Keeping It Real in Hollywood

Paul here.

Are you behind in your reading? Did you vow to read every novel to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, starting with Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny"; in 1952. And you made it as far as Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" in 1953.

Oh, sure, back in school, you devoured "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee's 1960 masterpiece. And you hit a hot streak starting in 1980 with Norman Mailer's "The Executioner's Song," John Kennedy Toole's posthumous "A Confederacy of Dunces," John Updike's "Rabbit Is Rich," Alice Walker's "The Color Purple," and William Kennedy's "Ironweed."

But admit it. You're way behind, and not just with Pulitzer winners. Books are stacked on your nightstand, piled in the corner of the bedroom, crammed into every nook and cranny in the house. Sure, you intended to read everything. But once you fell behind, later books cut in line like maniac drivers on the Harbor Freeway.

Well, that's my situation. I'm way behind in my reading. How far? Gulp. I finally read "What Makes Sammy Run?", Budd Schulberg's 1941 dissection of Hollywood greed and ambition.


Nobody's ever done it better. And amazingly, the book, set in the 1930's, still rings true. Sammy Glick was a cutthroat careerist, and boy, did he run. He ran "with death as the only finish line...without a single principle to slow him down."

The Hollywood novel seems to be a genre all its own. A partial list includes "The Last Tycoon" (F. Scott Fitzgerald), "The Day of the Locust" (Nathanael West), and more recently, "Play It as It Lays" (Joan Didion), "The Player" (Michael Tolkin), and "Get Shorty" (Elmore Leonard). There are many more, too many to mention, not even counting Jackie Collins' "Hollywood Wives."

(We recently caught a performance of David Mamet's sly yet searing "Speed the Plow," a theatrical look at duplicity and mendacity in Hollywood).

All of which leads me to a new release this week. My friend, Bill Bryan, a witty and wily TV comedy writer, is out with "Keep It Real," a savagely funny look at reality television.


In its review, Publishers Weekly proclaimed that Bryan has "a real gift for satire." I second that notion. Bill's first signing will be here in town, at the incomparable Dutton's in Brentwood Friday at 7 p.m. Then, he'll be at Village Books in Pacific Palisades Saturday at 5 p.m. and next Monday at the venerable Book Soup in West Hollywood at 7 p.m.

This is Bill's first novel, so this weekend has got to be both exciting and terrifying. I published my first book, "To Speak for the Dead," in 1990. My first signing was at Books & Books in Coral Gables, FL. The place was packed; all my friends came; some bought half-a-dozen books to give as presents. A year later, my second book, "Night Vision," came out. Most of my friends, feeling they'd already done their duty, stayed away. So, enjoy this weekend Bill! A first novel only happens once.

(I see on Amazon that an unsigned, "like new" first edition of "To Speak for the Dead" is selling for $60, or triple its original price. My guess is that it'll be on the shelves for a while).

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LINES WE WISH WE'D WRITTEN

My second favorite movie is "Chinatown." Robert Towne's dialogue is masterful in conveying character by saying a lot with a little. Here's the villain, millionaire Noah Cross (John Huston) speaking to Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson):

"'Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."

And my favorite movie? "Lawrence of Arabia." But we'll save that for another time.

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THIS JUST IN...

Sylvester Stallone pleads guilty to unlawfully bringing vials of human growth hormone into Australia.

In a related development, Baseball Commissioner Bud (Lite) Selig announces he can't make up his mind whether he'll go see any more Stallone movies.

Paul