Stuart Woods: Bel-Air dead

“I didn’t know all that, Rick; you’ll have to come and fly my airplane.”

“I’ve already flown one, thanks. We’re thinking of buying a smaller, shorter-range airplane for flying around the West.”

The doorbell rang, and Manolo escorted in a tall, striking blonde. It took Stone a moment to recognize her.

“Stone!” she said, rushing toward him and planting a tender, juicy kiss on his lips.

Stone dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief, and it came away red. “Charlene, it’s so good to see you,” he said, then introduced her to Dino, who was flabbergasted to meet a bona fide movie star. Stone had had a brief fling with Charlene Joiner on a previous visit to L.A., just as she had had flings with numerous men, including a president.

They all sat down again, and Manolo served their drinks.

“Rick was telling us about his flying career,” Stone said.

“I’ve flown with Rick, and he’s a marvelous pilot,” Charlene said.

Rick warmed to the conversation. “Stone, do you remember the movie actor Clete Barrow?”

“Of course,” Stone said. “He swashed a lot of buckles in his time. Died in the war, didn’t he?”

“That’s right, he did. In September of 1939 I flew Clete, David Niven, and Clark Gable up to Oregon for some steelhead fishing on the Rogue River. We were up there when we heard Neville Chamberlain on the shortwave radio, announcing that a state of war existed between Britain and Germany. We returned to L.A. immediately, and before you knew it, Clete and Niven had left for England, where they joined their old regiments. Niven had a splendid war record, and Clete died at Dunkirk, getting his men onto boats. After Clark’s wife, Carole Lombard, was killed in an airplane crash while returning from a bond tour, Clark enlisted, too. So did I, but for a different reason.”

“That was quite a moment in history,” Stone said.

“Glenna got into it, too,” Rick said. “I was serving aboard the aircraft carrier Saratoga when she came aboard with Artie Shaw’s band for a show, and we got to have a very brief meeting.”

“It was a remarkable experience,” Glenna said. “Artie, the band, and I were lowered from the main deck into a huge area hangar belowdecks on an aircraft elevator, and three thousand sailors went wild. I’ve never heard such a sound, before or since.”

Manolo came into the room. “Dinner is served,” he said, and everyone followed him into the dining room.

Rick walked arm in arm with Stone and whispered, “We’ll get down to business over coffee.”

When the dishes had been taken away, Manolo approached the table. “Would you like to have coffee in the study, Mr. Stone?”

“Thank you, yes, Manolo,” Stone replied, and stood.

Glenna looked across the table at Dino. “Dino, would you like to take a look at the gardens while they talk business?”

“Of course,” Dino said, standing and offering her his arm.

Stone, Rick Barron, and Charlene Joiner settled in the comfortable library/study with coffee and brandy.

“Now, Stone,” Rick said, “I want to tell you what’s going on and where we stand.”

“Thank you,” Stone said.

“A private hedge fund called Prince Investments has made us two offers, both of which we rejected, the most recent one over the objections of nearly half our stockholders. Now they’re coming back with a final offer, and I’m going to need fifty-one percent of the voting shares to keep us in business.”

“What was the last offer?” Stone asked.

“Twenty-five hundred dollars a share,” Rick said. “My sense of the other stockholders is that they’ll sell at something near three thousand.”

“How many stockholders?”

“Fifty-five. Arrington is the largest shareholder, with three hundred thirty-three thousand shares, I’ve got a hundred thousand shares-I’ve sold various blocks over the years to studio executives, to keep them-and Charlene has fifty thousand shares.”

“How many shares extant?”

“One million. With Arrington’s shares we’ve got four hundred thirty-three thousand, and I know of one other stockholder who will very likely vote with us-Eddie Harris, who was running the studio when I joined them, in 1938, had two daughters, one of whom died in her thirties. The other is Jennifer, who is in her midseventies now, and she holds twenty-five thousand shares, which can put us over the top.”

“Tell me what will happen to the studio if the sale takes place.”

“The studio was originally on two hundred acres, and we sold off fifty in the 1960s to build Centurion City, a mixed commercial/ residential development. That money got us out of debt, and we’ve stayed that way. Prince’s offer is for one hundred ten of the remaining one hundred fifty acres. That would consist of all of the back lot-our standing sets-our Western town, our small-town square sets, and numerous street sets, including our New York streets. It would rob us of five of our six soundstages, two of our three audio recording studios, and our set storage buildings. We would become, in essence, a small office park, including our admin buildings and the offices we rent to a couple of dozen independent producers who use our production facilities.”

“And what would that do to your ability to make pictures and TV shows?”

“It would devastate us,” Rick replied. “We would have to rent soundstages for our movie and TV productions, which would dramatically increase our production costs and cut our profits. Our hallmark has always been to make quality pictures and TV shows on moderate budgets. We simply could not continue our present production schedule, much less expand it. Centurion would become a shell, like too many of the remaining studios. I didn’t spend two-thirds of my life in this business in order to see that happen to it.”

“Who are the people who want to sell?”

“They’re all studio employees or independent producers on the lot. They own, generally speaking, from as little as fifty shares to twenty thousand shares. Some of them are nearing retirement age, and they can sell us back their stock at a price determined by a formula, which would net them, maybe a third of what selling the studio would.”

“So, some of them stand to make forty million to sixty million dollars if the studio is sold.”

“Yes, and as you can see, that is a strong motive for selling.”

“Yes, I can understand that. Any hope of getting some of them on your side?”

Rick shook his head. “I’ve been working on this for two months; we’ve boiled the list down to the four of us: Arrington, myself, Charlene, and Jennifer Harris.”

“Rick, if you win this fight, how long will you be able to hang on to the studio?”

“I’m leaving my shares to my two grandchildren, and if Arrington hangs on to hers, then we can keep it going as it is for many years.”

“I see,” Stone said.

“Stone, do you understand the importance of keeping Centurion as a working film studio? Not just to the stockholders, but to people everywhere who enjoy intelligent, quality entertainment?”

“I can certainly see why you feel that way,” Stone said. “If I were a stockholder, that’s what I’d want, too.”

“Now we come to the crux of things, Stone,” Rick said. “Jennifer Harris, Charlene, and I are on board. Everything depends on Arrington now. What is she going to do?”

“Has she expressed her intentions to you, Rick?”

“At first, she seemed to be with us, but the last couple of days I’ve sensed that she’s wavering.”

“She has to make some important business decisions not associated with the studio,” Stone explained. “She won’t be able to make a final decision until those have been resolved.”