JR: So I drove by the Fox lot and I saw this magnificent set, which included an 1890s elevated railway from the 1900s, around there. The whole set was magnificent. It was over a million dollars, if I recall, for that set. And you could see it clearly from Pico Boulevard. And it was in perspective. it went down at the end. There was a big sign that said, "Heinz Catsup." And that blocked off -- [INT: The studio.] Anything wrong with that? [INT: Heinz?] Yeah. [INT: I don't remember what they used to call themselves. 57 Variety, whatever it was.] Well, they had Heinz Catsup, and I went to my office and I said, "Get me the Art Director at Fox." And he got on the phone, I said, "Listen. You've got a great set there, but the piece that's blocking the end of the road," he said, "What about it?" I said, "Heinz never made catsup. They made a thing called ketchup. It's k-e-t-c-h-u-p." "Oh my god." But he was obviously a west coast guy 'cause Hunt was making catsup out here. Were you west coast also? You're New York, aren't you? [INT: New York, yeah.] Well, New York had ketchup. [INT: Yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't realize you were spelling.] Who knew from catsup? So I saved his behind that day. [INT: Yes.] He was very grateful. But the next day, they had painted it correctly. [INT: Great.]

INT: Now we were talking about, actually, the binary decisions that you were talking about that a Director makes. But I'm curious, to go back to music for a minute. Because you can say, "Do you want the red dress or not?" You say, "No." Music is a little subtler.
JR: Very much. No, you're very careful. First of all, I don't know how music is made, but I do know what it should sound like in relation to the piece. That's all. It's...how shall I put it? It's a tonal quality that either fits or doesn't fit. And I could say that to the Composer. I said, "I don't know what you've got here, but it's not making me anxious. And I want angst." [INT: Okay, but now you're telling me that's the direction. Now you're suddenly saying, "I want to sense a certain kind of feeling."] I want a feeling, of course. That's all I know. I don't know how you got there. [INT: Got it.] And when I talk about mild errors, like in the sign-making, like one day I had a guy that had given me a thing that was called "Medical Building," except it was spelled "B-U-L-D-N-G." Bulding. The gestalt of the eye made it building. If you looked at it quickly, okay. And I called him over. I said, "Is this sign alright?" He said, "Sure." I said, "What does it say?" He said, "Medical building." I said, "Spell it out." He said, "B-U-L- oh my god. Missed out the I." Now, you say, "It's a detail. Who cares?" Well, the care is this. And it has to do almost as an analogy with music. Sitting in an audience, you do not have to know that the oboe section was an eighth note flat. But you feel something. Umph! There's a little tic. The same thing with "Medical Bulding," I dare say. There's a tic that what I described as grit in the eye, there's something in the machinery that makes you stop. It's very subliminal, but you better get it right because if it isn't right, somebody's gonna have that--not everybody--but somebody's gonna have that feeling. It's like, there was another RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, when they were in some kind of Serbian -- whatever. And when the natives spoke that language, it was subtitled. That makes sense. But they also talked about it in one scene, about drinking a local powerful booze called Bull's Blood. And Bull's Blood was sitting in the foreground of a table and there was discussion going on and they were talking in Serbian or whatever the language was. Subtitles. But Bull's Blood was in English/ [INT: On the bottle?] On the bottle, and you couldn't get away from it. It was like -- my god. Now that's major league grit in the eye. You can't do that. It's like what I did on MACGYVER. Did I ever tell you about the take? We did a cargo ship. Did I not discuss this before? [INT: No, I don't think so.] Cargo ship has been practically around the world. It has arrived in port where we're doing our stuff, presumably. And the boxes are all fresh, fresh wood. So I called the art department and I said, "Fellas, we're gonna have to reshoot this" I said, "Just take a look at it." They said, "What's wrong?" I said, "Well, here's a freighter that we have said has been at sea for six to nine months. It's been lashed by gales, it's been beaten by sun." I said, "The wood is fresh." "Oh my god, you're right." I said, "You've got to age the wood." "I got you, boss." Next week, we were doing a burial service in Mexico. They had aged the coffin. [Laughter] I said, "Well, not every piece of wood." [Laughter] It depends. [INT: That's a good one.] Well, it happens, I mean --

INT: I want to talk about, sort of, life as--knowing what you'd be doing, like, a year from now, or a week from now. Not right this second. [JR: Oh, please.] But in your career, were there times when you actually knew, "Okay, I'm gonna be working for the next six months --" [JR: Yeah.] Or "two years," or how long in advance would you actually know?
JR: I would never go beyond a year at a time. [INT: But you actually know pretty much for a year?] Well, only if I was on a show such as VAN DYKE or BENSON or ALL IN THE FAMILY, or GUNSMOKE. Each of those was like a one year experience. OUR MISS BROOKS, Ray Bolger [WHERE'S RAYMOND?], they were one year's work. But when I was doing freelance, there were times that I was just saying, "Sorry, we can't afford to eat Chinese food this week, 'cause I don't know where my next job is coming from." When I was in the freelance market, it was like, "Hey, who knows?" You better pull in the belt and try to not live up to the salary you might be making at the moment, but make it last. Because there were times that were very foul. We've all experienced that. [INT: Oh yeah] Every Director goes through that.

INT: I think it's a tough thing to realize, that it is, in fact, that you will have that kind of ride.
JR: Oh, there has to be those interectums when you say, "I'll never work again." That's the scary part, and by the way, it could happen. You know, sometimes you fall out of favor, and then what? You know, when I decided that I didn't want to do films anymore, there was a long, quiet period because I said people didn't really know me in television anymore, and it's a little scary. And also, it's a little humbling because when you come back, they say, "No, you're a film Director. What do you want to do this for?" That happened to me on BONANZA. I had to come back. I had done BONANZA before. [INT: Right.] Same lot. I finished with Hal Wallis and I came back looking for work at BONANZA. And the way the company cops looked at me, it was like, "What are you doing TV?" It had looked like a severe come-down. [INT: Got it.] By the way, that opens up the idea of, when you find out about a show that's been canceled, it's the worst thing in the world. [INT: What's it like, 'cause you'd still be working on it for the next month?] Yeah. [INT: Or more.] You're canceled, but you've gotta do the next four. I hate that.

INT: What's that like?
JR: It's terrible! The cast is dispirited. People don't want to do it. The network really doesn't want the show anymore. But that's bad, but not as bad as the clean cut dismissal, is okay if you expect it. They say, "Look. We're in the third year, the fourth year. We're ready to move on." It's okay. The worst thing that happens is when you come to work in the morning and the studio guard looks at you like you're headed for death row. And you say, "Why are you looking at me that way?" "Nothing, nothing." But they know you've been canceled. Then you get on the set and you find out you're canceled. The studio guards know before you do. That's always uncomfortable. [INT: That's a sharp one.]

INT: What about the issues of ageism?
JR: Ageism is the worst thing in the world. [INT: Lets talk about it.] It's terrible. [INT: Let's talk about it, I mean --] Well, when you get on in life, the new crop of Writer-Producers, and I hate that hyphenated word because these Writers are not Producers. They have the name, but they seriously do not know how to produce. Most of them. There are exceptions, obviously. But the word Producer is given to a lot of people as a lanyop in exchange for money as a Writer. They don't want to break the writing pattern, so they say, "This Writer is now a Producer. We can afford to pay him X number --." The problem is, the young Writer-Producer frequently takes the network note immediately to heart. They will do what the network says. That's the worst thing you can do sometimes. Now, it's okay to address a network concern, but don't give in completely. And they don't know how to do that. They don't know how to stand up and say, "We think we're right." Now, the network thinks it's a wonderful thing to be able to have these people toying to them. So they like that, but they really don't like it because in the long run, what you get are the kind of TV's that on the air today. Reality shows. You don't get written, directed, acted shows anymore. Some small degree. But again, using that horrible phrase, in our day, we would say no to a studio. We said, "No, we think you're wrong." And stay with it if you really feel that way. And in the case of CBS [Columbia Broadcast System], if they gave us a vote, we'd say, "no" and "okay." We wound up getting a 62 share, they would say, "Leave 'em alone" after awhile. Initially, in order to get to that place, you had to be firm enough and secure enough to say, "I'm not gonna give in to this note." And today's Writer-Producers give in to the note much too quickly. Beyond that, because they're afraid of the aged Director. By aged I don't mean one who's decrepit, but one who is past a certain number of years. It's as if he or she do not understand what the teenage world is all about. Well maybe we don't know it exactly, but it's still -- you can do your work with some degree of efficiency. Besides, you know things that the young Writer doesn't know, but the young Writer doesn't want to hear it. They are afraid. Ageism is really about fear. They're afraid that the knowledgeable Director, in my opinion, will come in and try to take over their show. Well nothing could be farther from the truth. I don't want to take over their show. If I want to come in and work--especially if they're reasonable Writer-Producers, there's no reason to try to do that. You work with them. It's a complimentary business. It's communication. But they want to fail on their own. They don't want to fail, but they do fail because they're afraid to take advantage of older skills.

INT: Now did you see this when you were a younger filmmaker and producer, did you see ageism then, too?
JR: No. I don't think so, no. [INT: That's what I'm curious about.] No, I had older Directors around all the time. I was the kid, and yeah, there were lots of people, well-known people wandering around, directing. But when I reached a certain age, well I was very lucky because I worked -- I'm still producing, you know. But I've stopped being asked to direct. And I'm sure it's because of the gray hair. It just -- Well, I'll tell you an interesting thing. Not so long ago, maybe it's two years now, but I had an interview to come in for a job and the Producers before me were a very knowledgably group. A very lovely woman who's the Executive Producer and Writer. She's very kind and seemingly very bright. And the others in the room also seemed bright, and they were certainly attentive. And we talked for a long time and they were interested in some of my views, some of the stuff I've talked to you about. I think we must have talked for almost an hour. An unusually long interview. And when we got up to leave--when I got up to leave, this Executive Producer took my hand and said, looking at me earnestly in my eyes, and said, "I feel like I'm talking to a legend." And as I left, I said to myself, "Legends don't get hired." And of course, I never heard from them. A legend is on a shelf. A legend is something you look up to and say, you don't dare talk to them because the legend knows too much and they're liable to tell me something I don't know and I don't want to hear something I don't know. I want to experience that myself. It's tragic because we can do a whole lot better with each other. I feel, today, I've had many failings as a Director. Don't get me wrong, I've had some success. But I've done a lot of things that I know I could do better, and I could do better today. Now I'm not all that anxious to go back to work, certainly not in the field anymore. I mean, I would do an interior comedy because I don't want to be climbing around. Follow me to Panic Peak. You know that phrase? [INT: No.] Well, it's a western term because in the days without lights, we had shining boards. [INT: Right.] We would start in the morning when the sun came up and we would finish when the sun went down. [INT: Right.] And toward the end of the day, if you had a close-up or two to do, you would literally run for a hill, and you would say, "Follow me to Panic Peak" and the company would run with you to get up as high as you could to get the last rays of the sun to shoot a close-up. So that's--it's like one of my other phrases, is "Release the pigeon." You know that? That may be the title of my book. [INT: Or follow me to Panic Peak. You could do either one.] No. I was going to call it Release the Pigeon and Warm Up the Snake [published in 2006 as WARM UP THE SNAKE: A HOLLYWOOD MEMOIR] and a friend of mine who is a Writer said, "Don't do that." I said, "Why?" I mean, he's a novelist. He said, "Because a friend of mine once had an allusion of sorts in his book title that referred to an animal and I went looking for the book and it was in the animal section of the bookstore." So he suggested, I think he's right, if I use the phrase, it should be Release the Pigeon: A Hollywood Memoir, so people at least know what to expect. But release the pigeon refers to something that occurred on my first GUNSMOKE. Early morning, distant location--well, near-distant. No freeways, but distant. And I got my first shot and I said, "Cut, print." And some old crew man yelled, "Release the pigeon!" And it meant nothing to me. I said, "Excuse me. What does that mean?" And he explained. He said, in the days before radio, telephones, and all of that, the studio would take a homing pigeon. [INT: Oh jesus.] The company would take a homing pigeon--[INT: To tell when they got their first shot off?] They got the first shot, they'd release the pigeon, fly back to the studio at 8:15, they'd mark it down. And the other one was, another western I was doing was--[Laughter] What? [INT: I'm sorry, that's just great.] It's wonderful. [INT: Release the pigeon!] You don't hear those terms anymore, obviously. But it still can mean the first shot if you're old enough. [INT: Absolutley.] The other one that I love was, I was doing a western and my assistant -- I finished the sequence, and he yelled to the back, "Warm up the snake!" And I said, "Hey. What? What does that mean?" He said, "Well, you're shooting a rattlesnake, coming up.' I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, early morning," he didn't use these words, "but the snake is torpid. They don't move. So you put it in a box and you put a hot lamp on it, warm up the snake until it moves." [INT: Great.] You get the blood going so the thing will--[INT: So they'll actually perform for you.] So it'll preform. [INT: Warm up the snake.] The other one was "Cue the nun." [INT: Well I thought we had the, you know, go pack the parts been cut.] No, no, that's a different one. [INT: I Know, I know.] No, I think I may have talked about, cue the nun was, that went back to, oh a very -- god, live television. [INT: Cue the nun.] What was his name? [Fred Coe] Oh dear. Anyway, it'll come to me, but he was directing CYRANO DE BERGERAC. [INT: Jose Ferrer?] No, I don't know who--I saw Jose Ferrer do it in a play, but I wanted to kill him because if you remember, Rustan's last line as the curtain goes down, as he dies, he says, "And one thing remains unsullied and that is my white plume." It's a nice word, and then he dies. Broadway. I'm in the theater. Young. But [Edmond] Rostand, one of my favorites. [INT: It's a great play.] Ferrer is dying on-stage, in more ways than one. He says, "And one thing remains. Unsullied. And that is... my... white..." and he died. He never got plume out. And I wanted to throw an egg. I mean, I said, "Son of a bitch! Rostand is rolling over in his grave, you son of a--how could you die without saying plume?" He ran out of breath, but it just killed me. [INT: I thought the audience was gonna yell out, 'Plume!'"] Yeah. I'm sure many of them did not know it, but I knew it and I was outraged. [INT: Great.] But in this, oh god, I can't remember his name. Southern, oh. [INT: Alright, alright.] Anyway, he did a lot of PHILCO PLAYHOUSE. He was a Producer, also, And he was directing this particular episode. And he said, act four of five, Cyrano is coming into the convent, having been struck on the head. And he said, our Director said, "Fade up," southern voice. "Cue the leaves." And the prop man drops some leaves on the convent, moonlight exterior. "Cue the nun." More leaves. No nun. "C--c--cue the nun?" Leaves continue to fall, no nun. Now it's becoming a stage way, so he raises his voice, he says, "Cue the nun!" Nothing. More leaves, no nun. And finally, bellowing, "CUE THE GOD DAMNED NUN!" Now with that, every technician on the floor is taking the earphones off so that the cue has now gone through the system and into the mics and into America's living rooms and, worse, a young nun comes skittering onstage as if she's been kicked. "Cue the god damn nun." [INT: That's great.] So I was gonna call it that, but too many words.

INT: Let's go to DGA stuff.
JR: DGA, yes. [INT: This will be our final chapter here.] Okay. [INT: You've seen it go through an enormous number of changes. As you look at it from, as objective as you can, is it as vital an organization as it was?] Vital in a different way. Then, it was a club of senior members, and the assistants were called junior members. Literally. And it was called the Screen Directors Guild of America, and in those days, the legends came to meetings. My first meeting was 1953 when I had to join because I was doing JOAN DAVIS [I MARRIED JOAN], it was a film show. And I was invited to--have I not gone through this? [INT: You went though some of this, yes. You told about that meeting because I remember.] Yeah, in that meeting is when I raised my big voice and said, "Nobody's on that board from television." I was appointed as an alternate, and I've been on the board ever since. 2003, as we enter this year, my fiftieth year, consecutively, of being on the board. Anyway, so I was sitting with legends now, and these guys came to do the work. I never said anything for the first couple of years, with the John Fords and the Rouben Mamoulians and the [William] Wylers and the [Billy] Wilders, and the [Frank] Capras and the [George] Stevenses. Sitting on a board table with Josef Von Sternberg next to me and Stanley Kramer, and my god, that wonderful -- it's Fred Zinnemann. I mean, this was a board of -- [INT: Masters.] Geniuses and brilliant guys. God! So that was one kind of operation. Then along came the TV merger, which I think I'm largely responsible for. I told you that story. [INT: Yes you did.] Alright. So we now have the Directors Guild of America and the film giants are phasing out and the new film giants are becoming independent. And they're not really serving. My dear friend, Arthur Penn, a wonderful Director, he's now serving, reluctantly, as an alternate once in awhile on our board, but he never was that interested in Guild affairs. Arthur went his own way and he had a brilliant career. The [Martin] Scorseses of the world, you know, even today. The [Steven] Spielbergs, they don't come to those meetings. It's a different animal. But we have one or two, [Steven] Soderbergh comes. And who are some of the others? [INT: Taylor Hackford.] Taylor, of course, Hackford. Very good. And there are those who are making the move, but it's not the same. It's become more of an Assistant Directors Guild, I think. Certainly in terms of movie-going. I've gone to the movies several times and I don't see any Directors. You see them at special events. I was at the Costa Gavras movie the other day and there were some Directors there, but still. Not the way it used to be. I mean, it used to be, go to a film and sit next to [Alfred] Hitchcock. [INT: Wow.] I mean, literally. They were the guys. That has changed, and it's become a huge--[INT: Why do you think that happened? Obviously the Guild tripled, quadrupled in size.] Well, that's the point. It's a big outfit. It's huge. And Jay Roth has done a magnificent job. I mean, when Joe Youngerman ran things, it was a mom and pop operation. Joe literally mopped the driveway. [INT: I remember you once saying you once saw him in the driveway once. I remember this. Yeah.] Yeah, I mean, he was out tarring it. "Why don't you get some professional?" "Nah. Saving the money. Saving the Guild money." I mean, remarkable people.

INT: But do you think, then, it functions--
JR: It's different. It's different now because, as I say, the true--am I moving around too much for you? The true genius filmmakers of today, and there are many of them, they don't tend to be part of the Guild. I mean, they're there. They will sign on if you ask them to make a donation to the pack committee, to preserve film. They certainly are there. But it's not that same, everyday, let's do the work of the Guild. It can't be. It's a different world. And we now have the preponderance on television and also runaway production is just killing us. I mean, I just saw CHICAGO made in Canada? [INT: I'm not sure.] It was. I know that. What grieved me was at the end, I saw a DGC symbol at the end. Directors Guild of Canada. Now I don't know if Rob Marshall is one of our Directors or not. Is he? [INT: I don't know.] I don't know. I really don't. But brilliant. A marvelous film, deserving of all kinds of awards, and wonderful, but you don't see those guys around the table. So I don't know. As I say, I think it's become a little more unionized than it was as a Guild at one time. It's still a Guild. And it's very powerful. Thank god for that because we need power, but the individual Director, particularly in television, has not got the power he or she once had. It's because of that giant television mall that crams in material and uses it up and so the Writer has begun to take over. And of course, the Writers Guild [The Writers Guild of America], I really feel badly that they are guided sometimes, misguided, in fighting the wrong war. Instead of fighting with us, they're fighting against us about things like a credit. I mean, come on. Leave it alone. We have never said that the credit is exclusively a Director's. It's like, who sells the most tickets? If it's Neil Simon, it's a Neil Simon picture. We don't care.

INT: This is an interesting question. Do you remember who sponsored you for the Guild? Who signed your application?
JR: No I don't. That's interesting. [INT: I'm just curious. It's probably under records somewhere.] There are two names, certainly, but I have no idea who they were. That's so interesting. I should look that up.

INT: Now you've been to lots of various committees over these years. [JR: Yeah.] Which ones have been the stimulating ones? Which ones have you looked forward to? Which has excited you?
JR: Well, I was one of the lucky people to have been a founding member of the pension plan, and I still enjoy going to those pension meetings. First of all, they are very important, particularly the health area, to all our members. And the pension is not, as we used to say in New York, it's not chopped liver what it's worth. Even in a rotten market, we're worth a billion and a half dollars, still. And we've paid out that money through the years. And I think I'm one of two remaining founders. [INT: Yeah.] We're gonna have a club, the last man standing. [INT: Yeah.] Remember THE WRONG BOX? [INT: Yup Sure do. Yes.] That wonderful song. [INT: What was that called? It was an English thing. Somehting. THE WRONG BOX was about --] Tonte. [INT: Tonte, thank you. Okay.] You know who wrote that? It was Larry Gelbart. [INT: Really?] Yeah. That wonderful English film was Larry Gelbart, and some co-author whose name escapes me [Burt Shevelove]. But it was a wonderful film. Anyway, what else do I like? I like very much being on negotiating committees. I mean, there was some tedium involved, but boy, it was right at the heart of things and we could really begin to fight for things that we really needed or wanted. It was very important. And that was good work. What other committees? Just about anything our presidents would ask me to do. If I had the time, I would do it.

INT: Yeah I was curious about, as I said, the ones that made a difference. And you've just said in both. It's interesting. Negotiating, that's a scary place to be, though, sometimes.
JR: I'm sorry, say it again? [INT: Negotiating committees can be a scary place to be because you're also arguing against the very people who may be your employers.] Never bothered me. I always thought, if I'm being truthful--that wasn't what it was all about. [INT: Good.] They would hire me for my skill as a Director. Not for my skill, or lack of skill, as a negotiator. Besides, I learned from the greats. I mean, it was the [Frank] Capras and the [George] Stevenses of the world who had a certain kind of quiet arrogance that showed you how to negotiate. Oh, they were terrific. They were cutthroat. [INT: Like what? Can you remember anything?] Well I think I've told you these stories before. [INT: Which ones?] Have I not? [INT: You told a bunch of them, but I'm just curious what comes to mind.] Well, the one that comes to mind is with Capra, when he did the first amalgamated negotiation in New York, when we became the Directors Guild of America and we had taken over the Radio and Television Directors Guild and we now met at CBS [Columbia Broadcasting System] headquarters in New York, and I was lucky enough to be one of the negotiators. But boy, the skill of Frank. The network negotiators were used to dealing with a very weak group, the RTDG [The Radio and Television Directors Guild]. And they were trying to dictate. And the first thing that Capra says was, "Why are the meetings only scheduled here?" And I said, "Well, it's always been scheduled at a network." He said, "Well, from now on, the Guild will take a meeting place, you'll come to us." In New York. We didn't even have a meeting place, but he would get one. And that kind of set the back of the heels. It's a different animal. And they tried this wonderful ploy. The network said, "Look. Each of us," there were only three at the time, "Each network owns seven owned and operated local stations. If you want to make contracts with them, you will have to go to the respective cities and negotiate with them. With those managements there." Have I not told this story? [INT: No, go on. Go on. I'm trying to remember this.] Capra said, "Well, that's crazy." He said, "You know, you're professional negotiators, you are the network. You own these things. We are working Directors and you cannot expect us to go to 21 different cities in our capacity. That's nonsense." And somebody else said, "Besides, what would happen if, for example, if WXYZ Detroit would make a better deal with us than you're willing to make at ABC [American Broadcasting Corporation]?" And they laughed and said, "Well, we'd take care of that management pretty quickly." We said, "Well, of course. You're going to have the veto power, so what's the point? Let's have it here. Bring your men and women to this table." And they said, "No, no." They were mealy mouthed, I must say, but it was a terrible ploy. And they said, "No. It's far too expensive because we have so many people. We'd have to put them up in hotels, we'd have to pay them a per diem. It's far too much for us to bear." And Capra, god he was brilliant. He said, "How much are we talking about?" They said, "Oh, well, 21 different staffs. That's seven for each network. Hotels, airfare, per diem." And Capra said, "Listen, why don't we just cut to the bottom of this?" He said, "Whatever it costs, the Directors Guild will pay for these people. Bring them in. We'll pay for it and have the meetings here in New York." Well, stunned silence. Of course, somebody poked in and said, "Of course that would make an interesting headline in the trade papers. You know, networks accept largess of Guild for its management." Something to that effect. And they sputtered and came to a halt and agreed to bring their people in. They would not hear of it. And later, I said to Frank Capra, "Did you mean that?" He said, "No, of course not. They never intended to bring anybody here. I knew what they would say." Well, it was wonderful. I mean, he knew what he was throwing out was a bone that could not be accepted. Brilliant. But he did it with great authority and, "Let's just get on with it." And I learned a lot of that from watching George Stevens. The day Ben Kahane [Benjamin Kahane] was head of the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] and Kahane was a very urbane, soft spoken, brilliant lawyer from Columbia [Columbia University]. Opened the negotiations that year by affecting something he hadn't heard. A faulty memory. And he said, "Did I hear the name of Samuel Gompers?" He hadn't, of course. He said, "Samuel Gompers. Wasn't he the man who once said, 'Anybody who belongs to a union has no right making over a hundred dollars a week?'" Well, he had, in 1883. But Stevens was doodling. He never looked up. He said, "Wasn't he the one who said, 'Anybody over a hundred dollars a week has no right belonging to a union?'" And George said, "No, it was Jefferson Davis." [Laughter] Well, I mean, with that kind of wit and he would just knock the pins out. But gentle. I mean, he never made it a big, huge--just a casual doodle, an off-hand comment. It was like George Seton, once, another brilliant Writer-Director. We had been asked by--that year, the chief negotiator was the head of Paramount Studios [Paramount Pictures], and chief negotiator for MPAA. In those days, presidents used to be negotiators. That's another thing. It was Y. Frank Freeman. You've heard that name? Somebody once said, "Why Frank Freeman? That's a damn good question." But he had suffered a heart attack and he begged our indulgence with, we were down to the last few days of negotiating. "Would your management Directors come to the Paramount Studios? I'll only allow it of an hour a day." Okay. I got there early. I was driving my Chevrolet car, and I stood in awe, watching the [Cecil B.] DeMille gate from the side. It was a great motion picture shot. Now, labor is arriving to negotiate with management. In comes a Rolls Royce, a Duisenberg, a Mercedes, a Bentley. I mean, a Maserati. [Laughs] The labor--[INT: Labor contingent.] Labor's coming--I mean, it's a wonderful shot. [INT: Right.] And I just creamed. I said, "Oh, that's so wonderful." And we all gathered in Freeman's office where the chairs have been set up. Now he owned, literally owned, Coca-Cola in Georgia. He came from Georgia. And it was de rigeur that everybody drank a Coke at the beginning. They were passed out. But also, while we were huddled around, there was the Ten Commandments was in a block of stone, and we were looking at it. And Freeman came in, looking a little peakered, but very sharp. Southern accent, but razor sharp. And he said, "I noticed as I come in that one of y'all -- that some of y'all was looking at that there prop from THE TEN COMMANDMENTS." It was the actual thing in the De Mille film. He said, "And I think it's appropriate to observe on an occasion such as this, that one of them commandments is, 'Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's property.'" Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck. Southern gentlemen. And George Seaton said, "There's another commandment, Mr. Freeman. Thou shall not steal." [INT: Exactly.] Let's get on with the negotiation. "Wha? Ah, Okay." [Laughter] So, so these guys were quick to the point and accurate, and they knew how to shove it in so that I learned, at a very early age, I must say, I was able, in one of the negotiations, to argue on behalf of our new members. The right to cast a show! The live television Directors at that time had no right to cast their show. It was imposed upon them. And we were saying, "Look. Why would you hesitate to have a Director do this? It makes a better product." I mean, the Director should know the people he's working--why must it be imposed? Imposed by somebody they can't work with, they don't know, or they don't want. I said, "It's just silly." And all of us, in our own way, said, "It makes for a far better product." And the ABC man, Dick Freund, was the ABC lawyer in charge of negotiations. And he said, "Well, we at ABC reserve the right to be bad." "What?" I said, "Hold it. Hold it." I actually made a moment. I took the yellow pad and I said, "We at ABC," and I wrote, slowly, and loudly, "reserve the right to be--did you actually say that, Mr. Freund?" He said, "Yes. Of course I did." "And do you stand by it?" He said, "Absolutely." "Reserve the right to be bad. Richard Freund." I said, "You know, by a curious coincidence, there is a stockholders meeting of your company downtown tomorrow. I own a modest number of shares. A hundred shares. Something like that. I intend to go to this meeting and when I read this to the assembled stockholders, what do you think they will say about their chief negotiator?" And the blood drained out of his face. He said, "Y-y-you wouldn't say that?" I said, "But you just said you would stand behind this remark. Why, are you embarrassed saying it in front of stockholders?" "Oh, please don't say that." I said, "You better retract the god damn thing and do it quickly." He said, "Oh, okay. Okay." [INT: Wow. Great moment.] Made him back off. Do you remember Jim Sermons? [INT: Of course.] He was the head of CBS negotiating? [INT: Oh yeah. Tough as nails. I remember.] Tough. Tough. And he used to smoke cigars and I noticed this and at lunch, I went out and I bought what I have sometimes smoked. I went to Dunhill's and I got, at that time, the biggest dollar cigar. I mean, it was Romeo and Juliet. Cedros #1. Big, big thing. And I would sit there and puff, and he would look at it enviously and I would sometimes puff it ostentatiously and then let it die out and pay no attention to it, and he would look at it and one day I gave him one, you know? And he was, "Oh, god." And he put it awa, you know? But the argument always was, "But we're dealing with pennies with what you're talking about." I said, "Why don't we get down to real money?" He said, "Well that's the trouble with you guys. You're so rich." And I was just showing him, but they were off-balance with these little moves. It was kind of a little undeclared war, you know? [INT: It's true.] But one day, I had not seen Sermons for 20 years. I think you were at that negotiation. [INT: I was.] --When I came in late. They had called me in for a special thing and I walked into the room a little bit late. Everybody was assembled, and Jim Sermons, who is now past the age of retirement, but still working, and he looked up and he said, loudly, for the entire room, "John Rich. I hear you've changed." And I said, "I hear you haven't." [Laughter] And the management guys loved that, 'cause they did not like Sermons. But I had become more mellow and he had heard that, but I nailed him. But again, that piece of timing comes only from the security that I've been taught by geniuses. How to do that.