Spinning Gold Tells Story of Neil Bogart and Casablanca Records The Hollywood Reporter

It may have taken Spinning Gold filmmaker Timothy Scott Bogart 24 years to tell the story of his father, Neil Bogart, and his record company, Casablanca Records, but such perseverance runs in the family and in the film.

As years and years of development came and went, so did names like Justin Timberlake and Spike Lee, but Bogart and his collaborators eventually realized that only he could tell the story of how Brooklyn’s Neil Bogatz became Neil Bogart, the record executive who elevated the careers of Kiss, Donna Summer and The Isley Brothers, to name a few. Ultimately, Bogart took the plunge as director even though he was keenly aware of how critical audiences can be of family-controlled biopics.

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“I did go through a number of different directors because I never intended to be the director of the film at the start. I was looking at it, going, ‘God, I’m writing, I’m producing, I’m [Neil Bogart’s] son. That’s just a bridge too far,’” Bogart tells The Hollywood Reporter.

So, to combat potential criticism, Bogart knew he couldn’t sugarcoat his father’s story like so many biopics are prone to do. That meant shining a light on his father’s infidelity and various addictions.

“I truly believe my father’s flaws were his superpowers, and that’s a strange thing. He was a womanizer, he was a gambler, he was an addict,” Bogart shares. “If he wasn’t addicted to gambling, if he wasn’t that extreme, there is no Casablanca Records. There is no Kiss. There is no Donna Summer. So, as a storyteller, I was able to step outside of the fact that he’s my father and say, ‘That’s an incredibly fascinating, complicated, messy human being.’”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Bogart also tells the compelling story behind Kiss’ hit song “Beth” and how it evolved into a jab at his father’s unfaithfulness.

Well, it sounds like the development of Spinning Gold could be its own movie as well. Has it been a two-decade rollercoaster?

(Laughs.) It’s legitimately been a 24-year roller coaster. They are all hard, but this one was so much harder. There are reasons for it, but it’s been a crazy, crazy, crazy trip. 

Quite a few names have been floated out there over the years. Is that only the half of it? 

I imagine you’re referring to Justin Timberlake, who I spent years developing it with. He’s just a wonderful guy and he was incredibly committed, but I think he ultimately had a struggle being an actor or being a musician. Every time we’d get kind of close, there’d be another album and another tour. So, for the first couple tours, I would delay because I thought that he was such a wonderful guy who could do a great job, but ultimately, it was just too hard of a conflict to compete with. So, in terms of actors [who’ve been attached], he certainly was the main one, but I did go through a number of different directors because I never intended to be the director of the film at the start. I was looking at it, going, “God, I’m writing, I’m producing, I’m [Neil Bogart’s] son. That’s just a bridge too far.” 

So I did go out to some wonderful directors along the way, and I had a great time developing with Spike Lee and some others. But interestingly, every time we spent six months or a year redeveloping with a particular filmmaker, it ultimately drifted from the compass of what I think we certainly envisioned the film to be. And so the producers and myself would keep coming back to my vision, and that’s when directing just finally presented itself. If we were gonna keep going back to my vision, then it should be my vision. I was already an active director, but I just always thought that maybe this one was a bridge too far. Ultimately, the audience will be the judge, but the journey is the destination and I don’t think this film would be what it is without going through those experiences.

I believe your father passed away when you were fairly young, so have you always stockpiled stories about him?

Well, I lived some of them. I was 12 [when he passed], but it was such a crazy, fun life growing up with him. I would go right from school to the Casablanca office. There was no distinction between business and family. These artists were part of our family and they were over at the house every weekend. So I had my own firsthand accounts, but absolutely, by the time I was about 20 and started thinking about telling his story, I would pull out my notebook and say, “Tell me more, tell me more,” to anyone I ended up meeting. And that would be George Clinton, who’s been incredibly helpful. That would be [Kiss’] Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley], and that, of course, would be Donna [Summer] before she passed away. And the executives. So I did a forensic analysis and investigation into my father, and the stories just kept getting better and better.

Biopics are often criticized for looking at their subject through rose-colored glasses, and that’s often tied to whomever is permitting the story to be told. But Spinning Gold seems pretty open about your father’s flaws. So how conscious were you of that balance you have to strike? 

There’s no question I was conscious of it, and it was for the exact reason you just said. “My gosh, the son is telling the story. Of course he’s gonna polish down all the edges.” So I was always worried that people would think that even though that was never my guide to how to tell this story. I truly believe my father’s flaws were his superpowers, and that’s a strange thing. He was a womanizer, he was a gambler, he was an addict. If he wasn’t addicted to gambling, if he wasn’t that extreme, there is no Casablanca Records. There is no Kiss. There is no Donna Summer. So I do not think he would’ve achieved the things he did and gone to the places he went if he wasn’t driven by those flaws. So, as a storyteller, I was able to step outside of the fact that he’s my father and say, “That’s an incredibly fascinating, complicated, messy human being.” And those are the kind of stories I’ve always found to be the most universal and most relatable.

So there’s no question that I was always going to embrace all his flaws. The difference is that so many biopics are cautionary tales. We’re gonna meet this incredibly talented person, they’re gonna go through this extraordinary arc and ultimately they’re gonna end up in a bathtub with a metaphorical needle in their arm. But I don’t think this is a cautionary tale, and I never looked at it that way. I ultimately made the choice as the filmmaker to not judge the subject or judge the story, and I think that’s a big difference. The audience ultimately has the right to judge what he did with my mom [Beth Weiss] versus my stepmom [Joyce Biawitz], and what he did in his relationships with the artists. I am presenting the closing arguments for the audience to judge, but I just don’t think that I, as the storyteller, should judge. So that’s a big distinction.

Even though you considered his flaws to be superpowers in a way, was it ever difficult to learn things you may not have wanted to know?

Maybe this is just storyteller over son, but I just thought that all of it was fascinating. I mean, I can’t deny that I was worried that the audience would look at my father having this long-term affair on my mom [Beth Weiss], with my stepmother [Joyce Biawitz], and not liking him. But I thought it was fascinating that he was a guy who was genuinely and truly in love with two women at the same time. So it felt real and it felt human. I hadn’t even seen that kind of thing before and I wanted to embrace it, but I knew that there was a risk that you might not like the guy. Similarly, I thought that the way my father pushed Donna Summer to become this person she absolutely was not could push an audience to say, “He’s not a likable guy.”

Interestingly, in all the test and word-of-mouth screenings we did, those scenes tended to be the ones that the audiences liked the most and responded to the most. So, did he do drugs? He did. Was he a womanizer? He was. Was he an addict? He was. But what I learned that was most fascinating was how scared he was. That was a surprise to me. I think we all know who our parents become, but it was fascinating to discover who he was. I saw him when he was on the magic carpet ride and he could do no wrong, but I didn’t know how terrified he was. I didn’t know how dangerous it was. I didn’t know how alone he was. That was powerful to learn.

Securing the original music would’ve cost a fortune, so you mostly produced covers of Casablanca’s hit songs with your actors performing them. But overall, were the powers that be behind Kiss and the other artists supportive for the most part? 

First of all, that wasn’t the reason we did that, but the music publishing was, in fact, incredibly expensive. It was a king’s ransom because they have so many hit songs, but it was never my desire to use the masters. We all know what “Midnight Train  to Georgia” ended up sounding like; we all have that vinyl. But I wanted to see the first draft of music history. I thought that was new. I thought that was exciting. I wanted to hear the first time George Clinton said, “We want the funk,” and go, “What’s the funk?” So I thought that the audience would have a great time exploring the creation of these songs and these artists, which was really the story of my father. So it was never about money that we didn’t use the masters. We always wanted original voices becoming those characters, because Donna Summer wasn’t Donna Summer. She was LaDonna Gaines playing the part of Donna Summer, just like Chaim Witz was playing the part of Gene Simmons. And that was just like my dad who was Neil Bogatz playing the part of Neil Bogart. So I thought that seeing these people in their raw form as the music took shape was a far more interesting story to tell. It was never a financial consideration; it was one of the first creative decisions I made.

As for the artists, it was astounding how supportive they all were, and I have to believe it’s because they loved my father so much. I think they believed that my father’s story was lost to history, and they saw this as a beautiful love letter to him. Gene and Paul worked with our costume designers, our makeup artists and our production designers. Paul said, “No, not this guitar, that guitar,” and he sent us to the guy who actually made his guitar. So they were incredibly helpful to get it right. And Donna, before she passed away, told me so many stories she had never told anyone before. George Clinton was a constant source, too. So the artists themselves have been unbelievably supportive, and maybe if I was trying to tell the Donna Summer story, maybe it would’ve been different. But I think they all understood that this was the Neil Bogart story, just with this extraordinary history around him. So I couldn’t be more blessed by how wonderfully supportive they all were.

Did you take license with the story behind Kiss’ “Beth”? Or was it actually a slight towards Neil, as well as a wake-up call? 

I did not take license. Perception is a funny thing, for sure, and memories are a funny thing, for sure. But there are those folks who have been carefully, appropriately manicuring their history over the years, and I think Kiss falls into that particular category. If you go back and read early Kiss books versus later Kiss books, history sort of changes along the way. So the very simple truth of that song was that it was not written for someone named Beck, which is the story Gene always likes to tell. “Oh, Peter [Criss] wrote it for Jeff Beck.” That’s not a true story. The true story is that Peter wrote it for his wife. At the same time, Gene and Paul hated the song, thought it wasn’t Kiss and never wanted to release it. And at the same time, they had discovered that my father was sleeping with their manager [Joyce Biawitz]. That was true, and they thought that was a great conflict. Now, they certainly had an indication of that, but this was also happening when their contracts were starting to get a little bit messier with Casablanca. And so, both hating the song and also looking to dig at my dad, the idea of changing the song from Peter Criss’ wife’s name to “Beth” absolutely happened even though Gene has told the story differently.

Whether it’s betting on yourself or being patient, what do you want the audience to take away from Neil Bogart’s story?

Perseverance. At any step of the way, he could have said, “It’s just too much.” At any step of the way, he could have backed away from that cliff, but he so believed in his dreams and the dreams of everyone around him. But it took a stomach of leather and perseverance and just a refusal to accept no from anyone. My father always said that he never believed in the word no, only yes, and it became a bit of a family joke along the way. When he was first diagnosed with cancer and didn’t think he was gonna make it, he actually started writing his life story. He then got better at the time, so he put that document away and forgot about it. And then, of course, he died the following year, but I discovered this document years and years later. And on the very last page, he wrote, “Don’t be sad for me. I’ve lived more in 39 years than anybody has the right to live in a lifetime.” And I really believe he meant that. So I hope that when people see this movie, they walk out with the question of, “Well, what did I do today? What can I do tomorrow?” So embracing that perseverance is really the message I was going for, and that’s certainly what he taught me.

Lastly, what scene would you most like to show your father if he was still with us? 

Wow, what a great question. I really think the ending where he wrestles with the sum of his life, because I do think that he felt he did something that mattered, but he ultimately wasn’t the one that people acknowledged as the one who mattered. I mean, how could you in comparison to Bill Withers or Curtis Mayfield? That was a hard bar for him to reach, but when audiences see the film, I do think they come out of it, thinking, “Boy did he matter.” And so, at the end, when he goes through what the sum of his life was and finds that revelation for himself that he really did matter, I’d love to show him that.

***
Spinning Gold is now playing in movie theaters. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

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