There’s No Business Like Dough Business

Sitting in my classroom during lunchtime on a rainy day, I open the magazine and read about the movers and shakers of the film industry (“Hollywood Now,” March 22). Once again, I’m amazed by the staggering amount of money involved in making a movie, the amounts paid to the actors and what it costs me to actually go see the movie.

As I glance around the room at buckets I’ve set out to collect the water dripping from leaks in the roof, I think to myself: “I picked the wrong profession.”

At the end of the day, as my students--most without jackets--head home in the rain, carrying outdated, torn-up books, I think to myself: “I’ll have to stop reading during lunchtime.”

Connie Murrieta

Garden Grove

*

According to Larry Gelbart (“Resisting the Drafts,” March 22), the first draft of the screenplay that became “Tootsie” was written by Don McGuire, who was, Gelbart says, “best remembered for writing the semi-cult film ‘Bad Day at Black Rock.’ ”

McGuire did not write “Black Rock.” He submitted to MGM a screenplay based on an extremely short story titled “Bad Time at Hondo,” by Howard Breslin. Dore Schary, MGM’s vice president in charge of production, liked Breslin’s idea but rejected the screenplay. Not a word of McGuire’s effort remained in “Black Rock,” which I wrote and for which I received solo credit from the Writers Guild (which determines the credits).

I and others at MGM felt that McGuire deserved some appreciation for having brought the material to the studio, so he was given the credit “adaptation by,” and the screenplay I had written was nominated for Academy and Writers Guild awards.

Millard Kaufman

Los Angeles

*

An entire edition of the magazine was devoted to what’s happening in Hollywood now, and it all seems to be happening without women. Of the current people in power, “The Players Club” (by Patrick Goldstein), only men were interviewed. Among the new generation, “The Kids Are All Right,” those who will soon be making the decisions that move the industry in one direction or another, only two of the nine profiled are female.

Are women interested only in acting? Are women covertly or overtly being kept out of these power positions?

While men have certainly written or produced many fine movies about women, there is a perspective on American life that only women have. The moviegoing public is missing out on a diversity of stories because of a lack of diversity at the top.

Carol May

Los Angeles

*

“The Players Club” pegs what makes Hollywood run. Now that I’m an insider, outsiders often ask me how to get in.

Every job I’ve gotten during my 12 years in the business has been a result of a previous relationship. I’ve never once had to solicit a job in all those years. Yes, there were dry times, but they were short.

My first job, that of an office production assistant, came from a fraternity brother, Jon Landau, co-producer of “Titanic.” My most current film as a producer, “Wild Things,” resulted from my personal and business relationship with former Mandalay president Todd Black.

But along with money, relationships and dumb luck, there’s one more important cog that runs the machine: hard work. No one in this town succeeds unless they put in the time and effort. It’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and if you’re not up to it, you’d do a lot better to try a career in banking.

Rodney Liber

Los Angeles