I seem to be having a blog-to-blog discussion with Jeffrey Wells, who operates Hollywood Elsewhere. This is all about the allegations — which I think are thinner than Calista Flockhart in a waist-cincher — that Billy Crystal was somehow responsible for an alleged destruction of the career of the late Bruno Kirby. Wells writes…
I also know from limited experience that when the word goes out on an actor or actress that he/she is bad news and/or more trouble than he/she is worth or has made an enemy of a very important person, etc., people pick up on this and they tend to steer away from him/her. It's cowardly but people do this. Actors can go cold for long periods of time, and sometimes the cold streak starts when a big name hands them a black spot.
Once again, I'm not saying Crystal did this to Kirby — I don't know anything — but I know that if a certain heavyweight decides to shun an actor, other heavyweights pick up on this and figure, "If there's a 1 in 100 chance I might alienate that heavyweight actor-director by hiring this character actor, why do it? Why not just hire someone else?" This is a town, trust me, that runs on terror, avoidance and backbones made of jelly.
Yeah, but here's why that probably does not apply in this case. First off, no one knows what happened between Crystal and Kirby…or even that anything did. If I were a cowardly, craven filmmaker and I heard some semi-credible, detailed story of Billy and Bruno fighting and of Billy screaming, "I'll never work with that S.O.B. again," I might think it would matter to Billy Crystal if I hired Bruno Kirby. But we haven't heard any such tales, which means they haven't been particularly widespread. Billy Crystal hasn't handed out any known black spots.
And even if he did, why should I care about alienating Billy Crystal? The man ain't exactly the most powerful guy in Hollywood or anything close to it. What do the top directors have to fear by incurring his wrath? That he might mispronounce their names next time he hosts the Oscars? I can understand not wanting to piss off Jerry Bruckheimer or Amy Pascal…but the worst thing Billy Crystal could do to an important director is to refuse to be in his next movie. Which would harm Crystal more than it would hurt any director, which is why he wouldn't do it.
Actually, I disagree with the premise that people in the industry are all afraid of alienating others. The two actors who seem to consistently place highest on all those "Most Powerful People in Hollywood" lists are Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise. There are folks out there defending them, to be sure…but there's no shortage of show business figures who are willing to be quoted as calling Gibson a racist drunk or to ridicule Cruise's sexuality or religion. Why would anyone who was willing to so pointedly get on those guys' bad sides be afraid of upsetting Billy Crystal?
Wells also makes a big thing out of the fact that in one interview, when asked about Kirby, Crystal said, "I think we're still friends." Wells thinks that's an obvious dodge and maybe it is…but we have no idea what he's dodging. I've had quarrels with people in the past and if you ask me about them today, I'll probably duck and weave and try not to reopen old wounds. In those disputes, I think I was right and the other party was wrong…but there's no advantage to me to resurrect an old battle and give my side of it, thereby baiting a former associate to rush out and give his side, inflaming matters and lessening the chance that we can ever bury the ol' hatchet.
Oops — look at the time. Got to get to bed. I think Jeffrey and I are pretty much agreeing that we don't know a lot about the alleged Crystal/Kirby feud and that's really the main point I was trying to make. One of the many things I've learned about Hollywood is that sometimes, the truth isn't as interesting as the speculation. So it's a lot more fun to play in the speculation…and easy to forget that that's all it is. Good night from Tinsel Town.