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Fantasy Closes, Zaentz-Fogarty Still Open by Steven Middlestein
Creedence circa 1968 (lf-rt): Stu Cook, Tom Fogerty, John Fogerty, Doug Clifford, and (seated) Saul Zaentz, owner of Fantasy Records, about to launch Fantasy Films. photo: courtesy H. Emigholz
FANTASY STUDIOS CLOSED IN
September after a 60 year run, which took it all the way from small digs South of Market, in San Francisco, to West Oakland and finally Berkeley. It was there that its creatively-connected CEO Saul Zaentz built a eight-story, block cement building that looks like a US embassy in Malaysia, say, and was sometimes called "the house that Creedence built."
Along the way, Fantasy had hits with jazz artists, like pianists Dave Brubeck and "Peanuts" composer Vince Guaraldi, comedians, like iconoclast avatar Lenny Bruce, and rock and roll, albeit only two bands: the very hippie Fugs, from New York's Lower East Side, and the clean-cut Creedence Clearwater Revival, from San Pablo, north of Berkeley.
Although Fantasy Studios supposedly had enough bookings and was doing well, the sale of what is now called the Saul Zaentz Media Center by Wareham Development, who acquired it in 2008, will undoubtedly generate a rent hike and Fantasy wanted to go out on an upswing.
In this light, they are loathe to mention Fantasy's biggest downswing.
From KQED to the SF Chronicle, luminaries lauded the cinematic successes of Zaentz, who switched from music to filmmaking in the '70s and burst on the scene with the radical AND Oscar-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in 1975. Always looking for literary properties and arty directors, to which he was dedicated with unmatched zeal, Zaentz went on to many, many more stellar achievements, notably the nine-Oscar-winning “English Patient” in 1996.
Little mention was made, however, of the tragedy that transpired at Fantasy, starting around 1971.
So little in fact, after hearing rumors about it for decades, cineSOURCE felt compelled to initiate its first piece of long-form journalism in 2014 with "The Jew and the Cowboy: Saul Zaentz and Creedence Clearwater". A six-month project eventually penned by Doniphan Blair, it was based on extensive research and interviews, including with Jeff Fogarty, John's nephew, and Hank Bordowitz, a rock writer out of New York, who did the enlightening Creedence book, "Bad Moon Rising" (2007).
Although there were other problems like rock and roll egos, off-shore accounts and "accounting irregularities," as the neologism goes, its pretty clear there was some exploitation. After Creedence became the biggest band of the San Francisco Sound, with 16 chart-topping singles IN A ROW, Zaentz and his lawyers forced them to abide an early-'60s low-ball contract, while he siphoned inflowing millions into his new film business.
Indeed, the Fantasy-Creedence story stands as a fascinating study in the romantic dreams of both Zaentz and John Fogerty and his fellow band members, but also basic human relations and throwing people under the bus.
“Come, come now," some might ask, "why air dirty laundry at this late date?” To be sure, in the face of so much horror daily, it can seem over the top.
Alas, the moral turpitude, ethical fungibility and history denial so rampant today came from somewhere.
In point of fact, it exists right here in music and film business in the supposed cradle of free speech and civil rights, although, since the Zaentzes have yet to release the full transcripts, many of the details and motivations remain a mystery.
Steven Middlestein is a writer, editor and movie fanatic and can be reached . Posted on Aug 14, 2018 - 12:36 AM