The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up (40 page)

KLANE:
The best part of going up the mailroom ladder was fucking with the new guys or just watching them twist in the breeze. It helps to have a creative mind.

I made a new guy cry. I told him there was a special errand that needed his attention while he was on his regular run. “You’ve got a convertible, right?” He nodded. “Okay, good. You’re going to need that today. Keep the top down. Do you have a towel in the car? No? Get yourself some towels, because these dogs drool.”

He panicked. “What dogs?”

“Oh, Ronnie Meyer’s Saint Bernards. You didn’t know? Yeah, he’s got three of them, and they need to go to the vet. Go out to Malibu, pick them up”—I’m making up this shit in my head, right?—“and while they’re getting their treatment, right next door is the organic animal health-food store. Judy Ovitz’s horse eats only organically grown alfalfa, okay? You’re going to have to put two bales of that in your trunk. It won’t be a problem. The Saint Bernards can sit in the backseat. Remember to use the towels, okay?”

His eyes got red. I said, “Hang in there, man, you can do this!” But he just started crying. Then everybody started laughing. I don’t remember his name, only that he didn’t last. In fact, he might have quit that day.

CHAVOUS:
We all had our little quirks. One guy in the mailroom would always pull out his dick and wave it at me and Jane Berliner. Jane would be so offended; I would laugh hysterically. It was the best comedy I got all day. I also understood the motivation: He was stressed out! He was working eighteen-hour days. It got insane. I don’t remember my quirk.

KRENTZMAN:
Chavous would come into the office, pick up her skirt, wave it above her head, and say, “Just airing the kitty!”

ROSENFELD:
When Michael Ovitz threw a surprise birthday party for Michael Eisner, I got the call to help. The party was at Spago, at the height of Wolfgang Puck. Eisner had recently taken over Disney. On the guest list were Sue Mengers, Lew and Edie Wasserman, Ovitz, Ron Meyer, Bill Haber, Bernie Brillstein, Neil Diamond, Stanley Joffe, Sherry Lansing, Frank Price, Bob Daly, and many more of the top, top people from around the town. If we’d taken a picture, it would have been in
Vanity Fair
.

Ovitz said to me, “Okay, now gather everybody. Eisner’s coming in a few minutes. Then a cake’s going to be rolled in and Mickey Mouse will jump out. Mickey Mouse will start ‘Happy Birthday.’ ”

I stood on a chair and spoke to the crowd. “Okay, everyone, Mr. Eisner’s coming. He’s coming!” I stepped down just as Eisner walked in and everyone yelled, “Surprise! Happy birthday!” The crowd began to move, and I got crammed in next to Neil Diamond, Eisner, and Ovitz. Everybody else faced them. The cake rolled in and a poor schmuck in a Mickey Mouse costume tried to jump out, but he got his leg caught, tumbled over, and the whole fake thing collapsed. Ovitz leaned over to me and said, “Mike, just start ‘Happy Birthday.’ ” I guess he didn’t want to bother asking Neil Diamond. But Neil and I exchanged looks, shrugged our shoulders, and started singing.

At that moment I knew I was in show business.

ROSENFELD:
Everyone’s first job in the mailroom was delivering packages to all the studios and clients around the city. We called it “doing the runs.” You got a clipboard, sorted your packages, wrote up your delivery route, and off you went. There was a morning run at ten-thirty and an afternoon run at three-thirty. You did two a day and had to be back from the first in time to do the second. Sometimes there were night runs. And believe me, you
actually
ran.

STRICKLER:
Ovitz and Meyer liked to say that the messengers at CAA ran to deliver a package, and William Morris messengers walked.

WAX:
I showed Strickler the runs. He had a new Toyota Tercel, and we got rear-ended by some fat guy in a Cadillac. We got a good case of whiplash, and Strickler screamed and yelled at the guy. We all drove crazy. I made U-turns in the middle of Century Park East. I crashed into some guy and ran out of the car yelling, “No harm, no foul!” and jammed off. I’m surprised none of us got killed out there.

ROMAN:
Often I did my runs in shorts and a T-shirt. I was in an elevator at Universal with an armload of packages when my bosses, Ron Meyer and Michael Ovitz, got on. There were enough people around that they didn’t see or recognize me. But at that moment I believe I came up with the concept of adult diapers.

WAX:
When I’d deliver to Debra Winger’s house in Malibu, she wouldn’t open the door or she’d tell me to throw it over the fence. On the other hand, when I’d go out to Martin Sheen’s on Point Dume, he was totally cool. He’d invite me in for a beer and introduce me to Emilio and Charlie, who, at that point, were just kids. He’d try and tip me, but we weren’t supposed to take tips. I’d just take the beer and run.

ROBINSON:
I had to deliver a typewriter to Bill Murray at an apartment building in Marina Del Rey. I was supposed to just drop it off and get back to the office, but when I started to leave, he said, “Where are you going?”

“I have to get back to the office.”

“No, you don’t.”

“There’s runs to do, copying to be done.”

He shook his head and said, “No. You have to stay here and hang out with me.”

I said, “But—”

“Trust me. If you tell them I made you stay here, no one’s going to care.”

We watched TV for a couple hours. He didn’t touch the typewriter.

WILLIAMS:
I had come back from the runs and saw Jay Moloney walking around the building with Bill Murray. Jay said hi and Bill said hi. I went back to the mailroom and two seconds later I got a phone call: “Come up to Jay’s office.” I went and Jay said, “Bill saw you and he thinks you’re interesting. You’re going to be his personal assistant when he’s in town. You’re going to start now. Drop whatever you’re doing. Your job today is to drive him around, all day and all night.”

Some job: drive him to meetings, wait for him to come out.

Jay also said that when Bill was in town I was to stock his refrigerator at his hotel and do any personal errands he needed done. Jay put a spin on it, suggesting the exposure would be good for me.

I worked for Bill a couple times and that was it. He was nice. I think it all came down to this: he liked having company. He asked me what I thought of his movies; he asked me to read a script while I waited, and to tell him what I thought. He also offered four hundred dollars to buy myself something. I said, “No, no, no, no; no thank you; no, I don’t want that.” I didn’t think it was the right thing to do.

BERLINER:
Sam Elliott lived on the 33000 block of the Pacific Coast Highway. It is well past Zuma. Sometimes I had to go out there twice a day, which is why the address is still burned in my memory. Singed. Sam was a nice guy, but delivering to him was an ugly thing. Once, when my car broke down, I borrowed my brother’s car without asking. While I was driving along PCH, it started to rain. The car had a hole in the convertible top. Then it got dark, but only one headlight worked. By the time I got to Sam Elliott’s house, the brakes were almost out. I was afraid I’d die on the way back.

CHAVOUS:
Jane’s car would always break down. That meant one of us had to finish her run and another had to stay with her and get the car situation together so she could get back to the office. One day Rosenfeld and I had to rescue her. On the way we argued over who would stay with her and who would do the run. I said, “I’m not doing the rest of the fucking run.”

“Oh, yes you are,” he said. “I’ve been in the mailroom longer than you.”

“Fuck that. I’m
not
doing the run!”

When we found Jane at Barrington and Sunset, she was crying, so we hung with her a little bit. Finally Rosie said, “What the fuck is wrong with your car?”

“I don’t know. It won’t start.”

So she tried it again.
It started
. We immediately gave her shit: “Why don’t you fucking take care of your car?” She finished the run that day.

BERLINER:
Donna says my car
constantly
broke down. It broke down
twice
.

CHAVOUS:
Jane was really sensitive. One time I screamed at her because she didn’t want to do a night run. To hand a night run to a person who’s been on the road all day is just cruel, but it had to be done. She said, “No, I’m not going to do this.”

I said, “The fuck you’re not going to do a night run. This is what you’re fucking here to do.” She broke into tears. I felt so terrible.

BERLINER:
There were a couple of girls who came into the mailroom after me who wouldn’t deliver when the sun went down, because they were terrified of being raped. It didn’t occur to me. The only real drag, to be indelicate, was when you had feminine hygiene needs. You had to do things in the car you didn’t want to talk about. So once a month things were different because I was a woman.

WESTON:
I was always frantic. I crashed my car twice. In the second accident I was coming down Queens Road in the Hollywood Hills. Jack Rapke’s sister, Eileen, had given me a jacket to return to somebody, but the address was wrong. I sped down the hill in my little 280ZX, hit a patch of water, skidded about fifty feet, and smacked into a car with a Mexican grandmother, mother, and little kid inside. It wasn’t a bad accident, but the grandmother banged her head. The little girl started crying her eyes out and screaming, “You killed my grandmother!” The mother was screaming at me in Spanish. The paramedics had to come.

I called the mailroom and said, “I just crashed for the second time in four weeks. Not only do you need to send someone out and finish the run, but I quit. This just isn’t working. I hate this.”

When I came back the whole agency knew what had happened. I had to see Ray. I tried to explain to him how nuts we were out on those runs. Ray tried to talk me out of it. He said everyone liked me. I got along with the agents and worked my ass off. But Ray also subscribed to the theory “If I did it, you can do it.” Of course, Ray never had to do it. It’s one of those things in life I wish I’d survived, but I just didn’t. It wasn’t for me. I didn’t dig it.

In the end I actually caused some change because they added another run. They split the town from three territories into four. And I haven’t had an accident since I left the mailroom.

UFLAND:
I had a package for Geffen Records. I parked on the north side of Sunset Boulevard, at Doheny, and crossed. The eastbound lanes were backed up. The first car let me go, but the next one began moving. I looked up. The driver saw me and stopped. I nodded and kept on walking, but the guy in the passenger seat opened his window and started yelling at me. I said, “Fuck you. Leave me alone.” The next thing I knew, the guy jumped out of the car and smashed my head into the pavement. He was on top of me, in traffic, and the only way I could think to get him off was to pop him. I threw my elbow back and split his nose. He started bleeding all over me. I got up. My shirt was torn, I had scratches and bumps from hitting the pavement. I picked up my package and kept going. At Geffen Records they gave me some ice, then I got back in the car and finished the run.

BERLINER:
My worst day was possibly the worst day of my life. It was hot as hell. My Volkswagen Beetle had no air-conditioning. And no radio. I was deeply into my ninth month of deliveries, driving down Burton Way in Beverly Hills, and the road was just packed. I wanted to change lanes, so I looked in my rearview mirror. There was a motorcycle way back, scooting between lanes. I had time, so I changed lanes. The motorcycle came up alongside of me, the driver turned to face me, and he hawked a gigantic, generation-old lugee through my open window and onto my face. Perfect target, perfect aim. Steam must have risen from my head, I was so angry, but there was nothing I could do. It was horrible. I was so demoralized. Not only was I physically exhausted—every day—but this guy had decided to give me a piece of his organs. At that moment I felt less than human.

However, from then on whenever I got really pissed at people’s driving, I’d spit on them. I never hit them, and I never spit into an open window, but that guy
made me a spitter
. It’s the most horrible thing you can do. Fortunately, I got over it. I don’t spit anymore. But then—oh, boy . . .

STRICKLER:
Occasionally we had to pick up the partners’ wives when they needed a ride. It was the political plum, the sought-after job. The fantasy was you’d talk to Judy Ovitz, then she’d get in the car with her husband and say, “I like that kid from the mailroom.”

KLANE:
Once, after somebody had smashed into my car and the passenger-side door wouldn’t open, I was asked to pick up Judy Ovitz. I had to ask her to get in on my side and climb over. She did. Then she sniffed the air and said, “What is that?”

I said, “Gasoline. Don’t smoke.”

Next thing, Ray Kurtzman called me in and said, “Can you do something about your car?”

I said, “Hey, I make nine hundred dollars every two weeks, before taxes.”