About Town
People, Places,
PreoccupationsTHE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 28 OCTOBER 30, 2019
candidates and we’ll support
whoever emerges.” Warren also
enjoys significant industry sup-
port — from the likes of Nina
Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Scarlett
Johansson, John Legend and
Chrissy Teigen, Kevin Beggs and
Nancy Utley — but has shunned
the cash-machine fundrais-
ers Hollywood loves to host.
Likewise Sen. Bernie Sanders,
who boasts vocal industry
fans (hello, Cardi B.), but didn’t
register in THR’s survey of top
execs. Buttigieg has attended
many high-dollar L.A. shindigsDebra Messing appeared as Trump on Oct. 21
in a staged reading of the Mueller Report.1 David O. Selznick (right)
with Clark Gable and Carole
Lombard. 2 Silvia Schulman
and husband Ring Lardner
Jr. 3 As Selznick’s secretary,
Schulman helped convince
him to option the 1936 novel
Gone With the Wind.1 Prince onstage at Madison Square Garden in- 2 “I’ve been waiting for this publication
day, thinking it wouldn’t happen,” says Esther
Newberg of the book, which was compiled
from 50 handwritten pages by the star plus
extensive research through his papers by
co-author Dan Piepenberg. “They’re printing
300,000 copies — which is a lot for a dead
musician, even Prince.” 3 Newberg also repped
a memoir by Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown.
C
ornered by a
studio chief,
the assistant
deftly escapes his
lunges ... It could be an
excerpt from a #MeToo
memoir, but the scene
was written more than
80 years ago, in the
1938 comic novel I Lost
My Girlish Laughter
— a secretary’s
perspective on studiopolitics and high jinks
— whose publication
set Hollywood abuzz
(a reissue from Vintage
Books bows Nov. 5).
There was no doubt
that villain Sidney
Brand, with his fevered
efforts to secure Clark
Gable for a “women’s
picture,” was based on
David O. Selznick, the
high-flying producerLONG B E FORE
#METOO, A SHOWBIZ
SECRETARY
SKEWERED SELZNICK
A newly reissued 1938 novel set the
industry abuzz with its thinly
veiled portrait of the producer
By Sheri Lindenbreezy read with an
undertow of righteous
rage. Told through
letters home, journal
entries and inter office
memos, the novel
sparks with zing-
ers on such showbiz
urgencies as “[mak-
ing] the world safe
for the distribution
of American films.” It
caught the attention
of rising star Orson
Welles, who produced
a radio version not
long after his infamous
War of the Worlds
broadcast. There was
speculation that RKO
or MGM might buy the
film rights, but nothing
materialized.
When she wroteMUSIC
MEMOIR
AN AGENT’S
STORYand has surged in the polls since
the Oct. 15 debate. “He could have
gone anywhere after Harvard,
right? ... The fact that he decided
to go back to South Bend, Indiana,
and work where he comes from
really shows a level of integrity
that is absent right now,” says
Ellen Pompeo. “He reminds me of
a Kennedy or Obama.”
Biden entered the race in April
as the clear favorite and imme-
diately enjoyed the support of
showbiz execs including To m
Rothman, Jim Gianopulos and
Josh Grode. After several poor
debate performances and a slow-
footed response to the Ukraine
scandal, an Oct. 10 fundraiser
at Gianopulos’ Brentwood home
presented the 76-year-old with
an opportunity to reassure sup-
porters that he was up for the
challenge of a bruising general
election. A number of attendees
tell THR that they left the event
still unsure. But Hollywood
Democrats can’t afford to waffle
for too much longer, says activ-
ist Gloria Steinem. “We’re at a
time of huge danger and also
huge opportunity,” she says. “It’s
important that we look at each
other and say, ‘We’re going to win
this election,’ instead of looking
up to say, ‘Who can win?’ ”1213of A Star Is Born and
Gone With the Wind.
The book’s author,
Silvia Schulman, had
spent the mid-’30s as
personal secretary
to Selznick. She and
co-author Jane Shore
used the pseudonym
Jane Allen. But soon
Schulman was outed
by journalists, and
her big-screen hopes
for the parodic romp
would be dashed.
“If you’re going
after Louis B. Mayer’s
son-in-law,” says film
historian J.E. Smyth
of Selznick, “you’re
risking a bit.” The
first-person story of
Schulman stand-in
Madge Lawrence is a2