Flavor of the Month
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Authors: Olivia Goldsmith
Olivia Goldsmith
Table of Contents
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1993 by Olivia Goldsmith
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email
[email protected]
First Diversion Books edition October 2014
ISBN:978-1-62681-437-0
To Paul Eugene Smith
On land, on sea, or in the air
I would like to express very special thanks to Nancy Robinson, my secretary, critic, and friend. Without her cheerful and brilliant support, I would have surely drowned in the second revision. Not to mention the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. Sincerest thanks also to:
Brendan Gunning for his peerless editorial assistance
Todd Harris of the William Morris Agency, who introduced me to Hollywood and taught me the maxim “the agent always gets screwed”
Dr. Michael Sachs, whose understanding of women and beauty is only matched by his brilliance as a surgeon
Dr. Richard Gulian for the time he made for me, explanations he went over, and invaluable help he gave with the technical aspects of plastic surgery
Bill and Ann Johnson for their early readings and their generous comments on the draft
Dwight Currie and Michael Kohlman for their friendship, humor, and the research help they offered
Ruth Bekker for her insights on the New York acting scene
Diana Hellinger for tireless enthusiasm and encouragement way beyond the bounds of friendship
Georgiana Francisco for her insider’s view of L.A.
Jane Scovell, who knows everyone and everything, and is my pal
Ellen Hall, who helped in so many ways, and mailed out the manuscript, time after time
Bill Hall, who finally got the job done, and beautifully!
Matilda Tucker, for her unconditional love and helpful suggestions for revamping chapter one
And, as always, Curtis Laupheimer and Justine Kryvin for everything
Lastly, special thanks to all the women in Hollywood, both actresses and those behind the scenes, who so generously shared their experiences and their pain. Your truth is stranger than my fiction. I only hope I have not betrayed your trust.
“Call me Ishmael—and call me often.”
I once knew a Hollywood agent, strictly small-time, who had that printed across the bottom of his business cards. Not that most people get the joke. And not that Ishmael Reiss did much business, but it wasn’t because of the bad Melville allusion. Remember, this is the town where Bob LeVine, CEO at International Studios, once asked
, “Hamlet?
Isn’t that the Mel Gibson vehicle?”
Writers—Melville, Faulkner, even Shakespeare—don’t get much respect out here. You’ve heard the one about the dumb starlet? She was so stupid she slept with a writer to get a part. Of course, in the Hollywood food chain, writers are at the very bottom—the economic equivalent of career plankton
.
That is, most writers—novelists, screenwriters, gag writers, or TV scriptwriters. But not all. I’m a writer, I chose to live out here, and
I
get respect. Well, it isn’t mother love, but it beats the hell out of scorn and abuse. They may not like me, but they respect me, because they fear me. And I earn a lot of money
.
Most people know who I am, and most people will say they don’t like me. “Laura Richie, what a cat!” they say, and that’s when they’re being polite. But as long as they buy my books, I don’t care. Anyway, they don’t actually know me—I’m just a famous name to them
.
I’m famous for writing about the famous—a kind of celebrity hybrid, like Robin Leach. Funny about his name, isn’t it? People call both of us leeches, but they also call me “Richie the Bitchy.” An unfortunate coincidental assonance. Hey, it could be worse—“Kitty Litter,” for example. Still, those who call names also lap the stuff up faster than I can research and write it
.
It takes a lot of work. And I take pride in my work. It’s biography. It’s fact, not conjecture, not hearsay, not my opinions and my prejudices. I’ve got plenty of those, of course, but I keep them to myself, at least as much as any writer consciously can. I do a careful and complete job. I’m a plodder
.
Well, I admit that as a life’s work it’s not Rheims Cathedral or even a biography of George Washington Carver, or Von Hilshimer, or Churchill. But comparatively few people
are
interested in the greats. Or even the near-greats. They prefer the ingrates
.
So, if writers get no respect and no interest, what does?
Beauty. America is a country that worships only three things: money, youth, and beauty, and if you have the latter two, you can parlay them into the former. Beauty
is
youth. Beauty doesn’t die, or at least it gives that impression
.
What
is
new is that for the first time in history, money can buy beauty. And that somebody did
.
Beauty begets money, money begets power. Sometimes. And everybody wants to read about beautiful women
.
I know. My first book was
Marion Anderson: A Black Artist’s Struggle.
It was based on my doctoral thesis. It sold 2,216 copies. I’d worked on it for five years. But hey, she wasn’t beautiful. My last book
, Cher!,
sold a half million copies. That’s
hardback.
Multiply it times twenty-two dollars (of which I get 15 percent) and then call me names, if you want to. My banker calls me “Miss Richie.” And for him I’d endorse my royalty checks “Richie the Bitchy” if it sold one extra copy. Plus, Bob LeVine and Mike Ovitz and April Irons return my calls. And invite me to their parties. It’s nice to be noticed
.
And it took long enough, to get to be a known commodity. A Laura Richie book sells. Fame. It’s weird, but useful. Fifty-nine percent of Americans know who Donna Douglas is—she played Elly May Clampett in
The Beverly Hillbillies—
but they can’t name even one Nobel Prize winner. Think about it. Hey, I didn’t make this society, I’m only trying to live here. And I live well, and quietly. Of course, not
too
quietly. It wouldn’t sell the column or the books. I’ve been on
Donahue,
and
Oprah
and
Geraldo
and
Sally Jessy
and a hundred radio call-in shows. But despite that and my picture on the back of my books, I still manage a private life. Know why? Because a writer—even a famous writer—could never be famous enough to lose all privacy. Actors, yes. Entrepreneurs, models, athletes, even notorious prostitutes, royalty (no matter how minor or spurious):
they
become celebrities. Women usually gain celebrity by being beautiful. Men because of their wealth or achievements. Funny how that works. Then the people who struggled up out of the morass of obscurity into the celebrity sunshine gain recognition but lose their lives to the public
.
Because America is also addicted to fame. Celebrity is more important to Americans than achievement, but the public’s adulation is a two-edged sword. They build you up but they’ll knock you down, too. That’s part of my job. Knockin’ ’em down. Once I started writing celebrity exposés—ones that told the whole truth—I found a market niche that can never be filled. Because America wants the dirt on those they worship: the stories of abuse, bankruptcy, incest, battering, addiction, and pain. The ugliness behind the beauty. A grim fairy tale. My public. The seamier it is, the better they like it
.
For women, the story usually begins with looks: a beauty in search of an audience. We are what we look like. But beauty isn’t enough. For Jahne, Sharleen, and Lila, names that have now become legendary, it all started with lipstick. Well, more than a lipstick. A
fight
about lipstick. But I’m getting ahead of myself
.