page_title: Malibu Mafia
section_title: Breakup of Big Oil
hierarchical_section_title: Malibu Mafia / Causes / Breakup of Big Oil
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity portrait of the movie The Long, Hot Summer, depicting Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
context_page_description: The "Malibu Mafia" was an informal group of wealthy American Jewish men who donated money to liberal and progressive causes and politicians. Associated with the beach city of Malibu, California, the group included economist Stanley Sheinbaum, Warner Bros. chairman Ted Ashley, television producer Norman Lear, and four businessmen: Harold Willens, Leopold Wyler, Miles L. Rubin and Max Palevsky. Founded in opposition to the Vietnam War, the group often met at Willens' beachfront house on Malibu Colony Road, and also in Sheinbaum's home in Westwood, Los Angeles, where he held a regular political salon with liberal participants, especially from the film and television industries of Greater Los Angeles. The Malibu Mafia were known for funding the failed George McGovern 1972 presidential campaign, the legal defense of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, the successful 1973 campaign by African-American politician Tom Bradley to become the mayor of Los Angeles, the 1978 salvaging of the progressive magazine The Nation, the Nuclear Freeze campaign of the 1980s, and the Israel–Palestine negotiations that yielded the Oslo Accords in 1993.
context_section_description: In 1975, five members of the Malibu Mafia (without Palevsky) met in Malibu to discuss the problems created by Big Oil. They determined to fight for more democratic control of US energy policy. They formed the Energy Action Committee (EAC), initially funded with $500,000. Early in 1976, actor Paul Newman and his wife actress Joanne Woodward served as the voices of the EAC in Washington D.C. According to The New York Times, the EAC was formed "to prevent deregulation of natural gas prices and to propel through Congress legislation to break up the big oil companies into separate producing, refining and marketing entities."
caption: Married actors Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman spoke out against Big Oil
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