Remake for an Ex-Felon

In the 1995 comedy “Get Shorty,” John Travolta’s character, Chili Palmer, successfully segues from criminal to Hollywood power player.

It was the industry parodying itself in a way that underscored Hollywood’s capacity to file away past misdeeds and open itself to all comers so long as they have the right script, financing or relationships.

Now a real-life version is playing out in a second-floor Santa Monica office, where former Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall, less than a year removed from federal prison for bank fraud, is hoping to revive a film-producing career that during the 1980s bankrolled such hits as “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” “War Games,” “Mr. Mom” and “Weekend at Bernie’s.”

“This industry gives you the ability to reinvent yourself,” McNall said.

Already, Walt Disney Chairman Michael Eisner--for whom McNall helped land the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim hockey team--is orchestrating the upcoming publication of McNall’s autobiography by Disney’s Hyperion division.

Recently McNall lunched with producer and former Sony studio chief Peter Guber to discuss his future. Actor Tom Sizemore, one of the stars of “Black Hawk Down” and “Saving Private Ryan,” said he plans to form a production company with McNall in April. McNall also remains friends with such well-known industry executives as producer Dick Zanuck.

“He still is as vibrant and creative in the aftermath of what he experienced as he was before it all happened,” Zanuck said.

McNall worked his contacts while serving his time, writing scores of letters, complete with pictures.

“I enjoyed the writing from prison. I enjoyed the creative aspect of it. When I got out, some of the producers said, ‘Gee, we should do something based on your writings,’ ” McNall said in his first interview since being released.

Eisner said he was fascinated and amused by the details in the twice-a-year letters McNall sent him. They convinced him that his friend had more than a Hollywood tell-all in him. He saw a richly detailed story of one man’s spectacular fall that reflected an era of fast money.

Besides getting a book out of McNall, Eisner has something else: a wallet McNall made for him in prison.

“It looked like something a kid would make at camp,” Eisner said.

Like other producers, McNall is looking for a hit that brings a financial windfall. But unlike the others, he needs the money to pay $5 million in court-ordered restitution to victims of his fraud. Amid the schmoozing of moguls, producers and stars, McNall’s call sheet also includes regular conversations with his parole officer.

Hollywood can be remarkably forgiving. Robert Downey Jr. received a Golden Globe award shortly after he was released from prison, and bad boy Charlie Sheen, once plagued by problems ranging from drugs to prostitutes, earned one this year. The late David Begelman, a former producing partner of McNall’s, was welcomed back into Hollywood as a studio chief and producer after pleading guilty to forging checks in one of the industry’s most notorious scandals.

But moving from the big house to the big screen is no easy task. Even without a criminal past, McNall’s comeback would be an uphill struggle. Despite some successes, McNall at his peak was not in the ranks of A-list film producers such as Brian Grazer, Scott Rudin and Jerry Bruckheimer.

His roles as head of Sherwood Productions and Gladden Entertainment typically involved financing films, something that has become more difficult in recent years as foreign financing has dried up and studios have clamped down on costs. What’s more, the business is now populated by fresh young stars, many of whom were in grade school when McNall, 51, last produced a film, more than a decade ago.

“He isn’t Michael Jordan trying to make a comeback,” said Guber, McNall’s longtime friend. “He’s had no proximity to Hollywood for the last five years, and proximity is power. You also have to recognize where he is in his age. For a guy over 35 or 40 to hang out with people who are 21 at bars, parties and restaurants--it’s a real challenge.”

Most Visible Role

Even in Los Angeles, producing always took a back seat publicly to McNall’s most visible role. As owner of the Kings and as chairman of the National Hockey League board of governors, he became one of the most powerful figures in sports during the early 1990s. It was McNall who lured superstar Wayne Gretzky to the Kings, guiding the franchise in 1993 to what remains its only Stanley Cup finals in 35 years. (The Kings lost the series, 4-1, to the Montreal Canadiens.)

Those were his glory days. At any given time at the Forum, he could be seen laughing with the likes of actors Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn or sitting with dignitaries, including former President Reagan.

But McNall’s business empire proved a house of cards, leading to a guilty plea on four criminal counts related to bank fraud of more than $236 million. Among other things, McNall inflated his net worth, even listing dead horses as collateral.

He was sentenced in 1997 and served four years of a 70-month sentence in prisons in California, Arizona, Oklahoma and Michigan.

“You have to give up control, which was hard for a person like myself who was had always been in control of everything around me,” McNall said.

Complex Collapse

McNall’s financial collapse was so complex that it is only now wrapping up in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Trustee R. Todd Nielson praises McNall for taking responsibility for his crimes.

“Through this entire process he was very truthful,” Nielson said. “We reviewed $2.5 billion that flowed through Bruce’s empire. I never caught him in a lie. He’s told me what he did was wrong. He’s paid his price.”

A coin collector since he was a child in Arcadia, McNall started his business career by amassing one of the nation’s largest rare coin operations. He founded Sherwood Productions in 1982 and soon hired disgraced studio executive Begelman to run it for him.

Begelman renamed the company Gladden Entertainment after his then-wife Gladyce. But Gladden, which produced its last film in 1991, fell into trouble under Begelman’s watch and eventually collapsed along with McNall’s other companies. Begelman committed suicide in 1995.

McNall is reentering the industry from an office six blocks from Santa Monica Pier, a considerable step up from his most recent addresses. After his release last March, McNall spent two months in a dingy, motel-like halfway house at Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. He spent four more months under court-supervised house detention.

His office looks as though time stopped when he entered prison, filled with memories of the good times. On one wall is a plaque commemorating Michelle Pfeiffer’s best-actress nomination for “The Fabulous Baker Boys.” There are awards from the NHL and pictures of thoroughbreds McNall once owned as they galloped toward the finish line.

The place also is a virtual shrine to Gretzky, with pictures throughout, including one of McNall, Gretzky and the late actor John Candy superimposed over the Toronto Skydome at the time the three bought the Toronto Argonauts football team.

Gretzky has remained loyal even though McNall’s guilty plea included admitting he deceived Gretzky on a horse investment. The Hall of Famer delayed the retirement of his jersey by the Kings until McNall was out of prison so he could attend the ceremony.

“He’s paid his debt to society, and we’re happy he’s back in Los Angeles,” Gretzky said. “Bruce is a good person, and we’re sure everything will work out for him.”

In his new job, McNall has no title yet but is functioning as the chief creative executive for Fine Arts Entertainment. He recently formed the company with producer and former business partner Alan Salke and Robert Geringer, a lawyer who has emerged as one of McNall’s closest friends and his chief benefactor.

McNall said he won’t be handling the company funds because “I don’t believe I’m a good businessman”--and because his criminal record and past lies might scare off some investors.

“It’s always out there,” he said of his conviction. “I’ve told people a lot of things in the past that didn’t work. Actions are the only things that will make a difference.”

Sizemore, a lifelong hockey fan who said he was fascinated with McNall even before meeting him, said he has no qualms about getting into business with McNall. The production company they will form will fall under the umbrella of Fine Arts as a vehicle for films in which Sizemore can both star and direct, the actor said.

“I always saw Bruce as a tragic figure who took a Shakespearean kind of fall,” Sizemore said. “I totally trust him, and not because he said I could. I don’t have those fears.”

Victims Were Banks

Since McNall’s financial victims were mostly banks, some of which don’t exist anymore, he doesn’t face the kind of animosity that he would had his crime involved fleecing small investors. But his crimes did drag down 10 of his associates, who ended up pleading guilty to various crimes. Dozens of other employees abruptly lost their jobs when his empire collapsed.

“A lot of people believed in him at a time when his public face was not backed up by his resources. His crimes are public record, and most people will weigh what he’s bringing to the table with his past history,” said lawyer Robert Corbin, who represented McNall employee C. David Rossen, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud.

McNall also said he is trying hard to repair his torn relationship with his former wife Jane Cody and their two children. The family was blindsided by his financial collapse. In 1995, Jane held an embarrassing yard sale of McNall’s things, including 300 neckties, to raise money.

In an interview, Cody said she’s owed $3.9 million plus interest by McNall under the terms of their divorce, which revealed that McNall had forged her name on documents to tap into community property.

She said that as a result she nearly lost a house she owned before they were married and has been working as an associate dean at USC to support their children as a single mother. She also said she still has some neckties and Kings memorabilia she’s willing to sell to raise funds.

“It’s been a rough road, especially for the children, not only because he was absent for so long but also because of the trauma of having a father in prison and the very radical financial changes,” she said.

She credits her former husband with making an effort to repair the damage he caused the children, a son in high school and a daughter at the University of Michigan.

“He has extended himself for them, and that will go a long way toward healing things,” Cody said. “But there still is a lot of healing to do.”

McNall today lives in a Malibu condominium owned by partner Geringer and drives Pacific Coast Highway in a 1997 BMW that Geringer lets him use. He’s back to wearing his trademark dark suits, albeit on a frame 85 pounds lighter, the result of prison food and workouts. Accepting a compliment on his new look, he said he wouldn’t recommend his weight-loss regimen to anyone.

Job Offers in Sports

McNall said he entertained job offers in sports and hockey after leaving prison but resisted because “it would be like an old broken-down fighter trying to reinvent something.”

When he attends hockey games, McNall sits in a luxury box that he said he guaranteed Gretzky as part of their last contract negotiation. Until the season opener in October, McNall had never seen Staples Center, which was built and opened while he was in prison.

McNall knows he has a long way to go before he fully regains his life, especially with a restitution bill of millions of dollars. So far even the autobiography hasn’t helped, since nearly all of the advance goes to co-writer Michael D’Antonio.

He once owned a 727 jet and seven homes and told banks he was worth $133 million. For the last five years, his jobs have included operating a tractor, stacking sandbags, working as a clerk in a warehouse and other menial prison labor. Whatever money he earned was applied to his debt.

“Twelve cents an hour,” he said, “isn’t a lot.”