Hollywood Chokes on ‘Lunch’ : Books: Producer Julia Phillips’ scathing account of her drug-filled years in the film industry of the ‘70s has a lot of insiders on edge.

Hollywood’s hottest eateries are buzzing with gossip about producer Julia Phillips. But don’t expect Phillips to show up at their tables. The title of her new share-a-joint-and-tell book, about the Hollywood fast track, probably says it all: “You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again.”

Phillips claims she’s already been banned from one insiders’ restaurant, Morton’s, and confesses that she’s avoiding others so that her guests don’t have to be seen with her. “Today we were supposed to have lunch at the Grill. Instead, we’re going to Noa Noa, so I’ll be sitting with all the trashy wanna-bes,” she laughs.

In the annals of kiss-and-tell fare, Phillips account of her drug-addicted life at the top of the Hollywood heap during the 1970s will go down as one of the most biting. She names names of those she imbibed with, and maligns friends and foes alike.

“I think the right words to describe the book are frank and unflinching, not sour grapes or bitchy, “ Phillips said in an interview. “Reactions to the book are going to say more about the person making those comments than me.”

Phillips, the daughter of Jewish intellectuals from New York and a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College, moved into the inner reaches of the Hollywood power structure at an early age. In those days, she was young, connected, hip--and living life on the edge.

As part of a production team that also included her husband Michael Phillips and Tony Bill, she became the first woman to win a Best Picture Oscar for producing--”The Sting.” She and her husband went on to produce Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” and Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

“You’ll Never Eat Lunch” is the kind of book where you turn right to the index and hope you don’t find your name listed:

Producer Larry Gordon is a “loudmouth.” Cybill Shepherd has a big tush and “can’t act.” Director Ivan Reitman is the “silliest looking person I’ve ever met.” One producer, Joel Silver, is “a fat slob,” and another, Scott Rudin, is a “previously fat slob.” Warren Beatty is “priapic.” Erica Jong looks like “Miss Piggy.” Goldie Hawn was one of Phillips’ good friends in the 1970s, now she is routinely described as “borderline dirty with stringy hair.” Francois Truffaut is . . . well, it’s unmentionable in a family newspaper.

Her one-time best buddy Spielberg is “selfish, self-centered, egomaniacal, and worst of all--greedy.” Actually, those are the words she claims came out of producer David Geffen’s mouth not too long ago. But then Phillips hastens to add in her book she agrees with this assessment. (Geffen insists her account of his discussions are dead wrong.) Spielberg comes off throughout as an ambitious backbiter.

Most of the people on Phillips’ target list aren’t saying much to the press. Former husband Michael Phillips won’t comment. Former studio chief David Begelman, who greenlighted her films in the 1970s, has asked his secretary to tell reporters that “Miss Phillips is a dear and good friend and that he has had success with her films.” (Phillips reveals in her book that Begelman hated the script for “Taxi Driver” and that she calmed him by getting Spielberg to offer to take over the production if Scorsese screwed it up.) Spielberg’s people said he was too busy on the set of his new film, “Hook,” to talk about the book.

But Geffen, who gets skewered after meeting with her recently on the film project, “Interview With the Vampire,” has plenty to say about Phillips. “She has so many things wrong in that book, yet she talks about her photographic memory. She takes apart everyone in the community. People are aghast that she would write such an ugly, mean-spirited book.

“I don’t know who she imagines she is. She was one of a group of people who had three successful movies, all prior to 1976. But she imagines she is one of the most talented people in town, and the most beautiful.”

According to Geffen, actor Richard Dreyfuss summed up the feelings of many of his old friends this way: “She tried to commit suicide for years with drugs. Now she’s trying to commit suicide with this book.”

Phillips insists that her book is not about sour grapes, or revenge. “All writers sit down to the typewriter because they have an itch they can’t scratch,” she said. “It’s really more about being a malcontent.” As for her critics, she said this: “What we’re really talking about is a very small group of people who have been ruthless bullies for 10 years . . . There used to be a much higher humor quotient in this town. The fun’s gotten ground out.”

Phillips’ detractors also raise questions about how she can remember so many details from the 1970s when she had an acknowledged drug problem. Phillips said that while she never took notes during that period, she has a “rigidly trained mind . . . I’m always being told about my incredible memory. . . . It wasn’t like I was zonked face-down in freebase the whole time.”

The index listing under her name in the book probably best sums up her life: “Academy Awards of . . . anxiety and nervousness of . . . depressions of . . . dieting of . . . directing of . . . drug bust of . . . drug use of . . . firings of . . . guilt of . . . lateness of . . . loneliness of . . . near-strangulation experiences of . . . pregnancies of . . . rage and anger of . . . sexual behavior of . . . success of . . . suicidal behavior of . . .” etc. etc.

She crashed and burned in the last half of the 1970s, by which time she was free-basing cocaine and barely able to function. She got cleaned up, left Los Angeles with her young daughter for a period, but found the door shut when she returned to Hollywood. Production deals at Fox and MGM went nowhere, and in 1987 she nearly went broke producing the film “The Beat,” which disappeared upon its release.

It took Phillips two years to write her 561-page tome, and it took the Random House lawyers another year to clear it. When she first turned in the manuscript in November, 1989, she received a 30-page letter back from the Random House attorneys, detailing their concerns. “They pulled a guy out of retirement” to work with her on the book, she said.

As a result of legal concerns, much of the book was cut, but the outtakes will reappear in her upcoming novel about Hollywood. Random House asked another 20 people, including her ex-husband, to sign release forms promising not to sue the publisher. Some of the legal problems were handled by altering the writing in the book, using novelistic devices. And in other cases, characters were granted anonymity, including two past boyfriends, one drug-addicted, the other a drug-dealer.

Those who are portrayed in a negative light generally qualify as “public figures,” making it more difficult to sue under libel law. But already, some Hollywood insiders claim that lawsuits are in the offing.

The publication of “You’ll Never Eat Lunch” certainly won’t help Phillips if she has any further career ambitions in Hollywood. But, she said, “It’s not as if I was getting to make any movies anyways. As the Bob Dylan line goes, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.’ ” (Actually, Kris Kristofferson wrote “Me and Bobby McGee,” the song the line is from.)

Geffen fired her from the “Vampire” project after reading the book, which, he said, completely misrepresented his meetings with her. “You think there’s a safe space here for creative people to disagree after that?,” he asked. “Only a person who wants to get fired would do this.”

Phillips, however, doesn’t plan to make it easy for Geffen to make the firing stick. Already, she has returned the $7,500 check Geffen sent to buy off her contract.

Phillips also said the maitre d’ at Morton’s called her last week, sheepishly asking her not to return. “He clearly had his little speech prepared,” she said. “He went on about the number of patrons who had called and were upset about the book.”

Asked about the call, the maitre d’ claimed he didn’t know of any policy barring Phillips from the restaurant. Valerie Van Gelder, a spokeswoman for Morton’s, said, “Oh, baloney . . . It sounds to me like the claim was made up by whoever is promoting the book.”

Worried Hollywood insiders may find that their reputations remain intact outside the town’s borders. The writer’s sometimes stream-of-consciousness organizational style, her use of insider jargon, and her penchant for dropping names--often only first names--without delineating their roles in Hollywood will make the book a difficult read for anyone not familiar with this world.

The irony of all this is that if Phillips had succeeded in Hollywood, she might well have been one of “them.” Even in the 1980s, when she was on the outside looking in, she had her house in Beverly Hills and her regular table at Morton’s. Her personal level of social consciousness is hinted at by this passage from her book: “I just assumed that (the Third World) was home to people of color living in medieval squalor. Therefore I did not travel to India to find inner knowledge. I went there for blocked rupees.”

But, if Phillips hadn’t dropped out, if her career had continued to rise, there would have been one big difference. As she put it: “If I hadn’t been a drug addict, if I stayed on the graph the way it was going, they wouldn’t be able to (mess) with me.”

Also contributing to this story was Times Staff Writer Michael Cieply.