WOODSTOCK, The Movie
Two weeks into his job at Warner Bros. and only four days before the legendary music festival was to open its gates, Fred convinced his reluctant Warner Bros. superiors to put up the money to make the Woodstock documentary.
FROM THE MAN BEHIND A HALF-CENTURY OF MUSIC, MOVIES AND MARTIAL ARTS
A Memoir by Fred Weintraub
with David Fields
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Excerpt From Chapter 2 - Sneaking into the Movies
Missing Woodstock By Saturday morning, when I walked into the board of directors meeting, news about the festival was circulating heavily in the media; and it wasn’t pretty. All of the reporting the first two days focused on the negative: the monumental traffic jams; the performers who didn’t show up (including Joni Mitchell, Iron Butterfly, and Bob Dylan); the dangerous over-crowding; the thousands of ticket-holders and hopeful walk-ins who never got within earshot; the thousands upon thousands of early arrivals who crashed the non-existent gate, prompting Artie and his fellow producers to throw up their hands and declare the concert free and open to all; the rampant drug use; and the torrential summer downpours that turned the entire festival site into a massive mud wrestling pit. Woodstock looked like a colossal disaster area and would soon be declared one by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. In a town that relishes other people’s epic failures with sadistic glee, I was the idiot du jour. By Monday morning I was a bigger hero than Neil Armstrong. All he did was walk on the moon. I saved Warner Bros. |
Copyright 2016 Fred Weintraub Productions