Smoking Mad
Billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, who has been increasing his presence in Los Angeles with his stepped-up investment in the television business, is clearing the air about what he doesn’t like about the town.
In what he describes as his first ever Q & A interview (actually, he recently gave one that appeared earlier in a television trade publication) Perelman tells Cigar Aficionado magazine that he dislikes the city’s restrictive smoking policies.
“The biggest problem is in California because there nobody smokes. No place,” Perelman says in an interview with Cigar Aficionado Editor Marvin R. Shanken.
Perelman is a longtime cigar smoker whose vast holdings include Consolidated Cigar Corp. In the interview, he describes Los Angeles as “probably the most health-conscious community” in the United States.
“The laws there are stronger for smoking sections and prohibition than anyplace else. There is a real animosity toward smokers amongst the patrons,” Perelman said.
Is this Nixon the One?
A man named Richard G. Nixon is now promoting a book “The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches,” saying it’s been a best-seller over the past 20 years or so.
The author’s name isn’t the only thing that sounds familiar. The book title is the same as one that was promoted around Southern California in the 1970s by flamboyant television pitchman Joe Karbo, who died in 1980.
A spokeswoman for Nixon says that he bought the book from Karbo before he died, and has revised it substantially.
Go and Tell Your Neighbor
What does a former box-office star and presidential candidate do for an encore?
Actor Tom Laughlin, who starred in the 1970s hit “Billy Jack” and “The Trial of Billy Jack” sequel and who ran for president in 1992, is promoting his new company, the Laughlin Group, as a maverick marketer of movies.
“Of all of the irrational, dysfunctional elements in the current studio business paradigm--nothing is more irrational than Hollywood’s failure to use modern technology and sophisticated psychology to build an ongoing line of communication with moviegoers to continuously update themselves as to what their customers demand in a picture before buying a ticket,” a brochure for the company says.
Briefly. . .
When your film flops at the box office: An ad in the Hollywood trade publication Variety placed by the UCLA Anxiety Disorder Program seeks “those who are suffering from panic attacks”. . . Despite the baseball strike, the Seattle Mariners are looking to sell title sponsorship of an Internet World Wide Web site for $40,000, Team Marketing newsletter reports . . . An Eco Expo next month in Los Angeles is promoted as “Walden Pond Meets Silicon Valley”. . . An Irvine company called Rudy Products is selling a “bankruptcy T-shirt” for $12, which depicts--in red ink--the first page of the bankruptcy petition filed by Orange County.
