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Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘The film cans were full of coke': The 10 most debauched movie shoots of all time
Contemporary Hollywood is a very well-behaved place, by historic standards at least. This might sound implausible, given the amount of gossip and scandal that seem to emanate from the industry. But over the past few decades, the truly disastrous film shoots, have tended to owe their infamy less to the unholy trinity of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and more to unforeseen problems with Covid-prolonged production schedules – or simply inexperienced directors who have failed to account for the necessity of complex visual effects. But it wasn't always so. Over the past century or so, some classic pictures have emerged from a chaotic and licentious atmosphere on set. Likewise, the sheer moral turpitude that has existed on some productions has overwhelmed any kind of coherence or sense in the process. Occasionally, the true story of what happened does not come to light until years, even decades, later. While nobody would ever have thought that director Robert Altman was a goody two-shoes of the industry – his on-set marijuana intake was epic, by all accounts – it has still come as a surprise to hear that his flop 1980 musical Popeye was, according to the former Paramount CEO Barry Diller in a recent interview promoting his new memoir, 'a movie that… runs at 78 RPM and 33 speed' on the grounds that 'everyone was stoned'. The drug-fuelled absurdity that engulfed the cast and crew did not, alas, translate into creative genius – but on other occasions the results can be jaw-droppingly surprising. Here, then, are 10 of the most outrageous and eventful film shoots in history. Some produced decent pictures; others are memorable only for their on-set excess. 1. Shanghai Express (1932) Damien Chazelle's opulent, absurd 2022 epic Babylon, which explored the sheer chaos of the silent film era, was a flop on release but now shows every sign of becoming a cult film. Although its characters are largely fictitious or composites of several actors, one figure – Li Jun Li's bisexual, adventurous Lady Fay Zhu – stands out for being a blend of the legendary Marlene Dietrich and the not-as-legendary-as-she-should-be Anna May Wong, who fell foul of the lazy Oriental stereotypes that Hollywood majored in for decades. Dietrich was flamboyantly omnivorous in her sexual tastes ('Sex is much better with a woman, but then one can't live with a woman!' she once declared) and Wong, who was more discreet but also rumoured to share similar appetites, was less a fellow actress and more a potential match. The only picture that the two starred in together, Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express, not only saw both cinematic icons heat up the screen on camera, but rumour has it that they found themselves in an offscreen menage à trois with, of all people, Hitler's favourite film director Leni Riefenstahl. The three notoriously spent time in Berlin together, and rumours about the establishments that they visited, including the infamous Kit Kat Club – the model for Cabaret – have proliferated ever since. It was perhaps with this in mind that Dietrich knowingly delivered some of her most outrageous dialogue – 'It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily' – and audiences and studio heads alike spluttered, as the overt chemistry between the female leads far outshone what was expected or normal for the time. 2. The Wizard of Oz (1939) Where to start with this evergreen classic of cinema? There were all the usual production problems – directors leaving and being fired, the screenplay being rewritten on a daily basis – but the more interesting, and shocking, behind-the-scenes stories have passed into Hollywood legend. Its 16-year-old star Judy Garland suffered especially badly, being given Benzedrine tablets and cigarettes alike to stop her putting on weight. Such was the film's hectic and chaotic schedule that she was given amphetamines or 'pep pills' to keep her awake, and sleeping pills to give her rest. Nonetheless, as she later recalled, 'After four hours they'd wake us up and give us the pep pills again.' It sounds more like slavery than filmmaking, but she also suffered the indignity of being objectified in a sexual fashion by filmmakers and cast members alike, not helped by her having to bind her breasts down so that she would convincingly pass as a pre-pubescent girl. (In the books, Dorothy is aged around 11.) The most notorious of these incidents came in the form of the MGM founder Louis B Mayer, who Garland later said groped her on set. Eventually, after several of these incidents, she riposted, 'Mr Mayer, don't you ever, ever do that again. I just will not stand for it.' The surprised mogul desisted. The actress had a miserable and troubled life, in large part because of her experiences on this picture, but an even worse fate awaited the dwarf actors who played the Munchkins. Many of them had come from The Singer Midgets, a European troupe of performers who had escaped Nazi persecution, but they did not adjust easily to the high-pressure world of Hollywood and took refuge in drinking heavily, casual sexual liaisons with each other and in attempting to molest Garland. They were paid less than Toto the dog for their sins ($100 a week as opposed to Toto's $125) and were treated with a degree of contempt by everyone around them, who regarded them as freakish overgrown children. They let off steam in spectacularly uninhibited fashion. As Garland later described it, 'They got smashed every night and the police would pick them up in butterfly nets.' Life over the rainbow really was quite different. 3. The Devils (1971) There was no such thing as a restrained, decorous Ken Russell set, not least because the brilliant but undisciplined director took delight in drinking heavily, rowing with his cast and offending any studio executives who attempted to rein him in. Virtually any of his pictures would have qualified for inclusion here, but it's his particularly disturbing 1971 masterpiece The Devils that had perhaps the strangest and most troubled production. Given the film's themes of diabolically-induced sexual excess amidst a group of 17 th century nuns, it was hardly surprising that the on-set dynamic, especially amongst the extras, was a charged and highly eroticised one, which Russell took delight in whipping up; he later called them 'a bad bunch', and noted that one of the male performers, overwhelmed with excitement, sexually assaulted one of the female extras on set. The film's principal cast were also a strange assortment, featuring classical actors such as Vanessa Redgrave and Gemma Jones, the perpetually sinister Michael Gothard as a witch hunter and Russell's frequent collaborator Oliver Reed, who was usually drunk while on the set of his pictures, and made no exception for the gravity of the subject matter here. Reed had an especially bad relationship with the director on set as a result, and was barely on speaking terms with him when filming concluded, although Jones recalled that he was kind to her and 'behaved impeccably', suggesting that he reserved his viciousness for those he believed merited it. In one of the film's strangest dream scenes, the actor is shown wrestling an (obviously fake) plastic crocodile, and it is hard not to feel that Russell included the moment to humiliate the actor in revenge. 4. The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday (1976) Reed was – along with Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris and a few other well-known hellraisers – one of the most committed drinkers in the industry, making him a nightmare to work with. However, even the bibulous Reed could meet his match, and it came in the form of the laconic Hollywood hard man Lee Marvin, who put away Herculean quantities of alcohol with few, if any, apparent ill effects. Reed, who invented a cocktail called 'Gunk' – so called because it contained any kind of alcohol that he could lay his hands on, shaken together, and then served up to the adventurous – was not to be outdone, and so when the two men were cast in the long-forgotten comedy western The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday, they attempted to outdo one another in their feats of drinking, to the picture's detriment. Stories about their behaviour, even exaggerated ones, have become legendary in the film industry. The picture was filmed in Durango, Mexico, and Reed was said to have celebrated the beginning of production by drinking 126 pints in 24 hours, before informing a member of the crew that they should leave because 'I'm going to smash this f–king place up in ten minutes, and I wouldn't want you or your lady to get hurt.' Marvin, meanwhile, challenged his co-star to a bourbon drinking contest and came off the worse, collapsing to the floor after telling a bemused mariachi band that they were all playing their instruments wrong. He got his own back, however, when an inebriated Reed passed out in a strip club when he was supposed to be participating in a shoot-out scene, and it was up to the American actor to save his bacon by placating the outraged Mexicans. 5. Caligula (1979) A recently released new edit of Tinto Brass's notorious Roman epic Caligula, rescored and reassembled from entirely new materials, may have convinced many audiences that this much-maligned picture was in fact an underrated masterpiece. This may be the case, but it's also true that the production of the film, bankrolled by Penthouse owner Bob Guccione, was one of the more absurd and troubled affairs in cinematic history, not least because nobody involved in it seemed to know what they were doing. Brass wanted to make a serious, grim film about a megalomaniac; whereas Gore Vidal, who wrote the screenplay on which it was based, wished to explore the corrupting effects of power. This was all too much intellectualism for Guccione, who was more interested in making the most expensive pornographic film ever made. Firstly, he cast various Penthouse models as extras – angering Brass, who retaliated by importing what the producer called 'fat, ugly and wrinkled old women' to participate in the sex scenes – and later on, simply abandoned all attempts at restraint and incorporated random hardcore footage into the picture, coherence be damned. Much of this depicted acts that simply couldn't be shown in any kind of cinema, even pornography – on-screen unsimulated urination was the least of it – and so the film was not released in an uncut version in the UK until 2008. The cast included several Shakespearean actors like Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud, Helen Mirren and Peter O'Toole, all of whom dealt with the chaos in their own way; O'Toole is barely coherent (Guccione accused him of being 'strung out on something') but Gielgud took to the absurdity with utter joy, announcing blissfully to McDowell on set, seeing the various handsome young men in various states of undress, that 'I've never seen so much c–– in my life!' 6. The Blues Brothers (1980) Any film featuring the notoriously debauched comedian John Belushi was liable to run into some kind of trouble during its production. During the course of Belushi's brief but eventful life – he died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine at the age of 33 – he managed to ensure that every picture he was involved in became unforgettable for everyone involved, not always for the right reasons. He found his arguable onscreen signature role as Jake Blues in The Blues Brothers, opposite Dan Aykroyd as his brother Ellwood. Although the characters declare that 'we're here on a mission from God' to save the orphanage they were raised in, Belushi's own mission was to enjoy a smorgasbord of as many narcotics as he could lay his hands on, to the despair of the film's director John Landis, who had to cope with the picture's ever-mounting budget. The film included many stunts involving car chases and the like, and these were, for understandable reasons, hard to capture when your lead actor has been taking a mixture of quaaludes, LSD and, most of all, marching powder. It was originally intended as a relatively small-scale affair, designed to capitalise on the popularity of Belushi and Aykroyd from Saturday Night Live, but Belushi's love of cocaine and consequent lack of discipline meant that the costs spiralled from the originally intended $12 million to closer to $28 million. As one musician, Steve Cropper, later told Vanity Fair, '[Belushi] was like a big child, everybody's teddy bear. He just wanted to keep the party going. He was afraid that, if he went to sleep, he'd never wake up.' To accommodate his wishes, there was an allowance in the budget for cocaine to keep night shoots going, and various crew members provided their own drugs; one hanger-on, for instance, was known as 'the mescaline girl'. But Belushi was the centre of attention. His 'drug enforcer' Smokey Wendell, who tried to keep him sober, later reminisced that 'Every blue-collar Joe wants his John Belushi story. Every one of those guys wants to tell his friends, 'I did blow with Belushi.'' When the film concluded, most of them could. Ironically, the eventual injury that he did suffer, when he fell off a skateboard before performing the climatic song and dance number at the Hollywood Palladium, took place on one of the relatively few occasions he was sober, suggesting that whichever deity watched over production had a jet-black (or blue) sense of humour. 7. Popeye (1980) The idea of a live action picture based on the perennially popular cartoon character Popeye – catchphrase, 'I yam what I yam' – to be directed by M*A*S*H's Robert Altman, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, and with music by the hard-living Harry Nilsson, sounds like a strange fantasy. Although the musical comedy is commonly believed to have been a flop, it ended up being a reasonable hit, despite the awful critical reviews. The production, though, was a deeply eventful one. Barry Diller, then the head of Paramount Studios, recently revealed the source of the problems: 'They were actually shipping in film cans at the time. Film cans would be sent back to LA for daily processing film. This was shot in Malta. And we found out that the film cans were actually being used to ship cocaine back and forth to this set. Everyone was stoned.' Williams, in the midst of his heavy narcotics phase, disliked his director, and referred to the set as 'Stalag Altman'. Oddly, his performance was more soporific than stimulated, perhaps as a result of the unusual effects cocaine had on him; he later confessed in an interview that 'Cocaine for me was a place to hide. Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down.' Yet the anything-goes atmosphere translated into a near-incomprehensible narrative that nobody appeared to have any clue how to turn into an enjoyable film. Fearing utter chaos, execs simply cancelled production when the budget reached $20 million, and Altman, complete with film canisters' worth of cocaine, had to return to Hollywood and edit together what he had. It's a wonder, considering everything, that the picture isn't even worse. 8. Caddyshack (1980) Belushi was not a part of the Harold Ramis-directed golf comedy Caddyshack, but his influence could be felt on set regardless, not least because of the sheer amount of drugs that were consumed. As one young actor, 19-year-old Peter Berkrot put it, 'I had never seen cocaine before I got to the set of Caddyshack.' He was soon to be introduced to it, and in considerable quantities. Its users justified their actions by claiming that it was of a superior quality. As another actor, Hamilton Mitchell, put it, 'I would never recommend drugs to anyone. But this was really good cocaine. Pure, like they had just beaten it out of a leaf in Colombia and somebody had carried the leaf to us and turned it into powder in front of us just so we knew how pure it was.' Organic qualities of the drug aside, it turned the set into a strange, bacchanalian place, where dealers were omnipresent and where actors would turn their per diems – daily expenses handed out in cash – into drugs. Weed had made films such as Easy Rider slurring, slow environments, but the mania that cocaine led to meant that the picture was made in a perpetual frenzy. The actor Michael O'Keefe, who was on set for 11 weeks, called it 'a permanent party'. 'Cocaine was everywhere,' he recalled. 'It was driving everyone. People would come into your dressing room with salt shakers and it would be lunch and someone would say, 'Do you want to do a line?' 'Yeah, sure!' It was no big deal. This was the '70s. No one thought anything was wrong about it. Those of us that did it got sucked into the whole bacchanalian rave of it, and believe me when I tell you we went as mad as any of the ancient Greeks.' The finished film – for better or for worse – lives entirely up to this madness. The subplot about the cast (including Bill Murray and Chevy Chase) being frustrated by an omnipresent gopher, in particular, has a Loony Tunes-esque quality that suggests that it was dreamt up in a cocaine-fuelled frenzy, and remains one of the film's strangest, yet most enduring, facets. 9. Dazed and Confused (1993) Today, Richard Linklater is one of Hollywood's most venerated directors, an eclectic filmmaker whose carefully considered pictures normally receive critical raves. Three decades ago, it was quite a different story. When the 33-year-old director began making his cult coming-of-age picture Dazed and Confused, he was keen to have his young cast behave as naturally as possible. Arguably, he took this to extremes. Ben Affleck, who appeared in an early role, later recalled that the director was 'just letting all these 19-year-olds hang out and get drunk and get stoned and run around the hotel and cause trouble'. Linklater had cast many of the young actors via what he called a 'casting pizza party', in which he placed various photogenic types (including Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger) in duos and encouraged them to kiss one another to see if there was real chemistry. In some cases, this chemistry went slightly too far. Two of the actors, Milla Jovovich and Shawn Ashmore, hit it off so well that they left the set and eloped to Las Vegas, although their initial plan to marry was stymied by Jovovich only being sixteen at the time. And although Linklater made sure that the copious quantities of marijuana being smoked on camera were fake, there was a great deal of Method acting taking place. 10. The Canyons (2013) Most mainstream pictures these days are (apparently) clean-living and well-regimented, which is why we must give thanks for the sheer chaos that proliferated on the set of The Canyons, a study of sexual mores on the fringes of the film industry. Admittedly, any collaboration between Paul Schrader, Bret Easton Ellis and Lindsay Lohan – three individuals hardly known for their restraint in public life – was likely to be an eventful one. But even by the standards of other pictures, The Canyons proved to be debauched. Lohan took the role as she wished to be taken seriously as an actress and escape her reputation as a party girl, but it did not help that she spent her nights drinking and her days hungover, often failing to turn up on set for filming. Eventually, Schrader tired of her poor behaviour and fired her – he had wanted to cast the French actress and model Leslie Coutterand instead – only for her to tearfully petition him to be reinstated by banging on his hotel room door for 90 minutes straight. Worse was to come. Lohan had been cast opposite the adult film actor James Deen, who kept disappearing from filming simulated sex scenes to go off and film the real thing. Audio later leaked of her shouting at him on set to 'do his f--king job', which, with the best will in the world, he knew rather more about than she did. When the time came for him to shoot a love scene with Lohan, the actress refused, and so Schrader stripped naked himself to put her at ease. Finally, Lohan refused to promote the picture with interviews or photoshoots, claiming that she was newly sober and that the stress of remembering what she had been through on set would cause her to relapse. Bizarrely, given everything, Schrader and Easton Ellis continue to stand by the picture; Lohan has been less effusive about it, although she has acknowledged that she was 'a pain in the ass on set'. This was, to say the least, an understatement.
CNN
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
‘Popeye' with Robin Williams was the most ‘coked-up film set,' according to exec Barry Diller
We are just now learning that the 1980 movie 'Popeye' had more going on during filming than has previously been revealed. Barry Diller, chairman of IAC, shared some tea about the film during a recent conversation at New York City's 92nd Street Y with interviewer and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. Diller, who was the chief executive officer of Paramount Pictures from 1974 to 1984, was asked by Cooper what was the 'most coked-up film set' that he'd ever visited, according to Entertainment Weekly. 'Coked-up film set? Oh, Popeye,' Diller reportedly said. 'By the way, you can watch it. If you watch 'Popeye,' you're watching a movie that — you think of it in the thing that they used to do about record speeds, 33 [RPM], whatever. This is a movie that runs at 78 RPM and 33 speed.' The musical comedy starred Robin Williams in the title role of the cartoon character and Shelley Duvall as that character's famous love interest, Olive Oyl. When Cooper asked Diller if he 'instantly knew' about the drug use, the executive responded, 'Knew it? You couldn't escape it.' 'They were actually shipping in film cans at the time. Film cans would be sent back to LA for daily processing film,' Diller said. 'This was shot in Malta. And we found out that the film cans were actually being used to ship cocaine back and forth to this set. Everyone was stoned.' Williams died at the age of 63 in 2014. Duvall died last year at the age of 75. CNN has reached out to Paramount Pictures for comment.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Spotting Winners: Vimeo (NASDAQ:VMEO) And Digital Media & Content Platforms Stocks In Q1
As the Q1 earnings season comes to a close, it's time to take stock of this quarter's best and worst performers in the digital media & content platforms industry, including Vimeo (NASDAQ:VMEO) and its peers. AI-driven content creation, personalized media experiences, and digital advertising are evolving, which could benefit companies investing in these themes. For example, companies with a portfolio of licensed visual content or platforms facilitating direct monetization models could see increased demand for years. On the other hand, headwinds include growing regulatory scrutiny on AI-generated content, with many publishers balking at anything that gets no human oversight. Additional areas to navigate include the phasing out of third-party cookies, which could make traditional ways of tracking the online behavior of consumers (a secret sauce in digital marketing) much less effective. The 7 digital media & content platforms stocks we track reported a slower Q1. As a group, revenues missed analysts' consensus estimates by 3.5% while next quarter's revenue guidance was in line. While some digital media & content platforms stocks have fared somewhat better than others, they have collectively declined. On average, share prices are down 2.6% since the latest earnings results. Originally launched in 2004 as a platform for filmmakers seeking a high-quality alternative to YouTube, Vimeo (NASDAQ:VMEO) provides cloud-based video creation, editing, hosting, and distribution software that helps businesses and creators make, manage, and share professional-quality videos. Vimeo reported revenues of $103 million, down 1.8% year on year. This print exceeded analysts' expectations by 1.6%. Overall, it was a very strong quarter for the company with a solid beat of analysts' EPS estimates. Unsurprisingly, the stock is down 13.5% since reporting and currently trades at $4.46. Is now the time to buy Vimeo? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it's free. Founded in 2013 as a champion for content creator rights and free expression, Rumble (NASDAQ:RUM) is a video sharing platform that positions itself as a free speech alternative to mainstream platforms, offering creators more favorable revenue-sharing opportunities. Rumble reported revenues of $23.71 million, up 33.7% year on year, outperforming analysts' expectations by 4.1%. The business had a stunning quarter with an impressive beat of analysts' EPS estimates. Rumble delivered the biggest analyst estimates beat and fastest revenue growth among its peers. The market seems happy with the results as the stock is up 17.8% since reporting. It currently trades at $9.15. Is now the time to buy Rumble? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it's free. Originally known as InterActiveCorp and built through Barry Diller's strategic acquisitions since the 1990s, IAC (NASDAQ:IAC) operates a portfolio of category-leading digital businesses including Dotdash Meredith, Angi, and focusing on digital publishing, home services, and caregiving platforms. IAC reported revenues of $570.5 million, down 8.6% year on year, falling short of analysts' expectations by 29.5%. It was a disappointing quarter as it posted a significant miss of analysts' EPS estimates. IAC delivered the weakest performance against analyst estimates and slowest revenue growth in the group. Interestingly, the stock is up 2.3% since the results and currently trades at $36.20. Read our full analysis of IAC's results here. With a vast library of over 562 million visual assets documenting everything from breaking news to iconic historical moments, Getty Images (NYSE:GETY) is a global visual content marketplace that licenses photos, videos, illustrations, and music to businesses, media outlets, and creative professionals. Getty Images reported revenues of $224.1 million, flat year on year. This print missed analysts' expectations by 4.7%. It was a softer quarter as it also logged a significant miss of analysts' EPS estimates. Getty Images had the weakest full-year guidance update among its peers. The stock is down 14.4% since reporting and currently trades at $1.75. Read our full, actionable report on Getty Images here, it's free. Pioneering a vertical-scrolling format optimized for mobile devices, WEBTOON Entertainment (NASDAQ:WBTN) operates a global platform where creators publish serialized web-comics and web-novels that users can read in bite-sized episodes. WEBTOON reported revenues of $325.7 million, flat year on year. This number lagged analysts' expectations by 1%. Overall, it was a softer quarter as it also recorded a significant miss of analysts' EPS estimates. The stock is down 12.2% since reporting and currently trades at $8.67. Read our full, actionable report on WEBTOON here, it's free. The Fed's interest rate hikes throughout 2022 and 2023 have successfully cooled post-pandemic inflation, bringing it closer to the 2% target. Inflationary pressures have eased without tipping the economy into a recession, suggesting a soft landing. This stability, paired with recent rate cuts (0.5% in September 2024 and 0.25% in November 2024), fueled a strong year for the stock market in 2024. The markets surged further after Donald Trump's presidential victory in November, with major indices reaching record highs in the days following the election. Still, questions remain about the direction of economic policy, as potential tariffs and corporate tax changes add uncertainty for 2025. Want to invest in winners with rock-solid fundamentals? Check out our 9 Best Market-Beating Stocks and add them to your watchlist. These companies are poised for growth regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate. Join Paid Stock Investor Research Help us make StockStory more helpful to investors like yourself. Join our paid user research session and receive a $50 Amazon gift card for your opinions. Sign up here. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Hollywood agog over new memoir by Diane von Furstenberg's billionaire mogul husband in which he reveals he's been sleeping with countless men during their 50-year relationship... while she once bedded Warren Beatty and Ryan O'Neal in a single weekend
Billionaire movie mogul Barry Diller first met the 'deliriously glamorous' fashion queen Diane von Furstenberg at a super smart Manhattan dinner party in 1974. On that occasion the haughty Belgian creator of the iconic 1970s wrap dress snubbed the gauche movie man – as did her then husband, German playboy Prince Egon von Furstenberg, who immediately told Diller his trousers were too short. But when Barry and Diane met again months later, it was a very different story. The pair clicked and were soon in the grip of a torrid passion that spawned one of America's most formidable power couples. 'There was a glow around us that was setting off sparks . . . I was functioning without a brain, not a thought in my head, being willed on by pure primitive urges,' gushes the hard-nosed Hollywood executive in a highly revealing new autobiography. Diller, who was at that time the 32-year-old head of TV and film studio Paramount Pictures, and his 27-year-old lover were inseparable for most of the next 50 years, eventually marrying in 2001. But their relationship was unorthodox in the extreme. She was one of the world's most sexually voracious women, described by friends as the 'ultimate flirt' and even by Diller as unable 'to sit down without being louche'. She enjoyed a series of flings with other men, including an affair with the actor Richard Gere, which began in 1981 and led to a split with Diller that lasted a decade. Not that Diller was a choirboy himself. The big revelation in his new book, Who Knew, is that he is gay and enjoyed regular dalliances with men. Hardly surprising, then, that when the now 83-year-old told his wife, 78, that he planned to publish a tell-all memoir, she had just three words of warning: 'Just get ready'. Diller, estimated to be worth £3.4billion, was for decades one of the most formidable men in Hollywood, earning the nickname 'Killer Diller' for his ability to reduce even the most hardened executives to tears. But, despite his reputation, he avoided the limelight. And there was good reason for that, as he has now confirmed: he was terrified of being publicly outed at a time when being openly gay was still not accepted in Tinseltown. Diller has claimed to be taken aback by the excited media reaction to the revelation of his sexuality in his memoir published on Tuesday, since it was an open secret among Hollywood insiders. But even they assumed that his union with von Furstenberg had to be purely a marriage of convenience, a strictly platonic union. As the artist Andy Warhol once observed: 'I guess the reason Diller and Diane are a couple is because she gives him straightness and he gives her powerfulness.' But in Who Knew, Diller insists that nothing could have been further from the truth, describing their relationship as 'an explosion of passion that kept up for years'. He relates how they could barely keep their hands off each other after they met for the second time at a soirée a year after she first ignored him that night in 1974. 'While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman,' Diller says, adding: 'Yes, I also liked guys, but that was not a conflict with my love for Diane . . . I have never questioned my sexuality's basic authority over my life (I was only afraid of the reaction of others).' Within 24 hours of their second meeting, they were on von Furstenberg's sofa at her palatial Manhattan apartment 'wound around each other, making out like teenagers, something I hadn't done with a female since I was 16'. She promptly ditched another boyfriend (her relationship with the German prince was a marriage of convenience to conceal the fact he was bisexual) and they reconvened at Diller's LA mansion. In what he describes as an 'explosion of pent-up demand', Diller recalls them leaving friends by the pool to have sex in a guest house. Readers will have to decide whether these tales of unbridled passion are Diller's attempt to reassure his wife their marriage hasn't been a total sham. While he may not be a household name, in Tinseltown Barry Diller was a man to be reckoned with. At Paramount he was responsible for giving the green light to such classic films as The Godfather Part II, Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. He later set up the Fox TV network with Rupert Murdoch and brought us The Simpsons, whose vicious, bullet-headed boss, Mr Burns, was reportedly inspired by Diller. He reveals in his book how he was once seated next to Princess Margaret at a Hollywood dinner shortly after the release of Saturday Night Fever in 1977. The late Queen's sister said she'd like to invite its star, John Travolta, for tea at her hotel. Diller duly arranged a meeting only for the actor to complain to him afterwards: 'She hit on me!' (Travolta was then 33, Margaret 47.) Diller is still revered as one of the most brilliant operators in Hollywood history and remains chairman of the digital media company IAC, but nowadays prefers to spend time on his 305ft schooner Eos, one of the world's biggest sailing yachts. He and von Furstenberg are often accompanied on trips by their friends Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his soon-to-be-wife Lauren Sanchez. It's clear von Furstenberg, who is proud to be 'sexually fluid' having reportedly slept with men and women by the score, knew about Diller's men. 'Today, he opened to the world,' she said this week. 'To me, he opened 50 years ago. All I can tell you is Barry and I have had an incredible life for 50 years. We have been lovers, friends, married, everything. And, you know, for me, the secret to honour life, and to honour love, is never to lie.' That's fine for her to say now – and Diller echoes her noble sentiments by insisting in the book that he never pretended he was straight – but the couple have spent years evading or ignoring questions about his personal life. A few months after their 2001 marriage, for instance, she made clear to Vanity Fair magazine that rumours their marriage was only platonic were entirely wrong and that 'everything has always been normal' in their relationship. 'We share the same bed,' she said. 'We go on vacation together . . . It's so weird that people can even ask.' By 2013, when she and Diller still retained separate homes in New York, von Furstenberg was sticking to the same script when a New York Times interviewer mentioned to her that there was 'a lot of curiosity' about their marriage. 'I don't understand what is there to understand,' she responded. 'This man has been my lover, my friend and he's now my husband. I've been with him for 35 years. At times we were separated, at times we were only friends, at times we were lovers, at times we're husband and wife, that's our life.' The following year, von Furstenberg published her own memoir – but nowhere in its 240 pages did she address her husband's sexuality. Her past coyness about discussing Barry's bedroom habits was definitely unusual for a sexual adventuress who delights in retelling tales of her conquests and who Vogue once dubbed 'an exotic cat woman seductress'. In a 2024 TV documentary, von Furstenberg boasted of how Mick Jagger and David Bowie once suggested she join them for a threesome: 'I considered it and I thought: 'OK, this is a great thing to tell your grandchildren, then I came back to the room and they were two little skinny things, and I didn't',' she recalled. She also revealed that while once staying at LA's Beverly Wilshire hotel, she slept with both Warren Beatty and Ryan O'Neal on the same weekend. 'How about that? I was very proud,' she said. The mother of two children (by first husband Egon) added: 'If I didn't have kids, I can't even imagine what I would have become, because I would've had no restraint.' (Her daughter Tatiana revealed that von Furstenberg was so remiss as a mother that it wasn't until she went to a doctor at the age of 21 that she discovered she had a serious neuromuscular condition, Brody myopathy, that causes weakness and cramps.) A 2015 biography of von Furstenberg, with which she collaborated, detailed how she continued to play the field in the years before she and Diller finally married. Leaving her two children at home with the nanny, she partied at New York's Studio 54 nightclub, where male couples would have sex in back rooms and drugs were passed around by bare-chested men. While she's denied being a lesbian, she admits her tastes have also run to women, especially a heroin-addicted Italian supermodel named Gia who died of Aids in the 1980s. Von Furstenberg was also a regular at gay bars in Manhattan where she'd go dressed as a man. Why Diller has decided to publicly address his sexuality so late in the day remains unclear and friends are reportedly bemused. (Some expressed similar confusion when he suddenly wed von Furstenberg 24 years ago, although in that case it was assumed to have been for tax reasons.) He suggests it may be because of the immense 'guilt' he still feels that he failed to step forward to try to be a 'role model' for other gay men. After an unhappy and isolated childhood in Beverly Hills, with parents who neglected him and a drug-addicted older brother who bullied him (and was later shot dead in a drug-related incident aged 36), Diller had a nervous breakdown aged 19. It left him with a crippling shyness which never completely left him as he battled his way up the Hollywood ladder. It would also be fascinating to know when and how he broke the news of his preference for men to von Furstenberg and how she reacted. Diller, a man used to getting his way, isn't about to reveal any more than he wants, snapping to a New York Times interviewer last week that he had cut short his promotional book tour as 'I am not up for interrogation about aspects of my personal life'. Indeed, while Diller insists he's now 'too old to care' what people think, he glosses over the nitty gritty of his relationships with men. He writes sketchily of his first sexual encounter with a 'shaggy blond guy' who, from the terrace of a West Hollywood apartment, signalled to a 16-year-old Diller, sitting in his car at traffic lights, to come up to him. He doesn't dwell either on his notorious reputation as a ferocious boss and business adversary whose hair-trigger temper was likely to explode at any time. Staff at Diller's various offices reportedly lived in dread of him descending on them. 'There's no tolerance for errors; Diller is known to shred employees if his tea isn't properly brewed,' reported the Tampa Bay Times in 2002. Diller admitted to the New York Times last week: 'I'm a difficult manager.' Whether he's also been a difficult husband is for his wife to decide.
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Robin Williams' classic 1980 Popeye film was rampant with cocaine use as wild way it arrived on set is revealed
Cocaine fueled the set of Robin Williams ' hit 1980 film Popeye as tycoon Barry Diller revealed the wild way in which it arrived on set. The 83-year-old mogul - who recently came out as gay 50 years after he began seeing Diane Von Furstenberg - was CEO of the film's studio Paramount Pictures for a decade. He recently detailed what it was like on the wild film set in an interview with Anderson Cooper on 92Y via Page Six as he said: 'You couldn't escape it.' Williams – who died by suicide in August 2014, aged 63 – starred in the film alongside The Shining star Shelly Duvall which was filmed in Malta. Duvall died aged 75 at her home in Blanco, Texas due to complications from her diabetes in July 2024. Diller revealed the wild way in which the stimulant drug arrived on set as he said: 'Film cans would be sent back to LA daily for processing the film. 'And we found out the film cans were actually being used to ship cocaine back and forth to the set. Everyone was stoned.' The American business man said that viewers may actually be able to see the effects of cocaine use when they watch the film. 'Think of… [vinyl LP] record speeds,' Diller explained that 33rpm is the standard speed for playing vinyl on a record player. 'This is a movie that runs at 78 rpm.' Meanwhile, years ago friends of Williams recalled his scarily erratic behavior at the height of his cocaine addiction – revealing that that the late actor couldn't go on stage and preform without drugs. Williams battled substance abuse issues as he was starting out his career in the late 1970s and early 1980s before being shocked into going sober following the death of his friend John Belushi from a fatal overdose in 1982. Williams' life was put under the microscope in the second season of Vice TV's Dark Side of Comedy, which aired in October 2023, and his friends have shared jaw-dropping anecdotes from his battle with narcotics. According to longtime friend and comic Allan Stephan, Williams wasn't able to take to the stage without snorting cocaine. Recalling one particular conversation with the late actor, Stephan remembered: 'He said, "Know anyone with any blow? I have to go on and I can't go on without any blow." 'And I sat down and I said, "I'm going to help you". He said, "Do you have blow on you?" I said "No, are you out of your f*****g mind? You're Robin Williams." And after that, I don't think he would get high when he had it before.' Friend Mike Binder, a fellow comic and filmmaker shared a similar story. 'One night we went to a place called Flippers Discotheque in Hollywood, and I had like a gram of coke,' he said. Upon learning there was cocaine floating around, Mike recalled how Williams had said 'ooh let me take that' and 'do you mind if I hit that in the bathroom?' 'He came back and it was empty,' Mike said. 'It was like, woah. It was like 8:15pm at night. I was like, "Robin, you did the whole gram?" He was like, "It was an accident, I'm sorry."' 'With drugs, he was a monster,' Mike added. Williams' drug and alcohol problems first arose while he was starring in Mork & Mindy. Director Howard Storm detailed Williams' cocaine use in the biography Robin, by New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff, revealing that he would show up to set looking like 'a wreck'. He wrote: 'He hadn't slept all night. He was snorting coke, and if you snort coke, in order to come down you drink booze. He was out all night and screwing everybody in town.' Speaking in Vice TV's new documentary series, friends Allan Stephan (left) and Mike Binder (right) detailed their experiences with Williams and his addiction However, Williams stopped doing cocaine following the death of Saturday Night Live comedian Belushi, who overdosed on a lethal combination of heroin and cocaine, in March 5, 1992. The night before Belushi's death, Williams had been partying with the star at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. 'The Belushi tragedy was frightening,' he told People in 1988. 'His death scared a whole group of showbusiness people. It caused a big exodus from drugs. And for me, there was the baby coming. I knew I couldn't be a father and live that sort of life.' Williams spent the next two decades sober, before relapsing with alcohol in 2005. He sought treatment for his addiction in rehab in 2006, before later returning, one month before his death in August 2014. Williams did not have any illegal drugs or alcohol in his system when he committed suicide, the coroner's report confirmed in November 2014. It was also revealed at the time that the actor had been struggling with a recent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, as well as anxiety, paranoia, and depression. The legendary comic battled paranoia, according to the coroner's report, and the night before he died, he placed several wristwatches in a sock and gave them to someone because he was worried about their safe keeping. 'On August 11, 2014 the Marin County Sheriff's Office Investigations and Coroner Divisions began investigations into the death of Robin McLaurin Williams who had been pronounced deceased at 12:02 pm at 95 St. Thomas Way in unincorporated Tiburon, California,' the report read. 'The investigations into Mr. Williams' death have concluded with the Coroner Division issuing the following findings: Cause of Death: Asphyxia due to Hanging, Manner of Death: Suicide. 'Toxicological evaluation revealed the absence of alcohol or illicit drug. Prescription medications were detected in therapeutic concentrations.' The report says the last outgoing call from Robin's phone was at 7.08 PM the night before he died. He had called his wife Susan, and it lasted 38 seconds. In 2021, Williams' son Zak opened up about his father's battle with drink and drugs, explaining that he himself began experiencing similar issues with his mental health, which prompted him to turn to various illegal substances. 'I had obsessive compulsive disorder - having to count out certain actions before I went to bed at night, obsessing over things. I didn't sleep very much as a kid,' he said in Prince Harry and Oprah's Apple TV+ documentary on mental health. 'I had really bad insomnia, a lot of energy and a racing mind and I inherited that to some degree.' Explaining how that lead to drug abuse, he continued: 'As an adolescent I found using alcohol and drugs helped me calm my mind. 'It became a very normal experience to rely on them and things like that to manage the racing mind. 'I started to realize elements of myself that were like [my dad]. My anxiety, my bouts of depression, OCD, drugs, drinking like him. 'When I wasn't self-medicating, things felt completely overwhelming for me. And it just became part of my identity to get through the day.'
