Rainbow Without A Pot Of Gold
The Age
Tuesday August 7, 2001
IT WAS 1989. Christopher Skase was everywhere and nowhere. In Brisbane. Then Paris. Tokyo. Bob Campbell, head of his Australian TV interests, said that pinning Skase down ``is like trying to catch a rainbow".
I found him in Los Angeles, where he thought he had bought his pot of gold. His Qintex group had done a $A1.2billion deal to buy MGM/UA Communications. It would leave Skase in charge of United Artists, former home of Charles Chaplin. On the surface, it seemed to signal the arrival of Skase as a Hollywood mogul.
But there was little beneath that shiny surface. Before very long the deal fell through. Qintex never even produced the deposit for the sale. Soon after, Skase's financial empire began to fall apart. The whole thing was like an old-style film set: impressive from the front but, close up, nothing but plywood and paint.
I'd been working on a profile of Skase for Time Australia magazine. Most of the elements were there: comments from past and present colleagues; analysis from business experts; memories of his lavish corporate entertainment. But one crucial piece was missing: Skase himself.
His assistant assured me that Christopher was more than happy to sit and chat about his life and times. But an appointment never materialised. When told he would be in LA, tying up the MGM/UA deal, that seemed the place to be. His assistant agreed. Great idea. When I got to LA, she assured me, there would be a message confirming the time and place for a meeting.
There wasn't.
So on a Saturday morning, with balls pinging in the nearby Beverly Hills Tennis Club, I headed to the Qintex office in North Maple Drive to wait for Skase. I wasn't the only one. In the office - done out in pale blue marble - couriers arrived with cases of documents for prospective partners. Having done his film deal, Skase was seeking investors to help pay for it.
Amid all this activity there was one mystery. Nobody was sure of Skase's whereabouts. Then came a call from a car-phone. He was on his way in. A time was nominated. Half an hour later, there he was. Making his entrance wearing bright green tracksuit pants and a canary yellow tennis shirt. The look was decidedly more tourist than tycoon.
Over the next few days, finally, we had a number of conversations. He spoke like a salesman, putting a positive spin on everything. Even the tardy payment of TV licence fees was portrayed as a management masterstroke: ``Our people simply utilised provisions of the Act that provide for late payment."
In retrospect, the most telling comment he made concerned criticism of the Qintex style. ``The company's objective," he insisted, ``is to grow within its long-term and publicly announced strategic plan ... At the end of the day I have to eat my own cooking." That he did. But in 1989 nobody imagined he would be doing it on Majorca.
Even then, his comments were much less interesting than a glimpse into his world. What exactly had he bought in the MGM/UA deal? He didn't seem sure himself. There were lines of type on a page - a film production and marketing unit, a one-third interest in a film distribution outfit, the UA film library - but little that was tangible.
This became clear when I tried to find a suitable site for a photograph of Skase the aspiring movie mogul. The film studio itself no longer existed. Even the film library - replete with all the Rocky and Pink Panther titles, among others - was more of a licensing list than a place. The nearest thing was a warehouse on the outskirts of town containing master-prints of some of the films. Skase himself had no idea it was there.
But, wearing a striped shirt and a tie with a panda motif, he smiled for the camera. And on the way back to his office in a ridiculously long limo he chatted about his early days as a finance reporter. The inference seemed clear: hey, look at me now.
We passed backstreet kids on roller-skates practising ice-hockey shots on a bitumen playground. They gave me the idea for a last line to the story - one that was edited out for obvious legal reasons. It still seems apt. Look at him go; look at him fall.
© 2001 The Age