And writing the book too has helped him to come to terms

And writing the book, too, has helped him to come to terms with what he did: “My journey, my particular journey, was to discover, you know, it may sound like a clich?but that the most important thing in life is truth and love And friendship. One of the first questions he was asked by the agent interrogating him was: what’s Jack Nicholson really like?In retrospect, though, he sees his time in prison as a healing experience: “The feeling I had in my heart when I finally walked out the door was love,” he writes in Framed. In 1995, he was forced to file for bankruptcy, with debts of $3m; it was another two years before the bombshell of his arrest.Tod doesn’t deny he committed crimes, but says he was honestly trying to sort out his finances and pay people what he owed; he believes the FBI picked on him because of his connections. He moved back to New York and tried to revive his business; but his bank and fellow-dealers were becoming impatient and suspicious. He says that Nicholson remained supportive throughout all his troubles.These began when, struggling to maintain his lifestyle, Tod began to juggle with money and art works – he took money to buy things for clients, and used it instead to stave off creditors; he sold art on clients’ behalf without their permission. Why? Because Jack recognised somebody who was trying to make changes in his life, who was going through similar things to him”. For Tod, their relationship was “a true friendship, and just a meeting of two people who had a certain compassion and respect for each other.

I could have taken a $100,000 painting to Jack Nicholson, and sold it to him for $300,000 and Jack would not have questioned me…”He is bitter that, after his arrest, the media presented Nicholson as a victim of his schemes. I could have charged these people like there was no tomorrow. I would have been better off if I’d been myself, stayed true to my art, and had just relied on my own achievements, and hadn’t lived beyond my means.”He says that Silver offered him the chance to be associate producer on Lethal Weapon 4: “But I wanted to do something more artistic – something like Cinema Paradisio [sic].” In the end, his only concrete achievement in film was a credit on Die Hard for “special ceramic vessels”.With hindsight, Tod can see his mistake: “Had I not wanted to build a bridge to the movie business, creatively, I could have been a multimillionaire, and I wouldn’t be sitting here in this room wondering how I’m gonna get back to New York. This was his downfall: “I thought that the way you become a Hollywood player is by living and behaving the way they do, which means spending money like it’s going out of style and living in these fabulous homes. He hung out at Jack Nicholson’s house, among Jack’s collection of C?nnes, Picassos and Magrittes, which hung alongside the things that Tod had obtained for him: a fairy-tale image by the American artist Maxfield Parrish and a Tiffany bamboo floor lamp.Tod’s ambition was to turn his movie acquaintances to account, and make a film about the life of the art-dealer Joseph Duveen. Tod helped Bruce Willis buy a sideboard, and sold lamps to the producer Don Simpson.

A rumour went round that he was dating the actress Rebecca de Mornay, an ex of Tom Cruise’s (he wasn’t). When Renny Harlin, the director of Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and Die Hard 2, got engaged to Geena Davis, Tod supplied the ring. Carrie Fisher and Jim Belushi were his friends; he made love to beautiful women on his divan. You’re gonna live like a king!’” Tod took the hint, and moved to Hollywood.For a while, he did live like a king. And Tod had stayed at Joel Silver’s Frank Lloyd Wright mansion on Hollywood Boulevard, helping the producer furnish it on an extravagant scale.Back in New York, Tod relates, he had a phone call from Silver and his business partner, Larry Gordon: “‘What the hell are you doing?’ they said in unison ‘Get your ass out here. He already had plenty of contacts on the west coast: Jack Nicholson – “the King of Hollywood”, as Tod insists on calling him – had bought ceramics and pictures from him, and established a personal investment fund for Tod to buy and sell on his behalf. Tod’s relations with his cousin became strained, and he began to think about moving on.