WEBVTT - Don Simpson "80s Hits and 80s Excesses" 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.440 This show contains mature content and adult themes. It may 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:11.600 not be suitable for young audiences. 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:18.040 In twenty seventeen, Harvey Weinstein was outed as a serial 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.360 sexual abuser. Many brave women came forward and told their stories. 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.320 They exposed one of Hollywood's most powerful moguls as a 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:32.400 vicious sexual predator who operated horrifically and seemingly without consequences. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.720 But Weinstein was standing on the shoulders of monsters. For 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:41.120 so many years, those monsters remained unchecked in Hollywood, shielded 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.960 by the millions of dollars they made for their studios. 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.880 Sex for fame is not new. In fact, it's as 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.559 old as Hollywood itself. Today we'll open the Variety Archives 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.400 and tell the story of blockbuster movie producer Don Simpson, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.200 the dark princes of movie making. His magic touch for 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.399 producing hits gave him a license to prey on women. 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.800 This is Variety Confidential, the secret history of the casting 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.840 couch from Variety, the leading expert on the entertainment industry, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:20.720 and iHeart Podcasts. I'm Tracy Patton. Today's episode Don Simpson, 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:26.039 Eighties Hits and Eighties Excesses with Me Today is Matt 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.360 Donnelley Variety's senior Entertainment and media writer, Hi Matt Welcome. 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:32.440 Thank you so much for having me. You know, the 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.679 story of Don Simpson and all of his abuses is 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.360 so much to dig into. He was allowed to slide 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.520 for so many years because his movies made a ton 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:40.000 of money. 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.840 Yeah, it sure seems that way. Don Simpson and his 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.720 production partner Jerry Bruckheimer were a power team. They made 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.440 some of the most successful movies in Hollywood history, and 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.800 one of them was Flash Dance, which I really loved absolutely. 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.440 And their biggest hit was Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.040 and if my math is correct, adjusted for inflation, that 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.560 earned over nine one hundred million dollars the world by 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.240 box office in today's value. They also, made, of course 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.800 Top Gun, the Tom Cruise classic in nineteen eighty six. 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.280 Yes, they really were a force in Hollywood. From nineteen 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.160 eighty three to nineteen ninety five, Simpson and Bruckheimer produced 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.720 ten films that made over three billion dollars. At a 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.720 time when Harvey Weinstein was rising to power, Simpson's excesses 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.960 and reckless behavior were enabled and covered up his films. 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.600 Turned actors like Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy into household names. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.520 But as Dawn's stature in town rose, so did his 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:35.440 dark side. 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.160 You're talking about someone who was accused of sexual assault, 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.680 was a known drug abuser and had frequent angry outbursts 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.920 that cost fear among his staff and even his friends. 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.680 And it all came to an end on January nineteenth, 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.120 nineteen ninety six, when he was found dead in his home. 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.560 Police found a cornucopia of prescription drugs, and his death 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.760 led to the investigation of two dozen doctors in Hallllwood. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.000 So as we know, Don, along with Jerry Bruckheimer, became 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.920 a bonafide movie brand in the nineteen eighties. With films 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:13.240 centered around handsome, testosterone driven men placed in high octane scenarios. 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.399 Don and Jerry captured the zeitgeist of the MTV generation 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.079 with hit rock and roll soundtracks to match. For a time, 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.840 it seemed like Don and Jerry could do no wrong. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.040 Don was suddenly one of the top producers in Hollywood. 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:32.080 Unfortunately for many left in his wake, he wielded that 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.800 power in extremely damaging ways. Behind the scenes. The success 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.720 of his film served as a clever vehicle for his 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.280 real interests, which a lot like Weinstein, focused mostly on 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:45.560 money and power. 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.280 So let's talk about Don Simpson's early life. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.200 Yeah, well, he was born on October twenty ninth, nineteen 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.160 forty three, in Seattle. His father was a mechanic at 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.880 Boeing Aircraft. His mother was a homemaker. In nineteen forty five, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.200 the family moved to Anchorage, Alaska. Friends from high school 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.440 remember Don's parents as pleasant and industrialist people. They were 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:07.160 church goers, but not fanatical. 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.000 So we know that Don's career started an entertainment in 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.200 San Francisco. What happened during those early. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.080 Years, Yeah, he did. After college, he went to work 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.440 for an advertising agency in San Francisco. His job was 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.520 to promote Warner Brothers movies in the Bay Area. His 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.479 work got noticed at the studio and Warner Brothers hired 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.120 him to work in the publicity department in Burbank. But 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:32.479 Don didn't fit into Warner's relatively corporate environment. He was 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.599 fired before the year was out. He was out of 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:40.160 work for three years. Eventually, his well connected friends recommended 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.039 him for a job at Paramount. He rose quickly through 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.920 the ranks. By nineteen eighty one, he was president of production. 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.040 At age thirty, three, Don was part of a changing 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.480 of the guard at Paramount and in Hollywood. Studio chairman 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.640 Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, its president and chief operating officer, 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.640 were also in their thirties. He started in television and brought 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.799 a more youthful and aggressive perspective into the movie business. 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.200 Don was also doing a lot of cocaine around this time. 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.200 It was an open secret at the studio, but he 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.280 was by no means the only high profile drug user 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.840 in Hollywood or even at Paramount. In the beginning, the 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.240 studio seemed willing to let his drug use slide, but 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.560 as Don's habit grew, it became a problem that was 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.919 too big to ignore. Eventually, he was fired by Barry 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:31.760 Diller and Michael Eisner, but. 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.640 Not quite fired. Don was given a producer deal in 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.279 the lot after his termination, and this is a common 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.040 occurrence in the industry, especially back then. It's a system 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.640 that allows disgrace producer as an opportunity to save face 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:43.719 and also earn income. 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.080 Yes, and the screenplay they offered him was Flash Dance. 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.839 It was an improbable sounding story about a beautiful young 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.640 steel worker in Pittsburgh who wanted to be a Dancer, 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.640 but Don liked a challenge and his friend Jerry Bruckheimer 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.839 agreed to co produce. Jerry met in nineteen seventy three 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.840 through Jerry's first wife, Bonnie, who had worked with Don 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.200 at Warner Brothers. After Jerry and Bonnie split up, he 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.640 shared a bachelor pad with Don in Laurel Canyon. In 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.680 nineteen eighty three, they set up shop as Don Simpson 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:19.600 Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Flashdance cost seven million dollars to make. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.080 It was released in nineteen eighty three and made ninety 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:28.279 five million dollars domestically. The partnership of Simpson and Bruckheimer 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.640 became an overnight success. High concept stories have plots that 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.520 can be described in a sentence. The plot for Top 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.520 Gun is hot shot Navy Pilot defies the odds, for example, 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.360 The industry's shift to high concept film started when Jaws 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.680 became a surprise hit in the summer of nineteen seventy five. 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.960 It was the first movie to gross over one hundred 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.760 million dollars that's half a billion dollars today. After Jaws, 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.320 studios demanded pictures that would make tens of millions at 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.920 the box office today. The goal is more than a billion. 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:07.279 Top Gun Maverick grossed one point five billion dollars. For example, 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.160 Don and Jerry may not have invented high Concept, but 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.480 they recognized it as a moneymaker for the studio and 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.160 for themselves of course. 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.600 So at this point Don is doing extremely well. With 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:20.920 that comes a lot of power, and with power, as 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.120 we've seen over and over again, comes access to a 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.679 lot of women, which brings us to the casting couch. 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.480 We found a quote from Don in nineteen eighty six 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.080 denying allegations that there was a casting couch in Hollywood. 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:34.240 I'm the kind of guy you would look at me 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.240 and think I would fuck anything that walks, and it 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.440 is true I will. But the casting couch is such 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.040 horseshit that my partner and I laugh about it all 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.360 the time. I have never gotten laid less than while 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.520 in the movie business. He also said, they're taking advantage 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.400 of people, and the people who are being taken advantage 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.680 of aren't that bright. But anybody who thinks they can 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:00.240 fuck their way into this business is an idiot. But 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.480 there is evidence that what Don said was not true. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.720 For example, Jules Shepherd, and actress who appeared in Return 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.080 of the Living Dead and other horror movies, claimed that 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.080 Don propositioned her during an audition. She said that at 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.080 a meeting in his office at Paramount, Don gave her 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.320 a choice. He said they could do coke and have 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.960 sex and she would probably get the part, or she 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.200 could go through the whole charade of auditioning and not 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.720 get the part. Ted Mann, who's written for television shows 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.880 like Homeland and Deadwood, was with Simpson in New York 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.120 when they were auditioning young women for a never made 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.520 TV version of Flash Dance. He said, the hallway outside 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.520 Simpson's hotel suite was lined with these girls. Every thirty 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.640 minutes or so, Simpson would come out, combing his wet hair. 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.040 I'd say, how was the last one, and he'd say 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:53.040 not bad. 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:53.680 Next. 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.400 This went on for an entire day. There's also a 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.080 story that Don scheduled his film shoots to make make 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.320 it easier to hit on wannabe actresses. He told an 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.080 aspiring producer that sex scenes should be scheduled for the 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.200 last two days of production. That would give him extra 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.640 time to offer women the chance to audition for the 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.240 sex scenes. Chip Prosser, a screenwriter who worked for Simpson, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.600 Bruckheimer said, Don showed him his pack of cards, a 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.760 stack of polaroids of nude women he'd photographed in his 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.160 office at Paramount. He told Prosser he'd convince the women 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.880 to pose nude by promising them a part in a movie. 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.160 He had an intense fear of rejection. He once compared 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.559 his and Jerry Bruckheimer's success in picking up women. Don said, 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.240 Jerry will ask nine women to sleep with him, and 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.880 nine will turn him down in a row. The tenth 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.720 woman says yes and he goes home with her. Me, 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.319 I ask one girl to go out with me and 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.920 she says no, and I want to go put my 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.920 head in the oven. His friend, the producer Michael London, said, 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.840 Simpson told me he hung out with hookers because he 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.840 couldn't bear to risk rejection. Call girls were a big 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.040 part of his life. Don's assistants had a tab in 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:09.400 his Rolodex labeled girls. The assistants were required to update 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.559 the women's names and phone numbers. But with all the 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:17.239 beautiful women available in Hollywood, why would someone as powerful 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.960 as Don Simpson pay for sex? Or as Charles Fleming, 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.480 Don Simpson's biographer put it, why with the casting couch. 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:29.600 Such a time honored institution, would any successful Hollywood producer 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.920 require the professional service of a hooker. Fleming suggests that 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.720 the moguls view sex workers as stand ins for women 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.680 who were out of reach before the men achieved power. 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.439 Producer Joel Silver told Fleming, it's the real revenge of 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.520 the nerds. Most of these guys were short, fat, ugly 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.480 kids who couldn't get laid in high school. Now they're 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.560 in control, and they're going to make everyone in the 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.559 world pay for what the world did to them. Simpson 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.959 himself repeated an old line, some times attributed to Clark Gable, 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.880 that you don't pay them to come, you pay them 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.079 to leave. As time went on, he got heavily into 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.719 s and m. In nineteen ninety five, four ex call 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.640 girls wrote a book titled You'll Never Make Love in 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.760 This Town Again. They devoted an entire chapter to Don 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:23.880 Don Simpson and education and pain. They said his serious 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.080 bondage games were like something out of Marquis de Sade. 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.280 In the book, Alexandra Daddock, whose professional name was Tiffany, 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.079 wrote that Don played a video for her when they 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.840 met for the first time. In it, he auditioned call 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.400 girls posing as actresses and then had sex with them. 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.040 He showed Dadig another tape in which a leather clad 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:49.599 dominatrix tortured a beautiful young woman. The scene was hardcore 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:54.080 debauchery that included a toilet, sex toys, and torture devices. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:58.120 Dadig wrote, both women were prostitutes, but what Don and 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.880 the dominatrix did to this girl should have gotten them 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.560 both thrown in prison. Don could be as nervous about 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.920 dates with call girls as he was about dating non professionals. 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.360 Screenwriter Joe Esterhouse remembered partying with Don and Jerry in 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.600 New York, where they were planning a never produced sequel 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.679 to Flashdance. Don called an escort service and arranged dates 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.760 for the evening. Esterhouse said that during the half hour 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.960 wait for the women, Simpson guzzled a quarter bottle of gin. 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.920 It was pure nerves. He was like a little kid 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.440 waiting for his date to show up. Eventually, he became 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.880 one of the biggest clients of the infamous Hollywood madam 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.000 Heidi Flies. One former call girl said Heidiwood entice women 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.960 into taking dates at Don's house by promising them auditions. 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.120 She would allegedly say if you go on this trick, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.520 you'll make ten thousand dollars, plus you'll meet Don Simpson 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.360 and he can put you in his next movie. In fact, 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.640 he did cast a few of Heidi's girls in bit 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.439 parts in the World of Drugs and Professional Sex, You'll 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.720 also find Mobsters. In its March thirty first, twenty twenty 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.720 two edition, The Telegraph in London reported that he once 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.520 crashed a car into the side of a house, which 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.760 left the car halfway stuck in the wall. Simpson blamed 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.320 his passenger, former Playboy centerfold Kathy Saint George, claiming she 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.640 had been behind the wheel, But Saint George was dating 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.680 a man with mob connections, and men claiming to be 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.559 mobsters turned up at Simpson's house. They ultimately extorted him 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.280 for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.880 So the nineties are really when Don started having trouble 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.600 at work. I imagine that his addiction to drugs and 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:40.599 women were at the root of that. 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:42.920 Well, for one thing, he was the cliche of the 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:47.520 bad Hollywood boss. His tantrums were impossible to ignore. Petty 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.600 things would set him off. Don claimed his father was 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.920 physically abusive. None of his Alaska friends remember that, but 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.319 years later his mother was on the phone with one 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.360 of his assistants when she heard Don going off on 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.000 another assistant in the background. His mother admitted that she 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:05.760 used to put him in the closet when he lost 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.800 his temper. She said, pay no attention to his temper tantrums. 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.760 But his tantrums were impossible to ignore. Petty things would 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.000 set him off. He fired assistants because they put cream 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.280 in his coffee when he was dieting, or because they 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:25.040 served it black when he was not. He demanded perfect bagels. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.320 An ex assistant said if his bagel was toasted too much, 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.040 he'd have a heart attack. If you got the wrong 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.680 kind of mustard, you were dead. It had to be frenches. 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.360 At the Regency in New York, he yelled at the 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.720 housekeepers because someone had pressed and starched his jeans. I 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.120 asked for fluff and fold. He screamed, how dare you 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:52.080 fluff and fold? He vandalized a hotel room during another tantrum. 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.680 A former assistant said he couldn't open the window, so 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.320 he just tossed a chair through it. In nineteen ninety, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.920 a talent and told an interviewer that Don was egotistical 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:08.000 and megalomaniacal. He's irrational and out of control until he 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.720 gets his way, but everybody deals with him because they 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:15.320 have to. His movies make money. Many of the journalists 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.120 who try to report on Don Simpson found themselves on 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.840 the receiving end of threats and strong arm tactics. Courtesy 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.440 of names like private investigator Anthony Pelicano and, in the 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:30.720 words of journalist Charles Fleming, legendary rough litigator Burt Fields. 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.520 They became ubiquitous as enforcers for Simpson's take no prisoner's 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.280 approach to the entertainment industry, and the linkage between aras 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:43.200 has other significant figures who either began with Simpson or 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:48.480 whose careers were supercharged by his big spending ways. For decades, 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.800 event planner and pr consultant Peggy Siegel reigned as one 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:57.320 of New York's busiest entertainment movers and shakers until, as 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.120 Town and Country magazine put it in twenty nineteen, and 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.760 the old school power publicist fell off a cliff. That's 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:09.040 when Siegel's networking efforts on behalf of convicted sexual predator 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:13.120 Jeffrey Epstein put her in the crosshairs of the same media. 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.640 She had spent decades courting for her many Oscar competitor clients, 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.040 including most notably Harvey Weinstein. But before all of that, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.400 in nineteen eighty three, Siegel was hired by Simpson to 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:29.440 launch his personal brand of celebrityhood via a series of 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:34.120 wildly extravagant parties in the Colorado ski resort of Aspen. 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:39.240 These star packed bacchanalls were fueled by unlimited amounts of cash, 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.840 top shelf champagne and pure Bolivian cocaine. 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.840 There was a sexual harassment lawsuit as well that was 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.200 a big story for Variety and not nearly as prevalent 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:50.000 as they are today. 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.520 Yes, and he was sued by a former assistant named 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.040 Monica Harmon in nineteen eighty nine. She alleged that she 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.760 was forced to schedule meetups with sex workers. She also 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.800 stated that he played porn videos in his office and 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:06.119 that he had used drugs in the office in front 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.919 of her. And on top of that, she claimed she 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.200 had to clean up coke in his office and his bathroom, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.280 and allegedly he said things to her like you fucked 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.720 up again, you stupid bitch. You can't do anything right. 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.560 She claimed that Simpson's abuse caused her to lose sleep 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:26.479 and have headaches, muscular tension, and stress. She asked for 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.080 five million dollars in damages. 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:30.320 Which John could have easily paid off. 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:35.119 Correct, Yeah, I would say, But he played hardball. He 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.320 brought in Bert Fields, one of the big Hollywood fix 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.119 it lawyers. He also hired the notorious Hollywood private eye 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.960 Anthony Pelicano. Together they made the classic play against Monica Harmon. 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.200 They put her on trial. Pelicano found witnesses who said 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.919 Monica regularly used cocaine, and he found receipts from her 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:58.880 video store that proves she'd rented porn, which is obviously 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:03.440 not indicative of any wrongdoing, but I digress. Bert Fields 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:08.200 ran circles around Monica's attorneys in court. He also countersued Monica, 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.359 also for five million dollars. In the end, the case 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.160 was dismissed. They had become so successful that by nineteen 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.600 ninety they were able to negotiate a deal of mind 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:24.240 blowing proportions with paramount three hundred million dollars over five 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.760 years to make any five movies they chose. That's about 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.879 seven hundred million dollars today. In May that year, Dawn 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.840 told Variety columnist Army Archard, we feel this is our 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.840 best movie to date, but they went way over budget, 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.119 filming on location on NASCAR tracks. After its release in June, 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:49.480 Days of Thunder underperformed, with worldwide grosses under one hundred 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.959 million dollars, Paramount canceled its production deal with Simpson Bruckheimer. 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.399 Dawn took it very hard. He began to retreat to 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:00.800 his mansion in bel Air nine twenty one. Don and 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.320 Jerry signed with Disney in nineteen ninety five. They came 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.600 out with Crimson Tide, Dangerous Minds, and Bad Boys, all 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:12.320 big hits, but by then it was too late for 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:13.160 Don Simpson. 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:15.680 So as Don's drug use began to take a toll 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.240 on his work and, most significantly, his relationship with Jerry Bruckheimer. 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:21.639 He did go to rehab and spend tens of thousands 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:22.880 of dollars in trying to get clean. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.040 Yes he did. He was in and out of the 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.639 Meninger Clinic in Kansas and the Hazleton Center in Minnesota 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.760 several times. He also tried the Betty Ford Center in 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:36.480 Palm Springs and AA. He also dabbled in Scientology. He 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.119 had worked with Tom Cruise, who was a member. In 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.679 an interview later, Don said that after spending thousands of 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:47.080 dollars and working for months on what scientology calls going clear, 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.040 he asked his counselor, I've almost gone clear. Why aren't 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.080 I happier? The counselor said he would be happy when 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.439 he went through OT three or achieved a third level 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.760 operating Thetan plateau. In other words, words, the goalpost had 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.639 been moved and the cost had gone up. Don said, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.720 at that point, I realized it was a con. At 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.399 one point, he tried a very risky strategy for kicking 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:18.119 his addictions. He hired a physician, doctor Stephen Amerman, to 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.480 live on his estate and treat him full time. The 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:26.080 doctor's strategy was to prescribe drugs to manage Don's withdrawal symptoms. 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:31.960 One expert later called the strategy dangerously unorthodox. Doctor Amerman 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:36.320 was also a recovering addict. He had a serious relapse 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.960 that summer that ended with his death at Don's poolhouse 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:44.679 on August seventeenth, nineteen ninety five. The police report noted 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.040 that the scene had been sanitized, meaning evidence of drug 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.520 use had been removed or hidden. The autopsy found the 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:56.000 cause of death to be multiple drug intoxication. Toxicologists found 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.720 a deadly mix of cocaine, morphine, and valume in his system. 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.160 The death of doctor Amerman should have been a wake 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.000 up call for Don Simpson, but in retrospect the call 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.440 may have come too late. But it was a wake 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.760 up call for Jerry Bruckheimer. Four months later, he and 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:19.240 Don announced that they were closing Simpson Bruckheimer. It was amicable. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.280 They would continue to work together on projects they already 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.600 had in the pipeline, but from that point forward they 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.479 would both become independent producers. In the fall of nineteen 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.439 ninety five, Don considered treatment for his addiction with a 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:37.080 doctor who specialized in using hormones to control mood disorders. 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.280 During a routine physical exam, the doctor found that Don 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:45.439 was in immediate danger of sudden heart failure. He warned 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.399 Don that his heart could stop beating at any moment. 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.040 When it happened, it would most likely be quote either 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.280 at the dinner table, on the can or when waking up. 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.000 Don ignored the warning and went to another doctor who 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:04.160 gave him a more hope full prognosis on Thursday, January eighteenth, 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:08.119 nineteen ninety six. Don had been holed up at home 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.320 for weeks. He met for three hours that day with 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:14.240 his lawyer, his agent, and his brother Larry to discuss 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.280 a potential new production deal in the works at Universal. 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.520 He was upbeat for a change. He felt good about 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:25.520 his prospects. Casey Silver, a former Simpson Bruckheimer development director, 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.720 was now head of development at Universal. Don had an inn. 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:32.879 The ball was in Casey's court and Don expected his 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:35.840 call at any minute. Later that day, he took a 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.200 call from James Toback, the screenwriter and director, who was 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.760 seeking advice on a script. The call lasted five hours, 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.640 Toback said later, we had this marathon, multi hour conversation, 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:51.440 after which he drifted into sleep. When Don woke up, 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.520 he grabbed a copy of the new biography of director 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:59.080 Oliver Stone and went into the master bath. His housekeepers 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:02.840 arrived around five o'clock. One of them found his body 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:06.760 on the floor next to the toilet. The biography of 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:10.320 Oliver Stone was lying at his feet. 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.720 And this is when staff at the house called Don's assistant. 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:17.119 Yes Todd Morrero. He then phoned Don's lawyers, Jerry Bruckheimer 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.640 and probably others. We know that two of Don's attorneys 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:24.360 arrived at the house within minutes. Morrero eventually called nine 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.720 one one and EMS arrived in fifteen minutes. LAPD and 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:33.200 coroner investigators arrived later. Sixty three of the eighty bottles 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:37.080 of medication police found were prescribed by the late doctor 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:41.200 Stephen Amerman. The police report echoed the report on doctor 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:46.720 Amerman's death. The scene had been sanitized and decedent is 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:51.800 said to have histories of PCP and cocaine abuse, possibly marijuana. 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:56.000 There were thousands of mind altering prescription medications in the house, 0:23:56.520 --> 0:23:59.560