Rules of Hollywood

February 26, 2006

THE RULES OF HOLLYWOOD

If It's TV Staffing Season, Keep Your Rx Card Handy

I signed with my agent because he had a sexy voice. The kind of voice you expect to hear broadcasting the news or, at the least, the weather. I imagined myself picking up the phone, pouring a glass of wine and listening to concise, well-scripted updates on my astonishingly successful writing career.

February 19, 2006

THE RULES OF HOLLYWOOD

Once You're in the Club, Mr. Dogg Is Simply Snoop

I am not a club guy.

February 12, 2006

THE RULES OF HOLLYWOOD

If You're Out by Monday, Never Ask Why

In 1987 I set out by car from Washington, D.C., for a new career in Hollywood, a place I knew very little about. I had a job waiting there as a staff writer on "Hill Street Blues," and what I didn't know I was sure I could find out. I had heard that the rules were different in Hollywood, where, as the screenwriter William Goldman famously put it, "nobody knows anything." In 20 years as a newspaper reporter my experience had been pretty much the opposite: Everybody knows something, and often somebody knows everything. I concluded that I was entering the creative realm, where things become clear in sudden flashes.

February 5, 2006

THE RULES OF HOLLYWOOD

If You Don't Look to Pass, You're Sure to Fail

The ball was floating, ever so gently, toward the half-court line. At first it seemed to be in slow motion, but it wasn't.