Breaking Bad. Cliff Robertson. David Begelman

I'd hate being a criminal.

I'm sitting here watching Breaking Bad.

Walt wants Jesse to kill Gus because he thinks that Gus is going to kill them. Skyler is laundering Walt's money. But now she learns that her previous employer is being audited---she had been their accountant, she cooked their books and she will now be investigated herself and Walt's criminality will be exposed.

Cliff Robertson, blacklisted

Earlier I watched You Tube video of a long interview with Cliff Robertson. He was asked about the Hollywood blacklist.

Robertson was politically middle of the road and was unaffected. He said he went out of his way to hire blacklisted actors. He also mentioned that blacklisted actors he helped didn't always remember that they had been helped. I'm not sure what that meant.

But he went on to talk about his own blacklisting. He was blacklisted, as I posted here earlier, because he exposed studio chief David Begelman's looting of the company.

Begelman was head of Columbia Pictures. He was a crook and had been all his life. He wrote a company check for $10,000 to Robertson then cashed it himself. The IRS contacted Robertson, asked why he didn't declare the $10,000 as income. When Robertson discovered what happened, he reported it to police. As he put it, he refused to be an accessory to Begelman's crimes.

As this started, Robertson began receiving threats. One mogul from the studio called him. He was living in New York.

"You want to play ball. It might be smart of you to play ball," the guy said.

"There are three things you people out there don't understand," Robertson said. "One is the word 'No' because you buy 'yes' 365 days a year. And you buy bodies, you buy souls, you buy integrity. You think anything and everything and anyone can be bought--you're wrong. And the last thing you don't understand is the phrase 'You don't scare me'. Because with your wicked mentality and the strength you have through your power and your money, you think anyone you don't scare must be nuts. Hey, pal. I'm nuts."

He told the FBI he had said this and they were pleased. Smartest thing he could have done. Now the moguls knew they couldn't buy him.

Of course, as I said, nothing much happened to Begelman. He was required to produce a short anti-drug film as his "community service". Columbia Pictures wouldn't even fire him until they were forced to by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Heads of publicly traded corporations aren't allowed to loot the company. So he left Columbia and went to work for MGM.

Cliff Robertson, meanwhile, didn't work again for three and half years.