Books: Begelgate

INDECENT EXPOSURE by David McClintick Morrow; 544 pages; $17.95

Before the publication of Indecent Exposure last month, David McClintick’s investigative work had become a chic bicoastal accessory. Movers, shakers and pretenders read pirated copies, chuckling over David Begelman’s embezzlement of $84,000 from Columbia Pictures in 1977, which precipitated one of the most acrimonious power struggles in film history.

More accurate than elegant, McClintick’s tinsel raker has attracted the general public as well as the corporate elite and has climbed onto the bestseller lists. Surprisingly, it does not peer in Bel Air bedrooms. Instead, it focuses on the boardrooms of East Coast conglomerates. There, his minimoguls weep, curse and whisper. The reason? Actor Cliff Robertson had informed authorities that a $10,000 check was forged by Begelman. Why, insiders wondered, had the six-figure-salaried studio chief, a former talent agent and model for the ruthless Lyon Burke in Valley of the Dolls, not merely borrowed the money?

The Columbia board of directors had another, more pressing question: How could they minimize the scandal for the Securities and Exchange Commission? Their concern was not born of charity. Columbia stock was rising briskly, and Begelman was in large part responsible. But no corporate legal wits could save him. His crimes were tawdry, one eventual plea was nolo contendere, and his self-abnegation lifted from B-movie dialogue: “My worst enemy is sitting right here at this table … I can’t accept success … I snatch it away from myself by committing crimes.” Contrition, however, was a hard sell on the East Coast.

In New York, Columbia’s top executive, President Alan Hirschfield, expressed an emotion rare in Hollywood: shock. Although he loved the glamour and glitz of films—Hirschfield once broke his toe tripping over the edge of a Jacuzzi while staring at Actress Polly Bergen—he was, as colleagues observed, a classic “bottom-liner” who frowned on peccadilloes like theft and forgery. After a period of indecision, the Harvard-trained executive saw no other alternative: Begelman had to go.

That was only the beginning. The Columbia board, anxious to reverse its chief officer’s decision, reopened a possible conflict-of-interest question regarding Hirschfield’s wife Berte, who was briefly employed by a market-research firm serving the studio as well as other clients. Hirschfield retaliated by inviting other corporations to buy a major interest in the studio, among them Philip Morris and Time Inc. When the search failed, he refused to retract a sulfurous memo aimed at fellow Board Member Matty Rosenhaus. The Geritol magnate’s reaction: ” ‘You’re a liar! A liar! A liar!’ he screamed at Hirschfield, his face flushed, spittle spewing from his mouth.”

Along with this reconstituted heavy breathing, McClintick provides new trivia about the trappings of entertainment power. Business with Producer Ray Stark (Funny Girl, Annie), a Begelman ally, is done in Chow’s Kosherama Delicatessen, a noshery whose menu features tongue on rye and chicken with walnuts.

From time to time, McClintick introduces the monotony of docudrama: Alan Hirschfield “came to regret that Friday deeply and would continue to regret it for the rest of his life.” Happily, such stentorian tones do not often interfere with a drama no dream merchant could concoct. Hollywood, superb at turning its sand grains into pearls, stayed true to tradition. Far from suffering obloquy and ostracism, Begelman went on to pilot MGM. Hirschfield became head of 20th Century-Fox, where he successfully defended an executive accused of padding an expense account. By last week serious bids were being offered for TV rights to Indecent Exposure. A nagging question remains: Will some producer try to play a Begelman in the adaptation? —By J.D. Reed