Budd Schulberg’s Take on Hollywood Ethics

Thoughts after reading Jack Mathews’ appraisal of Hollywood ethics (April 22):

OK, my hometown rates its usual F for failing to live up to ethical business standards and its usual A for amorality.

As a veteran if not the Big Daddy of Hollywood’s critics, I say it’s not exactly front-page news that the industry has long been a happy hunting ground for hustlers, ruthless, greedy and every bit as ethical as man-eating sharks.

But when (five decades ago) I wrote “What Makes Sammy Run?”--which I thought I was writing about Hollywood--I quickly learned from an unexpected heavy mail that people from Spokane to Bangor were telling me about their Sammys, in the mail rooms of newspapers, in the plumbing business, not to mention gofers on Madison Avenue, even bellboys in the big hotels.

Over the years I’ve been saying that there’s no moral separation between Hollywood and the rest of America. Hollywood is America, only speeded up, more brightly colored and lit, Hollywood in limelight or slimelight.

As I dash this off, I glance at a headline from the New York Times: “Milken’s Plea Reflects Ethics of Soaring ‘80s.”

The Sammy Glick I thought I was describing as viciously antisocial turns out to be a role model for the yuppies of the ‘90s, one-uppingly mobile from Malibu to Marathon on the keys of Florida.

In the great tradition of Nixon and (whatever-happened-to) Agnew, my American Sammy runs on into the 21st Century.

BUDD SCHULBERG

Westhampton Beach, N.Y.