Life in Hollywood: Advertising

Screenwriters sometimes write ad copy. An Australian friend asked me to have a go at something new for Aeroplane Jelly. He had been paid a big advance for a draft now due, but after a week with me in Hollywood, he was too drunk and disoriented to write anything. The subject came up as we [...]

Elizabeth Taylor’s Ring Gets A Surprising New Owner

[Headline, Huffington Post, 01/06/12] First, I deplore the use of celebrity gear in voodoo rites. I wish that I had a nickel for every star who has died of lung cancer because some voodoo newbie didn’t know what he was doing. Second, I’m sick and tired of standing by the Two-Buck Chuck in the Trader [...]

PHOTO: Giant Man Spotted At Kim Jong Il Funeral

[Headline, Huffington Post, 12/30/11) I was at Abe Goldschmidt’s funeral, the indoor part, and there was a lady with a big hat sitting in front of me. I couldn’t see a thing. If I were this giant man, I could have looked over the hat. Overlooked the hat. Or, being a giant, I could have [...]

Ryan Gosling and the Vizsla

My friend Izzy told me this story the other night. We were drinking after a day’s shoot, in the Capri Lounge on Pacific in Glendale. Izzy might have been telling the truth or he might have been lying through his drunken nose, but I was on set the day that Christian Bale went off, so when it [...]

Humphrey Bogart and my mom

My mom’s family moved to Temple City, California, the year the town incorporated (1923). Temple City is just east of Alhambra and San Gabriel. My mom was nine. From the age of fourteen, she worked in my grandfather’s drugstore in town. At the age of twenty-one, she moved to Hollywood and got a job in the makeup department at Warner Brothers. [...]

Drinking with a star

We finished shooting last night at ten and the male lead, not Ashton Kutcher, asked me if I wanted to grab a drink on the way home. We stopped at Noir Bar in Maison 140 on Lasky Drive, and by the time I returned from the bathroom, nAshton had two attractive UCLA premed students lounging [...]

Dinner with the Kardashians

But not with Kourtney, Kim, and Khloé. I was in Aparan, in Aparani Shrjan, Armenia. Aparan is a town of about 16,000 souls. It’s in a valley on the M-3, the main road between the capital Yerevan and Tibilisi. The population is a mixture of Armenians and Kurds, but I was dining with Armenians only. [...]

Date the movie star of your choice!

We’ve started a new dating service here in North Hollywood. Date the movie star of your choice! Here’s how it works: Which star do you most resemble? Go through our album of headshots and then send us your own headshot and personal information, along with the name of the star you most resemble. If your [...]

L.A.’s Second-Most-Famous Freeway Chase

A short post to commemorate L.A.’s second-most-famous freeway chase, which occurred on this date, July 18th,  on the Los Angeles freeways and mesmerized TV viewers for hours. At two in the afternoon, Dennis Hopper left his home. He intended to buy cigarettes and beer, but he was so befuddled by drugs that when he climbed [...]

A Trial Gone Wrong

Monday: You know that woman who killed her child but the jury let her go? Rumor has it that they’ve moved her into the empty repo at the end of the block. Tuesday: No sign of the press, which is good. Of course, all the kids on the block have been forbidden to go near the [...]