Look Who Talked — 'Roger and Me': The Lost Episode
By Rob Medich (Premiere, May 1990)
Michael Moore tried to talk to Roger Smith. Oh, how he tried.
He wanted Smith, the chairman of General Motors, to come to Flint, Michigan, to see the devastation caused by GM's plant closings there. Instead, Moore was thrown out of Smith's office building, yacht club, and health club. There was some consolation: this rejection made for an entertaining documentary, Roger & Me, which Moore sold to Warner Bros. for $3 million.
But now it turns out that Michael Moore did talk to Roger Smith.
Ralph Nader and people connected with his organization, which assisted the filmmaker, tell of two such conversations. They supplied a transcript of one, from a GM shareholders' meeting in May 1987 — after shooting of the film had begun. Moore counters, "Nowhere in [the transcript] does it say anything about me asking him to come to Flint. That's the narrative thread [of the movie] — get him to Flint." He adds that he attended the May 1987 meeting as head of a tax-abatement group, not as a filmmaker.
However, James Musselman, a lawyer who worked with Nader at the time; Michael Westfall, a Flint-based union activist; and Nader all say Moore filmed the meeting. (He strenuously denies this.) Furthermore, Nader says that Moore also questioned Smith on-camera at a trade show at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria in January 1988. "He may deny it" — Moore does — "because he didn't get in as Michael Moore. He might have gotten in saying he was PBS," says Nader. "But I remember he chuckled and told me how he did an interview."
This is not the first charge aimed at Moore by his former allies. They've complained that he rearranged history and hogged too much of the spotlight. In return, Moore has accused them of jealousy and trying to "extort" money from him. (Nader asked Moore to repay $30,000 given to him by Essential Information, a nonprofit group that Nader started but is no longer connected with. The money was to be used for a newsletter, which Moore abandoned to do the film.)
Moore is extremely weary of the dispute. "I'm not going to talk about this anymore," he says. Nevertheless, the May 1987 transcript supports his portrayal of Smith as a callous titan of industry. Here, then, is a scene you won't see in Roger & Me.
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