Hollywood has two shiny new books to obsess over this week. Ari Emanuel has published his somewhat unpleasant yet utterly engaging memoir where — pity Jim Wiatt, Jeffrey Katzenberg, CAA’s Jeff Jacobs or any of a sea of others — scores are settled, people are ridiculed and one Homeric hero emerges (no need for a spoiler alert). Meanwhile, Bob Chapek’s burn book lands today, where, yes, he details how one Bob Iger stabbed him in the front. Man, what a relatable saga: How can you CEO when the old CEO is being such a petty bitch?
Anyway. Read them. By all means.
But if you really want to understand how Hollywood works, you’ll need more than the latest masters of the universe making sure their version of events gets memorialized.
Because almost everything happening in this business right now has happened before.
So I’ve put together a Hollywood curriculum. No thrillers or beach reads here — we had plenty of those on The Ankler’s summer reading list.
Instead, here is my syllabus: the 20 books that explain how this place really works.
Don’t stop here
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This week on The Rushfield Lunch …
Stops by to chat Hollywood’s lost weirdos and the movies he never got to make
Comments
Not surprisingly a superb list, Richard. Love that you continue to include Tom Schatz’s, “Genius of the System.” I think his newly released, “Power Surge,” will be a welcome addition to this list. Keep preaching!
An excellent list here for winter reading, thank you. As someone who works way Below the Line, may I also suggest “Hollywood’s Other Blacklist: Union Struggles in the Studio System” by Mike Nielsen & Gene Mailes?
Then after that, “The Moon’s a Balloon” & “Bring on the Empty Horses” both by David Niven, who must’ve been one of the greatest dinner guests in world history. His empathetic tale of an anonymous Hollywood leading lady’s nervous breakdown upon the realization that her star was fading is sadly, I’m sure, just as accurate now as it was 80 years ago.
Thank you for this incredible list, Richard. I’m surprised MAKING MOVIES by Sidney Lumet did not make your list ❤️ Superb list nevertheless! 😍
I would add INDECENT EXPOSURE by McClintok. Classic.
Great list and, fwiw, when I started in the industry working for Bernie Brillstein, he said, “Kid, two books you need to read are…” SAMMY and Selznick’s NOTES!
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