Top Gun- Don and Tom

The first of three episodes devoted to the Top Gun partnership of Don and Tom Cruise.   In this episode, we track the origins of Top Gun... How MTV videos of bands singing about nuclear war shaped Don’s vision to make a cold war movie. We go behind the scenes of Don’s big pitch at the Pentagon to convince the Navy to give Don their $14 million jets... And we learn of how the pressure to make a third blockbuster movie in a row contributed to Don’s coke addiction which would make him so paranoid for his safety that he wouldn’t leave the house without a bodyguard. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Episode six, Top Guns, Don and Tom. Our next three
episodes are devoted to the Top Gun partnership of Don
and Tom Cruise. In this episode, we tracked the origins
of Top Guns how MTV videos of bands singing about
nuclear war shaped Don's vision to make a Cold war movie.
We go behind the scenes of Don's big pitch the
Pentagon to convince the Navy to give Don their fourteen

(00:26):
million dollar jets, and we learn of how the pressure
to make a third blockbuster movie in a row contributed
to Don's co addiction, which would make him so paranoid
for his safety that he wouldn't leave the house without
a bodyguard. It was official. Don had been crowned the
king of Hollywood. It was right there in the issue

(00:47):
of Newsweek. The headline read the producer is King again,
and guests who landed the cover sexy bad boy Don
styled in a black suit and a white turtleneck. Ironically,
they photo grabbed him on the Paramount Lot, the very
studio that had fired him three years earlier. Don had
done it. His high concept memo had sidelined the great

(01:09):
autour directors of the seventies. The producers now controlled the
business and Don wanted everybody to know it. He would
be the first producer to hire his own publicist. Full
page ads went out in the trades announcing his new
paramount deal. One ad read from the premise to the premiere,
from the first draft to the last detail, from the

(01:29):
first shot to the millionth cassette. Don Simpson a total filmmaker.
While the studio heads were cringing with uncomfortable laughter at
don self promotion, they were also regrettingly giving him respect.
Dawn had really wanted that Newsweek cover. He had thought
he deserved the cover. When Beverly Hills Cop came out

(01:50):
and they put Eddie Murphy on the cover instead of him,
They told him they don't put producers on the cover.
Well now they do. Don was a celebrity now, and
so he needed a celebrity house. He upgraded from his
Laurel Canyon bungalow to a party house in cold Water.

(02:11):
He had the sports cars in the driveway, the closets
full of designer suits, girls by the pool, and well,
lots of cocaine, which was a lot of fun until,
of course it wasn't. All the cokes started to make
Don really paranoid, so paranoid that for a while, Don

(02:31):
wouldn't leave the house without a bodyguard. Vic manny. I
mean he was a sweetheart of a guy. He had
the perfect mug to play a tough guy. Don put
him in all of his movies. He's the security guard
rapping with Eddie Murphy. Hey do you like rap music?
You like rap music, We'll turn around real slow in

(02:52):
from the Rap Coalition of America. Takeda going off over there,
gone over there. If you like rap music so much,
I can't you eat smiling, smiling, smile, sm real bit
left to rap together your baby, yo, baby, yo baby.
Vic was always around. Don brought him in because of
the mobster incident. The story goes that Don had piste

(03:15):
off a very powerful mobster after hitting on the mobster's
girlfriend at a party. The mobster apparently threatened Don's life,
so Don hired Vic. That was when he installed security
senses under the floors. Was Don's life really in danger
to the point that he had to hire a bodyguard
in motion sensor his entire house. Probably not, But for Don,

(03:36):
the truth didn't matter. What mattered was the story, and
a producer under threat from the mob was a story
that quickly traveled around town. It's not like Don needed
more notoriety. He just couldn't help himself. He's a storyteller,
and his favorite story to tell was his own. The
mob threats might also have been a diversion from all

(03:58):
the pressure Don was feeling after who gigantic box office
hits in a row. He had seen what Tom had
done after Risky Business to miss Fires in a row.
If Dawn wasn't careful, he'd be making a movie about
unicorns and fairies. Legend. It's the one movie Tom Cruise
never talks about in interviews, and no wonder it was

(04:19):
the only Tom Cruise movie that lost money. Got the
keys might not Sweet, Sweet and a Swimmer Wind. Sweet
is the wind that blows me to you. Tom plays

(04:40):
a forest child in a world of goblins and fairies,
an odd choice for Tom, to say the least, but
Tom had faith in Ridley Scott, who had made Alien
and just come off Blade Runner. After two sci fi epics,
Legend was going to be his epic in the fantasy genre.
But everything seemed to go wrong. Once the camera started rolling,

(05:01):
a huge fire burned the entire set at Pinewood Studios
to the ground. No one had been hurt, but the
fire triggered the studio into panic mode. They got nervous,
They started sending over more and more notes, and the
plot became more and more incoherent. As far as Tom's character,
he plays an elfin forest child with no backstory who
doesn't wear pants. Lots of armor and heavy shirts, but

(05:23):
for some reason, no pants. This would be the last
time Tom would appear without pants in a movie. On
top of his silly look, he was upstaged in every
scene by the brilliant Tim Curry as the demonic Lord
of Darkness. For Tom, it was a bad look and
a bad performance in a bad movie. Legend had killed

(05:44):
off any momentum from the success of Risky Business. Tom
knew he had to be more cautious in choosing his
next role, but he also knew he had to get
back to work, and the guy who most wanted to
work with him was Dawn. I mean it help that
Don's body. Steve Tish should work with Tom on Risky Business.

(06:04):
Down had insight into Tom's strange relationship with his father.
Tom's father was dying in his final days. He would
agree to let Tom visit him in the hospital. Tom's
father hadn't seen any of his movies. He didn't care
that his son had become a success. Tom wasn't looking
for praise, just some measure of acceptance, but his father

(06:25):
wouldn't give it to him. Tom's father died at age
forty nine of colorectal cancer. Years later. In an amazing
performance in the film Magnolia, Tom would channel the pain
he was feeling when his dad was dying. I'm not
gonna cry for you. Mm hmm, you cocksucker. I know

(06:48):
you can hear me here. What'sh You know whether I
hate your fucking guts, you could just fucking die you
fuck God, hope it hurts. I fucking cope it hurts cold.

(07:39):
M h God, your asshole. After his father's death, Tom
bowed to live a life with no regrets, a mantra

(08:01):
to live life to the fullest. Don also adopted a
similar mantra, but he would add to live life to
the fullest in the most decadent way possible. Tom moved
on quickly from his father's death and never looked back,
but Don never moved on. In fact, much of Don's
personal narrative was based around his childhood trauma. He wanted

(08:23):
everyone to know about his troubled past. Screenwriter Joe Esterhouse
recalled that after Flashdance, Don told him that his parents
sent down what he thought was a congratulatory note. The
note came with a gift box, but without a gift
inside was a Bible and an ominous note. His parents
were praying for his soul. Don You're no good. Don,

(08:45):
You're a devon, a perver, sick little boy. I mean,
after hearing this so many times, he started to believe it,
and inevitably he embraced it. At this point, Don was
well known as the bad boy producer. He had taken
over the mantel from his old pal Robert Evans. For
nearly an entire decade, Don was free of the corporate
constraints of Paramount. He didn't have to answer to anyone.

(09:08):
As long as he was delivering hits. Everyone knew Don
would come up with another high concept idea. And if
you knew Don, you knew that it just couldn't be
any high concept. It had to be the perfect high concept.
Had had to had to match the mood of the country,
had to have urgency, Americans, I'm coming before you tonight.

(09:29):
About the Korean Airline massacre, the attack by the Soviet
Union against two hundred and sixty nine innocent men, women
and children aboard an unarmed Korean passenger plane. This crime
against humanity must never be forgotten. Forgotten. In the eighties,
Cold War anxiety dominated popular culture. Don saw it firsthand
on his favorite channel, MTV. To understand Don's obsession with

(09:52):
making a Cold War movie, you need to understand just
how terrified young people were of the Cold War and
how much the music industry played a part. Prince's album Controversy,
track number five, Ronnie Talked to Russia, is a direct
plea from Prince for Ronnie Reagan to reach out to
the leaders of the Soviet Union. A year later, Prince

(10:15):
releases nine, which is all about how the nuclear judgment
day is coming and how we might as well have
fun on our last days on Earth. Then comes Men
at Work releasing the track Overkill, which is all about
insomnia brought on by nuclear war. And then perhaps the
most famous eighties nuclear war track of them all, the
Future So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades. That song wasn't

(10:38):
about a bright future at all, just the opposite. The
future was so bright was a warning that a nuclear
bomb was going to light up the sky. The whole
video was a spoof on the end of the world
scenario in MTV, Don was able to take a snapshot
of America. Don recognized there was a Cold War narrative
that would catch on with the country. In Top Gun,

(10:58):
he would find his narrative, a story that would remind
Americans not to be afraid. America will always be the
greatest country in the world. In Dan's mind, he would
make the most patriotic movie ever made. When We Return,
Don pitches the Pentagon for permission to make Top Gun.

(11:27):
Dan had a gift for being able to sell a
film in just a few words. In his pitch for
Top Gun, he took it a step further. There were
no words at all. He would sell the movie off
a single image. He shows me a photo from California
Magazine of these two pilots flying at thirty thou feet.
I said, Don, I really don't see much of a

(11:49):
story here, and he said, you don't sell a movie
on a story, Pierce, you sell them on the concept.
If you try and sell a story, then they're immediately
thinking of what's not working. The story comes after you
sell it to be accurate. There was a story behind
the photo of the two pilots. It was based on

(12:09):
an article about the U. S. Naval Air Station Mirmur,
which ran a program called the United States Navy Strike
Fighter Tactics Instructor Program. Its nickname was top Gun. It
was where the top one percent of U. S. Naval
aviators were sent to train the greatest collection of piloting
talent in the world. Don tells me there's only been

(12:30):
one great fighter pilot movie in the history of cinema,
the ninety seven film Wings. I said, Don, you're you're
going to use at nineteen twenty seven silent movie as
your pitch to make a fighter pilot movie. Wings was
the first movie to win an Academy Award. It was
also the first movie to feature a gay kiss. We

(12:52):
don't think it's a coincidence that Don had referenced Wings
in its gay subtext. The film was built as a
war drama that followed two Air Force pilots vying for
the same woman, but it's the relationship between the two
men that becomes the central love story. The relationship was
referred to as a friendship to dodge the sensors. The
movie ends with a shocking kiss, with the two men

(13:13):
falling into each other's arms. When I pressed on on
the gay love story, he instead spoke of the friendship
of the pilots and the spirited competition. He never explicitly
revealed Top Gun would have any gay themes, certainly not
in Reagan's America and certainly not in a mainstream movie.
This was Don's big follow up to Beverly Hills Cop,

(13:36):
the first great fighter pilot movie since wings. Don was
putting his career on the line. There was no story,
no actors, no director. It was just Don's passion for
what the story might be. To Dan's credit, the studio
supported Don's vision, but selling the idea to his buddies
at Paramount was one thing, but selling the movie to

(13:57):
the Pentagon. In order for Don to make Top Gun,
he needed military airplanes, and that meant going back to
the Pentagon. He had already struck out once trying to
sell them on Officer and a gentleman, maya I want
a d O O, no, sir, and kick me out

(14:18):
of here that I aint quitnin get into your fatigued
mail at the end of this weekend, you quit. The
military didn't want to support a movie about an enlisted
officer who hated the military and spent the whole movie

(14:39):
defying his abusive superior officer. It didn't matter that lu
Gozt Jr. Had won an Academy Award for the role.
The military hated the film. Going into the Pentagon pitch,
Don had been warned the military wasn't in much of
a mood to listen to any more pitches from Hollywood producers,
not after they took a chance with Final Countdown. All
of us know that movement through time is possible. Einstein

(15:01):
proved there are forces in the universe which were only
now just beginning to understand. I mean you understand through science,
not superstition. There are black holes in space, anti matter
curve space, things that are estranged to us as electricity
would have been the people in the Middle Ages or
this ship in World War Two. Final Countdown starred Kirk
Douglas and Martin Sheen. The elevator pitch was what if

(15:23):
a nineteen eighty nuclear aircraft carrier was transported back to
December sixty one, the day before the Pearl Harbor attack.
The film used the Navy's F fourteens the same planes.
Don was lobbying the Pentagon to give him. The movie
had the full cooperation of the U. S. Navy. It
used the USS limits, a top of the line aircraft

(15:43):
carrier that would later be used to help free the
hostages in Iraq. Crew members were used as extras in
the movie. A real life emergency landing of a course
there two fighter had been filmed. The movie was accurate
to a fault, and that was the problem. The story
didn't take enough dramatic liberties. The Navy had got its way,
and the film suffered as a result. A few movie

(16:04):
goers knew of the tremendous cloud the military entertainment complex
had over Hollywood. Films that portray the U. S. Military
in a positive light received taxpayer funding, set locations free
a charge, and consultation for military personnel. A meeting with
the d D was, you know, just about the biggest
meeting any producer could get. Donn had been preparing for months.

(16:25):
He knew he had one and only one bit of leverage.
Military recruits had been on the decline for years. They
blamed the recruitment problem in part on Hollywood's anti war
movies of the seventies. Don goes in and the first
thing he says is there are no Zack Mayo's in
this movie. Zack Mayo was a loser. This movie is
about winners, winners who love the military as much as

(16:48):
they love their country. Now, this was a bit of
a puzzler win what exactly how can we win a
war when we're not in a war? This was Don's
sleight of hand, dipping into his pat bonn and bag
of tricks. He didn't need a war in his war movie.
He just needed audiences to believe the military could still

(17:08):
win wars, never mind that no war was being fought.
After Don makes his big pro war pitch, he makes
the big ask. He wants the use of a real
naval air station, real aircraft carriers, real planes, and the
flying services of real pilots. And he's got a line
item budget on the asking price a measly one eight
million dollars. For Don, it was a make or break moment.

(17:33):
Either the Pentagon would agree to help make Top Gun
or Top Gun was dead. When we return, Don bails
out Tony Scott in the meeting to get the green
light to make Top Gun. Did Don make a brilliant

(17:54):
Don Draper esque pitch that won the hearts and minds
of d D. All we know is that somehow Don
got the Navy to agree to all of his requests.
They were fully behind his movie, with one crucial caveat.
They would have final say over how the military was
portrayed in the script script approval. This was what Don

(18:14):
was afraid of. He knew giving the Navy a say
in the script was a recipe for disaster. If they
insisted on authenticity. Top Gun could turn into another Final Countdown.
But what choice did Don have He needed those F fourteens.
Don goes back to Paramount. He's just sold the Navy
on the movie, and he's gotten their commitment at a
rock bottom price. We're making a goddamn pilot movie with

(18:36):
the U. S. Navy. But instead of congratulations, all Don
gets are cold stairs. Paramount wasn't sold on the story
because there was no story. Dawn was livid. He just
secured a fleet of twenty eight million dollar F fourteens.
I mean, who cares about the story right now? They'll
hire writers to figure it out. But Paramount kept asking

(19:00):
the question that Don didn't want to hear. How can
you make a military action movie when you don't have
a war. Don was exasperated. What Don didn't know was
that Michael Eisner had been in talks to leave Paramount
and he was going to take his top lieutenant, Don's
former assistant, Jeffrey Katzenberg with him. When Michael and Jeffrey left,
Dawn was Dawn was gut it. These were his guys,

(19:24):
and just like that, Top Gun was dead. Don was humiliated.
Here he had given the studio two monster hits, generating
over five million dollars on a budget of just twenty
million dollars, and he couldn't even get a movie made.
Don was at his lowest point since getting fired from Paramount.
Head of production, Don Steele recalls driving to Don's house

(19:44):
and trying to conduct meetings with him outside on his
call box. He was too ashamed to leave the house.
This went on for months, and then one day Ned
Tannon called Dawn. Couldn't believe it. He wanted to talk
about Top Gun. Ned Tannon replaced Mike Eisner at Paramount.
He was a curmudgin le but beloved executive who would
helped young directors George Lucas and Robert Semakis and later

(20:07):
John Hughes get their start. He wore a leather jacket
and motorcycle boots. He was loud and intimidating, a tough guy,
but fair. One day, Peter Goober came into Ned's office
to picture take on a chorus line that would start
Travolta and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The take was essentially a gay
chorus line instead of the guy girl relationship. Anyway, the

(20:30):
more Goober began to hype this amazing gay chorus line take,
the more Tannin got the vibe that this was a
complete wasted time. And so before Goober can get into
his pitch, Ned invites Goober to take a drive. And
what can he do but say yes. And so they
get into the car and they drive, and they drive,
and they drive until they've gotten so far enough out

(20:52):
of the l a that Tannon could pull over, grabbed
the shotgun from his trunk and just fire off a
few hounds into the mountains. Goober got the message. He
never did get to pitch his gay chorusly for Don,
this was go time. The fate of top Gun would hinge.
On one meeting with Ned, Tannin done was confident he

(21:15):
could deliver on the story. However, slight the story was
the problem was that Tannin didn't want Done to tell
the story. He wanted the director, Tony Scott to tell
the story. Nobody in town wanted Tony. He had done
just one movie, The Hunger, and erotic arthouse vampire movie
The timeless Beauty of Jathine Denouve, the cruel elegance of

(21:40):
David Boie the open sensuality of Susan Surrandon combined to
create a modern classic on perverse fear. The Hunger was
panned by the critics. Even Tony Scott's own mother trashed it.
When she came out of the theater with a group
of friends and family. She told them it must have
been another Tony Scott who directed the film. He couldn't

(22:00):
have made such trash. But Dawn loved the movie. He
got really high and kept rewatching the sex scene between
Susan Sarandon and Katherine de Nerve. They had a meeting,
and then, as guys did back then, they all went
white water rafting. The story goes that in order for
Tony Scott to get top gun, he had to join
Don and his buddies on a Class four whitewater rafting

(22:22):
trip on the Colorado River. Don had gathered a real
thrill seeking group known for taking on big rabbits. Tony,
it turned out was an even bigger adrenaline junkie. Later,
when they set up camp for the night and shared
a bottle of whiskey, Tony disappeared. Don later found him
free climbing a rock wall above the rabbits. Don knew
then he had his guy, So now Don brings his

(22:45):
adrenaline junkie Art House director to pitch Ned Tannin. The
meeting was held at Ned's house at six fifty nine
Channel Road in Santa Monica. Today, the four bedroom, thirty
five hundred square foot house would fetch over nine million dollars.
The retreat was notable for featuring the original Leo Carreo barn.
Leo Carrio was perhaps most famous from The Big Lebowski

(23:06):
and as a surfer, he explored the beaches of southern
California from Lawya to Leo Creo, and he had played
Pancho in the TV series The Cisco Kid. He not
only had a ranch named after him, but also his
own beach. He had been an early conservationist who played
a key role in the States acquisition of Hurst Castle.

(23:28):
He did much to support the preservation of the California coastline,
but he was also a staunch Republican who pushed for
the removal of all Japanese Americans from California during World
War Two. In a telegram to California Congressman Leland Ford,
he writes, I travel every week through a hundred miles
of Japanese shacks on my way to my ranch, and
it seems that every farmhouse is located on some strategic

(23:51):
elevated point. Let's get them off the coast and into
the interior. You know, and I know the Japanese situation
in California. The Eastern pa are not conscious of this menace.
May I urge you, on behalf of the safety of California,
to start action at once, And sadly that's what happened.
The commanding General of the Western Defense Command determined that

(24:13):
all Japanese within the coastal area should move inland immediately.
The army began mapping evacuation areas and for a time
encouraged the Japanese to leave voluntarily. The trouble for the
voluntary evacuatees soon threatened in their new locations, so the
program was quickly put on a planned and protected basis. Thereafter,
the American citizen, Japanese and Japanese aliens made plans in

(24:36):
accordance with warners. Notices were posted all persons of Japanese
descent were required to register. They gathered in their own
churches and schools, and the Japanese themselves cheerfully handled the
enormous paperwork involved in the migration. Of course, don Ned
and Tony Scott were not thinking of Leo Coreo's hate

(24:56):
filled rhetoric. When Tannon gave them the guided tour of
Leo Coreo's his storic barn, Tannin got right down to business.
He zeroed in on Tony, who had just come off
a flight from London and was very much jet lagged.
What's the story, Tannon asked. Tony immediately froze up. Tony
had no clue how to start or what to say.
He nervously began to pet Tannan's dog. He was mumbling.

(25:19):
Tannon couldn't understand what he was saying. Tony kept petting
and mumbling. It was surreal. Don was watching his movie
blow up in his face. Don, sensing that Tony was drowning,
quickly stepped in and told the story of Top Gun.
Not the script is written, but the story Don wished
it to be. Still, Don wasn't sure that he had

(25:39):
saved the movie. On his way out, Tannon walked on
to his car. He asked On is he sure that
Tony Scott could direct? The only thing he seems to
know how to do is pet my dog. This wasn't
a joke. Tannin had real concerns. He had seen The
Hunger and was not impressed. It was low lit with
an absence of establishing shots that made the story confusing.

(26:02):
Tannon had a reputation of giving first time directors a shot.
He hired Spielberg to direct Jaws, But was this the
guy to direct a popcorn movie? And what did he
know about directing jets? Don was emphatic that it had
to be Tony Scott. Tannon asked Don how he could
be so sure. The SOB commercial said don watch his
sub commercial from seven and a half million stood around

(26:25):
seven and a half thousand. Nothing on Earth comes close.
The whole look of Top Gun was in that commercial.
Dawn saw real visual talent. It was Tony Scott, and
nobody else. What Don hadn't told Tannon was that more
than ten directors had turned down the offer to direct

(26:47):
Top Gun. The night was coming to a close, and
Don still didn't have an answer from Ned Tannon. He
knew he couldn't leave without one. Tannin would have a
million reasons to say no. In the morning, once he
got back to his office to the dozens of calls
from producers hoping to get their movies the green light.
As Bud Sholberg famously wrote in his book The Disenchanted,

(27:07):
it's the waiting that kills you. Don couldn't afford to wait.
He would stand outside Tannon's Leo Careo estate for as
long as it took to get his answer. He lingered
in front of his ferrari as Tony Scott mumbled thank you,
pet Tannon's dog one last time, and drove back to
his hotel room at Shutters on the Beach. In what
scene like the longest minute in Don's life, perhaps because

(27:28):
it was the most important minute of Don's life, Don
finally got his answer. Yes, Yes to Top Gun without
a shooting script, Yes to Don's budget of fourteen million dollars,
Yes to Tony Scott, who had never directed a commercial movie.
Yes to the first great fighter pilot movie since the

(27:50):
film Wings, Yes to Don's vision of shooting aerial footage
at thirty ft. Yes to all of it. On one condition,
Don must land a movie star to play Maverick. Don
did everything he could. Took you cool, the adrenaline pumping
through his veins like an eight ball of cocaine. Already

(28:10):
a Dune deal, Don assured Ned Tannic, We've got Tom Cruise.
He's desperate to play Maverick. If only that were true. Don,
of course, never cared too much for the truce. As
he liked to tell his assistance, if you don't like
your reality, create a new one. As Don peeled out
of Ned Tannon's estates beating down Sunset Boulevard in his Ferrari,

(28:34):
Don knew exactly what he had to do the down.
Season two is executive produced by Will McCormick and David
Harris Klein. Klein also wrote and created the series. Mike
Jurists is the editor, sound designer, and producer of the series.
The podcast is produced and narrated by Malia Rivera dru
That's Me Louis Weymouth voices the character of Pierce and

(28:56):
also produces the series. For more episodes of The Dawn
season two, you listen to the series on the I
Heart Radio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. H