EXTT RAA EDII TIOION BEST PICTURE / ACTOCTOR & ACTRAC ESSS JANUARY 30, 2020 ADVERTISEMENT ACADE 10 NOM BESTBEST BEST BEST PBEST DIRECTOR ORIGINAL CINEMATOGRAPHY PRODUCTION SAM MENDES SCREENPLAY ROGER DEAKINS ASC, BSC DESIGN SAM MENDES & DENNIS GASSNER•LEE SANDALES KRYSTY WILSON-CAIRNS WINNER GOLDEN GLOBE® AWARDS DR R A BEST PICTURE MA BEST DIRECTOR SAM MENDES WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA NOMINEE BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY EMY AWARD® MINATIONS PICTUREBEST BEST BEST BEST BEST SOUND SOUND VISUAL ORIGINAL MAKEUP AND MIXING EDITING EFFECTS SCORE HAIRSTYLING MARK TAYLOR OLIVER TARNEY GUILLAUME ROCHERON THOMAS NEWMAN NAOMI DONNE•TRISTAN VERSLUIS STUART WILSON AMPS, CAS RACHAEL TATE GREG BUTLER•DOMINIC TUOHY REBECCA COLE BAFTA AWARD NOMINATIONS 9 INCLUDING BEST PICTURE BEST DIRECTOR SAM MENDES WINNER PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA BEST PICTURE © 2019 UNIVERSALSALS STUDIOSIOO ANDNDD uniunn verveeersalpictururresaesesas wwawarards.dsd comc m STORYTORYTOOORYRYTELLETET R DISSTTRIBUTRRIBUB TIONON CO.,CO., LLCLCC YEARSYEARS DUAL THREAT Cynthia Erivo ‘HARRIET’ STAR IS A DOUBLE NOMINEE WITH MENTIONS IN THE LEAD ACTRESS AND SONG CATEGORIES INSIDE: ACTING RACES AND BEST PICTURE JANUARY 21, 2020 ACADEMY AW 10BEST “+++ THE BEST PICTU A CLASSIC F THE BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR Untitled-7 1 1/27/20 2:11 PM TOP BILLING IT’S A REMARKABLE STORY of personal and professional friendship, all the more so because it plays out within the notoriously volatile realm of show business. Two young men skip university to become chartered accountants. They run a partnership for almost two decades, serving and representing many of the preeminent musical attractions of their time. After deciding to go separate ways, they remain the best of friends, and almost 60 years after they met are reunited as co-executive producers on “Judy,” an awards season front-runner. And it all happened on the strength of a handshake. “We never had a piece of paper,” claims Laurence Myers. “We never signed a contract or anything,” Ellis M. Goodman confirms. Myers left school early. “I wanted to be a Latin-American percussionist, but if I’d told my mother that at 16, I wouldn’t have made it to 17.” He and Goodman met in 1962 while studying for their accounting certification. The latter was drawn to Myers’ outgoing personality, while Myers recalls that “Ellis had dark suits, he looked like he’d been to a great school.” Goodman also had briefly listed Petula Clark as a client, which appealed to the other’s entertainment bent. Goodman Myers and Co. was born. “Neither of us were very good accoun- tants,” the top-billed partner confesses, but they had a knack for management. And luck too, such as a chance encounter with a gent hoping to do business with influential record producer Mickie Most. Would Goodman happen to know anything about that field? “And I said, ‘Oh yes, Petula Clark, Petula OLD SCHOOL Clark, Petula Clark,’ and he said, ‘Well, “Judy” reunited you’ve got to act for me because nobody producers and friends knows much about this stuff.’ So we were in Ellis M. Goodman and Laurence Myers after on the ground floor.” decades apart. A client who inherited a distillery soon got Goodman preoccupied with the liquor business, but Myers dove into attracting music clients. Big ones. Mick Jagger asked him to set up a pension, “because I’m not going to be singing rock ’n’ roll when Showbiz Tale I’m 60.” (As he told the pair!) Legendary executive Allen Klein, who taught Myers to go toe-to-toe with record execs, brought him in to help structure the Beatles’ Apple Goes the Distance Corp. The Animals, Jeff Beck, Led Zeppelin, Donovan, David Bowie all came through the doors. A record label, Gem, evolved into FOR 60 YEARS, TWO OF THE ‘JUDY’ PRODUCERS KEPT GTO Records and was eventually sold to A PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP ALIVE — AND LUCRATIVE CBS. Forays into film production (“The Greek Tycoon”) and distribution (“Picnic By Bob Verini at Hanging Rock”) followed. DAVID HINDLEY/ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS HINDLEY/ROADSIDE DAVID 6 VARIETY.COM ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINATIONS BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY BEST ACTOR BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR ANTHONY McCARTEN JONATHAN PRYCE ANTHONY HOPKINS BAFTA NOMINATIONSINCLUDING BEST BRITISH FILM “Riveting. Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, two of our greatest actors, demonstrate absolute mastery of their craft. They are both quite mesmerizingly and movingly brilliant.” NETFLIXGUILDS.COM Untitled-10 1 1/27/20 12:45 PM TOP BILLING And each man shared 50% of his business “YOU HAVE TO HAVE — WHICH LAURENCE DID — Goodman in spirits, Myers in showbiz — HAVE — HUMOR, KNOWLEDGE, CONFIDENCE ... ” with the other. Today, both enjoy reminiscing about the Ellis M. Goodman U.K. record explosion of the ’60s and ’70s. Myers calls it “the Wild West,” and Goodman says, “It was like tech is now. It was a moving target, because the pop music industry was booming.” Corona Beer, and supports the local theater troubled engagement at the Talk of the Town Legends and one-offs alike shared similar scene, including the Writers Theater, whose nitery. “I was old enough to go, but I had issues in a brand-new field, Goodman recalls. “Trevor: The Musical” will open Off Broadway friends that went and they said, ‘Don’t spend “How you treated their income. Whether this spring. the money. She’s awful. She came on, she they would spend all their money before they Remaining in the U.K., Myers has found was drunk’ — so I didn’t go. That resonated earned it. And then they had big tax prob- satisfaction producing successful West End with me.” lems. … Then after a few months, often they musicals and tours. He took pride, even up to Goodman, too, passed up the chance to fell out with each other, and we were trying the premiere, in declining an offer to invest in catch Garland in that engagement. But he to be mentors and solve problems. You have a dicey-sounding Andrew Lloyd Webber show loved Quilter’s play in London. He readily to have — which Laurence did have — humor, about felines. (As he writes in his candid, accepted Myers’ invitation to come on board knowledge, confidence and be able to deal highly amusing memoir “Hunky Dory (Who as a producer for Broadway and assemble an with the different personalities. Because Knew?),” “Those bloody cats’ eyes advertising investor group. After several years of conver- some became divas and some weren’t. And the show follow me around at every airport.”) sations, fundraising and talent wrangling, it’s the same today. Managing people is the A night at the theater in Australia in 2005 the movie was finally brought home (they biggest part of success.” led to the most recent turn in the men’s applaud producer David Livingstone) with Myers greatly enjoyed helping creative careers. Myers was enthralled by Peter Quil- an acclaimed star performance from Renée artists, underpaid and underappreciated at ter’s “End of the Rainbow,” dramatizing Judy Zellweger. that time, earn their due in money and con- Garland’s troubled final days in London mere Let Goodman have the final word on a pair sideration. Aside from the drinkers and months before her death. In co-producing of young men from similar backgrounds, druggies (“the biggest nightmare”), he recalls the West End and Broadway productions, he breaking new ground in an exciting era: “It’s his clients with affection. “They’re creative retained the film rights because “it was Judy a lesson in today’s world, which is so tied and they’re nervous. They’re terrified, which Garland, and it was a really good story. Obvi- up with legal fights and litigation. You can is a human trait. And they have to be handled ously not for kids, but to a certain market, I have business relationships on the shake of a in the nicest way.” Bowie, he notes, “had two thought it’d be of great interest.” hand, if you have the right integrity and your personalities. When he would be in my office Much of the film “Judy” focuses on her word means something.” and we’d just be talking, he was a nice boy from South London. The minute he would be exposed to the public in any shape or form, he became DAVID BOWIE, with an attitude and all the things that made him successful and, indeed, an icon.” The team came to a crossroads as the ’80s were about to dawn and Goodman’s liquor interests were to go public. “I was going to Glasgow and he was going to Cannes. Lau- rence had the much better deal on the visits and the parties,” he chuckles. Meanwhile, the punk revolution was exploding when Myers brought his wife to see a band he’d signed. “The fans had all the [Mohawks] and the chains and they were spitting over at the artists, which was how you showed your appreciation. “The guy next to me was the archetypal punk, the whole thing, with Mrs. Punk next to him. He was drinking beer, and he started to vomit. The vomit sort of dripped down to his Doc Martins, bouncing onto my Gucci loafers, but he didn’t look up. He looked down to his feet and my feet, and he didn’t move. And I thought: ‘It’s time to quit.’” The split was predictably amicable. Good- man explains, “We decided, OK, you take STAGE ACT all the entertainment stuff, and I’ll take all “Judy” is based the whisky, beer and wine and spirits stuff.” on a play Ellis M. Goodman and Laurence He and his wife settled in Chicago, where Myers helped bring he has produced award-winning documen- to Broadway.