Book/Biography

My book, "Gentle Satan: My Father, Abe Saffron", was released in Australia and New Zealand on August 4, 2008 by Penguin Books, Australia. The success that followed was overwhelming, with it reaching #2 on the Best Seller list and staying in the top 10 in Australia for 11 weeks.

The updated American edition of "Gentle Satan", with over 140 original photographs and shocking, new information, will be released at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 25, 2009.

Included below are two exciting extracts from the original book, "Gentle Satan: My Father Abe Saffron": One in the Melbourne Sunday Age and the other an Audio/Visual piece created by the Sun Herald in Sydney.

       

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The Sunday Age Insert

 

Alan Saffron - Biography

Alan Saffron has worked in all areas of the entertainment industry for over 30 years. Most recently, Alan founded Polaris Entertainment Inc., a full service Talent Management company with four managers representing actors, entertainers, writers, producers and directors. In 2006 he won the coveted "Manager of the Year" award from the Talent Managers Association. Additionally he wrote his first book, "Gentle Satan", a Best Seller, published by Penguin Books, Australia, released August 4, 2008.

Over the past few years, Alan has produced or represented several film projects including: "Behind the Red Door" (aka the "Red Door") starring Keifer Sutherland and Kyra Sedgewick released on Showtime in 2004; "The Waiting Game" produced and directed by Ken Liotti, released in December, 1999; and the internationally acclaimed documentary, "Journey inside Tibet" released in 2000.

Saffron's career started in Australia at an early age, where he assisted his father in one of the family businesses, Perren Productions, the nation's number one concert promoters, touring legends including Frank Sinatra, Ike and Tina Turner, Nat King Cole and over 120 major acts.

Alan moved to America in 1979, where he formed a consulting company with prominent clients, including Gulf and Western/Paramount and New York Video. In 1988 he was recruited by a consortium of investors that acquired Atlantic Entertainment, one of the country's leading independent film studios. During his tenure as President/CEO, he negotiated the nation's largest video deal with Paramount, and a multimillion-dollar deal with HBO. Over the 4 years, Alan ran the company; Atlantic produced and released, such fine films as Palme d'Or winner, "A World Apart", "Stormy Monday", "Wired", "Patty Hearst" and "1969".

Other highlights of Alan's career include: opening and operating Australia's first record superstore, Peaches Records; Video Discounts, which was ultimately sold to Blockbuster; and American Network Services, an early stage networking company that serviced the U.S. Government.

Alan's hobbies include the Japanese strategy game "GO", swimming and hiking. He holds degrees in Marketing and Business Principles from Sydney University and has received numerous marketing awards in Australia and America.

Timeline

1919 - Abraham Gilbert Saffron born

1935 - Abe becomes apprentice to successful Jewish businessman, Max Bruner before being drafted into the army in 1941.

1947 - Abe Marries Doreen Krantz
The romance blossomed over time but my father found it very difficult to settle for one person. Right at the outset he insisted that he would only be home with Doreen for three nights a week, conducting his private affairs on the other nights.

1947 - Abe buys the Roosevelt and by 1950 it's the most successful and infamous club in Australia
My father had an ingenious solution to the problem of the prohibition of the sale of alcohol after 6pm... Simply have the patrons place their order prior to the 6pm deadline and serve them their drinks later.

1949 - Alan Saffron born

1952 - Alan celebrates his third birthday with a party at the Roosevelt
My first memory of my father was my third birthday at the Roosevelt nightclub... the images are clear, numerous older people, scantily dressed women in costume and very few children.

1953 - Abe Saffron buys his first hotel in Perth, the Raffles

1955 - Abe, Doreen and Alan take an around the world cruise, and then leave him in Switzerland (for 18 months) while Abe returns to face a sex scandal, the case eventually collapsing
The vice squad, in a further effort to build their case, found a whip with furry yellow thongs and a camera in the Kings Cross apartment. The papers shouted: 'Depraved conduct, whip used on nude girls.' My father said the offending item was only a feather duster.

1960 - Abe opens the first strip club in Australia, the Staccato, in Kings Cross. Soon after this, he opens the Pink Pussycat and later the famous Les Girls
The truth is that my father was a visionary and the founder of the modern entertainment industry in Australia, providing fabulous clubs, pubs, gambling and sex to the public.

1962 - Alan's bar mitzvah is covered by newspapers
[My father] believed that as I had become a man according to the Jewish faith, I was ready to be exposed to the opposite sex. I blushed as I watched the [strip] show and then back in the dressing room where four girls put on a special extra performance for the boss's son...

1965 - Staccato Strip School Opens

1966 - Abe's mistress, Rita Hagenfeld, gives birth to a daughter, Melissa. Doreen doubts paternity as Abe had several tests which said he couldn't father any more children, however he signs the birth certificate and raises Melissa as his own.
After all, Rita had sex with many men while my father was not around.

1966 - Alan graduates from school and is prevented by Abe from going on to college. He begins his working life at Commonwealth Bank.

1967 - Abe, Doreen and Alan go on holiday to the United States. Unbeknownst to Doreen and Alan, Abe brings his mistress Rita.
He was living two lives and no one dared to challenge him.

1968 - Abe opens the Venus Room and hires Jim Anderson
My father made fortunes for many people - he only wanted to be paid back.

1969 - Alan starts his first business venture, Vendomatic

1971 - On the back of a successful concert tour venture which saw Frank Sinatra, Ike and Tina Turner and Chubby Checker tour the country, Abe brings World Championship Wrestling to Australia.

1971 - To stop Alan's gambling and partying, Abe commits him to the Chemlsford Psychiatric Institution
Before I knew it, I was having my first session with the later infamous Dr. Harry Bailey... Crying and shaking with fear about what was to come, I crumpled into a foetal position in a corner of the room for a few minutes before I crawled to my bathroom and soaked my head with water. I realised that I had to get out of the facility as soon as possible.'

1972 - Alan meets his first wife Suzie at The Latin Quarter, Abe's club on Pitt Street Sydney
We had three children, two are definitely mine but I later found out that she was fooling around with many other men after the first year of our marriage. Some have even suggested that my father had a brief affair with her.

1975 - Local anti-development campaigner and socialite Juanita Neilson is murdered -- Alan reveals who was directly responsible for the death
He would later boast to me when I ran into him at the clubs: "I personally solved the Jaunita Neilson problem."

1975 - Premier Askin retires
'In the last month of my father's life, he told me from his hospital bed that he gave Askin more money and favours than any other policeman or politician, in return for protection and favouritism.'

1976 - Abe expands his business ventures into Adelaide
My father also had his eye on Adelaide, where he felt the state government was easy to work with and could satisfy his needs... This was a very liberal state and wide open for my father's talents.

1976 - Alan, with the support of Abe, opens The Creole which goes on to win the Billboard Australian Discotheque of the year.

Late 1970s - Abe breaks off his relationship and is sued by long term mistress Rita Hagenfelds
He was hearing more and more about Rita's loose behaviour with men, including the strong rumour that she slept with Sinatra during his 1974 tour.

1978 - Against the wishes of his father, Alan files for divorce from Suzie
True to my father's word, he found and paid for an excellent solicitor for Suzie, and provided her with financial assistance. He too was fooled by her, as he believed that by doing this he would be able to control her and keep his grandchildren under his watchful eye.

1978 - While in New York for the Billboard Disco Forum, Alan meets his future wife Genevieve

1979 - A fire on the Ghost Train at Sydney's Luna Park kills six teenagers and one adult
Police and fire department investigations concluded that the fire was a tragic accident and that there was no possible motive for anyone to have caused such a vicious act. Nonetheless, in later years some rumours suggested that my father was behind the fire...

1979 - Alan Moves to the US
I was making choices out of a need to survive and to live wihtout my father's control. How naive I was...

1979 - Suzie takes Alan's children to Israel to live with her boyfriend Martin. Alan is awarded custody by the Australian courts, however isn't able to bring them home from Israel

1985 - The National Crime Authority (formed by Bob Hawke in 1984) arrests Abe on 13 charges of criminal activities, however by the time the case reaches court in 1987 only two tax evasion charges remain
Jim Anderson approached the NCA almost immediately after they were formed to turn state's evidence against my father in return for immunity...

1988 - Abe is found guilty and begins his jail term, serving 16 months of a three year sentence
Much to many politicians' outrage, my father organized a Christmas show in the prison with performers from the Les Girls show at the Carousel Club... he even ordered his favourite Chinese food and had a Chinese buffet for prisoners and guards.

1997 - After a number of business ventures, Alan establishes a Talent Management company in Los Angeles which he manages to this day.

1999 - Doreen Saffron dies. Despite three suicide attempts, numerous mistresses and leaving Abe twice, she remained married to him until her death
[Abe] said he would handle my mother's estate, as she had died penniless and everything was his. This turned my fear into anger - how could a devoted wife, who had stood by his side loyally for fifty-seven years, die a pauper? I didn't reveal to him that we had both copies of my mother's will...

2006 - Abe Saffron dies on the 15th September (aged 86)
The crowd of friends, family and former employees at the funeral was mixed, wtih many of my father's old cronies from Kings Cross, mistresses, former showgirls, transvestites in elaborate gowns and those who had travelled from all over the country to show their final respects to 'The Boss', my father, one of the most powerful and feared persons in Australia.