5 Failsafe Producing Tips From Hollywood Legend Jerry Weintraub

In the new HBO documentary His Way (premiering tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT), legendary entertainment impresario Jerry Weintraub finally gets his Hollywood close-up -- more than four decades after launching a career that intersected those of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and countless other figures he helped guide to spotlights of their own.

Directed by Douglas McGrath (Infamous, Emma) and spun off in part from Weintraub's 2010 autobiography When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead, His Way features a broad passel of subjects -- from Clooney to Roberts to Graydon Carter to president George H.W. Bush -- supplementing Weintraub's own peerless raconteur asides about life, love, ambition and avarice in showbiz. Talking recently with the 73-year-old producer, Movieline asked Weintraub about his philosophy toward handing down lessons from almost 40 years behind the camera.

"A lot of people want me to be a mentor, and I kind of am to certain people," Weintraub said. "But I don't sit down and say to somebody, 'I'm going to be your mentor.' You've got to come to me and ask me to do that. But my book is a textbook. My movie is a textbook. You don't have to be mentored by me at this stage."

Nevertheless, we got in the service-oriented spirit to round out five essential bits of advice for aspiring producers seeking the big time:

1. The Obvious (?)

"The first tip: Go into another business. The second tip..."

2. Never Hear "No"

Weintraub's natural approach to work always comes back to this central tenet. "People don't understand this," he said, "but I started very young, and I became very, very successful at a very young age. By the time I was 26 years old, I was a multimillionaire. And I started with nothing. And I was on the road 10, 11 months a year. I didn't have time to think about what I was doing or why or what the reasons were and so on. I didn't have a business plan like some people have. I had my brain, I had my ears, I had my mouth, and I had my eyes. And I went for it. When I found something I believed in and I cared about and thought I could market and sell and could be thought of creatively -- the most important thing to me -- I did it. If people came up to me and said, 'Are you crazy? This stinks!', I didn't hear them. Never heard 'em.

"I know so many people in the world," Weintraub continued. "I have a very big phone book and a very long reach around the world. And I think -- I don't think, I know -- that 95 percent of the people who I know who weren't born into success who have become successful and done things that are different and made a lot of money and had a lot of excitement in their life are people who never hear the word 'no.'" And when they believe in something, they make it happen. I'm in the middle of projects right now where I hear the word 'no.' Or, 'Things have passed you by.' I don't hear them. [...] If it's all about 'This is the way we do it,' you should go down to Mutual of Omaha and type insurance policies all day, because they have a form, and you fill out the form. If you want to be in the world I live in, which is a creative world with new ideas, then you've got to get away from the norm. You've got to go for it."

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