By 1979 Jose was executive vice president of Hertz nationwide, and the family had moved to a beautiful new home on Pennington Lake in Princeton. Here Jose had a tennis court built, and here he would train and drill his now two young boys until they were Olympic class tennis players. Nothing else would do. Jose had been a swimmer and a tennis player in his youth, though without a real aptitude for either, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Nothing ever did, until a hail of bullets did the job. Allen Fite, small fleet sales manager for Hertz’s Atlanta region, said that for many people who knew Jose when he was a young lion, his death was not much of a surprise. “It was kind of funny,” said Fite. “When this happened, people were calling other people within Hertz saying, ‘You didn’t do it, did you?’” Another employee remarked “The joke was, when he was killed, everybody needed an excuse to prove they were not in L.A." Others, however, said there would be so many suspects among the people who had been broken by Jose over the years that the police would never solve the crime.
You don’t get to where Jose was without making a few enemies along the way, but this man had all but gone out of his way to do so, cultivating no friendships and provoking everyone he could, so that rather like when Mr. Burns was shot, Lisa’s words “Everyone in town is a suspect” rang eerily true. I’m sure the prevailing - if not openly expressed - feeling was that the bastard had finally got what was coming to him. One is also reminded of Dickens’
A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge, shown his future by the final spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, sees his business associates chuckling over his death (although of course he doesn’t at the time realise it’s him they’re talking about) as they grin “I see Old Scratch got his man at last, eh?”
Indeed.
But before his - not quite untimely - death there were worlds to conquer, and Jose Menendez would not be satisfied with the simple executive vice presidency of a car hire firm, even if it was the biggest in the world. In fact, he was forced out of Hertz the very next year, when a new President of US Operations came in and Jose was reassigned to RCA, the big record label owned by the parent company. Sent to L.A. to talk to lawyers and musicians, it was here he made perhaps one of the only friends he had ever had, or ever would. In 1981 Jose was given the task of turning the “joke label” around. RCA was known for signing old, tired acts such as Kenny Rogers and Diana Ross, who were well past it but still got paid exorbitant sums for their albums. Jose knew nothing about music, but set to the task with his by now characteristic determination and his contempt for failure.
Perhaps surprisingly, as a man who had been a feared and hated tyrant at Hertz, Jose was able to command great loyalty at RCA and was actually well liked. That didn’t of course mean he went any easier on people when it suited him to brandish the whip. Angry at his vice president for American sales, Don Ellis, who had been delayed to a meeting through no fault of his own, he sent a snippy note to the man, who, angry himself at such treatment, and having reluctantly relocated from the UK at Jose’s behest, resigned in fury. However worries, or snide predictions, of RCA being too much for Jose proved completely unfounded. He coaxed the Eurythmics back to the label at a time when they were reaching the height of their fame, and did the same for Jefferson Starship, who by now had dropped the first part of their name, having gone from being The Jefferson Airplane to just Jefferson Airplane and then Jefferson Starship, now just Starship. Under this name they had their biggest hits ever, including two number one singles and an album that sold over a million units. Suddenly, RCA was looking less of a joke to its rivals.
And then he fu
cked up big time.
His arrogance and overbearing confidence in his own ability led him to sign a Puerto Rican boyband - before boybands were even a thing - and it almost broke him. It could be said, perhaps, that his success with Starship and The Eurythmics was more down to a knowledge of business (which it could not be denied he had) and the stars’ response to that; the equivalent of two sides of a deal who both knew what was best for each other, a business arrangement. But with Menudo, the Latin band he signed, his lack of experience in, knowledge of and appreciation for the music industry was thrown into sharp relief. Jose Menendez had come to RCA with no interest in music, and no experience running a record label or even managing a band. He probably didn’t even really know who Annie Lennox was, beyond a cheque to be written.
His idea, at its heart, was sound. Latin music was certainly about to make a big splash, with artists like Gloria Estefan and later Ricky Martin ready to bring their own brand of salsa pop to the world outside of Latin America. But Menudo were not a band, just an industry-manufactured future echo of any of the boy and girlbands put together by the likes of Stock, Aiken and Waterman and later Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh - kids who could fulfill a need, plug a gap in the market, but who had no real music talent and were replaced once they reached age sixteen and ceased to become attractive to the label’s teenybopper fanbase. It was fine to do that on the streets of San Juan, where Menudo were superstars, but American audiences saw right through them.
Jose is rumoured to have lavished anything from ten to thirty million on the band, provided them with a private jet and, as one commentator waggishly claimed, “half the country”, and for nothing in the end. Jose did not turn RCA around, to his disgust (and no doubt he would blame other factors, never willing to admit defeat or that he had taken on a job too tough for him) and at age forty-one he was executive vice president in charge of video sales, ready to lift the first building blocks in the next stage of creating his empire and his legacy.
Goodfellas: A Blooming Business
Jose’s next project was the one which would make his name, and bring him into contact with people even more famous than the musicians and producers he had been working with at RCA. Carolco, most famous perhaps for managing Sylvester Stallone, bought a twenty-five percent interest in pornbroker-turned-legitimate-video-distributer Noel Bloom’s International Video Entertainment, one of the provisos being that they could bring in their own financial expert, who turned out to be none other than Jose Menendez. In 1986 Bloom was linked with Michael Zaffarno, a capo (boss) of the Galante crime family, and under investigation thanks to his sales of porn videos, which was how he had made his money initially. Trying to distance himself, both from the connections with the mafia and gangsters in general, and with the porn industry, seen as less acceptable in the tail-end of the eighties with the demise of the permissive society and the end of free love, Bloom had started IVE in an attempt to “go straight” and be taken seriously.
It was Jose’s old - and possibly only - friend, John Mason, who had put him in touch with Peter Hoffman in Carolco, who had in turn given him the job at IVE. Upset at having missed out on the top spot at RCA when a new president was brought in over him (as had happened at Hertz) Jose had been considering moving west when Hoffman’s call saved him. As was often the case with Jose Menendez, he made a good impression on Bloom, who liked him, but as was also almost always the case this impression did not last as Jose quickly began to show his true colours. His first move, as ever, was to fire, fire, fire, and in a short time he had more than halved the staff at IVE. As had always been his way, he consulted nobody, including Bloom, who was technically his boss, merely telling him why these people had to go, not asking for his permission or agreement, and turning a deaf and contemptuous ear to any arguments.
Then, as again he had done up till then, Jose set his sights on the top job. He was brought in as financial manager, but he wanted creative control. This was Bloom’s area, and there could only be one victor in such a struggle. Within a few months Bloom had decided it was not worth the daily fights - Jose had already excised the “adult entertainment” part of the company, something Bloom may have had a fondness for, having been how he started - and told Jose he could buy him out. As ever, Jose did not let it rest at that, but dragged Bloom maliciously through court cases as he refused to hand over money he did not believe his ex-boss was due.
The small coincidence of the trial taking place, and still having been running, when Jose and his wife were murdered served to shift some of the suspicion for their deaths onto Bloom and his supposed Mafia connections, something which suited the two sons down to the ground. In some ways, it couldn’t have worked out better for them if they had planned it. Disgruntled partner, bought out against his will, denied his payout and no fan of Jose, in the middle of a battle to get those funds and having been publicly humiliated by Menendez at court, sees the case suddenly stall as Jose is killed. Coincidence? Surely not.
In actual fact, Bloom had already won the case; this was merely an appeal, and Jose had said all he was going to be allowed to say. He had testified, and was not required to do so again. Carolco, feeling bad (they said) about the murders, offered to pay up. Bloom, worried about how this would look to the press and to the cops, asked them to wait, but for whatever reason they would not, and his fears grew about the picture that would be painted of him, and how the sudden settlement would be viewed by those in authority, by the brothers and by the public at large.
The Sons
Kitty Menendez only had two children, and they were both boys. They would forge the kind of relationship with each other than only brothers can, each almost acting as an only child, each spoiled beyond measure, each believed by both parents to be a cut above everyone else’s children, indulged and flattered, but also mercilessly criticised and strictly disciplined to a level almost unthought of outside of perhaps the army or a strict boarding school. They would later both claim that it was this treatment, coupled with completely unproven accusations of sexual abuse not only from their father but also their mother, and fear for their very lives, which drove them to strike first, killing both their parents in a desperate attempt to save themselves from being killed.
Lyle Menendez
Lyle was the elder, born January 10 1968 as Joseph Lyle Menendez, and would always be known by his second name. He wouldn’t have to wait too long for a playmate, with his brother born a mere two years later, though the word play would not really be allowed to exist in the world of the two Menendez children, not if their father had anything to do with it. And he did. From the very beginning Jose had seen his first son as a tiny version of himself, a lump of soft clay he could mould in his own image, a boy he could turn into a man like him. Though nowhere as good, of course: Jose Menendez would never accept any equal, not even his own son. He had their lives laid out for them, whether they wanted it or not. They would excel at tennis, like he had not, going on to compete in - and win, damn it! Who cared about taking part? The winning was what was important! - the Olympics, vindicating their proud father’s belief in them.
Like tiny soldiers under a particularly brutal drill sergeant, the boys were ordered to make sure not an hour of any day was wasted. They had to learn about politics, combat, business, sport, and life lessons that would stand them in good stead later in life. Jose, of course, did not trust them to do these things on their own, and so he directed every moment of their waking days himself, setting schedules, activities, training. There was no room for friends, no room for play. That was for the weak, and Jose Menendez’s sons would never be seen as weak by anyone. Not if he could help it.
Kitty was not a lot better. She indulged her sons to excess, never believing or accepting they could do wrong, the kind of mother who, when presented with irrefutable evidence of a crime committed by her son would shake her head stubbornly and close the door in your face. Nothing would ever convince her that her sons were at fault for anything. She allowed them to run free when out, risking being hit by traffic if they ran out into the road, but justifying her attitude by saying that physical hurt was preferable to fear; bones would mend (she obviously never considered worse than that occurring) but a scared mind would remain scared all its days. But though she indulged them, she was far from the ideal mother. She had no real nurturing or maternal instinct, and was quite happy to allow Lyle and his brother to walk around with dirty nappies rather than change them. She’d get around to it; it wasn’t of pressing importance.
She even tried to farm her kids off on Jose’s mother, as having them around got in the way of the ski holidays she and her husband regularly took, but Jose put paid to the idea of them living full time during the week with anyone else, even his mother.
Just around the time of Erik’s birth the family had moved back to Illinois and Jose was taken on at Lyons, as detailed above. Erik proved an exuberant, excitable child who would rush out heedless of any danger, and whose behaviour his parents did not seek to correct, believing this was how young boys should behave. Their young boys, at any rate. But as you might expect, while things were relatively calm on the surface, below there was disquiet and danger. Jose closely examined his boys - Lyle mostly, as Erik was at this time too young to be able to join in or be part of the ritual - quizzing him on current events, and sending him researching the answers if he had not got them, sneering at him when he took too long. Enforced isolation in their rooms was one punishment, though nowhere near as bad as being trapped in there with their tyrant father while Jose took them apart psychologically, breaking them down and reshaping them in his image. He used physical punishment too, but it’s to be believed the boys feared the dreaded belt less than their father’s snarling voice, dripping with disapproval and mockery of their efforts.
Kitty never interfered in the punishment of the boys, be it physical or psychological. She may not always have agreed with it, but she convinced herself Jose was right, as he had conditioned her to. Jose was so arrogant and sure about his methods that he didn’t notice - or care - that it began to adversely affect the boys. Erik developed a bad stutter, which infuriated his father, who took it as a sign of weakness and all but accused the boy of making it happen on purpose. Both boys acquired nasty, violent tempers, and slowly but surely their emotions were all but leeched out of them as they were in effect made into robotic copies of their domineering father. Kitty took to drinking and taking valium pills, unable or unwilling to face up to her responsibility as a mother and protector of her children