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…theater. And at about... And he invited basically Hollywood to come because we were really proud of this movie. It was kind of my last gasp. And I was proud of it, although I certainly needed to work. 00, and at 7:45 there was about 40% of the audience capacity was there. I mean, it was like more than half empty. And the old publicity guy from Paramount came over to me, and he said, "Well, you know, you put this Travolta, and that kid just doesn't put asses in the seats." And I thought, "Oh, God." And 10 days later we opened it. And there were lines around the block. Wow. And the thing that people didn't understand was the Hollywood snobs wouldn't come see John Travolta, but America was happy to line up because the movie got rave reviews. Yeah. So you're at Paramount, you're turning it around. You then make *The Godfather Part II*, the original *Star Trek* movie, *Saturday Night Fever*, as you mentioned, *Grease*, *Indiana Jones*. I mean, you go on a run, Paramount becomes the number one studio. Why did it work? Well, it's an assemblage of—you know, that's the bimbo thing. You know, there are so many people to thank. It was basically me. No, it's not true. Barry Diller, everyone! No, it is not true. It worked because I think we brought a different—we brought a... You know, in the television business, you develop material and you work on it for a long time, and you do this kind of ratio of development process where you may have 30, 40 projects and you pick just a few. The movie business didn't work that way at that time. It was basically packages that had been assembled by agents who basically put stars together with a star director, whatever, and brought them to the movie company. And we turned that and just started developing material. I mean, *Saturday Night Fever* came from a *New York* magazine article called "The Something Adventures of a Saturday Night Something." Totally made up, by the way; it didn't really exist. It was fiction by Nick Cohn, a good writer. And we developed—we bought that magazine article, and then we developed a script. And we ended up probably having 90 or so projects in various stages of development. And curating that development for getting into the rhythm of that just helped us beat the odds. So at some point you kind of become loose in the saddle at Paramount. You're like, "I want to—I'm itching to do something new." And you think that that new thing is a fourth TV network to rival CBS, NBC, and ABC, but it gets killed at Paramount. It doesn't get... well. But there was some little mini recession, I think, around '72, '73, I don't know, but somewhere in there. And so Gulf and Western pulled back kind of the financing. It wasn't all that much then, but they pulled back the financing. So, yeah, we couldn't do it. You end up instead partnering with Rupert Murdoch and founding Fox as a television... I went to Fox, and then Rupert followed, buying an interest in Fox, really, basically, a few months after I joined Fox. What did you say? I was very lucky. I inherited him. Say more about that. What's the "more" part? Today, he's a very controversial figure. That is not really how you describe him in your book. ed Fox. What did you say? I was very lucky. I inherited him. Say more about that. What's the "more" part? Today, he's a very controversial figure. That is not really how you describe him in your book. You really describe him as... he's this electric ball of energy. Oh, no, no. Rupert Murdoch is—let us separate for those people who do not, as... I don't like Fox News, but he is one of the great entrepreneurial gamblers who, from a tiny, little small-town newspaper in Adelaide, Australia, took over the entire country of Australia when newspapers were the thing, and then moved to the UK and did that. And Rupert loved—he actually loved betting the company. He was... is the perfect gambling entrepreneur, taking huge risks to do things that usually were against the establishment. And also, he was... if you have to work for anybody, I would absolutely say work for him because he gave you all the authority and responsibility you wanted. He never made a single operating decision at Fox. We had one disagreement in eight years of working together. First of all, what he was able to create on three continents—I think it's three. Thank you. Fourth, India, too. Yeah, Star in India. We did a big deep dive on IPL cricket a few months ago, and he played a huge role in TV in India. Oh, yes, yes. Oh, thank you. I didn't even... I've got... I learned something tonight. India is a continent. Well, in Asia, but thank you. Okay, I get it. Anyway, yeah. yed a huge role in TV in India. Oh, yes, yes. Oh, thank you. I didn't even... I've got... I learned something tonight. India is a continent. Well, in Asia, but thank you. Okay, I get it. Anyway, yeah. Do you believe in the management strategy of betting the company, or do you believe that when you're running a successful business, never? I absolutely. You want to work for Rupert, but you don't want to run a company like that. I don't have those guts. I actually think that the only thing—I think the only thing you don't do is bet the company. You can take all sorts of risks, you can do all sorts of things that have... that have not. God knows, if you don't do those, nothing will happen. But to actually bet the company on a single thing—I think that is the thing to absolutely avoid, unless you're, in this case, Rupert Murdoch. Or unless you have no other options. I mean, it's this, like, addictive gambler's thing to be betting the company when you're already at your biggest, when your back's way against the wall, and you sort of have to. Well, no, that's different. We're talking about a company that's doing okay, and you decide to take that good company that's doing okay. And because you want to do something new over here, you place a bet on it that if it fails, it drags that good company with it underneath, and that's not a good thing. Don't do that. Deal. Despite that, though, you were inspired by Rupert to become an entrepreneur and to go be a principal in your own business. I mean, again, you were head of Fox Studio and Television Network. And your next step—your next step was to Westchester, Pennsylvania (my hometown, by the way, which is not New York or L.A., not the Garden)—to go buy QVC. It was because I wanted to. I'd worked for companies all my life. If you work for a company and you have this delusion that it belongs to you—and you should have that, you should feel that the company belongs to you—but in fact, it does not. And so I got this thing in my head, which was, "Can I be independent of this?" I'd been a corporatist for... I was 49 years old. And so I'd been working for 30 years. Could I be on my own? Could I not be part of a "Mother Church"? And I got this thing in my head, "You either are or you're not," which was kind of a binding. And I thought, it wasn't, by the way, that I wanted to do it. I was fat and happy. You were very wealthy at this point. You had done extremely well. Yeah, yeah. Things were fine. And I thought, well, you either are capable of being independent and creating something on your own, or you're not. And as much as I wanted to stay at Fox, I couldn't accept that I was not. And it kind of... it literally forced me out the door. And so you have to give up this, like, "I'm a somebody" in the world. Well, I'll tell you the one thing I did with a big organization and... Big budgets. The thing I did that really helped me... Sorry, but I can't help interrupting you. Thank you. The one thing I did is I began to think, "Am I not going to go do this because I will now have to stand in line at an airport instead of going on this private plane that we had? Is that really...…

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