Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [50]
MIKE SOLTYS, Vice President of Communications:
My favorite thing about Denise was that when she was introduced to people, within a short time, she would say, “Touch my tummy,” as a demonstration of her steel abs. I got to experience that firsthand.
SAL MARCHIANO:
When Stallone starred and produced the movie Rocky III, the night before it premiered, Stallone bought two and a half hours of time on ESPN and staged his own fights at Caesars Palace. About a minute before we go on air, he freezes on me. He told me, “I can’t do this.” I said, “What?” He said, “I’ve never done live television.” And he really freaked. I said, “Just calm down. Just listen to me. All you have to do is answer a couple of questions. I’ll lead you.” We got through the opening, and he even came back between some rounds.
TOM ODJAKJIAN:
We did an auction of Elvis Presley’s car, and we did a fashion show that aired at midday for a few weeks. Budweiser had a lot of influence in those early years. As part of their exclusive deal, they actually had the right to put on a number of events, I think it was ten a year that had the Budweiser name on it. So we did Anheuser-Busch horse jumping, and even Bud Light hydroplane racing.
These were wild and rowdy days. ESPN was like a mining town in the Old West—the Gold Rush days of basic cable complete with drinking, carousing, and copulating. Adultery was practically an indoor sport. When one husband contracted a venereal disease from an extramarital fling, he had little choice but to confess to his wife—who decided not to leave him.
BILL GRIMES:
I remember Roger Werner coming in and saying, “We gotta get rid of this apartment on 47th Street”—which was a remnant from Getty—“because the mail boys got a couple of our secretaries hooking over there.” Hooking! That’s what he said. I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “They’re making money after work when no one’s there. It’s getting out of control.”
ANDY BRILLIANT:
It was an apartment that Evey kept, but we all had access to it and it was well stocked with liquor. Oh, my God, that was amazing! And whenever Evey was there with his entourage, they would destroy the place with liquor, drugs, hookers, and whatever else they were doing. They had to replace furniture half the time. Everybody used the apartment for one thing or another.
There was a time when all the senior executives working in New York—a lot of us were there at Lexington and Third—were all in competition with each other to have the best-looking secretaries. And I must say, mine was the best by far; she was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. My secretary started off very well kept and dressed and professional, but she was a lot of fun and we had a lot of fun together. Then I noticed toward the end, she started getting more and more disheveled, and she’d come in sometimes with what looked like a modified sweat suit on. Her performance was really falling off, and I was about to let her go, when she came in one day to say she’d met some lawyer in a bar and he was offering her much more money than I was paying and unless I was going to match, she had to leave. And I said fine, I can’t match it, go.
About six months later, she called and said, “Do you want to have lunch?” I said sure. And I went out to lunch, and she said, “Do you know where I’ve been all this time?” I said, “No, where have you been? I thought you were working for this other law firm.” She said, “No, I’ve been in a detox facility.” I said, “What are you talking about?” She said, “You didn’t know I was addicted to coke?” I said,