183 - Take the Money and ...WRITE IT, DAMN!

Woody Allen seeks big money to write memoir
By David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times
Monday, October 20, 2003 - WOODY Allen is near an agreement to sell the U.S. rights to a self-revelatory memoir of his life and loves to Penguin for about $3 million, people involved in the bidding say.

But in one of the oddest book proposals in memory, Allen has not decided whether he will actually write the memoir he is offering. He has made it clear to publishers that unless he receives a truly enormous sum as an advance for all the world rights, he will not deliver a book.

The deal with Penguin follows an agreement last week with the British division of HarperCollins, which committed to pay more than $1 million to publish the book in other parts of the English-speaking world.

But for Allen, that may not be enough. "I talked to him at the crack of dawn this morning about the book," his publicist, Leslee Dart, said. "He said to me that it did not appear there was going to be any book."

Allen made it clear from the start that it was all about the money. "It would take me between six months and a year to really do a fine job, and it's hard to imagine there's enough money out there to make me take the time away from film or theater to do it," Allen wrote in a letter to his agent that was circulated as a proposal, according to publishers who have read it. "For this I want a lot of money. The ball is in your court." (Some contents of the proposal were first reported Wednesday in The New York Post.)

The attempt to capitalize on his own sometimes scandalous history is the latest of several efforts during the last five years by Allen, who is nearing 70, to shore up his finances. He is also trying to sell his New York town house, which has a reported asking price of about $27 million.

Dart said that putting the house on the market had nothing to do with a need to raise money. "There is no financial issue here," Dart said. "The house is too big."

"Over the years, I haven't made very much money with my films," Allen said in an interview in 1998. "It's always been a struggle to break even."

Allen lost some of his cachet as an acclaimed director of intellectually sophisticated films in 1992 during a custody battle with his former lover Mia Farrow after the discovery of his love affair with Soon-Yi Previn, Farrow's 21-year-old adopted daughter, whom Allen later married.

The blow to his public image diminished the prestige he had brought to film studios despite low returns. His financing deal with Tri-Star Pictures expired the next year, and he set up an arrangement with an independent film company headed by his good friend Jean Doumanian.

Allen racked up substantial legal bills in the bitter custody battle. In 1998, in a sweeping effort to cut costs, he and Doumanian replaced many longtime staff members who had worked with him on his films. Around the same time, Allen switched agents in an effort to land more acting work, which can be more lucrative than directing. Then, in 2001, he filed suit against Doumanian, seeking more money from his films that her company produced.

Allen's current film, "Anything Else," was the last of a three-film distribution deal with Dreamworks SKG. It and the two previous films, "Curse of the Jade Scorpion" and "Hollywood Ending," were critical and box office disappointments.

In his book proposal, Allen adopts an unusually cool and analytical tone toward the commercial appeal of his own life, publishers said, promising to mine his relationships with Farrow, Doumanian and Previn for riveting real-life drama. And he promises to draw on a talent he displayed earlier in his career as the author of highly regarded books of short satirical fiction, including "Without Feathers" (1975) and "Side Effects" (1982).

But one publisher who read the proposal said he was repelled by Allen's blatantly financial motives, and suggested that the best books come from authors who follow a more personal muse.

Still, Celina Spiegel, a co-publisher of Penguin's Riverhead Books division, said she believed Allen's story could draw substantial interest from readers. "I think he is an icon of his times," she said. "He is incredibly funny. He is a great writer. We think he has an amazing story to tell, from growing up in his childhood in the place that he did, to having relationships with some of the most important actors. He is one of the most important directors ever."

Whether Allen will write the book remains to be seen. Some foreign rights remain to be sold, and publishers do not know exactly what total price Allen has in mind.