The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood (67 page)

Dumb Fuck Films

The late director Hal Ashby’s movie company, generally thought by Hollywood cynics to be the best name of a production company ever.

Lew made a big boo-boo
.

N
ot long before his death, former Universal tycoon Lew Wasserman said, “Sold the company to the Japanese. It wasn’t the price that was wrong, but the sale itself.”

What if he had hemorrhoids?

H
arry Cohn, the Columbia czar, said, “If my fanny squirms while I’m watching it, the movie is bad. If my fanny doesn’t squirm, it’s good.”

A Civilian Question

A stupid question asked at a story meeting—the kind of question asked by someone outside the industry, a “civilian,” who doesn’t know anything.

Those poor scared studio execs
…

S
creenwriter/novelist Raymond Chandler: “Sometimes I feel kind of sorry for the poor bastards. They are so damn scared they won’t make their second or third million. In fact, they are just so damned scared, period.”

We’ve all got a spiritual side
.

T
he wife of a studio exec said to me, “Jack was so wound up, we really needed a relaxing evening. We went to a séance for Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn.”

Hollywood Sperm

The children of studio executives.

Lew had a big problemo
.

L
ew Wasserman said, “I was unfortunate not to have a son, only a daughter.”

They’re all sleep-deprived
.

T
he wife of a studio exec told me that he woke up many nights yelling things in his sleep.

Things like:

“He’s going to hand
me
my head on a platter? I’m going to hand him
his
head on a platter!”

“He wants to see a professional? I’ll show
him
a professional!”

“The hat has been thrown in the ring! So he better be ready!”

“If he tries to take credit for this movie, I’ll fucking kill him.”

Three-Piss Picture

Jack Warner felt that if he had to go to the bathroom during a screening, the movie would fail. A movie that would be a disastrous embarrassment was “a three-piss picture.” Nobody could ever convince him that he had a weak bladder.

They live in the reel world
.

S
ony had financed the ill-fated Roland Joffe–directed
City of Joy
, set amid the dire poverty of India.

A few months later, Mark Canton, Sony’s head of production, was showing me around the studio lot, which was in the midst of massive construction. Bulldozers were everywhere; much of the lot seemed to be in ruins.

“This,” Mark Canton greeted me, “is our
City of Joy
.”

Dick Zanuck’s dad “passed” on Marilyn
.

S
tudio chief Darryl Zanuck refused to cast Marilyn Monroe in any “serious” roles.

Marilyn said, “I would have been happy to do anything—
you know
—to get him to let me try something different. He wasn’t interested at all. Every other guy was. Why wasn’t he?”

Suckfish

The junior executives who scuttle the corridors at a movie studio. Also known as “hall mice.”

I hope he got Bill Goldman’s
next job.

J
ames Ryan, adjunct professor of playwriting at the New School in New York City, writes in his book
Screenwriting from the Heart
, “Most executives who run Hollywood, in my experience, are incredibly bright and often very well educated.”

Sorry, but this won’t work
.

D
iscussing the making of his
Blue Dahlia
, Raymond Chandler said, “I threatened to walk off the picture, not yet finished, unless they stopped the director putting in foolish dialogue out of his own head.”