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Before Jay Bernstein died, he gave me a long interview.
We had lunch at Spagos in 2003.
He came to my book party in 2004.
“Primarily I had to fire writers. I’ve never gotten along well with writers. When Mike Hammer was most popular, I made a deal with CBS that we would hire three writers to do three scripts for each episode. And I was lucky to get one script that was any good. The writer is the only person whoever gets paid [regardless of production]. The writers let you think that’s the only thing they’re doing but they’re doing five other scripts at the same time. And the agents, in many cases, won’t let you meet the writer until you’ve made a firm offer. And I found that the writers who had the best personalities were usually the worst writers. They knew how to sell. I ended up doing much of the writing myself, and I’m not a writer. But I’d structure it from stories I’d make up.
“Some of the writers they gave me were people who’d written for radio in the 1940s. I was getting all this corn stuff that had been done 40 times.
“Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer books have always been closed-end mysteries. You didn’t know who did it until the end. Columbia had no problem with that but CBS said we have to worry about our sponsors. We don’t want closed-end shows because when someone gets up and goes to the bathroom and comes back to the TV set, they don’t know what’s going on. ‘So we want you to show at the beginning, like Columbo, who the killer is.’ And that’s not what Mike Hammer is. And when it finally worked, the way CBS rewarded me was to steal my ideas and come up with a show called Murder She Wrote.
“When I came up with the ad campaign, they didn’t like, ‘When the police won’t help you, Mike Hammer will.’ But I finally got it in. Then when Stacy Keen went to prison [for drugs], they stole it and came up with a show called The Equalizer. ‘When the police won’t help you, the Equalizer will.’
“Mike Hammer was the first hard-guy P.I. The others were the Jimmy Carter soft detectives – Barnaby Jones, Canon, Rockford, Magnum P.I.. Mike Hammer was a Charles “Death Wish” Bronson type who would kick the shit out of you. He’d be like a pitbull.
“We invented the voice over and then ABC stole that with Spencer For Hire. Anything that you do that works, somebody takes it from you and copies it.
“Girls are told that they shouldn’t sleep with the producer. But I slept with the executive producer of Mike Hammer, Jay Bernstein, which is me. He hired me as a writer and I wrote several episodes and got in the Writers Guild. Then I slept with Jay Bernstein again, and he let me direct. So I got into the Directors Guild of America. Then I slept with him again and he let me act and I got into the Screen Actors Guild.
“Producing was fun but hard. You had to get yourself ready each day to stay in shape for a fight. And no one ever calls you with a compliment. Every other business I’ve been in was the same way. In management, when I made someone into a star, I’d just get fired. Once I got them to where they wanted to be, the air would get rarified, they’d get deified and I’d get nullified. Because 15% of nothing is nothing while 15% of $10 million is $1.5 million. And it is hard for them to write those checks. I’ve been fired hundreds of times.”
Luke: “But you’ve stayed on good terms with Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Sommers.”
Jay: “I’m not on bad terms. But when someone fires you, they’re like ex-wives. It’s not like any of them would throw a benefit for me. Because they would have to feel bad about firing me. It all gets tricky. They could owe you money and some smart lawyer will say, ‘You don’t have to pay him. Just sue him. Say he ruined your career.’ Then you have to go get a lawyer and spend the same amount of money you would’ve gotten.
“I’ve been engaged three times but married only once. I only knew my wife (Cabrina Finn) two days when I proposed. We were in Cozumel, Mexico, scuba diving. I was shark hunting, down about 100 feet. I shot the shark and it was the first time I had ever missed. And the shark was circling to kill me. And I went to get the other spearhead and this girl I’d just met, was holding it. And the current was against me and I couldn’t get there. And the shark was about to rip me apart and she just leans in, doesn’t know what she’s doing, and kills the shark. And the next morning, I proposed.
“We ended up scuba diving halfway around the world. We had a million dollar wedding at Saint Martens island in the West Indies paid for by Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Eddie Fisher was my best man.
“Cabrina and I got along well under water. We just had problems on land.”
Luke: “The most devastating article I ever read in TV Guide was an expose on Suzanne Somers after she left Threes Company.”
Jay: “That was after she left me. Her husband Allen Hammel went in and asked for a huge raise for her. They had fights and she got blacklisted. She didn’t work in film or television for eight years.”
Luke: “Why would anyone else care that she’d stood up ABC?”
Jay: “Like when Farrah left Charlie’s Angels… If you walk out on a hit show, even though you have a contract, you’re not going to want to hire such a person. Just like you wouldn’t want to hire a girl who’s been divorced eight times.
“Suzanne’s now on the Home Shopping Network three hours a week selling exercise equipment, candy, jewelry. She’s written books on exercise and diet. They’re close to billionaires.”
Luke: “What effect has it had on you to spend most of your adult life around beautiful women?”
Jay: “The good news about beautiful women is that there seems to be a never-ending supply. Because I’m Jay Bernstein, I get 1200 pictures and resumes every month. Do they want me for my body? No. We’re all a package. Everybody wants us for more than just what we would want them to want us for. I don’t think I’ve ever dated a humpback.
“I’ve never been a cheater. When I’ve had a relationship, I’ve always been faithful to that relationship. But I was always so busy, I was working 25 hours a day. It was hard for anyone to put up with that. Many times I would take a woman somewhere and leave her at the table for four hours. Not meaning to, but by the time I came back, they were gone.
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