I played it like an auctioneer I guess. I simply would get a bid from one producer and run it past the other four or five.
When it comes time for the TV movie, crime does pay and it pays big.
Producers are on the scene of the tragedy faster than you can dial 911.
The Inside Story on Entertainment Tonight for Wednesday, May 31st, 1989.
Music
Hi everyone, I'm John Tesch, Mary's Off Today.
I'm Lisa Gibbons, thanks for joining us.
The way things are going, it shouldn't be too long before disasters and tragedies appear in the overnight ratings released by AC Nielsen.
These days, producers of TV movies are on the scene before the police have a chance to turn off their sirens.
Big trouble spells big money on television. What price tragedy? Our Inside Story for today.
Who says crime doesn't pay?
Diane Downs tried to kill her three children. An author got $175,000 for the rights to her book about it.
Bombings in 1985 in Salt Lake City killed two. Called the Mormon murders, officials in the case stand to receive more than $300,000 in rights fees for their story.
Robert Chambers stood trial in the Preppy Murder case. A cop who investigated it sold his rights. He won't say how much he got.
Now more than ever, crime does pay, and it pays big. Any sensational crime case, particularly those involving murder, big money, glamour and sex, will get Hollywood's attention.
When tobacco heir Steven Benson was arrested for the bombing deaths of his mother and another family member, Hollywood came running.
One screenwriter researching a movie on the case found that those involved had Hollywood on their minds.
When I spoke with detectives, they were very interested in just how they would be portrayed. They were not really interested in giving me the lowdown of what happened.
And those involved with a particularly sensational story can name their price.
Such has been the case in Salt Lake City for officials in the Mormon murder trial of document forger Mark Hoffman.
The first time we realized how many people were interested was when we entered the preliminary hearing courtroom and saw it filled to the brim with reporters and writers and agents and so forth.
Biggs and eight others connected to the case formed a group to weigh the movie offers pouring in for their rights.
The price kept going up, and so I played it like an auctioneer, I guess. I simply would get a bid from one producer and run it past the other four or five.
And it was always, guess what you're going to hear now?
Sometimes the question is more than money. Though author Ann Ruhl did take $175,000 for movie rights to her book about Diane Downs,
she turned down $100,000 from producers for the rights to her book about serial killer Ted Bundy.
Ruhl feared NBC Network's treatment would glamorize Bundy. She claims that's what the network did by casting sex symbol Mark Harmon as Bundy.
After the movie, I had calls and letters from girls, say 16 to 20, saying, I'm going to sell everything I have, I'm going to quit school, I'm going to go to Florida and help Ted Bundy.
And I said, you're not in love with Ted Bundy, you're in love with Mark Harmon.
But beyond the money, there are other justifications for the telling of real-life crime stories by Hollywood.
NBC's recent critically acclaimed I Know My First Name Is Stephen about a kidnapped and abused young boy
proved to be therapeutic for its real-life subject, Stephen Stainer, who consulted on the movie.
Any chance I get to talk about it I think really helps me deal with the problem. The more I talk about it, the better I can deal with it.
More than anything, crime pays in big ratings. Recent Hollywood versions of real-life crimes include A Deadly Silence, the story of a high school girl who paid a classmate to kill her father,
and In the Line of Duty, the tale of an ambush of FBI agents.
The fact that audiences are fascinated by crime comes as no surprise to the New York cop who investigated the Preppy murder case, along with hundreds of other homicides.
I guess it's some kind of a ghoulish instinct that's in everybody. You see it even at crime scenes.
It's a strange thing. It's a phenomenon I can't certainly explain. People come with their children to crime scenes.
Certainly something I wouldn't want my child to see.
Soon to come from Hollywood, Track Down, the movie version of the Richard Ramirez Night Stalker case,
a dramatization of the racially motivated Howard Beach killing, and the New York story of Hedda Nussbaum, her lover Joel Steinberg, and his conviction for the manslaughter of a child.
Some reports said Nussbaum would receive nearly $100,000 for her story. As long as audiences continue to tune in, crime does pay.
What next in the TV movie disaster mode? About 75 relatives of people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, have voted to negotiate a television movie deal.
The plot will be how they've coped since the disaster.
Terrorism will be on television tonight for two hours, but this time it's not a TV movie. It's a special called Target USA, the work of Washington journalist Jack Anderson.
Their target is America.
Anderson's show will be hosted live, but one of his more dramatic displays of America's vulnerability to terrorism was a tape report of a handgun being smuggled through the supposedly secure office of Senator Bob Dole.
I came through Capitol Security with this weapon. It's plastic, it's a real gun, and I just brought it through security.
I wanted to dramatize the fact that our security system is flawed, and that our government buildings and our airports could be penetrated by terrorists.
There was a moment of shock on his face, but he adjusted very quickly.
Well, I was surprised, I was disturbed. I said, well, I don't remember my exact words, but I said, well, I think you've made the point. You can get through the system. The system broke down.
What happens to Jack Anderson, I don't know. That's his problem.
Dole told us Anderson could face up to a $5,000 fine and prison time for the security violation. He also predicted even tighter security.
I think it will probably change after the show this evening, once the American people witness this particular interview, and Mr. Anderson makes his point, saying, well, I got through the system.
The show goes on to portray other terrorist action, and Anderson says it's time to react.
The best way to protect ourselves is to know what's coming and to start to put up our defenses right now.
Target USA, a syndicated special, will be broadcast tonight by about 140 TV stations.
On our inside story tomorrow, if you think all the bawdy stories come out of the men's locker room, think again.
Any other fat people here besides me?
Yeah, well, just rub your thighs together, we'll hear you.
The bad girls of comedy, the inside story tomorrow, on our segment tonight.
Coming up next, we'll take you backstage as the phantom of the opera mesmerizes a new city.
And later, find out if Nicolas Cage really ate this cockroach for his new movie.
In New York alone, Phantom of the Opera has sold more than $28 million worth of tickets and has another $23 million in advance sales.
This phenomenal success story began in London and is playing out on stages around the world.
Well, Hollywood is joining the action and Jeannie Wolfe is backstage with the story for you.
One of the most lavish and extravagant musicals ever staged, the Phantom of the Opera, is coming to Los Angeles.
And even the veteran star of the show, the Phantom himself, Michael Crawford, is getting last minute instructions.
The chains are still mine. You will sing for me.
Choreographer Gillian Lynn is working on every nuance, every detail.
I'm trying to focus it so it's absolutely razor sharp.
If someone had seen this production elsewhere in the world, would they sense the difference here?
You would, I hope, see something that feels entirely fresh and new now.
And that's partially because Gillian has a whole new group of dancers to work with.
Each new person has a new problem to bring and you help them solve that problem or they have new brilliances and you sort of sharpen that up.
And so what's new is these people.
The curtain rises tonight in Los Angeles on the finely tuned production, Jean Wolfe Entertainment Tonight.
Phantom Fever is still going strong even though this is the fifth city the show has opened in.
Advance ticket sales totaled more than $15 million.
Scalpers are selling orchestra seats for $600.
Clark Gable traveled the country working at odd jobs and acting in regional theater productions before he got his big movie break playing the bad guy in the Painted Desert.
He was 30 years old. His son, John Clark Gable, is following much the same path.
He's been everything from a race car driver to a carpenter.
Now, at 28, he has his first leading role playing a bad guy in a western.
Young Gable is starring in Bad Jim. Along with James Brolin and Richard Roundtree, they play a group of ordinary cowboys who unexpectedly turn into a gang of outlaws.
It happens when John Clark discovers he's the only one able to tame a very unusual horse.
I don't know at the time but he ended up being Billy the kid's horse.
So I get on him and he possesses me to rob banks.
Though John Clark's co-stars are wary of drawing any direct comparisons between him and his legendary father, certain resemblances are unmistakable.
John's got a little rasp of Clark's voice and he's got some good eyes and there's something about the mouth you see there.
But other than that, he's just an interesting individual, I think.
John, I mean, he almost would rather be on a motorcycle just tearing through the desert.
He loves that adventure. He loves that go, go, go, go.
The young Gable never got a chance to meet his father. Clark died in 1960, four months before his son was born.
For John Clark, the decision to finally plunge into acting did not come easy.
I would like people just to accept me and to give me a chance to get my foot in the door for who I am and not for who my father was.
He was a great actor. There would never be another actor like my dad.
And I'm just going to hopefully do it and people will like me for me.
Interesting note for trivia buffs. James Brolin, who's Gable's co-star in Bad Jim, played Clark Gable in the 1976 movie Gable and Lombard.
Yeah, I didn't know that. You had it right there. Great stuff.
Lisa Marie Presley and her husband Danny Keough became parents on Monday. Their daughter weighed seven pounds, two ounces.
Everybody's doing fine. The couple hasn't picked a name for her yet.
Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan are also proud parents. Tracy gave birth to a boy yesterday afternoon. His name is Sam Michael Fox.
In his new movie Vampire's Kiss, Nicolas Cage plays a man driven baddie when he thinks he was bitten by a vampire.
But his character's problems are nothing when compared to what he had to do to play the role.
The quirky black comedy has Cage biting into the part of an average guy whose life turns into a nightmare after being bitten by his one night stand.
I'm a vampire! I'm a vampire! I'm a vampire!
Cage says it was the offbeat story and humor that first attracted him to the role.
It's not a typically mainstream film, but I read the script and it was just something original to me that I had to do.
He's so eccentric!
The dark humor of the film gave Cage a chance to test his acting talents and stomach.
One bizarre moment in the movie, which is filled with many of them, comes when Cage eats a cockroach, a scene that required two takes.
We've all known of actors doing bizarre things for films, but you really did eat the cockroach live?
Yeah, well, I did. And it was problematic for me. I didn't really want to do it, although it was my idea to do it.
I guess I kind of wanted to add something of a shock to the film, though I was sick for about six days afterwards just thinking about it.
And I couldn't really eat very much, but I actually wound up feeling pretty sorry for the little guy.
I'll never do that again. Geez.
Exercising childhood demons, he said.
Everybody on the crew is walking around going, eww.
Now he'll forever be known as a guy who ate the cockroach.
By the way, the vampire in the movie is Jennifer Beals, so he does spend time with her teeth in his neck as well.
It's all part of being an actor.
Sounds like a fun time for all.
The movie opens at limited release Friday.
Last week, Meryl Streep won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for a movie few people saw when it was in theaters here.
But Leonard Maltin has some good news for people who missed it the first time around, right, Leonard?
Absolutely, John.
One of the best films of 1988, so far as I'm concerned, was A Cry in the Dark.
But it didn't become a hit.
Now, this exceptional film with its exceptional performances by Meryl Streep and Sam Neill is out on video.
And since it's just the latest in a long line of impressive movies to come our way from Australia,
I thought I'd recommend five first-rate Aussie films available on video, beginning with A Cry in the Dark.
God, help me, God, help me.
The baby! My baby!
A baby is stolen, carried off by a wild dog, its mother says, and instead of sympathy for their tragic experience,
the parents of this missing baby are put on trial by the media and the public.
A Cry in the Dark is electrifying drama that seems absolutely real.
Breaker Morant is based on a real-life court-martial in which Australian soldiers are called to account for their behavior during the Boer War.
It's strong stuff, and its leading actors have all gone on to stardom, Jack Thompson, Brian Brown, and Edward Woodward.
I'll tell you what rule we applied, sir. We applied rule 303.
We caught them, and we shot them on the rule 303.
One of my favorite Australian films is a beautifully realized story called Careful, He Might Hear You,
which tells about the custody battle for a young boy from the child's point of view.
Is she going to take your wife forever?
No, she's just going to bore me.
Wendy Hughes, one of Australia's most gifted actresses, plays the aunt who introduces the boy to a whole new world.
Come on, Scott.
Next, I want to recommend a little sleeper called Malcolm, the story of a sweet, slow-witted fellow who has a gift for making the most incredible inventions.
They come in handy if you're planning to rob a bank.
Huh?
What are you doing?
You're the guy I've been reading about in the paper. The crocodile man.
Finally, there's the most popular Australian movie ever made, Crocodile Dundee.
Hey, girls. Pick Dundee from Australia.