Brown's Guide To 'The Good Life'
Not content with merely producing movies such as "A Few Good Men" and "Deep Impact," as well as Broadway musicals like "The Sweet Smell of Success" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," David Brown, 90, has found time to write a book.
It's a slim volume with a weighty title, "Brown's Guide to the Good Life Without Tears, Fears or Boredom," from Barricade Books.
The chapter headings give you an idea of the contents: "Sleep Is for Sissies," "Stop Being Poor Little Me," "The Care and Feeding of a Famous Wife."
The famous wife is Helen Gurley Brown, who changed a lot of women's minds with her best seller, "Sex and the Single Girl," and as the editor who sexed up the sedate magazine, Cosmopolitan. At 84, she is still editing foreign editions of the magazine.
In an interview from his New York office, Brown explained an advantage of his marriage. The pair were recently standing in line outside a popular restaurant in San Francisco when an official ushered them inside for immediate seating. "That happens all the time," he said. "And at airline counters, too."
A graduate of Stanford University and Columbia University School of Journalism, Brown started his career as a reporter, wrote scores of short stories, rose to managing editor of Cosmopolitan (pre-Gurley Brown) and moved to Hollywood as story editor at Twentieth Century-Fox in 1953.
When Richard D. Zanuck was appointed production head, the job long held by his father, Darryl F. Zanuck, he formed a close alliance with David Brown. Both were fired in a studio upheaval and eventually formed Zanuck-Brown Productions. Releasing through Universal Pictures, Zanuck-Brown was responsible for two huge hits of the 1970s: "The Sting" (best picture Academy Award) and the box-office hit "Jaws."
"We also gave Steven Spielberg his first feature movie, 'The Sugarland Express,' " Brown said proudly. "Steven was awesome. Instead of first shooting a few inserts as directors frequently do in the first couple of days, he had difficult shots. There was nothing, nothing too difficult for him."
Zanuck and Brown split amicably in 1988. "We still talk on the phone every day," Brown said, "no matter where in the world we are. Among the films Brown produced on his own: "The Player," "The Saint," "Angela's Ashes," "Chocolat" and three films with Morgan Freeman — "Deep Impact," "Kiss the Girls" and "Along Came a Spider."
Brown's former partner and longtime friend had this to say about the book: "David Brown may not be the best ballroom dancer in town but when it comes to the three Ws — wit, wisdom and wisecracks — he has no equal," said Zanuck, who called Brown's book "a must-read for anyone looking to be entertained and enlightened at the same time."
The highest point of Brown's Hollywood career came when he and Zanuck were awarded the Irving G. Thalberg award in 1991 for consistent high-quality production.
"The lowest point? When we were fired from Fox and had to dictate from the back of our cars because they wouldn't let us in our offices," Brown said.
Although he continues to work in film, Brown's view of today's movie world is jaundiced: "Instead of having a single point of view in the making of a movie, which could have been Darryl Zanuck or David O. Selznick or even Jack Warner in the golden years, we now have a dilution. We have the marketing department deciding what pictures to make, reading scripts, going to dailies, seeing rough cuts."
In the big-studio days, he added, "we never permitted anyone in the sales department to see anything but the finished movie."
Brown's longing for the disciplines of a bygone era can also be seen in his "Guide to the Good Life."
Among his wise words are tips on basic manners. A sampling:
A native New Yorker, Brown sailed to California on a tourist liner at age 17. After a three-week voyage through Caribbean islands and the Panama Canal, he enrolled at Stanford, graduating in three years.
"In October, I'm going back to Palo Alto for my graduating class' 70th anniversary," he said. "I wonder if I'll be the only one there."
By BOB THOMAS