INT: The question is, "Any questions you have ask Steve Binder," and you put people together, did you get credit on it? Or was this Diana's production and you did the work?
SB: No, no I got credit. I have a good relationship with her [Diana Ross].

INT: So, now you go out to Central Park [for the filming of DIANA ROSS WORLDWIDE FROM NEW YORK: FOR ONE AND ALL], you've got the fourteen cameras, you've linked them out, and then what happens?
SB: Well, the night before we actually did the concert, and we're all set up technically, the stage is there and I hired somebody I'd wanted to work with for years which is a Broadway Art Director, Tony Walton. Who's married to Julie Andrews. [INT: Yes. Tony Walton's fabulous.] I felt-- [INT: He was married to Julie Andrews early on.] Yeah. Right. And I felt that two hours of Diana Ross all by her little self on a stage, and we didn't know exactly how many people were going to come. It turned out there were literally, because we were forced to do the concert a second day, but there were well over a million people in that park participating in this. The first day, the first night, before we knew the rain storm was going to hit they were, all the New York papers were estimating there were at least six hundred fifty thousand to seven hundred fifty thousand people. And because we did it over again the next day, we had another six hundred or seven hundred thousand. I still meet people who tell me they were mugged in Central Park who didn't come to the concert, they just happened to be having dinner at the Tavern on the Green or were in Manhattan at the time, walking by the park. But what happened was, is that after it was all organized, we're all ready to go and I had figured out all my camera configurations, I had four money cameras that I felt were the really, really important ones. I had two Chapman cranes that were maybe thirty to fifty feet out, or fifty yards out into the green area. We had a high stage and then I put two small dolly Chapman's on the stage itself so they could take the angles. Variety television is shot by many, many Directors head-on, and anybody that's been in film, you realize your real salt is, you know, I mean, the real good stuff comes from the-- [INT: Cross angles.] Angular, you know? So, and when I started out, I mean, if a singer sang on a mark on the stage, I shot 'em looking at 'em like I would look at 'em if I was standing in front of them. It took an evolution to kind of learn, you know, where to place the cameras, what the camera angles would be. The small dolly cameras on the stage ended up being my real money cameras. They really got some spectacular shots. The two big Chapman cranes, we anticipated and built fences around them. Wooden fences. The night before, Barry Diller drove Diana [Diana Ross] to the park and I'm there working with Tony Walton. I decided that Diana would have a difficult time if nothing else was happening other she had one dance number with Michael Peters, she had a group of kids doing an African thing that we eliminated on the second day. And so I went to Tony Walton and I said, "Tony, how do we change the backgrounds?" And Tony said, "Well, you know, opera uses a big canvas that rolls and maybe we could rent one from the, you know, from the opera house?" and so forth. He called me in my hotel and he said, "They won't rent it to us 'cause we're outdoors and they think that might rain." And I said, "No chance of rain, you know, not gonna happen." And then he came to me and he said, "I got it," He said, "We're gonna build a, we're gonna get a boat mast and put it behind the stage and I'm gonna make a whole series of flags that I can pull down and raise up with different colors and different patterns." And so it's brilliant. And that's basically what we did. Now, the night before, Tony and I are out on the stage and we're talking different, you know, set looks and so forth, different flags, when they go up, when they go down. Diana shows up with Barry Diller, and she walks out onto the stage, I'm standing next to her and she's looking out and I'm saying, you know, "We have enough monitors, we have these big screens, we have enough audio monitors that you could hear in New Jersey what's gonna go on here tomorrow night."

SB: I'm pleased with myself 'cause we've really, you know, we got it all set up to go and she walks away and whispers to Barry Diller, and Diller comes over to me and he says, "Your two Chapman cranes have to go." I said, "What are you talking about?", "Diana's afraid they're going to block the audience." And I said, "Barry, you know, when you fill this park with bodies, you know, you're not even gonna see these cranes. It's a no-brainer. I mean, you know? And these are important cameras. It's not like we're doing a live event, we're filming this. And it's going all over the world and tomorrow after the show Diana's gonna say, "Let me look at what you did." and we're gonna show her without two of the major cameras?" He goes back and he talks to her and I go back to Diana, you know, twenty five years by then or so. Thirty years. And she's not talking to me and he comes over and he says, "Steve, you're bright enough, you know, you're smart enough, you're great enough Director, you can get rid of those cameras. You can figure out how to do it." And I said, "Barry, there's nothing in my life that I'd rather do at this moment then to get rid of those cameras, but I can't." I said, "You didn't bring me from Los Angeles and I'm not directing Diana Ross if I'm not here to protect her. And those cameras are staying as long as I'm directing." So he goes back and he tells Diana. By this time, she's crying and, you know, I feel terrible but I'm not going to take those cameras away. I now go back to my hotel room, you know, we barely nod at each other as I leave and I'm sure I'm going to be fired and I'm already getting ready to pack my bags and head back to L.A. and my script supervisor, Chris Safir calls me in my hotel room and she said, "Diana asked me, "Is Steve threatening me?"" I said, "I guess I am, Chris, you might as well tell her. But those cameras are important cameras. I'm not gonna to take 'em down." Diana knocks on my door in the apartment, she's all by herself. I open up the hotel door, she comes in, and she's crying. And I said, "What's wrong, Diana?" And she said, "Steve, you've gotta get rid of those cameras." And I said, "Diana, either I'm going or they're going. But I'm not going, they're not going if I'm gonna be here directing." She said, "Is that your final decision?" And I said, "It's absolutely my final decision. I'm here to protect you. You know? You're the star and you're gonna need those cameras when I show you the show."

SB: She [Diana Ross during the filming of DIANA ROSS WORLDWIDE FROM NEW YORK: FOR ONE AND ALL] doesn't say anything, she walks out the thing, and now I can't sleep the rest of the night. It's the night before I'm shooting and the next day I haven't gotten any phone calls, haven't been fired, or whatever and I get dressed, and I catch a cab and I head to the park and first person I run into is Diana. She's all bubbly, she's old Diana, you know? "Steve, isn't this exciting? It's gonna be a great day!" And she comes over and gives me a big kiss and a big hug and everything. She said, "We're gonna have so much fun today." and she says, "I'm doing a press conference, why don't you come with me?" You know? "This one's between you and me." You know? So I go to the press conference and, you know, she's fielding questions from the press and she's all excited about it, and I realize it had nothing to do with the cameras, ever. It had to do with her, what you said earlier, she was scared to death and she had to find something, you know. I think back, a lot of my career and I realize some of the most petty confrontations happened that have absolutely no relationship to what you're talking about, you know? Years ago somebody, when I did Petula Clark and Harry Belafonte, the executive at the, the president of Plymouth Motor division calls me and says, "Before we start talking, we must never let logic enter this conversation." It's a great quote and that's what's happened throughout my entire career. She actually totally respected me for doing what I did because it had nothing to do, I didn't want to take the cameras down. She was just looking for the out in case it bombed, of how she could say, "I failed. Steve Binder didn't take the cameras away. I told him the audience couldn't see." You know? Or whatever. But Actors are terrified when they get in front of that camera. And they've got to be constantly protected and given the strength that they're working with somebody who's, you know, not on an ego trip, not doing something so they get their, you know, name in lights. It's they're there protecting me, making me feel secure.

SB: And it was a huge, huge success and what happened, which happens with Diana Ross a lot, what would have been just another concert in Central Park, just like Barbara Streisand, just like Simon & Garfunkel [Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel], turned out to be a international news event because of this humungous rainstorm, you know, and she became a superstar controlling the crowd and making sure nobody was trampled, nobody was injured. She stood out there in the rain, I kept filming, and to me, like Elvis' improv, the forty minutes or so that we did in this rainstorm is so far superior to the clean concert we did the next day in sunshine, you know, it didn't have that kind of danger connected to it. And whenever you do something different, you know, I always say talent is, you know, meat in a butcher's shop. If you're not known, you're not a star, you're ground round, you know? They'll buy you for ninety nine cents, but if you're a star they'll pay any amount of money to get you in their picture 'cause they're only thinking box office. And I always have taken the position of nobody owns me, you know, I'm making these choices all by myself. Lots of, you know, in recent years, even Disney [Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group], which has a notorious reputation for tramping over talent, never interfered when I did these specials for them. They, you know, evidently they'd gotten the word before I got there that this is a guy who likes doing it his way and on his own. The very last show I did for Disney, when they were under tremendous pressure to close their variety division, turn it over to ABC, let them handle all the Disney shows directly, I started getting, from a friend of mine who was an executive at Disney, who'd never interfered with me, I started getting all kinds of notes in editing of things they wanted changed in the last Michelle Kwan special and finally he brought in some changes and I said, "I'm not doing them." And he said, "What do you mean you're not doing them?" I said, "You had your chance. We had talked about, you know, I don't want fifteen Disney executives. You're the point person, I told you to go get everybody's opinion, bring me one list, and I'd make the decision whether I wanted to use it or I didn't want to use it." There was a famous Manager, Ray Katz [Raymond Katz], who partnered with a Manager called Sandy Gallin, his nephew. They handled Cher, Dolly Parton, the list goes on and on of stars. And when I did the Mac Davis series, somebody asked Ray, you know, "What do you think of Steve Binder?" And I was directing all the shows. He said "Steve Binder is great. He listens to every word I say and then he does it exactly as he damn pleases." But I never got fired. And I think a lot of Directors think by playing ball and letting other people tell you what to do is gonna give you job security, I feel the opposite. I've seen so many people come and go in this business. Lots of Directors. They got really good gigs, you know, and they were walked over by the crew, by the studio, by whatever, and they have a tough time getting another job. The guys who've really stood their ground, you know, fought the battles, etcetera, are the ones who make a name for themselves and have longevity.

INT: Totally agree. I mean this is fabulous and we're getting there. We obviously have huge amounts to deal with but, I think we're running, I'm gonna just start hitting you with a few things. What's the difference between Producers and Directors in variety?
SB: In variety, it used to be the Producer would have sold a show or had been hired to execute the show, and then hires the Director and tells the Director, "Okay, I get everything before you get to the stage, you get everything when you're on the stage." That's utopia and that's theoretical. Now it's a case of where, you know, when CAA [Creative Artists Agency] started they handed out T-shirts, "All I Want to Do is Direct," or "Everybody Wants to be a Director." That's what's going on now. And they run rampant in variety over Directors. You are told, basically, the last show I directed was for TV Land [originally Nick at Nite's TV Land] and they gave me a show that should have been shot over a three or four week period and they gave me two days. Tons of stars on the show, big stars, not just, you know, it's not a low budget TV Land show, this was their signature show. It was a Christmas special. Had a cast of seven Actors doing a sitcom and it had huge superstar music stars who were doing production numbers and I'm sitting in a control booth, and they wanted to do it in front of a live audience. And I'm just the Director, I'm not the Producer on this. And the Producers were Casting Directors 'cause they delivered all the talent. And the executives think that's what a Producer does, you know? Doesn't have any other responsibilities. And even our executive in charge of production and Associate Producers who were there supposedly to protect the Director, have now gone over to the other side. They're there to protect the network's interest or the studio's interest and now it's a case of where I make the decision that I'm gonna block and tape in front of this damn audience and we're gonna do it right and I'll rehearse in front of the audience, I'll shoot in front of the audience and then we'll move to the next piece. It was a, you know, with all my experience it was a tough shoot, you know, to shoot. I'm in the control room shooting and two executives walk in who run TV Land and Nickelodeon or whatever and they're handing me a paper and I look at the paper and it's dialogue notes. Swear to God. I turned around and I said, "Are you guys out of your mind? I'm lucky just to get it on tape. I mean, I'm not gonna go out and tell the actors to change the line." At this stage in the game the boat has sailed, you know? So there's so much inexperience and I'm not putting down education, MBA's [Master of Business Administration], and what have you. But this is a business and I even tell my students when I teach a course at the university, your diploma is for you, not for anybody else. You're gonna compete with guys who barely finished high school and they're gonna know as much, if not more, than you know after they've had the experience of being on a stage. So, it's really a case of we have too many people who are hired being told the only way you can keep your job is, you know, you gotta offer suggestions, you gotta stay on top of what your Director's doing, you gotta bring it in on time, and so little focus is on the product and it was always on the product when I started, you know? It was always on move an audience, you know? And if you don't do a good job, you'll have a tough time getting a job again. But that's okay, I'd rather have it that way than be hired and being told how to direct, what to direct, you know, given rules and, you know?

INT: What has been, because you did so many wonderful, groundbreaking, live shows, Steve Allen, so forth, what has been lost with the advent of technology, videotape, editing, all of those things?
SB: Well I think a lot of Directors, you know, because maybe, and I'm not putting them down, but a lot of Directors don't edit. They basically want to get as many jobs as they can during the year to support their family, to pay their mortgages, etcetera, and so they think their job is done when they finish shooting on the stage. I've never done a show in my life that I haven't sat in the room and edited and I think editing credits really belong to the person who calls the edit, who calls the shot, not the technician who's working a computer, you know? They don't make any, in my shows, they don't make any decisions. I make all the decisions of what goes where, and how many bars we're staying on a shot, and changing, and so forth, and so on and I think that's changed a lot. I mean I've heard Les Moonves, the president of CBS as he'll look at a movie and not like certain things, instead of calling the Director and saying, "Go in and change it," you know, he'll walk into an editing room himself and make editorial decisions, you know? He doesn't own the creative product, he's an executive trying to make money for his network, you know? And I resent those things. I always have. I mean I've never bonded on the political executive level, you know? Like people hire lawyers and they're expecting their lawyers to tell them what they should do. The lawyer works for you if you hire them, and, you know, you can listen to their advice and then you make the decision what you want to do from there. And a lot of people get shut out where they, you know, they're afraid to challenge authority, they're afraid to challenge, you know, guys who are incompetent. And I think television breeds the Peter principle. It's filled with incompetent Producers, Directors, you know, Writers, whatever and it's a different kind of nepotism. It's friendship nepotism instead of family nepotism, you know?

INT: But it is getting harder and harder within the certain power of network television, and the corporate nature of the people who own these things, you know, because those, you might have had somebody who was, you know, a Jim Aubrey [James Thomas Aubrey, Jr.] who's terrible, at the top of CBS, but at least you had somebody who can take a decision, you know, at a certain point when, you know, these movie studios or networks become one facet of a larger media company that is really, you know, a level of bureaucracy.
SB: It's corporate mentality. I mean Rupert Murdoch, an Australian, is changing the way the world hears news. He's slanting it toward his personal political positions, etcetera. You've got four hundred channels plus all this news technology and the truth of it is there about five companies in the United States who own it all. And pretty soon, we'll pay the consequences of that, because I believe that as soon as these business don't make money, these great little niche channels, the Cooking Channel, the Arts and Entertainment [A&E], Discovery [The Discovery Channel], etcetera, they're going to be history, and nobody's going to be able to say, "You can't do that," you know, because it'll be like the insurance companies were they do not amortize divisions. If they're losing money in the one division, they cut it off, you know, and every division has to make money. I think we'll see these stations that we have this huge choice of the same product on all the different channels diminishing, and it's going to effect Directors for sure, and specifically independent Producers. They're going to be no longer in existence, you know, unless they're incredibly wealthy and want to go it alone. But if you don't have distribution, and these five companies control, you know, they determine what product to buy, and they want to own it if they buy it, you know, they want to broadcast it, they want to syndicate it, they want to, you know, and you can't do anything without them controlling it and it's a real fear for the future.

INT: Tell me, in terms of technology, with the whole digital revolution, and let's talk specifically about, not just, and it's a funny term to use, "variety," just talk about entertainment and the sense of capturing something magical like performance, like humor, like spontaneity. Good or bad? Technology helping or hurting? Anything that you see that can, you know, refine the process and give life back to it?
SB: I think technology, truthfully, is just a painter's palette. You make decisions, how to capture the moment, but I think it's the human element that's changed and it's the human element that's gotta be recaptured. You have superstar rock stars who are lazy. They want to go out, earn millions of dollars doing their concerts, and that's what they want to sell the networks when it's over, to go pay them a million dollars and they'll do their concert for television. All the specials that I did, and especially in the past, were tailor-made. They were, you know, I'd always tell, and I learned this from Nick Vanoff, a great variety Producer. I always told the artist when they came in and the manager or the agent would say, "How much are we gonna take in salary?" And I'd always say, "Nothing." You're setting yourself up for all your sales and records, concerts, etcetera. This is a leader. You may have to put money into this special. But we're going to create it from scratch. It's going to be made for television." I think that's the big difference now. Because I think concerts, there's companies right now that want to bring television into theaters, because theaters are dying. And basically what they want to do is, you know, can we go to where the concerts are being, taking place live and bring in cameras and film them? Well, you know, all you're doing is whoever put the act together, that's what you're filming. I think there has to be a whole lot more, and hopefully, you know, the wheel turns and everything that goes around, kind of resurfaces. But I think we have to get back to the public, which pays these enormous dollars and are going to pay more for their, you know, cable television and, you know, even to hear a record you've gotta pay ninety nine cents now, you know, for a single or something like that. I think the public's going to demand, "Hey, we're not getting our money's worth." Where's all these, you know, where are these great shows? And I think there's exception to the rule. I'm not putting down television. I think dramas on television, the Bruckheimer's [Jerry Bruckheimer], and, you know, the Bochco's [Steven Bochco], etcetera, doing great work. I mean, they're, it's amazing how they can grind this stuff out week after week, but I think in variety specifically, we're in real deep trouble. I just don't see any innovation. Very little. There was the star, Jamie Foxx, your star, in RAY, just did an NBC special. I watched it and I walked away saying, "Hey, there's something that I would have liked to have done. It's something that I used to do." Rare, and I'm sure it was all Jamie Foxx. I didn't recognize--

INT: Well the thing that happened, it was a huge amount of controversy with that. We did it for NBC, NBC did not promote it very much, because he refused to have white guest stars on. I mean, he wanted to do, he wanted to have a piece, he's very strongly attune to the black community. And he wanted to do something that way and they were going to punish him by not promoting it. Interesting. You know, I mean, even then, as an incredibly talented guy, it doesn't mean, by the way, Jamie [Jamie Foxx] has great respect for white entertainers. He probably, the people that he wanted weren't available and so the people they wanted to give him, you know, to fill out his thing, he said, "No, they're not up to the par with everybody else on the show." But that just happened. I mean so it's always--
SB: But the show itself, if it didn't, you know, if it didn't get a rating, it should have been done. It was creative, it was a prestigious thing for NBC, you know, and I'm sure audiences really, you know, appreciated the effort that went into it, he just didn't phone it in. You know, the set itself was unique, you know, but I faced the same problem. Elvis Presley? When I said I'm doing a show with Elvis Presley and they said who else? And I said, "Nobody." "What do you mean you're putting on a network primetime show and you don't have any guest stars? You gotta put Milton Berle on this show, you've gotta put somebody, you know?" And we fought battles over that. Petula Clark and Harry Belafonte? You know, I idolized Harry Belafonte and his early specials and so forth. Petula was nobody when we got the commitment to do it because they thought they were buying Nancy Sinatra, who had a hit record called BOOTS at the time and she made a bigger deal with RC Cola [Royal Crown Cola] or something like that and as a result, ICM [International Creative Management], the agency, you know, replaced Nancy with Petula who was a singer from England and had one hit record called, DOWNTOWN. And when I got the, I didn't even get the gig in the beginning. It was Greg Garrison who's the Producer/Director of Dean Martin years, and he and Petula just didn't hit it off so she went back to France and said, "I don't want to do a special." and I got the call saying, "Would you go over to France and meet with Petula and talk her into coming back?" When I got back, the first phone call I made was to Harry Belafonte, who I didn't know, got him on the phone, and said, you know, "I'm doing a Petula Clark special on NBC and I'd like you to be her co-star." "Who's Petula Clark?" "Well she's this blond, blue eyed lady from England who's singing DOWNTOWN." "No, I'm not interested." Hung up the phone. I'm looking for guest stars, I'm getting the list, etcetera. Ray Bolger was on the list from NBC and I got a call from Belafonte and he said, "You said Petula's this blond, blue eyed lady who sings DOWNTOWN, right?" I said, "Right." He said, "I changed my mind, I'd like to do the show and I think we'd look good together." Booked him on the show, you know, my young and rubicon NBC reps, Plymouth, etcetera, the minute I told them I had Belafonte, the first guy said, "Wow, what color do you want your Plymouth, you know? Tomorrow morning at your doorstep we're gonna send you a present for doing that." Next call I get is from the same guy about, literally, ten minutes later and he says, "I've got a problem." I said, "What's the problem?" "You gotta get rid of Belafonte." I said, "What are you talking about?" He says, "You've got to. There's a guy at Plymouth and he doesn't want a black man on the show." True story. 1967. I said, "What do you mean he doesn't want a black man on the show?" "The guy doesn't want a black man on the show. He'd rather have a white star like Milton Berle, or Ray Bolger, or whoever." And I said, "Well I gotta tell ya that if you force me to get rid of Belafonte, I'm gonna hold a press conference and quote you."

SB: He said, "I'll call you right back." Hung up the phone, five minutes later, a guy, I think his name was Colgan Schlank calls, Colgan's saying, "I'm from A&R and I just replaced the guy you just spoke to. Steve, we've gotta work this out, you know?" And I said, "There's nothing to work out. Why would, you know, now that I know the real reason why you don't want Belafonte [Harry Belafonte]." 'cause the first reason he gave me was he's not popular anymore, he hasn't sold any records, and so forth, and he said, "We gotta work this out because, you know, Plymouth may pull the whole special." And I said, "You know, you do what you want to do but I'm not getting rid of Belafonte." Next phone call I got is, "Okay, we've got a solution. In Petula's [Petula Clark] contract with NBC it has a clause saying guest stars with an 'S', so we'll accept Belafonte if you can put somebody else on the show with him." And I said, "Submit me a list of people that are as talented as Harry Belafonte, and I'll look it over, if I find somebody on the list that makes sense I will do it." They sent over a list, I mean it was ludicrous. I mean, it was, you know, every, you know, person who'd had their day in television, or in vaudeville, or whatever was on their list. A hundred names. I looked over the list and I called them back and I said, "Nobody's acceptable." "What do you mean nobody's acceptable?" And I said, "I don't see one name on that list, you know, white, black, purple, or whatever that is the equal of Harry Belafonte as a star," and that's when a lot of things happened after that where I had to go to Detroit and get approval from the president of the Plymouth motor car division who finally gave the green light and said, "Let's do it." And then the guy who objected to Belafonte, when he was overruled by the president of the company, shook my hand and said, "I'll see ya at the Emmy's, Steve. Good luck on the show," and so forth and so on. Then when I'm in the middle of taping and we get to the shot where I had staged, Belafonte started the segment, Petula, at the end of his segment walks in from upstage and then behind him and I had this beautifully framed shot where Petula's in the foreground, Harry's in the foreground and there's Petula over his shoulder and it was really beautiful and I took about three or four takes of it but I never was happy. I kept saying, "Something's wrong with it, the chemistry's not there." And down on the stage and I said, "Petula," that's another thing, you've gotta communicate with your artist one on one. You can't do it vicariously. That's why I don't like using Stage Managers to give directions to the artists. And I said, "Petula, on this take, even though I love the shot, don't stop. Just walk out, come downstage and just go right up next to Harry." We did the take and it was magic. Boy, all of a sudden they're both tearing in their eyes, Petula's so emotional, she reaches over, it's an anti-war song during the Vietnam War that she wrote, fortunately, 'cause they wanted me to take it out of the show but I said, "Petula wrote this, you can't take it out." And the chemistry happened. It was abstract, it was, you know, it's subjective, but all of a sudden it was totally light-years ahead emotionally from the other takes, and the minute that happened I heard a herd of elephants storming out of the clients booth, storming down the hall, and the sponsored walked out, he was like, you know, you'd have thought I'd had them fornicating on stage. And immediately NBC phoned me in the booth and said, "Whatever's going on, we're behind you," which was a great phone call to get. And the next thing is Petula's husband and myself ran down to the editing room, and the editor was like shaking and made me sign a release because I wanted all the other takes erased. I didn't want to leave any options, you know, which happened during the bordello sequence. They had promised me they weren't going to take it out and then they double crossed me a year later, and made me take it out, and then put it back in not realizing they had made me take it out when Elvis [Elvis Presley] died and they aired the Ann-Margret hosted three hours of Elvis Presley including the ninety minute edited version, which wasn't even ever supposed to exist, you know, but anyway.

INT: Let me ask you, favorite artist you ever worked with?
SB: Joan Collins. I'm kidding. That's probably my worst experience in television. Favorite artist? I've worked with so many that I've really, it's like asking me what's my favorite show. It's the next show, I mean-- [INT: Tell me the Joan Collins story.] I had a company, and my partner was this flamboyant playboy from Switzerland: Claude Ravier. And I didn't know what Claude Ravier, who he was, what he did, whatever. I got a call from Irwin Winkler, Director of ROCKY and so forth. And Irwin was friends with Claude Ravier and said, "I've got this guy who would be great to go into your company as a partner." Don't ask me why to this day I said okay but I should've said, "Well, if he's so great why don't you put him in your company?" Anyway, Claude came aboard and, you know, he was one of those guys with Rolex watches, and Rolls Royce's, and a million dollar home in Hollywood Hills, and I guess the only way I could describe him is a gigantic phony, you know? He loved, he dreamed in Switzerland of being in show business and being in Hollywood but had no skills whatsoever. Somehow he socially, he was very good friends with Wolfgang Puck I mean, you know, if you needed something arranged, you needed tickets somewhere, you'd go to Claude Ravier and he'd arrange it for you. And all of a sudden he comes in the office and he said, "I sold a show." And I said, "What show did you sell?" You know? I knew nothing about it and he said, "I sold BLONDES VS. BRUNETTES." And I said, "What is it?" And he said, "Well, it's, you know, blondes, you know, who has more fun? We'll get Clairol or somebody to sponsor it." And I said, "Well, who bought it?" He said, "ABC. Primetime. And, you know, you're part of the package, you have to produce and direct it."

SB: Anyway, at this point I'm in a new business with a new partner so I'm not going to say "no," but I still don't know what the show is. So I was very good friends with Donna Mills and I called Donna and said, you know, "Would you represent the blondes and be the blonde host?" And then I, Claude [Claude Ravier] says, "Oh, by the way, we have to hire Joan Collins as the brunette. You gotta work it out with William Morris [WME, William Morris Endeavor]." Call William Morris, and it turns out at that time Joan is involved with some young boyfriend who is a real snake in the grass and what I found out is he's getting a piece of the action by delivering Joan who wants this enormous sum of money to star in the show. And so we make the deal with William Morris for Joan and it was, you know, it was more than I wanted to pay, I wanted to put more on the screen. And next thing I know is Donna calls me and says, "I'm going out of the country, I can't do the show." I said, "You heard about Joan Collins, right?" And she just giggled and that was the end of that. So I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, I got a brunette," I've never worked with her but I've heard, you know, I was a good friend of Tony Newley's [Anthony George Newley] who was married to her so I used to hear a lot of stories behind the scenes. And I heard even when she got DYNASTY, you know, Aaron Spelling wouldn't sign her a long-term contract 'cause he didn't want to deal with her. And then I get a phone call, and somebody suggested another friend of mine, Morgan Fairchild, to host it. So I call Morgan up, and I, again, being honest, "Morgan, Donna Mills I hired to be the blonde, she backed out when she heard Joan Collins. Please, do me a personal favor, I'll make it up to you. You know? Host the show with Joan." And she said, "Okay." So I have two stars and now I hired some good Writers, Buzz Cohan who was a primo variety Writer, who does Shirley MacLaine specials, etcetera, did. And I bring him in and I bring a few other Writers in and now what we basically did light years ahead of time, we made it semi-documentary, we sent people out into the field. Today it'd be a big hit on television.

SB: You know, we interviewed blondes, we interviewed brunettes, we interviewed all kinds of satires on, you know, competing, etcetera. Everyday I go to the set, and I get a phone call immediately from William Morris [WME, William Morris Endeavor] saying, "Joan [Joan Collins] doesn't feel very well today, she'll be on the set, she's coming late to work, but if you pay her a little bit more money, maybe we could work it out and convince her to come." and that was the pattern. Everyday there was a problem. Every day we were boosting her salary and now it gets to, in her contract she gets a Bob Mackie gown, fifteen thousand dollar gown or whatever it is. It was part of the original contract, the original deal. So I call Bob Mackie and he makes this gown for her. It's beautiful. And it gets to the very end, we get to the last day of taping and there's two scenes to do. She's co-hosting with Morgan [Morgan Fairchild] and she has a sketch with Morgan in two completely different outfits and I had scheduled the hosting thing last, and the bedroom first and Joan calls me and she says, "I have to do the, reverse them" and I said, "Fine, it doesn't make a difference to me," they're in two separate places on the stage and I hang up the phone and the agent calls and says, "Does Joan Collins get to keep her fifteen thousand dollar Bob Mackie dress or do you plan on keeping it after the shoot?" It never entered my mind, when I signed the contract I'm thinking, "Oh, I own this dress." So I said, "I don't know, let's see how she does on the last day." And I had no intentions of keeping the dress anyway, but now I get a phone call, she's going to be late. And I called her up, I said, "Joan, let's pretend we're professionals. I'll pretend I'm a professional Director, you can pretend you're a professional star. Let's get it over with and just get to the studio in time. I've got a crew that's going to be here in a few minutes," etcetera. She comes and we first shoot the gown scene and then one of my cameramen says, "Steve, you gotta look at this." And there's Joan now changed into her pajamas, her night gown, with the dress tucked behind her, walking out in parking lot, to put it in the trunk of her Rolls Royce.

SB: I never confronted her on that. But right out of that special, I was producing and directing the national Emmy's and Joan is the new girl, or, no, Diane Carroll's the new girl in town on DYNASTY. So, I had made the decision that Linda Evans and Joan Collins would be on the ends and Diane would come and stand in the middle at the podium. Get a phone call from Joan, she's not coming to rehearsal, you know? She wants to be in the middle. And I told her agent, "She's not being in the middle. Diane Carroll's in the middle." So, now, and I'm a good friend of Linda's, too, who's really sweet and Linda's always on time, ahead of time, and so forth. And comes on the air, I have the three ladies upstage behind the scenery, "The ladies from DYNASTY with the new lady Diane Carroll," and they come out and now Joan's running to the podium, the two girls are like miles behind, and Joan grabs the podium by both hands and she's standing there ready to deliver her dialogue. Well, Diane and Linda and I had decided, in rehearsal, that if she does it, that all they have to do is circle around her and she'd be on the end. So they walk up and they both stand alongside of her on the end and they're now a little bit off the set, you know, because she's hugging the podium in the middle and then I've got Diane and I've got Linda on the end. Joan's about to talk and she realizes she's not in the middle anymore so she circles around on goes completely off the set and, you know, and the minute she does that, the two girls counter and come to the other side, putting her again on the end. And by that time, the audience is kind of not realizing what's happening and, you know, it's kind of that moment where you're just spending two seconds but it feels like two minutes. And Joan says, "The nominees are," and that's the last time you ever saw them on television that night. I completely went to the nominees and went to other shots, so I would purposefully not put Joan back on camera. Then I got kind of a, she didn't talk to Linda for about a month on the DYNASTY set after that, so I heard, and then I was told anyway that, you know, Joan wanted to make peace if we ever worked together again.