Indecent Exposure Page 4

  Seth Hufstedler, a former president of the California and Los Angeles County bar associations, was a slim, unassuming man in his middle fifties with white hair and a small beard and mustache. He spoke with a quiet resonance and his manner was calm, precise, and unemotional. After hearing Robertson's story, Hufstedler said he would report the matter to law enforcement authorities immediately. Cliff made clear that he did not want to spearhead any prosecution of David Begelman but would be willing to testify if the authorities began a legal proceeding. That seemed reasonable to Seth. Cliff remarked that he hoped he wouldn't have to interrupt his trip to New Zealand.

  *Seth Hufstcdler's wife. Shirley Hufstedler was a federal appeals court judge in Los Angeles and later was named U.S. Secretary of Education by President Jimmy Carter.

  "Where are you staying?" "The Bel-Air Hotel."

  "If I were you I wouldn't stay in a hotel," Hufstedler said. "Not to overdramatizc this, but we have no way of knowing at this point how big this is, who else may be involved, or where it all may lead. Begelman knows you've raised questions. Until we have a better handle on the dimensions, and until we put it in the proper law enforcement channels, you probably should stay away from public places in this community where you'll be recognized."

  "Well, I guess I'll have to call some friends and sec what I can arrange. There aren't that many people here that I'm really close to."

  "I'd stay away from people in the industry as much as possible."

  Coming from Seth Hufstedler, perhaps the calmest man Robertson knew, the admonition to lie low worried him almost as much as the revelation of Begelman's crime. He walked out to the reception area where Heather was waiting.

  "Gee, Daddy, when are we going to the hotel?"

  "Honey, what was the name of your friend who went to Disneyland with us a couple of months ago? Do you have her phone number?"

  Heather produced the number from a tiny address book. She and the other youngster had been classmates—and had become close friends—when Heather had attended school in Los Angeles during the filming of Washington: Behind Closed Doors. The friend was one of four daughters of a film editor and the family lived in a modest old home in Central Hollywood. Robertson got the man on the phone and explained that the hotel had misplaced his reservation. He was having difficulty reaching other friends, he said, and wondered if he and Heather could stay overnight. If the idea that a famous film actor could not get a hotel room in Los Angeles strained the man's credulity, he didn't show it, and welcomed the Robertsons warmly.

  It was late afternoon by the time Cliff and Heather left Seth Hufstedler's office. The lawyer consulted his law partner, Samuel Williams, who was then serving as president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, a civilian oversight body. Williams telephoned the assistant chief of police, who sent to Scth Hufstedler's office the captain in command of the police department's bunco-forgery division and the lieutenant in charge of the specialized forgery unit. After hearing Hufstedler's account of the forgery, the captain said that the LAPD probably would have to refer the case to the police departments in Burbank, where Columbia Pictures was located, and in Beverly Hills, where the forgery itself apparently had occurred.

  Cliff telephoned Dina in Illinois and told her the news, but he made only a few other calls and did not leave the house in Hollywood until it was time to go to the airport on Thursday morning. Although he kept up an amiable front—sitting in the living room reading, or playing with the girls, or just staring out the window into the hazy sunshine—he felt an upsetting mixture of worry, disbelief, resentment, and confusion. He felt like a fugitive, a spy in hiding, a witness in protective custody. "Tip of the iceberg" were the words Bud Kahaner had used. "Hydrogen bomb." Cliff conjured up notions of high crime and hit men. But that's silly, isn't it? Why me? Why did Begelman have to pick my name to forge?

  Cliff mused a lot about David that day. What gall it must have taken to forge a check in as blatant a manner as this one had been forged! But perhaps he shouldn't be so shocked. Cliff had never particularly liked David, even when they were client and agent. They had different personalities, different backgrounds, different values. And since the episode that had come to be known as the Red Baron affair. Cliff actually had thoroughly despised and distrusted David.

  The Red Baron had been a genuine fiasco.

  Shortly after the success of Charly. Cliff had received a number of lucrative film offers but had declined them all because he wanted to write, direct, and star in a film centering on one of his hobbies— old airplanes. He had been approached by a man from Ireland who owned several World War I fighter planes in excellent condition. Cliff had persuaded Cinerama Incorporated, the company that had distributed Charly, to put up $150,000 to enable him to go to Ireland and film some aerial combat sequences. David Begelman had negotiated the deal on Cliffs behalf, and Cliff had written a treatment for a script tentatively titled I Shot Down the Red Baron. I Think. As Cliff understood the arrangement, if Cinerama liked the combat footage, it would finance the rest of the movie. If not. Cliff would have the option of reimbursing Cinerama its $150,000 and owning the project himself.

  By the lime the filming in Ireland was completed several months later. Cinerama was in financial difficulty, chose not to proceed with the movie, and demanded that Cliff refund its money immediately. Cliff claimed that while he had an option to buy the film, he had no obligation to buy it. He promised, however, to try to obtain financing for the film from another company and reimburse Cinerama when and if he was able to do so. The argument dragged on, and to Cliffs consternation, David Begelman sided with Cinerama. Begelman even went so far as voluntarily to swear out an affidavit saying that Cliff indeed had an obligation to repay the money to Cinerama immediately. Robertson was enraged.

  "David, I want you to keep this straight and honest, this whole relationship, and I don't want you leading anybody down the garden path, and I don't want you in any way to indicate other than the truth. . . ." Cliff had warned Begelman at the time.

  Robertson and Begelman had disputes, as well, over David's agent's commission from Charly and over other issues. The agent-client relationship was terminated, and subsequently Cinerama used David Begelman's affidavit against Robertson as the basis for suing Cliff for the Red Baron money. Defending himself in a sworn deposition, Robertson called Begelman a liar. "It was more and more apparent to me that something wasn't right in the dialogue between Begelman and Cinerama," Cliff testified. "I had the feeling that I was gradually being sandbagged. ... I felt I had been completely subverted by my own agent in my moment of despair, anguish, and shock" (when Cinerama claimed Cliff owed the money).

  After a year of bitter wrangling, Robertson reluctantly agreed to pay Cinerama 525,000 plus an additional $25,000 if the Red Baron picture ever was made. The suit thereby was settled, but Robertson never forgave Begelman. They didn't speak again until an inconsequential meeting on another topic a few years later. Cliff thought David might take that opportunity to express at least a little regret over the Red Baron episode. Begelman not only failed to mention the incident but was so unabashedly friendly that Cliff later remarked to Dina that he had been appalled at David's insensitivity. There had been one or two other brief encounters. David had even stopped Cliff on the beach at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1976, to compliment him on Obsession. The next time they had spoken, however, was two weeks ago Saturday when Begelman had telephoned to assure Cliff he would "clarify" the $10,000 "misunderstanding" and then had invited Cliff to lunch. Now, David stood revealed as a forger, an embezzler, and again, a liar of staggering proportions.

  The man's gall is beyond all imagining. Cliff thought, as he nervously idled away the hours in the house in Hollywood.

  Airborne for New Zealand the next morning, Cliff felt better. To the extent that he had been in hiding, he had escaped, at least temporarily. He was putting distance between himself and a difficult situation which was now in the hands of someone else. His past troubles with David
Begelman were irrelevant. In this instance, he had simply witnessed a crime and reported it—the duty of any citizen. Surely the police would take appropriate action against Begelman.

  To underscore the end of two difficult days, Cliff asked one of the first-class stewardesses to bring him a small bottle of champagne. Whether it was a tiny celebration or just a way to relieve tension was unimportant. He deserved it.

  "What are you doing, Daddy? It isn't even noon yet," asked a surprised Heather.

  "Sweetheart, there are times in everyone's life when he is inclined to have a little extra to drink."

  FIVE

  As the senior vice president in charge of "physical production," John Veitch was Columbia Pictures' highest ranking nuts-and-bolts man. Veitch had come to Hollywood from New York in the late forties, working first as an actor and then as a production manager. He had worked on Some Like It Hot. The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Magnificent Seven, and Major Dundee, among other films. Many years later, it was Veitch, an impeccably groomed man with white hair and a deep tan, who exercised daily scrutiny over the complex logistics and vast quantity of hardware involved in the making of Columbia's movies. He oversaw the securing of sufficient quantities of horses for Westerns and sufficient numbers of automobiles for chase scenes. He made sure that they did not cost too much and that they were transported to the right locations at the right time. He concerned himself with bad weather, faulty cameras and lights, temperamental people, and all the other impediments to on-budget, on-schedule movie making. He and his assistants monitored all of Columbia's films in progress, whether that required strolling across the Burbank lot to a sound stage, or flying to Africa.

  On the morning of Tuesday, July 5, John Veitch was at an optical facility in the Marina del Rey section of Los Angeles watching technicians complete the elaborate special effects for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His secretary telephoned and said that a Detective Elias of the Burbank Police needed to see him. Elias wouldn't say what it was about. It couldn't be handled on the telephone. Veitch asked that the detective come to his office in the Columbia executive suite at The Burbank Studios that afternoon-Robert Elias turned out to be a short Mexican-American in his forties with curly salt-and-pepper hair, a round, fleshy face, and a small potbelly. He wore a bright, open-collared sport shirt outside his trousers to conceal the .38 caliber service revolver on his belt. Although he normally answered his phone, "Check Detail, Elias," check forgers did not confront him as often as small businessmen who cooked their books and used-car salesmen who stole credit cards. David Begelman was Bob Elias's first movie-mogul forgery suspect.

  Elias showed John Veitch an LAPD memorandum on Seth Hufstedler's report of the forgery. Learning of the matter for the first time, Veitch said he was certain that there had been a mistake and that it was inconceivable that Begelman (who was then on a two-week trip to Europe) could have forged a check. Detective Elias said that if Columbia, as the apparent victim, wanted the police to conduct a formal investigation, the studio would have to file a complaint. Immediately after Elias left, Veitch telephoned David Begelman at the Plaza Athdncc Hotel in Paris. Begelman asked Veitch to see if the detective could come to the studio on Friday, July 15, David's first day back in the office after his trip.

  Instead of seeing Elias that morning, Begelman telephoned the detective and told him that what appeared to be a forgery actually had resulted from an error in the Columbia accounting department and had been rectified internally.

  "Columbia appreciates the concern and interest of the police department," Begelman said, "but there will be no need for an investigation." David sounded sincere and truthful. His speaking persona, particularly on the telephone, had always been one of his assets. Assured and forthright, cultured and articulate, and without a trace of snake-oil resonance, his voice was youthful—the voice of a man at least two decades younger than his fifty-six years. Detective Elias thanked Begelman for his help in resolving the matter.

  Caressed by Muzak. Begelman sat at his elaborate faux marbre desk and thought about the check and about Cliff Robertson. John Veitch's call to Paris had stunned David. In a quarter of a century as an agent and four years as a studio head, he had never encountered a situation quite like this one. David had been confident in June that he had assuaged Cliff"s concern, but obviously he had miscalculated. Although he was relieved that he had deflected Detective Elias so easily, he suspected that he had not heard the last of the issue; that he might never hear the last of it; that even now it might be beyond his control. Why had Robertson gone to the police? Why had he gone to what must have been extraordinary lengths to investigate Begelman's story of the young man's embezzlement, when Bud Kahaner and Michael Black had accepted it without question? One thing certainly was clear. Using Robertson's name to steal the money in the first place had been a big mistake, even though it had seemed perfectly logical at the time. Robertson had, indeed, been making a promotional tour for Obsession, and giving expense money to actors was a frequent practice of the studio. The accounting department had no reason to question Begelman's request for the check. After having it drawn, he had kept it in his desk for nearly a week. Then, late one afternoon, he had telephoned his friend Joe Lipshcr, who handled loans to the entertainment industry at the Wells Fargo Bank, and said he needed $10,000 in traveler's checks for a trip the next day. To accommodate Begelman, Lipsher sent an assistant from Beverly Hills to The Burbank Studios with the traveler's checks. The assistant accepted the Robertson check as payment without question, but when Lipsher saw it the next morning he telephoned Begelman and expressed concern about the absence of a second endorsement on the check. Begelman assured Lipsher that it was just an oversight; he was going to be traveling with Robertson and they both would be using the money. Lipsher, a veteran Beverly Hills banker who had learned long ago that it was poor diplomacy to enforce strict banking discipline on major studio clients unnecessarily, wished Begelman bon voyage and approved the check.

  Begelman had an enjoyable and very restful vacation in Bermuda over the next several days, despite the fact that stolen money and lies were paying for it. He had stolen in the past without being caught and he would steal again. Although he didn't plan his embezzlements as carefully as a bank robber planned a complicated heist, he wasn't reckless either, always making sure he had a plausible alibi in case questions were raised. Until now, questions had not been raised and wouldn't have been in this instance were it not for the IRS Form 1099. The 1099, however, wasn't the heart of the problem. Cliff Robertson was. Almost anyone would have accepted Begelman's "young man" story without question. Why had Robertson bothered to challenge the explanation, especially since he hadn't lost any money?

  Begelman thought back to the Red Baron episode. Surely that couldn't have anything to do with Robertson's state of mind in the summer of 1977. As intense as the dispute had been, Begelman had never looked upon it as anything more than an argument over a business deal—the sort of thing that inevitably happened occasionally in the jungle of contracts and deals in which the entertainment industry functioned. Begelman didn't take business disagreements personally and knew few people who did. Could it be that Robertson was one of those few? It hadn't seemed so. They had had one or two cordial encounters since the Red Baron incident.

  However, Robertson's career hadn't gone well in recent years. He hadn't had a hit movie and was less and less in demand. Was it possible that he I...J become frustrated, and harbored deep resentment against Begelman all these years, and now was seizing the opportunity of a forged check to try to get even?

  Begelman tried to telephone Robertson but couldn't locate him. His calls, however, prompted the Prager & Fcnton office to warn Evelyn Christel: "Don't talk to David Begelman unless you talk first to Bud Kahaner. If Begelman calls, say Cliff is out of the country."

  Concealing his concern over the Robertson matter, David Begelman kept a date that Friday afternoon with a New York Times photographer, who was preparing pictures for an article
on "The New Tycoons of Hollywood" which the Times was planning to publish in August.

  Begelman posed with his Rolls-Royce. With a prominent nose, puffy facial features, receding dark hair, and shallow eyes, David was a plain man, capable of appearing modestly handsome through meticulous grooming, stylish dress, and the assertion of his notably charming, ingratiating personality. Attired this day in dark blazer, polka-dot tie, light slacks, and loafers, he leaned against the left front fender of the Rolls with his ankles crossed and his hands in the side pockets of his blazer. The expression on his face was serene. He looked like a man at the top of his game.

  Actually, Cliff Robertson was not out of the country. He was ensconced in the house on Hackberry Lane in Winnetka where Dina was still working on the Altman picture, A Wedding. He had returned with Heather after ten days in New Zealand raising mental health funds and another ten days in Tahiti vacationing, and now was studying the script of a motion picture which he was to begin filming in London with Jean Simmons in mid-September. He also had just agreed to direct and star in a movie based on Pulitzer Prize winner James Kirkwood's novel Good Times. Bad Times, a story of tragedy at a New England preparatory school.

  It had been well over a month since he had reported Begelman's forgery and, so far as Cliff knew, the police in Los Angeles had done nothing except ask him to swear out an affidavit of forgery. Even such a simple, preliminary request as that—from a detective in Beverly Hills—hadn't come until early August. Cliff mailed the affidavit to attorney Seth Hufstedler, who also seemed mystified by the lack of police action. "They [the police] all seem a little at a loss about how to proceed in a matter where somebody reports something to them that appears to be a crime but nobody wants to be a prosecuting witness," Hufstedler told Robertson. "That confuses me because I thought the job of the police department was to investigate on its own."