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Barney Rosenzweig, Executive Producer of the award-winning TV show Cagney & Lacey, and author of Cagney & Lacey and Me (release date May 2007) chronicles MGMs handling of the 25th anniversary release of the C&L DVDs. Here’s his story. (Posted with authorization from Barney Rosenzweig)
It never stops on Cagney & Lacey. We have always been a distaff David to “their” Goliath. Used to be Goliath was CBS and then it just came down to one very tough diminutive “giant” by the name of Leslie Moonves, the latest CBS topper. Now our fictional dynamic duo is in the hands of a wannabe major company…the little studio that could not…MGM.
They are the guys who sort of accidentally acquired the rights to Cagney & Lacey when they bought the film library for all those movies controlled by the bankrupt Orion and then, when told by me of this potential gold mine in the television vault, decided they might just try to capitalize on all those boxes on their warehouse shelf as well.
It’s a complicated business. I offered to take over the project, to relieve them, if you will, of this burden…even came up 
with an investor or two that would pay some pretty hefty bucks for all this. No deal. They were the wannabes and they were going to make this happen and would show me, in the process, that they were no Orion.
They got into business with SONY…a terrific company…and one headed by a good friend to Cagney & Lacey, Sir Howard Stringer. The word went out to all the SONY folk on the West Coast to meet with Barney Rosenzweig and to get a great 25th anniversary celebration of Cagney & Lacey put together. We were in the process of doing that. SONY Home Video, SONY Home Entertainment and SONY TV all were working synergistically to make something happen. There would, of course, be my book to augment all of this.
I would forego traditional publishing houses, so as to maintain control over the release date that it might coincide with the 25th anniversary DVD package, and I would create a Cagney & Lacey Website to compliment the entire thing. These two contributions of mine might be break-even propositions, the DVD package should bring MGM/SONY some income, but the real bonanza …the ultimate goal …was to create such a great campaign, dealing with 25 years of television and the influence on TV and our society by Cagney & Lacey, that a demand would be created for a new television series with a new creative team and me, in the background, clipping coupons on what could be a potential multi-million dollar enterprise.
Worth the try, right? MGM…the little company that could NOT…fired SONY. Is that too simplistic? Maybe. As I said it’s a complicated business. Probably had a lot to do with a lot of things, but what they told me is that they were unhappy with the job that was being done. What they knew about the job that was being done I don’t know. No one asked me and no one from MGM was ever in a meeting I attended. My belief was, that for the first time in over thirty years on this project, with SONY I had a true partner….an understanding, powerful entity that was going to do all it could to make my project happen. For whatever reasons, MGM fired them.
They hired FOX. Does anyone understand this? If MGM is really a company, why aren’t they doing this themselves? I offered again to buy back the library. No sale. FOX, they said would be much better than SONY. But the structure of the deal was different at FOX. First of all, it was now clear that FOX was simply a hired gun…not a partner as I was led to believe SONY was. The synergy thing between partners and departments died. FOX was distributing the DVD package period. No chance they would own/produce a new television series. My dream of coupon clipping was diminished to a vain hope.
There was another problem; FOX already had thousands of titles (movies and TV series) in its warehouse. What, their sales force wanted to know, were they going to do with all this “new” stuff from MGM when they could barely handle what they already had? A new division at Fox was formed. An intrepid band was put together, literally overnight, to cope with this abundance of MGM material of which Cagney & Lacey was a part. A new group of folks, many of whom had never worked together before, and more than a few of whom had never seen Cagney & Lacey, were now having occasional meetings with me while I longed for an interjection by Sir Howard Stringer and his SONY corporation that was not to be.
Meetings took place as I traveled across country at my expense to try to inject some passion, some enthusiasm for my iconic series. I would pitch involvement with Helen Mirren, who after all, publicly thanked Cagney & Lacey as she received her Emmy award for Prime Suspect. I would point out that this was the first year ever in the United States where a woman was a serious candidate for the Presidency, another woman was Secretary of State and Ms Nancy Pelosi was the first leader of the House of Representatives in our nation’s history. Couple that with three women over 50 being nominees for Best Dramatic Actress in a motion picture, with one of them winning the Oscar, and, I mean, is this the year of the woman or what? Cagney & Lacey, I would argue has a part in all of that, I would plead as I would remind (or rather try to teach) most of the FOX youngsters what television and our society was like for women just 25 years before. What I got was a shoulder shrug and something about a press corps only interested in Anna Nicole Smith. Whatever was going on, my perception was that all that was happening was a lukewarm pitch from some junior publicist …asking if the publication in question wanted to do a piece on the next in line vintage TV show on the shelf of that damned warehouse and all without reference to our iconic status, or any real understanding of the uniqueness of having two stars in Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly, who have hardly stopped working in the last 25 years, and who are both still relevant and interesting and award winning.
There was constant haggling with the MGM gang about some kind of compensation for Tyne and Sharon, for their willingness to travel and to appear on behalf of the anniversary DVD, especially given the fact that the two women have no ownership position in the series that allows them to benefit from any of this financially. There was a general vote of “no confidence” in the fan base itself as, rather than release the entire series, they would put it out in piecemeal fashion and let the fans audition to see if they really are interested. It was hard to get behind having the fans wait 25 years only to be given just one season, but, well, it is their business. Maybe, I would find myself hoping, they know something.
Finally my suggestion for a release coinciding with Mothers’ Day in the US was met with approval. Finally someone understood the benefit of that kind of timing for the unique Cagney & Lacey demographic. My view is that not much was being done, but at least it was finally happening and maybe…just maybe the FOX unit would prove me overly concerned. Barbara Corday got us a booking at the Museum of Television and Radio and FOX got squarely behind that and has been prepared to spend some money to make it a nice event.
Then MGM…the little company that could NOT…reared its head again with its equivalent of the once mighty lion roar: “Hold the release!”
It seems that in the two plus years that I have been working to get this series out in DVD for our anniversary, the part-time business affairs execs at MGM had neglected to clear all music rights for such a release. Everything, they said, would have to go on hold until they could get their act together.
I offered help. After all, I supervised every music cue in our series. I know that there are only a few pieces that were not “music for hire” that were offered up as “source” material (Cagney listening to Wagner on her stereo for instance). We were not like Miami Vice with a lot of licensing of famous then-current music offerings. Surely this was something that could easily be fixed. A stonewall from MGM was the response. I might scream about “detrimental reliance,” and all the other problems they were causing me, I might point out that I am a “partner” on the project and have a right to be consulted on such matters, but the bottom line has been no cooperation and noncompliance with my contractual rights. You think I am pissed? Talk to the folks at FOX…the people I like there are heart sick.
Are there other times when the DVD can be sold other than Mothers’ Day? Sure. Is there a better time for the 40something daughters to buy these things for their 60something year old Moms? Maybe not. I have invested tens of thousands of my own dollars…money that likely will not be recouped to make this happen. I have not stinted in time or energy either. MGM doesn’t care.
The bottom line for me is how dare they? How dare these itinerant managers handle a precious property such as Cagney & Lacey in such a cavalier fashion? How dare they fail to properly acknowledge the contribution of Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless to this process by actually paying more for the publicist on the project than the two artists who, whether on Larry King or The View or wherever, call attention to this release by their very presence. How dare they so trivialize us all? The answer is they just do, because that is one thing the little company that could not, still can. It seems that true to their tradition…”nothing ever happens at the Grand Hotel.”
We will keep you posted as to events as they unfold. Meanwhile, my book, Cagney & Lacey … and Me will be released next month, unless I decide to add another chapter.
Barney Rosenzweig
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