The First Supper

My plane landed at LAX and I rushed to the Beverly Hills Hotel, ten minutes from Johnny Depp’s new business manager Ed White’s house overlooking the Bel-Air golf club. I was just there to hear the problem and give some helpful advice.

I had marveled for years at the spider’s web of interests and conflicts that characterize the status quo-protection racket of Hollywood. Ron Meyer, a Universal Studios boss who was himself cancelled and terminated during the #metoo movement, described this Hollywood reality in a New Yorker interview before his fall from grace: “Unless you’re Colonel Parker and you only represent one client, Elvis Presley, there’s always the potential for conflict of interest.” But in fact, Colonel Parker was secretly an illegal immigrant who coasted his entire life off a phony story, a “grifter, a crook and a con man” according to the New York Times who also ripped off Elvis.

I was late, and the business manager Ed White’s gracious wife Mary met me at the door of their traditional Bel-Air colonial. Mary led me through the house and out to the stone patio in back. The view of the Bel-Air golf course at sunset was magnificent. The maritime desert air in LA always feels sweet and clean. In fact, it’s the most polluted in the country.

I shook hands with Ed, and then with his two middle aged accountant colleagues, Larry Leavitt and Troy Schmidt.

And then there he was, the unmet friend. Johnny and I looked at each other and we both grinned for no reason at all. “Ahhhh….” he said, “the guest of honour,” in a Jack Sparrow English accent. I stuck out my hand to shake his, but he hugged me instead. I was glad to have done some research on the plane so I could sing a little for my supper.

Ed White is an avid wine collector, and after a nice glass of Pinot standing together on the patio, we took our seats at an outdoor table in the soft fade of the Los Angeles evening. Of the five of us, I sat to Johnny’s immediate left, and watched him out of the corner of my eye.

Johnny presented as a rock star pirate dad, tattoos of his family on his arms, rolling his own smokes. He was famously handsome, twice named People Magazine’s Most Beautiful Man in the World. I could see at first sight that he spent considerable energy camouflaging every trace of that pin-up look. He was wearing paint spattered, baggy jeans with some pieces of silk tied to the belt, green suede adidas sneakers, and layers of yard sale-ish hobo clothes, including a vest. An unbuttoned white shirt revealed an array of long necklaces.

He had a gentle, friendly demeanor and wore a shy smile. He cursed a lot, but it appeared to be part of his patter. “What a cunt” he said soon after we sat down, referring to himself. And in an odd contrast, he exhibited an exaggerated sense of decorum and courtesy. He said thank you and looked gratefully into the eyes of any person who handed him anything.

I studied him intently, and not because he was Johnny Depp. It was because he was an accused wifebeater. Although I was there to discuss a mysterious financial problem, I was wondering: “could he have done it?”

His new business manager Ed White was a courtly, silver-haired septuagenarian with boundless and slightly imperious energy and a formal manner of speaking. “That is well said and thank you kindly for your thoughtful remarks” was a constant refrain. Ed had represented old-timers Jack Nicholson, Vin Scully and Rick Dees for decades, but his clients were primarily wealthy local businesspeople rather than people from the entertainment business (whom Ed quaintly called “show folk”). Between Ed White and his superb colleagues Larry Leavitt and Troy Schmidt, they had 100 years of forensic audit experience.

When we sat for dinner we got right down to business. I repeated that I knew virtually nothing about what I was there to discuss and asked if we could jump into the facts.

“This is a working dinner,” said Ed. He then passed out a single piece of paper summarizing the accountants’ forensic audit of Johnny’s finances, with a numbered outline on it. The paper was about red flags they had uncovered since they took over as Johnny’s business managers after Johnny fired Joel Mandels’ Management Group (TMG) as business managers six months previously.

I listened intently for 20 minutes. The avalanche of facts certainly sounded bad. The red flags poured out of the accountants’ mouths. There were virtually no files reflecting 17 years of work. Joel Mandel claimed to a shocked Ed White that he kept all Johnny’s financial information “in my head.” The Mandels hadn’t paid (or in many cases filed) Johnny’s tax returns on time for 17 straight years, causing Johnny at least $8.3 million in tax penalties. They had doled out over $10 million of Johnny’s money to third parties without his permission and without any documentation. After they were fired, the Mandels remained on as interim consultants. During the period, the accountants observed that they went into Johnny’s accounting software called ‘Datafaction’ and attempted to recharacterize these multi-million-dollar giveaways as “loans,” and even purported to “forgive” a few million dollars of the payments on grounds that made no sense. But Datafaction accounting software revealed these retrospective alterations and date stamped them. The Mandels attempts to sanitize the limited files that existed had left fingerprints.

The Mandels used their power of attorney to “invest” Johnny’s money into mysterious investment funds without his permission. Some facts, like this last one, would prove tectonically important, with the ripple effects of these mysterious “investment funds” spreading outwards. It was impossible to know that then. But the general impression of wrongdoing from the mosaic of facts was strong and inescapable.

I had read the accountants’ outline, and now had heard enough of the preliminaries. I glanced ahead at number 19 on the list. It was about huge self-payments of contingent fees – fees that were earned as a simple percentage of what the entertainer earned. The accountants weren’t claiming wrongdoing; they were just offended by the number. It was time for me to sing for my supper.

“May I skip to what’s on my mind,” I interrupted. “How much has Johnny made in his career?”

Ed cleared his throat. “We understand from Johnny’s former talent agent Tracey Jacobs at UTA that this number approaches or exceeds $650 million.” Johnny smiled and raised his eyebrows. He had clearly never heard this figure before and had no idea how much he had made. The dirty secret of entertainers is that they are generally not so rich or well paid as the public thinks. Fame can be brief and paydays fleeting. I had represented some of the highest paid entertainers in history. But I had never heard of $650 million in earnings for acting.

“Wow.” What else could I say? Except get to the point that the earnings question set up. “Do Johnny’s business manager and the entertainment lawyer - Joel Mandel and Jake Bloom - have contracts with Johnny?” I held my breath.

“No” said Ed.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen any contracts. There are virtually no files!”

​“Well, there’s a California law – “6147.” It says that lawyers are required to have written contracts under California law. If they don’t, they have to give some or all of the contingent fees they charged back to the client.” I paused and let that sink in.

“What does that have to do with his business managers?” asked Ed.

“The Mandels are both lawyers” said Johnny quietly.

The accountants pushed back politely. “Are you really saying Johnny could void these payments and get his money back from all the lawyers here? That’s like $70 million!”

“I’m just telling you what the law says. More facts are required.” I wasn’t volunteering to find those facts. I was thinking of getting back to my family in our hotel room.

​Johnny listened intently. He added some narrative detail about his relationship with the Mandels’ and asked probing questions about the mechanics and exceptions to 6147. He still had the remnants of his second glass of wine in front of him. He was neither drunk nor stoned.

When the main course was taken away, Johnny excused himself, I assumed to go the bathroom. I did the same a few minutes later and found that, in fact, he had gone into the kitchen to shake everyone’s hand, thank them for the evening, and hang out with the wait staff. It made an impression on me.

I read in an interview that he claimed: “I’m the same guy that used to pump gas.” As the same guy who used to wait tables, I liked him from the start.

The accountants, Johnny and I walked out of the house together into Ed’s steep driveway that led out into the hills of Bel-Air. Johnny asked me to go over 6147 again while he smoked a cigarette. He asked me what I thought “we” should do. I arched my eyebrows. I said the natural next step was for someone to call Joel Mandel and hear directly from him about the disagreements between the parties.

Johnny said simply: “Will you look into this? Will you represent me man?”

It appeared to me that he may have been mistreated on a grand scale. There was the unscripted moment in the kitchen, where I saw evidence of a decent guy. I have an overdeveloped sense of injustice and am a sucker for an interesting case. I’d had three glasses of wine. So I agreed on the spot without thinking it through. Johnny threw his arms around me.

And although Johnny Depp asked me if I would represent him on matters with over 100 million dollars at stake, he never once asked me who I was.