“Supermensch” and me
So Mike Myers decides to make his directorial debut doing a documentary about a fellow named Shep Gordon. You may not have heard of him… but tons of people in the entertainment business have. Here is the trailer from Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon which opens in select theaters this weekend:
The doc has gotten some strong reviews like this one from Indiewire:
… there are a million stories here, enough to make you wonder what they cut out to make it acceptable to A&E IndieFilms, which produced it. Like so many testimonials, this cine-roast (roast-umentary?) with Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, and Myers himself (who met Gordon through “Wayne’s World,” and calls him “a perfect combination of Brian Epstein, Marshall McLuhan and Mr. Magoo”) rises above wax museum level, because the tales become wilder and wilder, and because Gordon truly seems to be a mensch — rare in a business of vain backstabbers.
I can personally attest to Shep being a mensch because we worked together on a TV project. The backstory.
I had lived and worked in L.A. for 15 years, writing over 20 film and TV projects for every major studio and broadcast network. But the ups and downs of the business while raising two young sons wore on me. In 2002, Rick Duffield, one of my best friends from our days at Yale, contacted me about a new production company he was starting called Trailblazer Studios located in of all places Raleigh, North Carolina. I had consulted on a TV series Rick had created called “Wishbone” which went on to win a Peabody Award and the chance to work with him sounded great. So for the first time in my life, I had a real job, and eventually found myself living in Chapel Hill.
My job as a producer was to develop potential TV series to feed into the studio’s production and post facilities. So it was in 2004, surveying trends, I hit on the nascent eco-friendly lifestyle movement. That appealed to my personal sensibilities, plus I was amazed to see the growth in sustainable consumer products flowing into the marketplace. We developed and pitched several projects, all rejected. “Who cares about the environment,” one cable network exec said.
Then I noticed this: A lot of stars — actors, musicians — are seriously into this kind of intentional living, many of them public advocates for environmental activist groups. What if we created a series that informed consumers about ways they could lead a more eco-friendly life while building each episode around celebrities into the sustainable movement?
That led to the Fine Living Network TV series “It’s Easy Being Green” and to our show host Renee Loux… and to her husband, none other than Shep Gordon.
So in 2007–2008, Shep and I were executive producers on this series that featured Owen Wilson, Willie Nelson, Helen Hunt, Dave Matthews, Alice Cooper and many more celebrities, as well as dozens of packages promoting environmentally friendly trends and consumer products. The Tesla Roadster? Our show was the first TV series to promote it back in 2007:
We had cool stories on a self-proclaimed design junkie, a fashion model leading the way in sustainable clothing, a company that promotes earth friendly moving, an outfit that makes high-end furniture out of recycled airplane parts, a rock band who created a non-profit to green music tours, fun social events like Swap-O-Rama-Rama, sustainable vine wine tours, and on and on.
In our travels to produce the series, I’ve been with Shep in L.A., New York and his home in Maui. One particular event which drove home how connected Shep is was Farm Aid in 2008 at Randall’s Island in NYC. Between shoots with John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, and Daryl Hannah, as Shep and I wandered around, it was like everybody knew him. He couldn’t move 10 feet without someone exclaiming, “Shep Gordon!”
At one point, his cell phone rings. He answers, then bellows, “Mikey, how you doing?” Wandering off for his conversation, Renee returns from makeup and asks me who Shep is talking to.
“Some guy named Mikey,” I say.
“Oh, that’s Michael Douglas.”
The personal high point for me was getting to meet the Newmans: Paul at his organic restaurant in Connecticut, Nell (Paul’s daughter) in her home in Santa Cruz:
As it turns out, our interview with Paul Newman was the very last one he gave before he passed away in September 2008. What he had done with the Newman’s Own product line and Nell with Newman’s Own Organics is remarkable, literally hundreds of millions of dollars raised for non-profit organizations, along with lots of healthier food choices for consumers. And for me, a chance to meet one of my favorite movie stars… well, that was certainly special.
Many twists and turns in my life, but I’ll always feel good about what the Trailblazer team did with that TV series, raising people’s awareness about choices each of us can make as consumers to take better care of our home planet. And Shep Gordon played an instrumental role in that project, reaching out to many of his friends and professional connections to help feed the celebrity hook of the series.
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon opens this weekend. Rock and roll. Celebrity chefs. Movie stars. The Dali Lama. Shep Gordon has been there and done all of that!
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