Associate, The (film) Laurel Ayers, a bright financial analyst, is disgusted when she is passed over for a well-deserved promotion, so she creates a perception that she has formed a partnership with a powerful financial whiz. Fabricating and donning the persona of “Robert S. Cutty,” a strutting, ponytailed, bass-voiced man, Laurel maneuvers a number of successful financial deals, until her underhanded rival, Frank, attempts to unmask Cutty and appropriate the disguise for his own personal gain. Laurel proves eventually that men do not have a monopoly on creative enterprise. Released on October 25, 1996. Directed by Donald Petrie. A Hollywood Picture. Stars Whoopi Goldberg (Laurel Ayers), Dianne Wiest (Sally), Tim Daly (Frank), Bebe Neuwirth (Camille), Lainie Kazan (Cindy Mason), Austin Pendleton (Aesop), George Martin (Walter Manchester), Eli Wallach (Fallon). 114 min. Based on the French film, L’Associé, which was adapted from the novel El Socio by Jenaro Prieto. Filmed entirely on location for 11 weeks in New York. Special arrangements were required to accommodate a 130-person cast and crew team invading an active stock market trading floor (they shot on weekends). Academy Award-winning makeup artist, Greg Cannom, created the prosthetics to turn Goldberg into Cutty; it was a three-and-a-half hour transformation process. Released on video in 1997.
