July 20, 2001
Will ‘West Wing’ Go Up in Smoke?
By SHARON WAXMAN
Washington Post
HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS HAPPEN?
One minute "The West Wing" is riding the crest of a cultural wave, sweeping up Emmy and Peabody awards, adorning glossy magazine covers, making a star of its creator, Aaron Sorkin, and water-cooler chat of C.J., President Bartlet and Mrs. Landingham.
The next minute, there's blood in the water and discontent in the air.
Ever since Sorkin was arrested in April at Burbank Airport with cocaine, marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms in his carry-on bag, air has been leaking from the "West Wing" balloon.
Unpleasant stories have been finding their way into the press about the hit NBC show short-changing its writers by failing to give them contractually promised raises. Other former writers have been grumbling about Sorkin hogging credit for their work. Then several cast members threatened to skip the start of the new season's production this week if they didn't get substantial raises.
One of the show's executive producers, John Wells, says that the writers will get raises as soon as a budget freeze is lifted and that negotiations with the actors will be settled shortly (they did come to work on Monday). He says he is not worried about Sorkin.
But television insiders are wondering aloud about the critical darling of the past two years -- and especially about the man most responsible for all that acclaim. (Last week the show was nominated for 18 Emmys, after sweeping the awards last year.)
"I don't know what's going on with Aaron," says Rick Cleveland, a former "West Wing" writer whom Sorkin oddly belittled in an online chat with fans this month. He apologized profusely online after Cleveland protested. "The guy obviously has some problems, and I don't know what they are," says Cleveland.
And Sorkin himself, who agreed for the first time to talk about his drug arrest along with the other issues, acknowledges that "West Wing" is going through a rough patch. "We've gotten some bad press in the past couple of months. Some of it was earned. I did something stupid and embarrassing. And that got the ball rolling," he says. "But some of it wasn't earned."
Sorkin, the 40-year-old writer-producer responsible for the show's rapid-fire repartee and vivid characterizations, managed to avoid jail time. But he was publicly mortified by the drug arrest and is now separated from his wife of five years, Julia.
Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, Sorkin has been attending weekly, two-hour drug education classes. That is in addition to the weekly counseling at his office that went on even as he fell back into drug use, and weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. If he completes the 20-week, court-ordered program, the charges will be dropped and the arrest wiped from his record.
"I did something stupid. It was aberrant. I was caught; I'm paying the price," Sorkin said in a telephone conversation Wednesday. "I regret any embarrassment that I may have brought to the show, to my family, to the people I work for."
But, he added, "I know I'm going to be okay. I was arrested April 15. Today is July 18, and I haven't pulled my face off yet."
The arrest was especially embarrassing because Sorkin had previously spoken openly with the press about his former cocaine addiction and had even based a story line about substance abuse for the character of Leo, the president's chief of staff, on his own experiences. The writer received an award from Phoenix House, an anti-drug organization, in February.
But Sorkin insisted that he doesn't suffer from anything like the severe freebase cocaine habit he had in 1995, when he entered a 28-day rehabilitation program at Hazelden Institute in Minnesota. "I went voluntarily for an everyday drug problem. What happened at the Burbank Airport was not that. It was something else. . . . I believed I could have one potato chip."
By any measure, Sorkin had been performing at a high level, albeit under intense pressure. "You can't freebase and write at the same time," said Sorkin. "Here I write one hour of television a week. I'm here at 7, I don't go home until after 9 or 10, I'm always surrounded by people."
The weekend of his arrest wasn't the first time Sorkin had fallen off the wagon, he said, but there had been fewer than five other occasions when he smoked cocaine.
He had just finished writing an episode, just as the shoot of the season finale had been completed. Sorkin's wife was away at a spa, so after a crew wrap party, Sorkin headed to Burbank Airport to spend a day and a night in Las Vegas. In his carry-on bag, in plain sight, were marijuana, a small amount of rock cocaine, some mushrooms and a $4 metal pipe. He was stopped during a routine security check.
Why risk it all? It's a question that Sorkin cannot really answer. "I'm a recovering drug addict," he merely says. "I will be tempted for the rest of my life."
Sorkin had been taking Vicodin for a painful back problem, he said. He acknowledged occasionally smoking marijuana in his office to relax. None of this led to his relapse, he said.
But other staffers on the show said they found the marijuana use disturbing. "He'd stay late writing and the smell of marijuana would sometimes be coming from his office," said one former writer. "Among the writers this was laughed about constantly, that someone who was this paragon of anti-drug reform . . . was downstairs indulging in this."
Sorkin's colleagues on the show, which rests so wholly on his shoulders, are concerned about him. At NBC's presentation of the fall schedule to advertisers in May, the "West Wing" cast met with the press. Martin Sheen, who plays President Bartlet, faced the cameras and gamely said of his boss: "He's not out there alone. Anything we can do -- any time. We've become family."
But later, in a quiet moment, he shook his head over the drug use. "He won't stop," said Sheen. "Not until he kills himself."
With the whiff of scandal around Sorkin, other conflicts surrounding the show have been less than welcome.
In late May "West Wing" producers told some staff writers they would not get the raises promised in their contracts because of budget cuts. Two writers left and the two most junior writers stayed, but the incident caused consternation in part because the raises were a relative pittance -- in the low thousands of dollars for the younger writers. In the case of consultant Dee Dee Myers, the former press secretary in the Clinton White House, the raise was a mere $250 per episode. After several calls, her agent managed to get her the money.
"I don't understand the budget thing. I don't get it," says Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., one of two writers who left the show, noting that "West Wing" recently concluded a lucrative syndication deal with the Bravo cable channel. "John (Wells) has been the most generous person I've ever worked for. It's hard to imagine he doesn't have a good explanation."
Wells does have an explanation, which is that "West Wing," while a top-10 ratings hit and a critical success, has a $50 million deficit, losing about $1 million per episode. The show's studio, Warner Bros., had been leaning on him to cut costs, he said.
"The entire show has been under a financial freeze for the last four or five months," said Wells, who has a $35 million deal with Warner Bros. and also earns millions from producing "ER." "This is the most expensive show I've ever been involved in. When you build a senator's office on 'West Wing' it costs $80,000. You have to put in marble, windows -- there is a pomp and opulence surrounding our presidency, which is expensive."
According to Wells, NBC pays Warner Bros. $1.6 million per episode, while the cost is $2.7 million per episode. He acknowledges, though, that in upcoming negotiations the network is expected to pay several times the current sum to continue airing the hit.
The incident with the writers contained some irony since Wells heads the Writers Guild of America West Coast, and had just concluded months of tough bargaining with movie and television studios to win raises for writers.
Other money woes have arisen among four Emmy-nominated cast members: Allison Janney (press secretary C.J. Cregg), Richard Schiff (the misanthropic aide Toby Ziegler), John Spencer (chief of staff Leo McGarry) and Bradley Whitford (presidential aide Josh Lyman) -- who hinted in the trade press last week that they might not show up for the first day of production because of a salary dispute.
The four have made it known that they've been earning only $25,000 to $30,000 per episode, far less than actors on other hit shows. The lead actors in "ER" make several hundred thousand dollars each per show.
Their attorney, Peter Nelson, said the actors took low salaries at the start of "West Wing" with the understanding that they'd be rewarded if the show were a hit. They also were surprised to learn, he adds, that fellow cast member Rob Lowe was making about double their salaries.
Warner Bros. has offered to double their salaries, say both sides, while the actors are seeking triple the figure.
"We want to give them a raise because we think they've done a great job," says Wells. "They just want more than Warner Brothers wants to pay them."
Meantime, resentment has been surfacing among former "West Wing" writers over Sorkin's high-profile command of the spotlight. Here again, Sorkin has not necessarily helped matters by his own conduct.
Rick Cleveland shared an Emmy with Sorkin last year for an episode in which Toby helps a homeless war veteran get a military burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
The story was based on Cleveland's own father, a Korean War veteran who'd finished out his life as an alcoholic living on the street and in flophouses. In an article in the Writer's Guild magazine last November, Cleveland recounted how he felt humiliated when Sorkin ignored him during the acceptance speech.
"I had a dumbfounded smirk on my face, and I imagine I must've looked a little like a member of Sorkin's security detail," Cleveland wrote. "When he was done speaking, he kind of ushered me offstage with him and, dumbly, I followed."
Then Sorkin claimed this month during a discussion on the Internet fan-site mightybigtv.com that he had thrown out Cleveland's script and rewritten it. He added, "At the end of the first season, Rick was fired. Not by me . . . and it was for lack of performance."
Cleveland refuted the posting, point by point. He noted that the Writer's Guild had awarded him credit on the episode based on scripts he had written, and said he left "West Wing" voluntarily.
Within a few days, Sorkin fell on his sword: "Rick? If you're out there . . . ?" he wrote. "I and everyone else appreciate the contribution you made to the episode. It was crucial. I was dead wrong to imply otherwise. I deeply regret not having thanked you that night [of the Emmys]."
In the interview Wednesday, Sorkin explained the incident as follows: "I reacted too quickly. I was simply responding to this person [on the Internet], not thinking that there were more than a dozen people in the room. I tried to talk about the situation. I then went a step too far." He paused. "It's not a guilty conscience. I know how this must look."
But the incident crystallized what many former writers on the show believe, that Sorkin has hogged credit for their work and acts as if they were mere researchers. "I don't think it's fair to characterize the writers as not writing. I guess I'm something of a poster boy for the case against that," said Cleveland.
Said another former writer, Jeff Reno, "He really likes telling the world, 'I'll sit down in the weeds with a few days to go and write a script.' When he did that, there were 30 or 40 pages of material we'd developed."
Reno said Sorkin's compulsion to take full credit for "West Wing" was needless, since he was so obviously the heart of the show: "While it's his prerogative to write the show himself, the way he goes about it is at the expense of other people on the show."
Cleveland says Sorkin recognizes his own insecurity: "When he'd explain why he'd be reluctant to work with another writer's script, he'd say, 'I'm a little afraid that the class' -- meaning the actors -- 'might fall in love with the substitute teacher.' "
The cycle of success in Hollywood almost always includes a moment when an ugly underside is revealed. Part of the dizzying euphoria of being on top in Hollywood is the certain knowledge that it probably won't last. For Sorkin, how long it all lasts may be in his own hands.
"There's this sense that I'm here to take jobs from other writers, that I'm doing the job of 12 people instead of letting 12 people do the job," he protests. "All I can say is: I never wanted to be a show-runner. I've never wanted to run a staff or polish other people's work. I've only ever wanted to write scripts. There's no way I could do it without a group of exceptionally talented, enthusiastic and energetic writers helping me." But then he thinks some more and confesses: "There is a lot of resentment toward me. I don't want to fight that. But I would say to any writer, 'God, why don't you do it, too? If you want to write, create a TV show and write it.' "
Everything will be fine, he says, just as soon as he can settle back into work. Says Sorkin: "What remains true is that everyone here is very committed to the show, committed to each other, and we know that once we start doing our work again these other things will slide away."
Posted by Ryo at July 20, 2001 09:32 AM