Friends Recall Late Producer’s Hard-Charging Life

A day after Don Simpson died in his Bel-Air home, friends and associates recalled the producer Saturday as a charming and sometimes difficult rogue whose supercharged lifestyle nearly lived up to his big-budget Hollywood movies.

Friends said Simpson, 52, apparently collapsed while reading in an upstairs bathroom at his lavish home. He was found late Friday afternoon, clutching a book and glasses and crumpled on the ground, the friends said.

Police were not elaborating on their reports of a day earlier that Simpson’s death appeared to be from natural causes. An autopsy will be conducted early this week.

Authorities reiterated that no drugs or paraphernalia were found in Simpson’s Stone Canyon Road mansion, and it remained to be seen whether the coroner would order drug-toxicology tests on the producer’s body.

Friends and associates of the man who produced “Top Gun” and “Crimson Tide” said that in recent months he had been battling serious drug addiction, which also had contributed to the breakup of his long, successful partnership with producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

But the sources said Simpson was reluctant to check into a drug rehabilitation center and instead attempted to work out a detoxification program at his home. But that plan ended abruptly and tragically last summer when the man directing Simpson’s recovery attempt, Dr. Stephen Ammerman, died of a drug overdose at Simpson’s home, the sources said.

Simpson’s official representatives have long denied that he was a drug abuser. On Saturday, his longtime agent and friend said Simpson, despite some lingering anxiety over his split with Bruckheimer, had seemed vibrant and upbeat the day before he died.

In a three-hour meeting at his home Thursday, Simpson had talked enthusiastically about his future in the film business, said Jim Wiatt, president of International Creative Management.

“He was in great spirits. He wanted to produce movies and be a director,” Wiatt said. “Whatever happened, I know it was not intentional. He was looking forward to the rest of his life.”

Simpson was prepared to announce the formation of his own production company, which probably would have been associated with the Walt Disney Co., Wiatt said.

In another sign of renewed vigor, the sporadic fitness enthusiast had been out for a 1 1/2-hour run and walk through the Bel-Air hills Thursday and he was preparing to check into an Arizona resort. The producer had often used the exclusive Canyon Ranch to cleanse himself and gird for challenging new endeavors.

Simpson’s appetites and excesses had become as much a part of his Hollywood legend as his knack for picking a winning script. Along with Bruckheimer, he personified 1980s filmmaking. They had a magic touch, mostly for action features. The quartet of “Beverly Hills Cop,” its sequel, and “Top Gun” and “Flashdance” grossed about $1.4 billion worldwide.

Simpson and Bruckheimer hit a dry spell for a few years before regaining their winning ways in the last year with a trio of hits--”Bad Boys,” “Crimson Tide” and “Dangerous Minds”--that grossed a total of $160 million.

Jim Berkus, another agent and friend, said Simpson succeeded “because he had a way of getting people to see the best that could be in movies, or in life.”

Berkus added: “When he went to do things, he went full tilt.”

Simpson not only liked big, loud movies but--in a favorite saying of the 1980s--he “lived large,” too. Perpetually tanned and toned and notoriously vain, he would rate the best table at the best restaurant in town. A voluptuous woman was usually in tow.

Known for a volatile temper, Simpson made more than a few profanity-laced phone calls to reporters who had panned his films. But he almost always was contrite the next day, sending a note of apology or a gift basket.

His racy lifestyle earned him a place in a couple of Hollywood tell-all books, including the recently released memoir of four self-described Hollywood party girls: “You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again.” In the book, a high-priced Swiss-born call girl named Tiffany describes what she claims were her sexual exploits with Simpson.

Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss told a reporter this week that Simpson was “not just a customer, but a close friend,” whom she had met seven years ago.

“I loved him dearly,” said Fleiss, who has been convicted on state pandering and federal money laundering charges in connection with her prostitution business and is free pending her sentencing in federal court next month.

“I used to call him my little Eskimo,” she said, because Simpson was born in Alaska.

When private investigators tapped Fleiss’ phone, their transcripts were rife with conversations about Simpson and his escapades. The producer refused publicly to acknowledge their acquaintance, but talked at length about Fleiss in private chats with reporters.

Simpson was also a close friend of the late Beverly Hills madam, Elizabeth “Madam Alex” Adams, who liked to show off vases of flowers he had sent her. He would talk about Adams only in private conversations, but always with admiration for what he felt was her personal integrity.

Times staff writers Chuck Philips, Eric Slater, James Bates and Carla Hall contributed to this story.