We bumped into Danny DeVito a fortnight ago in Berlin.  The pocket-sized actor was in town for the Golden Camera awards, the German equivalent of the Oscars, where he was due to receive a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement accolade from his peers in the German movie business.

DeVito has been involved in numerous good movies as an actor, director and producer – but we’ll always remember his role as corporate raider and asset stripper Lawrence Garfield in the 1991 drama Other People’s Money.   Engaged in a battle for control of struggling New England Wire and Cable with ‘old school’ businessman Gregory Peck as the company’s patriarch, the high point of the movie is when DeVito as Larry the Liquidator persuades the reluctant shareholders to take his money and run.  Faced with the encroaching new technology of fibre optics and a share price in terminal decline, the shareholders finally succumb to Larry’s appeal to their pockets. “I’m not your best friend.  I’m your ONLY friend.   I’m making you money”, he explains to them. Continue Reading