Date: 12.01.97
SAY YOURE RUNNING FOR SENATOR. Whom would you want standing next to you in the TV shot? A colorless captain of industry -- or Clint Eastwood?
Therein lies much of the political power of Jack Valenti, the veteran president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Get one of his celebrities at your money-raiser and youre guaranteed a turnout.
Valenti has a $60 million budget, but his almost unlimited supply of celebrity power for photo ops and endorsements is priceless. Call him the most powerful lobbyist in Washington.
Valenti is 20 minutes late joining me for lunch at the Hay Adams Hotel in Washington, but he utters so many buttery apologies that his tardiness is soon forgiven.
I confront him with his celebrity power, his ability to supply tinsel glitter to friendly pols. Naturally, he plays it down. Using celebrities for political campaigns is very rare, he says, deliberately ignoring Bill Clinton and Al Gores highly visible use of celebrities. But Valentis counterpart at the National Association of Broadcasters, Edward Fritts, who has on occasion been bested by Valenti, knows better.
Quips Fritts: Typical Valenti question: Have you had a chance to have dinner out at Chuck Hestons house?
No, but Id like to.
Fine. Well, why dont we organize a little gathering of some of our Hollywood friends in support of your campaign?
Valenti will concede that he has used star power to encourage legislation desired by his bosses in Hollywood. In 1983 his Hawaii vacation was interrupted when the broadcasting association persuaded FCC chairman Mark Fowler to abolish the financial syndication rules that forbade broadcasters to own any of the shows they air. Hollywood wanted the rules intact so that the broadcasters would remain dependent on its products.
Rushing back to Washington, Valenti counterattacked. He brought out the big guns: Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty and Stefanie Powers appeared before congressional committees in support of keeping the syndication rules. Not even the combined might of all three broadcast networks could prevail against that star power.
The ridiculous anticompetitive law was finally repealed 9 years later, but give Valenti credit: Against great odds he helped keep it on the books for 21 years.
We are seated at Valentis regular table, the most visible spot in the hotels Lafayette restaurant. A plate of fruit salad is placed before him, and he mentions he is dieting, which this trim 76-year-old does whenever he finds himself more than 1 pound overweight.
Over the food Valenti tantalizes me with: In Washington, the Achilles heel is hubris -- particularly of people who work in the White House. Its the belief that you were born and sent to earth in order to help run the country, and youre invested with supernatural powers.
Aha! The great insider is about to regale me with some real juicy stuff. Names? I ask. Valenti dodges the question. If its dirt you want, the subject has to have been gone for at least 15 years. So he offers anecdotes about the arrogance of Jimmy Carters henchmen. They never understood that they were the custodians of a temporary responsibility.
As a result, the Carter White House had a terrible relationship with the Congress, with the Democratic Party and with the people in Washington.
Valenti cites as an example of Carterian aloofness Carters chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, who didnt return Valentis phone calls. In Valentis book thats about as dumb a thing as you can do. Presumably, Jordans successors all knew better.
Valenti has been in Washington since 1963. As head of a regional advertising firm in Houston, he was handling local media for President Kennedys visit to Texas and was riding in the motorcade when Jack Kennedy was shot in Dallas. Just after being sworn in as President on Air Force One, LBJ hired Valenti as special assistant to the President, beginning Valentis life in Washington. He stayed with Johnson until 1966, when Lew Wasserman, then head of MCA, asked him to take over the film industrys trade and lobbying organization.
When Valenti moved into the powerful and well-funded trade organization, Hollywood was groaning under a set of rules called the Hays Code, a relic of one of Valentis predecessors, Will Hays, and of a more puritanical age. The Hays Code banned such naughty things as casual sex; four-letter words (including even damn and hell); and criminals flaunting guns. This, in the eyes of the Hollywood moguls, limited attendance at their flicks. Valenti replaced the code with a movie ratings system that permitted anything but gave films specific codes, originally G, M, R and X. Clever. Hollywood got what it wanted. The moralists got parental guidance ratings.
Even dearer to the hearts of the Hollywood moneybags he represents, Valenti used his political clout to help pry open international markets for American films. Foreign revenues now make up 42% of Hollywoods take and are growing -- one more reason the job is probably Valentis for life.
These days Valenti justifies his $1- million-plus yearly salary by fighting for Hollywoods version of intellectual property rights.
Meaning, of course, the version that maximizes Hollywoods revenue streams. He takes a sip of his black coffee and delivers: What really gives me a Maalox moment is that with the Internet and the advent of digital, the 1,000th copy of a digitized movie is as pristine and pure as the first copy. The prospect of piracy is terrorizing. (Thank Valenti for those warnings on rented videotapes that the FBI will come after you if you violate the copyright.) The MPAA has earmarked $40 million to help keep the feds alert to the problem of copyright violation. Hollywood wants to make sure it gets paid every time you amuse yourself with its products.
This puts Valenti in direct opposition to Internet libertarians.
Before a packed crowd, Valenti recently testified to a House subcommittee, likening the Internet to a virtual pirate shopping mall.
Valenti argued that on-line service providers should shoulder at least some of the policing responsibility for unauthorized copyright use.
Which puts him squarely in the midst of a donnybrook. Recently the World Intellectual Property Organization developed a treaty that protects copyrights on the Internet. The on-line service providers like AOL have tried to insert language to exempt themselves from liability when a violation occurs. They dont want to be turned into cops, and they dont want the U.S. to ratify the treaty until they get their exemption.
Valenti wants to bully the treaty through and worry about liability later. The on-line service providers are persuading their friends in Congress to hold up the implementing language to force us to lean to their point of view. Were saying the two issues -- copyright protection and copyright enforcement -- shouldnt be umbilically attached.
Knowing that his is not a particularly popular position in a world where people like to get things for free, Valenti says: Gotta talk, gotta talk. Over and over I make two statements: One, piracy is devastating, and two, the movie industry provides the most wanted of all U.S. exports. We are the grand jewel in Americas trade crown. We contribute more to the U.S. economy than automotive or aircraft or apparel or chemicals.
At $400 billion were 6% of GDP. Everyone I know is tired of hearing this, but the 200th time I say it, some congressman will hear it for the first time. Of course, that figure represents not just movies but the value of all intellectual property, including books, computer software and musical recordings.
I try to change the subject. Tell us about the economics of the movie business. Budgets grow to the sky, and no one seems able to control costs. Valenti dodges with mumbo jumbo about how economic rules dont apply to the creative process.
Right. Movies are about art, not about money. He doesnt really expect me to believe that, but this guy has been around too long and likes his job too much to take a chance on saying something that might offend the people who pay the bills.
I try again: There is more cigarette smoking on screen than there was 20 years ago; the language and violence are worse than ever. I cant take my 7-year-olds to a movie.
Valenti immediately wraps himself in the First Amendment. It [the First Amendment] means that you have to endure that which you think is improper, unwholesome, vulgar, meretricious and tawdry, and you have to allow to drift through the marketplace some gamy odors that just shred your soul, but thats the price you pay for giving you the right to speak.
I see. If Im not willing to subject my kids to raw sex, I lose the right to speak my mind?
Valenti responds with some double-talk: If I could make a rule, Id say, Please, Mr. Director, banish smoking from the screen! Valenti also admits hed like less vulgarity. Violence? Too touchy. On violence he goes back into lobbyspeak. What is gratuitous violence? he asks rhetorically. Is it John Wayne flame-throwing and killing Japanese at Iwo Jima? Or is it one man getting strangled? How do you define it?
Lunch finished, we go to his office at 1600 I Street, across from the White House. Time for one last question: Who do you think is the better actress -- Eva or Zsa Zsa Gabor?
Was that a joke or a trap? Valenti ducks. You know, they didnt make many movies, he says. On parting, he gives me a copy of his 1982 book, Speak Up with Confidence, a text on speaking effectively in public. Inside, he inscribes: Next time, Ill answer the Gabor question.
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