From Lawyer to Undercover Busboy, Back to Lawyer and on to Hollywood

“Gone Hollywood” is not an image attorney Lawrence Otis Graham expects to cultivate, despite having just earned a cool $100,000 for optioning the film rights to his recent first-person article in New York magazine about going undercover as a busboy at a tony Connecticut country club.

But that doesn’t mean he would turn down a cameo in the movie if asked by Warner Bros., the studio that paid top dollar for his story “Invisible Man,” or actor Denzel Washington, who will play him in the screen version.

“It would have to be a non-speaking part and nothing that would make me look foolish in my real life as a corporate attorney,” the Harvard-educated Graham said in an interview from his Manhattan law office. “Otherwise, I have no desire to work in Hollywood.”

Graham, in fact, never expected the kind of media attention he’s received since the story ran in the magazine’s Aug. 17 issue. In it, he details his day-by-day experiences serving the all-white, all-WASP membership of the exclusive Greenwich Country Club in suburban Connecticut, during which time he is referred to as “nigger”; is told that the only black guest ever seen at the club was O. J. Simpson, who was invited to play a round of golf, and other incidents illustrative of feeling like a freak in an environment stopped in time.

His stated purpose for doing the piece was to test his thesis that such privileged enclaves are the last bastions of protected racism in America, contending that because so much business is conducted at these clubs, minorities will never truly break into the country’s power structure. A privilege, he confesses, that he would one day like to be afforded.

But what most surprised Graham after the article’s publication were the dozens of unsolicited calls from film producers and studio executives--he said 18 became serious bidders for his story--trying to lure him and his wife to Hollywood with offers to attend premieres (“Honeymoon in Vegas” was one) and be put up in any number of expensive hotels, including a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. (They stayed in New York.)

Why was Hollywood so hot for “Invisible Man”? According to Graham’s agent, Irene Webb of International Creative Management: “Post L.A. riots, I think a lot of (producers) are trying to come up with a way to make a movie about racism in America that’s hard-hitting but entertaining. Hollywood people are fascinated by it--they don’t want to tell a grim story because they’re afraid people won’t come see it. At the same time, they see a gutsy guy who took a tongue-in-cheek attitude about (his experience).”

Even now, three weeks later, Graham said he is turning down solicitations to be a guest on most of the television talk shows--”Oprah,” “Donahue,” “Geraldo”--preferring instead to be profiled on the so-called straight news outlets like National Public Radio, CNN and the “Today” show.

“I’m having to wear sunglasses because people are stopping me on the street.” Even people, he said, who belong to such clubs, some who’ve lauded him for his chutzpah.

Considering the article’s serious tone, expectations are that the screen adaptation could very well be more social satire than drama. But it surely won’t be a broad comedy, Graham said. The fish-out-of-water story has “sure-fire commercial potential,” Webb said.

For that reason, Graham said he deliberately chose Denzel Washington’s Warner Bros.-based production company, Mundy Lane Entertainment, and Mark Rosenberg and Paula Weinstein’s Spring Creek Prods. over others representing such stars as Eddie Murphy, because he figures they would treat the subject matter with at least a modicum of dignity.

Also, Graham said Washington has promised he would be consulted on the screenplay.

“I love that Denzel is involved. He leans toward movies with provocative themes on important issues.” An added bonus, he said: “Denzel’s a whole lot more handsome than I am.”

As for Graham’s feelings toward Hollywood portrayal of blacks, he is mostly complimentary: “There’s been a dramatic improvement in the way we have been depicted in my lifetime,” he said. “No more shoeshine boys and servants. In many ways, the movies are better to blacks than real life.”

And the Hollywood money isn’t bad, either, he said.

The option paid to the $105,000-a-year attorney is “on the high side,” said Webb, who handled his negotiations from the agency’s Beverly Hills headquarters. Under his agreement with Warner Bros., Graham could earn another $200,000 if the studio actually makes a movie from his story. Warners’ option is only for a year.

In short, Graham just doubled his annual salary. As yet, though, he said he and his wife haven’t discussed what they’ll do with the extra cash. He figures it’s not time to quit his day job . . . yet.