Murder, and Fate, Make a Movie

On a recent afternoon, Peter Bogdanovich held court at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills to talk about his new movie. Dressed in denim and a blue and white checked shirt with a blue kerchief tied loosely around his neck, Bogdanovich received a steady stream of journalists and handlers at his corner table in the hotel’s downstairs lunch area.

“It started 32 years ago,” the director began the tale of “The Cat’s Meow,” an “intimate thriller” that opens next month. Legendary filmmaker Orson Welles told Bogdanovich the story of director Thomas Ince’s death in 1924 aboard the Oneida, a yacht owned by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst.

Though Ince’s death was attributed to natural causes, legend has it that he was actually shot by Hearst, who mistook him for Charlie Chaplin, the man he believed was having an affair with his longtime mistress, Marion Davies. (Patricia Hearst’s 1996 novel “Murder at San Simeon” recounted the story of Ince’s death aboard her grandfather’s yacht.)

Although Bogdanovich thought it was an interesting story, he forgot about it until years later, when, during a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth II, he told movie critic Roger Ebert about it and suddenly realized it might make a good movie.

When he got back to New York, he was surprised to find an unsolicited script about what had happened aboard the yacht waiting on his desk.

“Fate was telling me something,” Bogdanovich said. And he decided to make the movie.

At first, he wanted Marlon Brando to play Hearst, but the actor refused, saying simply, “I don’t want to go up against Orson,” referring to Welles’ movie “Citizen Kane” based loosely on Hearst’s life.

Instead, Edward Herrmann was cast as Hearst--a character who is “kind of a monster” and, at the same time, a “lovesick boy,” said Bogdanovich, adding that Herrmann makes him entirely likable.

The movie took only 31 days to shoot and was primarily done in Greece. “I love the Greeks,” he said, although “they haven’t really gotten over the death of Homer.”

In addition to promoting “The Cat’s Meow,” Bogdanovich, 62, is at work on a book about his encounters with motion picture greats. Chaplin, whom he met briefly in 1972, “wasn’t particularly funny in conversation,” he revealed. Brando, whom Bogdanovich met while the actor was shooting “On the Waterfront,” was “the first and only person I’ve asked for an autograph.”

Formula for Success

“It’s going to be big,” said publisher Jason Binn about his new publication when reached on his cell phone en route to Miami. Binn, who’s behind three upscale East Coast glossies, will launch his West Coast vision, Los Angeles Confidential, on March 18, a week before the Academy Awards.

The 34-year-old Long Island native was slightly giddy as he described his target demographic: “People in their mid-30s with a high disposable income. The influencers,” he revealed. “It’s a great time to target that group. The most glamorous, important [people].”

With the recent demise of Talk and the resulting blow to synergy, not to mention the uneven economy, this might seem like a risky time to unveil a new magazine. But Binn’s unfazed. Synergy? “How does that apply to me?” he barked before patiently explaining that, unlike Talk, he is not beholden to Miramax, though Los Angeles Confidential will cover many Miramax parties--the hardest in town to get into, he added. In addition, he plans to have “meaty features. Fun stuff, gossipy stuff. Getting great people on the cover.”

His oeuvre already includes Hamptons Magazine on Long Island, Ocean Drive in Miami and Gotham in New York, publications that, he said, “celebrate the community.”

“Basically, I’ve created these brands that have been, kind of, the local community Scotch tape.”

Gotham “has become a big thing,” Binn said. “We’re in all the windows of Barneys,” he added by way of explanation. That magazine has a team of investigative journalists in addition to its fashion correspondents, he said.

Binn plans to be “continuing a formula I know and love” with his L.A. magazine, which is envisioned as a monthly.

What’s the formula? “Taking what people know and love, and making it hip or sexy. Taking stuff, that people, y’know, giving it, er, making it, er, sexy and cool. And hip. You know what I mean. It’s kind of unique.”

Enough said.

Welcome to L.A.

Antidote to Despair

“‘I love you,’” Sting said by phone from his home in Britain, “is a very profound statement when people are trying to kill each other.” He was talking about writing his Oscar-nominated love song, “Until

“The fear and despondency we all felt [after Sept. 11]--the movie was a total antidote to that. It’s a very lighthearted romance, and I was quite taken with it.”

Sting, who comes to Los Angeles next week to take part in events leading up to the Academy Awards, said he was struck by a scene from the film in which actors Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman dance, and decided to write an old-fashioned waltz.

“Normally, when you’re asked to do this kind of thing, it’s part of their marketing.” This song, he said, was “radio proof”--he didn’t think it would get any airplay. And it didn’t.

It did win a Golden Globe award, and received an Oscar nomination. “I’m thrilled,” he said. “It’s nice to be invited to the parties.”

Sting, who just completed a tour, is busy at work on his memoirs.

“It’s not going to be one of those ‘as told to,’” he said, adding, “it’s fascinating. Every memory dredges up another one. It’s a stream of consciousness, and I try to [translate] it into the English language.”

The songwriter and former English teacher should be supremely qualified.

The Breakup File

Edward James Olmos has filed for divorce from “The Sopranos” star Lorraine Bracco in L.A. Superior Court, according to the New York Daily News.

Sightings

Benicio del Toro, walking at the Santa Monica Promenade on Saturday afternoon, with a companion whom he showered with affection. According to an observer, “he was kissing her up and down the Promenade.”

City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles @latimes.com