"Death in the Pool House"

In this episode, we go deep into Don's pill addiction and his time in seclusion with his personal doctor slash filmmaking partner. We look into how and why Don turned away from studio films to make an independent film called "Legend of Kodiak" and how the making of the film led to Don's doctor's tragic death.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Episode eleven, Death in the Poolhouse. In this episode, we
seek to understand how and why Don chose to live
the last year of his life hold up in seclusion
at his bel Air estate with his personal doctor slash
filmmaking partner. What was so special about their independent film,
The Legend of Kodiak And how did the making of
this Kodiak Bear movie result in the doctor's tragic death.

(00:26):
How would Dawn, addicted and under heavy medication, survive without
his doctor around to supervise his care. Sadly, this is
an episode that leaves us with as many questions as answers.
The Spring of Bill, Big Bubba Clinton has taken his
Arkansas charm to the White House, Hill Out Fox new Gingridge,

(00:49):
and the Republican controlled Congress in what will become the
longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. But
beneath the good times of Bill's saxophone solo on the
Cineor Hall Show, there were ripples of emerging extremism. Tim
McVeigh would take vengeance on the US government by blowing
up an Oklahoma federal building. Five days later, a man

(01:11):
known as the Uni Bomber sends his twentieth and final
mail bomb to a timber lobbyist in Sacramento, who would
die in the explosion, and one month later, the OJ
trial would be reaching its dramatic conclusion with the discovery
of an ill fitting pair of rubber gloves. If it
doesn't fit, you must equit. Even Hollywood was an immune
to tragedy. Just a few miles from the OJ trial,

(01:31):
at the Century Plaza hotel, former head of Columbia Pictures
David Bagelman would check himself in under an assumed name,
enter his hotel room, slip on a bathrobe, and shoot
himself in the head. David Bagelman dies around the time
that Don's doctor dies. Don had always been fascinated by Beegelman,
a guy who did far worse things than Don ever did, but,

(01:53):
unlike Dawn, always seemed to get a free pass. David
Bagelman's tail was a strange and complex story of how
a top Hollywood executive making millions of dollars would go
on a check forging spree. They weren't large checks, ten
thousand dollars at most. The old part were the names
he was using to forge the checks, namely the actor

(02:14):
Cliff Robertson, Biegelman, who was a flawed character because he
not only was a cheap scoundrel forger, but he also
hurt people. But he was a charmer like so many
bad people. And he had forged my name and I
didn't know it. All I know is I got a

(02:36):
ten thinking from the government saying Howard Texas on Monday,
I hadn't received from Plumb your pictures. When Beagleman denied
the forgeries and his friends at the studios took his side,
poor Cliff Robertson got blackballed from the business. It was
all just the tip of the iceberg David Mammett style
viper's nest of studio exects turning on each other. Careers

(02:57):
were derailed, reputations destroyed. There would be embezzlement charges, an
FBI and l ap D investigation. Beagelman would eventually plead
guilty to all charges. His punishment for breaking the law,
he was required to produce a court instructed p s
A about the dangers of doing drugs. The p s
A punishment this is what studio had Robert Evans had

(03:20):
received for his infamous cocaine scandal. Within months of his conviction,
Beagelman was back at Columbia Pictures as president. How did
Don feel about Beagelman's suicide. A showman who would live
for the glitz and the glamor of the business, who
had brought in millions of dollars for the studio, who
was charming and smart and incredibly well respected, and yet,

(03:41):
like Don, lived in the dark and secretive space of addiction.
There was a sense of fatalism around Dawn after Beagelman's death,
a fatalism that his addictions were going to catch up
to him, that he was running out of time, that
the movie business had passed him by. Don's reign as
the blockbuster king had been usurped. The filmmakers of the

(04:03):
nineties took Don's high concept movie experience and dumped it
down to a whole new level. Even David Biegelman, who
had made classics like Taxi Driver and Close Encounters, had
ended his career pandering high concept movies like Weekend to
Bernie's and Mannequin Too. Dawn was the Eighties, like Elvis
and Scott Fitzgerald. He was a product of his decade.

(04:26):
But that decade was over and film producers like Don
had to go back to being well just film producers, discreet, measured, unseen.
No more publicists, no more magazine covers, no more snorting
blow with journalists, and no more acting roles opposite Tom Cruise. Sadly,
his relationship with Tom was beyond repair. Tom had moved on.

(04:50):
It was a new decade. He had that nineties ponytail
look going on with Interview with the Vampire and playing
a yuppie lawyer in the firm, and he was taking
on Don's old job in producing. While Don was holed
up in his mansion obsessing over movies like something out
of a Howard Hughes biopic. Tom, ironically enough, had taken
over howard Uses old offices at Paramount. Tom was just

(05:14):
thirty three and already considered a top producer after delivering
Mission Impossible, on time and on budget, something Don had
publicly failed to do with Days of Thunder, and to
add insult, Tom was also finding the time to direct.
Tom was mr. Perfect, you'd act and produce, but the
directing that that really got to dawn. He couldn't believe

(05:38):
that Tom would beat him to the punch. Tom joined
director's Alfonso Koran and Steven Soderberg in stepping behind the
camera to direct an episode for the Showtime anthology Fallen Angels,
developed by producer Steve Golan. The thing to know about
being a crook is that it's easy work with him
get people to believe. Fortunately, what people want more than

(06:00):
anything in the world is to believe. Try your luck
at a game of pure chance, find a little winner
by yourself a big dinner. Tom's episode was written by
John Robin Bates and Howard Rodman and would star Peter
Gallagher and Isabella Rosalini and John Riley before he added
the middle initial see Tom was working with the best

(06:22):
writers and directors and actors in town. Whereas Don had
for years been talking about directing, Tom just went out
and did it now. At that time, Don actually did
have a directing project lined up. He had optioned a
book called Witness to the Truth, written by a former
FBI agent. The story would have made for a great

(06:43):
Don Simpson movie. A Maverick special agent and a decorated
Vietnam vette recruits a team of renegades to find a
mafia informant in order to locate the kidnapped daughter of
a fellow agent. Had all the elements, Don had even
got his old Bud Robert Town to adapt the script,
but Don's big directing project never materialized. Why. Don would

(07:07):
tell you the project got stuck in development, but the
reality was that Don was still feeling the shame and
the failure of playing Aldo Andretti. He was he was
just scared to fail and the movie fell apart. That
was around the time he met the doctor, and that
really was the beginning of the end for Dawn. When

(07:29):
we return, Don finds a doctor who loves drugs just
as much as he does. Don's doctor. They had met
at the gym Let California. Michael beat all the greats

(07:52):
have worked out here, Mr teen Arnold at Muscle Beach,
a dedicated square of asphalt on the Venice boardwalk where
tourists could stop and marvel at men with massive, oiled
up muscles lifting weights in the hot California sunshine. Serious bodybuilders.
Back then, we're taking amino assets, most specifically l trip fan.

(08:13):
Don hears about how all the top bodybuilders are getting
aminos from a doctor who is a big time weightlifter.
Now Don asked him for a prescription and they start
talking about working out together. The doctor gives Don advice
on how to best lose stomach flab and the best
diets to get him into tight jeans. He recommends supplements

(08:34):
they learned they share a fondness for pills and love
for the movies. Now, before we dive into Don's bear
movie and his destructive relationship with his personal doctor in
the Spring of the first question one has to ask
is why wouldn't Don be interested in making a film
with his doctor when he had three major studio films

(08:56):
set to be released that year, Crimson Tide. So they
called us, and we're going over there are the most
lethal killing machine ever devised. The last time we hit
this state of emergency was thirty two and a half
years ago during the Cuban Missile crisis. So this is
what it's all about, gentlemen. It's what we trained for.
Bad boys, but the Miami Detectives, Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowry,

(09:26):
it's the ultimate nightmare was our career. Bust your hundred
million dollars. Just do what you do, only faster. Let's
try to do this right. No gunshots, dead bodies. Well,
you know, if correctly the last couple of dead bad

(09:46):
guys belong to you. Dangerous minds, you got to rage
against the dying of the light. You promised, Yeah, but
we had to. We couldn't walk around with our heads
up no more. Do you want? You understand? You come
and live in my neighborhood for one week, and then
you tell me if you got a choice. There are
a lot of people who live in your neighborhood who

(10:07):
choose not to get on that bus. That is a choice.
There are no victims in this classroom. Don was back
in a huge way. The bad boy producer who had
been kicked off the Paramount lot and hadn't made a
movie in five years, was now producing grown up movies
with actors like Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. Crimson Tide,

(10:29):
in particular, was an evolution for Don. It was a smarter,
more sophisticated version of what Don's movies have always been. Patriotic, loud,
testosterone driven movies about alpha men competing against each other
in close quarters. Another Cold war military movie without a
war top guns. Tony Scott would direct, Hans Zimmer would

(10:51):
create the score. It was a Don Simpson movie through
and through, except for one thing. Don wasn't around for
the filming. Dawn was home his house in Stone Canyon
became his own personal wellness retreat. He had all sorts
of doctors and wellness gurus coming and going, and he

(11:11):
was so immersed with his pill taking regime that he
didn't even show up at his own movie premiere. You
can see how that might have worried people. Nobody loved
a premiere more than Don. The film would premiere at
the Venice Film Festival, with Denzel Washington kicking off the
festivities wearing full maritime regalia. Later there would be an

(11:32):
opening night party on a sixteen ton submarine moored in
the Grand Canal. It was the sort of spectacle that
Don would have dreamt up. Where was done? The press
wanted to know, overseeing bad boys in dangerous minds was
the studio's response, But the reality was Don had voluntarily
committed to an intensive and highly risky detox program designed

(11:53):
to wean him off hard drugs with prescription pills. Dawn
was a big believer in making prescription pill was accessible
to everyone. He thought he could turn his house into
a twenty four hour pharmacy where anyone could get drugs,
cut out the middleman and all the red tape. Come
and see firsthand how Don's laboratory of optimization could not

(12:14):
only get you off hard drugs, but give you new
drugs to make you younger, smarter, stronger, and better looking.
I mean, I didn't believe any of it until Don
invited me over and revealed his new look. His skin
was somehow wrinkle free and had this this incredible energy.
He said it was the h GH. He then pulled

(12:36):
out a needle, dosed up and offered to stab me
in the belly. Human growth hormones, the fountain of youth.
A few droplets injected with a syringe, and you become
instantly ten years younger. That was the claim. At least
it was botox with a hit of viagra. Fewer wrinkles,
smoother skin, ripped abs, increased libido, more energy. It was

(12:59):
the miracle. I couldn't believe it when I saw Don
and the doctor each bench pressing twice their way, and
how rich they both were walking around in their underwear.
They looked like WWF wrestlers, like ravishing rick Rude. Don
was enamored with the doctor's body, enamored in a way
he was enamored with wanting the newest ferrari. If you

(13:20):
know what I mean, he just had to have it.
The doctor started dosing in with h GH, but naturally
Don't wanted more. Soon they started testosterone therapy, which made
Don more intense, more focused, but also more angry. It
was literally an incredible Hulk transformation. Don would get his

(13:42):
body into superhero shape. He never looked so good. The
fountain of youth that Don had dreamed about was actually happening,
and he didn't stop with his body. He had to
sharpen his mind as well, and the doctor had pills
for that too, And so it began a pill and
growth ramon regime in that would give Done the body
of a year old and the laser like focus he

(14:05):
needed to make movies. On top of which they were
also doing a detox. Some of the pills included in
the detox program where the painkiller torridor, a drug called
librium to control mood, swings at a van to counter
any agitation, and dup a coat to prevent acute mania.
There was also some experimentation with morphine and signal. The

(14:26):
way Don put it was, you have to pull out
the weeds to plant the flowers, I said to Don,
but you can't smell the flowers where is the joy
in all of this. Then I remember this was a
guy would eat a pint of peanut butter without remembering
he'd licked the bottom of the jar. Don once told
me that money, above all else, gave him freedom. I

(14:50):
pointed out to Don that he didn't look like man
with much freedom, trapped in his house spending fifty dollars
a month on pills. This time he amended his statement.
He said to me, money gives you the freedom to
find out how much pain you are really in. Don's pain.
It all now made sense. The pills weren't about staying young,

(15:13):
or fighting hair loss or building muscles. The pills were
about one thing, trauma. Don was in the care of
an e er doctor highly trained in trauma, and trauma
was what Don trafficked in ever since he was a
young boy. And I knew them that Don was going
down a very dangerous path. When we return, Don and

(15:37):
his doctor commit to their passion project, the Legend of Kodiak.
What Don didn't know at the time was that his
doctor was an addict who was falling fast into his
own prescription black hole. I'd heard stories now. The doctor
had been to rehab several times and that he had

(15:57):
been admitted to a state run drug addict and program
designed to help doctors with substance abuse problems stay drug
free and keep their licenses. I said to Don, look,
your doctor is an addict. Stay away from him. But
Don said, now, now, this man is a genius. He's
helping me get off the hard stuff. He saved my

(16:18):
life for a short time. At least the doctor's regiment
was indeed working. Don was focused energized. The doctor, as
it turned out, had an added incentive to keep Don
in this state. He wanted Don's partnership in making his movie,
The Legend of Kodiak. How serious was Don about making
Kodiak serious enough to pursue a star for the movie.

(16:41):
All of Don's recent films have been star driven Cruise,
Eddie Murphy, Will Smith in Bad Boys. Without talent attached,
those films wouldn't get the green light to go into production,
and the Legend of Kodiak was no different. Don knew
that he and his doctor would need a star, and
for Kodiak, there was no one actor that could get

(17:01):
the movie made. The actor Pierce is referring to had
just recently starred with Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall.
His crowning achievement was Jacqua No's film The Bear, where
he had received Oscar buzz for his performance. M Bart

(17:25):
knew when he was on camera, he'd get that look
what Destiny wepnote would just be like, man, Bart, you're good,
and he was. His chest would be a little bigger,
and he look around and and he'd just get that
magic going. His name was Bart the Bear, a majestic,

(17:47):
stunning nine and a half foot tall, hundred pound grizzly.
He had been trained from the time he was a
little cub by a former truck driver turned bear trainer
named Doug Seuss. Doug's use was Bart's teach, your mentor,
and on the deepest and most emotional level, he was
Bart's father. The human fleet that were that long about doubt?

(18:08):
Why lay on your lap, Bart, You might say it
was born into an acting family. His mother had appeared
in the nineteen seventy six grizzly bear horror film Day
of the Animals starring Leslie Nielsen. Dog sub Bart had
his mother's ease and natural ability to perform. This bear
was special. Everyone that worked with Bart, Brad Pitt, Robert Redfoot,

(18:31):
Anthony Hopkins, they all had amazing things to say about
dog and Bart. And I've worked with Bart before and
with Brad Pitton Legends of the Fall, and Doug su said,
cannot say enough about him. He's in the most remarkable
man and the way he deals with this great grizzly
who I think he's about fifteen pounds, massive bear and

(18:54):
the dog teach him with such love and respect. And
of course this is the animal as a killer. If
you get near him, he'll take your head off. His
directors would call Bart the John Wayne of animal actors.
There was reportedly an Academy Award nomination for his performance
in The Bear, but apparently once the nomination votes were tallied,
the Academy made a rule that no animals could be eligible,

(19:15):
thus negating Bart's nomination. Bart would later be invited as
a presenter Ladies and Gentlemen, the star of eleven motion pictures,
including Plan of the Cave, Bear, Legends of Before, and
most recently, The Air Bart Bear. How important was it
to get Bart the Bear on board Don's movie Wow?

(19:35):
It is as important as it was to use real
F fourteens in Top Gun, or to use real stock
cars in days of thunder. Don wasn't going to make
a Cody at Bear movie without having a real life
Cody at Bear play the lead, and since there was
only one Cody at Bear who could carry a movie,
Bart was the only choice. It's unclear how far along

(19:56):
Don and his doctor were in making the Legend of Kodiak.
There were reports that the Doctor had already spent hundreds
of thousands of dollars and hiring a crew and shooting
test footage. In one scene, his lead actor, who was
playing the role of the reincarnated man who had once
been a bear, had been directed to go and put
his face into the river and emerge with a live

(20:19):
salmon in his mouth. He would then eat the fish raw,
the way a bear would do it. The actor refused,
and so the doctor jumped into the river, ripped off
the salmon's head with his teeth, and ate the salmon.
It was unclear whether the doctor was unhinged or just
incredibly committed, or perhaps both. It was also unclear what

(20:39):
this test footage was intended to be used for. Dawn
and the Doctor were well aware that there was a
competing bad project going into production, and if the rival
production attached Bars. Nobody would be interested in seeing Bart
star in two Grizzly Bear movies. The movie we believe
Pierce was referring to was The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkin

(21:00):
and Alec Baldwin and written by David Mammett. Well, mine
gonna do another. Cando, can't kill the bear, Charles. He's
he's ahead of us all the time. It's like he's
reading our mind. He's stalking us. For God's Sakesy, you
want to die out here? Huh, well, then die. I'll

(21:21):
tell you what. I'm not gonna die, obscurity, I'm not
gonna die. Oh I'm going to kill the bear. With
Anthony Hopkins attached to a David Mammt script, they didn't
stand a chance of landing Bart. Bart the Bear would
go on to star in the film to rave reviews.
Film critic Kenneth Thran of the Los Angeles Times called

(21:44):
Bart's performance in The Edge the capstone of an illustrious
career and a milestone in earth sign acting. Dawn was
too high to care about losing out on Bart the Bear.
His pill regime was going great. He was content to stay,
of course, but it was a big blow for his doctor.

(22:04):
This movie was everything to him, and when it went
south it was devastating. He just self destructed. He finally
got arrested for climbing out into his ninth floor balcony,
where he then swung down and threw himself through his
neighbor's screen window. The weirdest part of the story was
that the doctor was naked and reported to have been
growling like a bear. I had heard Don mentioned that

(22:28):
the doctor was running low on money and taking Zanex
so he could go back to work in the e R.
And yet he was still going to Don's house every
day to work on a movie that Don knew wasn't
going anywhere. To be honest, Don had already pulled out
at this point. He offered up his support as a consultant,
but he was no longer interested in producing Legend of

(22:51):
Kodiak Dance. Doctor would be found dead in Dan's pool
house shower just ten days earlier. His head had been
reforested with a hair transplant. The tax of car do
report listed cocaine, morphine, valium, and several antidepresants in his system.
The L A. P. D. Hormicide detectives on the scene
quickly determined the cause of death as an overdose. However,

(23:12):
a coroner's report would later reveal that the scene had
been quote sanitized, and that they had found no prescription
drugs on the premises. Some six months later, a coroner's
report would say virtually the same thing, only this time
it would be Donne's death under investigation. After the doctor died,
don asked if I could stick around for a few days.

(23:32):
The pool house was still considered a crime scene, so
I stayed in one of the guest rooms. I've gone
searching for a towel in the linen closet when I
found the pills, a stash of literally thousands. The coroner
had reported that there were no pills in the house.
Wasn't hiding evidence considered tampering, and wasn't tampering with a

(23:53):
crime scene in itself a crime I quickly closed the
door to find don standing in the hall way. He
was clearly high as a kite. His face was particularly
frozen from his recent plastic surgery, and the light was
reflecting off his new chin like the tip of a
melted ice cream cone. He had questions. He appeared to

(24:17):
be struggling with the events of the day, not concerning
his doctor. He seemed to have put that out of
his mind. But with David Bagelman? Did he check into
the hotel under his real name? Don asked, no, I
answer he used an alias? And what room? Did he
ask for? An ocean view? I believe? And how did

(24:39):
he end it? He shot himself while on the bed
in his robe, two bullet wounds. One entered the right
temple and one exited the left ear a point thirty
eight caliber pistol. Was there a note? Don asked, there
was a note? I don't the details. I heard it began.

(25:02):
My real name is David Beagelman. I remember how Don
fixated on that, on the simple confession of saying one's name.
Why to say one's name over and over again with
such declaration is to own up to one's name, to

(25:22):
own up to your life, to your legacy, to your failures.
Don was trying to own up to his name ever
since he was a little boy. Every time he had
been scolded, every time he had been shunned and shamed
by his parents, Little Don would retreat to his room,
where he would look into the mirror and repeat again
and again and again, I'm Don Simpson. I'm Don Simpson.

(25:46):
I'm Don Simpson, his little voice becoming louder and louder
as little Don grew angry and angrier. I'm Don Simpson,
until the mirror shattered, and little boy Don, who was
filled with so much loathing and so much adness, mercifully
wouldn't have to look at himself any longer. After Dawn

(26:07):
grew tired of asking about Beagleman's suicide, he drifted off
into his bedroom for a nap. I stood for a moment,
looking at the stockpile of pills and feeling a sense
of relief that the man who had gotten him the
pills was now gone. Dawn wouldn't be calling on any
more doctors for relief. He could find his way back

(26:29):
to the old Dawn, to the great Maverick producer who
made great movies. Of course, I would be wrong. The
Dance season two is executive produced by Will McCormick and
David Harris Klein. Klein also wrote and created the series.

(26:52):
Mike Jurst's as the editor, sound designer, and producer of
the series. The podcast is produced and narrated by Malia
Rivera Drew That's Me Louis Weymouth voices the character of
Pierce and also produces the series. For more episodes of
The Dawn season two, listen to the series on the
I Heart Radio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.