The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up (68 page)

I walked out of there not knowing what the hell was going on.

A week later I’d just gotten back from my night run. I walked into the main elevators, and there were Ellen Barkin and Kevin Huvane.

A second went by, and then Kevin said, “Ellen, you remember my mailroom employee, Dean.”

“Dean?
Sure
. Hi, Dean! How are you?”

I couldn’t have answered if I tried.

KIVOWITZ:
Even though I have nothing in common with half the people I work with, most of them also went through the mailroom. Having that shared experience makes us part of each other. And hearing their stories makes you laugh because you get it.

Mike Menchel tells a story about when he worked for Bill Haber, who was trying desperately to sign Johnny Carson. Haber was on the phone with Carson, saying, “Johnny, is there anything you need?
Anything at all
.”

Carson was on a boat trip down the Nile. He said, “Yeah. If you could get me some ice. We could really use some ice out here, it’s
super
hot.”

Haber told Menchel to find a way.

Menchel had a friend who worked at some kind of shipping place. She said, “If you can get a real address, we’ll get some dry ice and ship it there.” Menchel worked it out.

A couple of days later Carson called Haber and said, “I cannot believe that you got me ice on the Nile. I believe you can do anything.”

Haber hung up the phone and patted Menchel on the back.

About two weeks later Menchel went through Haber’s mail and saw the bill for the delivery. It was twenty-five thousand dollars. Menchel tried to slip it in so Haber wouldn’t really see it, but he did. Haber went crazy: “It’s over! You’re fired! Get out!” But Ovitz said it was fine.

STYNE:
We all wanted to get noticed. One way was working parties like Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow’s engagement bash. This convertible BMW drove up, one of the first guests, and when I looked, it was Gwyneth Paltrow! I was psyched. Brad Pitt was way down in the passenger seat. I said, “Hey, welcome! Congratulations! I’m happy for you guys.” She was, like, “Thanks, that’s really sweet of you.” Brad leaned over, very cool, and said, “Thanks, bro.”

O’CONNOR: Somehow a photographer from the National Enquirer got into that party, so for the New Year’s party Brad Pitt threw with Kevin Huvane, at Kevin’s house, they wanted to be really tight with security. Three of us were asked to work. One checked the list at the front door and the two checked the list at the neighborhood entrance. It had a gate, so we sat there with the remote control.

Courteney Cox and David Arquette came through. Ellen Barkin came through. Cuba Gooding. Bernie Brillstein came. He rolled down his window and I said, “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Brillstein.” He said, “How did you recognize us?” I said, “I read the trades.” They laughed. I think they were a little frightened that I knew who they were.

We were told to be on the lookout because Leonardo might show up—and to watch out for any crashers. This kind of old-looking, huge seventies sedan pulled up. The window rolled down, and this British guy said, “Hello there.” I thought he was a total crasher. I said, “Yeah, I’m gonna need your last name, please.” Then I hear from the passenger seat, “Ma
don
na.”

STYNE:
I worked for Fred Specktor for two years. Fred always said, “When I was in the mailroom, Dean, it was at MCA in 1956, and I worked for Lew Wasserman. I remember driving Lew around, and Ted Williams hit a home run.” Fred’s actually cool. Fred still has the edge.

DICKERSON:
If you drove his Porsche or even his Mercedes, you’d want to be the pimp daddy. You’d lean the seat back a little, try to be the man for at least ten minutes. But you had to be careful. Josh Berman had a Specktor car one night, a convertible Mercedes SL. Josh decided that he was going to pimp out and put the top down. He got the car home, parked it in the driveway, got a guy to pick him up and take him back to the office. That night it poured. The entire interior was ruined—the leather, the stereo, everything.

STYNE:
When Fred’s wife met him at the office, it took two mailroom guys to handle the logistics. One had to drive her car back to the house, and the other had to meet him and bring him back to the office. I was chosen to drive her car home. It was a white Range Rover. I got to Brentwood and parked the car in the driveway, waiting for Blair to pick me up. Everything was good. Went home, went to sleep, went back to the mailroom in the morning.

Seven forty-five:
Rring
. “Dean, telephone. It’s Jamie”—Fred’s assistant. “Dean. Did you lock Pamela’s car?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, her two-thousand-dollar Prada purse was stolen, with her wallet and everything.”

“I—I—I—I—” I turned white. “Oh, my God. Am I gonna get fired?”

“Let me just see what Fred’s demeanor is when he gets into the office. If he’s in a good mood, we’ll just slide it by.”

I said, “Uh-uh. You call me when he gets into the office.”

Jamie called and I came right up. Fred got off the phone and said, “Yes?”

I said, “Hello, Mr. Specktor. I’m Dean Styne. I drove your wife’s car home last night and I could swear I locked the door. Jamie told me her purse was stolen.”

He went, “How could you fucking do that?”

“I’m—I’m—I’m so sorry. . . . I could have sworn. . . .” I was spitting out anything. “What can I do to make up for this?”

He said, “It’s not about that. Just learn, damn it. Double-check everything you do.”

“Okay, Mr. Specktor,” I said, and I left with my tail between my legs.

Because I was a man about it, Fred kept his eye on me after the stolen Prada purse incident. The day he hired me for his desk he said, “I want you to know, I may yell at you. I may yell at you
every
day. It’s water off my back. But if you
continually
fuck up the same thing, then I’ll really be pissed at you.”

I said, “Okay, Mr. Specktor.”

“Call me Fred.”

“Okay, Fred.”

Three days later I was doing fine, thinking everything is cool. Fred, too. Then he stopped by my desk, stared at me, and said, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about Pamela’s purse.”

TOTH:
I was in the mailroom nine months. Kevin Huvane told me that Bryan Lourd’s desk was opening up and asked if I wanted to work for him. Are you kidding me? I couldn’t believe the people Bryan knew. Everybody called and sought his counsel. It was amazing the kind of influence he had, not only on what an A-list movie star did as their next project but in terms of who pulled the strings around town. If I was lured in by the power that these guys had, I certainly found myself in the generator room.

Although I got Bryan’s desk quickly, it still takes time to get promoted. I waited four and a half years. I also worked for Rick Nicita for eighteen months. Heather was his assistant, and she was willing to let me do as much as I wanted to do. It was great.

There’s a big difference between Rick and Bryan. I don’t know if I pissed Bryan off, but sometimes I felt like I did because I’d ask him a ton of questions. I figured if I was going to make no money, at least I could ask questions. But Bryan operates in his own head, so a lot of the process was just learning by listening.

Rick would answer any question. He took me out to dinner my first night, to the Palm, and we sat at a table with his picture on the wall above us. He was really engaging. He knew that I was into learning, so he played to that.

Eventually I became the departmental assistant in Talent, until Dan Adler came back to the agency after working with Ovitz at Disney. I was tired of waiting for a promotion. Kevin said it wasn’t the quality of my work, and just to hang in there. When Dan came back, I started talking to him. His coming back to CAA was a big thing. Dan’s awesome and totally unlike any other agent I’ve ever met. His mandate was to create a New Media Department, so I volunteered to be involved.

FISCHER:
I was a couple of weeks off Dispatch and the fifth kid from the top. One of the assistants was being promoted. They interviewed the four people ahead of me, but none of them meshed with the agent. I did. We’re both workaholics. An hour after the interview a memo was issued: “Allen Fischer has been promoted to Rand Holston’s desk.”

Rand was a great boss. Unassuming. The most low-profile guy for his level of success, given who he represents. He was like a time clock. If it was Monday, you knew he would be there at eight-fifteen; if it was Tuesday, he’d be there at nine; on Wednesday he was there at seven-thirty, as well as Thursday and Friday. He left the office every night at seven o’clock to go be with his kids. I had worked for Jay Moloney and thought Hollywood was this big schmoozing place where everybody went out all night and partied and then was intense and crazy over the phone. With Rand the big eye-opener was, yes, you can be wrapped up in the business and still have a successful family life. Does it happen often? Rarely. But Rand made it work. He was the antithesis of Hollywood. He didn’t go to the Hollywood premieres, which was great for me because I got his tickets.

I worked for Rand for about a year, then Kevin Huvane. Day one was the scariest. Kevin’s desk and my desk were very close and there was no escape. Every move I made, he watched. My job was to do all the phones. Sometimes line one was Tom Cruise, two was Demi, three was Cuba, and four was Sydney Pollack. It was star central. I talked to Julia Ormond, Ralph Fiennes. It was amazing.

I also got the late calls from the clients when they came into town. A very prominent actress arrived in Los Angeles on a Monday night. I was in bed at midnight, reading a script, and she called: “Allen, we’re in town. Grab Kevin and let’s go out.” I called Kevin: “Dude, she asked us to go out. Do I have to?”

Kevin said, “I’m in bed and going to sleep. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

It was late but I thought, How can I pass up this opportunity? One of the most prolific actresses in Hollywood is calling me, saying let’s go out. I called back and said, “I’m in!”

The actress, her assistant, two other people, and I went to a very private strip club. It was amazing. She gave us dollar bills and we stuck them up there. She danced. We hung out until the wee hours, and I showed up in the office the next morning all bleary-eyed. I said, “Kevin, I’m going to take a role in the back office today and let the other assistant come up here.” He had no problem with that. Now he calls this actress my girlfriend. We were at a premiere a few months ago and he said, “Did you see your girlfriend here?”

There is also another side to being close to the clients. Kevin was in a meeting and I got a call at lunch from a lady at a record store, asking if we represented so-and-so. We did. She said he was in the alley, passed out drunk. I’m, like, Okay. I didn’t know what to believe, but you see so much in Hollywood, you believe anything. I said, “Thank you very much, I’ll take care of it.”

I called the client’s manager. The manager said, “It’s probably bullshit. Forget it.”

I couldn’t. I interrupted Kevin’s meeting. There were twenty people in the room. I told him and he said, “Go check it out.”

I drove my little piece-of-shit Blazer to the record store and pulled into the alley and went, Holy shit, it’s
him
. Two seconds later the cops came up behind me. I told the client, “Get the fuck in my car, right now.” He looked up, like, “Wha?” stumbled into my car, and we drove away.

I drove the client to his house. A couple of hours later I got a call from another person: “We have photographs.” Holy shit. I called our private security force and explained the situation. They said, “No problem. We’ll take care of it.” The next day it was planted in the press that our client was doing research for a role as a homeless guy. Killed the story. The photos went away. For a month and a half after that I got phone calls: “How’s it going with his movie? Is there a script yet? Who’s financing it? Can we get in on it?”

O’CONNOR: I interviewed for a desk with Doc O’Connor. We’re not related, but I thought I’d never get the job because we have the same last name. I worried that everyone would think it presumptuous. But working for Doc would be working for a partner, and to not pursue that would be stupid. I didn’t know Doc at all, so interviewing with him was like meeting him for the first time. He was a supernice guy. I stressed our last names being the same right off the bat, saying if it was going to cause any problems or assumptions of nepotism, I’d change my last name. He laughed. Everything seemed to go well.

I sent Doc a thank-you note for the interview, and on my stationery, I crossed out “O’Connor” and wrote “Smith.” I heard later that it helped put me over the hump.

Doc was open to any question. He also had the greatest stories. Just hearing the story about Ovitz’s car keys was priceless. Even better, it was good to work for someone who had been through the mailroom as well, because we had that bond.

His best advice was “Always have your own life.”