I Hated to Do It: Stories of a Life (11 page)

Kurt was in heaven trying to fix the play, and he almost made it. With the five endings he came up with, when it came time to give a licensing agent the authority to license stock and amateur rights, Kurt said, “Don, you are my buddy, my agent, my lawyer, and my friend; you pick the ending.” I didn’t mind exercising my power of attorney to sign contracts, but this assignment was not what I anticipated. I did it; I chose the ending.

I did have the power of attorney to do whatever with Kurt’s work, but I always told him the deal and asked what he thought should be done. He always asked me what I thought of the deal, and I would tell him. Then he always said, “Do it.” We were a perfect team because we shared mutual respect for each other’s work. Respecting Kurt’s work was one easy job.

This play was dramatic, funny, and represented Kurt’s feelings about not killing people or animals needlessly and not fighting wars. It was an open secret that Kurt fashioned the lead character Harold Ryan, played by Kevin McCarthy, after Ernest Hemingway. I never discussed Kurt’s opinion of Hemingway’s writing, but we did talk about the lifestyle that Hemingway lived and represented. Kurt was not in sync with the lifestyle of hunting animals or fighting wars.

After opening at the Theatre de Lys on October 7, 1970, and running for forty-seven performances until December 22, 1970, there was an Actors’ Equity strike, and it seemed the smart thing to do to move from an Off-Broadway theatre to an uptown theatre. The play did this and opened at the Edison Theatre on 47th Street, west of Broadway, on December 22, 1970, running for ninety-six performances until March 14, 1971.

Authors fight for the right to have their lengthy bios appear in the program. The bio for Kurt that appeared in the program was written by Kurt, and it read:

Tracy Goss and
Make Up Your Mind

It is just one more coincidence in our wonderful, exciting lives. We know about Kurt’s play
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
, and I wrote about the wonderful experience we all had in the production of the play back in 1971. When I met this dynamic person Tracy Goss a few years ago, I was reminded that way back then she had worked on the play
Wanda June
with the stage manager. Tracy was referred to me by Arthur Klebanoff, and she needed my assistance, as she wanted to produce a play and she wanted to act.

When the first play she asked me to get the rights to was not available for production, Tracy inquired whether Kurt ever wrote another play, and I explained to her that he not only wrote several plays, but that he had written one play five times, which we later learned was many more than five times. So Tracy buries herself in the play
Make Up Your Mind
, a humorous play with some moral significance that Kurt wrote and kept trying to rewrite. When I say she became involved, Tracy is one thorough person: she learned everything she could about Kurt, about the play, about the people who had worked on it, and she even had a big picture of Kurt on her wall in her apartment.

The reading of the play did not go as well as she wished, and at this time she had joined with two coproducers, Terry Schnuck and Jim Fugitte, both most astute and helpful with the development of the play. Some rewrites were made by a playwright engaged, and the play opened at a small house in Boston last year. The play still needed work, and Tracy, with her perseverance and dedication, is still working on improving the play so that she and her coproducers can bring it to Broadway. They have my total confidence and support.

During the period between
Wanda June
and
Make up Your Mind
, Tracy was not idle. She had written a successful book,
The Last Word On Power: Executive Re-Invention for Leaders Who Must Make the Impossible Happen
, for corporate executives or any leaders who must acquire the power to go beyond continuous improvement and make the impossible a reality.

So from
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
in 1971 to
Make Up Your Mind
, which is happening now, Tracy and I are working together on different plays, but both plays written by Kurt Vonnegut and both with the Vonnegut subtle humor and not so subtle “do something about it” message.

Arthur Klebanoff referring Tracy to me was not my first encounter with Arthur; no way, not by any means. There was his battle with Random House, which I got involved in a bit.

Arthur Klebanoff

When I started this book and as I was writing it, I thought that I really should say something about Arthur but kept thinking that I am incapable of doing him justice with my limited writing skills. Arthur, unlike one of our former presidents who could not walk and eat gum at the same time, is a multitasker, someone I am confident can walk and eat gum at the same time. In a nutshell, Arthur runs Scott Meredith Literary Agency and RosettaBooks, an e-book publisher of note; he is an author of a classic book; he defeated the mighty giant in the industry, Random House, in a momentous lawsuit that changed several industries; and he has been an always-there guy, working with me on a number of projects.

Scott Meredith Literary Agency is a distinguished, well-respected agency that represents some of the great writers of our age, including Michael Bloomberg, Danielle Steel, Bill Bradley, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Linda Goodman, and the pope. Need I say more?

Arthur’s book
The Agent: Personalities, Politics, and Publishing
was published in 2002, but it left such an impression on me that I remember it today. But mostly I remember the publishing party for the book, which just happened to be at the business office of Michael Bloomberg, you remember, our recent mayor of our city.

This is all fine, but the tremendous effect that Arthur, with his company RosettaBooks, has made on the publishing industry and the rest of the entertainment industry is what is of immeasurable importance. Although maybe not known or appreciated by many laypeople, I can assure you that the publishing industry, especially Random House, knows it well.

RosettaBooks had acquired the rights to publish e-books of print books written by my client, Kurt Vonnegut, and by Robert Parker, William Styron, and other prominent authors. RosettaBooks launched its list of one hundred e-books in February 2001 and was sued the following day by Random House.

Simply stated, although the legal documents in the case were not always all that simple, Random House claimed that the contracts they entered into with the authors gave them the exclusive rights to publish e-books. Through various legal maneuverings, Arthur and RosettaBooks won. Since I had, as Kurt’s attorney, granted the rights to publish his books as e-books to Rosetta, I was delighted to furnish an affidavit, together with other more distinguished names, in support of the Rosetta legal position.

The reason I found the results of this suit so satisfying is that there is a clause that appeared in every publishing contract back then, every film production contract, and every TV contract acquiring rights to a novel or other writing. The clause provided that the publisher was acquiring the rights to publish the book in all media now known or hereinafter invented. The court didn’t buy the argument that e-books were in the minds of the parties to the agreement when they granted Random House exclusive rights to print books.

Random House and all the major and even minor publishers have changed their standard contracts to provide specifically that they acquire not only publishing rights but the electronic publishing rights, which was an additional argument in the original lawsuit, noting that if the language of the original grant was sufficient, why did Random House rush to change its clause to be more specific about acquiring those electronic rights?

Where are the authors on this subject? Random House and the other major book publishers offer the authors a royalty of 25 percent of the net receipts from a book, and Rosetta offers at least 50 percent of the net receipts, sometimes more. As trustee of the Vonnegut Copyright Trust, where this author stands is an easy answer for me.

That isn’t all. In recent years, Arthur and I have been working together on a number of projects that are good for both the Vonnegut Trust and for RosettaBooks. We try to divide the work, with one principle in mind, and that is that someone else do the work.

I think the reason that we get along so well is that Arthur and I agree on everything
except
those very few things that he knows that I should know and that I don’t know, and
except
those very few things that I know that he should know and that he doesn’t know. We also seem to have a lot in common, agreeing on most social, cultural, and political issues. I really think we both have to admit that in his case, his wife, Susan, and in my case, Annie, have been most helpful in what we do and maybe even how we do it, although I know we only dance around this idea, without ever completely acknowledging it to anyone.

You bet, I like Arthur. He is smart and his cryptic ripostes in our e-mails are always amusing.

Heartbroken

It was a friendly, warm gathering as we got together at our apartment for drinks and dinner to celebrate the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of Jane and Kurt Vonnegut. Everyone was in good spirits, and it appeared that a good time was had by all.

The next morning Jane showed up at my office early to tell me that Kurt had left her. Jane was a dear woman whom Annie and I were very close to. She was a caring mother, so proud of Kurt’s work, sensitive, smart, and well loved. She was heartbroken at the thought of not being with Kurt, especially since she had gone through the hard times with him and now he was becoming famous, well-known, and sought after.

***

Kurt leaving Jane was happening at the same time that Mark Vonnegut, their son, was in British Columbia going through his hippie stage. Mark was not well, but Kurt and Jane were separated, Jane back in Barnstable and Kurt in New York City, and Annie and I were the only contact with Mark, which occurred through the voice of someone we did not know at the other end of the telephone. We would get a phone call about Mark, or we would hear from the hospital and have to get in touch with Kurt. It was a frantic time, and Mark ended up receiving some shock therapy even though it was not legally permitted without certain approvals. Mark later graduated from medical school at Harvard with honors and is now a happy pediatrician in Boston, doing what he wanted to do, saving lives.

Neither Kurt nor Jane wanted to embarrass me by asking me to represent them with a divorce, so each engaged an attorney. Each attorney was so bent on proving how good he was, so there never could be a meeting of the minds since each attorney was making unreasonable demands of the other party. Finally, in desperation, Kurt came to me and said, “You know, Don, Jane and I really should be divorced, why don’t you represent both of us and get this thing settled in a reasonable manner?”

Now, no lawyer in his right mind likes to represent both opposing parties in a litigation matter, especially in a matrimonial matter like a divorce, and litigation was something I rarely, if ever, participated in. I did have one case where under the same kind of circumstances I was drafted to do the job when I represented Geraldo Rivera and Edie Vonnegut both with their divorce, and that one turned out well for all parties.

With Kurt and Jane, wanting to help my friends, I said that I would do it on one condition, and that condition would be that when we worked out the separation agreement to their mutual satisfaction, before proceeding, it would have to be approved by an attorney selected by Jane. The attorney Jane selected carefully read the agreement, suggested one minor change, which I immediately agreed to, and Jane and Kurt were no longer married.

During his lifetime Kurt started three separate divorces from the person he married after Jane. In each case, Kurt asked that I furnish him with a divorce lawyer, and each divorce was ended at his request.

Duke Ellington

After one of our trips to California with Kurt, I had finally worked out all of the details of something I had been working on for several months. I was proud and happy. I had previously acquired the rights to do a musical stage adaptation of
The Hustler
, which was a novel written by Walter Tevis, published in 1959. It was the story of Edward “Fast Eddie” Felson, and in 1961, it was made into a film, which was a critical and commercial success and was nominated for multiple Academy Awards. It remains widely regarded as a classic.

The film starred Paul Newman as Fast Eddie and included Jackie Gleason in the cast. I had actually negotiated the acquisition of the rights with Walter Tevis, whom I remember lived in Chicago at the time. This was a real coup for me, acquiring those rights, and I had arranged for two of my clients to
participate in making the musical stage play. Kurt had agreed to write the book for the play and Duke Ellington was going to do the music. Kurt and the Duke would both do the lyrics as required. I still have the original contract signed by the Duke, which I keep on my desk.

Duke Ellington was very famous. His music was being played everywhere, and his band, with him leading it, was touring the country. He always appeared in the most prestigious places. When he was in New York City, he played the Rainbow Room. The Rainbow Room was elegant. From the sixty-fifth floor of Rockefeller Center, one could see the city lit up at night, and Central Park was magnificent. The restaurant served quality food and drinks, and yes, one paid for the entertainment, to see and hear the Duke, and also paid for the food and drink, which was not cheap.