Speaker 1: This show contains mature content and adult themes. It may
Speaker 1: not be suitable for young audiences.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, Harvey Weinstein was outed as a serial
Speaker 2: sexual abuser. Many brave women came forward and told their stories.
Speaker 2: They exposed one of Hollywood's most powerful moguls as a
Speaker 2: vicious sexual predator who operated horrifically and seemingly without consequences.
Speaker 2: But Weinstein was standing on the shoulders of monsters. For
Speaker 2: so many years, those monsters remained unchecked in Hollywood, shielded
Speaker 2: by the millions of dollars they made for their studios.
Speaker 2: Sex for fame is not new. In fact, it's as
Speaker 2: old as Hollywood itself. Today we'll open the Variety Archives
Speaker 2: and tell the story of blockbuster movie producer Don Simpson,
Speaker 2: the dark princes of movie making. His magic touch for
Speaker 2: producing hits gave him a license to prey on women.
Speaker 2: This is Variety Confidential, the secret history of the casting
Speaker 2: couch from Variety, the leading expert on the entertainment industry,
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. I'm Tracy Patton. Today's episode Don Simpson,
Speaker 2: Eighties Hits and Eighties Excesses with Me Today is Matt
Speaker 2: Donnelley Variety's senior Entertainment and media writer, Hi Matt Welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. You know, the
Speaker 3: story of Don Simpson and all of his abuses is
Speaker 3: so much to dig into. He was allowed to slide
Speaker 3: for so many years because his movies made a ton
Speaker 3: of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sure seems that way. Don Simpson and his
Speaker 2: production partner Jerry Bruckheimer were a power team. They made
Speaker 2: some of the most successful movies in Hollywood history, and
Speaker 2: one of them was Flash Dance, which I really loved absolutely.
Speaker 3: And their biggest hit was Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop
Speaker 3: and if my math is correct, adjusted for inflation, that
Speaker 3: earned over nine one hundred million dollars the world by
Speaker 3: box office in today's value. They also, made, of course
Speaker 3: Top Gun, the Tom Cruise classic in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2: Yes, they really were a force in Hollywood. From nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three to nineteen ninety five, Simpson and Bruckheimer produced
Speaker 2: ten films that made over three billion dollars. At a
Speaker 2: time when Harvey Weinstein was rising to power, Simpson's excesses
Speaker 2: and reckless behavior were enabled and covered up his films.
Speaker 2: Turned actors like Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy into household names.
Speaker 2: But as Dawn's stature in town rose, so did his
Speaker 2: dark side.
Speaker 3: You're talking about someone who was accused of sexual assault,
Speaker 3: was a known drug abuser and had frequent angry outbursts
Speaker 3: that cost fear among his staff and even his friends.
Speaker 2: And it all came to an end on January nineteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six, when he was found dead in his home.
Speaker 2: Police found a cornucopia of prescription drugs, and his death
Speaker 2: led to the investigation of two dozen doctors in Hallllwood.
Speaker 2: So as we know, Don, along with Jerry Bruckheimer, became
Speaker 2: a bonafide movie brand in the nineteen eighties. With films
Speaker 2: centered around handsome, testosterone driven men placed in high octane scenarios.
Speaker 2: Don and Jerry captured the zeitgeist of the MTV generation
Speaker 2: with hit rock and roll soundtracks to match. For a time,
Speaker 2: it seemed like Don and Jerry could do no wrong.
Speaker 2: Don was suddenly one of the top producers in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for many left in his wake, he wielded that
Speaker 2: power in extremely damaging ways. Behind the scenes. The success
Speaker 2: of his film served as a clever vehicle for his
Speaker 2: real interests, which a lot like Weinstein, focused mostly on
Speaker 2: money and power.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about Don Simpson's early life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, he was born on October twenty ninth, nineteen
Speaker 2: forty three, in Seattle. His father was a mechanic at
Speaker 2: Boeing Aircraft. His mother was a homemaker. In nineteen forty five,
Speaker 2: the family moved to Anchorage, Alaska. Friends from high school
Speaker 2: remember Don's parents as pleasant and industrialist people. They were
Speaker 2: church goers, but not fanatical.
Speaker 3: So we know that Don's career started an entertainment in
Speaker 3: San Francisco. What happened during those early.
Speaker 2: Years, Yeah, he did. After college, he went to work
Speaker 2: for an advertising agency in San Francisco. His job was
Speaker 2: to promote Warner Brothers movies in the Bay Area. His
Speaker 2: work got noticed at the studio and Warner Brothers hired
Speaker 2: him to work in the publicity department in Burbank. But
Speaker 2: Don didn't fit into Warner's relatively corporate environment. He was
Speaker 2: fired before the year was out. He was out of
Speaker 2: work for three years. Eventually, his well connected friends recommended
Speaker 2: him for a job at Paramount. He rose quickly through
Speaker 2: the ranks. By nineteen eighty one, he was president of production.
Speaker 2: At age thirty, three, Don was part of a changing
Speaker 2: of the guard at Paramount and in Hollywood. Studio chairman
Speaker 2: Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, its president and chief operating officer,
Speaker 2: were also in their thirties. He started in television and brought
Speaker 2: a more youthful and aggressive perspective into the movie business.
Speaker 2: Don was also doing a lot of cocaine around this time.
Speaker 2: It was an open secret at the studio, but he
Speaker 2: was by no means the only high profile drug user
Speaker 2: in Hollywood or even at Paramount. In the beginning, the
Speaker 2: studio seemed willing to let his drug use slide, but
Speaker 2: as Don's habit grew, it became a problem that was
Speaker 2: too big to ignore. Eventually, he was fired by Barry
Speaker 2: Diller and Michael Eisner, but.
Speaker 3: Not quite fired. Don was given a producer deal in
Speaker 3: the lot after his termination, and this is a common
Speaker 3: occurrence in the industry, especially back then. It's a system
Speaker 3: that allows disgrace producer as an opportunity to save face
Speaker 3: and also earn income.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the screenplay they offered him was Flash Dance.
Speaker 2: It was an improbable sounding story about a beautiful young
Speaker 2: steel worker in Pittsburgh who wanted to be a Dancer,
Speaker 2: but Don liked a challenge and his friend Jerry Bruckheimer
Speaker 2: agreed to co produce. Jerry met in nineteen seventy three
Speaker 2: through Jerry's first wife, Bonnie, who had worked with Don
Speaker 2: at Warner Brothers. After Jerry and Bonnie split up, he
Speaker 2: shared a bachelor pad with Don in Laurel Canyon. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, they set up shop as Don Simpson
Speaker 2: Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Flashdance cost seven million dollars to make.
Speaker 2: It was released in nineteen eighty three and made ninety
Speaker 2: five million dollars domestically. The partnership of Simpson and Bruckheimer
Speaker 2: became an overnight success. High concept stories have plots that
Speaker 2: can be described in a sentence. The plot for Top
Speaker 2: Gun is hot shot Navy Pilot defies the odds, for example,
Speaker 2: The industry's shift to high concept film started when Jaws
Speaker 2: became a surprise hit in the summer of nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: It was the first movie to gross over one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars that's half a billion dollars today. After Jaws,
Speaker 2: studios demanded pictures that would make tens of millions at
Speaker 2: the box office today. The goal is more than a billion.
Speaker 2: Top Gun Maverick grossed one point five billion dollars. For example,
Speaker 2: Don and Jerry may not have invented high Concept, but
Speaker 2: they recognized it as a moneymaker for the studio and
Speaker 2: for themselves of course.
Speaker 3: So at this point Don is doing extremely well. With
Speaker 3: that comes a lot of power, and with power, as
Speaker 3: we've seen over and over again, comes access to a
Speaker 3: lot of women, which brings us to the casting couch.
Speaker 2: We found a quote from Don in nineteen eighty six
Speaker 2: denying allegations that there was a casting couch in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: I'm the kind of guy you would look at me
Speaker 2: and think I would fuck anything that walks, and it
Speaker 2: is true I will. But the casting couch is such
Speaker 2: horseshit that my partner and I laugh about it all
Speaker 2: the time. I have never gotten laid less than while
Speaker 2: in the movie business. He also said, they're taking advantage
Speaker 2: of people, and the people who are being taken advantage
Speaker 2: of aren't that bright. But anybody who thinks they can
Speaker 2: fuck their way into this business is an idiot. But
Speaker 2: there is evidence that what Don said was not true.
Speaker 2: For example, Jules Shepherd, and actress who appeared in Return
Speaker 2: of the Living Dead and other horror movies, claimed that
Speaker 2: Don propositioned her during an audition. She said that at
Speaker 2: a meeting in his office at Paramount, Don gave her
Speaker 2: a choice. He said they could do coke and have
Speaker 2: sex and she would probably get the part, or she
Speaker 2: could go through the whole charade of auditioning and not
Speaker 2: get the part. Ted Mann, who's written for television shows
Speaker 2: like Homeland and Deadwood, was with Simpson in New York
Speaker 2: when they were auditioning young women for a never made
Speaker 2: TV version of Flash Dance. He said, the hallway outside
Speaker 2: Simpson's hotel suite was lined with these girls. Every thirty
Speaker 2: minutes or so, Simpson would come out, combing his wet hair.
Speaker 2: I'd say, how was the last one, and he'd say
Speaker 2: not bad.
Speaker 3: Next.
Speaker 2: This went on for an entire day. There's also a
Speaker 2: story that Don scheduled his film shoots to make make
Speaker 2: it easier to hit on wannabe actresses. He told an
Speaker 2: aspiring producer that sex scenes should be scheduled for the
Speaker 2: last two days of production. That would give him extra
Speaker 2: time to offer women the chance to audition for the
Speaker 2: sex scenes. Chip Prosser, a screenwriter who worked for Simpson,
Speaker 2: Bruckheimer said, Don showed him his pack of cards, a
Speaker 2: stack of polaroids of nude women he'd photographed in his
Speaker 2: office at Paramount. He told Prosser he'd convince the women
Speaker 2: to pose nude by promising them a part in a movie.
Speaker 2: He had an intense fear of rejection. He once compared
Speaker 2: his and Jerry Bruckheimer's success in picking up women. Don said,
Speaker 2: Jerry will ask nine women to sleep with him, and
Speaker 2: nine will turn him down in a row. The tenth
Speaker 2: woman says yes and he goes home with her. Me,
Speaker 2: I ask one girl to go out with me and
Speaker 2: she says no, and I want to go put my
Speaker 2: head in the oven. His friend, the producer Michael London, said,
Speaker 2: Simpson told me he hung out with hookers because he
Speaker 2: couldn't bear to risk rejection. Call girls were a big
Speaker 2: part of his life. Don's assistants had a tab in
Speaker 2: his Rolodex labeled girls. The assistants were required to update
Speaker 2: the women's names and phone numbers. But with all the
Speaker 2: beautiful women available in Hollywood, why would someone as powerful
Speaker 2: as Don Simpson pay for sex? Or as Charles Fleming,
Speaker 2: Don Simpson's biographer put it, why with the casting couch.
Speaker 2: Such a time honored institution, would any successful Hollywood producer
Speaker 2: require the professional service of a hooker. Fleming suggests that
Speaker 2: the moguls view sex workers as stand ins for women
Speaker 2: who were out of reach before the men achieved power.
Speaker 2: Producer Joel Silver told Fleming, it's the real revenge of
Speaker 2: the nerds. Most of these guys were short, fat, ugly
Speaker 2: kids who couldn't get laid in high school. Now they're
Speaker 2: in control, and they're going to make everyone in the
Speaker 2: world pay for what the world did to them. Simpson
Speaker 2: himself repeated an old line, some times attributed to Clark Gable,
Speaker 2: that you don't pay them to come, you pay them
Speaker 2: to leave. As time went on, he got heavily into
Speaker 2: s and m. In nineteen ninety five, four ex call
Speaker 2: girls wrote a book titled You'll Never Make Love in
Speaker 2: This Town Again. They devoted an entire chapter to Don
Speaker 2: Don Simpson and education and pain. They said his serious
Speaker 2: bondage games were like something out of Marquis de Sade.
Speaker 2: In the book, Alexandra Daddock, whose professional name was Tiffany,
Speaker 2: wrote that Don played a video for her when they
Speaker 2: met for the first time. In it, he auditioned call
Speaker 2: girls posing as actresses and then had sex with them.
Speaker 2: He showed Dadig another tape in which a leather clad
Speaker 2: dominatrix tortured a beautiful young woman. The scene was hardcore
Speaker 2: debauchery that included a toilet, sex toys, and torture devices.
Speaker 2: Dadig wrote, both women were prostitutes, but what Don and
Speaker 2: the dominatrix did to this girl should have gotten them
Speaker 2: both thrown in prison. Don could be as nervous about
Speaker 2: dates with call girls as he was about dating non professionals.
Speaker 2: Screenwriter Joe Esterhouse remembered partying with Don and Jerry in
Speaker 2: New York, where they were planning a never produced sequel
Speaker 2: to Flashdance. Don called an escort service and arranged dates
Speaker 2: for the evening. Esterhouse said that during the half hour
Speaker 2: wait for the women, Simpson guzzled a quarter bottle of gin.
Speaker 2: It was pure nerves. He was like a little kid
Speaker 2: waiting for his date to show up. Eventually, he became
Speaker 2: one of the biggest clients of the infamous Hollywood madam
Speaker 2: Heidi Flies. One former call girl said Heidiwood entice women
Speaker 2: into taking dates at Don's house by promising them auditions.
Speaker 2: She would allegedly say if you go on this trick,
Speaker 2: you'll make ten thousand dollars, plus you'll meet Don Simpson
Speaker 2: and he can put you in his next movie. In fact,
Speaker 2: he did cast a few of Heidi's girls in bit
Speaker 2: parts in the World of Drugs and Professional Sex, You'll
Speaker 2: also find Mobsters. In its March thirty first, twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two edition, The Telegraph in London reported that he once
Speaker 2: crashed a car into the side of a house, which
Speaker 2: left the car halfway stuck in the wall. Simpson blamed
Speaker 2: his passenger, former Playboy centerfold Kathy Saint George, claiming she
Speaker 2: had been behind the wheel, But Saint George was dating
Speaker 2: a man with mob connections, and men claiming to be
Speaker 2: mobsters turned up at Simpson's house. They ultimately extorted him
Speaker 2: for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: So the nineties are really when Don started having trouble
Speaker 3: at work. I imagine that his addiction to drugs and
Speaker 3: women were at the root of that.
Speaker 2: Well, for one thing, he was the cliche of the
Speaker 2: bad Hollywood boss. His tantrums were impossible to ignore. Petty
Speaker 2: things would set him off. Don claimed his father was
Speaker 2: physically abusive. None of his Alaska friends remember that, but
Speaker 2: years later his mother was on the phone with one
Speaker 2: of his assistants when she heard Don going off on
Speaker 2: another assistant in the background. His mother admitted that she
Speaker 2: used to put him in the closet when he lost
Speaker 2: his temper. She said, pay no attention to his temper tantrums.
Speaker 2: But his tantrums were impossible to ignore. Petty things would
Speaker 2: set him off. He fired assistants because they put cream
Speaker 2: in his coffee when he was dieting, or because they
Speaker 2: served it black when he was not. He demanded perfect bagels.
Speaker 2: An ex assistant said if his bagel was toasted too much,
Speaker 2: he'd have a heart attack. If you got the wrong
Speaker 2: kind of mustard, you were dead. It had to be frenches.
Speaker 2: At the Regency in New York, he yelled at the
Speaker 2: housekeepers because someone had pressed and starched his jeans. I
Speaker 2: asked for fluff and fold. He screamed, how dare you
Speaker 2: fluff and fold? He vandalized a hotel room during another tantrum.
Speaker 2: A former assistant said he couldn't open the window, so
Speaker 2: he just tossed a chair through it. In nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: a talent and told an interviewer that Don was egotistical
Speaker 2: and megalomaniacal. He's irrational and out of control until he
Speaker 2: gets his way, but everybody deals with him because they
Speaker 2: have to. His movies make money. Many of the journalists
Speaker 2: who try to report on Don Simpson found themselves on
Speaker 2: the receiving end of threats and strong arm tactics. Courtesy
Speaker 2: of names like private investigator Anthony Pelicano and, in the
Speaker 2: words of journalist Charles Fleming, legendary rough litigator Burt Fields.
Speaker 2: They became ubiquitous as enforcers for Simpson's take no prisoner's
Speaker 2: approach to the entertainment industry, and the linkage between aras
Speaker 2: has other significant figures who either began with Simpson or
Speaker 2: whose careers were supercharged by his big spending ways. For decades,
Speaker 2: event planner and pr consultant Peggy Siegel reigned as one
Speaker 2: of New York's busiest entertainment movers and shakers until, as
Speaker 2: Town and Country magazine put it in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 2: the old school power publicist fell off a cliff. That's
Speaker 2: when Siegel's networking efforts on behalf of convicted sexual predator
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein put her in the crosshairs of the same media.
Speaker 2: She had spent decades courting for her many Oscar competitor clients,
Speaker 2: including most notably Harvey Weinstein. But before all of that,
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty three, Siegel was hired by Simpson to
Speaker 2: launch his personal brand of celebrityhood via a series of
Speaker 2: wildly extravagant parties in the Colorado ski resort of Aspen.
Speaker 2: These star packed bacchanalls were fueled by unlimited amounts of cash,
Speaker 2: top shelf champagne and pure Bolivian cocaine.
Speaker 3: There was a sexual harassment lawsuit as well that was
Speaker 3: a big story for Variety and not nearly as prevalent
Speaker 3: as they are today.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he was sued by a former assistant named
Speaker 2: Monica Harmon in nineteen eighty nine. She alleged that she
Speaker 2: was forced to schedule meetups with sex workers. She also
Speaker 2: stated that he played porn videos in his office and
Speaker 2: that he had used drugs in the office in front
Speaker 2: of her. And on top of that, she claimed she
Speaker 2: had to clean up coke in his office and his bathroom,
Speaker 2: and allegedly he said things to her like you fucked
Speaker 2: up again, you stupid bitch. You can't do anything right.
Speaker 2: She claimed that Simpson's abuse caused her to lose sleep
Speaker 2: and have headaches, muscular tension, and stress. She asked for
Speaker 2: five million dollars in damages.
Speaker 3: Which John could have easily paid off.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, I would say, But he played hardball. He
Speaker 2: brought in Bert Fields, one of the big Hollywood fix
Speaker 2: it lawyers. He also hired the notorious Hollywood private eye
Speaker 2: Anthony Pelicano. Together they made the classic play against Monica Harmon.
Speaker 2: They put her on trial. Pelicano found witnesses who said
Speaker 2: Monica regularly used cocaine, and he found receipts from her
Speaker 2: video store that proves she'd rented porn, which is obviously
Speaker 2: not indicative of any wrongdoing, but I digress. Bert Fields
Speaker 2: ran circles around Monica's attorneys in court. He also countersued Monica,
Speaker 2: also for five million dollars. In the end, the case
Speaker 2: was dismissed. They had become so successful that by nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety they were able to negotiate a deal of mind
Speaker 2: blowing proportions with paramount three hundred million dollars over five
Speaker 2: years to make any five movies they chose. That's about
Speaker 2: seven hundred million dollars today. In May that year, Dawn
Speaker 2: told Variety columnist Army Archard, we feel this is our
Speaker 2: best movie to date, but they went way over budget,
Speaker 2: filming on location on NASCAR tracks. After its release in June,
Speaker 2: Days of Thunder underperformed, with worldwide grosses under one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars, Paramount canceled its production deal with Simpson Bruckheimer.
Speaker 2: Dawn took it very hard. He began to retreat to
Speaker 2: his mansion in bel Air nine twenty one. Don and
Speaker 2: Jerry signed with Disney in nineteen ninety five. They came
Speaker 2: out with Crimson Tide, Dangerous Minds, and Bad Boys, all
Speaker 2: big hits, but by then it was too late for
Speaker 2: Don Simpson.
Speaker 3: So as Don's drug use began to take a toll
Speaker 3: on his work and, most significantly, his relationship with Jerry Bruckheimer.
Speaker 3: He did go to rehab and spend tens of thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars in trying to get clean.
Speaker 2: Yes he did. He was in and out of the
Speaker 2: Meninger Clinic in Kansas and the Hazleton Center in Minnesota
Speaker 2: several times. He also tried the Betty Ford Center in
Speaker 2: Palm Springs and AA. He also dabbled in Scientology. He
Speaker 2: had worked with Tom Cruise, who was a member. In
Speaker 2: an interview later, Don said that after spending thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars and working for months on what scientology calls going clear,
Speaker 2: he asked his counselor, I've almost gone clear. Why aren't
Speaker 2: I happier? The counselor said he would be happy when
Speaker 2: he went through OT three or achieved a third level
Speaker 2: operating Thetan plateau. In other words, words, the goalpost had
Speaker 2: been moved and the cost had gone up. Don said,
Speaker 2: at that point, I realized it was a con. At
Speaker 2: one point, he tried a very risky strategy for kicking
Speaker 2: his addictions. He hired a physician, doctor Stephen Amerman, to
Speaker 2: live on his estate and treat him full time. The
Speaker 2: doctor's strategy was to prescribe drugs to manage Don's withdrawal symptoms.
Speaker 2: One expert later called the strategy dangerously unorthodox. Doctor Amerman
Speaker 2: was also a recovering addict. He had a serious relapse
Speaker 2: that summer that ended with his death at Don's poolhouse
Speaker 2: on August seventeenth, nineteen ninety five. The police report noted
Speaker 2: that the scene had been sanitized, meaning evidence of drug
Speaker 2: use had been removed or hidden. The autopsy found the
Speaker 2: cause of death to be multiple drug intoxication. Toxicologists found
Speaker 2: a deadly mix of cocaine, morphine, and valume in his system.
Speaker 2: The death of doctor Amerman should have been a wake
Speaker 2: up call for Don Simpson, but in retrospect the call
Speaker 2: may have come too late. But it was a wake
Speaker 2: up call for Jerry Bruckheimer. Four months later, he and
Speaker 2: Don announced that they were closing Simpson Bruckheimer. It was amicable.
Speaker 2: They would continue to work together on projects they already
Speaker 2: had in the pipeline, but from that point forward they
Speaker 2: would both become independent producers. In the fall of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five, Don considered treatment for his addiction with a
Speaker 2: doctor who specialized in using hormones to control mood disorders.
Speaker 2: During a routine physical exam, the doctor found that Don
Speaker 2: was in immediate danger of sudden heart failure. He warned
Speaker 2: Don that his heart could stop beating at any moment.
Speaker 2: When it happened, it would most likely be quote either
Speaker 2: at the dinner table, on the can or when waking up.
Speaker 2: Don ignored the warning and went to another doctor who
Speaker 2: gave him a more hope full prognosis on Thursday, January eighteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six. Don had been holed up at home
Speaker 2: for weeks. He met for three hours that day with
Speaker 2: his lawyer, his agent, and his brother Larry to discuss
Speaker 2: a potential new production deal in the works at Universal.
Speaker 2: He was upbeat for a change. He felt good about
Speaker 2: his prospects. Casey Silver, a former Simpson Bruckheimer development director,
Speaker 2: was now head of development at Universal. Don had an inn.
Speaker 2: The ball was in Casey's court and Don expected his
Speaker 2: call at any minute. Later that day, he took a
Speaker 2: call from James Toback, the screenwriter and director, who was
Speaker 2: seeking advice on a script. The call lasted five hours,
Speaker 2: Toback said later, we had this marathon, multi hour conversation,
Speaker 2: after which he drifted into sleep. When Don woke up,
Speaker 2: he grabbed a copy of the new biography of director
Speaker 2: Oliver Stone and went into the master bath. His housekeepers
Speaker 2: arrived around five o'clock. One of them found his body
Speaker 2: on the floor next to the toilet. The biography of
Speaker 2: Oliver Stone was lying at his feet.
Speaker 3: And this is when staff at the house called Don's assistant.
Speaker 2: Yes Todd Morrero. He then phoned Don's lawyers, Jerry Bruckheimer
Speaker 2: and probably others. We know that two of Don's attorneys
Speaker 2: arrived at the house within minutes. Morrero eventually called nine
Speaker 2: one one and EMS arrived in fifteen minutes. LAPD and
Speaker 2: coroner investigators arrived later. Sixty three of the eighty bottles
Speaker 2: of medication police found were prescribed by the late doctor
Speaker 2: Stephen Amerman. The police report echoed the report on doctor
Speaker 2: Amerman's death. The scene had been sanitized and decedent is
Speaker 2: said to have histories of PCP and cocaine abuse, possibly marijuana.
Speaker 2: There were thousands of mind altering prescription medications in the house,
Speaker 2: but they found no illegal drugs. It seemed as though
Speaker 2: someone had had removed them. There was no suicide note
Speaker 2: or obvious trauma. The report stated it was a death
Speaker 2: by natural causes. The entry under Special Circumstances read drug background.
Speaker 3: Natural causes, but the actual cause of death was released
Speaker 3: later correct Yes.
Speaker 2: It was cocaine use in the presence of myocardiofibrosis that
Speaker 2: may have induced fatal arrhythmia. Myocardiofibrosis is a thickening of
Speaker 2: the heart muscle walls. The toxicology report found traces of
Speaker 2: unisom Adaracs, Vistail, Librium, Valium, compizine, Xanax, decrel, and Teagan.
Speaker 2: In Don's blood, cocaine was also detected. Much later, someone
Speaker 2: listened to the messages on Don's answering machine. One was
Speaker 2: from Casey Silver at Universal. He had decided to green
Speaker 2: light Don's production deal. It was the call Don had
Speaker 2: been waiting for. It came in around four pm, an
Speaker 2: hour before his body was found. Variety's obituary for Don
Speaker 2: Simpson ran on Monday, January twenty ninth. It read, in part,
Speaker 2: for Simpson, success was trouble spelled backward by all accounts.
Speaker 2: Simpson was a complex man, extolled by his friends for
Speaker 2: his intelligence, amazing recall of information, and unconditional loyalty. But
Speaker 2: he also indulged privately in excesses that led to the
Speaker 2: diminution of his productivity and strained his partnership with Bruckheimer. Bruckheimer, however,
Speaker 2: remained loyal to Simpson. Later that day, the most powerful
Speaker 2: people in Hollywood gathered to mourn at Morton's, a restaurant
Speaker 2: catering to the rich and famous in West Hollywood. It
Speaker 2: could have been an Academy Awards after party for all
Speaker 2: his abuse and dysfunction, Hollywood revered, rewarded, and enabled the
Speaker 2: late mogul Don Simpson. So, Matt, looking back on all
Speaker 2: of this, why do you think this reckless, predatory behavior
Speaker 2: was condoned and even reward.
Speaker 3: I think all the evidence is there in his biography.
Speaker 3: He was an incredibly lucrative movie and cash machine, and
Speaker 3: even if you look at how long it took the
Speaker 3: relationship with Bruckheimer to deteriorate, I think that this, given
Speaker 3: the time and the incredible success, it was very hard
Speaker 3: to say no or to turn away from someone like Don,
Speaker 3: with his influence and clearly his relationships with filmmakers.
Speaker 2: I mean, really, when it comes down to it, it's
Speaker 2: about men and power. The euphemism the casting couch, the
Speaker 2: fact that it even exists speaks volumes that we have
Speaker 2: a specific phrase for this, and it's passed down through
Speaker 2: the decades.
Speaker 3: I'll say, one that's used quite casually and used to
Speaker 3: be a punchline as opposed to mcgrave's seriousness. What's also
Speaker 3: really interesting about Don Simpson, specifically to me, is that
Speaker 3: he went on the record and addressed the casting couch,
Speaker 3: even going so far as to debunk it, which is
Speaker 3: sort of like an apex level of predatory behavior where
Speaker 3: you say, oh, this thing is ridiculous, you know, to say, quote,
Speaker 3: I've never gotten laid less than while working in the
Speaker 3: movie business. That is gas lighting and horror to another level.
Speaker 2: And it's almost like Harvey Weinstein was standing on the
Speaker 2: shoulders of Don Simpson in a certain way. I think overall,
Speaker 2: what they do have in common is the fact that
Speaker 2: they used their.
Speaker 3: Power absolutely and you know, with Harvey, I would say
Speaker 3: that any Mirror, Maax or Weinstein Company film could only
Speaker 3: hope to gross as much as movies like Bad Boys
Speaker 3: or Top Gun or any of these incredible hits. But
Speaker 3: what Harvey had influence over specifically was prestige awards, which
Speaker 3: led to, you know, such better careers for women. What
Speaker 3: also really broke my heart about the Don Simpson story
Speaker 3: is take a movie like Flash Dance, which you said
Speaker 3: you loved and so so many women and so many
Speaker 3: people love from that era, to then pretend you're adapting
Speaker 3: it into television and see the halls full of women
Speaker 3: who are hopeful that they might get to take on
Speaker 3: this character who was empowered and different from many portrayals
Speaker 3: of mainstream women on screen. At the time like that
Speaker 3: just to me seems not just cruel but also really predatory.
Speaker 2: Because he kept making money and he was the big guy,
Speaker 2: He's the important guy. They just let it happen, and
Speaker 2: then probably to this day that happens.
Speaker 3: Well, hopefully not, but I'm sure it does. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you one thing though, no one went to Morton's to
Speaker 3: raise a drink to Harvey after he after he fell.
Speaker 2: And there's another thing. This is sort of an aside,
Speaker 2: but it's important to this, is that there's been questioning
Speaker 2: lately in the research I've come across. Has Hollywood moved
Speaker 2: on from me too?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that there's a lot of people speculated
Speaker 3: that after the initial rush, that the pendulum would swing
Speaker 3: back the other way and you would see a lot
Speaker 3: of things play out in courts of law, because again,
Speaker 3: so many of these accusations are past statutes of limitations.
Speaker 3: But what was really interesting to me recently is the
Speaker 3: Julia Armand case, who came forward as an accuser of
Speaker 3: Harvey Weste but not just him, but in a lawsuit
Speaker 3: named the Walt Disney Company and telen AGENCYCAA as complicit
Speaker 3: in his abuse too. That's a really interesting development, and
Speaker 3: I think the evolution of me too is that it's
Speaker 3: not just enough to name and shame your abuser, but
Speaker 3: also to hold accountable the systems that help them.
Speaker 2: On that note, Matt, thank you so much for being
Speaker 2: here today and adding all your great perspectives and insights
Speaker 2: my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Variety Confidential is a production of Variety Content Studio and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts. It was produced by Sidney Kramer, John Ponder,
Speaker 2: and Tracy Patton and written by John Ponder, Tracy Patton,
Speaker 2: and Steve Gatos, with additional research by Karen Mizoguchi. Executive
Speaker 2: producers are Dea Lawrence and Steve Gatos. Variety Confidential is recorded, edited,
Speaker 2: and mixed at the Invisible Studios, West Hollywood. Recording engineer,
Speaker 2: editor and mixer Charles Carroll