Denting Otto Preminger (1966)

Revenge, the saying goes, is best served cold. And, this story suggests, at the business end of a glass.

Such was the case at New York’s 21 on Jan. 7, 1966, when Otto Preminger got into it with agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar.

Otto and Swifty were extremely mismatched opponents. Both were bald, true, but anyone looking at the beefy director and the bird-like agent with the trademark horn-rims would have bet on the German to win, hands down.

The fight, most accounts agree, was over the film rights to Truman Capote’s book “In Cold Blood.” Two years before, Preminger wanted to buy the film rights to the story of two killers who massacred a family in Kansas, with Frank Sinatra playing one of the killers. Lazar had listened to the offer, but in the end, at Capote’s instructions, sold the rights to director Richard Brooks.

Unused to not getting his way, Preminger fumed. Until he and his wife, Hope, found themselves sitting next to Lazar and his wife, Mary, at the elegant nightclub. Preminger taunted Lazar, telling him that Sinatra was upset over losing the rights and would beat him up. To back his claim, he bellowed for a phone to call Sinatra in Vegas so that Ol’ Blue Eyes could threaten the agent personally.

According to Lazar, as they were leaving, Preminger called Mary “you pitiable creature,” adding “I feel sorry for any woman who has to go home and go to bed with that crook.”

A riled Mary called the director a dirty old man and followed up that observation with a slap to his face. As Preminger rose, Lazar defended his wife by clocking him on the noggin with a glass.

In his memoirs, Preminger agreed that they argued over the rights, but that the attack was unprovoked. His wife, Hope, said they didn’t fight over the book at all, but whether Lazar had been telling the truth that he had just seen Sinatra opening in Vegas.

No matter the story, the ending was the same, with Otto needing 51 stitches in the hospital and Lazar charged with felony assault. A year later, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was given a suspended sentence.

The newspapers played up the story. “This is not the first time Swifty Lazar has drawn blood from a producer,” one wrote. “He does it every time he negotiates. This is merely the first time he used a deadly weapon.”

But the story didn’t end there. Years later, when Lazar needed a heart test, he discovered that his doctor was none other than Preminger’s son. Before he submitted to the test, he asked if he tended to hold grudges, says, against anyone who assaults his dad. Assured that he didn’t, Lazar submitted to the test and, fortunately, survived.

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