Category Archives: Film

Le Jet Lag
Part Three

by Peter Lefcourt

Book Excerpt, Fiction, Film, Film Festivals, Financiers, Journalists, Moguls, Producers, Publicists, Studios Leave a comment

The further Cannes Film Festival adventures of a film publicist, journalist and producer. See Part One and Part Two and Part Four. 3,024 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

The Cannes Film Festival jury president, Matthieu Brioche, wasn’t used to getting turned down by women. And he certainly was not used to being left standing in a hotel hallway at two in the morning after an American publicist pushing a film in contention had given him her room number. That was not simply rejection — that was a disgrace. So when his phone rang and he heard the femme in question, Hollywood film publicist Erika Marks – slightly past her prime but enticing none the less, like a bottle of 1975 Chateau Margaux with a leaky cork — inviting him to breakfast, he told her that he had a screening to attend. Erika Marks was proving to be, if not devious, then clueless. He liked that piece of American slang. Though he thought the film with Alicia Silverstone was a turkey. He liked that word, too. He just wouldn’t eat one.

Erika Marks didn’t blame Matthieu Brioche for being pissed. She had given him every indication she was interested. And she hadn’t even been particularly subtle about it. But now that her express orders from her studio boss were to not sleep with the Frenchman, thank God she hadn’t made things worse by jury tampering. Instead, she was just guilty of cock teasing. A misdemeanor.

Outside her door, next to the complimentary copy of USA Today, someone had left that day’s Screen International. Grabbing it, she got back into bed with the trade paper, eager to read the expected hatchet job that film critic Harry Harrington had done on her studio’s picture Crimea. The piece turned out to be great press. It fostered a want-to-see in the reader, which was the name of the game. Her boss Larry Moulds back in Beverly Hills would go ballistic. God forbid, the review could even result in Crimea winning the Palme d’Or. Then they’d really be fucked since their marching orders within the last 24 hours were to kill the film’s Cannes chances.

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Le Jet Lag
Part Two

by Peter Lefcourt

Actors, Book Excerpt, Fiction, Film, Film Festivals, Financiers, Journalists, Producers, Publicists, Screenwriters, Studios, TV Writers 1

Craziness continues for a publicist, journalist and producer attending the Cannes Film Festival. Part One. Part Three.  4,208 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

Larry Moulds, studio Vice President for Publicity and Marketing, had been there and done that. As a unit publicist, he had accompanied movies and worked his tail off, coming home exhausted, sick, and, worst of all, empty-handed. The Cannes Film Festival was an all-or-nothing deal. No matter how you spun it, if you weren’t a winner, you were a loser.

His boss, studio head Vivian Rakmunis, had threatened to send him but she hadn’t actually sent him. Yet. But if his publicist Erika Marks didn’t produce some buzz soon, his ass was on the plane. He picked up his office phone and dialed the Hotel Carlton. Larry realized that he’d be waking up Erika in the middle of the night in France. Fuck her. It was her job to be on call 24/7.

It took seven rings before Erika picked up the phone.

“Oui?”

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Larry? It’s…three-thirty in the morning.”

“Vivian isn’t seeing any ink on the picture. You don’t start producing, Vivian is going to send me over there. And you don’t want me there, do you? So what about jury tampering? You invite the Cannes jury president back for a shtupp?

“Larry, I’m not having sex with anyone on the jury. Can I go back to sleep?”

When he hung up, Erika was sitting up in bed, wide awake and furious. The digital bedside clock read 3:40 a.m. She had to be up at seven to flack the studio’s entry Crimea. If Larry arrived, she’d give him the keys to the car, kiss him on both cheeks, take a plane home, and sell real estate. Between the stress and the jet lag, she was not looking forward to the all-important interview with Paris Match for the film’s spoiled star, Hanna Lee Hedson.

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Le Jet Lag
Part One

by Peter Lefcourt

Actors, Fiction, Film, Film Festivals, Journalists, Producers, Publicists, Serialization 1

A journalist, publicist and producer try their best to withstand the Cannes Film Festival’s worst. Part Two. 4,883 words. Illustrations by Mark Fearing.

Who do you have to fuck to make sure you don’t win a Palme d’Or at Cannes? Can a studio publicist with a tit job and a smattering of French, along with her boss, a VP involuntarily channeling Golda Meir, manage to sabotage the chances of their own film? Is it possible for a former Academy Award winning producer, fallen on hard times, to find financing for the middle third of a movie after he’s already shot the beginning and end with money provided by a consortium of Canadian periodontists? Will a sympathy slowdown of taxi drivers, chambermaids and Perrier suppliers, in support of local sex workers striking for improved dental benefits, bring Cannes to its knees? All these questions Jack Kemper, bottom-feeding entertainment journalist, would answer in time.

But at the moment, wedged in an economy seat in an Air France jet, coming into the Nice/Cote d’Azur airport after a bumpy flight from Paris, his thoughts were concentrated on who would get the lead obit in the trades if the plane went down.

For Jack’s first trip to Cannes, he’d been a stringer for the International Herald Tribune which put him up in the Carlton. And all he had to do was file 500 words a day — which he phoned in, literally. This time his press credentials were from Moviefan.com, a startup operated by a couple of film geeks in Van Nuys. And he would be staying on the wrong side of the Voie Rapide on his own nickel in a 95-Euro a night room a 20-minute walk to the Croisette and full, no doubt, of middle-market hookers and distribution people from central Asia. What the fuck was he doing here anyway? The glamour of Cannes was long gone. It had degenerated into a bazaar, as tight-fisted and venal as a camel market in Beirut. The place was full of accountants and lawyers doing deals. The screenings, the stars, the red carpet had become the sideshow. The real action was the film market. It was all about back-end financing and capitalizing your production investment with a distribution deal. For every hundred people in town, 99 of them were looking for the one guy with the checkbook.

Kemper deplaned and headed for baggage claim where an American film publicist was speaking bad French on her phone. Kemper took a closer look at her. She had that demented, already exhausted, jet-lagged look just 20 minutes after arriving. But Kemper liked a bit of mileage on women. Ten years ago, all you had to do to get laid during Cannes was stand in one place long enough. These days, if you had a few hours free, you slept or read your email. Or, if worse came to worst, you saw a movie.

Kemper waited for her to click off and, with his best smile, said, “First time in Cannes?”

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Bender In Cannes

by Michael Elias

Agents, Book Excerpt, Documentaries, Fiction, Film, Film Festivals, Financiers, Producers, Screenwriters 4

A screenwriter is frustrated at the Cannes Film Festival – until he stops caring about it. 3,283 words. Illustrations by John Donald Carlucci.

Ira, pleased with Bender’s free rewrite of his script, arranged a meeting with Tarik Azziz, a Moroccan film producer and financier, who would also house Bender for a couple of nights in his villa in Cap d’Antibes. Bender arrived at the Cannes Film Festival well armed. He had a script, an interested producer, and a room. It was now up to Bender to find a way to fuck it up.

As he wandered the Croisette, Bender wondered where he got his policy of walking out of waiting rooms after thirty minutes? What was the purpose, what was the result? From his seat on the Ikea couch of the office suite he could see the Moroccan producer talking on the phone in his office, ignoring Bender. Not a wave, not even a raised hand: Sorry, give me a minute.

Bender allowed himself one more pleading glance at the receptionist, who returned a minimal shrug. The ten minutes flew, he added another five, then five more and got up and left. No one pursued him down the hallway. No one flew after him begging forgiveness, clutching his sleeves, and begging him to return. As he stepped in the elevator it occurred to him that they might have thought he had gone to the bathroom.

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The Insect Wrangler
Part Two

by Robert W. Welkos

Animal Performers, Animal Trainers, Assistants, Directors, Fiction, Film, Producers, Short Story, TV Leave a comment

The two most important females in his film life betrayed him — the human and the spider. 3,657 words. Part One. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

The weeks pass and we find ourselves on an indie shoot in Hawaii. Some of the crew needle me about the young chick at my elbow. I put on a serious face and tell them to f-off.

The production is called Early Warning System and it’s being financed out of Hong Kong by two Chinese brothers who may or may not be Communist spies. At least, that’s the rumor circulating on the set.

The brothers are constantly in our faces. The director, who is also Chinese, would like to quit and return home but rumors persist that he could be shot if he did so.

Anyway, the brothers wrote the script, which centers around these Cadillac-sized insects — Lucy, Penelope and a bunch of hoppers — taking over the Big Island of Hawaii. The bugs have been super-sized by all of the lava flowing into the sea from Kilauea. Hey, they’re paying for this picture, so who am I to complain about the plot?

The film features Chinese actors and anyone we can get on the Big Island as atmosphere.

For our big scene, Lucy is to attack the hoppers.

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The Insect Wrangler
Part One

by Robert W. Welkos

Animal Performers, Animal Trainers, Assistants, Fiction, Film, Short Story, TV Leave a comment

He spent his showbiz career loving only creepy crawling stars. Then she came into his life. 4,036 words. Part Two tomorrow. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

“That’s it, Lucy. Show me some leg. Kick higher. Now, a sexy little pose for the camera. Give it your all, sweetie. Awesome!”

I can’t help but hum that familiar tune. I love Lucy and she loves me…

Yes, I love Lucy. Especially this Lucy.

Those legs — all eight of them.

She’s the best little tarantula in the biz and does she know it. How do I know she knows it? Because I’m paid to get her to perform on cue.

“Hey, insect wrangler? You ready?”

“Ready!”

“Quiet on the set! Everyone ready? Okay, and action!”

When I found her down in Red Rock, Lucy was just plodding along through scrub and sands looking for a place to bed down for the morning. She could sense the simmering heat rising with the dawn. She also knew I was hovering overhead. I had to be careful or she might have grabbed my finger with her legs and tried to paralyze me with her venom the way tarantulas strike their main prey. You know, toads and mice and such. But humans, they don’t die from a tarantula bite. Still, I wouldn’t want get her angry and try.

Let me introduce myself. Name’s Brody. Les Brody. Never Lester. I’m no sissy. I own Kingdom Of Insects out of Calabasas, California. For the past two decades, I’ve been the go-to insect wrangler in Hollywood.

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A Matter Of Principle

by Michael Brandman

Directors, Distribution, Executives, Fiction, Film, Film Crew, Hollywood Guilds, Hollywood Scandals, Lawyers, Moguls, Short Story, Studios 2

Little has changed in the movie business from three decades ago when nepotism, sexual harassment and racism ran rampant. 3,837 words. Illustrations by Mark Fearing.

Hollywood — Fall/Winter 1988

The sign on the door read: CAPITOL PICTURES, OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN.

The Chairman, Leo Moody, often joked that when the Board of Directors finally got around to shit-canning him, they’d save money by not having to change a name.

I was sitting in Moody’s outer office, across from his long time assistant Marie Liotta, who was at her desk sorting the morning mail.

From inside Leo’s office we could hear him hollering into the phone.

"He shouldn’t be doing that," Marie said to me.

"Doing what?"

"Yelling like that. You know he had surgery."

"What surgery?"

"Vanity surgery. He had his neck done."

I didn’t say anything.

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Acting Class

by Alan Swyer

Acting Classes, Acting Coaches, Actors, Fiction, Film, Musicians, Short Story, Theatre, TV 1

A wannabe actor finds out he’s learning from a beast of a man. 3,130 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

 

"I cannot make you an actor," the man often spoken of as King Kahn (but never to his face) told the dozen hopefuls gathered on a Monday morning for his new theater workshop. "I’m a teacher, not God. I can, however, help you learn to think, prepare, and behave like the professional I assume you aspire to be. But that’s if and only if you’re willing to listen, accept criticism, and most importantly do the goddamn work. Understood?"

Feeling like he had somehow crashed the wrong party, Ed Saks watched as his classmates, who ranged in age from their early twenties to a woman in multiple scarves approaching fifty, nodded a bit too vigorously.

"But let me make clear," Kenneth Kahn continued, "that I am not, nor shall I ever be, your psychiatrist, your daddy, or your friend. If we were in New York, I would say if that’s what you’re searching for, go back to Poughkeepsie, Pawtucket, or Passaic. But we’re on the other coast. Where shall I say, Freddie?"

"Oxnard?" offered Kahn’s eager young assistant. "Or maybe Cucamonga?"

"Freddie’s a veritable font of knowledge. Oxnard and Cucamonga indeed."

Upon his arrival before class, Saks felt that he was entering an alternate universe. The other students spoke of Kahn as the successor to Stella, Bobby, Sandy, plus someone called Gadge, all the while referencing their own experiences at Tisch, RADA, and summer stock. It was as though another language was being spoken. That was also true when they cited stars reportedly mentored by King Kahn, plus celebrities male and female with whom he had been linked sexually.

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Why, Why, Why
Part Four

by Stephanie Carlisi

Actors, Agents, Assistants, Fiction, Film, Managers, Music, Musicians, Recording Artists, Recording Industry, Screenwriters, Serialization Leave a comment

A legendary songwriter’s assistant is determined not to make the same mistakes twice. 2,668 words. Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

Throughout dinner I listened to the veteran songwriters discuss their craft. They had both written hit songs for the Troubadours. They described composing straight from the heart and then handing the songs to one of the most famous bands of all time who imbued them with their signature style. The songwriters would struggle when performing their songs in public. They wanted to perform their music as they had written them but the audience, naturally, would want to hear the songs as they had come to know them through the Troubadours.

I was fascinated by the conversation, feeling like a fly on the wall of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, when a distracting image crossed into my peripheral vision. Reflected in an oversized mirror on the wall across from our restaurant table was my ex-boyfriend Leo Sing, hand-in-hand with his new working actress girlfriend. They were walking toward a table.

Gaping, I watched them join Leo’s agent, his manager and his assistant — his usual entourage.

—

Leo was a half-baked film and TV screenwriter who had used his exotic looks, charmed breeding and Cambridge elitism to finagle his way into the entertainment biz. He surrounded himself with power players and fit right in very successfully — even though, in my humble opinion, his talent was somewhat lacking .

Our first date had started and ended at Leo’s gorgeous home way up in the Hollywood Hills after an evening of fine wining, dining and martinis. Leo had laid eyes on me at a party six months prior and decided without reservation that I was the next Monopoly property he would acquire. When he invited me to go out with him, it hadn’t occurred to me that a lady deserved to be fetched from her apartment as opposed to be beckoned to a gentleman’s home. When I saw Leo’s house and his view of the twinkling city lights, it became clear that he was making sure I knew how lavishly he lived. After dinner, Leo chivalrously held my hair away from my face while I puked in his porcelain toilet. He carried me to his bed, coaxed my knees apart and proceeded to have sex with me although I had protested. I slurred “no” repeatedly while slipping in and out of blackout. I was even wearing my “there-is-no-way-I’m-having-sex-tonight underwear” but that hadn’t seemed to bother him. The next morning I was mortified, but I could only blame myself. Of course it had been my fault. I was sloppy. He was fancy.

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Advisory: Oscar Fiction Package

by Nikki Finke

Advisory, Animal Trainers, Award Shows, Fiction, Film, Oscars Leave a comment

Hollywood Dementia’s annual Oscar Fiction Package — 22 short showbiz stories authored by authentic insiders about filmdom’s worst night. Come for the cynicism. Stay for the subversion.

The Campaign
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-the-campaign-by-robert-w-welkos/
Red Carpet
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-red-carpet-by-ann-hamilton/
After The Red Carpet
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-after-the-red-carpet-by-ann-hamilton/
Another Red Carpet
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-another-red-carpet-by-ann-hamilton/
Revenge, Thy Name Is Oscar
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-revenge-thy-name-is-oscar-by-nat-segaloff/
Shortlist
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-shortlist-by-tom-teicholz/
And The Winner Is…
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-and-the-winner-is-by-daniel-kimmel/
And The Oscar Goes To…
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-and-the-oscar-goes-to-by-robert-w-welkos/
How I Produced The Oscars
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-how-i-produced-the-oscars-by-bernard-weinraub/
The Dull One – Part One
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-the-dull-one-part-one-by-laurie-horowitz/
The Dull One – Part Two
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-the-dull-one-part-two-by-laurie-horowitz/
Nobody’s Oscar
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-nobodys-oscar-by-nat-segaloff/
Man & Mona
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-max-and-mona-by-richard-natale/
Seatfiller
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-seatfiller-by-jay-abramowitz/
I Want To Thank The Academy
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-i-want-to-thank-the-academy-by-nat-segaloff/
The Tom Ford Tuxedo
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-the-tom-ford-tuxedo-by-bernard-weinraub/
One Night Only
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-one-night-only-by-katherine-tomlinson/
Memo From The Corner Office
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-memo-from-the-corner-office-by-nat-segaloff/
Oh Oscar! My Oscar!
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-oh-oscar-my-oscar-by-mark-fearing/
Who Are You Wearing On
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-who-are-you-wearing-on-by-bill-scheft/
Everything But Oscar
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-everything-but-oscar-by-quendrith-johnson/
Dead Or Alive
https://hollywooddementia.com/nikki-finke-fiction-dead-or-alive-by-michael-burns/

The Interview

by Mark Jonathan Harris

Directors, Fiction, Film, Film Critics, Indieprods, Media, Short Story, YouTube 1

He may never win an Oscar as a director. But he might snag one for acting. 1.932 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

The interview takes place in a suite at the Mark Hotel in New York. Although the director detests speaking to journalists, he understands the imperative of publicizing his new film. His last two movies disappeared with barely a trace; they can’t even be found on YouTube. At 59, he knows that if this film tanks, he may no longer be able to continue doing what he loves.

The interviewer is 26, a recent graduate of an obscure film school where the director fears he may be exiled if this film also fails at the box office. The aspiring critic has made several short YouTube videos analyzing movies of directors she admires and has begun to develop a following. She thinks that an interview with this controversial director can build her audience even more. Although she loves his first movie, his new film puzzles and disturbs her. She’s not sure what to make of it, or the director. At film school she took a class in documentaries and agrees with Jean Rouch, the French anthropologist/filmmaker, that the camera can unlock closed doors and provoke subjects to reveal more about themselves than they realize. She hopes the camera will do the same today and help her make up her mind about the director. She’s never filmed an interview before, though, and she’s apprehensive about it.

She knocks softly on the door of the hotel room. The director opens it, glass in hand. She wonders if it holds water or vodka. Entering the suite with her camera equipment, she looks around uneasily.

INTERVIEWER: I thought your publicist would be here.

DIRECTOR: I don’t have a publicist.

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Dead Or Alive

by Michael Burns

Actors, AMPAS, Award Shows, Digital Technology, Executives, Fiction, Film, Oscars, Short Story 3

OSCAR FICTION PACKAGE: Well, here’s one way to avoid another no-host awards show. 1,299 words. Illustrations by Mark Fearing and Thomas Warming.

George Markus didn’t like to be kept waiting. Since he’d been nominated for an Academy Award for special effects, the whole industry had recognized his talent. But that was four years ago. Since then, Markus had all but disappeared. Now, practically coming out of left field, he had demanded a meeting with the president of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences who apparently was enmeshed by problems caused by this year’s host-less Oscars.

And so all Markus could do was wait. Sitting in the anteroom outside Berman’s office, Markus closed his eyes and decided to hone his pitch. This has to fucking work, he thought. They have to see its value. And, for the hundredth time, he went over his opening line.

Another twenty minutes went by.

“Mr. Berman will see you now.”

Lost in thought, Markus looked up from his paperwork. He nodded curtly at the secretary, rose from his chair, took a deep breath and followed her into Berman’s office. The President was sitting at his desk.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. What’s on your mind today?” He didn’t bother getting up to shake hands, waving Markus into a facing chair.

Markus ignored the slight. “We’ve come up with something new, Mr. Berman. Next year I can give you the best Oscar show in the Academy’s history.”

No reaction. Maybe bored skepticism.

“What have you got?”

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Everything But Oscar

by Quendrith Johnson

Addictions, Award Shows, Fiction, Film, Journalists, Media, Oscars, Screenwriters, Short Story Leave a comment

OSCAR FICTION PACKAGE: A screenwriter turned Hollywood blogger obsesses about award shows. 2,673 words. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

He liked to call her Celeste, after Celeste Holm, because he said, “You are destined to be a character actor of writing.” Kenny was the first screenwriter turned journalist she ever met who really got somewhere. And Kenneth J. Bodemire was incredibly smug about it at the time. Framed magazine coverage of himself with famous film names lined a back wall in his Marina Del Rey stronghold on the beach. It looked like a set decorator had given the place a nautical going over.

Since nobody was making any money from journalism these days, Kenny characterized his career collapse with this line: “When the Internet went up, the price of words went way down. And the price of assholes went way up.” Which referred to professional trolls, he said, as if he’d just discovered this decades-plus phenom.

On this day, she saw him up at Peet’s on Montana near 14th Street, one of his favorite “I’m still here” hang-outs. Next thing she knew, he was walking toward her car. Unbelievable. Zip, window down.

“Isn’t there a law against walking under the influence?” she smiled.

In hindsight, she wished she’d had a body mic to record their conversation. At the time Celeste had no way to help him, even as Kenny poured his Tequila-soaked self into her passenger seat. As soon as he got in the Volvo, he quipped, “If you give me $20, I’ll get out.” That was his new reflexive funny line. Celeste side-eyed him, trying not to think how steep his drop had been. She really didn’t like driving around with this level of manic depression energy in a closed space.

“You don’t know how rotten the whole thing is, all of it. Everybody is in on it. Except Oscar.”

“I’d never pegged you for a paranoid schizophrenic, but I’m warming up to it.” It was meant to be funny, but he tightened. “What’s your objective, Kenny: to bring down the entire Award Show establishment?”

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Famous Last Words
Part Two

by Sara Hammel

Actors, Book Excerpt, Fiction, Film, Media Leave a comment

The CelebLife reporter could dig up dirt on any actor — unless she liked him. 2,214 words. Part One. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

I freshen up, check my teeth, brush my hair, reapply my makeup while I’m standing in line. I wait a few moments before a staffer notes my sparkling wristband and waves me in with a smile. The club is packed because they’ve clearly let too many people inside for Tristan Catline’s movie premiere. I check my watch: fifty-five minutes to go. I have to dodge Tracey while scanning for Tristan and figure out who Ms. Creamsicle is. I beat my way through the crowd to find one of only two bars in the place, and it’s clear I’ll be spending my remaining fifty-something minutes waiting for a drink. I check my phone, fending off people pushing past and cutting the line.

Who’s the angel who got me in tonight? Lance? H. Mark? Who else could it be? Of course, another fantasy option has occurred to me but I don’t dare acknowledge it. I get to the front of the line and shout my order for a Love-tini, tonight’s signature drink that sounds suspiciously like a glorified Cape Codder. I am on my first sip when I see Tracey.
She’s standing alone in a corner looking like a frightened bunny, holding her own Love-tini up to her face like a security blanket. She’s supposed to find Tristan and watch his every move. But, from what I can see, she’s doing no such thing. Interesting. Lance and H. Mark burst into view, sweaty and grouchy.

“I literally would take one detail at this point,” growls Lance. “Tristan’s shit-hot right now, but he’s not talking, OK, fine. But can’t he, like, talk to a girl or fall down drunk or do something in public where I can see?” Lance looks around frantically. “He’s not even here, is he, at his own premiere party?”

“Don’t sweat it,” H. Mark yells over the din. “This is the reality of celebrity reporting. As glamorous as a Port-a-Potty at a rodeo.”

As I watch them disappear into the crowd, the mystery redhead appears by my side like a ghost. “Miss Noble. If you’d like to come with me.”

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Famous Last Words
Part One

by Sara Hammel

Actors, Book Excerpt, Fiction, Film, Media 1

The CelebLife reporters go hunting for a scoop, while the powerhouse publicists protect their A-list clients. 2,475 words. Part Two. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

Quinn clicks a button and up comes someone I once met, a lanky boy with innocent eyes, freckled cheeks, and a shy smile.

“Tristan Catlin,” Tracey narrates. “What the hell happened to him?”

I don’t know. The shy lanky boy I met on the ice that day no longer exists, and I don’t know what did it to him, Hollywood or life. His eyes are puffy, he’s got a hint of alcohol bloat (I know from bloating), and he’s had his normal-looking nose whittled down to please the cameras.

Tristan became the darling of independent film a few years after I interviewed him. The world was introduced to “Tristan Tears” when he cried in every other scene in And She Played On, a movie in which his piano-genius wife threw herself in front of a car to save his life. It earned him an Oscar nod but no award. Marrying America’s sweetheart, Josephine Jansen, put him on the A-list and secured him a role in an action franchise. But his marriage to Josephine began to crumble. She held on for a long time, after co-star affairs and rumors of various addictions, but now they’re embroiled in a messy split.

“We’re hearing Tristan is still living at the house. He’s been seen there,” I say. I’m Augusta Noble, a freelance reporter for CelebLife, one of the world’s most read media outlets. I ended up in the Los Angeles bureau after the London office was shut down abruptly due to budget cuts.

“Great,” Maguire Carnaby, the conniving L.A. bureau chief and my bitch of a boss, nods to me. “Is Ivan confirming?”

“Does he ever?”

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Mentor

by Alan Swyer

Actors, Directors, Fiction, Film, Producers, Screenwriters, Short Story, Stunt Performers, TV, TV Writers 1

The young writer loved listening to the Hollywood history that the veteran shared. Was it true? 2,451 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

Hearing more and more stories about Hollywood in its heyday, Kaplan often found himself musing about how much he had missed. Not that his life had been boring or circumscribed, coming as he did from an industrial town in New Jersey where he had been a part of worlds never seen by kids from suburbia. In that blighted but interesting environment, he grew up with sons of the local Mafia, became one of only two white kids on the high school basketball team, and by the age of 16 financed excursions into Lower Manhattan by selling bags of oregano, catnip, and twigs to rich kids. Later he was an impoverished American in France with an expense account, thanks to a gig he hustled writing the Paris section of a travel guide for the youth market.

But the Hollywood that Kaplan later encountered was run by MBAs rather than moguls, and populated by “bankable" actors who seemed more like flavors-of-the-month than the stars of yesteryear. But as a young screenwriter then lunching with a stuntman turned writer-producer turned director on nothing but margaritas, chips and salsa, Kaplan was hooked.

Long enamored of the original version of Kiss Of Death — and even more of Richard Widmark, who carved a special niche for himself in film noir history by pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs — the scribe was stunned to learn that his lunch partner, in drag, had done the stunt. Even more astonishing was that Verlaine had arrived on the set that day simply to visit his girlfriend, an actress who had landed a small role in the film. Only when every professional stuntman on the shoot balked at the far too dangerous gag did Verlaine, who had been searching for a way to make a name for himself in the business, volunteer.

Ironically, the largely alcohol-based lunch set up by an agent attempting to steer Kaplan away from feature films and into episodic TV was in many ways a mistake professionally. Because it came on the day when Verlaine, deluged with ridiculous network notes, received one that was a deal-breaker.

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