"'We kinda' broke his heart': Ben Stiller on Budd Schulberg and 'Sammy'"

Patrick Goldstein at always excellent LA Times blog "Big Picture" has this interesting account about Ben Stiller and Jerry Stahl, and their ill-fated attempts to make a movie based on Budd Schulberg's book, "What Makes Sammy Run":

Stiller spent years working with "Permanent Midnight" writer Jerry Stahl on an update of a Schulberg script, first at Warners -- which had the rights to the book -- and later at DreamWorks (when DW negotiated a first-look deal with Stiller's production company, it paid Warners $2.6 million just for the rights to "Sammy"). At one point, according to producer Billy Gerber, who had acquired the book for Warners in the 1980s, the movie was to be financed by Elie Samaha, which would have given the whole affair a wonderfully dubious synchronicity, since Samaha -- a nightclub owner turned movie producer who was famous for padding the budgets of his movies -- was something of a coarse throwback to the fast-talking Glick himself.

After Schulberg's death at 95 earlier this month, Stiller and Stahl sat down and wrote an account -- with the two men essentially interviewing themselves -- of what happened, or more accurately, didn't happen to the project. It is refreshingly self-deprecating, opening with this zinger: "I guess you could say that our relationship with Budd Schulberg was typical Hollywood: we met him, we liked each other and in the end, we kind of broke his heart."

A few excerpts from the Stiller & Stahl 'interview':

BEN: In ’96 I got a new agent right before "The Cable Guy" bombed. His first piece of advice was not to do anything for six months. He said I was in “movie jail.” I had time to read. Billy Gerber and Gene Kirkwood, at Warner Brothers, somehow got the idea to give me a shot at greatness. They said why don’t you direct and act in "Sammy." I read the book and loved it. Sounded like a good idea to me, especially considering my incarceration. The financing for the movie I was waiting to play Jerry Stahl in -- "Permanent Midnight" -- was taking a while to come through (if ever, according to my agent/jailer), so I asked Jerry if he wanted to work on re-writing Budd’s script with me in the meantime. Why did I ask Jerry? I knew he was a good writer and I was scared out of my mind to try to do it alone.

JERRY: Ben Stiller, fresh off "Cable Guy," Jerry Stahl, fresh off a park bench in MacArthur Park. In retrospect, I can imagine how thrilled Budd Schulberg, the man who wrote "On The Waterfront," must have been to have a couple of giants adapting the greatest work of his lifetime.

As we noted here, Schulberg died the first week of August. Stahl saw Schulberg just before his death, leading to this anecdote:

JERRY: The last time I saw him, a week before his death, was in Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. He had collapsed that morning and lost a lot of blood. But his eyes were just as intensely blue -- his cheeks still rosy. He seemed serene -- even as a frenetic parade of nurses, family and occasionally, an actual doctor stepped in to check him. I mentioned that I happened to be working on something about Hemingway, and at the sound of his name, Budd perked up. “He was a b-b-b-b-bully.” Apparently the great man began to push and taunt young Budd from the moment they were introduced. “So, you think you’re a writer, huh?” Eventually, Papa was unlucky enough to suggest a boxing match. He threw a punch at Budd. And Budd -- no stranger to the ring -- threw one back. That was that. “He didn’t like it when you fought back,” Budd said.

Everyone in the room listened with rapt fascination. It was a hell of a story.

"What Makes Sammy Run" is a must-read for anyone interested in screenwriting and Hollywood.