Help from home

FROM the front page of Calendar’s “2006 Movie Sneaks,” The Times announces that Bryce Dallas Howard “did it on her own” and that “It Doesn’t Matter Who Her Dad Is.” [“A Scion of Our Times,” Jan. 15.]

While Howard may be a fine actress, the idea that she has established a career “on her own” is laughable. Maybe she hasn’t been cast because she’s the daughter of one of Hollywood’s most successful directors, but she clearly has had advantages that aspiring actors can only dream of. Hollywood nepotism is a particularly heady strain in which the insider comes to believe that talent alone has opened the door. Shame on The Times for perpetuating one of Hollywood’s most enduring fictions.

KEITH STORER

Long Beach