An Italian business tycoon who ‘nearly killed off Bond’ will lift the lid on his chaotic purchase of the legendary MGM film studio in a new BBC documentary tonight.
Waiter turned movie mogul Giancarlo Parretti bought the classic franchise for $1.3billion in 1990 with grand plans to revamp it.
But within weeks of his takeover, cheques to Hollywood stars bounced, the 17th Bond movie was put on hold and hundreds of staff lost their jobs.
The FBI was called in and Parretti’s grasp on MGM, which famously prefaced its movies with a roaring lion, started to slip.
He fled to Mexico and then Italy but who really is he and where is he now?
Here , takes a look at the life of Giancarlo Parretti and the story behind his takeover of MGM.
It comes as he is interviewed in a groundbreaking documentary The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood which airs tonight at 9pm (4pm EST) on BBC2.
Who is Giancarlo Parretti?
Giancarlo Parretti was born in Orvieto, Italy, in 1941 and claims he was raised an orphan.
He then moved to London where he worked as a waiter at London’s Savoy Hotel and even served wartime prime minister Winston Churchill.
Parretti produced a religious film in the 1980s (Bernadette) that supposedly made the Pope cry, before heading to New York where he ran a restaurant frequented by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
It is understood he made his fortune ‘buying, restructuring and selling troubled companies in Europe’.
He started his ‘Hollywood journey’ buying Cannon Films for $200million in 1988, a mini-studio in Los Angeles that was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Parretti then proceeded to make his MGM bid on November 1, 1990 with backing from French bank Credit Lyonnais.
‘At first it seemed he wouldn’t be able to finish the billion-dollar deal,’ Alex Yemenidjian, a right hand man to former owner Kirk Kerkorian, has claimed.
‘After paying $200 million, he didn’t have the rest of the money,’ he said according to The Telegraph.
‘He came to us for an extension. We knew he was scrambling from every place.’
Eventually it was agreed that Parretti would pay Kerkorian $50 million per month until the deal closed.
For a brief time, Parretti lived like a big-time Beverly Hills mogul with the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Dustin Hoffman all ready to work with him.
At the height of his wealth, Parretti is reported to have owned a $20 million Gulfstream IV jet, a $200,000 Rolls Royce and a 14-room mansion in Beverly Hills.
He even had a private nightclub in Los Angeles called Tramp of London.
What happened at MGM?
Parretti bought MGM, the film studio behind The Wizard of Oz and the Bond movies, in 1990 with grand plans to revamp it.
He quickly put out a press release saying his aim was to become ‘the most powerful Euro-American communications group of the Nineties’.
However, it soon became clear that the Italian businessman was ill-equipped to run a Hollywood film studio.
Parretti appointed his 21-year-old daughter Valentina to head up the MGM treasury and soon a six-figure pay check to Hollywood legend Dustin Hoffman for Rain Man bounced back.
There was also a similar issue with a $1 million payment to Sylvester Stallone for Rocky V.
Parretti also laid off dozens of employees at the studio with staff frequently asked to hand out envelopes that contained final paychecks.
Even the Bond films, which were keeping MGM afloat at that point, became a source of friction.
American film producer Albert Romolo Broccoli, nicknamed ‘Cubby’ sued MGM over licensing issues, causing the next movie, GoldenEye, to be put on hold.
This meant there was no 007 movie between 1989’s Licence To Kill and GoldenEye six years later.
The James Bond producers were supposedly so skeptical of Parretti’s leadership that Timothy Dalton quit the franchise unwilling to wait until the problems at MGM were resolved.
At one point the studio couldn’t afford to even print posters for Thelma & Louise and Parretti was removed from the board in 1991 amid a number of impending lawsuits.
Concerns were raised about where Parretti had got his money from to buy the franchise, and even when the deal was done, half of the $1.3 billion remained unaccounted for.
Parretti claimed half the money for the takeover came from his businesses and even soon-to-be Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi.
He said the other half was money from the French bank Credit Lyonnais.
But the FBI concluded nearly all of it was from the bank (i.e. the French taxpayer) and that Parretti had bribed its bosses with fake paintings.
At one point it is thought Crédit Lyonnais was loaning Parretti up to $1million per day.
Parretti was summoned to court, but the night before he was due to appear, he fled to Mexico and then Italy.
The businessman was ultimately found guilty of fraud in 1999 and was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison. He was also fined a million francs by a Paris court.
An Interpol Red Notice was issued against him, so if he leaves Italy he will be subject to extradition to stand trial in the US.
Where is he now?
Parretti is now 82-years-old and has returned to his native Orvieto in central Italy.
He is reportedly once again living a life of luxury in his very own palazzo.
What to expect in the documentary?
Parretti is interviewed extensively in the documentary The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood that airs tonight at 9pm on BBC2.
From his palazzo in Orvieto, the businessman opens up on his chaotic tenure at MGM for the first time.
Hollywood insiders and the Federal prosecutors who investigated his purchase of MGM are also quizzed- but they give a very different take on the story.
The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood is directed by BAFTA winner John Dower who questions Parretti.
During the interview, Parretti claims he was friends with Winston Churchill and even was given an award by former US president Ronald Reagan.
He remains, however, good at deflecting the blame and squirms out of almost every accusation.
The Italian business tycoon has always denied any wrongdoing but has never explained why he fled the US.
The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood airs tonight at 9pm (4pm EST) on BBC2