Sandy Gallin

Speaker I applied for a job at William Morris and I had a little pull, my cousin was in the business.

Speaker He was a fairly well-known, powerful manager, and they told me they were gonna hire me and they strung me along for six weeks. And then they called and they said that I wasn’t qualified. I had a 4.0 from Boston University. My whole life was about show business. And there I was crying in my kitchen with my mother. And I went to work at Gimbels and. Three weeks after I was at Gimbels, they promoted me and the night before I was to receive my promotion in front of the whole staff of Gimbels. I got a call from GHC, which was General Motors Corp., which is now ICM, that I could start at one fourth of what it was making it Gimbel’s in the mailroom. And I immediately took the job was always my dream to work in the mailroom of an agency that the mail.

Speaker Now, I don’t know what the mailroom is about today, but in 1962, the mailroom was the place to start to get an overview of the entertainment business. And you delivered mail and you stayed and wrapped Christmas presents, you know, went and picked up somebodies laundry, anything anybody wanted you to do. And. I went to school at night when I was in the mail room to learn shorthand and typing. I picked out an agent that I wanted to work for. Convinced his secretary to quit after I got my degree in typing. And she quit. Set up an appointment. And I begged him for a job and he made me his assistant. And then you’re an assistant and you’re an assistant agent. Then you were a junior agent and you’re an agent. Then you’re on the board of directors and then you’re vice president and then you leave.

Speaker That’s good to know.

Speaker I got oh, I started the training program.

Speaker I met David through a friend, Joel Dean, outside the William Morris office after work.

Speaker Like about seven o’clock on my way home.

Speaker He had wanted Joel to introduce us. And we just met in the street.

Speaker Yada, yada, yada.

Speaker You know, he had left William Morris. He had left William Morris and he had less left. Ashley famous. And he decided. That the two of us should be partners and that I should leave ICM and.

Speaker He is always right in the long run. So I convinced him to come to ICM and they made his first senior vice presence and put us on the board of directors. He lasted one year and I last a year and I have.

Speaker Yeah, well, I have to wonder, wait a second. Was it C.M.A and then it became I saw him. Yeah, yeah it was GHC when we started all the way inside.

Speaker OK, so let’s. Yeah, I. For some reason I had completely forgotten.

Speaker Did you work with Dave.

Speaker No, we were in separate mail rooms. So he wanted for me to leave. What was it then, C.M.A or ICM was a matter of months or GHC it was one of them. And I convinced him to come to whichever the name of the agency was. And he did.

Speaker And they made us senior vice presidents and put us on the board of directors. And we were very young.

Speaker He lasted a year. I lasted a year and a half. And he was right. He kept saying, why do you want to be an agent when there’s so much money to be made? In other areas of the business, David always turned out to be right.

Speaker What was he like in those days?

Speaker Same. Same, but younger.

Speaker Now tell us more.

Speaker Let’s start, I think. What did you, David, have? What are your first impressions?

Speaker Sort of almost like a mirror image.

Speaker We were both physically very similar. We were both born in Brooklyn. We both were fascinated with show business. We both wanted everything. And we were like two peas in a pod.

Speaker That’s wonderful. We’ve talked about what you’ve had in common.

Speaker How did that? Having so much in common effect your relationship professionally and personally.

Speaker Well, we really. Never worked a lot professionally. We worked somewhat together when he came to the agency. But we did very few things together. We I managed an artist on his label that we got into a huge fight about in 1970. And you would never have heard of her. And then we did one successful project together. Joan Rivers comedy album. And basically, we have kept business separate.

Speaker Sometimes that’s the key to a good friendship. What was it like, you’re both rising stars in the.

Speaker It’s all ahead of you. Just kind of give a sense of that time. What is David in that time? How is he making his mark on the world when he only last? I see him for years because he had bigger goals. What are his dreams?

Speaker I think his dreams were exactly what he accomplished. Exactly what he accomplished. I mean, I think that Dave wanted to be the godfather of the entertainment business. I think he was smarter than everybody else. And I think he knew that he was smarter than everybody else in the movie business. The music business. The publishing business. And I think David had a goal. And all of it has been realized. And the rest is history.

Speaker It’s almost impossible to talk about why somebody so smart, but. Historian Michael Collins came from a background knowing what was I think his mother may have prepared him a little bit.

Speaker I mean, his mother idolized him. He was King David, not just David. And I think she used to tell David all the time, you can do anything you want to do and you will do anything you want to do. And David was the most tenacious person that I had ever met when he wanted to do something. He got it done.

Speaker We talk to you about his childhood. Sure have. How would you start? Where do you say you?

Speaker Well, he was born to a. Fairly poor family, I would say his mother was a brasier and girdle owned brasier and girdle store.

Speaker I don’t think Dave was particularly close with his father.

Speaker He had an older brother, Mitchell.

Speaker And.

Speaker I think David knew that he wanted out of Brooklyn, wanted out of being poor, wanted to be somebody, and was motivated enormously to have a lot of money.

Speaker Why? Why? Well, he said this. Why did you? David asked a number of people to go into business with him, I think with first. And then he asked Clive Davis, Oh, I don’t know.

Speaker And then eventually it ended up going into business without it. With Elliott. Yes. Did you invest? No. No. True. Yeah. So tell us your impressions of Ellie.

Speaker Well, it is a good time. Good old boy. Always with a smile on his face. Nice. Happy. Happy go. Lucky became very close with the musical clients that he represented. And I believe he’s still doing it today.

Speaker How did he and David worked together?

Speaker I think David made the deals and Elliott took care of the clients when there was a big problem. David would get involved. But David knew very early on that Agent ING and management was not what he wanted to do. He knew that it was the service business. He knew that you didn’t build up a lot of assets in the service business. And David wanted to be. Wealthy.

Speaker That’s interesting because he had. That’s everything I’ve read. You talk with people that he. When he started with Laura Nyro.

Speaker In tents, devotion, extraordinary devotion. I mean. He was as devoted to Laura Nyro and believed in her music and her talent as much as anybody has ever believed in anybody’s talent. And he idolized her. And put her on a pedestal.

Speaker Yes, he said again. I left there.

Speaker He idolized her. He put her on a pedestal. He took care of her. He nurtured her. He loved her. He it that. Yes. Yes, she did love him. She loved him very, very much. They were like soulmates. We presented Laura Nyro and Tiny Tim at my house. I think, oh, my God. 1969. And we had. You know, everybody who is in L.A. at that time. I know the Smothers Brothers was there. Janis Joplin was there. I had all the older agents, you know, from ICM. And I think we had William Morris, whatever that it was.

Speaker What did David do? I know what he did for everything.

Speaker David did absolutely everything for Laura, Nero handled her like she was. The queen of England, the most precious jewel on the planet. I mean, he actually would listen. To her albums at the time over and over and over, and say, can you believe the lyrics on this song? They are unarmed. Listen to this. Listen to this again. OK, I’ve heard this 50000 times already. You know, I mean, he thought the sun rose and set on more neuro.

Speaker I really do, because I’m paying more near me to get take it took somebody very special with a very special set of years. At that time. You see, I mean, I’m not saying that people love her kid.

Speaker But, I mean, he got it before she had a recording of she had all that stuff before she had all the cover records on the hit brackets for her career. What did he do for her career?

Speaker He made her CBS recording contract. He made sure that she played exactly the right places at exactly the right time, whether it was the troubadour in Los Angeles and that everybody that. You know, could move her career ahead. He actually got many of her songs recorded by other artists, including The Fifth Dimension, which was, I think the first big hits. Oh, he was relentless, totally relentless. Any artist that he could get to, somehow he was going to figure out how they were going to record one of four songs. And David. Owned the asset of her publishing with her and sold it for. At that time, a gigantic amount of money and. Made her a very wealthy woman at the time and made himself wealthy for the first time in his life.

Speaker So do you know the backstory on why when he started asylum, she did not sign it? Because I know it’s very hurtful to tell that story.

Speaker He was destroyed, totally destroyed. And it was the first. Time. That he said, I knew you could never really depend on an artist. And I know I do not want to be in the business of representing people, artists, talent that you’re at the mercy of. And he was very clear about it, very destroyed about it. I mean, heartbroken, sobbing why she did that? I have no idea. I don’t believe. That I ever discussed with her.

Speaker Well, there’s some speculation that. When David started, if she had been one of his only clients. And it is completely devoted and that she was.

Speaker This is why she was his only client.

Speaker And that when you started sailing, he was going to have other artists that she feared wouldn’t be as devoted to her. That’s what some people thought might be. When you have that kind of closeness. Or she just had always wanted to be. Clive Davis says she always wanted to be on Columbia and she wasn’t comfortable in Columbia.

Speaker I believe. That the reason was that she was on Columbia. She had always wanted to be on Columbia Records. Dave, it was definitely a proponent of that idea and filled her with that thought for years. And probably in its simplest common denominator analysis of it would be she wanted to be on Columbia Records. He convinced her to be on Columbia Records. He was thrilled. She was on Columbia Records. Now leave Columbia and come with me to asylum. And she made a very bad decision. Because she lost the one person who stood by her and made her records what they were.

Speaker I don’t think. Well, I don’t know. He should do New York, Canterbury, after he, David, were hurt.

Speaker No, I don’t think so. He did all this. No, there was no deal. So I think that would be I think she.

Speaker Did New York tend to bury. While David was still working with her.

Speaker So her career really kind of topped out and never went really. A lot of places after.

Speaker Well, Laura was a very special, unique talent. She was not really a mainstream talent. She sort of was not somebody that maybe belonged on at that time, The Ed Sullivan Show Hullabaloo shindig. You know, she was a very specific, coltish special talent.

Speaker But I.

Speaker Very odd. Laura was a very unique, odd girl. I knew her very, very well and really liked her a lot easier than I did at Carnegie Hall. I flew David asked me to come. I was in Mexico with Barry Diller. And he said, I really want you to come. This is an important night for us. And I flew from Mexico to New York and saw the concert, which was just from David. Thrilled beyond belief. He just gave birth. You know. He gave birth to his child.

Speaker You know, he said. That he said at that time. Can never want to be at the mercy of another of an artist like that, because it’s not subtree.

Speaker And yet when he started asylum, I mean that he went in to the relationship with Jose. So who was equally devoted to, I think. Wasn’t he? No, I mean, I know that’s a complicated. I directed so much.

Speaker I know, I know she’s a piece of work. But I didn’t like her very much.

Speaker But at that time, there was you know, she was she was a different person. She wasn’t the same person she is now. And they weren’t quite devoted to it.

Speaker Yes. I think that David and Joanie, there’s no question they were very, very close. They were good friends. They’d lived together. They shared a house in Beverly Hills together.

Speaker I don’t think it was the same thing. I mean, I think that David.

Speaker David learns a lesson. David never forgets anything.

Speaker David will always remember. Being what he felt abandoned. And.

Speaker Not treated well by somebody that he was devoting his life to. So I don’t think he would let that happen again. I mean, he’s had. Incidences that have hurt him with artists like Joni Mitchell, like Bob Dylan. I don’t think that’s it unless I’m forgetting. But those three lessons, he would never let that happen again. And. I don’t think he would have put himself in the position of letting it happen a second time after Laura.

Speaker How do you do that? Well, it was Roger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The siren was all right.

Speaker Oh, so send us the question. The question is, did did David have the same kind of a relationship with Joni Mitchell as he had with Lord Era? Is that the question?

Speaker Yeah, no, I think we got close to that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that what I said? Was that he he learned a lesson and he was.

Speaker That’s what David learned, a lesson from Laura Nyro. And David never forgets. And it’s hard to get him to forgive. And he would never forgive himself for making the same mistake twice. Two smart.

Speaker You know, that’s so interesting. He’s. I’ve grown to like it a great deal. My heart goes out. When I read the stories of betrayal of him, my heart goes out. I want to go beat people up. He’s an emotional guy. He really is, and he’s an emotional person. He’s an ultra person. How can you, if you’re that kind of person, build that, motivate yourself? I would be able to prevent it.

Speaker I haven’t a clue how you can do that. You have to have the most willpower, the most discipline, which David has. I mean, he has it when he decides he’s going to lose 10 pounds. He is going to lose 10 pounds when he decides he’s not in good shape. And he’s going to exercise. He will exercise every single day, come hell or high water. He’s incredibly disciplined, incredibly goal oriented.

Speaker And he was hurt. He was not going to let himself be hurt again.

Speaker Controlling your emotions isn’t the same thing.

Speaker Do you know what? May be for some people that are geniuses. Maybe it is the same thing as losing 10 pounds, controlling your emotions.

Speaker When David talks are going back a little bit, when David when you convinced him to come to that time to see.

Speaker Looking to get out. He was looking to get out from the minute he came to work there.

Speaker He thought it was the most ridiculous thing. And I think I don’t know what he was thinking, but he said, this is this is insane. Why are we doing this? When we could be doing things and owning, publishing and owning copyrights and, you know, doing things that have assets.

Speaker We want to get close.

Speaker I think maybe he did. I think that he wanted to get around the environment of the movie business because David’s office was on that side of the whole Freddie fields.

Speaker If this was at the end of the hall. My office was at the other side.

Speaker And David would spend a lot of time with Freddie Fields and Freddie Fields was primarily in the motion picture area, motion picture stars. They became friendly.

Speaker Wait until the big story.

Speaker Oh, Lord. The first time. After David decided he was gonna do this, I took David up to the office in New York of C.M.A. I guess it was, and introduced him to Sam Cohn and David Begelman separately. We walk into David Peterman’s office and David goes right over to him, looks him in the eye and says something to this effect. I have admired you for being the most well known and respected liar in the entertainment business. I thought, oh my God, this is how we’re starting this relationship. I thought. And David Bloom and simply, like, made a gesture and a giggle. And that was the end of it.

Speaker Are you telling this story? That is hysterical. Today, Red got skinny.

Speaker Always, always. David has never been afraid of anybody.

Speaker Ever has to come from his mother.

Speaker Well, we’ll try. Well, we’ll get to that later. Let us talk about his mother here. What was what was his relationship with his.

Speaker I think it was a complicated relationship. I think David remembers it as very harmonious and she was totally, completely supportive. And he was King David and. He was the light of her eye, but I think it was more complicated. I think that she would lecture him a little bit. I think it would irritate him. I think it was a normal Jewish son and mother relationship.

Speaker I’ve heard that or read that she obviously she called him King David, but then when he became very successful, she was a little bit surprised. You know, when he said. So what is a marriage you do? And he said, I advise people on their careers. And she said, you know, I mean, I think he even tells us I think you tell a story. And I walked on the Barbara Walters thing. But when I mean, it was yes, it was a normal complicated. Father, son, mother relationship. They seem to go a little bit beyond that was very devastating. She died. We very well. You have it at the funeral. Yes. Can you talk about that?

Speaker David was deeply, deeply upset when his mother died. Really broken, crying, sobbing. We went to the funeral. Then we went, I think, to Mitchell’s house. We went somewhere to eat. The Jews. After a funeral, and then we went back to the house on Carbon Beach and he just sat on the steps of the porch a long, long time. Very, very upset.

Speaker It was something beyond anything, you know, I think I think normal.

Speaker I think that a Jewish son grieves his mother. One of the things when I was an assistant to Tony Ford, the man that I told you that I wanted to work for, I wanted to work for him because he put all the town from GHC on The Ed Sullivan Show. He was on vacation. Roy GERB and Norman Weiss called from London. Urgent call. The Beatles want to do The Sullivan Show and a deal has to be made. You should go over and speak to Ed Sullivan. Now, I want you to know I was an assistant. I couldn’t even take the shorthand that he was giving me, but I had become very friendly cause I spent every Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, all day at The Ed Sullivan Show. And I went over and met with Ed Sullivan. And Bob Practice was the producer and his son in law, and Jack Babb, who was the talent Booker and I actually made the first steel for the Beatles to be on The Sullivan Show. That was exciting.

Speaker That’s one of those cultural milestones. You know what we’re really talking about back here?

Speaker And. And that’s sort of where we left off.

Speaker I have one percent, which is a wonderful.

Speaker He only got one shot. David did not know when he died. What had happened to her family is that she.

Speaker Now, of course he did. His sister. Her sister was living with Sam.

Speaker And Maritz, Sam. My crazy family that she lost in the Holocaust.

Speaker Well, she knew that she had lost the family in the Holocaust. I think her sister and her would the two survivors. And then she met Sam and married Sam.

Speaker I’m not I’m not remembering this, Jessica, saying that David and David didn’t know this story, that what had happened to her family. She survived because she was away at the time when they raided the village.

Speaker And I think that she knew they were all killed.

Speaker I think she felt that stoned.

Speaker She felt that out later. She did not know what had happened.

Speaker And when she found out what had happened to her family, she wept. She had a nervous breakdown.

Speaker But I think she even. Told me. You know something, I can’t remember this really so but I think that she had told me. Sitting at the table in Malibu. That she had found out that her family was stoned to death. And she had left the village or something. I think she told me that. And then she said and then she got very sick when she found out.

Speaker But this is not not for sure, for sure.

Speaker So let’s.

Speaker When David decided to start asylum records on the suggestion of Ahmet Ertegun.

Speaker I mean, obviously, I’ve been wanting not to be an agent, to be his own boss, so why why did it take it telling him to start his own record company? For starters. All right.

Speaker Oh, I think the day that. Knew he was going to start his own record company and publishing company and own it and own the asset.

Speaker That one day he could sell rather than than taking commissions from autists.

Speaker So not to take anything away from Ahmed because Ahmed was a terrific supporter and mentor of David, but had Ahmed not told David to start a record company and a publishing company, David would have started a record company and a publishing company because he knew. Immediately after the Laura situation, he was going to own assets that he could improve, build and then sell. So.

Speaker So how did he know you? You did. I mean, I’m asking you. I don’t work in business with him, but being one of his closest friends, you were around for all.

Speaker When he started the site, I mean, you never had any down. Hugely successful.

Speaker Never. I never had any doubt that anything that David wants to do, he’ll do.

Speaker So that first group of artists that came to site. Just talk about that and his relationship with these artist.

Speaker Who are they? Neil Young. Crosby. Stills. Nash. Joni Mitchell. The Eagles. Jackson Browne.

Speaker So what, you gave it to these people?

Speaker I think that they were smart. Talented. Intelligence, not pop, not R and B. And I think that that was the music that he related to the most. And it was also the songwriter performer that was so popular at that time.

Speaker Well, they weren’t inside the main songwriter performers.

Speaker Well, really, this is a very.

Speaker Can you describe that difference? What was it about it? How did David manage it differently than other record companies have been managed?

Speaker Maybe the only thing that I can think of that may it was homey. It was a home spun record company where everybody was friendly. Jackson was friendly with Joanie. Joanie was friendly with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. They were all interwoven professionally. Personally, and it was not like a business business. It was more like a artistic. Evolution that turned into a real business.

Speaker That’s my take on it as well. But it changed the way artists manage their own careers.

Speaker These AP record companies say.

Speaker I don’t know if I actually know what I’m saying, but it’s there, but no, I mean, it changed course when David sold asylum in Geffen Records was a very different thing. But in the time of asylum, there were.

Speaker It seems that the ideas for the lack of a better word, because I don’t like the word hip. Asylum was one step in front of everybody else. With Joni Mitchell, the Eagles, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell. And it was an artistic almost, you know, revolution because it was fast. So it wasn’t really an evolution. And it was a different home spun record company.

Speaker Family.

Speaker Would they be the same age as all the ideas and very interwoven into their personal life and their careers, if they were a a group, a bunch of friends that, you know, made really smart intellectual music?

Speaker Now, before, when he was with look at management, before he started asylum and I guess some of these business things a little bit confused, but he was their manager and then he signed them to his record label. And as a manager, he did not have contracts with any of these people. And then Elliott took over. Look at management. I know there was some feeling that. That there were.

Speaker Some people thought that this is something if they didn’t have a contract with the management firm, why did they have to have a contract with the record company?

Speaker I think you have to have the record company by David, where there’s a blurring of the lines between management and agent and owning part of the publishing company. And some of that you weren’t supposed to do if you were the agent, but you could do as a manager. Yes. Yeah. But then a controversy.

Speaker Well, an agent. Their job is to secure authors and negotiate the best financial deal they can. And they are by the laws that govern them, bound to present every offer to the manager or the client. They also do not own a piece of the record company, not the record company. They don’t own a piece of the record contract and they don’t own a piece of the publishing. Managers are allowed to be partners under the laws that govern managements in the state of California. They can own a piece of the publishing. They can own a piece of the record contract. They can be partners with the artist.

Speaker David blurred those lines.

Speaker I’ve really. Can answer that? No. Because David was not an agent at the time at all, David had long left being an agent. He was an agent, then a manager and then the record company.

Speaker Well, you know, I just I thought he had one zero as a man, McLain already when you went to work with UNSCOM. Say that again.

Speaker Didn’t he have Lauren Zero as a management client already? By the time women when you guys went to work for CNN.

Speaker Yes. But he still had a 50 percent of her publishing. Yes. While he is an agent as well.

Speaker He had it prior.

Speaker In other words, if you became an age and you didn’t have to give up what you had in the past.

Speaker Would you say that again, because I think I stepped all over it because I know there are gonna be some people who are being racist and say that that was kind of a no, no, no, no, no, Dave.

Speaker It was Laura Nero’s manager and partner in her publishing before he came to CMA. So you don’t give up, you know, your first born when you go to work as an agency.

Speaker So why did they sell asylum? It was very successful. Well, first on this, I mean, maybe you could just say this. It was hugely successful. I mean, a lot of the records went know platinum and gold and immediately.

Speaker And it was very successful. I don’t think he I think my sense is that he began to. What did he sell yourself? Asylum 72.

Speaker And what year was the cancer scare?

Speaker Well, he had two years. And I think the sense is that he he started off.

Speaker He said, I never want to have more artists that can sit in a sauna with a bunch of people and sort of, you know, like four or five people. I never want to have more people, artists on my label that can fit into this thought.

Speaker And one of the reasons Clive didn’t go into business with him is that they’ve said you only want to have 10 clients who want it. You really want to set up a boutique agency. And from what I’ve read, a boutique racquet club.

Speaker Yes, boutique. Record company. And what I’ve read, it was incredibly successful because it had such equity or the right people on the label.

Speaker But they were a handful and they got a little tired of dealing with them. Crosby, Stills, Nash and the excesses run tours and, you know, trying to take care of people who wasn’t on drugs, which separated him from a lot of the artists.

Speaker And he also. Knew that he wanted to sell an asset. I mean, that’s why he started the record company, because he knew he would sell it. And Dave, it’s always been a genius when it comes to any kind of timing for financial things. And he got a. Or for that he thought was good. And he sold it and knew he would start it again.

Speaker The artist was surprised when he sold it.

Speaker I can’t remember. I honestly can’t. When was the cancer scare?

Speaker Later, it was seventy five and five every seven asylum, and before he started getting.

Speaker After he left and when did he go to Warner’s 70?

Speaker Oh, he went to Warner’s short stint years in the motion picture.

Speaker But seventy two to seventy five. What was going on?

Speaker Was he you know, he was the after Elektra Asylum Gurche. He ran that label. And it was very successful. So you basically had 70 to 75.

Speaker And did he moved to La Cienega?

Speaker Or was he on sunset both last year?

Speaker I think he moved La Cienega in that period.

Speaker You know, the House is here with, you know, not a house off to the office at sunset.

Speaker Oh, last year I mean, the electron. Yeah, yeah, he moved there. Exactly. I think in that period after saw the sign of the water.

Speaker So he stayed with asylum a lot, Drew. Seventy two to seventy five.

Speaker Yeah. I mean a different type of position in this race. At one point they were going to merge. Atlantic also with them.

Speaker Then that fell apart. And then eventually he kept making it. I mean, from what I can tell you, that making a bid to get over to the studio. And eventually he got a job, right? That makes sense. Oh, yes, it does. Also during this time.

Speaker Five days a week.

Speaker At the beginning of who is that guy, the dad is a moron.

Speaker I was go to that same psychiatrist. What was his name? Do you have his name? Barton. Well, certainly the g.g heart. Hard grouching. Yeah.

Speaker Growth would kick me out of itself, said your not working hard at all, you shouldn’t be here. You got fired.

Speaker He said to me, Dave, it’s working hard. You’re not working.

Speaker Why did they Why does anybody start analysis? You think you need to explore things and thoughts in your mind and what causes certain emotions and behavior and.

Speaker It’s talk about best share.

Speaker Okay. Describe that relationship. You read there where he met her. How did he fall in love with her? Oh, God.

Speaker I don’t think I was there. No, I don’t think I was definitely not there when he met her.

Speaker I was so. Yes. Oh, God. So I don’t know.

Speaker I mean, the funny. Wait a minute. She wanted into the rush. She was. The survivor is opening night on the Rock. So they met her when she was part of the rock roll. That’s USA, the Ronettes.

Speaker I’m not saying that there’s any back out when you first met Phil Spector when he was a kid. I mean, he was literally 17 until the 60s. And he came to visit his brother in L.A. and his brother’s wife. You said, you know, Frank, you married Phil Spector. So David got invited to get some recording sessions. And he met she was a cashier at that time.

Speaker Cheryl, who was the sheriff? She wasn’t sure, but not here. Cheryl. Yeah. I don’t know. Nothing happened. I didn’t really know. I was not into Roxy Optimized Roxy.

Speaker She’s very afraid not to be separated. He took one look at that. Now, there are some people who don’t think it’s not would have been possible, so.

Speaker I was not with David when he met Cher, but I remember he called me the next day and said I fell in love, I’m in love with Cher. What I was like. What are you talking about? He had been to the Roxy. She came in in some had. He was describing and I think he spoke with her for a long time that night.

Speaker And he started going out with her every night. And.

Speaker I think it was somewhere around Thanksgiving or Christmas because she drove to my house to meet him one night and. I knew share a little bit, but I didn’t know her well, and she had driven down Santa Monica Boulevard from CBS where she had just taped her show. So it was fairly late at night. And she comes in and she wants to borrow ten dollars or something because she wanted to buy a Christmas tree from this kid who was selling Christmas trees on Santa Monica Boulevard. And I fell madly in love with her. She took the ten dollars, went back to give this kid money because she knew the kid needed money. And I thought, oh, my God, this is the greatest girl in the world. And David was besotted with her. He thought she was fantastic.

Speaker Did you spend a lot of time with them together?

Speaker Yeah. I mean, I’m sure I did. I mean. I think they came over to my house a lot. Sometimes we would sneak in her dressing room at CBS.

Speaker Yeah, well, she’s going to give us an interview. I’m sure he’s going to talk about it as well. But she ended up breaking his heart.

Speaker Totally, totally broke his heart. He really was crushed when she broke up with him. I remember him crying on my bed and. I think he went to Brazil. To go on a vacation. He was so heartbroken.

Speaker Did did he really think they were going to get married? I don’t know.

Speaker I don’t know if he thought that they were going to get married. They were young. I mean, while she was married already. Maybe they weren’t that, you know. What year was it?

Speaker Seventy three, seventy three, so day that was 30.

Speaker Well, let’s so young. She was still she was going through a divorce, basically. Well, not yet. But he even advised her on your career. Yes. And can you talk a little bit about that, what he what he did for her career or whatever, he put together a special for her with Elton John and Bette?

Speaker Well, that was terrific and received great.

Speaker And.

Speaker They were a couple. You know, I don’t think that it lasted that long. But while they were together, they were a real couple. And. Do you know why she broke up with him? No. You know, I can’t remember if it was. Is it is it Arman?

Speaker Yeah. I mean, I should have said. All right.

Speaker Then I started managing share and Greg Orman.

Speaker You’re starting to manage Cher with a little bit of controversy. Yes.

Speaker I had thought David wanted me to manage share, which he may have now in retrospect, thinking about it, but he definitely did not want me to manage her after they broke up. And my partner at the time. Convinced me that was ridiculous. And one thing has nothing to do with the other. And Cher wanted me to manage her and I did manager.

Speaker When you read all these articles in you trying to do background research, you can hear about this dust up that David had with so-and-so and this and that sense of betrayal. And so-and-so is mad. He took this quiet away it. And I’m thinking this is probably just standard operating Hollywood procedure in Hollywood and electric business. That’s what you do. You read people’s clients. You do this, you you you make a good business deal. You its business. And somehow you’re able to separate the personal from the business. Is that true?

Speaker Is that the way it works? I think it’s the way it works sometimes I think that I think.

Speaker Hopefully we all grow up and change. And I think that, yes, there’s a lot of stealing people’s clients, agents, stealing other agents, clients, which is sort of acceptable in the business to some level. Managers are not supposed to. There’s an unwritten code. Managers are not supposed to steal other clients. Other managers, clients.

Speaker But I would imagine. When you’re young and you don’t know that friendship is much more important than. Business. That people will do things that they wouldn’t do when they mature. And I’m sure it’s the same in any business.

Speaker That’s very wise, very wise, because, you know, I mean, obviously, even you, David, had a number of serious subsidies to.

Speaker David and I had a fight over this artist in 1970. I cannot even remember what the fight was, but we did not talk for a year and then we had a fight. Nothing to do with business. In nineteen ninety five. Where we didn’t talk for 13 months.

Speaker Was that painful for you?

Speaker Very painful, very, very painful, because David and I, I would say, are really closer than brothers. We were very. I mean, a very unique, different kind of a relationship. You know, we can finish each other’s sentences.

Speaker When you were not speaking. That was very painful time for you. He ultimately forgave him for whatever it was that he was upset about. That seems like David takes this very, very serious.

Speaker Very, very serious. Dave, it is a very serious person.

Speaker And feels things.

Speaker You’re giving me a line reading. That’s hysterical. Give me that again. Give me money. Good.

Speaker I’m going to do it perfect. That’s curious.

Speaker I know. No, I’m not doing it. We’re rehearsing. I got the leidner. You.

Speaker David is a very serious person and fuels. Things very, very deeply.

Speaker I’m really getting that sense that did you get that? Yeah, no, no, no, I actually wouldn’t. But let me just say where we’re where I’m coming from. The thing I’m beginning to get it.

Speaker Disgraced businessman world smarter than everybody else wanted to make money, did all that. But that deep inside is a very vulnerable person and and is easily hurt, has been betrayed, has dealt with a lot of hurt, feels things very deeply. And it’s almost as if he brings the same kind of intensity to relationships that he does to business. And therefore he has a fair number of dust ups with people. I never another for that, you know, because he does feel things so deeply. He’s not a surface guy. And I think that’s kind of what I’m trying to get right now and how that’s affected him in business. And it’s affected you personally because it doesn’t do anything halfway.

Speaker Even things the same way that David knows what he wants in business, he knows what he wants from people who are his friends. And he’s very, very careful about it. And. Dave, it feels enormous angst and very emotional. He can be as, if not more emotional today. About a personal affront. Then a business situation. And David is not a surface person at all. David is not a silly person. David as a of doesn’t like. When people wassily with him, he is very dogmatic, very pragmatic and takes things very, very seriously, whether it’s business. Or personal.

Speaker And can we pick that up?

Speaker Sure. Don’t you have to have something to cut away, too? Yeah. Oh, really?

Speaker And David feels very intensely. Very, very deeply. Very emotionally.

Speaker Thank you.

Speaker You’re welcome.

Speaker Let’s talk a little bit about this movie that he stepped in and actually said this was apparently didn’t go terribly. Why do you think it did? Why do you think David is weak now, not his movie career, less successful than his career as an executive? He didn’t work out too well, in my opinion.

Speaker The reason that the movie, the very short stint that he did working for a major motion picture company didn’t work out, was because he wasn’t the boss. I mean, it’s as simple as that. David had become more successful than anybody else. I, frankly, was unaware of that. I mean, I thought that the press portrayed David in a very favorable light, almost always. I mean, I’m surprised to hear that there have been a lot of negative things written about him.

Speaker I don’t think recent I told him that he was younger and just getting started. There was a piece on it that was The New Yorker. And David was around for a lot of. It was just kind of dismasted.

Speaker That’s why it is kind of scary, because you have this journalist that I think I remember, but I thought I thought that was right, but I thought that was one of many good articles. One bad one.

Speaker Did you sense. My sense is that.

Speaker I’m so sorry that this book was devastating to him who wrote that book? Tom.

Speaker The book isn’t the book. I’m beginning to see in the book that there’s that he had an agenda. I don’t quite know what the agenda was.

Speaker And you can see it in just the choice of words. So we’re very careful in that book. We don’t you’re not using we’re not using it as a absolutely impeccable research tool. We’ve looked to see every quote, whether it’s actually a direct quote, where it comes from his own opinion.

Speaker So I think his agenda was he wanted to make a name for himself.

Speaker I think David was right to become weary of him after a while, which he did. And he didn’t stop anybody from talking to her, which is interesting. It took a lot of comfort, self-confidence to I think is taking a lot of self-confidence. For him to live up to allow me to make this film.

Speaker I think it’s the only program that he would allow to do it. I mean, because he’s a big fan.

Speaker Of American. Anyway, so very interesting, go back here. OK. So he wasn’t the boss. This is my boss.