The secret story Al Martino left behind

When longtime Beverly Hills resident Al Martino died in his hometown of South Philadelphia this week, he left a rich legacy that included more than fifty years of entertainment, memorable songs like Spanish Eyes and Here In My Heart and a crucial role in one of the of the greatest motion pictures of all time.

Al Martino’s life story was far richer than even that, as revealed in a screenplay that survives him.

The film was written in 1991. Famed television reporter Rafael Abramovitz and Burt Kearns of Tabloid Baby and Frozen Pictures acclaim met Martino on a shoot for Hard Copy, and later spent weeks with the star going over every detail of his contentious life. They came away with the material that would become a biopic screenplay named for one of his greatest hits, Here In My Heart.

The script tells the story of Martino’s life from his childhood in his South Philly and his idol Mario Lanza through all many dramatic and harrowing events that led to his triumph as Johnny Fontane in The Godfather. It's a story as compelling as the Godfather saga itself, full of great depth and conflict, full of violence, mobsters, war, show business, celebrity, addiction, abortion, love, redemption-- and music. The story also shows that Martino may very well have been right when he claimed his own life—not Frank Sinatra’s-- was the inspiration for the character. He had to fight for the role- and Marlon Brando, with the aid of some whiskey, helped him inhabit it.

Al Martino would certainly have been a bigger star had he not “crossed the Mob” early in his career and was forced to flee the USA to England, where he made history, scoring the UK’s first #1 single (when the song Here in My Heart topped the very first NME chart in 1952). But Here In My Heart reveals that his years in England, before he returned to Atlantic City, received a commutation and blessing from a real "Godfather” and resumed his career in the States, were not easy.

When Here In My Heart was first shopped, many of the characters depicted were still alive, and though some names had been changed to protect the guilty, the property was deemed "too hot" to handle. Close to twenty years later, it is a real tribute to a man who triumphed in the end, and what may be its most poignant chapter, died in the place where it all began.

Legendary journalist and Dupont Award winner Abramovitz expresses shock, outrage over Tabloid Baby Pulitzer Prize c*ck block by Sig Gissler

Scandal continues to roil beneath the surface of the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes, as it was revealed here that the Pulitzer Prize board's intentions to have the entry field opened to non-print Internet news organizations was thwarted by its administrator and gatekeeper, Sig Gissler, who unilaterally prevented Tabloid Baby's Pulitzer Prize nomination from reaching the prize committee for consideration, thereby stealing from journalist Elli Wohlgelernter and the Tabloid Baby team the honor they surely would have won for their exclusive investigative coverage of the United States-based financial scandals surrounding the Israel Baseball League.

"Who is this man who has usurped transparency in the selection of prizes by the Pulitzer committee? It's shocking to believe that one human being makes the decisions, and makes them in an awful, undignified and disrespectful way."

The latest to throw his (cowboy) hat into the ring is journalism legend, author, tabloid television pioneer, practicing attorney and 1984 DuPont Award winner Rafael Abramovitz, who, like other hardworking, experienced journalism professionals who do not mix in the rarified ivory tower journalism school circles of those whose entrenched ways are leading the death of the newspaper industry, scoffs at Sig Gissler's contention that the respected, ten-year-old Tabloid Baby news organization does not "genuinely fit the criteria"-- and that its entry was not "in a binder."


"There was no transparency in the awards handed out by the prize committee this year," Abramovitz said this morning. "And I'm talking in terms of the decisions about nominations of Internet news organizations. It's shocking to believe that one human being makes the decisions, and makes them in an awful, undignified and disrespectful way.

"Who is this man who has usurped transparency in the selection of prizes by the Pulitzer committee?

"Does the word 'committee' mean anything to him?

"This is an outrage!"

Chuckling over that last line, the Resistol-sporting New York City-based journo continued in all seriousness:

"The most shocking aspect of this is what happened to the nomination of Tabloid Baby, which is known for its unique, imaginative, often fantastic reportage and has gotten that reportage on the Internet well in advance of other so-called mainline Internet sites. Print organizations are no match for Tabloid Baby. After all, it's there on the cusp of instant reportage.

"And this man whose name I have deliberately forgotten? The Pulitzer Prize committee, if they want to maintain their prestige role in journalism excellence, might want to forget it as well."

Exclusive excerpt: A meeting with Bernie Brillstein

Legendary Hollywood manager and producer Bernie Brillstein is dead at 77. Nikki Finke made the announcement with a loving tribute this morning, and we were reminded that Bernie has a wonderful cameo in the book, Tabloid Baby.

To set the stage: It's 1993. Tabloid television producer Burt Kearns and reporter Rafael Abramovitz have a meeting with Brillstein to pitch a reality TV show that would take viewers behind scenes of tabloid news stories. Rafael is "hot," thanks to a feature in the current GQ magazine called "Sleazy Does It." The meeting has been set up by their agent, Ari Emanuel of the Inter Talent agency.

Now, on to this exclusive excerpt, to page 258 of Tabloid Baby:

In the big building on the edge of Beverly Hills at 9200 Sunset Boulevard, we had an audience with Bernie Brillstein, the man who managed the original Saturday Night Live stars and went on to produce some of their most successful movies and TV shows. Brillstein was a legend, and not only as “The Man Who Killed Belushi” for supplying him with money his last week on earth.

Ushered past the picture of “Client of The Month” Garry Shandling and posters for movies like The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters and Wayne’s World in the reception room, we met Brillstein, a big bear with white hair and a goatee, settled behind a big desk in a big corner office with big views straight out to the big ocean. At either corner of the desk, a round fishbowl containing a live fish faced us and our obligatory black coffees.

“I know you, I know your work,” Brillstein said to Raf, and settling back he looked at me and wagged a finger. “And you, you look exactly like John Hughes.”

I wracked my brain to think who John Hughes was. John Cusack, Andrew McCarthy— was he a Brat Packer?

“A young John Hughes. It’s amazing.”

I thought some more. Then I realized who he was talking about. John Hughes, the guy who produced Home Alone. A fat guy with owly glasses. Great.

“I like tabloid TV and this reality TV, Brillstein went on. “I have a a good friend, he’s fucked a lot of women, he told me the best he ever had, the one he was proudest of doing, guess who it was?”

“You got me.”

“Fawn Hall.” He was talking about Rob Lowe.

“Yeah. Fawn Hall. With the tooth,” I said.

“I’ve always admired her for using her underwear to transport secret documents,” Raf said.

Brillstein was male bonding. I could picture him with Belushi, rhapsodizing about how he’d like to give that skinny Larraine Newman a shot in the ass. “I’ll tell you, in all these Amy Fisher movies, you know who I’d like to fuck?” His assistant, whom we’d not noticed— I was looking at the fishies— nodded as if he’d heard it all before. “I’d like to fuck that Drew Barrymore. Oooh.”

“E.T., yeah,” I said, thinking, well, it took three years but we were in. This was Hollywood: a powerful fat man with a commanding view of the city, fantasizing about fucking a seventeen-year-old.

Yet Brillstein listened carefully to the pitch, interrupting every few sentences for clarifications. He was amused when Raf’s rap was interrupted by a page from Joey Buttafuoco. Even though I thought it was a bullshit attempt to make an impression until Raf asked for a phone to call him back. While Raf spoke with Joey on one line, Brillstein called the agent Arivon the other. “I love these guys,” he said with enthusiasm. “We’re gonna do something together.”

When they hung up, he spoke again. “I like your ideas. Just get them down on paper. We can make lots of money, lots of money on a one-hour reality show. Come back with specifics on paper and we’ll go to a network with it.”

It was as simple as that. Bernie Brillstein was good to go.

It was even simpler. Raf let it slide. Our Brillstein meeting led to naught and I never got to that second meeting to find out if old Bern got to fuck Drew Barrymore.