Waxman on Beverly Park
In the late '90s director Jonathan Kaufer (Bad Manners) used to invite pallies and media allies to occasional DVD parties, at which everyone would decide which cool DVD to watch (films by Bresson or Antonioni or Wilder never seemed to make the cut) while sipping good wine and eating delicious Chinese take-out food.
The parties happened at a big McMansion on Summit Drive in the gated Beverly Park community which Kaufer was sharing with then-wife Pia Zadora and their children, and in going to these parties I got to know their swanky neighborhood a bit. It's very soothing to bask in the aura of great wealth, but Beverly Park feels a little bit like something built for Disney World in Orlando -- "Ostentatious- Rich-People-Who-Don't-Quite-Get-It Land." Flamboyant and luxurious and well- tended, but with a declasse faux quality everywhere you turned.
All to say this N.Y. Times Sharon Waxman piece about the residents of Beverly Park struck me as hilarious. The funniest part describes how some residents decided to get in the face of their neighbors Jeanette and Robert Bisno (who live next door to Pheonix Pictures honcho Mike Medavoy and his wife Irena) for essentially degrading the neighborhood with their appalling lack of taste ("Vegas"- style gates, a dinosaur topiary viewable from the street, "an eight-foot abstract sculpture in their front courtyard of what some interpret to be a woman on her back with her legs in the air").
I was attacked last year when I wrote that aesthetic choices made by people whose last names end in vowels could rarely be trusted, but sometimes the proof is in the pudding. You can't instill good taste in people. Taste is a result of a thousand distastes, and either you've been around and seen the world and developed a sense of some refinement and a respect for venerated aesthetic traditions...or you haven't.
Zadora and Kaufer's home, by the way, was built on land where Pickfair, the celebrated Spanish-style home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, once stood. Zadora and her former husband Meshulam Riklis bought Pickfair in 1988 and destroyed it soon after to make way for their McManse.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 2, 2006 at 10:35 AM
comment #1
Dixon Steele says ...
So what you're really saying is that Italian people have questionable taste.
Am I interpreting tht correctly, Jeff?
Posted by Dixon Steele at July 2, 2006 1:01 PM
comment #2
T says ...
In the early 90s, Jonathan Kaufer used to linger around the Orion Pictures offices, always asking to borrow script brads and paper clips for free. I was an assistant at the time. I don't believe he had any deal or deal pending, but was essentially freeloading on supplies and always around. All the assistants used to marvel at "Who is that guy?" and his brazenness at getting stuff for free. He also always wore a DGA baseball jacket, so you knew he was a director, of some sort.
After marrying Pia Zadora, I guess he doesn't have to sponge for paper clips at least.
Posted by T at July 2, 2006 1:16 PM
comment #3
Jeffrey Wells says ...
Question put by Dixon Steele: So what you're really saying is that Italian people have questionable taste. Am I interpreting tht correctly, Jeff?
Answer by Jeffrey Wells: No, I'm not saying that. I said last year that aesthetic decisions by people whose names end in a vowel could "rarely be trusted." That doesn't mean their choices haven't been worthy -- I'm saying you have to regard them with caution, is all. Not Italians from Italy, mind you -- anyone driving through Italy knows about the classy beauty of Italian architecture. And not even American nouveau-riche types of Italian descent. I'm speaking of people whose last names end in a vowel who simply have ATROCIOUS TASTE. In fact, forget the vowel thing. This includes all the folks from various different tribes (Iranians, Israelis, Italians, etc.) who've proved over and over that they have not only have no taste in architecture or home design, but are degrading various nouveau-riche neighborhoods like Beverly Park with their appalling choices.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells at July 2, 2006 1:41 PM
comment #4
NYCBusybody says ...
Ah, fuck that. Give me Darren McGavin loving a gaudy leg-lamp in A Christmas Story any day over some classical beauty any day.
Posted by NYCBusybody at July 2, 2006 1:43 PM
comment #5
NYCBusybody says ...
Subtract one of those "any day"s. lol
Posted by NYCBusybody at July 2, 2006 1:44 PM
comment #6
NYCBusybody says ...
And Jeffrey, you say forget the "o" thing...but when you list (Iranians, Israelis, Italians) you've turned it into an "I" thing.
Shame on you and your I-ism.
Posted by NYCBusybody at July 2, 2006 1:46 PM
comment #7
Griff says ...
All right, Jeff -- I'll bite. What kind of "cool DVDs" WERE watched at the Kaufer parties?
Posted by Griff at July 2, 2006 1:51 PM
comment #8
delbomber says ...
I'm glad Jeff at least sees the irony in the "nouveau-riche" complaining about gaudiness...
I'm not a sensitive guy and the Italian-American in me is rarely offended, but to hear a proud pezzonovante like Jeff lambaste an entire ethnicity is at once hilarious and inappropriate. Hilarious because, yes, many "Italians," have developed, let's say, a unique sense of style. I grew up in the most heavily populated Italian area in the world outside of Italy and while Jeff's broad statement is based in truth, these tastes are generally relegated to those within the group who both outsiders and insiders would dismiss as *insert ethnic slur here* (we all know and love them all).
Jeff can call a spade a spade, no argument there, but shouldn't do so innapropriately while giving us stugotts in the way of the inordinate number of contributions Italians have made to this country. Until then I must respectively request he refrain from further use of the phrase "mezzo mezzo".
Posted by delbomber at July 2, 2006 6:30 PM
comment #9
Jonathan Kaufer says ...
Nice piece on Beverly Park, Mr. Wells, and nice to see you at the Little Miss Sunshine bash last week.
Also amused to read the memoir of an Orion assistant above who shares his reminiscence of me "lingering" around the Orion offices when he was there, "freeloading" on supplies while all his fellow assistants watched dumbstruck by the "brazenness" and asking "Who is that guy?"
The point of that anecdote would appear to be that there is a reason assistants are assistants. In fact, I had an office at Orion during that time, where I was working on two projects -- WAR BABIES, my own script I was in pre-production to direct for Lynda Obst & Debra Hill, and DUBINSKY, a script I was writing for Marc Platt/Bob Solo at the same time.
It is true, however, that my deal did not include paper clips or script brads. As for the DGA jacket -- while it was a gift, it did turn out to be a great ice-breaker when meeting easily impressed cute girls. I suppose I should feel embarrassed about that, but if you saw some of the girls I was with back then, you'd probably make me an offer for the jacket.
Posted by Jonathan Kaufer at July 14, 2006 1:32 AM
comment #10
Yolanda says ...
Jonathan used to crawl into my vaginal crease and search for unopened sores to burst with his stolen paperclips. Lucky for him I had his DGA jacket on to cover my face from the milky like substance which shot out. Fhew. Hollywood is good.
Posted by Yolanda at August 6, 2006 2:22 PM