I know Mel Brooks did not make a History of the World, Part 2 – but I found too many great stories illustrating negotiation lessons to leave his own history of negotiations at Part 1. So here are three more from his autobiography All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business. (And for those who missed Part 1, his lessons included: 1) failure can lead to success if you learn from it, 2) the value of role-playing, and 3) the power of a great Plan B/leverage).
4. Morality should trump legal rights in negotiations.
Brooks’ lawyer suggested that a young unknown actor named Dustin Hoffman in 1967 audition for the role of Franz Liebkind in his new movie The Producers. Brooks didn’t know Hoffman, even though they lived on the same block in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
But he asked him to audition, and Brooks said that “he was absolutely spot on. He got the craziness and the love of Hitler right from the start, and his German accent was pretty damn good.” Brooks, of course, closed the deal with a signed contract.
The story doesn’t end there, though. Brooks continued:
“But life is funny and, like the cliché says, often stranger than fiction. One night at about two in the morning I was awakened by pebbles being tossed against my bedroom window. I opened my window to see what was going on. When I did I got hit with a few. There, down on the street, was Dustin Hoffman. Before I could say ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted, ‘Come down! We have to talk.’
“I threw on some clothes, came down, and we sat on my stoop. Dustin said, ‘You won’t believe this. I just got a call from Mike Nichols in L.A. He wants me to fly out tomorrow to do a screen test.’
“I said, ‘For what?’ Mike Nichols is in Hollywood doing The Graduate with my wife, Annie [Bancroft]. He said, ‘Yes. That’s it, that’s it! He wants to audition me for the part of Benjamin Braddock.’ I said, ‘This can’t be happening! But anyway, I’m not worried. No offense, but you’re not the handsomest guy in town. The minute they see you they’ll send you flying back into my arms and back into The Producers.’ Boy, was I wrong. Two days later he called to tell me he got the part.”
Brooks then noted that he “could have bollixed up everything by legally stopping him, but I let him go and wished him luck. I added one small caveat: ‘You’re going to be playing opposite my wife – don’t fool around.’”
Of course, the rest is movie history. Hoffman went on play that iconic role in a movie the American Film Institute has called the 7th greatest American film ever made. And Hoffman went on to become one of the greatest actors of his generation.
My negotiation point? Brooks did the right thing in just letting Hoffman make the film, regardless of his legal rights. It was a great negotiation decision, for himself, Hoffman and Brooks’ wife!
5. Friends do favors for friends.
Brooks in making Young Frankenstein needed a cameo of someone playing a blind man with a few funny lines. Here’s how Brooks described getting then Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman to play the role for free!
“And talk about luck – Gene Wilder (one of the stars of the movie) used to play tennis every Saturday with another Gene, called Gene Hackman. One Saturday Hackman asked Wilder what he was working on. Wilder explained the premise of Young Frankenstein. Hackman said, ‘Is there anything in it for me? I’m dying to do some comedy.’ Wilder said, ‘As a matter of fact, there is.’ And he explained the role of the blind man. . . . Hackman cut him off. ‘It’s perfect! Count me in.’”
Brooks wrote “[w]e never could have paid Gene Hackman his current salary in those days. He was gracious, did the movie anyway as a favor, and took minor billing.”
The negotiation power of friends and free favors. Wow.
6. When and where you negotiate can make or break your deal.
One final story, this one from a movie Brooks’ company was making called My Favorite Year. The movie’s director had come to Brooks and said they needed an additional two hundred thousand dollars from MGM over the original amount to finish the film.
And the director suggested they go to the MGM president’s office and ask for it. The president, importantly, was also once Brooks’ agent and a good friend.
Here’s how Brooks responded:
“’No, no!’ I exclaimed. . . ‘Bad move. Any time you go to a studio executive’s office and ask for money they’ll invariably say no.’ ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Once they sit behind that big desk in their grand office they are puffed up and feel like kings. And kings are wont to say no. What we have to do is run into him in the hallway either going to or coming back from lunch or even better – catch him in the men’s room.’ (Where nobody feels like a king.)
“We didn’t catch him in the men’s room, but we slyly followed him back from lunch and caught him in the hallway. I casually said, ‘David, I’m so glad I ran into you. We’re gonna need another couple of hundred thousand to finish the picture. Can I count on you?’
“And being my old agent, dear friend, and caught off guard, he said ‘No problem. You got it.’”
Negotiating in the hallway versus his office made all the difference in the world.
Latz’s Lesson: Mel Brooks in his negotiations did the right thing, recognized the power of friends and favors, and knew when and where to negotiate – even in the bathroom.
* Marty Latz is the founder of Latz Negotiation, a national negotiation training and consulting company that helps individuals and organizations achieve better results with best practices based on the experts’ research. He can be reached at 480.951.3222 or Marty@LatzNegotiation.com.