The Yacht Parade

Some lessons are learned the hard way. In the 1980s, Tom Bernard and Michael Barker, co-presidents of Sony Pictures Classics, were invited to a yacht party during Cannes. It was being thrown by the Young Millionaire Club, and several theater owners attending the soiree were eager to see the duo. Barker and Bernard agreed to go and took a tender to the yacht -- where they later found themselves stuck and missed an important acquisition screening of a movie that was quickly snapped up by a rival. (Bernard won't say which film it was but admits it became famous after the rival bought it immediately following the screening.) "Since then, we never go on boats that aren't parked," he says.