anniversary Concerts for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, not the I.M.Pei-designed Museum in Cleveland — feature Bruce Springsteen, U2, Metallica, Simon and/or Garfunkel, Eric Clapton, Crosby Stills Nash & Friends and, in a nod to soul music, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin.

The Rock Hall is offering four VIP packages priced at $100,000, $50,000, $25,000 and $5,000.

This is all “to support the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation” in New York, run by Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner. There is no mention on the solicitation of the Museum in Cleveland, except to include one-year memberships as part of all the packages.

The $100,000 package is the best. It includes 10 premium seats for each night located either on the floor or in the loge — no guarantees, though. Just best seats available. But it also buys an invitation to Wenner’s private dinner on Oct. 28, another pre-concert dinner for VIPs, and rehearsal tickets. The best thing in the package: “Exclusive gift items and collectible laminates.” The total deductible amount is $84,750.

That the Rock Hall has become big business is no secret to readers of this column. The Foundation lists $14 million in assets already, and pays its chief staffer, Joel Peresman, a former exec at Madison Square Garden, more than $350,000 a year in salary.

But the foundation has come under fire in recent years for who it inducts into the Hall of Fame and who has been left out. That’s a list that begins with Chubby Checker, inventor of the the Twist, to artists like Neil Diamond, the Hollies, Neil Sedaka, Rufus & Carla Thomas, Donovan, Carole King, Chicago, Dionne Warwick, Hall & Oates, the late Billy Preston, Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, the Moody Blues, Cliff Richard & the Shadows, and dozens more who for some reason Wenner and his nominating committee don’t consider “hip.” Two years ago the Foundation was embroiled in a voting scandal when Wenner ripped up a ballot inducting the Dave Clark Five so he could include Grandmaster Flash instead.

For years, the Rock Hall also paid close attention to rock’s roots, mostly because of the presence of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. But insiders agree that since Ertegun’s death in December 2006, Wenner is working without anyone to modify his behavior. Most of the nominating committee consists of rock writers who have either worked for him in the past for work for him now. It’s funny to think that the original 1986 committee included ’60s deejay Norm N. Nite and the blues musician John Hammond, giving it ties to rock’s origins. That notion must seem quaint now.

The Mystery Woman Who Ratted Out Jackson’s Doc

Roger Friedman
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Now a new Michael Jackson mystery. Who was the anonymous woman who turned the DEA onto Dr. Arnold Klein?

In the affidavit that was made public yesterday as part of a search warrant, there was this little fact: an anonymous female called the DEA and turned in Dr. Arnold Klein, Jackson’s dermatologist. The caller gave a number of aliases under which Jackson received prescriptions from the dermatologist. They included Omar’ Arnold–a name first revealed in this column two months ago–as well as Fernand Diaz, Peter Madonie, and Josephine Baker. The police found a prescription in Jackson’s house made out to Omar Arnold.

And now I’m told that following the revelations about Dr. Conrad Murray yesterday, Dr. Klein is next. And the evidence concerning him will be much more detailed since Klein has been involved with Jackson for over 20 years. Nearly everyone in Jackson’s inner circles over the years has been involved with him, too.

And who is the mystery woman? The likely candidate, I am told, is Debbie Rowe. The mother of Jackson’s two eldest children worked for Klein in the 90s. She met Jackson in his office. She is said to hold Klein responsible for Jackson’s drug problems. In recent weeks, Klein has even had her barred from his offices. Rowe is said to have been very upset when Klein started suggesting he was the children’s father. “It made her skin crawl,” says a friend. Rowe would be only one of many who’d know what Klein gave Jackson over the years–and certainly an excellent witness in a trial.

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