Episodes

The streets of Beverly Hills, unlike the streets of the Hollywood Hills, were nearly empty. One morning I saw a woman of about seventy, with the poise and stance of a dancer, shining long silver hair side-parted like Veronica Lake — probably just as it had been when she was a teenager in the forties — wearing surfing jams, Vans, and a moth eaten angora sweater; walking her very large, very shaggy, dogs. It was an hour later when I started seeing more humans, as opposed to, say, squirrels. These...

In the words of Dorothy Gale, there’s no place like home. The light here is what made filmmakers move to California. It shines here most of the time, and there are certain places, certain times of year that take your breath away with sheer wonder. It’s a crying shame that with generations of talent based here so much production is going elsewhere, and I went with it. The migration had to do with tax incentives in some places, and preposterous salaries in others. I think it’s time I told you abou...

Gifted with a glib tongue he moved quickly from never-featured actor, to production assistant, to assistant director, and rapidly ascended the dating scale (as he saw it) from the cute craft service gal who brought cucumber sushi snacks to camera at four in the afternoon, to the daughter of a producer. Everything was meteoric with Antoine — his love life, his career, his quick adaptation to style and circumstance. Where do I insinuate myself firmly into Antoine’s story? I think right about here...

Clara Bow wasn’t the only one who found Hollywood depressing. On a chilly, unusually clouded over, February afternoon in 2009 when I was 48, after the fourth week of shooting on the revived franchise, I received a call. It was Antoine. He told me he couldn’t make it to set on Monday. One could say that was unusual to the nth degree. Directors never miss work unless they’re stricken, for example, by a heart attack or family tragedy. I asked Antoine what the matter was. He was politely evasive, a...

Lethal stress can come at you no matter whether you’re onscreen or off. Actors in Hollywood have committed suicide by swallowing ant paste, Nembutal, or barbiturates. George Sanders (check out his performance in All About Eve) swallowed five bottles of pills in Barcelona and left two suicides notes. One in Spanish instructing the local authorities to notify his sister of his death, and the other went like this: Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am l...

For a few short days after Antoine’s crisis I was more aware of the rhythms and mechanisms of filmmaking and its twitchy straitlaced cousin finance than I had ever been. Much like how time can seem to slow when you fall, leaving you able to see everything around you with crystal clarity before you crash into the ground, I found myself hyperaware of all the moving pieces of movie creation, as inevitable and formidable as a heartbeat. A studio produces 10-15 films a year. In 9 years someone like m...

Life is a series of metamorphoses. Some of them get more airtime than others. I remember once waiting in a gynecologist’s office to see the doctor. There was his desk, on the walls family pictures, on the shelves, some weighty texts. I was curious about hot flashes, so I pulled one of the volumes and flipped to the index. There was a single page referenced, and on the page one paragraph. It said, to paraphrase, that your internal thermostat might go haywire, the medical establishment wasn’t sure...

All through life, instinctively or intellectually, we adapt to survive. Even insects have some boss strategies, for example, the formation of a chitinous exoskeleton, which is the somewhat see-through shell that encapsulates and protects a shrimp or a spider. I have a theory about directors who succeed in the movie industry; they have see-through shells. The shell can be the ability to tune 100 other people out and focus on what’s right in front of you. It can be a tough ego. It can be a calming...

There were heaps — accumulated reminders of a life — all around. Everything that served as an archival asset, or a teaching aid for future filmmakers, I boxed and hauled over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Clothes, I donated. Books, I culled down to the essentials and gave the balance to the library. I avoided looking at my computer for days, ignored my constantly vibrating mobile, and I turned off the ringer on my landline. I played music at all hours, danced when I felt li...

“Do you know the Mayo Clinic lists menopause under diseases and conditions? What do you think of that?” “Well, I know it’s not contagious.” He sat down beside me. “Jesus, this is hard on my knees.” “Sorry about that, old-timer. Cooper, I am not pissed off.” “Then what’s with the face?” “This old thing?” He laughed. “Did I ever tell you about when I was nineteen? When I was working for the Taylors?” “You worked for them?” “I was the nanny.” “Classic.” “Shut up!” “I never knew you were th...

I’ve been tossing about as much stardust as I can muster right now. That’s it, this novel is done. I think the podcast of the book runs a bit over 10 hours in its entirety. Let me know if you’d like to hear another Hollywood novel podcast — remember it will take me some time to write it — if you think I should independently publish what you’ve heard, or, if you just want to chat the comments are open. I’d love to hear from you.