Producer Don Murphy has written an affectionate obit about manager Cathryn Jaymes on his site, and in so doing has dinged Quentin Tarantino, with whom he has a well-documented history (including fistifcuffs at Ago in the late ’90s). He doesn’t refer to former partner Jane Hamsher with much affection either. Here‘s the piece:
(l. to r.) Don Murphy, Cathryn Jaymes, Quentin Tarantino, Jane Hamsher
“I met Cathryn way the hell back in 1992. She was managing my friend Quentin Tarantino and my friend Roger Avary. She was nice. Almost too nice. I would forever tease her for being so nice. She had good taste and passion. She would fight hard for her clients, sometimes even when they weren’t all that talented. Because she was nice and because you therefore couldn’t be sure what to believe, she was a hard bird to figure out. This was Hollywood after all.
“In 1993 Quentin decided to betray our friendship. It’s a long boring story that doesn’t belong here, but he sold me and my ex-partner the rights to Natural Born Killers, acting friendly to our face, while stabbing us in the back. It was really nasty and just plain wrong. During this whole process, at considerable risk to herself, Cathryn helped us navigate the waters behind the scenes. She never once betrayed her client. She would never do that. But she knew what was right and what was wrong. She stuck up for us and was a better friend than her client and made sure we ended up okay. I’ll never forget her kindness as long as I live.
“Cathryn could be tiring, but that was because she cared passionately about what she believed in. She had a wit, a sense of fun, and what more can I say, she was just freaking nice. She was often disrespected because she was this eccentric, small lady, but she never let it stop her. She believed in people.
“And I was there, also, when she finally got dumped by the ‘successful’ Tarantino and she was destroyed by it. Here was somebody who lived on her couch and was nurtured by her and gradually attained his dreams, and then took a giant shit on her. Nice. In Sharon Waxman‘s Wrap article it is pointed out that she never recovered. She didn’t.
“When my former partner wrote “Killer Instinct,” her book about Natural Born Killers, it was important to me that Cathryn read it to make sure the details were right, and also to make sure she was comfortable with how her support of us was portrayed. She took her time, was very helpful and fastidious, and when she came back with her notes my then-partner Jane Hamsher lost it on her, I guess this was because she didn’t want to make changes. There are many reasons why our partnership ended soon after that book, but her treatment of Cathryn was a major factor.
“Over the last ten years or so Cathryn and I didn’t interact often enough. She kind of cut back on managing. It appears she was sick. And she focused on actors more than writers. I would see her at events. I think I last saw her at a special CAA screening that Oliver Stone had two years ago. She was always friendly, supportive and cordial. There is no one I have met in this business in 16 years who I can say the same about.
“Death always sucks. But it sucks more when it happens to somebody who was really just a sweet human being. Godspeed, Cathryn. You wanted to be remembered as someone who was fair. You were all that and more.”
