Hi, and welcome to a special bonus episode of Technically Creative. Today's a really fun one, because I get to speak to a modern living legend. Some stories, you know, they grow so tall they start to feel like fiction. But weirdly, as incredible as it is, John's story isn't one of those. It's too specific, too improbable, and too stitched into the fabric of Hollywood history to be anything else but real. But just like anything in Hollywood, understanding the true story from the story is all just part of the game. He's been called a hustler and a tough guy, but Michael Jackson called him brilliant, original, and a visionary. Prince is said to have called him one of the most talented white guys he's ever met. And Barbra Streisand called him a genius. So which of these is it, hustler or genius? People love to say that John started as a hairdresser and somehow, somehow, became one of the most powerful producers in the world. But that somehow covers a lot of sins. It's an apocryphal story that people love, and it's come to epitomize the way that anyone, even a hairdresser, can make it in Hollywood. But that version skips a lot of the good stuff. It skips the fact that John wasn't just cutting hair for somebody else. He built the John Peter Salon in the 1970s with three locations, turning them into cultural hubs at one of the coolest, wildest times in Hollywood history. He wasn't just holding a blow dryer. He was running a creative business around the time that everyone even thought hair could even begin to be creative. It's been said that he was the inspiration for Warren Beatty's character in Shampoo, a film about a Hollywood Lothario hairdresser. But as with so much of John's story, it's impossible to know where the truth ends and the legend begins. But undoubtedly, it was from this world of hairdressing that he met Barbra Streisand, and he designed a wig, which she may or may not have needed or asked for, and fell in love and started a love story that would launch his film career and revitalize her career with A Star is Born. And from that moment, the fuse was lit on what would become an incredibly impossible and improbable career. What followed feels like a superhero origin story with one hit after another. We're talking Flashdance and Caddyshack, American Werewolf in London and Rain Man, and then Batman. And then after doing Batman, which arguably began the superhero genre in the modern era as we know it, he made a deal that shook the entire industry. John and his producing partner, Peter Guber, orchestrated the buyout of Columbia Pictures and TriStar by Sony, and they became the inaugural co-chairmen of Sony Pictures. It was a triumphant, chaotic, and famously volcanic relationship and crazy time period for Hollywood, and they had big plans, big plans that didn't exactly pan out. So John left in 1991, and he did what only John Peters could do, would do, or would even think was possible. When he got a lot deal at Warner Brothers, he started looking for what project to take up next and saw that the Superman rights were coming up for renegotiation. So John waited until the day after they lapsed and called up and said, this is John Peters from Warner Brothers calling to renegotiate the option. And just like that, John bought the film rights to one of the most iconic American characters of the last century and kept them for nearly 25 years. This is the first of many conversations with John that we've got about six parts to this. You know, he's a man whose life has been mythologized and criticized and dramatized and whispered about, written about and misunderstood for decades. And my goal in these sessions is pretty simple. I just want to contextualize his career and pull apart the legend and the myth of a producer who has undeniably done some of the biggest things in Hollywood history, but has also been considered a fluke by many Hollywood insiders. And I want to pull that part, that legend, but I also want to understand what kind of personality survives all that and causes all that and keeps going. And still to this day, he's maybe one of the most optimistic people I've ever met in my life. John's story is aspirational, and I think we're drawn to it because it breaks every rule. It's the archetype of the Hollywood leap, the reminder that anyone can make it into the room, but then you have to have enough instinct and nerve and vision and willingness to swing for the fences every single day. And whether you admire him or question him or just are curious about how a kid from Griffith Park ended up rewriting Hollywood history a little bit, you'll hear things that undeniably could only come from John. It's the beginning of John talking about himself and his career. And we'll be talking over the successive parts about various parts of his career. So stick around. This is just part one. It's a bonus episode because I'm not entirely sure where it fits in all this. But when an opportunity to sit down with a modern living legend and somebody who's produced some of the greatest films of all time, when you have that opportunity, you take it. And so although I'm not entirely sure editorial where this fits, I really hope you enjoy it. I think you will. I look forward to hearing what you think. your story's a modern legend um and this podcast really is about kind of creativity and creative industries you started in hairdressing at a very interesting time you know just to kind of look at some of the things that were going on around the time that you were really like hitting your stride in hairdressing in the 60s and 70s hairdressing was finally kind of becoming creative up until that point, you went and you got one of five different haircuts. And then you and Paul Mitchell and Vidal Sassoon were kind of really doing some interesting things at the time. And when people talk about your story, they talk about you being a hairdresser, but they kind of forget that you ran a franchise of hairdressing salons around LA, arguably, you know, at one of the coolest times for LA. And I was just wondering, you know, what are your memories of that time? First of all, I went to beauty school because it was the way I got out of going to jail. And I had to go. I was being locked up. My dad died and my mother married some guy who was a bum. And anyhow they locked me up But they put me in beauty school and I learned very quickly what it like to be on your own and do people hair But it was a very exciting time for me because I ended up going to Paris. I ended up going to London. I always had an eye for a beautiful woman. And that's because if you have a beautiful client, a lot of women want to come in and look like that person. They have no idea that they can't. Vigel Sassoon was a good friend of mine. And absolutely, you know, when you think back to my whole life, I've always been a dreamer. Hairdressing for me was just a stop on the way. I had no intention of staying there. But it was, I was a storyteller. And hairdressing was fun, but I was a storyteller. It seems like Paul Mitchell and Vidal Sassoon were pushing into fashion, and whereas you... Movies, movie stars, movie stars. I didn't give a shit about that. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to work with stars. I was a kid at Ten Commandments. I was seven years old. I was riding horses out in Griffith Park where they used to keep lions and tigers and elephants and everything for those big kind of Tarzan movies and stuff. They kept them all there out in Burbank. I stood there with 100 kids in front of the Paramount Gate. It was like, whoa, what the hell, man? This had some kind of power over me. Magic power. and they picked me as one of the 15 kids and I remember standing in the thing and I look back today like this room and all the movies and all this stuff. It's a lifetime of commitment and you kids that are producing this thing that we're doing, you're taking the next generation of all my work and taking it to your own generation it's like a my ex-partner once said that i had a picasso life meaning many choices and i mean speaking of choices that's actually a perfect segue yeah your structure's working well listen you you you actually let's get it on okay okay okay i'm sorry okay um yeah because surprisingly jp you landed the plane i forgot i forgot um but no you landed the plane perfectly because i was going to say like you know When you said that you had a lot of choices, a lot of opportunities, obviously the opportunity that came around you is you were working with a lot of stars at your salon, three franchises. You were starting to sell products. And then obviously you started doing wigs and haircuts for films. And then you found yourself kind of gravitating towards working in film. And, you know, obviously you met Barbara through hairdressing. And you did a wig for one of her films. I won't go into that. Nothing has been spilled about your time with Barbara. But for you – I can't talk about Barbara. You can talk about her. I love Barbara. I love her. She's crazy as a hoot owl, but I love her to death. We made a lot of money together. We did a lot of good things together. It's all good because at the end of the day, I'm very grateful for everything in my life I couldn't be happier and I think that I always always just wanted to make I didn't want to necessarily make movies but I wanted to make movies, yeah I did and I wanted to and then as time went on I wanted to be a financial guy I wanted to be able to build America's great fortune, which all of these kids are helping me do, and we're all doing it together. And because it allows me to be of service of other people, of helping people, of giving to people, of making arrangements for people to have opportunities that they may not have. That's power, and that's beauty. You know, I just, Dr. Joe Dispenza, who's a fellow that my lady introduced me to, who's a brilliant guy. And he talks about if you're not actively participating in the future, you're actually living in the past or making decisions from the past. So much of this podcast is about creativity. And really, a lot of the soul of creativity is in confidence. And I think that one of the things that's been... The soul of creativity is you have to have a vision. if you have a good vision, you will get confidence. And people have written a lot about your confidence. You are, you know, you're one of the most confident people I've ever met. And Barbara, even in her book said, you know, John, when we had a director drop out on stars born, John turned around and immediately said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to direct it. That's, that's me. I'm going to do it. And she looked at you and she was so impressed by you and impressed by your confidence that she said it would kind of gave her the seed to eventually go and direct herself. She said that? Yeah. In her book? You know, if this guy – I never read her book. I never have. Right. Right. Well, she was, you know, very complimentary of you. Yeah. But yeah, she said that – chick with a with a beautiful soul one day we were driving in the car and we were on our way to Warner Brothers and on the way there we got into a big argument about something and I grabbed her and as I grabbed her she pulled away and her shirt ripped And when her shirt ripped, her boobs stuck out, and we're driving down the freeway, and people are going, look, it's Barbara Streisand with her tits sticking out. Oh, my God, oh, my God. So then she, what she does is she leans back, she's got high heels on, sticks the heel in my neck and starts grinding my neck as I'm trying to drive the car. So yeah, no, Barbara is a great, great lady. And I can't wait to do my own podcast so that I can really get into and let people know what a wonderful woman she is. So yeah, yeah, she is great. Such a huge part of your success is being able to get really impossible things done. I mean, And that is, you know, if there's any one trait that defines a producer, it's being able to talk people into understanding their vision and getting them to buy into, you know, and just some of the impossible things, you know, are obviously getting the rights to Batman, producing Batman. You know, just getting Star is Born made as your first ever film. talking Jack Nicholson into being the Joker when you guys have been turned down five times and you said, let me have a weekend away with Jack and I'll talk him into doing it. Barbara was trying to get out of a movie to do Star is Born and you said, she was really fretting about it and you said, let me take Steve Ross for a drive and I'll talk to him and I'll... Steve Ross for a drive, you remember that? Where'd you find that? I researched you. I've been researching it. Yes, on the way to the airport. We drove in the car. Yeah. And I made her a deal that saved her, I think, a couple million bucks in the car ride. Yeah. Oh, God. You found that in the newspaper somewhere? Wow. Yeah, and, you know, you and Steve Ross had a great relationship. Good detail, man. Really good detail. Very impressed. Yeah, thanks. You're welcome. But, you know, you and Steve Ross then had an incredibly good working relationship past that. And something that initially Barbara was very worried about and Warner Brothers was very angry at her, you turned into a great opportunity for her, a great opportunity for the studio. Yeah, everybody's got to win. Both parties have to win. That's the key to business. You've got to come up, A, with good ideas that people recognize a good idea. And, B, you have to be able to – everybody's got to win. You can't. be a bull, be a bear, don't be a pig. You can't be a pig. You've got to be enough food for everybody. Then you eat forever, you see. Eat forever, not just for one night. Yeah. And that's the key. I look at it long term. I'm doing business with Ronnie Meyer and all kinds of friends of mine. Ronnie used to run CAA or was it CAA? One of the biggest agents in the world, one of the smartest guys on the planet. Great charm. He could charm the pants right off anybody. and a great guy and been a friend a long time and I love the guy and and he's gone through some tough times and everybody is completely I can't I wanted to work with him he doesn't want to work he's retired but I'd like to work with him yeah it's funny one of the you know one of the words that's come up a lot in researching you is the term hustler hustler hustler and Barbara Walters even pretty much opened with it in your interview with you and barbara streisand and barbara walters was interviewing you she said are you a hustler and what struck me is your initial your immediate answer was yeah of course i'm a hustler i've been hustling my whole life yeah and it's funny back then it seemed to be a pejorative whereas now i think people call each other a hustler as a positive term you know i think what they tried to i think mean was scam artist but in fact i was It was very early in the ability. I don't know. I don't know how I got my kids. I don't know how it all came. I've been the luckiest man in the world, made more money than I ever thought I could make in my lifetime. And I think that, honestly, it's a gift from God. Everybody says the same thing. Will Smith says, I talk to God today. Everybody talks to God. But we all do in our own way. We all talk to that inner God inside ourselves. And I try to do the right thing. And by trying to do the right thing, the right thing finds me. And like Julia, my lady, you know, I almost died from, I couldn't, life was hard for me. And I was taking pills to calm myself down. And I almost ended up in Cedars in a hospital, a suicide ward. And that was not my intention. So, yeah, no, I think that it's instincts. I swing for the fences, too. I try to get involved with things that, if I get it done, makes a big difference. And does that just come naturally to you? Yeah, it does. Do you feel like you just are in tune with your instincts in a way that other people potentially aren't? Pretty much, yeah. Do you have – is there a way to articulate that? I had 40 women every day cutting her. Good morning, ma'am. Cutting her hair. And your brain gets bigger and bigger and bigger because everybody tells you what they do. Everybody's got a husband. Oh, so you're literally saying that the social aspect of – Yes, taught me everything. Being in a hairdresser. Everything. The street, people, and out in the world, I assimilated, I created, I manifested, and I executed what I saw. That's fascinating. Let me put a stop right here. We'll do it again later. You want to do it more? I'm tired. Well, didn't we do a lot? How much more do we got? I have to save some for my own show, man. No, they're not. I can tell you about business All right Can I ask two questions and then we do the rest Yeah Can we do it again One is Wuzhi dances with wolves but he didn want to do it anymore Yeah. One more time. One more time. For the kids. Yeah. Time more minutes. Time more minutes. So. Go ahead. You've made a movie in every decade for 50 years. Yeah. Which is a phenomenal achievement. your first one Star is Born in the 70s obviously you were in Ten Commandments before that that was back in the 50s but last one is actually it's bookended by Star is Born your first one and your last one are both Star is Born in between there's obviously Batman, Superman, Color Purple Rain Man unbelievable classics do you think storytelling has changed when it comes to the movies yes and no no because if it's not a good story ain't a good movie yes because of this whole technological aspects of using this and that you know it's like it's not just scenes where you're talking or fighting or doing yeah so it's the same but basically look it's everything anything you do, you have to have a good story for people to want to participate in it. You have to have a good story for people to want to be a part of it. I start laying the groundwork for my stuff, sometimes 10 years in advance. I know it's going to take a long time, but I drop seeds about things. And one of the things that I love about Julie is that we talk every day for two, three hours about everything. She's so smart. And if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't do any of this because it's too anxiety provoking for me. You realize when you ask a question, it's a great thing, but I've got to go back in time into that space to answer it. And usually it's painful. That's phenomenal. Cause for somebody who's had a life that is so that other people want to know about other people want to tell your story, whatever their spin is on it, it's interesting enough that they want to tell it. And it's, it's surprising to hear that it, it's painful for you all along the way. It is. It's not devastating, but it is painful. A couple of times today, I almost stopped because I was getting like, oh, you know, it's, it's a lot of, you know, my life is Barbara, for instance, was amazing for a lot of these girls, a few of these girls, these women that I have been with that don't talk to me anymore is because they feel like I left them. But we never really had a chance to talk about what didn't work. You know what I mean? In other words, marriage is a partnership for many reasons. And my reason was stay sober, which is what Julia taught me, and have a creative partner like now holding my hand and being able to have ideas and be able to tell me things. That's what I want. I love having a partner. I love Peter Goober. Peter Goober was the greatest partner any man could ever have. That was unfortunate. That's another chapter. But there's a lot of my experience in juvie, going to jail as a young kid. That was horrifying. And at the same time, once you get through each day, But once you make it through, it's just another notch on your gun. Well, JP, I have many more questions. That'll be section two. Yeah, exactly. See if anybody likes what we did. If people like it, we'll do another one. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. Because, yeah, I mean, apart from anything else, like researching you is just fun for me. Like I'm, I'm a fan of yours as much as I'm happy to call you a friend. And, um, yeah, well, no, I'm your father. I'm your father-in-law. I mean, you know, we're like, uh, that's it. This is, I'm lucky that I don't have to compromise myself in order to love my kids. I got to take that gas sex again. See? and we'll return for part two after the gasset yeah yeah that's right yeah that was awesome we were still running if you've made it this far you you clearly know this conversation was a little unruly a little chaotic uh but also uniquely John. It meanders, of course it does. But somewhere along the way, we do find our rhythm. We've spoken for about six hours at this point. So there's a lot to go through and we start to really scratch the surface on a lot of these stories. And when it locks in, we cover an entire lifetime in real time. His relationship with the professional love of his life, Peter Guber, the wild early days at Warner's and then at Sony, the improbable winds, the legendary movies, the addictions, the recovery, and the loves that shaped his life. And that's why I'm so glad you're here for this, because conversations like this aren't as clean as some of the other interviews. They're supposed to feel lived in. They're supposed to feel like somebody actually thinking back through their life, not just reciting the story of it that they've recited a thousand times. So what you heard today is part one of quite a few. We'll be releasing them about once a month. And as we go forward, things only get deeper and sharper and, uh, but more surprising, uh, we start digging into the myth and what it actually took to survive five decades at the center of Hollywood's most volatile and explosive stories. So stick around, uh, the best parts, a lot of revelations and a lot of surprises, um, uh, are, are coming, uh, and they're still ahead. So thank you for listening. Um, and I'll see you in part two in a month's time. Thanks. Thank you.
