Doing Business Just Like Dear Old Mom Did

When a year-end survey asked hundreds of chief executives to name the person who inspired them most, did they pick Bill Gates, Michael Eisner or Jeff Bezos? Nope. Their No. 1 choice was none other than Mom.

Isn’t that sweet?

The survey, commissioned by Doremus Advertising, was sent to the chief executives of more than 600 American corporations. After Mom (who garnered 34% of the vote), the most popular choice was Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone with 21%. Rounding out the top five were baseball great Jackie Robinson (16%), George Bailey, the fictional character from Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life” (6%) and New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (8%).

Giuliani and Mom? Now that’s a pair.

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A Clearwater, Fla., company is on a quest for the world’s biggest breasts. And no, we’re not promoting Hooters in this column. (Darn, we just did.)

A custom bra maker called Personal Beauty Unlimited is looking for the world’s bustiest woman so it can construct for her “the world’s biggest brassiere.”

Despite the questionable taste of the contest, the bra maker said its goal is to promote awareness of the health problems, including back and shoulder pain, that can plague the large-busted.

“We want big women to know there is something out there to help them,” company President Victoria Morton told us.

That something, she said, is a bra that uses the engineering principles of a suspension bridge, supporting from underneath rather than from the shoulders.

Information on the contest, which ends April 15, is available at https://www.biggestbra.com.

“We are getting calls from Hong Kong, South Africa, South America and Canada,” said Morton.

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The Helmut Lang Co. wants to set the record straight on recent reports (including ours) about a controversial product bearing its name. The line of Army surplus-inspired T-shirts sold in Hong Kong that bear the phrase “Helmut Lang Summer Camp 1998,” along with swastikas and concentration-camp serial numbers, are not the work of the Austrian designer. They are counterfeits.

The company said it has taken legal action to stop the unauthorized manufacture and distribution of the shirts, which use the designer’s name in conjunction with the swastika symbol.

“The highly offensive T-shirt is an outright illegal use of the Helmut Lang trademark within the most deplorable context,” the company’s attorneys told us.

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Got a movie idea but no agent? There’s a Web site, https://www.hollywoodlitsales.com, that could help you determine if, say, “Sniveling Spinsters in Paradise” is the next “Waterboy.”

Producer Steve Tisch (“American History X,” “Forrest Gump”) is a founder of the site, which solicits movie log lines. (For nonindustry types, a log line is three to four sentences that describe the main plot, main character and any major twists in the story.) If Tisch and his partners at Black & Blu Entertainment see promise in your idea, you may be asked to submit a longer summary.

Then, who knows? It may not be as exciting as making a deal over a chopped salad at the Ivy, but, according to a claim on the site, “producers, agents and other industry execs visit the page for great material and writers. There have been options.”

Booth Moore can be reached at booth.moore@latimes.com.