In the 1970s, there was an embezzlement scandal at Columbia Pictures that took the entertainment
industry by storm.
The scandal involved a few notable figures, with studio head David Begelman being the
culprit, and actor Cliff Robertson being one of the executive’s unwitting victims.
Though David Begelman was the one at fault, Cliff Robertson would be the one who saw lasting
consequences in his career.
Join Facts Verse as we explore how Cliff Robertson couldn’t work for five years after he went
to the police.
The Embezzlement Scandal That Rocked Hollywood In 1977, the entertainment industry was taken
aback by the news that form studio head David Begelman was being welcomed back to Columbia
Studios with open arms.
Shortly beforehand, the studio had announced that the executive was going to temporarily
step down as a result of his involvement in an embezzlement scheme.
As it turns out, David had allegedly embezzled over $60,000 from the studio.
Not only that, but the studio head used the name of actor Cliff Robertson to do so.
One day in the mid-1970s, Cliff Robertson received a tax record slip from Columbia Pictures
denoting that the studio had paid him $10,000.
At the time, Cliff hadn’t done any work for the studio in a while.
The honest man that he was, Cliff immediately went about trying to get to the bottom of
the apparent mistake.
Cliff’s first step was to ask his secretary to contact Columbia Pictures, which she did.
The studio called the secretary back and informed her that some mistake must have been made
within the studio’s accounting department.
The person who called was adamant that the studio was going to get to the bottom of the
discrepancy.
Cliff Robertson’s secretary shared the news that the studio was attempting to get to the
bottom of the mistake, and this gave the actor enough peace of mind to put the issue out
of his head for the time being.
Cliff had to do some traveling at the time in order to film a picture, and he forgot
about the whole incident until he returned home.
It would be several months before the actor received any answers about the strange tax
record slip that he had received from Columbia Pictures, and those answers wouldn’t be
very satisfactory.
David Begelman Attempted to Smooth Things Over
Several months after initially having his secretary contact the studio, Cliff Robertson
started receiving phone calls from Columbia Pictures.
In particular, Cliff’s answering machine was being filled up with messages from studio
head David Begelman, who claimed that he needed to talk to Cliff Robertson personally about
the matter regarding the alleged $10,000 payment.
Upon becoming privy to the numerous messages waiting on his machine, Cliff contacted the
studio head and the two subsequently met for lunch.
Cliff Robertson already had some familiarity with David Begelman, as Cliff had been a client
of one of David’s previous employers.
Cliff had previously been a client of a talent agency by the name of Creative Management
Associates.
At the time that Cliff had been a client, David had been an executive.
David had long since moved up to his powerful position at Columbia Pictures, where he held
a good deal of esteem thanks to numerous hits that he had helped secure for the studio.
Cliff had little reason to be suspicious of the man and was more than willing to hear
the executive’s side of the story.
Sadly, the story that David Begelman had for Cliff Robertson wasn’t the truth.
When Cliff Robertson sat down for dinner with David Begelman, David had a story ready for
the actor that would temporarily quell his suspicions about the tax record slip that
he had received for $10,000.
According to David, a young man that had been working for Columbia Pictures had admitted
to an embezzlement scheme.
David claimed that the young man had forged a check for $10,000 in Cliff Robertson’s
name.
However, David’s story also indicated that the young man had subsequently become overridden
with guilt and turned himself in.
David said that the young man had come into the executive’s office, accompanied by his
father.
The young man confessed to his crimes and apparently wanted to make things right.
Cliff Robertson Inadvertently Discovered the Truth
Of course, David Begelman’s story came with the insistence that Cliff Robertson not go
to the authorities.
David claimed that he had taken care of the issue and that there was no need to trouble
the young perpetrator any further.
Cliff was apparently moved enough by the story that he agreed there was no reason to press
charges with the authorities.
However, after talking things over with agent Michael Black, Cliff told David that he would
at least need a copy of the forged check for his records before letting the matter go.
Cliff Robertson went about getting the check that had been forged in his name.
In doing so, he learned the truth about what really happened.
It seems that David Begelman had been lying about who had really been guilty in the forgery
case.
Not only that, but the alleged embezzlement of $10,000 was only the tip of the iceberg!
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David Begelman Was Responsible the Whole Time!
When Cliff Robertson went about securing a copy of the check that had been forged in
his name for $10,000, he ended up coming into contact with the bank teller who had apparently
cashed the check.
As a result of the staggering sum of money involved, the bank teller vividly remembered
the event.
The bank teller then went about recounting the event to Cliff Robertson, at the actor’s
request.
Shockingly, the account would include the name of the person who allegedly came to the
bank to cash the check with the teller.
That person wasn’t a young man, as David Begelman had suggested to Cliff over dinner.
Instead, that person had actually been David Begelman himself.
Upon learning from this bank teller that the man who had cashed the check for $10,000 was
David Begelman, Cliff Robertson was understandably taken aback.
Cliff went to his aforementioned agent Michael Black, and the two agreed that Cliff’s only
appropriate move going forward would be to take his story to the authorities.
Cliff initially went to the police, contacting the police departments of both Beverly Hills
and Burbank.
After a brief period of time, Cliff was apparently dissatisfied with the efforts the police were
making in connection to the crime and felt that he needed to go above their head.
Cliff subsequently brought the matter to the attention of the FBI, who proved a bit more
interested.
Finally, in October of 1977, the crime finally caught up with David Begelman.
It was announced that the studio head was going to be temporarily stripped of his duties
while an internal investigation was being made at Columbia Pictures.
David’s future with the studio would then rest of the results of the impending investigation.
At least, that was what the world was meant to infer.
After a period of around three months, it was revealed that the $10,000 that David Begelman
had embezzled using Cliff Robertson’s name had only been the tip of the iceberg of the
studio head’s crimes.
All in all, it seems that the studio head had embezzled a total of over $60,000 from
the studio he was in charge of.
David Begelman Faced No Direct Consequences Given that David Begelman had stolen upwards
of $60,000 from Columbia Pictures, one would assume that the studio would’ve wanted to
see the executive banished as quickly as possible.
However, this wasn’t the case.
David Begelman had helped the studio out quite a bit over the past few years, and it wasn’t
all that anxious to get rid of him.
David had been responsible for numerous hits for the studio, to the point where the tens
of thousands of dollars that he had embezzled didn’t seem like all that big of a deal.
As a result, David was allowed to keep his job at Columbia Pictures, though he was let
go a few years later after the studio realized that the executive no longer had the golden
touch.
Columbia Pictures didn’t want to press charges against David Begelman, even though the studio
head had firmly been in the wrong when it came to the embezzlement scheme.
This created a fairly awkward situation for Cliff Robertson.
Cliff hadn’t done a single thing wrong and had only been interested in doing what he
thought was honest and right.
Ironically, Cliff’s insistence on bringing David’s embezzlement to the attention of
the authorities caused the actor to essentially be blacklisted.
David used his continuing sway in the industry to prevent Cliff from getting future work,
and Cliff didn’t have all that strong of a career, to begin with.
Some of the many hits that David Begelman was considered responsible for during his
tenure at Columbia Pictures include Funny Lady, Shampoo, and Tommy.
When the embezzlement scandal came to light, numerous celebrities came out of the woodwork
to say nice things about the studio executive.
Some of these celebrities included Jack Nicholson and Barbara Streisand.
Sadly, no such big-name celebrities came out to bat for Cliff Robertson.
Cliff claimed that he had been warned by some of his friends that taking the embezzlement
matter to the authorities was likely going to be a risky move for his career.
However, Cliff was an honest man first and foremost, and a Hollywood player second.
Prior to the embezzlement scandal, Cliff had been a prolific Hollywood actor.
However, he had never managed to become a full-blown film star.
The actor’s most notable role was arguably playing the titular character in the 1968
film Charly, though he had previously played the on-screen spouse of Joan Crawford in 1956’s
Autumn Leaves.
Cliff Robertson Was Ostracized from Hollywood Following the embezzlement scandal, Cliff
Robertson didn’t work much in the years leading up to his 2011 death.
One of his last roles was a bit part in 2002’s Spider-Man.
Meanwhile, David Begelman continued working as a Hollywood executive to his dying day,
which ended up coming sooner rather than later.
In 1995, after years of moving from studio to studio and failing to secure major hits
for any of them, David committed suicide.
The Columbia Pictures embezzlement scandal that involved David Begelman and Cliff Robertson
is certainly one of the more interesting tales in Hollywood history.
Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Columbia Pictures executive David
Begelman was found to have embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the studio in
the 1970s and that he was allowed to keep his job afterward?
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