May 11, 2021 • 27 mins
Episode One introduces Don Simpson, the producer behind such blockbuster hits as Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, and Top Gun. Don, like the Tom Cruise character in Top Gun- had a “need for speed.” Don lived a gonzo, high-octane life. By day he was a fast-talking Hollywood producer who knew how to sell a movie and get the greenlight. Many in the industry thought he was a creative genius— and that genius was validated with big box office successes. But all the success couldn’t keep him away from his demons. The show’s fictitious journalist Pierce Benton begins to investigate what might have caused Don’s tragic death. Pierce is the fawning, obsequious journalist Don might have wished he had while he was alive. Pierce is distraught to how Don died— with over $60,000 in pills in his bathroom. He concludes that someone else must have been complicit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Ballad of Hollywood, Jack and the Ridge Cage.
In Hollywood, Jack hit the big time and went to
make movies. From I Heart Radio, the Based on True
Events anthology, we chronicle true events in the Hollywood tradition,
that is to say, adhering to the facts as long
(00:22):
as the facts don't get in the way of a
good story. First up, The Down, the definitive episode podcast
series on Hollywood producer Don Simpson. He was a Hollywood showman.
I'd rather spend ten minutes with Don Simpson. Controversy, lunacy,
fond tragedy. The idea that Don was going to die
(00:43):
was not that shocking. Do slow Dog Stop, You're just human.
That was Hollywood journalist Kim Masters, composer Hans Zimmer, and
Don Simpson's publicist Peggy Segel. Of course, Don, the blockbuster
producer of Hollywood hits like Flash Aunts, Beverly Hills, Cop
and Top Gun, and whose films define the culture in
(01:04):
Hollywood and across America for a decade and the decades
to come, never did slow down. John Taylor at New
York Magazine noted the two central figures that most defined
the spirit of the nineteen eighties were President Ronald Reagan
and Donald Clarence Simpson. I would add that only one
of these men had a penile implant. What you were
(01:27):
about to hear is a tragic tale, and I'm not
talking about the peno implant, which, as you might have guessed,
went horribly wrong. This is a story as epic as
Citizen Kane, or more aptly, Citizen Cocaine. You know the
Good Fellow scene with the helicopters and stirring the pasta sauce.
Don Simpson lit that sort of chaos on a daily basis.
(01:49):
It was a life centered around one thing. Speed Don
survived numerous car crashes, including one where he crashed his
Ferrari into promise his rehabisode, Don reportedly got out of
the are shouting who moved the gates? If it wasn't Speed,
it was guns. When a new writer would come over
for script notes, Don would wait for him on the
roof of his mansion in his underwear, the red light
(02:11):
of his A K forty seven targeted on the unsuspecting
writer's forehead. Don was nuts, gonzo, manic, intimidating, and yet
it was all calculated to create a persona The persona
of the Dawn, and the Dawn would grow in epic proportions.
Don's story was a classic reinvention and math. What Gatsby's
(02:35):
excess was to the twenties, Dons was to the eighties,
and it could have only happened at a certain time
and place in history. Once upon a time in Hollywood,
the nineteen eighties lifestyles of the rich and reckless. How
did Don get away with his behavior? Money, money he
made for others, and money he spent on himself. While
(02:55):
at Paramount, he oversaw the production of Greece Saturday Night
Fever and American Jiggle, And then he face planted into
a bowl of soup at a shareholders meeting. He had
been on a three day drug bender. Paramount fired him,
but also gave him a movie deal his next three films, Flashdance,
Beverly Hills, Cop and Top Gun. Those six films cost
(03:16):
a combined fifty million dollars. They made one point six billion.
Back in the nineteen eighties, Don's behavior wasn't just tolerated,
it was encouraged. The industry gave Dawn a long leash
for his high class call girls. His alliance with the
Vatican connected Italian mob, the private eye that cleaned up
(03:36):
his car crashes and illicit firearm schemes. The doctor Field
Goods on retainer, the expense accounts for exotic cars and
private jets and ski party orgies in Aspen. Don's black
market ties were an open secret inside Hollywood, and it
was Don's black market connections that led to his tragic death.
(03:57):
Our series is a docu drama, mostly fact mixed with
a bit of fiction, and so we created Pierce Bentent.
Pierce is a fictionalized composite of the journalists that covered Don.
Pierce is our way in our Guide. We follow him
as he shines the light on Don's legacy and tragedy. Now,
(04:18):
much of Don's story happened just as we're telling it,
and some events well perhaps didn't happen, but very well
could have happened. The end result is a story that
captures the spirit of Don, the essence, the meaning of Don.
Some might view Don's story as a comedy, others a
tragedy or a cautionary tale. For us, Don's story is
(04:43):
a story to be told for anybody that loved movies
as much as Don did. Don's passion for movies took
over his life. They were not just his escape, they
were his salvation. He lived for the movies, and ultimately
he died for them. Death. If it's going to visit me,
I hope it comes in the night and just strikes
(05:04):
me down. We begin episode one. At the end. It's
January one, on a dry, wind blown Los Angeles winter evening,
two days after Don Simpson's shocking death at the age
of fifty two. We're outside Morton's, a restaurant where only
Hollywood's power players can reserve a table. On this night,
(05:25):
they're queued up to mourn the passing of their dear
friend Don. There's one guy standing in line trying to
crash the party. This would be Pierce. A quick disclaimer.
Pierces a journalist who records everything on his tape recorder,
specifically the Ultra Compact Pearl Corder L four dred. It
was a tiny recorder with a classy look that made
(05:46):
it a favorite of private investigators in the eighties, which
allowed him to record in all sorts of public places.
Here's his recording from that night. I'm standing in line
outside of private event and Morton's for the wake of
Hollywood Mega producer Don Simpson. Just hours earlier, the Los
(06:06):
Angeles Coroner's Office had issued a statement finding that Don
Simpson had died of natural causes. That first Corner's report
indeed stated that Don had died of natural causes, but
a second Corners report several weeks later stated that dance
corpse was and this is a direct quote, the most
toxic corpse in the history of California autopsy. That was
(06:30):
some tidy work by the corner. We can go in
natural causes, or we can really get in there and
discover we're looking at the most toxic corpse ever. Now
back to Pierson line. The Mortons doorge gentleman is holding
a clipboard with the names of invitees. The line is
chopped head to toe in black Rada. I tense, my
sweat soap cravat are vowed to take your off as
(06:53):
soon as I get to the toilet. The George Gentleman
can't find my name on the list. Pierce. It's by
the famous composer Hans Zimmer. Entering the restaurant. Hans composed
maybe the greatest soundtrack ever for the movie True Romance.
He wrote that song with the bells and patric Charquett's Alabama,
saying to Christians Leader's Clarence, you're so cool. That three
(07:15):
words went through my mind, endlessly repeating themselves like a
broken record. You're so cool, You're so cool, You're so cool.
I call out hats with a wave. Hans reluctantly waves back,
clearly he has no clue who I am. Security seems
(07:38):
to move more quickly now and checks my name off
the list. I'm inside now in the toilet. The Headhunt
shows are all here, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Eisner, Barry Diller,
a galantze of stars I don't wish to name dropped,
but Warren is here and Michelle will Smith. John Lovett's.
(08:00):
We cross checked the list of guests. All the guests
were reportedly there, but for Mr Lovett's the Steve Tish
in his group, the Young Turks of c A. A.
Sherry Lansing, Dawn Steel, Lid Dobbs. All of them work
in the room. I'm struck by the conviviality meant to
(08:20):
be a memorial tribute to their dear friend and colleague,
feels more like another night at Morns. People doing business
as they're accustomed to Pierce returned to the dining room
just as the lights turned down and movie screen drops
with a video tribute There was done in his signature
motorcycle jacket with his arm around the movie star Tom Cruise.
(08:45):
A montage kicks in featuring Don on movie sets with
his Rick Springfield locks and deep Navahotan, Don looked more
like a movie star than the movie stars. It was
like watching Forrest Gup with Don suddenly appearing in all
of your favorite movie with John Travolta on the Arizono
Bridge filming Saturday Night Fever with the Gang on the
(09:09):
set of Greece in Malta with Robin Williams filming Popeye
Pape with Paramount Chief Charlie Bluehorn. Meeting for Del Castro
and Cuba to discuss a bad News Bears remake many pools.
I gotta clean horned jeans. I don't like catfish Hunter
(09:34):
was he Don with Henry Kissinger. Don at the Pentagon
pitching top gun good pot is compelled to always evaluate
what's happened so you can apply with there up there,
we gotta push it down with Richard Pryor. Don with
Eddie Murphy on with will Smith, Don was everywhere. This
(09:56):
had to have been the most ego driven vanity in
the history of Hollywood memorials. If the photos weren't proof
enough of Don's place in pop culture, the narration left
no doubt as to Don's impact. The narration sounded as
if it had been dictated by Down before he died,
and in fact it had a man who came from
(10:20):
nothing and changed the world. Don Simpson, visionary filmmaker, American
icon warrior, poet, frontier, philosopher, blockbuster king. The absurdity was
not lost on the guests, laughing at Dawn mocking a
dead man's vanity reel. It was all very sunset Boulevard.
(10:44):
Joe Gillis narrating while his dead body floats in the pool.
The tribute climaxes with the words of Dawn. I was
a dreamer who believed my dreams could change the world.
Here's the thing. If you don't like your reality, create
a new one. After the movie real ended, Pierce moved
about the room, hoping to gather intel about Don's last days,
(11:07):
but the crowd was surprisingly boisterous. Many of them appeared
to be having a jolly old time. Don was dead
and yet nobody seemed to care and hadn't they heard
the rumors, especially after what happened with Don's doctor just
six months ago. Six months ago, the death of Don's doctor,
Dr Peter Fraser sent shockwaves through Hollywood. Dr Pete died
(11:30):
in Don's poolhouse. At the time, Don and his doctor
were working on a movie script called shape Shifter, about
an Alaskan hunter who dies and comes back to life
as a Kodiak bear, or maybe it was the bear
who died and comes back as the man. This was
Don's passion project. He was still making big studio films
at the time, but his heart wasn't in it. He
(11:51):
wanted to act and direct, and most of all, he
longed to go home to Alaska, where Shape Shifter would
be filmed. From up until Dr Pete's death in Don
and his doctor were pretty much inseparable. They had met
at Gold's Gym in Venice Beach. Don was pumping iron
and was impressed with Dr Pete's abs. There was something
(12:13):
different about Dr Pete. It wasn't just his rock hard abs.
It was his energy, his confidence, his intensity. It turned
out Dr Pete was juiced on a self prescribed cocktail
of stimulants and supplements. As Don listened to Dr Pete's
vast knowledge of medicine and the human body, Don immediately
(12:34):
signed onto Dr Pete's fitness regiment. In exchange for Dr
Pete's services, Don offered to read one of Pete's scripts.
A few months later, Dr Pete had moved into Don's guesthouse.
As they worked long hours on their movie project, they
both became more and more obsessed with Dr Pete's treatments.
Don believed he had found the Fountain of us. This
(12:57):
was an opportunity to not only feel young again, but
to stop the aging process altogether. Now under Doctor Pete's care,
Don was dedicated to pumping iron, human growth hormones, and
the strict pill regimen that Doctor Pete had prescribed. The
problem for Don was that nobody was monitoring Doctor Pete's
pill intake. After Doctor Pete died, Don went into hiding,
(13:21):
and nobody, not Don's assistance or Doctor Pete's girlfriend, or
anybody on the pre production team of Shape Shifter, would talk,
and the press, thankfully for Don, left it alone. They
were more concerned about another famous poolhouse guest and another
death involving a famous Simpson. Pierce was worried about his friend.
(13:42):
Having your personal doctor overdose in the shower of your
poolhouse was a warning sign that you need to get healthy.
And maybe Don would have gotten healthy and come out
of hiding if it weren't for the doctor Field Goods,
who quickly moved in like bultures. They saw their opportunity
to keep Don hooked on the very pills that doctor
Heat had prescribed. All of this history with Dr Pete
(14:05):
was running through Pierce's mind as we returned to Pierce
at the wake. Pierce felt sad and helpless and angry
at himself that he didn't try to intervene. Could somebody
have saved Don? Nobody in this room, thought Pierce. Pierce
drifted over to the photo tribute board, where there was
a table of photos commemorating Don's life. Man. He was
(14:25):
a handsome guy, Pierce thought, an outdoorsman, a world class skier,
a motorcycle enthusiast. Pierce suddenly felt the urge to take
one of the photos a memory of the great man.
Pierce tried to be discreet so as not to attract attention.
He swiped the nearest photo off the table. It was
at this moment that Pierce became aware that someone was
(14:49):
watching him. I've drawn both the attention and ire of
whom appears to be a very important woman. She moves
briskly between a lists, as if she's on a time
her clock set to schmooze. I can't tell if she's
doing business or thanking people for coming, but it is
clear she's in charge. Who is she Don's girl, his secretary,
(15:13):
his sister, niece, cousin. For now, we'll call her the
woman from Morton's. Pierce makes a hasty excit. Standing outside Morton's,
he examines the photo of Done. It's shocking to Pierce
how much Done's face had changed. The photo reveals one
too many face lifts. As Pierce describes him, his jowley,
(15:33):
the surgeon's work can't mask the deep crevesses of tightened
skin from cheek to chin. His hair is greased back
in a short ponytail, and he's wearing sunglasses. No accessory
can hide the massive girth. He's fat, exceedingly fat. This
is Don Simpson, Not that Don Simpson featured on every
(15:56):
other photograph on his memorial tribute board. This one snuck
in and sticks out like a hideous grotesque. If this
was an actual journalistic investigation into Don's death, Pierce might
conclude that he had found a clue in the photo
of fat Don. It was evident from the photo that
Don's weight gain was brought on quickly unnaturally. What was
(16:18):
also evident was that the photo appeared to have been
taken on a movie set. He was able to identify
a well known character actor standing behind Don at the monitors. Pierce,
being a big movie buff, was almost certain the actor
behind Don was the great Philip Baker Hall. She's not
going to hit the streets gam thirty years ago. He
was a highly trained, essays operative. He is my age. Now,
(16:39):
for Christ's sake, I have to get up three times
a night to take a biz. Don had sold the
Rock off his signature high concept one sentence pitch, We're
going to wade into shark infested waters to break not
out of, but into Alcatraz. He would not live to
see the film's completion. Pierce looks again at the photo.
(17:00):
He questions why he feels so much empathy for the man.
It's the obesity. The wait tells him two things. This
is a man with tremendous self cloathing and tremendous appetite
for consumption. In this industry, the big hitters, the Diller's,
the Igor's, the Katzenbergs, with their trim waistlines and their
rigorous self discipline, must be immune to those vulnerabilities. But
(17:24):
Don was not immune. Don was vulnerable. Don was a dreamer,
completely at the mercy of his dreams. Pierce had a
hard time sleeping that night. He was staying at the
Beverly Laurel Motel above Swingers, the all night hipster coffee shop.
He woke up late the next morning and reached for
the photo of fat Dawn on his bedside table. For Pierce,
(17:47):
the photo was proof that last night wasn't a mirage.
He went down to Swingers for a cup of coffee
in a Denver omelet and set out for the day.
His destination, I need a pramatic a Dunyon Roads, the
estate of down Simpson. Don's house was just a few
doors down from his favorite hangout, the bel Air Hotel.
(18:07):
At over ten tho square feet, the nine bathroom home
is currently valued at twenty four million dollars. I'll ring
Don's buzzer and Don's housekeeper Fiorina answers, Hello, I'm Sam
Runkle from Citywide Insurance. I'd phoned the house an hour earlier.
I was contracted by the real estate's assessor's office to
(18:29):
assess the house of the deceased for the county tax records.
Assuming the house is to go into probate and there
is no kin to claim the estate, it is up
to l a county to make the assessment. I start
to actually believe the spiel myself, and before Fiorina can respond,
I'll give her a time as to when I will
(18:49):
be dropping by. She buzzes me in. The house has
the opulence of Citizen Kane Zanna do if Kane had
kept firing his contractors. There is a bandoned construction everywhere.
It's hard to tell what is being built and what's
being torn down. Rooms not under construction are packed with
movie memorabilia, screenplays, and movie posters. Newspaper headlines. One is
(19:12):
entitled A Visionary Alliance paramounts five million dollar deal with
Don Simpson. I'm now in Don's velveted seat at twenty
Row Screening Room. As a vintage popcorn machine, I pressed
the button. To my surprise, outcomes fresh popcorn. A movie
is projected on the screen, the frame is frozen on screen.
(19:33):
A circus clown is under arrest. I recognized the film
The Greatest Show on Earth with Jimmy Stewart. Why this film,
why this scene with the clown? Did Don have a
clown fascination? I've tripped over the carpet. I find a
security censor. I moved to the hallway, more security sensors.
(19:54):
Who is Don protecting himself from up into a st bedroom?
The bed has been made, all appears spotlessly clean by Fiorina.
Moving on, I stopped on what looks like a grapefruit
sized bull gag and a chrome butt plug displayed on
(20:16):
a mantle like a Jacometti. They're blended into the decor,
as if Fiorina had dusted and polished them like any
other furnishing. In the closet, homemade videos dated in marker,
scattered Geisha porn, Japanese sex enemy. Another closet oils and
lubricants and dildos, lots of dildos. Pierce had seen enough
(20:37):
in my years covering Dawn. I've known him to be
quite the man about town, but never was I witnessed
to such perversions. The curated volume and variety of sex
toys did not reflect an addiction, but something far more
sinister on the moon. Now into a massive bathroom large
(21:00):
enough to live it, and it appears that someone has
I'm looking at an all black bathroom. The tile is
on its black panty marble, the wallpaper black print, the
mirrorst black, framed on the floor, jars of Peter Pan
peanut butter, bottles of Chateau of Tour, take out Chinese
from Mr Chow's variety, packs of cereal sugar, cool Pops,
(21:24):
Apple Jacks, Coco Crisps. Was this how Don died living
in the bathroom in his final days, unable to escape
himself in the mirrored walls. Did he die in obese
reckleuse with a greasy ponytail and the fat gravasses of
plastic surgery? Or did he die the dawn? The dawn
(21:44):
that Pierce once knew, the dynamic rock and roll movie
star producer, cut down in his prime, plotting his latest comeback.
I lie on my back on the floor, imagining that
I am Dawn, stuck in his bathroom, surrounded by the
mess around him. Something feels is eerily wrong. The floor
is not messy as such as appearing messy like an installation,
(22:08):
as if somebody had arranged the wine bottles and peanut
butter jars and Chinese food boxes. Now Pierce had accidentally
hit the intercom, leaning against the wall. Fiorina comes upstairs immediately.
He can't stay here any longer, she said. Behind her
in the doorway the woman from Martin's without makeup and
(22:28):
the fancy Proda pant suit. The woman looks completely pedestrian,
a plane Jane dog walker sort who prefers the company
of animals to people. But it's her, all right, the
very important woman from Morton's. Her stare just as intense
as when she called me swiping the fat Don photo.
She asked me who I am? I say, I'm a journalist.
(22:52):
Are covered down in a series of articles back in
the eighties. But before I can finish, she goes over
to the locked cabinet, unlocks it, and takes out what
looks to an m automatic rifle. There is something in
her eyes which makes me believe she might shout Yippi Ka, motherfucker,
and pump me full of lead. I'm not off base.
I noticed in the mirror a red target trained on
(23:14):
my forehead, reflected off the scope of the gun. She
tells me, I'm trespassing. Pierce leaves the woman his room
number at the Beverly Laurel Motel. He leaves before she
can call the police. There's something in the woman's threats.
It wasn't the long gun that she pointed at him,
and Pierce knew that was all just for show, But
there was something in the woman's eyes. In that moment.
(23:37):
He knew two things. One she didn't want Pierce looking
into what happened to Dine, and two that something nefarious
did happen to Dine. Listen to The Dawn on the
(24:03):
I Heart Radio, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
We will be issuing disclaimers at the end of each episode.
For those who wish to hear the story without being
told what was fiction, we suggest you might want to
avoid the disclaimers for those who are curious as to
what was fictionalized. Here are the disclaimers. First disclaimer our
journalist Pierce. As we noted at the top of the show,
(24:23):
Pierce is a fictionalized creation. All of Pierce's travels and
encounters are dramatizations. They are a means to draw us
closer to what Don might have experienced in his final days.
They also serve to help understand why Don's bad behavior
was not only tolerated, but encouraged by many in the
film business. Second disclaimer. The wake at Morton's Don, according
(24:43):
to reports, was celebrated by the industry with many heartfelt tributes.
Pierce obviously did not attend the wake, but the wake
did happen with a buzzy celebrity list of invitees. There
wasn't a sizzle reel of Don's greatest hits produced by
Don celebrating Don's genius. That was our creative license. There
was apparently a short tribute real, directed by Les Mayfield,
(25:03):
who coincidentally directed Will McCormick, the EP of our series.
In the film American Outlaws. How's that for six degrees
of separation? In dramatizing don Sizzle Real, we thought, how
would Don have scripted his own movie? Don was known
as the architect of the eighties movie three act formula
where the hero gets a shot at redemption and a
final freeze frame shot of victory. But of course Don
(25:24):
was very much an anti hero. We would guess he
would have been quite depressed on seeing his life on
the screen arise and fall tragedy without redemption. His freeze
frame moment was lying dead on the floor of his bathroom.
Third disclaimer, Don did have a doctor who died in
his poolhouse. In our series, he is the fictionalized Doctor Pete.
Dr Pete is inspired by Don's relationship with Dr Stephen Amerman.
(25:47):
If Don had scripted his biopic, we would guess his
act to all. His lost moment was when Don loses
his friend and doctor in a tragic overdose in Don's poolhouse.
The real life doctor Amerman was by all accounts, a
brilliant doctor. He in the emergency room at Beverly Hills
Medical Center. He was a businessman with several medical patents,
attracting interest from big medical companies, but more than anything,
(26:08):
he wanted to make movies. The movie he was absolutely
obsessed with making was called The Legend of Kodiak, a
story about a Kodiak bear who was killed by poachers
and is reborn as a man. Ammerman had plans to
make a billion dollar epic with tie ins for merchandise,
VHS sales, and vitamins. Not sure how the vitamins factor in.
If you're getting a disaster artist fibe, you're not far off.
(26:28):
Throughout the series, we will be recreating the behind the
scenes of Don and Dr A's Kodiak Bear movie. Disclaimer
for Pierce exploring Don's house. Don's live in made Fiorina
is fictionalized. We do know that Don had a butler
of sorts who was said to have once been former
special ops and who would become Don's bodyguard during his
paranoid delusional phase when he thought the mob was after him.
(26:48):
Disclaimer five. Don's former assistant, the woman at Morton's, is fictitious.
We do know that Don had many assistants, including one
that he hired for the sole purpose of watching him
while he slept so that he wouldn't die in his sleep.
We're not sure how anyone can prevent someone from dying
in their sleep, but that was the job description.
This is the Ballad of Hollywood, Jack and the Ridge Cage.
In Hollywood, Jack hit the big time and went to
make movies. From I Heart Radio, the Based on True
Events anthology, we chronicle true events in the Hollywood tradition,
that is to say, adhering to the facts as long
(00:22):
as the facts don't get in the way of a
good story. First up, The Down, the definitive episode podcast
series on Hollywood producer Don Simpson. He was a Hollywood showman.
I'd rather spend ten minutes with Don Simpson. Controversy, lunacy,
fond tragedy. The idea that Don was going to die
(00:43):
was not that shocking. Do slow Dog Stop, You're just human.
That was Hollywood journalist Kim Masters, composer Hans Zimmer, and
Don Simpson's publicist Peggy Segel. Of course, Don, the blockbuster
producer of Hollywood hits like Flash Aunts, Beverly Hills, Cop
and Top Gun, and whose films define the culture in
(01:04):
Hollywood and across America for a decade and the decades
to come, never did slow down. John Taylor at New
York Magazine noted the two central figures that most defined
the spirit of the nineteen eighties were President Ronald Reagan
and Donald Clarence Simpson. I would add that only one
of these men had a penile implant. What you were
(01:27):
about to hear is a tragic tale, and I'm not
talking about the peno implant, which, as you might have guessed,
went horribly wrong. This is a story as epic as
Citizen Kane, or more aptly, Citizen Cocaine. You know the
Good Fellow scene with the helicopters and stirring the pasta sauce.
Don Simpson lit that sort of chaos on a daily basis.
(01:49):
It was a life centered around one thing. Speed Don
survived numerous car crashes, including one where he crashed his
Ferrari into promise his rehabisode, Don reportedly got out of
the are shouting who moved the gates? If it wasn't Speed,
it was guns. When a new writer would come over
for script notes, Don would wait for him on the
roof of his mansion in his underwear, the red light
(02:11):
of his A K forty seven targeted on the unsuspecting
writer's forehead. Don was nuts, gonzo, manic, intimidating, and yet
it was all calculated to create a persona The persona
of the Dawn, and the Dawn would grow in epic proportions.
Don's story was a classic reinvention and math. What Gatsby's
(02:35):
excess was to the twenties, Dons was to the eighties,
and it could have only happened at a certain time
and place in history. Once upon a time in Hollywood,
the nineteen eighties lifestyles of the rich and reckless. How
did Don get away with his behavior? Money, money he
made for others, and money he spent on himself. While
(02:55):
at Paramount, he oversaw the production of Greece Saturday Night
Fever and American Jiggle, And then he face planted into
a bowl of soup at a shareholders meeting. He had
been on a three day drug bender. Paramount fired him,
but also gave him a movie deal his next three films, Flashdance,
Beverly Hills, Cop and Top Gun. Those six films cost
(03:16):
a combined fifty million dollars. They made one point six billion.
Back in the nineteen eighties, Don's behavior wasn't just tolerated,
it was encouraged. The industry gave Dawn a long leash
for his high class call girls. His alliance with the
Vatican connected Italian mob, the private eye that cleaned up
(03:36):
his car crashes and illicit firearm schemes. The doctor Field
Goods on retainer, the expense accounts for exotic cars and
private jets and ski party orgies in Aspen. Don's black
market ties were an open secret inside Hollywood, and it
was Don's black market connections that led to his tragic death.
(03:57):
Our series is a docu drama, mostly fact mixed with
a bit of fiction, and so we created Pierce Bentent.
Pierce is a fictionalized composite of the journalists that covered Don.
Pierce is our way in our Guide. We follow him
as he shines the light on Don's legacy and tragedy. Now,
(04:18):
much of Don's story happened just as we're telling it,
and some events well perhaps didn't happen, but very well
could have happened. The end result is a story that
captures the spirit of Don, the essence, the meaning of Don.
Some might view Don's story as a comedy, others a
tragedy or a cautionary tale. For us, Don's story is
(04:43):
a story to be told for anybody that loved movies
as much as Don did. Don's passion for movies took
over his life. They were not just his escape, they
were his salvation. He lived for the movies, and ultimately
he died for them. Death. If it's going to visit me,
I hope it comes in the night and just strikes
(05:04):
me down. We begin episode one. At the end. It's
January one, on a dry, wind blown Los Angeles winter evening,
two days after Don Simpson's shocking death at the age
of fifty two. We're outside Morton's, a restaurant where only
Hollywood's power players can reserve a table. On this night,
(05:25):
they're queued up to mourn the passing of their dear
friend Don. There's one guy standing in line trying to
crash the party. This would be Pierce. A quick disclaimer.
Pierces a journalist who records everything on his tape recorder,
specifically the Ultra Compact Pearl Corder L four dred. It
was a tiny recorder with a classy look that made
(05:46):
it a favorite of private investigators in the eighties, which
allowed him to record in all sorts of public places.
Here's his recording from that night. I'm standing in line
outside of private event and Morton's for the wake of
Hollywood Mega producer Don Simpson. Just hours earlier, the Los
(06:06):
Angeles Coroner's Office had issued a statement finding that Don
Simpson had died of natural causes. That first Corner's report
indeed stated that Don had died of natural causes, but
a second Corners report several weeks later stated that dance
corpse was and this is a direct quote, the most
toxic corpse in the history of California autopsy. That was
(06:30):
some tidy work by the corner. We can go in
natural causes, or we can really get in there and
discover we're looking at the most toxic corpse ever. Now
back to Pierson line. The Mortons doorge gentleman is holding
a clipboard with the names of invitees. The line is
chopped head to toe in black Rada. I tense, my
sweat soap cravat are vowed to take your off as
(06:53):
soon as I get to the toilet. The George Gentleman
can't find my name on the list. Pierce. It's by
the famous composer Hans Zimmer. Entering the restaurant. Hans composed
maybe the greatest soundtrack ever for the movie True Romance.
He wrote that song with the bells and patric Charquett's Alabama,
saying to Christians Leader's Clarence, you're so cool. That three
(07:15):
words went through my mind, endlessly repeating themselves like a
broken record. You're so cool, You're so cool, You're so cool.
I call out hats with a wave. Hans reluctantly waves back,
clearly he has no clue who I am. Security seems
(07:38):
to move more quickly now and checks my name off
the list. I'm inside now in the toilet. The Headhunt
shows are all here, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Eisner, Barry Diller,
a galantze of stars I don't wish to name dropped,
but Warren is here and Michelle will Smith. John Lovett's.
(08:00):
We cross checked the list of guests. All the guests
were reportedly there, but for Mr Lovett's the Steve Tish
in his group, the Young Turks of c A. A.
Sherry Lansing, Dawn Steel, Lid Dobbs. All of them work
in the room. I'm struck by the conviviality meant to
(08:20):
be a memorial tribute to their dear friend and colleague,
feels more like another night at Morns. People doing business
as they're accustomed to Pierce returned to the dining room
just as the lights turned down and movie screen drops
with a video tribute There was done in his signature
motorcycle jacket with his arm around the movie star Tom Cruise.
(08:45):
A montage kicks in featuring Don on movie sets with
his Rick Springfield locks and deep Navahotan, Don looked more
like a movie star than the movie stars. It was
like watching Forrest Gup with Don suddenly appearing in all
of your favorite movie with John Travolta on the Arizono
Bridge filming Saturday Night Fever with the Gang on the
(09:09):
set of Greece in Malta with Robin Williams filming Popeye
Pape with Paramount Chief Charlie Bluehorn. Meeting for Del Castro
and Cuba to discuss a bad News Bears remake many pools.
I gotta clean horned jeans. I don't like catfish Hunter
(09:34):
was he Don with Henry Kissinger. Don at the Pentagon
pitching top gun good pot is compelled to always evaluate
what's happened so you can apply with there up there,
we gotta push it down with Richard Pryor. Don with
Eddie Murphy on with will Smith, Don was everywhere. This
(09:56):
had to have been the most ego driven vanity in
the history of Hollywood memorials. If the photos weren't proof
enough of Don's place in pop culture, the narration left
no doubt as to Don's impact. The narration sounded as
if it had been dictated by Down before he died,
and in fact it had a man who came from
(10:20):
nothing and changed the world. Don Simpson, visionary filmmaker, American
icon warrior, poet, frontier, philosopher, blockbuster king. The absurdity was
not lost on the guests, laughing at Dawn mocking a
dead man's vanity reel. It was all very sunset Boulevard.
(10:44):
Joe Gillis narrating while his dead body floats in the pool.
The tribute climaxes with the words of Dawn. I was
a dreamer who believed my dreams could change the world.
Here's the thing. If you don't like your reality, create
a new one. After the movie real ended, Pierce moved
about the room, hoping to gather intel about Don's last days,
(11:07):
but the crowd was surprisingly boisterous. Many of them appeared
to be having a jolly old time. Don was dead
and yet nobody seemed to care and hadn't they heard
the rumors, especially after what happened with Don's doctor just
six months ago. Six months ago, the death of Don's doctor,
Dr Peter Fraser sent shockwaves through Hollywood. Dr Pete died
(11:30):
in Don's poolhouse. At the time, Don and his doctor
were working on a movie script called shape Shifter, about
an Alaskan hunter who dies and comes back to life
as a Kodiak bear, or maybe it was the bear
who died and comes back as the man. This was
Don's passion project. He was still making big studio films
at the time, but his heart wasn't in it. He
(11:51):
wanted to act and direct, and most of all, he
longed to go home to Alaska, where Shape Shifter would
be filmed. From up until Dr Pete's death in Don
and his doctor were pretty much inseparable. They had met
at Gold's Gym in Venice Beach. Don was pumping iron
and was impressed with Dr Pete's abs. There was something
(12:13):
different about Dr Pete. It wasn't just his rock hard abs.
It was his energy, his confidence, his intensity. It turned
out Dr Pete was juiced on a self prescribed cocktail
of stimulants and supplements. As Don listened to Dr Pete's
vast knowledge of medicine and the human body, Don immediately
(12:34):
signed onto Dr Pete's fitness regiment. In exchange for Dr
Pete's services, Don offered to read one of Pete's scripts.
A few months later, Dr Pete had moved into Don's guesthouse.
As they worked long hours on their movie project, they
both became more and more obsessed with Dr Pete's treatments.
Don believed he had found the Fountain of us. This
(12:57):
was an opportunity to not only feel young again, but
to stop the aging process altogether. Now under Doctor Pete's care,
Don was dedicated to pumping iron, human growth hormones, and
the strict pill regimen that Doctor Pete had prescribed. The
problem for Don was that nobody was monitoring Doctor Pete's
pill intake. After Doctor Pete died, Don went into hiding,
(13:21):
and nobody, not Don's assistance or Doctor Pete's girlfriend, or
anybody on the pre production team of Shape Shifter, would talk,
and the press, thankfully for Don, left it alone. They
were more concerned about another famous poolhouse guest and another
death involving a famous Simpson. Pierce was worried about his friend.
(13:42):
Having your personal doctor overdose in the shower of your
poolhouse was a warning sign that you need to get healthy.
And maybe Don would have gotten healthy and come out
of hiding if it weren't for the doctor Field Goods,
who quickly moved in like bultures. They saw their opportunity
to keep Don hooked on the very pills that doctor
Heat had prescribed. All of this history with Dr Pete
(14:05):
was running through Pierce's mind as we returned to Pierce
at the wake. Pierce felt sad and helpless and angry
at himself that he didn't try to intervene. Could somebody
have saved Don? Nobody in this room, thought Pierce. Pierce
drifted over to the photo tribute board, where there was
a table of photos commemorating Don's life. Man. He was
(14:25):
a handsome guy, Pierce thought, an outdoorsman, a world class skier,
a motorcycle enthusiast. Pierce suddenly felt the urge to take
one of the photos a memory of the great man.
Pierce tried to be discreet so as not to attract attention.
He swiped the nearest photo off the table. It was
at this moment that Pierce became aware that someone was
(14:49):
watching him. I've drawn both the attention and ire of
whom appears to be a very important woman. She moves
briskly between a lists, as if she's on a time
her clock set to schmooze. I can't tell if she's
doing business or thanking people for coming, but it is
clear she's in charge. Who is she Don's girl, his secretary,
(15:13):
his sister, niece, cousin. For now, we'll call her the
woman from Morton's. Pierce makes a hasty excit. Standing outside Morton's,
he examines the photo of Done. It's shocking to Pierce
how much Done's face had changed. The photo reveals one
too many face lifts. As Pierce describes him, his jowley,
(15:33):
the surgeon's work can't mask the deep crevesses of tightened
skin from cheek to chin. His hair is greased back
in a short ponytail, and he's wearing sunglasses. No accessory
can hide the massive girth. He's fat, exceedingly fat. This
is Don Simpson, Not that Don Simpson featured on every
(15:56):
other photograph on his memorial tribute board. This one snuck
in and sticks out like a hideous grotesque. If this
was an actual journalistic investigation into Don's death, Pierce might
conclude that he had found a clue in the photo
of fat Don. It was evident from the photo that
Don's weight gain was brought on quickly unnaturally. What was
(16:18):
also evident was that the photo appeared to have been
taken on a movie set. He was able to identify
a well known character actor standing behind Don at the monitors. Pierce,
being a big movie buff, was almost certain the actor
behind Don was the great Philip Baker Hall. She's not
going to hit the streets gam thirty years ago. He
was a highly trained, essays operative. He is my age. Now,
(16:39):
for Christ's sake, I have to get up three times
a night to take a biz. Don had sold the
Rock off his signature high concept one sentence pitch, We're
going to wade into shark infested waters to break not
out of, but into Alcatraz. He would not live to
see the film's completion. Pierce looks again at the photo.
(17:00):
He questions why he feels so much empathy for the man.
It's the obesity. The wait tells him two things. This
is a man with tremendous self cloathing and tremendous appetite
for consumption. In this industry, the big hitters, the Diller's,
the Igor's, the Katzenbergs, with their trim waistlines and their
rigorous self discipline, must be immune to those vulnerabilities. But
(17:24):
Don was not immune. Don was vulnerable. Don was a dreamer,
completely at the mercy of his dreams. Pierce had a
hard time sleeping that night. He was staying at the
Beverly Laurel Motel above Swingers, the all night hipster coffee shop.
He woke up late the next morning and reached for
the photo of fat Dawn on his bedside table. For Pierce,
(17:47):
the photo was proof that last night wasn't a mirage.
He went down to Swingers for a cup of coffee
in a Denver omelet and set out for the day.
His destination, I need a pramatic a Dunyon Roads, the
estate of down Simpson. Don's house was just a few
doors down from his favorite hangout, the bel Air Hotel.
(18:07):
At over ten tho square feet, the nine bathroom home
is currently valued at twenty four million dollars. I'll ring
Don's buzzer and Don's housekeeper Fiorina answers, Hello, I'm Sam
Runkle from Citywide Insurance. I'd phoned the house an hour earlier.
I was contracted by the real estate's assessor's office to
(18:29):
assess the house of the deceased for the county tax records.
Assuming the house is to go into probate and there
is no kin to claim the estate, it is up
to l a county to make the assessment. I start
to actually believe the spiel myself, and before Fiorina can respond,
I'll give her a time as to when I will
(18:49):
be dropping by. She buzzes me in. The house has
the opulence of Citizen Kane Zanna do if Kane had
kept firing his contractors. There is a bandoned construction everywhere.
It's hard to tell what is being built and what's
being torn down. Rooms not under construction are packed with
movie memorabilia, screenplays, and movie posters. Newspaper headlines. One is
(19:12):
entitled A Visionary Alliance paramounts five million dollar deal with
Don Simpson. I'm now in Don's velveted seat at twenty
Row Screening Room. As a vintage popcorn machine, I pressed
the button. To my surprise, outcomes fresh popcorn. A movie
is projected on the screen, the frame is frozen on screen.
(19:33):
A circus clown is under arrest. I recognized the film
The Greatest Show on Earth with Jimmy Stewart. Why this film,
why this scene with the clown? Did Don have a
clown fascination? I've tripped over the carpet. I find a
security censor. I moved to the hallway, more security sensors.
(19:54):
Who is Don protecting himself from up into a st bedroom?
The bed has been made, all appears spotlessly clean by Fiorina.
Moving on, I stopped on what looks like a grapefruit
sized bull gag and a chrome butt plug displayed on
(20:16):
a mantle like a Jacometti. They're blended into the decor,
as if Fiorina had dusted and polished them like any
other furnishing. In the closet, homemade videos dated in marker,
scattered Geisha porn, Japanese sex enemy. Another closet oils and
lubricants and dildos, lots of dildos. Pierce had seen enough
(20:37):
in my years covering Dawn. I've known him to be
quite the man about town, but never was I witnessed
to such perversions. The curated volume and variety of sex
toys did not reflect an addiction, but something far more
sinister on the moon. Now into a massive bathroom large
(21:00):
enough to live it, and it appears that someone has
I'm looking at an all black bathroom. The tile is
on its black panty marble, the wallpaper black print, the
mirrorst black, framed on the floor, jars of Peter Pan
peanut butter, bottles of Chateau of Tour, take out Chinese
from Mr Chow's variety, packs of cereal sugar, cool Pops,
(21:24):
Apple Jacks, Coco Crisps. Was this how Don died living
in the bathroom in his final days, unable to escape
himself in the mirrored walls. Did he die in obese
reckleuse with a greasy ponytail and the fat gravasses of
plastic surgery? Or did he die the dawn? The dawn
(21:44):
that Pierce once knew, the dynamic rock and roll movie
star producer, cut down in his prime, plotting his latest comeback.
I lie on my back on the floor, imagining that
I am Dawn, stuck in his bathroom, surrounded by the
mess around him. Something feels is eerily wrong. The floor
is not messy as such as appearing messy like an installation,
(22:08):
as if somebody had arranged the wine bottles and peanut
butter jars and Chinese food boxes. Now Pierce had accidentally
hit the intercom, leaning against the wall. Fiorina comes upstairs immediately.
He can't stay here any longer, she said. Behind her
in the doorway the woman from Martin's without makeup and
(22:28):
the fancy Proda pant suit. The woman looks completely pedestrian,
a plane Jane dog walker sort who prefers the company
of animals to people. But it's her, all right, the
very important woman from Morton's. Her stare just as intense
as when she called me swiping the fat Don photo.
She asked me who I am? I say, I'm a journalist.
(22:52):
Are covered down in a series of articles back in
the eighties. But before I can finish, she goes over
to the locked cabinet, unlocks it, and takes out what
looks to an m automatic rifle. There is something in
her eyes which makes me believe she might shout Yippi Ka, motherfucker,
and pump me full of lead. I'm not off base.
I noticed in the mirror a red target trained on
(23:14):
my forehead, reflected off the scope of the gun. She
tells me, I'm trespassing. Pierce leaves the woman his room
number at the Beverly Laurel Motel. He leaves before she
can call the police. There's something in the woman's threats.
It wasn't the long gun that she pointed at him,
and Pierce knew that was all just for show, But
there was something in the woman's eyes. In that moment.
(23:37):
He knew two things. One she didn't want Pierce looking
into what happened to Dine, and two that something nefarious
did happen to Dine. Listen to The Dawn on the
(24:03):
I Heart Radio, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
We will be issuing disclaimers at the end of each episode.
For those who wish to hear the story without being
told what was fiction, we suggest you might want to
avoid the disclaimers for those who are curious as to
what was fictionalized. Here are the disclaimers. First disclaimer our
journalist Pierce. As we noted at the top of the show,
(24:23):
Pierce is a fictionalized creation. All of Pierce's travels and
encounters are dramatizations. They are a means to draw us
closer to what Don might have experienced in his final days.
They also serve to help understand why Don's bad behavior
was not only tolerated, but encouraged by many in the
film business. Second disclaimer. The wake at Morton's Don, according
(24:43):
to reports, was celebrated by the industry with many heartfelt tributes.
Pierce obviously did not attend the wake, but the wake
did happen with a buzzy celebrity list of invitees. There
wasn't a sizzle reel of Don's greatest hits produced by
Don celebrating Don's genius. That was our creative license. There
was apparently a short tribute real, directed by Les Mayfield,
(25:03):
who coincidentally directed Will McCormick, the EP of our series.
In the film American Outlaws. How's that for six degrees
of separation? In dramatizing don Sizzle Real, we thought, how
would Don have scripted his own movie? Don was known
as the architect of the eighties movie three act formula
where the hero gets a shot at redemption and a
final freeze frame shot of victory. But of course Don
(25:24):
was very much an anti hero. We would guess he
would have been quite depressed on seeing his life on
the screen arise and fall tragedy without redemption. His freeze
frame moment was lying dead on the floor of his bathroom.
Third disclaimer, Don did have a doctor who died in
his poolhouse. In our series, he is the fictionalized Doctor Pete.
Dr Pete is inspired by Don's relationship with Dr Stephen Amerman.
(25:47):
If Don had scripted his biopic, we would guess his
act to all. His lost moment was when Don loses
his friend and doctor in a tragic overdose in Don's poolhouse.
The real life doctor Amerman was by all accounts, a
brilliant doctor. He in the emergency room at Beverly Hills
Medical Center. He was a businessman with several medical patents,
attracting interest from big medical companies, but more than anything,
(26:08):
he wanted to make movies. The movie he was absolutely
obsessed with making was called The Legend of Kodiak, a
story about a Kodiak bear who was killed by poachers
and is reborn as a man. Ammerman had plans to
make a billion dollar epic with tie ins for merchandise,
VHS sales, and vitamins. Not sure how the vitamins factor in.
If you're getting a disaster artist fibe, you're not far off.
(26:28):
Throughout the series, we will be recreating the behind the
scenes of Don and Dr A's Kodiak Bear movie. Disclaimer
for Pierce exploring Don's house. Don's live in made Fiorina
is fictionalized. We do know that Don had a butler
of sorts who was said to have once been former
special ops and who would become Don's bodyguard during his
paranoid delusional phase when he thought the mob was after him.
(26:48):
Disclaimer five. Don's former assistant, the woman at Morton's, is fictitious.
We do know that Don had many assistants, including one
that he hired for the sole purpose of watching him
while he slept so that he wouldn't die in his sleep.
We're not sure how anyone can prevent someone from dying
in their sleep, but that was the job description.
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