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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
One day in the summer of 1937, David Brown and Ernest Lehman decided to make their fortunes together by conquering the world of big-time magazines. They had grown up a few blocks from each other, in Woodmere, Long Island, and after college (Brown went to Stanford, Lehman to City College) they renewed their friendship. At the time, Brown -- whom Lehman remembers from those days as "kind of shy and reclusive despite the fact that he wore a Maurice Chevalier straw hat, smoked cigars, and wore green suits" -- was making a meagre living as a copy editor and a second-string drama critic for Women's Wear Daily. Lehman spent his days pacing up and down Riverside Drive, wondering what he was going to do with his life.
The Brown-Lehman plan consisted of setting up two typewriters in a back room of Brown's apartment with the aim of producing dozens of articles for popular magazines of the day, such as Collier's and the Saturday Evening Post. As a first step, Brown went out and had a letterhead made up. "David Brown Associates," it read.
"Who are the 'Associates'?" Lehman inquired.
"You are," Brown responded.
Sixty-five years later, the two men speak of each other warmly, sometimes. Brown told me recently, "We move in different worlds, yet he's my close friend, my oldest friend." And Lehman told me, "David has always been there for me when I needed him. He still worries about me. I loved him then, and I still do." The affection is real, but it has always been mixed with a fair measure of exasperation.
Now, at a combined age of a hundred and seventy-one -- Brown has eighty-five of those years, Lehman eighty-six -- the two old friends are testing the strength of their bond one more time, as producers of a new Broadway musical, "Sweet Smell of Success." The show is based on the 1957 movie, for which Lehman co-wrote the screenplay, which in turn was based on his own 1950 novella. After a troubled tryout in Chicago, and persistent rumors of a potential flop, the musical was reworked, and it will open on March 14th, at the Martin Beck Theatre.
David Brown Associates did not last long, but that did not prevent its two principals from making it very, very big. After the Second World War, each made his way to Hollywood, and each became a titan of the movie business. Brown became a studio executive and a producer; his list of credits has more than thirty titles, including "The Sting," "Jaws," "Cocoon," "Driving Miss Daisy," and "Chocolat."...
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