The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up (57 page)

For the first month I cried. Then I was furious and I hated him. I was ego-bruised. A family that doesn’t like
moi?
Then suddenly I thought, I’m crying over that? By the second month, I was happy. I was, like, Thank God, I could have made a big error. I would never date a guy who listens to his family.

[CONTINUED ... ]

PRESS:
You never know what to expect when you’re listening in on the phone—for business. When Richard Gere was being harassed by the press for that rumor about the gerbil, I heard him say to Limato, “I wish they would leave me alone. It’s not true. It’s just such shit.” He was really impassioned and emotional. I went home that night and called everyone I knew who ever uttered that rumor, and said it was bullshit. I was on a mission.

Usually my reaction to what I heard on the phone was less “Wow, this blows me away” than “Nobody knows this.” When Steven Spielberg cast
Schindler’s List
he was very interested in Mel Gibson. He met with Mel but ultimately chose Liam Neeson—not because Mel wasn’t right, but because he thought it would turn into a Mel Gibson picture, not a movie about the Holocaust. Nobody knew about that.

I also knew who was going to get fired in the building before anyone else, because the call would come to Limato. I’d walk through the hallway and know whose job was over. It was the power of information. It was horrific.

BESIKOF:
There was also information withheld. ICM was structured to make everyone hate each other so they’d be competitive. In staff meetings they’d ask what projects they needed to focus on. But Elaine Goldsmith, before she left ICM, wasn’t going to say what project they needed to focus on, because she was trying to get it for Julia Roberts; and Joe Funicello was trying to get it for Jodie Foster. No one told anyone anything except for what was public knowledge. They’d say the agenda was to get Mel Gibson a project. Everyone would say okay, then run to their offices and dial for their own clients. If you heard an agent calling for a project for their client, you’d be dialing for the same project at the same time.

PRESS:
Sometimes when Limato gave me a tough time and I wanted to get back at him I’d fill his Jaguar convertible with the lowest-grade gasoline. He loved that car, and it would ping and knock. Limato also lived for coffee and would have God only knows how many cups a day. When I was pissed I’d give him decaf. All these little fuck-you things just because I couldn’t deal with him being a pain in the ass.

Of course he busted me on this stuff. One day he came back from a morning staff meeting that went too late. He blamed me for it. It wasn’t my fault, but he yelled and screamed. I finally pushed my chair back, got up, and said, “I’ll see you.” I walked out, and I didn’t come back. Everyone thought I’d quit. I knew I wasn’t going to quit, but I needed to go home. I went home and cried. I was a mess. The other assistant, Ed’s outside secretary, called and said, “Ben, you have to come back.”

I said, “I’m going to let him wait it out a bit.”

I finally walked back in at six o’clock that evening, sat down as if nothing happened, put on the headset, and started doing my thing. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “I hope you were out getting drunk.”

I loved him like Bear Bryant’s players loved their coach.

BESIKOF:
Walking through the building with my mail cart, interacting with the assistants, I learned to spot weakness very quickly. I saw it all day long. Any weak specimens were eaten by their bosses—and I mean eaten alive. It was the kind of yelling and badgering that you couldn’t even imagine. If you told someone not at an agency the story of what you’d seen, or what was done to you, they’d say that anywhere else your boss would be in jail.

I saw people who broke down and cried every day. One of my best friends, a beautiful girl who was my partner for a while after we left ICM, worked for an agent named Chris Andrews. Chris is a great guy, but he needs things to work well. The first month or two it’s very hectic being Chris’s new assistant. She ran out of the building, crying. This is a girl who graduated from law school with honors.

The lesson is that it didn’t matter how smart you were. It only mattered that you matched yourself correctly with a boss, and then you had to work it right. The weird thing is that if you’re good at taking abuse, you’ll probably work for somebody who’s abusive.

I became aware of the political game almost immediately, and once you spot it there’s no looking away. You realize how to maneuver: Go here, don’t mess with this one, avoid that path if you can, befriend this person, remember that people are careful what they say because they’re going for the same desks.

You’re not supposed to have to figure all this out by yourself, though. There was an official mentor program; I had a mentor, Amy Ferris, and we were friends. But in the end, at least then, no one told you anything. It’s trial and error. No one leads you down any golden path. And you can never show a moment of weakness, not even to your mentor.

Within a month or two of being in the mailroom I began floating in Jim Wiatt’s office. I was brought in to replace one of his assistants. The assistant didn’t know that, and I was sworn to secrecy. But suddenly I was eliminated and maneuvered out. Not by anyone in Jim’s office, but by Jeff Berg’s assistant, who ended up marrying Jim Wiatt. I guess she thought I was her competition. That was the farthest thing from my mind. But it was a real soap opera, politically and otherwise. Being cast out of Jim Wiatt’s office was my moment of doubt and pain. I’d been on the fast track. Then
boom.
I could have been an agent, but I knew that my path was blocked. In fact, I thought my career at ICM was over. Fortunately, everything died down because I had a few cards to play myself. Still, I had to find another desk. Unfortunately, there were a lot of sexual harassment suits going on at ICM, so only certain desks would take women.

It was frustrating, as a female, to watch people who came in after me—young males—be able to get desks that I couldn’t, and then be promoted before me for the same reason. I went to Alan Berger and said, “This is a nightmare. You have to take over the training program. Look at this company phone directory. In the last ten years, twenty-five guys and two women have been promoted.”

It was all male then, for a reason. The only desks you could almost count on getting promoted off were Ed Limato’s and Jim Wiatt’s. There weren’t tons of people coming off Toni Howard’s desk, though that changed. Even Alan Berger’s desk was a bit iffy: You could make it to departmental coordinator, but you didn’t always make it to agent. Jeff Berg didn’t take trainees most of the time. Bill Block, who originally hired me, wouldn’t hire women when I was ready to take my next desk. Besides Ben, Ed Limato had Elizabeth Fowler working for him, but she wasn’t a trainee, only a very bright girl who should have been an agent—but they did not promote her because she was a woman. A strong woman. They didn’t want strong women who could challenge them.

Not even Jodi Guber got promoted. She ran Jim Wiatt’s office, but she did not get along with Jim’s future wife, either. I believe that Jodi went to Jim at one point and said, “Just so you know, I don’t like your girlfriend.” Jodi could do that because she was Jodi Guber. For her the rules were different, and she could get away with it, but she still suffered. Later, she and Toni Howard didn’t get along, and in the end her name couldn’t do enough for her.

GUBER:
I never actually said that to Jim, but I did feel Elizabeth didn’t like me. One day she asked me out for drinks. Jim said I should go, and I said, “I have nothing to say.” I called her back and said, “I don’t have a problem with you and I don’t need to go to drinks.” Toward the end, my relationship with Jim, which was really great, got somewhat tainted because of her relationship with him. That made me sad. And there was a time when I was very angry with her—but no longer. We all have our journeys and our paths. And there are things I also could have done differently.

BESIKOF:
Ben finally realized he’d made a tragic mistake breaking up with me. He put himself into therapy. Then he spent months trying to get me back—not that I was even interested. Of course, he won out, because Ben agented me like no other. Ben is a great agent, and it worked.

When the word got out to everyone that we were seeing each other, the big joke line—but not really—was, “Oh, you and Ben Press. What—are you sleeping your way down?” Usually if you were going to sleep with someone, it would be one of the bosses, or at least someone who could promote you. I’d say, “No, but it’s my investment.”

We ended up getting married, and everybody was fine with it. In fact, our relationship turned out the opposite of what they thought it would be. Ben and I went out every night to premieres, to parties. It was brilliant, really, and it showed where the agencies have it wrong. They want you to sleep with everybody
outside
of the building because they think you can bring in personal information that way, and they like that. The truth is, if you’re with somebody in the building, you go out with clients more. We went out easily five or six nights a week for three or four years. We were more focused.

PRESS:
We got married August 12, 1995. It’s great. She knows everyone I know. She went through the system. I’m very lucky to be married to a woman who gets what I go through at work. I’m very lucky, period.

[END]

PRESS:
I would have paid money to know how long my tenure would last with Ed Limato because it was a double-edged sword: I did a great job, he loved me, he didn’t want to get rid of me. I needed to move on. I finally raised the subject.

I got promoted, but I’d invested myself so much in Limato’s business that it backfired for me down the line. The day I was promoted, I was told by Toni Howard, the head of the department, “I don’t think you’re ready to be in this department yet.” That created a problem. I’d given my all and was loyal to Limato, but now I also had to serve Toni as well. It was like having to worship two gods. Clearly I was inclined toward Limato, and that created the schism. You can’t serve two gods.

The weird thing is that Limato brought Toni over to ICM. Theirs is a very weird relationship. It’s twisted and bizarre—the way all the relationships are there. It’s every man for himself. It’s like countries: You can be allies, but nobody is friends.

BESIKOF:
Toni didn’t really take to people who worked for Limato because she felt that in situations they would go to him first. She has been quoted as saying “I like people far up my ass,” and that is the truth. If you’re up Limato’s ass, then you’re not up hers.

To work well with Toni you had to befriend her. If you didn’t, you’d go nowhere in motion picture talent. She knew every nuance of everything and everyone. If you had a new pimple, she’d know it. It was horrible to work under her because if you made a mistake, she found out. People were petrified. And worst, if she knew she could get to you, she’d eat you alive. People would sometimes walk a different way if they saw her coming.

Although Ben and Toni did not work out well, Toni and I were surprisingly fine. I wasn’t afraid. If I was mad at Toni, I’d just yell at her. Of course, she’d say something like, “You know, Paula, your earlobes turn red when you yell,” and totally disarm me, but we got along perfectly because she knew she couldn’t push me. Toni gets along with people she can’t push.

GUBER:
Joe Rosenberg wanted me to work for him in Motion Picture Lit. Joe was a great boss. Not a screamer. I worked really hard. But my biggest fear was the coverage. Writing was not my strong point. I didn’t know how to read a script and critique it. It was important to me that I knew what I was doing, so I found someone who did coverage really well and paid them to tutor me.

After two years and the time I worked in Jim Wiatt’s office, ICM asked me to sign a contract. The word was everybody had to sign one. The gist of it was that if they were to fire me, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I thought, Are you out of your mind? Are you kidding? I went to Wiatt and said, “There is no way I’m going to sign this.”

Turns out they didn’t ask everyone else. I was the
only
one. I ran out of his office, and Jim came after me, saying, “Don’t ever run out on me.” It was a poor judgment call. I’m not stupid. They thought if they fired me, I would sue them because of who I was. I had better things to do. And that’s when I knew I had to get out of there. I knew there was no future for me at ICM.

Even so, I knew that it was important to become an agent to get to the next level. My dad kept saying to me, “Do not quit. You’ve gone this far, stick it out. You’re almost there.” I stuck it out, and for several months I was miserable. I went down to Paula’s office every day, in hysterical tears. Sat in Alan Berger’s office, eating all his candy, miserable. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be promoted so I could use it to do something else, but I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle.

In desperation, I decided to throw myself a birthday party. I invited everyone I knew, all the relationships I’d networked myself into, and had a really cool time. Agenting is all about relationships, and my motive was to somehow use the party to show how far I could cast my net. Brian Gersh at William Morris took the bait. He called me up and said, “I heard you had this great party. Sean Penn, my client, was there.” He said William Morris was interested in hiring me as an agent. It was a relief. I didn’t care that I once thought their offices too dark. At that point they looked bright and shiny. Brian sold me on William Morris and on him.