Former teen model Michael Egan (above) has named more child sex abusers, and they are linked to Disney, Fox and the BBC.
Egan says he was sexually abused by a Hollywood child abuse ring starting when he was aged 15
Michael Egan has filed suits against the following:
Garth Ancier
Egan says he was sexually abused by a Hollywood child abuse ring starting when he was aged 15
Michael Egan has filed suits against the following:
Garth Ancier
1. Garth Ancier, who oversaw the launch of Fox television, and also served as president of BBC Worldwide America.
David Neuman
2. David Neuman, the former president of Disney TV.
3. Gary Goddard, who helped develop EPCOT, Tokyo Disneyland, and River Country.
Egan's attorney, a sex abuse lawyer from Florida, Jeff Herman (left), with Egan (right)
Egan's attorney, a sex abuse lawyer from Florida, Jeff Herman (left), with Egan (right)
An affidavit from 2003 describes the sexual abuse four teenage boys allegedly endured at the hands of Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley.
Rector was later convicted of child sex abuses.
A source told TMZ that one of the 4 victims, 'Minor #4', is Egan.
Rector was later convicted of child sex abuses.
A source told TMZ that one of the 4 victims, 'Minor #4', is Egan.
Rector reportedly told Egan that:
"90 per cent of show business is gay.
"You need to sleep with people if you want to go anywhere.
"We stay together, but you do not want to see my dark side."
"We stay together, but you do not want to see my dark side."
Rector then took out his gun.
Rector then reportedly said:
"You are part of the group now. There is no turning back".
Bryan Singer Accuser Names Three Hollywood Insiders in New Sex Abuse Lawsuits (Video)
Three Hollywood Executives Accused Of Sexual Abuse
Bryan Singer's Accuser Names Three More Alleged Sex Abusers
David Neuman - Twitter
three-powerful-Hollywood-execs-sick-Tinseltown-pedophile-ring-emerges
Serial rapists walk free in Detroit as up to 9,000 rape kits remain untested 5 YEARS after being discovered abandoned in a police warehouse
Bryan Singer Accuser Names Three Hollywood Insiders in New Sex Abuse Lawsuits (Video)
Three Hollywood Executives Accused Of Sexual Abuse
Bryan Singer's Accuser Names Three More Alleged Sex Abusers
David Neuman - Twitter
three-powerful-Hollywood-execs-sick-Tinseltown-pedophile-ring-emerges
Gary Goddard, Landmark chairman and CEO
ReplyDeletehttp://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19920417&id=AvcjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=B2QEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2415,537096
Pittsburgh Press - 17 April 1992
'Wizard of Oz' theme park in works for Kansas
Los Angeles-based Landmark Entertainment Group has been chosen to design a $300 million theme park, hotel and golf course based on the Frank L. Baum stories and the classic MGM film "The Wizard of Oz."
The Kansas City, Kan, project is being funded by a Kansas-based consortium of public and private groups including Los Angeles attorney Robert Kory, Kansas City-based businessman Gus Fascone and ex-Kansas Lt. Gov. David Owen.
Plans call for the Wonderful World of Oz to open in late 1995 or early 1996.
Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. has granted rights to use designs and characters from the film, Landmark officials said.
"This is a franchise with instant recognition value," said Gary Goddard, Landmark chairman and CEO. "For my part, I believe quite simply that this is the single greatest opportunity for a new theme park to come along since Disneyland."
Landmark was founded in 1980 by Goddard and Tony Christopher, who had previously been Disney "imagineers."
Their company has designed and constructed two major theme parks in Japan: Sanrio Puroland indoor theme park and Harmonyland, the first ecologically based theme park in the world.
(Hollywood Reporter/distributed by BPI Entertainment Wire.)
...
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/search?q=wizard+of+oz
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/search?q=wizard+of+oz
...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1291&dat=19770213&id=1twzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7IwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5643,6867995
ReplyDeleteBoca Raton News - 13 February 1977
Garth Ancier at the controls of his radio
Student's radio program a success
By Alexander Wolff
If 18-year-old Garth Ancier recently left Princeton University and applied for a broadcasting job, network moguls reviewing his resume could not help but be surprised at the wealth of experience he has already had in the field.
In less than three years, Ancier created and established "Focus on Youth," which bills itself as "America's Student-Produced Press Conference of the Air."
And in that time "Focus on Youth" has become the nation's second-largest public-affairs radio program: A network of 49 stations, most broadcasting with the Federal Communications Commission maximum of 50,000 watts, beams the show to all 50 states.
As executive producer and moderator, Ancier juggles stations around continuously in an ongoing attempt to attain more and better markets. "We're in the process of reorganizing our network," he says. "When we're through, we hope to have the best public-affairs network in the country."
Ancier is a native of Lawrenceville, N. J. He held a job with a 5,000-watt station in Trenton while he attended high school.
When the program director there suggested he do a youth-oriented, public-affairs program for a half-hour each Sunday morning, Ancier accepted. The result was the genesis of the current show, whose guest list has included Nelson Rockerfeller, Gloria Steinem, Art Buchwald, and William Simon.
Ancier approached New York radio station WNBC with the youth panel-interview concept in January 1975, and they gave him a spot on several major affiliates. "Focus on Youth" is now independent, able to provide program tapes at no cost to stations because corporations have made grants and bought commercial time.
...
During the academic year Ancier shuttles from Princeton to New York and Washington, mixing studies with show tapings. Princeton University has cleared out several afternoons a week from his schedule to accomodate his responsibilities.
****
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19860831&id=xD1WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-ekDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5419,4842809
Gainsville Sun - 31 August 1986
LOS ANGELES - Garth Ancier, youthful head of programming for the new Fox network, is following in the footsteps of such television wunderkind as Fred Silverman and Brandon Tartikoff.
In fact, Tartikoff hired Ancier as a management trainee at NBC in 1979 when Ancier was fresh out of Princeton University. Silverman, whose wonder years were with ABC, was NBC president at the time.
...
From time to time Ancier dug into a bowl of chocolate candies he keeps on a table in his office. On a wall was a framed newspaper with a huge headline: "Carson Fires Joan Rivers." Behind his desk was a huge color-coded graph of the four network schedules.
Early success is nothing new to Ancier. At 14 he was a reporter for a New Jersey radio station. While a junior in high school he started his own radio show that became syndicated on 400 stations. The show, "American Focus," is now run by a non-profit foundation.
****
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ancier
Garth Ancier
Ancier began his broadcasting career as a high school sophomore in 1972, working as a reporter for NBC radio affiliates WBUD-AM and WBJH-FM in Trenton, New Jersey. In radio, he created American Focus, a weekly national interview program carried by over 200 radio stations in the U.S., including New York's WNBC. Ancier served as executive producer and host of over 250 episodes through 1979, each featuring a full-length career retrospective interview with guests ranging from Ayn Rand to Henry Fonda to David Brinkley. The show continued production for 17 years, and many of the programs are part of the permanent collection of the Paley Center for Media.
****
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2706&dat=19840302&id=qQhKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sx4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=2908,2148599
ReplyDeleteMichigan Daily - 2 March 1984
Princeton Talks, America Listens
This year, as it celebrates its 10th anniversary by donating its tape archives to the Museum of Broadcasting in New York City," American Focus" claims the biggest audience (2½ million-3 million) and widest network (more than 400 stations) of any public-affairs interview-and-discussion series on radio. Its guests have included Sen. William Proxmire (who called it "relevant, timely and provocative"), Walter Cronkite ("A valuable public service") and Art Buchwald ("everything I said was a lie"). But "American Focus" doesn't originate in Washington or the glossy high-rise studios of New York's Broadcast Row. Its home is an old eating club on the Princeton campus and its volunteer staff consists of about 30 Princeton undergraduates.
Originally called "Focus on Youth," the show was started in 1974 by Garth Ancier, a student at Lawrenceville School near Princeton. When Ancier entered Princeton that fall, he brought the program with him. Shell Oil joined as sole sponsor in 1976, ensuring financial stability, and the program, and the program has had no trouble finding distinguished guests or unpaid staff. "A lot of people do it because it's a good extracurricular activity," says executive director Rich Buchband. "And some lean to careers in broadcasting. For them it's a good look into the business."
Ancier, the founder, now works in programming at NBC; the show's third president, Sandy Kenyon, is an entertainment reporter for Cable News Network. (For the record, Buchband and executive producer Jon Margolies plan to go to law school.)
****
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19780113&id=O_ddAAAAIBAJ&sjid=j18NAAAAIBAJ&pg=2958,1592788
Observer-Reporter - 13 January 1978
Students Join Ranks of Top Interviewers
It hasn't been easy.
But students have finally joined the ranks of top interviewers, becoming totally responsible for America's second most popular public affairs radio program, "Focus on Youth."
Aired in more than 65 cities throughout the nation, "Focus" - detailed in the January issue of a teenage magazine - has featured such celebrities as Otto Preminger, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Gloria Steinem.
The weekly program, produced and presented by 30 underclassmen from Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, is led by Garth Ancier, 19, who was its founder in 1974. Receiving no pay for their efforts, the students are involved with all the show's aspects - from scheduling and interviewing guests to editing tapes and selling advertising.
During the show's airings, the students have found that celebrities often enjoy talking with them more than seasoned reporters. Many guests have gone out of their way to be helpful, such as Nicholas von Hoffman, Washington D.C. columnist, who served soup to the interviewers. Or William F. Buckley, author and commentator, who helped set up the equipment.
The students regularly travel to New York City or Washington D.C. to tape the show. To create a more relaxed atmosphere, however, guests are occasionally interviewed in their own homes.
Besides "Focus," the staff produces a second radio program, known as "Kaleidoscope," which premiered last August. Top rock songs are featured, as well as commentaries and reports.
Plans are also being developed for a television show investigating careers for youths.
****
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-neuman/2/833/a52
ReplyDeleteDavid Neuman's Overview
Current President, Executive Producer at Blackrock Productions
Past President, Programming at Current Media
Chief Programming Officer at CNN
President, Walt Disney Television at Walt Disney
Education University of California, Los Angeles
Grant Wood
David Neuman's Experience
President, Executive Producer
Blackrock Productions
November 2009 – Present (4 years 6 months) Hollywood, Ca
President, Programming
Current Media
October 2004 – November 2009 (5 years 2 months)
Chief Programming Officer
CNN
2001 – 2003 (2 years)
President, Walt Disney Television
Walt Disney
1996 – 1998 (2 years)
President of Programming
Channel One
1992 – 1996 (4 years)
President, Grantwood Productions
20th Century Fox
May 1989 – January 1992 (2 years 9 months)
Vice President, Comedy Development
NBC
1988 – 1989 (1 year)
White House Fellow
The White House
1983 – 1984 (1 year)
***
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/David-Neuman/2280457
Mr. David A. Neuman
President, Executive Producer
Blackrock Productions
Management // Current
current.com, 16 Sept 2009
David Neuman, President, Programming
David Neuman is Current's President of Programming, overseeing content on three television networks (US, UK/Ireland, and Italy), as well as the original video featured on current.com. Neuman leads a team of over 200 creative personnel based mainly in San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, and Milan.
Neuman's career in media includes experience as a senior programming executive in entertainment (Vice President of Comedy Programs, NBC, and President of Walt Disney Television and Touchstone Television, The Walt Disney Company), new media (head of programming, Digital Entertainment Network), news (Chief Programming Officer, CNN, and Executive Producer and President of Programming, Channel One), and independent production (Grantwood Productions at 20th Century Fox, and Blackrock Productions, Inc.). At Channel One, his work as Executive Producer garnered a Peabody Award, broadcasting's highest honor. Neuman also received a special commendation from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for **** his work with the CNN team covering the events of September 11, 2001. *****
Neuman graduated summa cum laude from UCLA in Communication Studies, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was a White House Fellow in the Reagan administration, serving under the Assistant to the President for Cabinet Affairs at the White House. **** Neuman also actively volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for neglected and abused children in Los Angeles County *****, through the Los Angeles Superior Court.
...
http://templejudah.org/bulletin/bulletin_archive_2012/5_2012/index.html
ReplyDeleteTemple Judah Bulletin
| May 2012 | Vol. 54 • No. 11 | Cedar Rapids, Iowa
. 90th Anniversary: It’s time to celebrate!
May 4:
Shabbat Evening Services, 7:30 pm
Guest Speaker: David Neuman, son of our former rabbi, Isaac Neuman
David Neuman grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, while his father was the Rabbi there from 1961-1974. After graduating from high school in Champaign, Illinois, he moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA and major in communications. After graduating, he was named a White House Fellow by President Ronald Reagan, and served in the Office of Cabinet Affairs, on the White House staff in Washington, DC. After that, he returned to Los Angeles and entered the management training program at NBC Entertainment, where he eventually became Vice President in charge of overseeing its comedy programs, which included Golden Girls, Cosby, Family Ties, and Cheers, among many others.
From there David took on several different roles at major media companies, including President of Programming for Channel One, President of Walt Disney Television and Touchstone Television, President of Programming for Current TV, and Chief Programming Officer at CNN, among a few others. Programming that David developed, produced, or oversaw has won numerous Peabody, Emmy, DuPont, and Broadcast Design Awards, among other citations for excellence in programming and production. Today David is at work writing television and film projects that he intends to produce and direct himself, including one film project based on his days growing up in Cedar Rapids.
David has also been a Court Appointed Special Advocate for abandoned, neglected, or abused youth in the Los Angeles court system for the last 20 years. In 2007, he was named CASA of the year in Los Angeles county. He was also named to the Order of Achievement in 1998 by his national College Fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha.
***
http://dcfs.co.la.ca.us/news/documents/Honorees%202007.doc
CASA Advocates for Foster Youth, Gives Back to Community
David Neuman
For the past seventeen years, David Neuman has served Los Angeles’ foster children as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, working tirelessly to serve their best interests in the Dependency Court system. During those years, he has balanced a heavy work schedule as President of Walt Disney Television and Touchstone Television, Chief Programming Officer for CNN Networks, and President of Programming, Current TV – yet never missed a school meeting or IEP for any child he represented. The care, concern, and respect David demonstrates with everyone are exemplified by the assistance he provided one youth who was dealing with the grief and trauma of witnessing his mother overdose and succumb. With David’s kindness and support, the child was placed with his maternal grandmother and aunt. David continued to provide encouragement, and the child became the first member of his family ever to graduate from high school. In fact, the child’s aunt was so hopeful as a result, that she returned to school and graduated, too. She attributes her newfound success, including getting a new job with better pay, to the inspiration David provided to the whole family. David is an embodiment of the Foster Care Awareness Campaign motto: He truly makes a difference in the lives of many children, their families, the community, and the world – one child at a time.
***
http://casala.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FINALBoardPacket_09.15.2012.pdf
CASA - Annual Planning Retreat of the Board of Directors
Saturday, September 15, 2012 – Jonathan Beach Club
CASA/LA BOARD RETREAT ATTENDEES
CASA VOLUNTEER PANEL
...
David Neuman, CASA - 22 years
****
http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1999/11/32267
ReplyDeleteWired - 01 November 1999
DEN Board Asked Founder to Leave
The Digital Entertainment Network lost its chairman and two executive vice presidents, just as the company is preparing to go public. **** Sexual harassment allegations played a part in one of the founders stepping down.****
**** Marc Collins-Rector, 39,**** stepped down as chairman of DEN last week, citing a desire to devote more time to his new startup, a digital encryption firm. He controlled more than 56 percent of DEN’s shares.
Executive vice president Chad Shackley, 24, and 18-year-old director and executive VP Brock Pierce, the other co-founders of the money-losing online streaming video network, also resigned abruptly last week.
A New York Post article suggested the three were asked to leave the company in order to eliminate questions about their extravagant lifestyle, a charge DEN officials denied.
"It was their own choice to leave," said vice president of communications Anna Caldwell on Thursday. "They were ready to move on to the next thing. They were definitely not ousted."
**** Collins-Rector and Shackley live together in an Encino mansion formerly owned by Death Row Record's Suge Knight and are known for throwing extravagant parties.**** And at an age when most people are still trying to decide on colleges, Pierce draws a US$250,000 salary.
However, at a staff meeting at the company headquarters in Santa Monica on Friday, ****president David Neuman told employees that a sexual harassment claim against Collins-Rector had been resolved.****
On Monday, DEN's CEO and newly appointed chairman Jim Ritts acknowledged that the claim, filed by an unidentified man, played a roll in Collins-Rector's departure.
"It played a role, but it was not the primary reason," said Ritts. "The company first learned of this personal claim against Marc in late September. Initially DEN was included, but it quickly became clear that this had nothing to do with DEN. The activities alleged go back to way before DEN was an operating company."
"The board suggested that Marc turn over his voting control of the company to two independent directors and that it was in the best interest of the company that Marc step down."
Collins-Rector did not respond to requests for an interview.
Prior to their involvement with DEN, Shackley and Collins-Rector founded the Concentric Network, one of the nation's biggest Internet service providers. Pierce was previously a child actor, performing in such films as The Mighty Ducks and The First Kid.
DEN filed an S1 with the Securities Exchange Commission in September to sell US$75 million worth of stock.
The document reads like so many dot-com offerings: The company lost $7 million in 1998 and hemorrhaged an amazing $20 million in the first six months of 1999, meanwhile taking in exactly zero revenue.
DEN depends on advertiser revenue, yet its only major deals allow for payment in barter rather than cash. Despite these figures, its top three executives pull in a combined US$2.5 million salary and much more in stock options.
Editor's Note:
This story has been corrected. Marc Collins-Rector was chairman and a co-founder of DEN. In the editing process errors were introduced that incorrectly suggested that all three founders were top company executives and that they all resigned in response to sexual harrassment claims. Wired News regrets the error.
...
http://www.ericschwartzman.com/pr/schwartzman/den/ip_DEN_PR_Wandell.aspx
ReplyDeleteEric Schwartzman - 1 September 1999
Disney Creative Executive Heads to Digital Entertainment Network; Former Creative Affairs Director at Touchstone TV To Develop Content For Web's Leading Gen Y Online Network
Morgan Wandell, Director of Creative Affairs at the Touchstone TV division of Buena Vista TV Group, has ankled his post to join Internet media start-up Digital Entertainment Network (DEN(TM)).
DEN is a privately held interactive online network that targets Generation Y through original entertainment, culture programming and e-commerce opportunities. The move reunites Wandell with **** former Walt Disney TV President David Neuman, who joined DEN as president in July of 1998. ****
In his new role, Wandell will collaborate with agents, writers and directors to develop new and existing creative content for DEN. He will also acquire rights to movies, television shows, books and other intellectual properties to be developed as interactive media on DEN.
"Morgan has been a rising superstar in the television industry and understands the creative potential of the Internet," said Neuman. "I had the good fortune of working with Morgan twice before; at Channel One, where he was our best field producer, and later at Disney, where he was the creative executive assigned to `Home Improvement.'
"He's got excellent relationships with all the agencies and a great eye for talent. In my opinion, he is the absolute best and brightest of the newest generation of media executives, and I'm thrilled that he's joined the DEN team."
Wandell reports directly to Neuman.
,,,
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-06-14-den-head-pleads_x.htm
ReplyDeleteUSA Today - 14 June 2004
Ex-DEN executive admits transporting minors for sex
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The former chairman of a Web-casting company has admitted luring five minors across state lines so he could have sex with them.
Marc Collins-Rector, who has been in custody since his capture in Spain two years ago, pleaded guilty here Thursday to charges brought by federal prosecutors in California and New Jersey.
Collins-Rector founded Digital Entertainment Network, which created video-based sites targeting 14- to 24-year-olds. Executives planned a $75 million stock offering, but Collins-Rector his partners resigned after accusations of sexual abuse became known, and the company collapsed in 2000.
Collins-Rector, 44, remains held without bail pending sentencing Sept. 9 by U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper.
Each of the charges carries up to 10 years in prison, but sentencing guidelines call for less than three years. Collins-Rector faces just several months because of credit for time served, public defender David Schafer told the Los Angeles Times.
Schafer did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.
Collins-Rector settled a five-count federal indictment from New Jersey by pleading to one charge, transporting "J.W." from New Jersey to California, Michigan and elsewhere to engage in illegal sex from 1993 to 1997.
Collins-Rector also pleaded guilty to eight charges stemming from a 21-count California federal indictment. Those eight charges deal with transporting four minors for sex: "R.G." and "J.T." from Michigan to California in the mid-1990s, "B.L." from Minnesota to California in 1997, and "D.S." from California to Arizona in 1999.
Collins-Rector, whose last known U.S. address was in Encino, Calif., was captured in May 2002 at the Spanish resort town of Marbella.
Federal authorities had been searching for him since August 2000, when he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Newark. He was extradited Oct. 24, 2003.
Several teens who worked for Collins-Rector later filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse, claiming they were lured to his Encino mansion only to encounter drugs, threats and sexual abuse.
Collins-Rector settled a lawsuit filed in New Jersey in 1999 with no admission of guilt. A similar lawsuit was filed in California by at least three other victims who won a $4 million default judgment when he did not respond.
Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley made millions when they formed Concentrics, an Internet service provider, in Michigan in the early 1990s. They sold it in 1995 and then formed DEN.
Shackley and Brock Pierce, Collins-Rector's business partners and housemates, had also been held in Spain, but authorities had no immediate information on their status.
***
[Part 1]
ReplyDeletehttp://www.josephmenn.com/other_den.php
Joseph Menn - 7 May 2000
How a Visionary Venture on the Web Unraveled
* Start-up firm's white-hot bid to redefine entertainment turned into a cautionary tale amid financial excesses and a sexual abuse lawsuit. Site relaunch is planned.
"The boob tube zombie television is dead. . . . Global entertainment will be delivered over the Internet. . . . Digital Entertainment Network will create the last network."
These were the visions of a Santa Monica company known as DEN, spelled out in a fiery 38-page manifesto written two years ago by its founder. And for a while, the venture was white-hot, pioneering the fusion of Hollywood and the Silicon Valley.
Executives from Disney and other major companies flocked to join the company. Digital Entertainment Network hired Hollywood directors and actors to create original programs for its Web site. Advertisers including Ford and Pepsi eagerly plastered their logos on the DEN.net home page, and industry giants such as Microsoft invested millions of dollars.
But after two years of trying to build an audience for TV-style entertainment over the Internet, DEN has yet to produce a program as compelling as the unraveling of the company itself.
Beset by business blunders and allegations of sexual misconduct against its founder, the company squandered an opportunity to define the intersection of California's two premier industries. Instead, as a rival executive said in a recent interview, "they have become poster boys for what not to do."
The founder, Marc Collins-Rector, was forced to leave the company after a lawsuit accused him of molesting a teenage boy, a charge he denies. A planned stock offering that could have netted him and his executives hundreds of millions of dollars was abandoned. More than a third of the company's 300 employees were recently laid off and sources say the company is scrambling to find new financing.
Production of shows has been halted, and the vast audience that DEN's founders promised is now so tiny it doesn't even register with top Internet ratings services.
The implosion raises questions about how carefully some of the most powerful backers of the Internet economy scrutinize the companies they support. Most seemed oblivious to flaws in the Digital Entertainment business model and the exorbitant salaries its executives were paying themselves. Investors also knew little about Collins-Rector, the entertainment novice they entrusted with their money.
"It is one of the leading cautionary tales that come up in Internet conversations," said an executive at another online entertainment company. "It comes up in terms of overpaying executives, oversetting expectations, burning too bright too soon."
Ken Andersen, managing editor of the VentureWire electronic newsletter in New York, added: DEN shows that "anybody can raise a million dollars in dumb money."
Collins-Rector declined to be interviewed. His attorney, Ronald Palmieri, denied that his client has done anything wrong.
Hoping to salvage some of the company's promise, a revamped executive team, led by former Capitol Records President Gary Gersh and former Microsoft executive Greg Carpenter, is planning a relaunch of the site this month. They say the new DEN will be larger but leaner, still offering TV-style programs, but also music, news, chat and other content aimed at a college audience. They are also being careful to steer clear of their predecessors' bombast.
"DEN was slated to be big, to be huge, to take over," said Gersh, a company executive and director since last May. "We were going to change the world and we were going to get rich quick. All we're trying to do now is tell people there's no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and going to work."
[Part 2]
ReplyDeletehttp://www.josephmenn.com/other_den.php
Saw Potential of New Technology
...
Collins-Rector saw the potential of this booming technology earlier than most. He lined up major investors, grabbed key advertisers, and his company was the first entertainment site to file for an initial public stock offering, positioning executives for the kinds of Internet riches that Hollywood moguls have come to envy.
Setting Sights on 'Generation Y'
Collins-Rector was the main creative force. A 40-year-old technology guru with no entertainment experience, his background was murky even to the top executives he hired. But he did have tens of millions of dollars and a certain amount of tech industry cachet from an earlier company he had founded called Concentric Research.
His two DEN co-founders were Chad Shackley, then 24, who had lived with Collins-Rector since dropping out of a Michigan high school, and Brock Pierce, then a 17-year-old actor best known for his leading roles in such Disney films as "The Mighty Ducks" and "First Kid."
All three lived in a 12,616-square-foot mansion in Encino, drove a Ferrari and a Lamborghini, wore Armani suits, took spur-of-the-moment vacations to the tropics and threw parties that attracted a young, hip crowd that also defined DEN's target audience.
In his manifesto, crafted to energize early employees, Collins-Rector set his sights on segments of so-called Generation Y that he said were being ignored by mainstream television and movies. He identified punk rockers, extreme skaters and "hip-hoppers," and put gay teenagers at the top of the list. The company would build a huge market by "globalcasting to a narrowcast audience," he vowed.
Work began in 1998 on its first show, "Chad's World." Produced by the teenage Pierce, the show centered on a 15-year-old from Michigan who questions his sexual orientation and ultimately flees his town's intolerance to move in with a gay couple in a California mansion.
For early financing, majority owner and chairman Collins-Rector turned to high-profile individuals he had come to know in Hollywood, including television actor Fred Savage. Former U.S. Rep. Michael Huffington said he invested $5 million.
Huffington later complained that he was led to believe major companies were investing at the same time he was, and on the same terms--which wasn't true. He also said Collins-Rector traded on his name, describing Huffington as vice chairman although he held no such position.
Soon Collins-Rector was jetting across the country for meetings with much bigger players in the worlds of technology and venture capital.
He was smooth in pitch meetings, using a laptop computer to show investors how DEN would transform not only Internet entertainment, but also advertising and e-commerce. One CD-ROM demonstration showed how users would be able to stop a show in freeze frame, then click on an actor's shirt to buy one like it. The technology never appeared on the actual Web site, but investors were impressed nonetheless.
By June 1999, DEN had raised $33.5 million from major backers of new ventures, including Cassandra Chase Entertainment Partners, Chase Capital Partners, Dell, Microsoft and Exodus Communications. The companies declined to discuss with The Times their decisions to invest in Digital Entertainment Network.
DEN's outside directors included Mitchell Blutt, executive partner of Chase Capital, the $8-billion investment fund of Chase Manhattan Corp., and former A & M Records President Gilbert Friesen, president of the board of trustees of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. They also declined to be interviewed.
Business associates and employees said they, like the financial backers, were drawn to Collins-Rector's creativity and confidence.
"The guy is smart, affable and had a vision," said current Digital Entertainment Network Chief Executive Carpenter. "A lot of his vision panned out."
[Part 3]
ReplyDeletehttp://www.josephmenn.com/other_den.php
Background a Mystery to Many
But even to Carpenter and others close to him, Collins-Rector's background was a blur.--where he had grown up, where he had gone to school, and what he had done before DEN.
Collins-Rector often claimed to be in his late 20s, and associates and employees said he gave the impression he had been a computer student at UCLA. But company filings show that he is 40, and officials at UCLA say there is no record that he was ever a student there. According to records in Los Angeles Superior Court, he changed his name in 1998 from Mark Rector to Marc Collins-Rector.
...
Nearly 20 years ago, he was the brains behind a short-lived telecommunications company in Florida called Telequest..
In 1984, Collins-Rector and an Orange County businessman named Stephen Fryer founded an Irvine-based company called World TravelNet that electronically coordinated tours and cruises. Its affiliate, World ComNet, sold shares on the Vancouver stock exchange in 1987. The value of the company peaked at about $100 million before it ran into sharp competition from the airline industry and eventually filed for bankruptcy.
..
In 1991, Collins-Rector rebounded by launching Concentric Research in Bay City, Mich. The company was like an early Internet service provider, enabling computer users to avoid long-distance charges when dialing into electronic bulletin boards.
The company's setup reflected Collins-Rector's ingenuity. Needing local telephone access numbers, but spurned by regional phone companies, he built a nationwide network by installing phone equipment in rented space in Payless Shoe Store locations around the country.
..
Collins-Rector had become a devotee of bulletin boards, which he apparently used to strike up relationships with at least two teenage boys, including his Concentric co-founder, Shackley, a high school student in Bay City. After meeting online, according to associates, their relationship flourished and Collins-Rector decided to base Concentric in Bay City and bring Shackley, then 16, into the company.
Shackley's parents, who declined to be interviewed, were initially supportive of their son's involvement with the business...
But according to a family friend, Shackley's parents were dismayed when their son informed them that he was dropping out of high school and leaving home to move in with Collins-Rector. The two have been professional and personal partners ever since, according to Collins-Rector's attorney, Palmieri.
Even so, Collins-Rector continued to spend time on bulletin boards, including one at which he met a 13-year-old boy from New Jersey. The boy, now 20, says that Collins-Rector, using the screen name "Cyberpoet," offered him part-time work handling customer complaints at Concentric and flew him to Michigan and California for meetings.
By 1995, Concentric was still relatively small, with 25 employees and $1 million in revenue. But its rapid growth attracted attention from Silicon Valley. That year, Collins-Rector and Shackley sold control to a group that included the top-drawer venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
The two men pocketed millions and kept some stock in the company. Renamed Concentric Networks, the firm went on to become even more valuable, and this year agreed to be acquired by Nextlink Communications for $2.9 billion.
The windfall enabled Collins-Rector and Shackley to pursue a lavish new lifestyle. They bought an enormous RV and traveled the country scouting living locations, settling briefly in Beverly Hills before paying $2.47 million in 1997 for a mansion in Encino.
They called it the "M & C Estate," for Marc and Chad. The 1 1/2-acre property, which includes a swimming pool, aquariums and a movie screening room, became a stage not only for elaborate parties, but for DEN. It was initially the base for the company and provided the filming location for a number of DEN shows, including "Chad's World."
[Part 4]
ReplyDeletehttp://www.josephmenn.com/other_den.php
High Salaries for Executives
The extravagance at the M & C Estate spilled over into the company, which burned through cash at a rate that was alarming even by Internet start-up standards.
...
According to a company filing with the SEC last fall, David Neuman, recruited from Disney to become DEN's president, was paid an annual salary of $1.5 million. Gersh and John Silva, music industry executives brought in to start a record label, were each paid $600,000. The company's head of marketing was paid $1 million and its chief financial officer $400,000.
Even Brock Pierce, then 18, was paid $250,000, more than most full-fledged Internet chief executives earn. Pierce and Shackley both took executive vice president titles.
The company was also spending heavily to build its roster of shows. DEN hired Randal Kleiser, who had directed such films as "Grease" and "The Blue Lagoon," to create a science fiction series called "The Royal Standard." Actress and author Carrie Fisher was hired to write an online advice column called "Denmother."
..
All told, through the first six months of 1999, the company hadn't recorded a dime in revenue and reported a loss of $20 million, including $12 million in salaries and "programming costs." Losing money is hardly unusual for Internet start-ups. But while most spend the bulk of their money on marketing and scrimp on salaries and content, DEN was doing the opposite.
...
Moore said top people spent a lot of time talking about how much money was being invested in the venture and how much they stood to benefit when the company offered stock for sale. "After a while, it seemed like the executives were only about, 'How can we make a buck?' "
Even Gersh, the new chairman, acknowledges there was an unhealthy preoccupation with the IPO. "Everybody was really focused on taking the company public," he said. "The day you go public [should] be the beginning of the game. It always seemed like the end of the game."
Some DEN employees also became concerned about what they saw as an uncomfortable overlap between Collins-Rector's personal life and the company he controlled.
Collins-Rector set up those closest to him with plush jobs at the company, and his justifications for the moves often seemed strained. He credited Pierce, for example, with coming up with a way to speed video transmission on the Net.
"Microsoft spent $800 million trying to [solve the problem]," Collins-Rector wrote in his vision statement. "Brock looks at the problem and goes, 'Oh, it's simple.' "
According to several former DEN executives, the inspiration was simple indeed: It was to move the camera as little as possible, so computers would have fewer image changes to process. (Palmieri, the attorney for Collins-Rector, said Pierce's "contributions to the company were enormous. I have been in meetings with him, and he's contributed substantially.")
One former supervisor said Collins-Rector directed him to hire certain teenagers who weren't qualified for the jobs they sought. "He would come to me with ultimatums on who I should hire," said the former manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Young hip kids were his thing."
Some workers said they felt compelled to do things well outside their job descriptions. One young employee said he was told that "if he valued his job" he would travel with Collins-Rector and his young executives, Shackley and Pierce, on a vacation to a tropical resort last spring.
The employee complained to his supervisor, who confirmed the account to The Times, but who said he didn't report the matter to top executives because they worked for Collins-Rector. The teenager said that he felt compelled to make the trip and that Shackley made a sexual pass at him. After he rejected the proposition, the teenager said, the trip ended early.
[Part 5]
ReplyDeletehttp://www.josephmenn.com/other_den.php
Attorney Calls Allegations False
Favored employees were also invited to parties at the Encino mansion, and several said they were encouraged to spend the night there.
Palmieri, also the attorney for the other two co-founders, said such allegations are false, and that "nothing was going on that was improper." Regarding the accusation that an employee was pressured to take a trip with the founders, Palmieri said Shackley denies the allegation and "has no idea what this could be referring to."
...
Company executives, including Gersh, Carpenter and Neuman, as well as board members, said they were unaware of any improper behavior by Collins-Rector and regarded his personal life as beyond their scope of concern. "Who people date," said Marc Nathanson, a DEN director and former Falcon Cable chief executive, "is none of the board's business."
The board was soon forced to take notice.
Last September, the company filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission proposing to raise $75 million in a public stock offering. But two days earlier, Collins-Rector was served with a lawsuit filed by the New Jersey boy he had hired as a 13-year-old customer service employee at Concentric in the early 1990s.
The suit, filed last May in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., accused Collins-Rector of using his position of influence to sexually abuse the boy repeatedly from 1993 to 1996. In one instance, the suit alleged, the boy was flown to Bay City for a work assignment and invited to stay in Collins-Rector's home. That evening, according to the suit, Collins-Rector entered the boy's room and "moved his hand down [the boy's] chest, repeating the question, 'Do you trust me?' "
The suit alleged that sexual encounters continued after Collins-Rector had sold his controlling stake in Concentric, moved to California, and founded Digital Entertainment Network. The age of consent in California is 18.
At first, Collins-Rector denied the allegations and indicated he would fight the suit. That strategy collapsed after the emergence of a tape recording of a phone conversation between Collins-Rector and the boy, according to a source familiar with the case.
Palmieri denies the existence of any such tape. He said that in his first meeting with the boy's attorney, he demanded, " 'If there is a smoking gun, let me see it.' There was no such thing."
The FBI also began a criminal investigation, according to two sources with knowledge of the probe. The investigation is continuing, sources said, and the FBI refused to comment. Palmieri said that he is unaware of such an investigation, and that neither he nor his client has been approached by the FBI or any law enforcement agency.
Collins-Rector agreed in mid-October to settle the suit, paying the plaintiff, now 20, an undisclosed sum but admitting no guilt. Palmieri characterized the suit as "classic IPO blackmail," and said Collins-Rector agreed to settle only to minimize publicity and damage to DEN.
Collins-Rector's stake in the IPO "would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars," Palmieri said. "Any business attorney or litigator would immediately consider giving a token payment [to the plaintiff] to save the company and his own investment."
After the settlement, Collins-Rector, Shackley and Pierce left the company. Palmieri said the three had been planning to leave for some time, eager to pursue new technology ventures. The suit was "a factor" in their decision to leave, Palmieri said, "but not the catalyst."
But Ritts, who replaced Collins-Rector as chairman, said the founder had been asked by the board to leave because, as he put it, "the allegations related to an area that was philosophically inconsistent with a company that was aimed at 14- to 24-year-olds."
http://www.randalkleiser.com/articles2.html
ReplyDeleteDirecting for Today’s Internet
By Randal Kleiser (1998)
I first heard about the idea of Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) in 1998 from Marc Collins-Rector, who was one of the original founders of Concentric Network Corporation. He explained his concept for DEN, creating original programming for the Internet, targeting viewers who don't usually have shows made for them.
It sounded like a fresh and interesting pipe dream. When I heard it was actually happening, about a year later, I contacted him about becoming involved.
Marc asked me to direct "Royal Standard", a project that was aimed at 12 to 20 year old computer-savvy kids. I was very interested to try a whole new type of media production and distribution. The show was broken down into seven six minute digitally produced episodes, to be shot in nine days. Additional interactive elements were to be shot by a second crew, including set visits, profiles of the actors, props, and costumes. Viewers would be able to click on costumes worn by actors and buy them. The episodes were to be digitized, compressed, and turned into Internet compatible video files that would be released once a week. Anyone, anywhere in the world would be able to view them on demand and to give feedback about the episodes.
In February of 1999 I had my first meeting with a harried twentysomething executive from DEN, who said, "I haven't been downloaded on anything about this project."
I began picking up the specific challenges for directing in this new medium.
...
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1976150/dotcom-founders-spanish-jail
ReplyDeleteV3.co.uk - 10 October 2002
Dotcom founders still in Spanish jail
The founders of flopcom Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) are still languishing in a Spanish jail, and investigators in the US are stepping up efforts to bring them home to face sex offence charges.
DEN co-founders Marc Collins-Rector, Chad Shackley and Brock Pierce were arrested in June on an international warrant after being indicted in New Jersey on five counts of transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts.
The company raised $75m through an Initial Public Offer, but collapsed as allegations of its founders' conduct hit the media. DEN's assets were sold at auction for $105,000 this summer.
The men fled to Spain where they were arrested by Spanish police who found **** "enormous amounts of child porn" **** at their villa.
All three are likely to face Spanish charges, but US police have stated that Spain will let the US charge them first, according to the New York Post.
Collins-Rector, Shackley and Pierce already face a $4.5m default judgement over offences with teenaged boys in the Beverly Hills and west Los Angeles area dating back to the early 1990s, after losing a civil court case brought by victims.
***
http://www.metafilter.com/66610/ZOMBIE-BOOB-TUBE-TELEVISION
ReplyDeleteMetafilter - 16 November 2007 (!!!)
ZOMBIE BOOB TUBE TELEVISION
"They claimed they would destroy all television with their business. $100 million and one cast member of First Kid later, all they had were massive amounts of failure, tremendous parties with Bryan Singer, and many, many, many allegations of sexual molestation. Now they hide in the Spanish Riviera and hire Chinese sweatshop workers to mine for World of Warcraft items. Check as well the original 2000 LA Times expose on the company, to say nothing of the "gay pedophile version of Silver Spoons" which remains their finest artistic achievement." via boingboing
...
Where exactly is the pedophile part of that pilot? A rich gay couple taking a teenage boy (the brother of one of them) to live with them makes them pedophiles? I can see they were ahead of their time and that one of the writers has been convicted for sexual offenses but, in general, the idea behind the show sounds very educational to me. Crappy quality though.
posted by lucia__is__dada at 9:15 AM on November 16, 2007
I remember watching that gay pedophile version of Silver Spoons.
Didn't it star Ricky Shroder and Jason Bateman? [director: "Bad Words"- Pedo-friendly film]
posted by flarbuse at 9:16 AM on November 16, 2007
...
You know, prompted by the Radar article, I checked out the Wikipedia DEN article and it was full of stuff like "brave internet pioneers" and "staggeringly audacious" - apparently without DEN there could have been no Internet as we know it. Seriously, it was like I reading the usual guff that's written about Google/Yahoo/Digg and there was nothing about the sexual abuse. Given the boing boing attention, the article has been rapidly modified to a less valedictory POV.
I was surprised to find that Wikipedia had no entry for Collins-Rector so I added one with some basic facts. I ran straight into Wikipedia's unusually earnest self-appointed administratros, who deleted the page literally within minutes because it was "attacking a living person", not fact-based, and was unsourced. Apparently, a link to the Florida Sex Offender Registry was insufficient sourcing. I also got the "is this person really notable" guff from them. This is from an "encyclopedia" with endless crap about minor Star Wars characters?
posted by meehawl at 9:30 AM on November 16, 2007
Original score by Bobby Stott and DJ Walk-in.
DJ Walk-in, spinning all the hits from the NAMBLA closet disco.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:34 AM on November 16, 2007
...
I found one other odd thing. When I was checking on Concentric Network, the early 90s ISP started by Collins-Rector and Shackley, I noticed that its incorporation or sale documents have become some sort of general template for business document filings and their paired names seem to have become embedded in the Internet's el cheapo business documentation DNA. Which is kind of amusing when you think of it.
posted by meehawl at 10:09 AM on November 16, 2007
...
MeFi's Own meehawl's link
I think actually boing boing had this in its write-up, that's where I found it. I honestly had no idea fuckedcompany was still going, but I do remember that its forums were serious sources of DEN gossip back in the day.
posted by meehawl at 10:11 AM on November 16, 2007
...
http://www.metafilter.com/66610/ZOMBIE-BOOB-TUBE-TELEVISION
ReplyDeleteMetafilter - 16 November 2007
ZOMBIE BOOB TUBE TELEVISION
It's interesting that they mention Brian Singer as partying with these guys, because the Brian Singer movie, Apt Pupil, was the subject of a lawsuit brought by the parents of some male minors who were required to appear nude in a locker room shower scene. I don't think it was in the original Stephen King novella, but the movie also ends with the protagonist blackmailing the guidance counselor (played by David Schwimmer) by threatening to lie to the authorities that the counselor made a homosexual advance at him.
posted by jonp72 at 10:38 AM on November 16, 2007
...
I don't have enough amazement to cover the fact that pasty monsters make millions of dollars repeatedly and retire to villas in Spain while I'm so fucking broke I have to fix the clutch on my car myself.
posted by koeselitz at 12:12 PM on November 16, 2007
...
meehawl, you may find a spot for your bio on Collins-Rector on Encyclopedia Dramatica. Granted, you'll have to throw in a few "OMG GAY"s and "LOL DONGS" for good measure.
Also, Collins-Rector? He barely touched 'er!
posted by Dr-Baa at 12:42 PM on November 16, 2007
...
tehloki: This guy has the ghey (and inappropriate age boundaries), as well as a talent for starting companies (or a tendency to fail forward fast, as it may be). He also like to employ his boytoys, or turn his employees into boytoys, as it may be. He starts a company called DEN to make TV shows that you watch over the web instead of a TV. He gets a lot of people, *****like a Congressman*****, to invest in DEN, which is ahead of its time at the very minimum, and when it fails and the law starts to catch up with him about his penchant for chickenhawks, he runs off to Spain. It's all pretty meaningless except that DEN was at the time touted as the Next Big Thing. The hilarious part is that the flagship program looks a lot like an unconscious defense of his personal life.
posted by dhartung at 4:41 PM on November 16, 2007
...
I almost worked at DEN.
I was just out of film school, and for me, and a lot of other people I knew, these Internet/TV companies were a first real long term production job. I knew 3 or 4 people working at DEN, including an ex-girlfriend who was a producer there. She too was also just out of school. I heard all these stories about how they had built their own building and had huge cocaine fueled parties all the time with their investors' money.
One of our producers had gotten fired at Wirebreak and gotten hired at DEN. So, I got a call from her on a Friday night to see if I wanted to come and work at DEN. They needed me to work all weekend, and would pay me double what I was getting at the time.
I thought about it, and said no. It had been a long week, and I was collecting a paycheck, so food and rent were paid for, and I didn't desperately need the money, I was tired, and so I passed.
That next Monday DEN went out of business, in a hailstorm of pedophilia and scandal. I guess they would have been bringing me in to finish up unfinished things before the implosion....
I sometimes wish I *had* worked there that weekend. Then I could say I'd been a part of one of the biggest fuckups Hollywood's ever seen. I mean the scandal at the time was enormous.
posted by MythMaker at 5:44 PM on November 16, 2007
...
The Spanish police report speaks of 8000 child porn pictures. Let's also note that Spain has quite a liberal approach to the age of consent: if the Spanish police says child porn, you can be pretty sure it's child porn, not teen porn. Ugh.
posted by Skeptic at 6:45 AM on November 17, 2007
***
http://www.johnottman.com/biography/collaborators/damon.html
ReplyDeleteCollaborators
Damon Intrabartolo
Orchestrator, Conductor
Damon on The Usual Suspects...
John [Ottman] was pretty lonely while the film was shooting. We were just friends then, and he'd call me up at school and ask me to come keep him company while watching dailies. No one else was there in the screening rooms...ever! John would order us cheap Chinese food and shake his head commiserating, "What am I supposed to do with that ridiculous shot?" or "Now who is this person again? What's a fence, do you know what a fence is???". But, nothing is scarier than being twenty years old, a virgin to the world of film music, a full-time student at the USC School of Music and being involved on a feature film. By the time Suspects was ready to score and I was on board (having positively no idea what I was getting myself into), tension was outrageously high in the Ottman studio. I remember when we were previewing the cue "Kobiyashi's Domain" for Bryan (Singer). He screamed at about 500 decibels "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! THAT DOES NOT WORK THERE!". At that moment I thought to myself, "Jesus, I'd better rethink my career choice". But in a genius maneuver with the keyboard and a fader, John repaired the cue in moments and Bryan was pacified. But ultimately the rewards outweighed the stress ...
...
Damon on "Fantasy Island"...
John had made an original estimate of music that permitted me to attend the 1998 Burning Man Festival with a few friends to tape an ill-fated television show for the now defunct Digital Entertainment Network [DEN]. But John, ever the overachieving perfectionist, wound up composing over twice as much orchestral music for the pilot than he estimated. So I had basically three days to orchestrate through 12 minutes of music (while absorbing it for conducting purposes) after returning from a very "mind-expanding" week in the Nevada desert. Pity me (and say "hi" if you were at Burning Man)
***
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330720/
On the Bus (2001) Documentary
On The Bus' original intention was to be a fun-loving, rambunctious, half-hour Internet program about a group of young, gay men on a bus trip from Los Angeles to Burning Man, a festival of radical self expression in the Nevada desert. However, after returning from a week of shooting, stereotypes had fallen apart, and it became clear that this story had far more to tell than a half hour internet show could lend. Almost immediately On The Bus challenges the viewer with the notion that "Even in absolute freedom, some things are still sacred." - Damon Intrabartolo (cast member #6) . It is here that Director Dustin Lance Black begins this story. Lance is hired by The Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) to produce, direct and participate in an Internet reality show with an all gay cast. He then hires Billy Kaufman as co-producer and cast member number two. Charles Kinsley, a gorgeous actor/waiter, Jason Webb, porn star Dean O'Conner, and Jimmy Sjodin, a Swedish Olympic diver soon follow.
***
http://www.ign.com/articles/2002/12/09/featured-filmmaker-bryan-singer
ReplyDeleteAccording to Yahoo! Movies, New Jersey native Bryan Singer was raised Jewish but, as an adolescent, belonged to a "Nazi Club" formed by himself and some non-Jewish friends. Singer said this club was born not out of anti-Semitism but rather due to the kids' fascination with World War II. Nevertheless, Singer's mother quickly ended her son's association with such a group. (Singer reportedly drew on these experiences for Apt Pupil.)
A movie fan and aspiring filmmaker since adolescence (and cousin to Beastmaster star Marc Singer), Bryan studied film at New York City's School of Visual Arts as well as at the University of Southern California. Singer befriended several people at USC who would later work on his films, including composer and editor John Ottman and co-producer Kenneth Kokin.
After graduating from USC, Singer wrote and directed a short film called Lion's Den. Starring his boyhood pal Ethan Hawke and filmed for $16,000, Lion's Den led to the independently produced feature Public Access, which was scripted by Singer and his high school friend Christopher McQuarrie...
***
http://www.josephmenn.com/other_den.php
How a Visionary Venture on the Web Unraveled
...
Among the new names at the company is an 18-year-old ex-DEN actor,**** Alex Burton****, who lives at the mansion and is a childhood friend of Brock Pierce. Burton's mother, Elizabeth Anderson, recently contacted a Times reporter saying she was concerned about her son, and that he doesn't return her calls.
...
http://johto.nu/shawn/print/nwit.html
Northwest Indiana Times
Generation NeXt
Aaron Stanford: "Pyro"
When he coveted Sigourney Weaver in last year's independent film "Tadpole," Aaron Stanford became the darling of the art house circuit. So it's not surprising that when he was cast as John "Pyro" Allerdyce, a conflicted mutant transfixed by his ability to manipulate fire, Stanford tried to bring some high-minded indie sensibility to his "X2" character.
"I dug up facts like the fact that pyromaniacs are predominantly chronic bed wetters, all kinds of interesting stuff I was hoping to use," says the 26-year-old actor. "But guess what? There's no place for it. I brought it up to (director) Bryan Singer, and he kind of didn't want to hear what I was saying."
Stanford laughs this off, knowing that the same big-studio mentality that grounded his artistic flight of fancy also muted the onscreen appearance of his character, which, in the comic, was a garish study in flame-retardant flamboyance. "(He wore) this bright orange and yellow spandex outfit (with this massive flame-thrower strapped to his back and two tubes coming up his arm)," says Stanford, who wears pajamas for much of the movie. "But for the film, spandex always becomes leather, which I suppose is still suspect, but a bit better."
A casual "X-Men" reader as a kid, this Massachusetts-born Jersey boy is finding that his megabudget franchise affords him the financial freedom to make smaller pictures (he just finished the corporate satire "Rick"). And just to ensure employment in future X"-sequels **** he won't be asking any more questions regarding the fate of Alex Burton, the actor who briefly played Pyro in the first film. "I have no idea what happened to that guy," says Stanford, laughing. "I asked a bunch of times, and no one seems to want to tell me." ****
***
http://x-wild.wix.com/roninsxmenfansite?_escaped_fragment_=alexander-burton-as-pyro/zoom/mainPage/image14or
ReplyDeleteAlexander Burton as Pyro
http://static.wixstatic.com/media/634d4c_7975af6638851c041f117729dbda8b2e.jpg_srz_308_300_85_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srz
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnzz6w4xYj1qa1ogh.gif
http://comicicons.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/pyro_alexander_burton.jpg
***
http://wtbuzz.com/alleged-bryan-singer-associate-was-sued-in-2000-for-sexual-abuse-by-x-men-actor/
Alleged Bryan Singer Associate Was Sued In 2000 For Sexual Abuse By X-Men Actor
Marc Collins-Rector — who allegedly hosted parties where he, Bryan Singer, and others sexually abused teenage boys — was sued in 2000 by three people for sexual abuse. One of them was Alexander Burton, who played Pyro in the first X-Men movie.
Alexander Burton, the actor who played Pyro in the first X-Men film, was a plaintiff in a 2000 sexual abuse lawsuit against Marc Collins-Rector, a registered sex offender and former executive of Digital Entertainment Network, or DEN, who allegedly threw parties at his Encino, Calif., mansion where Bryan Singer and other men who worked in the entertainment industry provided drugs and alcohol to teenage boys and sexually abused and threatened them. Singer has denied the allegations.
Attorney Jacob Arash Shahbaz, who represented the plaintiffs, told BuzzFeed Friday that the 2000 case was over alleged sexual abuse and was settled confidentially. But according to the case docket obtained by BuzzFeed, the three were awarded $2,000,030 in a judgment and $1 million in accrued interest in 2011. Shahbaz did not immediately respond to questions what those judgments were for, whether they were paid by the defendant, and whether they were separate from the settlement.
One of the other plaintiffs in the 2000 suit was Michael Egan, who this week filed suit against Singer in a Hawaii federal court alleging Singer sexually abused him on multiple occasions. Egan was 17 years old at the time of the 2000 suit. The other defendant in the suit was Brock Pierce, a then-18-year-old DEN executive who also starred in the Mighty Ducks films and First Kid.
Burton and a third plaintiff, Mark Ryan, were DEN employees, according to a 2000 Los Angeles Times article. According to the LA Times, Burton alleged Collins-Rector threatened him with death before sex, and Ryan alleged Collins-Rector drugged him without his knowledge and sexually abused him while he was unconscious.
Burton acted in no other films or projects before or since X-Men, according to IMDb. His role in the film was a brief cameo. He allegedly got the role after “a hot tub session at a Hollywood party,” according to a 2005 New York Post story (not online).
Wednesday’s suit alleges that Singer offered roles for movies, including X-Men films, while he was with parties where alleged sexual abuse of teenage boys occurred. The suit details an instance where Collins-Rector and a friend allegedly told Egan the adult men at the party “controlled Hollywood” and could make or destroy the boys’ careers depending on whether or not they kept the adult men happy.
***
http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/01/is-singers-superman-a-loss-for-lois-php/
ReplyDeleteRadar Online - 30 January 2008
Is Singer's Superman a Loss for Lois?
Did director Bryan Singer‘s penchant for casting with the lensman in his pants influence his choice of Brandon Routh to play the Man of Steel in Superman Returns? Ever since the unknown 26-year-old actor–whose career highlights consist of a season on One Life to Live and an episode of Will & Grace –landed the part over Warner Brothers’ reported favorite Jim Caviezel, fanboy bloggers have been wondering whether the famously beefcake-friendly filmmaker’s decision had more to do with his libido than his director’s eye.
Of course, if Singer cast an object of his desire in a role, it wouldn’t be the first time. According to Alex Burton, the unknown who played Pyro in Singer’s first X-Men blockbuster, he was given the part after a hot-tub session with the director at a Hollywood party. “Bryan created that role especially for me,” says Burton, who went on to act in exactly zero films post-X-Men.
(Singer, it seems, has a thing for water. Following the filming of Apt Pupil, a number of young male extras on the movie filed lawsuits claiming that they had been bullied into stripping naked for a shower scene and that Singer had held private screenings of the wet ‘n’ wild footage at his home. The suits never reached court.)
Whether or not Routh (“rhymes with mouth,” according to Newsweek; “B.J.” to his friends, according to IMDB) knows his way around a loofah, early press on the film has only fanned the proverbial flames. As Superman Returns actress Parker Posey told Newsweek (albeit, completely out of context), “Poor Brandon. He’s got everyone touching him all the time. He’s lying on his stomach and he’s got five people coming up and pulling his underwear down, sticking their hands up the butt of his suit. I can’t imagine what it’s like.” (The article goes on to say that “the biggest issue for the studio” was what size to make Superman’s “package.”)
Further driving chatter on online message boards is the out director’s track record of putting together gay-friendly productions. Kevin Spacey, who has long ducked questions about his sexuality, was the centerpiece of Singer’s breakout film The Usual Suspects (he also appears in Superman Returns, as Lex Luthor), and the director’s two X-Men movies–about teen superheroes fighting for acceptance (and starring Hugh Jackman, Alan Cumming and Sir Ian McKellan)–were widely interpreted as allegories for coming out of the closet. In fact, one particularly out-there bit of gossip making the rounds is that Singer cast Routh specifically because he wanted a closeted actor who could “come out” as a political statement-cum-publicity-stunt in the run-up to the movie’s June ’06 premiere.
Asked about Routh’s path to the silver screen, his publicist at PMK, Simon Halls, said that while he rarely comments on his clients’ personal lives, “I think it only fair to tell you that Brandon is happily involved with his longtime girlfriend, and any claims to the contrary are just plain silliness.” A rep for Singer did not respond to calls or detailed e-mails seeking comment.
...
http://gawker.com/141821/brokeback-krypton
ReplyDeleteGawker - 12/08/05
Brokeback Krypton
There are superheroes that forever have given off a faint whiff of the gay, particularly middle aged, single men who adopt young wards, and then there is Superman as red-blooded, American male and heterosexual as you can get (in blue spandex and calf-high red boots). So when openly gay Superman remake director Bryan Singer, who has a not-so-secret penchant for handsome, younger boys, hired square-jawed nobody Brandon Routh to play his Man of Steel, many a Kryptopurist eyebrow was raised and the rumors starting flying: could a Hollywood director have gasp! actually hired someone he wanted to bone? It simply isn't done! Today, Radar fans the fanboy flamer flames:
Of course, if Singer cast an object of his desire in a role, it wouldn t be the first time. According to Alex Burton, the unknown who played the Human Torch Pyro in Singer s first X-Men blockbuster, he was given the part after a hot-tub session with the director at a Hollywood party. Bryan created that role especially for me, says Burton, who went on to act in exactly zero films post-X-Men.
We must say, that must have been some jacuzzi line reading for the director to go so far as to pluck a character out of another comic book entirely.* The official word on Routh's casting however, from an Entertainment Weekly article from earlier this year, places their first meeting at a very public and unsudsy Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. "He stood up and up, and up, and up," the director explained. "I said, 'Okay...'" Clearly, it was not couch-casting antics but Routh's freakish natural ability to fly that won him the role.
Multiple updates after the jump.
*UPDATE: The original version of Radar's story identified Burton's character as the Human Torch, quite obviously a Fantastic Four hero. They've since been lit on fire by furious comic book geeks and have since corrected the character's name to Pyro. Carry on.
UPDATE 2: Never before has one small blockquote required quite this much updating. Turns out Pyro appears in X-Men 2 and is played by actor Aaron Stanford, who will be reprising the role in X-Men 3. While Alex Burton is credited as John in X-Men, he shouldn't be confused with Stanford, who did no improvisational hot-tub exercises with Bryan Singer to get his role (or with X-Men 3 director Brett Ratner, to our knowledge).
***
Good work Anon.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tom-daleys-lover-dustin-lance-3443982
ReplyDeleteMirror - 23 April 2014
Tom Daley’s lover Dustin Lance Black to be witness in Hollywood rape case involving X-Men director Bryan Singer
...
There is no suggestion Dustin – who won an Oscar for his script for 2008 film Milk – was present at the time of the alleged abuse.
***
http://sfist.com/2009/09/04/dustin_lance_blacks_harvey_milk_day.php
Dustin Lance Black's Harvey Milk Day Sentate Testimony
This is our last chance to make the Harvey Milk Day bill law. Now that the Assembly has approved Mark Leno's bill to make Harvey Milk Day a state holiday, it will be on the Governor’s desk by next week. The far (and often effective) right, however, wants you to know that homosexuals indoctrinate children, and that Milk was a raging pedophile -- both of which are lies.
***
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/College-disinvites-Dustin-Lance-Black-over-photos/47142.html
Windy City Times - 22 April 014
College disinvites Dustin Lance Black over photos
****
http://libertyalliance.com/2013/10/harvey-milk-sexual-predator-honored-with-u-s-postage-stamp/
Harvey Milk: Sexual Predator Honored With U.S. Postage Stamp
***
Appreciating the commitment you put into your site
ReplyDeleteand in depth information you present. It's awesome to come across a blog every once
in a while that isn't the same unwanted rehashed information. Excellent read!
I've saved your site and I'm including your RSS feeds to my Google account.
Can you tell us more about this? I'd like to find out some
ReplyDeleteadditional information.
Good day I am so thrilled I found your webpage, I really found
ReplyDeleteyou by error, while I was researching on Digg for something else,
Nonetheless I am here now and would just like to say cheers for a marvelous post and a all round enjoyable blog (I also love the
theme/design), I don't have time to go through it all at the minute but I have bookmarked it and also included your RSS feeds,
so when I have time I will be back to read
a great deal more, Please do keep up the superb work.