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In twenty seventeen, Harvey Weinstein was outed as a serial sexual abuser. Many brave women came forward and told their stories. They exposed one of Hollywood's most powerful moguls as a vicious sexual predator who operated horrifically and seemingly without consequences. But Weinstein was standing on the shoulders of monsters. For so many years, those monsters remained unchecked in Hollywood, shielded by the millions of dollars they made for their studios.
Sex for fame is not new. In fact, it's as old as Hollywood itself. Today we'll open the Variety Archives and tell the story of blockbuster movie producer Don Simpson, the dark princes of movie making. His magic touch for producing hits gave him a license to prey on women. This is Variety Confidential, the secret history of the casting couch from Variety, the leading expert on the entertainment industry,
and iHeart Podcasts. I'm Tracy Patton. Today's episode Don Simpson, Eighties Hits and Eighties Excesses with Me Today is Matt Donnelley Variety's senior Entertainment and media writer, Hi Matt Welcome.
Thank you so much for having me. You know, the story of Don Simpson and all of his abuses is so much to dig into. He was allowed to slide for so many years because his movies made a ton of money.
Yeah, it sure seems that way. Don Simpson and his production partner Jerry Bruckheimer were a power team. They made some of the most successful movies in Hollywood history, and one of them was Flash Dance, which I really loved absolutely.
And their biggest hit was Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop and if my math is correct, adjusted for inflation, that earned over nine one hundred million dollars the world by box office in today's value. They also, made, of course Top Gun, the Tom Cruise classic in nineteen eighty six.
Yes, they really were a force in Hollywood. From nineteen eighty three to nineteen ninety five, Simpson and Bruckheimer produced ten films that made over three billion dollars. At a time when Harvey Weinstein was rising to power, Simpson's excesses and reckless behavior were enabled and covered up his films. Turned actors like Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy into household names. But as Dawn's stature in town rose, so did his dark side.
You're talking about someone who was accused of sexual assault, was a known drug abuser and had frequent angry outbursts that cost fear among his staff and even his friends.
And it all came to an end on January nineteenth, nineteen ninety six, when he was found dead in his home. Police found a cornucopia of prescription drugs, and his death led to the investigation of two dozen doctors in Hallllwood. So as we know, Don, along with Jerry Bruckheimer, became a bonafide movie brand in the nineteen eighties. With films centered around handsome, testosterone driven men placed in high octane scenarios. Don and Jerry captured the zeitgeist of the MTV generation
with hit rock and roll soundtracks to match. For a time, it seemed like Don and Jerry could do no wrong. Don was suddenly one of the top producers in Hollywood. Unfortunately for many left in his wake, he wielded that power in extremely damaging ways. Behind the scenes. The success of his film served as a clever vehicle for his real interests, which a lot like Weinstein, focused mostly on money and power.
So let's talk about Don Simpson's early life.
Yeah, well, he was born on October twenty ninth, nineteen forty three, in Seattle. His father was a mechanic at Boeing Aircraft. His mother was a homemaker. In nineteen forty five, the family moved to Anchorage, Alaska. Friends from high school remember Don's parents as pleasant and industrialist people. They were church goers, but not fanatical.
So we know that Don's career started an entertainment in San Francisco. What happened during those early.
Years, Yeah, he did. After college, he went to work for an advertising agency in San Francisco. His job was to promote Warner Brothers movies in the Bay Area. His work got noticed at the studio and Warner Brothers hired him to work in the publicity department in Burbank. But Don didn't fit into Warner's relatively corporate environment. He was fired before the year was out. He was out of work for three years. Eventually, his well connected friends recommended
him for a job at Paramount. He rose quickly through the ranks. By nineteen eighty one, he was president of production. At age thirty, three, Don was part of a changing of the guard at Paramount and in Hollywood. Studio chairman Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, its president and chief operating officer, were also in their thirties. He started in television and brought a more youthful and aggressive perspective into the movie business. Don was also doing a lot of cocaine around this time.
It was an open secret at the studio, but he was by no means the only high profile drug user in Hollywood or even at Paramount. In the beginning, the studio seemed willing to let his drug use slide, but as Don's habit grew, it became a problem that was too big to ignore. Eventually, he was fired by Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, but.
Not quite fired. Don was given a producer deal in the lot after his termination, and this is a common occurrence in the industry, especially back then. It's a system that allows disgrace producer as an opportunity to save face and also earn income.
Yes, and the screenplay they offered him was Flash Dance. It was an improbable sounding story about a beautiful young steel worker in Pittsburgh who wanted to be a Dancer, but Don liked a challenge and his friend Jerry Bruckheimer agreed to co produce. Jerry met in nineteen seventy three through Jerry's first wife, Bonnie, who had worked with Don at Warner Brothers. After Jerry and Bonnie split up, he
shared a bachelor pad with Don in Laurel Canyon. In nineteen eighty three, they set up shop as Don Simpson Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Flashdance cost seven million dollars to make. It was released in nineteen eighty three and made ninety five million dollars domestically. The partnership of Simpson and Bruckheimer became an overnight success. High concept stories have plots that
can be described in a sentence. The plot for Top Gun is hot shot Navy Pilot defies the odds, for example, The industry's shift to high concept film started when Jaws became a surprise hit in the summer of nineteen seventy five. It was the first movie to gross over one hundred million dollars that's half a billion dollars today. After Jaws, studios demanded pictures that would make tens of millions at the box office today. The goal is more than a billion.
Top Gun Maverick grossed one point five billion dollars. For example, Don and Jerry may not have invented high Concept, but they recognized it as a moneymaker for the studio and for themselves of course.
So at this point Don is doing extremely well. With that comes a lot of power, and with power, as we've seen over and over again, comes access to a lot of women, which brings us to the casting couch.
We found a quote from Don in nineteen eighty six denying allegations that there was a casting couch in Hollywood. I'm the kind of guy you would look at me and think I would fuck anything that walks, and it is true I will. But the casting couch is such horseshit that my partner and I laugh about it all the time. I have never gotten laid less than while in the movie business. He also said, they're taking advantage of people, and the people who are being taken advantage
of aren't that bright. But anybody who thinks they can fuck their way into this business is an idiot. But there is evidence that what Don said was not true. For example, Jules Shepherd, and actress who appeared in Return of the Living Dead and other horror movies, claimed that Don propositioned her during an audition. She said that at a meeting in his office at Paramount, Don gave her
a choice. He said they could do coke and have sex and she would probably get the part, or she could go through the whole charade of auditioning and not get the part. Ted Mann, who's written for television shows like Homeland and Deadwood, was with Simpson in New York when they were auditioning young women for a never made TV version of Flash Dance. He said, the hallway outside
Simpson's hotel suite was lined with these girls. Every thirty minutes or so, Simpson would come out, combing his wet hair. I'd say, how was the last one, and he'd say not bad.
Next.
This went on for an entire day. There's also a story that Don scheduled his film shoots to make make it easier to hit on wannabe actresses. He told an aspiring producer that sex scenes should be scheduled for the last two days of production. That would give him extra time to offer women the chance to audition for the sex scenes. Chip Prosser, a screenwriter who worked for Simpson, Bruckheimer said, Don showed him his pack of cards, a stack of polaroids of nude women he'd photographed in his
office at Paramount. He told Prosser he'd convince the women to pose nude by promising them a part in a movie. He had an intense fear of rejection. He once compared his and Jerry Bruckheimer's success in picking up women. Don said, Jerry will ask nine women to sleep with him, and nine will turn him down in a row. The tenth woman says yes and he goes home with her. Me, I ask one girl to go out with me and she says no, and I want to go put my
head in the oven. His friend, the producer Michael London, said, Simpson told me he hung out with hookers because he couldn't bear to risk rejection. Call girls were a big part of his life. Don's assistants had a tab in his Rolodex labeled girls. The assistants were required to update the women's names and phone numbers. But with all the beautiful women available in Hollywood, why would someone as powerful
as Don Simpson pay for sex? Or as Charles Fleming, Don Simpson's biographer put it, why with the casting couch. Such a time honored institution, would any successful Hollywood producer require the professional service of a hooker. Fleming suggests that the moguls view sex workers as stand ins for women who were out of reach before the men achieved power. Producer Joel Silver told Fleming, it's the real revenge of the nerds. Most of these guys were short, fat, ugly
kids who couldn't get laid in high school. Now they're in control, and they're going to make everyone in the world pay for what the world did to them. Simpson himself repeated an old line, some times attributed to Clark Gable, that you don't pay them to come, you pay them to leave. As time went on, he got heavily into s and m. In nineteen ninety five, four ex call girls wrote a book titled You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again. They devoted an entire chapter to Don
Don Simpson and education and pain. They said his serious bondage games were like something out of Marquis de Sade. In the book, Alexandra Daddock, whose professional name was Tiffany, wrote that Don played a video for her when they met for the first time. In it, he auditioned call girls posing as actresses and then had sex with them. He showed Dadig another tape in which a leather clad
dominatrix tortured a beautiful young woman. The scene was hardcore debauchery that included a toilet, sex toys, and torture devices. Dadig wrote, both women were prostitutes, but what Don and the dominatrix did to this girl should have gotten them both thrown in prison. Don could be as nervous about dates with call girls as he was about dating non professionals. Screenwriter Joe Esterhouse remembered partying with Don and Jerry in New York, where they were planning a never produced sequel
to Flashdance. Don called an escort service and arranged dates for the evening. Esterhouse said that during the half hour wait for the women, Simpson guzzled a quarter bottle of gin. It was pure nerves. He was like a little kid waiting for his date to show up. Eventually, he became one of the biggest clients of the infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Flies. One former call girl said Heidiwood entice women into taking dates at Don's house by promising them auditions.
She would allegedly say if you go on this trick, you'll make ten thousand dollars, plus you'll meet Don Simpson and he can put you in his next movie. In fact, he did cast a few of Heidi's girls in bit parts in the World of Drugs and Professional Sex, You'll also find Mobsters. In its March thirty first, twenty twenty two edition, The Telegraph in London reported that he once crashed a car into the side of a house, which
left the car halfway stuck in the wall. Simpson blamed his passenger, former Playboy centerfold Kathy Saint George, claiming she had been behind the wheel, But Saint George was dating a man with mob connections, and men claiming to be mobsters turned up at Simpson's house. They ultimately extorted him for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
So the nineties are really when Don started having trouble at work. I imagine that his addiction to drugs and women were at the root of that.
Well, for one thing, he was the cliche of the bad Hollywood boss. His tantrums were impossible to ignore. Petty things would set him off. Don claimed his father was physically abusive. None of his Alaska friends remember that, but years later his mother was on the phone with one of his assistants when she heard Don going off on another assistant in the background. His mother admitted that she used to put him in the closet when he lost
his temper. She said, pay no attention to his temper tantrums. But his tantrums were impossible to ignore. Petty things would set him off. He fired assistants because they put cream in his coffee when he was dieting, or because they served it black when he was not. He demanded perfect bagels. An ex assistant said if his bagel was toasted too much, he'd have a heart attack. If you got the wrong kind of mustard, you were dead. It had to be frenches. At the Regency in New York, he yelled at the
housekeepers because someone had pressed and starched his jeans. I asked for fluff and fold. He screamed, how dare you fluff and fold? He vandalized a hotel room during another tantrum. A former assistant said he couldn't open the window, so he just tossed a chair through it. In nineteen ninety, a talent and told an interviewer that Don was egotistical and megalomaniacal. He's irrational and out of control until he gets his way, but everybody deals with him because they
have to. His movies make money. Many of the journalists who try to report on Don Simpson found themselves on the receiving end of threats and strong arm tactics. Courtesy of names like private investigator Anthony Pelicano and, in the words of journalist Charles Fleming, legendary rough litigator Burt Fields.
They became ubiquitous as enforcers for Simpson's take no prisoner's approach to the entertainment industry, and the linkage between aras has other significant figures who either began with Simpson or whose careers were supercharged by his big spending ways. For decades, event planner and pr consultant Peggy Siegel reigned as one of New York's busiest entertainment movers and shakers until, as Town and Country magazine put it in twenty nineteen, and
the old school power publicist fell off a cliff. That's when Siegel's networking efforts on behalf of convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein put her in the crosshairs of the same media. She had spent decades courting for her many Oscar competitor clients,
including most notably Harvey Weinstein. But before all of that, in nineteen eighty three, Siegel was hired by Simpson to launch his personal brand of celebrityhood via a series of wildly extravagant parties in the Colorado ski resort of Aspen. These star packed bacchanalls were fueled by unlimited amounts of cash, top shelf champagne and pure Bolivian cocaine.
There was a sexual harassment lawsuit as well that was a big story for Variety and not nearly as prevalent as they are today.
Yes, and he was sued by a former assistant named Monica Harmon in nineteen eighty nine. She alleged that she was forced to schedule meetups with sex workers. She also stated that he played porn videos in his office and that he had used drugs in the office in front of her. And on top of that, she claimed she had to clean up coke in his office and his bathroom, and allegedly he said things to her like you fucked up again, you stupid bitch. You can't do anything right.
She claimed that Simpson's abuse caused her to lose sleep and have headaches, muscular tension, and stress. She asked for five million dollars in damages.
Which John could have easily paid off.
Correct, Yeah, I would say, But he played hardball. He brought in Bert Fields, one of the big Hollywood fix it lawyers. He also hired the notorious Hollywood private eye Anthony Pelicano. Together they made the classic play against Monica Harmon. They put her on trial. Pelicano found witnesses who said Monica regularly used cocaine, and he found receipts from her video store that proves she'd rented porn, which is obviously not indicative of any wrongdoing, but I digress. Bert Fields
ran circles around Monica's attorneys in court. He also countersued Monica, also for five million dollars. In the end, the case was dismissed. They had become so successful that by nineteen ninety they were able to negotiate a deal of mind blowing proportions with paramount three hundred million dollars over five years to make any five movies they chose. That's about
seven hundred million dollars today. In May that year, Dawn told Variety columnist Army Archard, we feel this is our best movie to date, but they went way over budget, filming on location on NASCAR tracks. After its release in June, Days of Thunder underperformed, with worldwide grosses under one hundred million dollars, Paramount canceled its production deal with Simpson Bruckheimer. Dawn took it very hard. He began to retreat to his mansion in bel Air nine twenty one. Don and
Jerry signed with Disney in nineteen ninety five. They came out with Crimson Tide, Dangerous Minds, and Bad Boys, all big hits, but by then it was too late for Don Simpson.
So as Don's drug use began to take a toll on his work and, most significantly, his relationship with Jerry Bruckheimer. He did go to rehab and spend tens of thousands of dollars in trying to get clean.
Yes he did. He was in and out of the Meninger Clinic in Kansas and the Hazleton Center in Minnesota several times. He also tried the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs and AA. He also dabbled in Scientology. He had worked with Tom Cruise, who was a member. In an interview later, Don said that after spending thousands of dollars and working for months on what scientology calls going clear, he asked his counselor, I've almost gone clear. Why aren't
I happier? The counselor said he would be happy when he went through OT three or achieved a third level operating Thetan plateau. In other words, words, the goalpost had been moved and the cost had gone up. Don said, at that point, I realized it was a con. At one point, he tried a very risky strategy for kicking his addictions. He hired a physician, doctor Stephen Amerman, to
live on his estate and treat him full time. The doctor's strategy was to prescribe drugs to manage Don's withdrawal symptoms. One expert later called the strategy dangerously unorthodox. Doctor Amerman was also a recovering addict. He had a serious relapse that summer that ended with his death at Don's poolhouse on August seventeenth, nineteen ninety five. The police report noted that the scene had been sanitized, meaning evidence of drug use had been removed or hidden. The autopsy found the
cause of death to be multiple drug intoxication. Toxicologists found a deadly mix of cocaine, morphine, and valume in his system. The death of doctor Amerman should have been a wake up call for Don Simpson, but in retrospect the call may have come too late. But it was a wake up call for Jerry Bruckheimer. Four months later, he and Don announced that they were closing Simpson Bruckheimer. It was amicable.
They would continue to work together on projects they already had in the pipeline, but from that point forward they would both become independent producers. In the fall of nineteen ninety five, Don considered treatment for his addiction with a doctor who specialized in using hormones to control mood disorders. During a routine physical exam, the doctor found that Don was in immediate danger of sudden heart failure. He warned Don that his heart could stop beating at any moment.
When it happened, it would most likely be quote either at the dinner table, on the can or when waking up. Don ignored the warning and went to another doctor who gave him a more hope full prognosis on Thursday, January eighteenth, nineteen ninety six. Don had been holed up at home for weeks. He met for three hours that day with his lawyer, his agent, and his brother Larry to discuss a potential new production deal in the works at Universal. He was upbeat for a change. He felt good about
his prospects. Casey Silver, a former Simpson Bruckheimer development director, was now head of development at Universal. Don had an inn. The ball was in Casey's court and Don expected his call at any minute. Later that day, he took a call from James Toback, the screenwriter and director, who was seeking advice on a script. The call lasted five hours, Toback said later, we had this marathon, multi hour conversation,
after which he drifted into sleep. When Don woke up, he grabbed a copy of the new biography of director Oliver Stone and went into the master bath. His housekeepers arrived around five o'clock. One of them found his body on the floor next to the toilet. The biography of Oliver Stone was lying at his feet.
And this is when staff at the house called Don's assistant.
Yes Todd Morrero. He then phoned Don's lawyers, Jerry Bruckheimer and probably others. We know that two of Don's attorneys arrived at the house within minutes. Morrero eventually called nine one one and EMS arrived in fifteen minutes. LAPD and coroner investigators arrived later. Sixty three of the eighty bottles of medication police found were prescribed by the late doctor Stephen Amerman. The police report echoed the report on doctor
Amerman's death. The scene had been sanitized and decedent is said to have histories of PCP and cocaine abuse, possibly marijuana. There were thousands of mind altering prescription medications in the house, but they found no illegal drugs. It seemed as though someone had had removed them. There was no suicide note or obvious trauma. The report stated it was a death by natural causes. The entry under Special Circumstances read drug background.
Natural causes, but the actual cause of death was released later correct Yes.
It was cocaine use in the presence of myocardiofibrosis that may have induced fatal arrhythmia. Myocardiofibrosis is a thickening of the heart muscle walls. The toxicology report found traces of unisom Adaracs, Vistail, Librium, Valium, compizine, Xanax, decrel, and Teagan. In Don's blood, cocaine was also detected. Much later, someone listened to the messages on Don's answering machine. One was from Casey Silver at Universal. He had decided to green
light Don's production deal. It was the call Don had been waiting for. It came in around four pm, an hour before his body was found. Variety's obituary for Don Simpson ran on Monday, January twenty ninth. It read, in part, for Simpson, success was trouble spelled backward by all accounts. Simpson was a complex man, extolled by his friends for his intelligence, amazing recall of information, and unconditional loyalty. But he also indulged privately in excesses that led to the
diminution of his productivity and strained his partnership with Bruckheimer. Bruckheimer, however, remained loyal to Simpson. Later that day, the most powerful people in Hollywood gathered to mourn at Morton's, a restaurant catering to the rich and famous in West Hollywood. It could have been an Academy Awards after party for all his abuse and dysfunction, Hollywood revered, rewarded, and enabled the
late mogul Don Simpson. So, Matt, looking back on all of this, why do you think this reckless, predatory behavior was condoned and even reward.
I think all the evidence is there in his biography. He was an incredibly lucrative movie and cash machine, and even if you look at how long it took the relationship with Bruckheimer to deteriorate, I think that this, given the time and the incredible success, it was very hard to say no or to turn away from someone like Don, with his influence and clearly his relationships with filmmakers.
I mean, really, when it comes down to it, it's about men and power. The euphemism the casting couch, the fact that it even exists speaks volumes that we have a specific phrase for this, and it's passed down through the decades.
I'll say, one that's used quite casually and used to be a punchline as opposed to mcgrave's seriousness. What's also really interesting about Don Simpson, specifically to me, is that he went on the record and addressed the casting couch, even going so far as to debunk it, which is sort of like an apex level of predatory behavior where you say, oh, this thing is ridiculous, you know, to say, quote, I've never gotten laid less than while working in the
movie business. That is gas lighting and horror to another level.
And it's almost like Harvey Weinstein was standing on the shoulders of Don Simpson in a certain way. I think overall, what they do have in common is the fact that they used their.
Power absolutely and you know, with Harvey, I would say that any Mirror, Maax or Weinstein Company film could only hope to gross as much as movies like Bad Boys or Top Gun or any of these incredible hits. But what Harvey had influence over specifically was prestige awards, which
led to, you know, such better careers for women. What also really broke my heart about the Don Simpson story is take a movie like Flash Dance, which you said you loved and so so many women and so many people love from that era, to then pretend you're adapting it into television and see the halls full of women who are hopeful that they might get to take on this character who was empowered and different from many portrayals
of mainstream women on screen. At the time like that just to me seems not just cruel but also really predatory.
Because he kept making money and he was the big guy, He's the important guy. They just let it happen, and then probably to this day that happens.
Well, hopefully not, but I'm sure it does. I'll tell you one thing though, no one went to Morton's to raise a drink to Harvey after he after he fell.
And there's another thing. This is sort of an aside, but it's important to this, is that there's been questioning lately in the research I've come across. Has Hollywood moved on from me too?
Yeah. I think that there's a lot of people speculated that after the initial rush, that the pendulum would swing back the other way and you would see a lot of things play out in courts of law, because again, so many of these accusations are past statutes of limitations. But what was really interesting to me recently is the Julia Armand case, who came forward as an accuser of Harvey Weste but not just him, but in a lawsuit named the Walt Disney Company and telen AGENCYCAA as complicit
in his abuse too. That's a really interesting development, and I think the evolution of me too is that it's not just enough to name and shame your abuser, but also to hold accountable the systems that help them.
On that note, Matt, thank you so much for being here today and adding all your great perspectives and insights my pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.
Variety Confidential is a production of Variety Content Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It was produced by Sidney Kramer, John Ponder, and Tracy Patton and written by John Ponder, Tracy Patton, and Steve Gatos, with additional research by Karen Mizoguchi. Executive producers are Dea Lawrence and Steve Gatos. Variety Confidential is recorded, edited, and mixed at the Invisible Studios, West Hollywood. Recording engineer, editor and mixer Charles Carroll