My Father Sammy Glick by Max Glick
By Auburn Red
A What Makes Sammy Run? Fanfic
Chapter 1: Run
"Your father is who?" Most people ask for the first time when they meet me. I usually have to repeat myself a little louder, "Sammy Glick" as though they hadn't heard the first time and assumed I said, "Adolf Hitler."
(Usually followed by yes, "The Sammy Glick, screenwriter, producer, former head of Worldwide Productions, and all around bastard. That Sammy Glick. Not only that but he's also my younger brother's father too." as though there was another Sammy Glick running around that they clearly mistook for my father. Believe me being an expert on Sammy Glick, that is one too many.)
"Oh you poor kid, I'm so sorry." Is usually the next thing people say when they finally believe who my father is picturing in their heads a torture chamber and a father who beats his children with a vinegar laced cat o' nine tails and sends them to bed without supper.
(My answer to that usually is dependent on whether or not my father and I had an argument beforehand. If it's the latter I'm usually nice enough to respond with "Don't be. I'm not" and if it's the former, I usually say "Not half as sorry as I am.")
"So do you see your father quite often?" is the next question especially when I was growing up. (Because clearly my corporal physical form is living with my mother, because all divorced kids should live with their mother and I just astral projected or teleported in front of them to answer their question and would not dare voluntarily live in Hollywood with the father who singlehandedly raised me and my brother-or sometimes I singlehandedly raised him and my brother. When I was a kid I usually said "Yes I saw him this morning." Lately, I've been saying "Yes at Forest Lawn. Nice place you should visit.")
While these questions are inane and clearly by people who don't know Sammy Glick at all, I can't really blame the questioners. They have this projected image of Sammy Glick. They see him as a plagiarist, a thief, a con artist, a womanizer, a go-getter who used and abused anyone to get to the top, a monster that finally got his comeuppance on his wedding night by his then-wife, Laurette Harrington. They see the version of Sammy Glick made infamous by the tell-all What Makes Sammy Run? co-written by Al Manheim and Budd Schulberg.
The image people have of Sammy Glick is true in some respects. There are many things I can't dispute and some I choose not to. But what they don't see is a young man who never had a new pair of shoes so the middle-aged man made up for it by making sure that his sons had new pairs every day (express delivered- most of which I either donated to charity or waited until the previous pair wore out until I wore a new one).
The father who when he was faced with the choice of turning his back on his motherless younger son or taking him in, he took him in and cared for him even telling people that he had adopted the boy to make the transition easier for him.
They don't see a father who when his 9-year-old son was stricken with polio, stood over the boy's bedside and would never leave him. When the boy developed a limp, would spend countless hours helping him walk again. He would reassure his son when other kids made fun of him for being "a gimp." "Fuck them," the father said. "You have a great walk that makes you stand out."
The father who when his older son was little tried to hide from photographers behind his father's legs or would cry whenever they took his picture. The father who loved publicity, could be a whore for it, agreed that reporters would no longer come to the house or bother the son when he wanted privacy, allowing him to "remain fresh and unspoiled, just (his) little boy, Max Glick."
The father who when his younger son suffered from nightmares over his mother's death and moving into a new place would sit next to him and tell him stories to lull him to sleep.
These were other sides of the man that the book turned into the archetypal Hollywood figure, so that even now the name "Sammy Glick" is a byword for a Hollywood hustler.
Here is what I remember most about the publication of "The Book" (as Dad and I later called it. We never called it by name. When we said, "The Book" we both knew what book we were talking about.) I was 11 years old; someone at school said something about whether it was true that my Dad stole Girl Steals Boy? I didn't know what they were talking about, but any accusations of my father would certainly result in a beating from me which it did. I was hauled to the principal's office that sent me in for detention and as I left mumbled the principal mumbled something about apples not falling far from trees.
I ran to my brother, Chris' Kindergarten class to walk him home the way I always did. I held onto my cane with one hand and my brother's hand with the other.
I mumbled apologies to his teacher and listened to Chris' ranting about why I was late, and how he must have forgotten about me, and what if I got into an accident and had gotten killed. I was annoyed and told my brother to shut up, I was there wasn't I?
When we came home, we already saw a crowd of reporters circled around my father's mansion like vultures circling around a dying carcass.
"What's going on, Max?" Chris asked confused.
"I don't know," I said. I kept my hand on my little brother's shoulder and led him through the reporters as quietly as possible.
My father answered their questions as quickly as he could.
"Mr. Glick, how do you feel about this book? Is there any truth to this story?" one asked.
"It's all just cheap gossip," My father said what he always told reporters when rumors of my parents' unhappy marriage crept up even up to their divorce.
"Will this book affect your standing at Worldwide?" another asked.
"You'll have to ask them," Dad continued still trying to maintain some hold on the conversation. I was practiced enough to know my father to realize that he was losing his grip already but trying to remain in control. He had the same expression whenever he and my mother fought.
"Do you have anything to say to either Mr. Manheim or Mr. Schulberg?" another reporter asked.
"Yeah I didn't know I was so fascinating for them to write a book about me," Dad said sarcastically. His voice got just a bit higher and I could inwardly see him reaching for a bottle of booze to calm his nerves. I passed through the reporters who didn't notice me, to enter the house. I had a feeling Dad was not going to be in a good mood that night.
"How will this affect the publicity of Worldwide's latest projects?" another one asked.
"Any publicity is good publicity," Dad said. He answered a few more questions, but finally slammed the door on the reporter's faces.
His head lowered and he leaned against the door not facing me. In that instant my father's confidence seemed to evaporate. "Some days everything goes wrong," Dad said more to himself than to me. He seemed to have aged ten years in front of me.
"Are you okay Dad?" I asked as Dad turned around and sank down on the floor his back to the door. I walked next to him and sat at his side, the Variety spread out at his feet. I picked up the article to see the news. I didn't look far only to see the headline: BOOK REVEALS DARK TRUTH ABOUT SAMMY GLICK. I read through the article which summarized the book and what it meant to my father's prospects at Worldwide (temporarily knocking the Red Scare out of the headlines.)
I was about to say something offer my sympathies when my father banged the back of his head on the door behind him. "How could he do this to me? I trusted him. I thought he was my friend. Not Al, anyone but Al!"
Dad stood up and walked to his liquor cabinet still mumbling, "Not Al! Anyone but Al!"
Chris was terrified and hid behind me as though he didn't recognize him, "What did Uncle Al do, Daddy?" He asked.
"He ratted on me is what he did," Dad said barely forcing the words out through his liquor. "He wrote a goddamn fucking book about me, making me out to be some heel!"
"Dad," I said hugging him across the arm. "It's going to be okay. They'll forget all about it soon. It's just like yours and Mom's divorce. It will disappear and you'll be left with-"
"-Be left with me, Sammy Glick," my father said filling a tumbler with brandy in a toast. He began to drink some more and got angrier. He finished a bottle and threw it on the ground. "That son of a bitch, Manheim! All this time, taking notes about me! Spying on me! I'll kill him do ya hear me! I'll kill him! Oh I'll make sure he never works in this town again! He's finished in Hollywood, he's finished!" He threw a few more bottles on the ground as they shattered. "You can't trust nobody! Nobody, nobody!" He sank to the floor. I walked up to him and held him. He just kept mumbling in anger and disbelief, "Nobody!" He would later deny that he ever cried, but then he cried right next to me.
The only thing I could tell him was that everything would be okay. What could I say? I'm sorry that the best friend that you had since you were 16 had secretly been writing a book about you and exposed all of your secrets? That the guy that as a kid I sometimes called "Uncle Al" and was best friends with his daughter, Emily betrayed you? All I could say to him was that he still had me and that everything would be okay.
Chris was terrified probably to see his father out of control, but he hugged the other side of Dad too.
Dad stood up and pushed us away vowing to make a few phone calls and repeated that he wanted to ruin Al.
I was worried. "Dad don't you think you should lie down or something?"
"Oh no, Kid, you never run from a fight," He took another drink and walked back upstairs. As I grew older, I kicked myself for not paying attention to my father emphasizing the "you."
I waited for almost an hour half-reading An American Tragedy and half-watching Toast of the Town to get my mind off of things. Chris drew in his sketchbook his mind on his drawing and not on Dad's outburst. I wished I could have broken my thoughts from what happened so quickly, but I kept pacing and worrying about Dad, fiddling with my cane as I thought.
A large thump made me jump in fear and I limped upstairs. I knocked on the door of my father's bedroom and called my father. I knocked again but there was still no answer. I tried the knob but the door was locked. I slammed on the door getting more worried but it wouldn't budge. Frantic, I ran down the stairs and called the police. Chris stepped towards me, pushing me on the hand and asking what was wrong,
When they pushed the door open, I saw my father collapsed on the floor by his bed.
I was stunned as paramedics worked on him. I thought at first he had a heart attack or a stroke, but the spilled liquor and the empty bottle of pills told me the truth: My father had attempted suicide.
The police asked me a few questions about my father's health and any problems which I answered stunned and confused. I held Chris close to me and wanted to pick him up but was unable to because of my limp, but I hugged him tightly telling him that Dad would be okay.
We rode with the ambulance to the hospital. I paced back and forth in the waiting room as they worked on my father. Chris wiggled in the waiting room seat with tears in his eyes.
I don't know where this courage came from but I told the attending physician like I had seen my father do a million times for other people, that my father wouldn't like it if the papers said that my father tried to commit suicide. I felt almost like a fixer that the studio brought out to smooth rough edges off a star's reputation. I'm sure just the pleading anguished 11-year-old wasn't enough to make him understand. I'm sure the studio really bribed him or really did call a fixer. But no matter what the word was out that my father was simply in the hospital for an aggravated ulcer.
I never forgot that day, though my father did. Later when I was 17 and we got into one of our daily arguments, I mentioned his hospitalization calling it what it was: a suicide attempt. He looked at me like I sprouted two head and didn't know what I was talking about. He said "It was an aggravated ulcer and you know it." Rather than argue about this point, I agreed and let my father live in denial, so he would never recall that one night things had spiraled so far out of his control that he tried to take his own life. That if not for his son, he would have truly felt alone in a world of dishonest people filled with anger and revenge.
Sammy Glick was my father, my guide, my protector, my mentor, sometimes my TOR-mentor, my child, sometimes a bad child, sometimes a bad influence on his younger son,
my shoulder sometimes when I cried, my bodyguard, my best friend but also his worst enemy.
I was his son, his conscience, his mother, his father, caregiver and babysitter to his younger son, his cook and maid when we didn't have them, his nurse when he was sick or hung-over, his sounding board, his cheerleader, his rock, sometimes his public defender, and always "the good clean part" of himself.
He drank too much, popped too many pills, smoked like a chimney, and was a regular at brothels (especially after the divorce), but tried his best to keep us from any "Hollywood influences" not always to success. He could yell and throw tantrums like a kid, but then turn around and give me some good solid advice like an adult. Sometimes he had too much self-esteem, sometimes he didn't have enough. He hated being alone but he was always fighting the world. He inspired me and he exasperated me. He said I never was any fun, but then he said I was the one solid person he could depend on. He made me laugh and then would say something hurtful that he knew would upset me. He always needed me, but acted like he didn't. I liked being needed, but was often exhausted by it. He would brag about all of the people he knew and friends he had, but then glower about he couldn't find one honest real soul among them ("Excepting you, Kiddo," he'd say to me with a wink). We would fight often, but say we loved each other. The truth is sometimes I hated him because he was Sammy Glick, but I always loved him because he was my father.
Al Manheim always wanted to know "What Made Sammy Run?" Well, Al, I can't answer that either. In all of the years I knew him, I never knew. When he was younger fame and fortune probably. When he was older and he saw enemies everywhere, maybe
for survival. All that I can answer is I like to think when he needed to stop running, when he couldn't run any further then he came to me. Through the blur of a man running in
one direction or another, making a name for himself, clinging to his piece of the pie, I could see who he was: The man who on occasion stopped running to catch his breath and be human.
Auburn Red's Notes:
1. Of course in this universe the book What Makes Sammy Run? is only co-written by Schulberg with Al Manheim, so the fictional character helped the real author write the book. Try not to think about it too much. You'll feel better that way.
However, we will later find out that the fictionalized version of What Makes Sammy Run? isn't published until the 1950's rather than 1941, like the real one was. We will discover the reasons later, but many of Al's reasons behind publishing it then are both political (think what was going on in Hollywood in the '50's) and personal (between himself and Sammy and between Max and Sammy).
2. The thing about Sammy stealing Girl Steals Boy comes from the book in that it was a script written by another writer, Julian Blumberg but Sammy sold it to Hollywood under his own name and made a success of it.
3. Sammy's line "Some days everything goes wrong" is the title of the final song in the What Makes Sammy Run? musical. It occurs after Sammy has caught Laurette in bed with another man and Al and Kit have left Hollywood and Sammy realizes that he's alone.
4. Toast of the Town was the original name of the Ed Sullivan Show.
5. Maybe Sammy's attempted suicide after "The Book" was published might be OOC, but keep in mind in the original book we only have Al's first-hand perspective and other's second-hand perspectives of what Sammy Glick is like. The only time in the original book where he shows vulnerability is in the final chapter. However, we never know what people are like in every given situation and we don't get into Sammy's head at all. Sometimes the people who are the most expansive, most gregarious, most ambitious are the most miserable when backed into a corner. I wondered how Sammy would feel knowing his friend had taken notes about him and was writing a book and I think that he would believe it was a betrayal. As we will read, his and Al's relationship is still very complex.