Steve Jobs' widow pressured Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale not to star in biopic

dailymail. ^ | 7 October 2015 | Ollie Gillman

[dennisw]

A source involved in the making of the film, which hits screens on Friday, told The Hollywood Reporter that MS Jobs Powell had been 'trying to kill this movie' for years.

The source said: 'Laurene Jobs called Leo DiCaprio and said: "Don’t do it." Laurene Jobs called Christian Bale and said: "Don’t."'

She is even alleged to have called potential financial backers when the movie hit issues with funding.

The movie portrays Jobs in a different light to how he is seen by many, depicting him as 'heartless' and showing him disowning his daughter.

Laurene Jobs Powell phoned actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale Steve Jobs' widow lobbied them not to play role of her late husband in film Michael Fassbender got the role but emails revealed in the Sony hack showed he was not everybody's first choice Ms Jobs Powell also allegedly pressured financiers not to fund the movie Lack of money may have contributed to Sony Pictures pulling out, to be replaced by Universal Movie is out in New York and LA Friday and rest of the US later this month

Steve Jobs' widow was so determined to have the new movie about the late Apple boss canned that she contacted Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale to persuade them not to take the role.

Laurene Jobs Powell reportedly begged the Hollywood stars to avoid the leading role, with both of the actors believed to have been offered the part.

Eventually Michael Fassbender was cast as Jobs, but that was just the first of a multitude of dramas that saw the controversial biopic come close to never making the screen.

[Swordmaker]

Roadcat is right, and you are wrong, as usual Diogenes. Here's a database of the historical prices of RAM from 1957 to 2015, where you can see exactly the US pricing of RAM in any particular year.

[tacticalogic]

No, the target market for the IBM-PC was the office desk top. . . the IBM mainframe shops were companies who leased their products and the leasing agents were not at all interested in selling stand-alone micro-computers.

After the release of the PC1, IBM's next project was the 5271, dubbed the PC/3270 which came bundled with a 3270 coax adapter card and terminal emulation software, which made it a drop-in replacement for a 3270 terminal.

[DiogenesLamp]

Roadcat is right, and you are wrong, as usual Diogenes. Here's a database of the historical prices of RAM from 1957 to 2015, where you can see exactly the US pricing of RAM in any particular year.

And you must be some sort of freaking nut. I *POSTED* the evidence. Only some sort of Nut is going to try to argue with absolute proof.

What do you put up to contradict me? A freaking chart that someone made, that doesn't even include the individual price of 4116 memory chips, (the sort the Apple II used) only the cost of "add-on daughter boards".

And you think this proves that i'm wrong? This reminds me about the guy whom I used to argue with that kept linking me back to his blog on stuff he wrote himself as proof that he was right.

You just so desperately want me to be wrong about something that you have lost whatever objectivity you may have once possessed. Let me make this simple for you.

Now stop being a nut.

[Swordmaker]

And you must be some sort of freaking nut. I *POSTED* the evidence. Only some sort of Nut is going to try to argue with absolute proof.

And I was working in the field in 1977. . . and agree with roadcat. You are wrong. You are posting the price of the cheapest commodity RAM, not the best RAM used by Apple, but even YOUR quotation was from July of 1978, and eight of those better than a year later at cost, represented almost one-fifth of the RETAIL PRICE of the Apple II. One component, the RAM, represented 20% of the Retail price. . . yet you are talking about a wholesale pricing.

That pricing does NOT include any of the control ICs or other circuitry required to mount those MK4116s (yet you discount the "add-on daughter boards" which do include those very necessary components to make those RAM chips work at all!). . . or the labor to mount them.

Trust me, I searched your magazine. I subscribed to Popular Electronics in that period. You say you were fourteen at that time, I was grown with children and owned my own business in the field by then. I found some companies in your magazine selling the MK4116 for as low as $22. . . but you do not understand the economics of putting those into a product. You demonstrate it by your comments about how Apple was ripping people off with the price of the Apple II. . . and claim as your idiotic proof that one can buy these chips for $220 in 1978 as though THAT proved something factual about Apple's overall value structure.

The PRICE of RAM was something people were willing to pay to get the benefit of the static RAM memory. How much did it cost to make that RAM workable. . . not as a bag of chips in your hand? There is an economic difference. Try putting those $220 worth of chips to work in any computer environment that anyone has to sell as a consumer product, and you will be at approximately $450-$500 to make them usable as RAM memory. Somebody has to design the circuitry that connects them together, then engineer the board they have to go on, somebody has to create the circuit mask to print the circuit board, or to be incorporated on the main logic board, then they have to be manufactured, so your $220 worth of individual chips can be plugged into the sockets that have to be purchased and mounted on all that. You seem to think all that is a trivial cost thing. It isn't. That totals a lot of component costs, time, and labor. . . which add to your $220. . . and that's not even talking the input/output, processor, keyboard, power supply, chassis, case, etc., and everything else that goes into making the Apple II, so that it, itself, can sell at a WHOLESALE price to suppliers making Apple a profit, who then sell it to retail stores at a markup providing them a profit, who then ALSO sell it to customers, also at a markup providing another profit, at its final retail price of $1298. . . GROW UP and learn a little economic theory and don't look at the world in terms of WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD and impute evil motives to the price, simply because it was too expensive for YOUR pocket!

That database I linked you to is accurate.

I AM an adult. . . and sane. I know how to evaluate facts. It is not based on anecdotal data which is what YOU are doing. You assume that because someone disagrees with you, they must be "nuts", but that is itself insane. People can disagree with YOU without being "nuts" especially when it is you that is quite wrong with your analysis. . . and keep posting inanities.

[DiogenesLamp]

And I was working in the field in 1977. . . and agree with roadcat. You are wrong.

I quoted the MK4116, manufactured by Mostek, which according to Wikipedia:

In 1976 Mostek introduced the silicon-gate MK4027 (an improved version of the metal-gated MK4096), and the new MK4116 16kb double-poly silicon-gate DRAM. They were designed by Paul Schroeder, who later left Mostek to co-found Inmos. From this point until the late 1970s Mostek was a continual leader in the DRAM field, holding as much as 85% of the world market for DRAM. The MK4027 and MK4116 were reverse-engineered by Mosaid and successfully cloned by many companies.

I don't really see any point in further dialogue on this topic.

[Swordmaker]

I quoted the MK4116, manufactured by Mostek, which according to Wikipedia:

So what. . . you post a bunch of blather about a single component that is required to make the actual RAM, not the working RAM. You really do not seem to understand the complete cost involved, do you? It is NOT the single component chip. . . it is making it WORK that costs the money. You are delusional if you think you can just through eight chips in a box and it works. Sorry, Diogenes. YOU ARE WRONG.

I don't care how much of the market Mostek held in the DRAM chip market, it still would not be working RAM until you combined it with other chips, circuit boards, etc, and THEN you'd have working RAM. . . which cost approximately $400-$500 or so. I don't give a flying Fish that you could buy the COMPONENT DRAM for x dollars, it would STILL NOT WORK until it was made into a finished, working product!

YOU have a problem grasping that. I, as an Economist, don't have a problem at all. YOU DO!

[roadcat]

It’s okay Swordmaker, there’s no hope for that asshat. He’s just out to stir up trouble on threads with nothing factual to back him up, unlike us. We were there in the 1970s as adults, he was a little kid like that muslim boy who “invented” a clock after taking the guts out of a storebought item. We were the adults working in IT, he was a kid tinkering around the edges. Both of us became successful. I retired some years back and left IT behind me, to enjoy the fruits of my labors (IT made my life easy). However, I kept some of the stuff I worked on back then and know what I remember to be true. I still have my Apple II gear, still working to this day although it runs on flash drives instead of tape or floppies. Even the 16K RAM banks with their glistening gold leads and gold caps work. Actually, I have several Apple II Revision-0 machines; very rare, one in the low 300 SN range - another in the low 100 SN range I sold. These machines were amazing in their time. Back then in SF during the 70s I was active in a computer club, I could name drop if wanted, discussing things with the people who were instrumental in designing the Mac. This guy DiogenesLamp was just out of diapers then, maybe not. Every once in a while he pulls a load from his diapers and thinks it smells good. We know the truth.

[Swordmaker]

Hey, maybe you knew my ex-wife’s nephew, Tim O’Hare? He turned Steve down to be one of the first ten employees of Apple. . . kicking himself ever since. He did wind up running one of the first Apple centric stores in Berkeley in the late 70s and made a pile of money. Bought property and became, ahem, a “slumlord.” He’d be in his early sixties now, because his Dad, my ex’s brother, was twenty-seven years older than she was, and came home from WWII in time to name her Judy, after Judy Garland, in January of 1946! I think Tim was born in 54. . . but he was a member of the Home Brew Computer Club and knew Woz and Steve. . . he bought one of Woz’s Apple 1s at the meeting. . . Before they were marketing it.

[wardaddy]

I don’t blame her

Dead man can’t defend himself

When I’m worm food some of the many folks dependant on me will be mean too

It’s life

Bosses can’t be loved by everyone

His early attitude to his daughter and refusal to grant options to many are two areas I think he does merit scorn but he could also be naive trustworthy like with Gates

[wardaddy]

I don’t blame her

Dead man can’t defend himself

When I’m worm food some of the many folks dependant on me will be mean too

It’s life

Bosses can’t be loved by everyone

His early attitude to his daughter and refusal to grant options to many are two areas I think he does merit scorn but he could also be naive trustworthy like with Gates

[roadcat]

He did wind up running one of the first Apple centric stores in Berkeley in the late 70s and made a pile of money.

Didn't know him. But I have bought parts at a computer store in Berkeley in that time period, located not far from the entrance to the UC campus entrance. Maybe it was his store. I was a member of the San Francisco Apple Core club.

[Swordmaker]

Didn't know him. But I have bought parts at a computer store in Berkeley in that time period, located not far from the entrance to the UC campus entrance. Maybe it was his store. I was a member of the San Francisco Apple Core club.

Pretty sure that was it. . . Big dumpy looking dude with long hair? That'd be Tim.

[DiogenesLamp]

So what. . . you post a bunch of blather about a single component that is required to make the actual RAM, not the working RAM.

You are ignorant. I've put together Apple II boards. The only thing necessary to put additional memory in them are those MK4116 memory chips. All the support circuitry is already built into the motherboards.

Here's a schematic if you are knowledgeable enough to understand it. (I am. I can tell you what every single component does. I could build one from components if I was so inclined. )

Now stop mouthing back at me with your ignorant opinions.

[DiogenesLamp]

It’s okay Swordmaker, there’s no hope for that asshat. He’s just out to stir up trouble on threads with nothing factual to back him up, unlike us.

You are acting like a child. You have been proven wrong, yet refuse to admit it. It is adult-like to admit when you have made a mistake, but child-like to insist you are right when the facts are clearly against you.

This just once more goes to show that age is no proof against being childish.

And for what it's worth, Steve Jobs appears to me to have contributed to the Computer industry in the same manner a fashion designer contributes to the Clothing industry.

By introducing the latest generation of faddish and superficial crap, but not actually anything truly innovative. He was the equivalent of a Male Fashion designer for the Computer world.

[roadcat]

I've put together Apple II boards. The only thing necessary to put additional memory in them are those MK4116 memory chips.

Whoop-te-do! You added a few memory chips and call it putting together Apple II boards! Like that muslim kid who took the guts out of a store-bought clock, placed them in a pencil box and said he invented a clock. Wow, what an accomplishment!

Well, I've assembled bare Apple II motherboards with all components. And way back then in the 1970s on the earliest revision motherboards there was a experimental breadboard section for hobbyists to add their own circuitry, which I did add for tweaking color graphics (to create many more color combinations). I also did other mods to the motherboard for lower-case and new commands, and ability to use eproms instead of factory roms. I coded and burned my own personal eproms to have custom fonts, and a custom bootstrap to run my own utilities burned in the eproms.

You know nothing about what went into these machines, akin to someone changing tires on a car and thinking they're a mechanic. Whoop-te-do!

[roadcat]

He was the equivalent of a Male Fashion designer for the Computer world.

You finally said something that has some truth! I can partially agree with you here, except Steve Jobs did greatly contribute to the computer industry with some ground-breaking designs.

What he did with these designs, everyone else copied. On the 1984 Mac, first use of 3-1/2 inch floppy drives. All the other microcomputers used 5-1/4 inch floppy discs that were prone to contamination and demagnetization. The original Apple II with a motherboard containing enough hardware to boot a working machine, while having a bank of slots to add 3rd-party boards; most other machines used S-100 architecture and needed other components added to be used. Apple machines were designed to be taken apart with just a single screw and tabs (Mac II series comes to mind); other PCs had sharp rectangular sheet metal with sharp edges and lots of screws. Other PCs soon copied the color schemes of Apple machines; most PCs until then were drab gray. Apples were first with adoption of new interface ports, or dropping of antiquated ports. There were howls of derision against Apple for being first in dropping the 5-1/4 floppy, 3-1/2 floppy, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, as well as interface ports in favor of newer tech which was shortly adopted by all. Then there's the quest of smaller, sleeker, lighter designs which everyone else is copying. No contributions? Hah!

[DiogenesLamp]

Whoop-te-do! You added a few memory chips and call it putting together Apple II boards!

No, silly child. Fabbing one up from a circuit board. What's more, I designed and built my own video card using 4116 dynamic rams, back in the early 1980s. I wanted something with higher resolution than what was available at the time.

Do you know what "Row address strobe" or "Column Address Strobe" means? Do you know about "refresh"? Do you have any conception of how a dynamic ram works?

I still build microprocessor control systems today. How about you?

[DiogenesLamp]

You finally said something that has some truth! I can partially agree with you here, except Steve Jobs did greatly contribute to the computer industry with some ground-breaking designs.

I personally have little respect for "style" over "substance." Steve Jobs was mostly about style, and not so much about substance. Suggesting he was the "Fashion designer" of the computer industry is not intended to be seen as a compliment.

What he did with these designs, everyone else copied. On the 1984 Mac, first use of 3-1/2 inch floppy drives

Appears to have been invented by Sony, and first used on their Sony SMC-70 computer in 1982. Later adopted by Apple.

The original Apple II with a motherboard containing enough hardware to boot a working machine, while having a bank of slots to add 3rd-party boards; most other machines used S-100 architecture and needed other components added to be used.

Yes, the Woz made a great little machine. Steve Jobs supplied the pretty logo, and probably the price.

Then there's the quest of smaller, sleeker, lighter designs which everyone else is copying. No contributions? Hah!

Which came available as the manufacturing capabilities for some of the more exotic stuff (LCD Screens, touch screens, etc.) came available. Again, Jobs didn't build any of it. He simply screamed at his Engineers to implement it as this stuff came available.

But let's put all this aside. I can conclude from what you have written so far that you are a long term computer fan just as am I, so I don't really see where we are doing any good for ourselves or anyone else to keep this animosity going.

I am not impressed much by Steve Jobs. From what I have read of him so far, he does not strike me as deserving the credit he gets, but I have a lot of respect for Steve Wozniak, and I admire the work he has done and the good engineering of the products subsequently produced by his company.

Apple makes good products. That I will not dispute. However, I don't like Steve Jobs, I don't like Tim Cook, and I don't wish the company well. I think the company is now pushing political ideology which is destructive to the nation, and I hope they either reform, or go bust.

Now lest you think i'm being unfair, I hate Microsoft too. Sometimes a lot more than Apple. If you think i'm hard on Steve Jobs, you should hear what I have to say about Bill Gates.

Scum, the whole lot of em.

Anyways, I'm not going to post any more snark at you or Swordmaker. I don't think our acting childish is doing any of us any good. We are all computer fans here. Let us just agree that this stuff is amazing and we can all look forward to even more amazing capabilities to come.

[roadcat]

Appears to have been invented by Sony, and first used on their Sony SMC-70 computer in 1982. Later adopted by Apple.

Although invented by Sony, their use was not in personal computers but was in a niche market for video production. Apple had their own design for a floppy, but because of an issue with them, decided to broker a deal with Sony to use their design as the first use in mass produced personal computers.

Regards Steve Jobs, he was no simpleton, working on electronics design work for HP. Sure, he got an assist from Steve Wozniak, but Jobs was able to hold his own with electronics. Regards Steve Wozniak, he did genius stuff in the early years but without guidance from Jobs wouldn't have amounted to much. He pretty much fell off the radar in the early 80s, while Jobs went on to bigger and greater accomplishments. All Woz does now is sign autographs for money, all while Jobs continued to contribute to pushing the envelope up to his death. That, I can respect of Jobs.

As for Microsoft, I have much disdain for them. For instance, attending courses at Microsoft and having pinhead instructors tell me to use a distinct separate password for everything, minimum of 28 characters mixed alphanumeric with symbols. Not easy if you manage hundreds of devices and need to quickly enter passwords to unlock them. But I digress.

Anyway, we're all Freepers as well as computer fans so that's all with my remarks, given with a smile.

[Swordmaker]

Now stop mouthing back at me with your ignorant opinions.

What part of "I was one of 100 High School Students in the United States in the mid 60s selected by Bell Labs to participate in some of their projects such as making our own transistors. . . and then later participate in voice creation via electronics." did you fail to grasp? Were you so selected? I doubt it.

My point is seems to have been beyond your grasp that the RETAIL PRICE of $1298 which YOU were complaining about as being too expensive is INCLUSIVE of that board plus your $220 of DRAM chips. . . try counting all those components you claim to know what they do, add the cost of acquiring all of them, plus the sockets for the socketed ones, then add in the printing of a double sided circuit board, add design costs, add manufacturing costs including labor, overhead, advertising, and whole host of costs you don't seem to have a clue about, including federal licensing from a bunch of regulatory agencies who have to sign-off on several things, and state and federal taxes, and then YOU tell me if it is too expensive or not. I think they did a remarkable thing in building it in the USA for as low a cost as they did.

And, yes, Steve Wozniak did a phenomenal job, with help, in designing that board and everything else. But Steve Jobs did another phenomenal job of all the rest in making it come together to get the PRODUCT made. . . and frankly, all-in-all, that was probably the harder job.