‘Eyeball for eyeball, there is greater value in Canadian programs than American programs, not lesser value. Canadian audiences are the intended targets of our programs, not just an incidental audience. We speak to our audiences with specific cultural references that are unique to our own society. That inspires a sense of familiarity and shared experience, which creates immediacy and bonding between the audience and the program. We are alone in the world in believing that indigenous is worth less. We have never been a u.s.. colony, so why do we persist in acting like one?’

Robert Lantos

to the Broadcast Executives Society

Toronto, April 13, 1995

The news that Robert Lantos was stepping down from his role as active chairman and ceo of Alliance Communications took many people by surprise, all except those who have listened carefully to what Canada’s only genuine old-style movie mogul has been saying for years.

In a 1995 speech to the Canadian Advanced Technology Association, he explained that he had just wanted to make moviesÉbut that it wasn’t a possibility when he finished post-graduate studies in communications at McGill University in 1972.

‘In retrospect, it’s as if all I wanted was a glass of milk, but there were no cows. And so I had to raise some cattle, plant the right kind of grazing crops, build a barn, buy refrigerated trucks to get the product to the market – you get the idea,’ he told the audience in Calgary.

How surprising can it be that he is now going to pour himself the biggest, sweetest glass of milk he ever wanted by making only movies he loves with people whose talent he believes in – with the backing of the company he founded?

Of course, the multimillion payoff as he cashes out will make it all possible. It’s a success well earned and more than two decades in the making.

Demanding

Some of the things you’ve heard about Robert Lantos are true. He’s extraordinarily demanding. He’s colorful and hedonistic. He’ll negotiate you – or drive you – to the edge, but then buy you the best meal you’ve ever had. He’s loyal to a fault, inspiring great loyalty in return. Who can forget the regular sight of the extraordinary Cherri Campbell, Robert’s longtime assistant, having pulled off the impossible yet again and muttering under her breath: ‘I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.’

But that’s so far short of being the whole story – a story which few people really know. The real Robert Lantos is always passionate, and deeply attached to certain values; he is equipped with unique characteristics to propel him to his goals.

Even people who have left his employ disillusioned or unhappy will acknowledge that to work with Robert is to engage in a constant learning experience. That’s because of the demanding part.

In the time that I worked with him (briefly as an Alliance executive, and in later years as an external consultant), I occupied the office next door to his for the equivalent of one school year. I worked very hardÉbut no harder than he did himself. And like many others, I principally adored the part of my job that involved working directly with him.

He often asked me, as he did many others, to accomplish complex, difficult things within very tight time frames.

But it was never more than a fraction of what he demanded of himself. If he were calling me after dinner with Gerard Depardieu in Paris, or after negotiating a deal to buy a television station in Budapest, or after a breakfast meeting with Rebecca de Mornay in Los Angeles, it might be 4 a.m. my time, but he would have been up at least as many hours as I had, and I had better be alert and up to speed.

His dissatisfaction was truly awesome to behold. I learned quickly that there were only two possible courses of action when he was displeased.

If there was a chance he was wrong, you had to stand up to him firmly, steadily and with dignity. Eventually, he would calm down and consider – if not necessarily agree with – your point of view. This was the only way to earn his respect, and fundamental to a viable relationship with him.

If he was right, you had to look him in the eye and say, ‘Robert, you’re absolutely right. I made a mistake, and I’ll never make that particular mistake again.’ This would take the wind right out of his sails, and was eventually – once I got my heartbeat under control – somewhat entertaining. And in fact, over time, his puckish sense of humor became more evident, more endearing, and more salutary to the work at hand.

His relentless focus, his brutal drive and energy, his overwhelming self-confidence; these vaguely unCanadian traits, so quickly obvious to anyone working closely with him, have been key to his contribution to the Canadian film and television industry.

There were so many doors to open, rules to break, and barriers to overcome. Robert Lantos simply doesn’t accept any kind of obstacle. He believes that vision and talent can, should and will prevail. Few of us have the genetic makeup to barrel through in this way. But there are lessons and key observations to be drawn from this remarkable record.

Passion for Canada

Robert could have had a brilliant career anywhere, especially in Hollywood from his early 20s on. He chose to stay here, and to make a major contribution to building a real industry here. Why? Largely because of a genuine passion for Canada which is difficult for some of our more comfortable brethren to imagine or understand.

One who does is Ivan Fecan, president and ceo of the CTV Group, himself the child of Russian immigrants to Canada.

‘Robert’s contribution in building the industry as we know it today is immeasurable. He stayed in Canada, making many distinctive movies and shows, and marketing them with flair and originality, because he believed passionately in his product, and in this country. Even in the manner of leaving the company he founded, he has shown his concern about the future of our industry.’

As a child, Robert and his family had to leave Hungary because of tremendous political upheaval. They landed in Uruguay, where they had to learn an entirely new language and culture. In 1958, Uruguay was not exactly a fun place for a young Jewish foreigner. In Montevideo, the young Robert was tracked and beaten up by anti-Semite thugs. No wonder Montreal in 1963 appeared as a paradise, despite the need to start over again in yet another language and culture.

An only child, Robert watched his immigrant parents work tirelessly for his future, his mother sewing late into the night to bring in a few extra dollars to pay for his studies. It was an experience he’s never forgotten.

When he started at McGill, his interest in film was already well honed. He took courses in revolutionary cinema and Sergei Eisenstein, and wrote for lurid North American tabloids based in Montreal to earn living expenses.

In these McGill years, he formed many of the key relationships that would carry through his professional life, particularly his friendship and partnership with Victor Loewy.

It was a trip to New York that brought his first great business opportunity to his attention. The New York Erotic Film Festival was a huge success in the Big Apple. Robert talked it over with his friend Victor. They decided that bringing the festival to Montreal and running it at McGill would be a good idea. They got the rights somehow, and the festival was a huge success. It was the first real project undertaken by Vivafilm, which remains Alliance’s identity in Quebec.

Later, Robert sold the rights to Moses Znaimer’s fledgling Citytv, and both benefited hugely from this acquisition.

(See sidebar by Moses Znaimer: ‘How I started Robert Lantos in business [and why he owes it all to me]’, p. L5)

Legend has it that the introductory sequence to the erotic films was made using sound effects produced by a creaking rocking chair – when the young film distributors and their friends could stop giggling long enough to record it clearly. It sounded like something somewhat more – well, erotic – and it did the trick cheaply. At the time, that was important.

When Robert graduated from McGill, he went to see his professor John Grierson, founder of the National Film Board, for help in getting a job. Grierson told him that if he wanted to work in the business in Canada, the cbc and the nfb were his only choices. And rather than astounding them with his brilliant movie knowledge, he would be better off applying for a job as a driver and working his way up.

Robert did not take this advice.

He continued to dream about making movies of his own in Canada, and eventually he found a way: to finance In Praise of Older Women in 1977, ‘I hit on everyone I knew and everyone they knew and raised a million dollars in units of $10,000,’ he says. ‘I even got my dentist to invest, though I was careful not to go back for a drilling until after he got his money back.’

That film made money, but the next problem was getting it released theatrically in Canada: ‘My first memorable encounter with the great Canadian inferiority complex occurred in 1977 when I made In Praise of Older Women. I tried to convince the head programmer at that time of one of Canada’s largest theater circuits to play the picture in some of his best theaters. He was quite amused by my audacity, then proceeded to enlighten me about the realities of the film business in Canada.

‘He explained that the theaters in question were reserved for major studio pictures, and not, to use his exact words, `for bush-league Canadian productions’. Since he had not seen my film, I was curious to know how he knew it was bush-league.

‘He said: `I don’t need to see the picture. I already know it won’t do any business. It’s Canadian.’ Fortunately, he was dead wrong. But traces of his defeatist attitude are still with us in Canadian society today.’

And that is the one thing Robert Lantos cannot tolerate.

Over and over again, he lambastes us for our lack of vision and courage. And mostly, we recognize that he has a point.

Most memorably, he used the opportunity of receiving an Air Canada award for entrepreneurship at the Geminis in 1992 to excoriate the national airline for showing terrible American b movies on its flights and not buying any from Canadian companies. Air Canada is now a faithful customer for Alliance films and other Canadian programming.

Says film industry analyst Dan Johnson, who knew him well as an Alliance executive, then as president and ceo of the Canadian Association of Film and Video Distributors and Exporters: ‘Robert Lantos may be a throwback to the moguls who founded Hollywood 75 years ago – visionaries with fire in their bellies and street smarts. It is not likely that we will soon see again in Canada the success in building a content business from scratch that he appears to have achieved single-handedly.’

Robert remains one of the few figures in the Canadian industry to be fully integrated and a high profile ‘player’ in both French-speaking and English-speaking Canada – as well as around the world. In fact, his first feature film, L’Ange et la Femme, starring the stunning Carole Laure and directed by legendary Quebec filmmaker Gilles Carles with music by Lewis Furey, was made shortly after the creation of RSL Entertainment in Montreal.

Alliance has continued to work with the major figures of Quebec cinema and television, from Denys Arcand and Jean-Claude Lauzon to Robert Lepage, Lorraine Richard and many more.

Between 1975 and 1985, Robert produced 12 motion pictures at rsl including In Praise of Older Women, Suzanne and Joshua Then and Now, which was invited to the Cannes Film Festival. In 1985, both rsl and Vivafilm were folded into Alliance Communications Corporation.

The move into television in the mid-’80s, with shows like Night Heat, was primarily intended to diversify risk. It became hugely successful for Alliance, and will be the largest business of Alliance Atlantis Communications, the new merged company. But in fiscal 1998, film was still the major contributor to Alliance’s bottom line.

Recently, after a string of successes in world markets and a record number of honors from the Cannes Film Festival, Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter scored two Academy Award nominations, and Robert Lantos was heartened to feel a change in media reaction.

In February, he told the Canadian Club and the Empire Club what had happened: ‘Last week, something magical happened. At the Sweet Hereafter press conference, the journalists forgot their history of professional skepticism. They checked their spears and arrows at the door. And as the media do in other countries all the time, they took a moment to celebrate, embracing our victory as their own. They applauded, they cheered, they smiled. They actually took communal pleasure in the accomplishment.

‘In classic Canadian tradition, it did take recognition in the u.s. to bring this about. Who even noticed that The Sweet Hereafter had won the Genie award for best picture? But no matter, they did cheer.’

Helga Stephenson, chair of Viacom Canada and former executive director of the Toronto International Film Festival, is a longtime friend and supporter: ‘Robert Lantos took the best of the Canadian film industry and created its prominence in the international scene through his amazing showmanship, and business acumen. And he always does it first class. The industry worldwide pays attention to Lantos. And so do I.’

Under the leadership of Robert Lantos, Alliance has become a vertically integrated force to be reckoned with. The merged company, official Sept. 16, the date of the Alliance annual meeting, will be a powerhouse entertainment company, the twelfth-largest in the world, the equivalent of Spelling Productions in Hollywood.

And Robert Lantos? ‘The good news,’ says Wayne Clarkson, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Advanced Film Studies, ‘is that he’s staying around. And he’ll be devoting all that energy, passion, commitment and resources to Canadian movies, which really need him.’

So do we all.