Last Stop on the Company Town Wild Ride

Five years ago I was quietly doing my job on the Metro desk, not really bothering anyone, when an editor asked me how I felt about the entertainment business beat. “I feel fine about it,” I told her. “Except . . . I don’t know anything about entertainment or business.”

Not a problem, she said. You’ll learn. It will be an adventure. And she was right.

Covering the entertainment industry is like visiting another planet on a day pass. I won’t call it “Planet Hollywood,” because that name’s already taken. But the analogy works. No other people resemble those you meet there, and few other businesses are such a consistent roller-coaster ride.

Like everyone, I had my ups and downs. Some people befriended me and became valued sources. Others accused me of being obsessed with their foibles--especially those at Sony Pictures. A few misled me. All in all, I have more good memories than bad, but now it’s time to move on. Time to return to the real world. . . . Call it Planet I-Don’t-Care-What-Sony-Did-Now.

I won’t get sentimental. But since all reporters and native Southerners are inveterate storytellers, I will leave you with a few favorite anecdotes and life lessons:

There must be some mistake: People like to think that Hollywood columnists, even business columnists, spend most of their time cavorting at cocktail parties and premieres. Unfortunately, that’s not true. I spent many more hours hunched over my cramped desk next to the office printer.

The most memorable exception was the time I was seated next to Arthur Krim--the Hollywood legend and confidante of U.S. Presidents--at an AIDS fund-raiser during the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.

This was a hot ticket event. The honoree was Elizabeth Taylor and the guests were whisked to Le Moulin de Mougins restaurant outside Cannes in a motorcade of Renaults, complete with police sirens wailing. Neither Krim, who died this year, nor I had any idea what I was doing next to him. But he was a good sport, and shared some unforgettable stories from his days running United Artists and Orion Pictures.

Never be upstaged by your food: That same year a Russian businessman who was trying to make a splash in Hollywood hosted a lavish party aboard a yacht docked next to the Palais des Festivals.

Overindulgence defines most Cannes events, but he managed to wow even the most jaded Cote d’Azur partygoers by stocking the yacht with mountains of the finest caviar, smoked salmon, lobster and vodka. His fatal mistake was doing a better job of catering than making deals.

People still talk about the party, but no one remembered the businessman’s name until last week, when the Hollywood Reporter revealed that Serge Majarow, 36, the illustrious-unknown Cannes party thrower, had been gunned down in Paris, an act that was linked to the Russian mafia.

Joe College: I have two Hollywood letters framed and hanging in my study. The first is a gracious note from Variety’s Army Archerd wishing me well on Company Town. The second is from a major Hollywood figure who was worried about his education. The executive said that he was thinking of applying to graduate school, and wanted to know if I would write him a letter of recommendation.

I figured it was a joke, since anyone worth tens of millions of dollars and running a major company can probably get into graduate school just fine on his own. But I was wrong. He subsequently called to confirm that I had received the letter. Luckily, it never came up again. But seeing it on my wall still gives me a good laugh.

Has anyone seen my personality? Striking the right chord with Hollywood sources is a difficult thing. You have to maintain your journalistic detachment at the same time that you’re trying to develop relationships within the hermetic entertainment world.

At the beginning I guess there was too much detachment in my deportment. During a getting-to-know-you dinner with one executive, we discovered that we came from similar middle-class Jewish backgrounds. I could tell something about that troubled him. Later in the talk he revealed what it was. “Are you sure you’re Jewish?” he asked. “Well, yeah,” I stammered. “Why?” “I dunno,” he answered. “You just don’t have much of a personality.”

Personality goes a long way: Steve Ross, the late Time Warner chairman, was in the midst of a losing campaign to win Wall Street over to a controversial variable rights offering in 1991, when he agreed to see me at his Manhattan office. The meeting was supposed to last about 30 minutes. But once he got wound up, Ross was like a preacher who couldn’t get enough of the sound of his own voice.

Two hours later he was still postulating the benefits of the offering, his arms flailing and his ingratiating smile growing more intense. I never saw the logic of the offering, but it was impossible not to be swept up in the passion he had for his ideas.

But not that far: I realized I was taking my own job way too seriously at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, last January, when a scheduling conflict forced me to choose between spending an hour with supermodel Elle Macpherson, who was there promoting her role in “Sirens,” or the extremely unmodel-like Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of Miramax Films.

I chose Weinstein.

Killer Diller and Simmering Sid: There’s always been a certain aura around Hollywood’s tough-guy moguls, including QVC Chairman Barry Diller and MCA President Sid Sheinberg. I got off to a rocky start with Diller when, in our first conversation, he paused and asked, “Why am I talking to you?” But I eventually came to appreciate his cut-through-it candor. Sheinberg was another matter. Talking to me seemed to pain him more than reading the grosses on “Junior.” People insist that he’s actually a good guy, so maybe it was just me.

No autographs, please: Business reporters don’t have much cause to talk to celebrities, and that was fine with me, because the behind-the-scenes players are substantially more interesting, anyway. But it’s impossible to do this job without occasionally bumping into a star.

I met Warren Beatty at his favorite hideaway once to talk about an executive I was profiling. It soon became clear Beatty had no intention of ratting on the executive, but he was happy to discuss the pop culture significance of Richard Nixon.

Another time, Sylvester Stallone was talking about the vagaries of the industry. He had just finished “Cliffhanger,” and I asked why he was returning to tough-guy roles after a string of movies aimed at a family audience.

“Because,” he thundered, “the Earth is not a family-oriented spot!”

History doesn’t always play like the movies: In September, outgoing Walt Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and I were in New York at the same time, and he offered me a ride back to Los Angeles on the Disney jet.

I took him up on it--both as a way to get out of coach class and for the chance to observe firsthand Katzenberg’s last hours as chairman, since it was his final day on the job.

The frenetic future Dream Teamer was even more keyed up than usual during the flight. He checked his office for messages repeatedly, flipped aimlessly through his faxes and was distracted in conversation.

When the jet finally started its descent, I was still waiting for some memorable, historic gesture. Would he salute the stewardess? Kiss the Tarmac? Steal a Mickey Mouse towel from the jet lavatory?

No. Instead, he pulled an emery board out of his briefcase and began nonchalantly filing his nails. “Is that it?” I asked, realizing that the only insight I was taking away was a better understanding of his grooming habits. “Is that all you’re going to do?” “Yep,” he said. “That’s it.”

And it is.