5

Ernest Hemingway Got Out Of A Publishing Contract By Crapping Out A Terrible Novel

Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

When acclaimed drinker and occasional author of classic American novels Ernest Hemingway first started out, he made the classic rookie mistake of signing the first piece of paper an interested party shoved under his nose. In this case, publisher Boni & Liveright had tricked the author into giving up first dibs on three of his future books.

Unfortunately, Hemingway had just written his first masterpiece, The Sun Also Rises, and did not want to give it away for almost nothing. After much research, he realized there was one escape clause in his contract that he could utilize: The publisher had to accept all three books he submitted. Rejecting even one nullified the contract and gave them nothing. So he devised a cunning plan to write the shittiest book in the universe: The Torrents Of Spring, a wandering compendium of laziness he completed in 11 days. To avoid being sued by his publisher for writing something deliberately terrible, he got his drinking buddy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, to publicly call the book a masterpiece. If the writer of The Great Gatsby said something was good, it had to be good.

Scribner
"The pages soaked up my gin-vomit like none other!"

On top of making the book bad, Hemingway doubly ensured that Liveright wouldn't dare publish The Torrents Of Spring by using it to mercilessly parody their star author, Sherwood Anderson. First, he mimicked Anderson's old-fashioned, repetitive writing style -- here's a sample, from Torrents Of Spring:

4

Radio Hosts Opie And Anthony Got Rich By Faking A Politician's Death

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Notorious radio shock jocks Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia weren't always kings of the New York radio scene's "bitter divorced fathers" market. They began as successful DJs at Boston's WAAF-FM, where they felt they weren't being paid enough, their time slot wasn't ideal, and their contract forced them to turn down much more lucrative offers from rival stations. The duo reasoned that if they wanted their careers to take off, they would have to use their God-given asshole powers to get themselves fired.

3

Steve McQueen Intentionally Got Into A Car Accident As A Negotiation Tactic

Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Many movie stars got their start on television. George Clooney was on ER, Bruce Willis was on Moonlighting, and Air Bud got his start on Full House. If you think it's hard for modern-day TV stars to make the transition to the big screen, imagine how difficult it was for actors back when TV was just some dumb toy that sat in the living room and got two channels.

This was the problem for Steve McQueen, who started his career doing tons of TV series but made his name on a low-budget Western show called Wanted: Dead Or Alive on CBS. When film director John Sturges came to McQueen and asked him if he would star in his upcoming film The Magnificent Seven, McQueen desperately needed a great way to escape his television contract. He immediately sent his trusted manager, Hillard Elkins, to beg his producers for some time off to shoot on location in Mexico. After being rudely refused and laughed out of the building, Elkins returned to McQueen and gave him some rational, professionally responsible advice: He told his client to get into a car accident.

CBS Television Distribution
"My other car is a Bullshitmobile."

The idea was to create a plausible excuse to legally stop doing the TV series (since any contract would give you an out if you got injured), and then use that as leverage. And if you're thinking the plan involved simply claiming McQueen was in an accident, congratulations -- you think like a sane person. But you're underestimating how much proof the producers would have demanded.

The two schemers knew that McQueen, a highly skilled driver, could make a staged accident look real enough without actually getting hurt (too much). But that's not to say it was drama-free: Not only did McQueen take his wife along for the ride, he also almost ran over a cop before plowing headlights-first into the Bank of Boston (in McQueen's defense, this was all part of making the accident look believable). There wasn't a newspaper in the world that didn't cover the crash, and McQueen came back to Hollywood the next day wearing a neck brace. You know, one of those soft-tissue injuries that don't show up on an X-ray.

CBS Television Distribution, United Artists
"They said the only known cure is switching from black-and-white-TV cowboy roles
to color movie ones. So sorry, guys."

2

Jeremy Piven Allegedly Faked An Illness To Get Out Of A Play

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

In between seasons of Entourage, the giant forehead attached to the man named Jeremy Piven decided to try his hand at Broadway, signing up for David Mamet's razor-witted Speed-The-Plow. This was Piven's first time on Broadway, but he had seemingly underestimated the amount of work involved in a stage play -- only a few weeks into the production, Piven had his publicist email the show producers to quit the play on his behalf. The email stated that Piven's doctor, Carlon Colker (also an esteemed author), found that the actor was suffering from high levels of mercury poisoning from eating too much sushi. Yes, seriously.

Prosource Publications
He does seem to know an awful lot about chemicals
nobody should ever put in their body.

1

Marilyn Monroe Moved Across The Country And Started Her Own Studio To Get Out Of A Terrible Movie

Harry Kerr/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

If you're expecting the Marilyn Monroe entry to be about an epic tantrum or salacious casting couch story, you're going to be disappointed. It turns out, the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes star was a pretty brilliant businesswoman who knew exactly how to renegotiate a crappy deal.

After the wild success of The Seven Year Itch, which featured Monroe's iconic outercourse with a subway grate, she decided she was ready for more serious roles, meaning she wanted to stop playing the busty blonde in lowbrow comedies and start doing roles that would allow her to show off her acting talent.

20th Century Fox
By that point, she'd have settled for showing off her upper torso.

Unfortunately, Monroe had signed an exclusive contract with 20th Century Fox, who wanted her to keep doing sexy musicals and romantic comedies until she got too old (read: turned 40). Her next project was a disrespectful triple whammy: It was titled Pink Tights, they wouldn't let her read the script beforehand, and she'd be paid a measly $1,500 a week -- a third of the pay of her male co-star, Frank Sinatra. So Monroe simply moved to New York, started her own production company called Marilyn Monroe Productions, and refused to act in any movie that she didn't pick herself.

Of course, Fox sued her for breach of contract, because that's exactly what she had done. However, Monroe had appointed her very shrewd lawyer as her only partner in her production company, and her lawyer proceeded to tie up the lawsuit for so long that Fox couldn't force her to do any of the shitty movies they wanted to put her in.

20th Century Fox
Shockingly, a lifetime of "LOL dumb blonde" jokes wasn't her idea of a good time.

20th Century Fox started throwing everything they had into the movies Monroe refused to do, hoping to prove that she was easily replaceable and they could put any busty blonde into their pictures and still make money. They were sadly mistaken, and a series of box-office bombs made them realize how crucial Monroe's star power was to their bank accounts. Fox was forced to cave and offer her a better contract, a phrase here meaning "the same contract they would offer a male star of similar popularity," making her the highest-paid actress in the world.

20th Century Fox
And she lived happily ever af- shit.

For more of Cedric Voets' attempts at witticisms or his famous recipes for toilet wine, do follow him on Twitter.

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