Writers' Strike

 I laughed . . . 

The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry by Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne , Peter Pavia (Harper Collins 2005)

 

If You Can Make It There, You Can Make It Anywhere

NEW YORK CITY

1969–1970

HARRY REEMS (PORN STAR): In 1969, everybody in the East Village was going to make it as an actor. Whether you went to an anti–Vietnam War rally or a macrobiotic restaurant, all the talk was about auditions.

 

MARILYN CHAMBERS (PORN STAR): I grew up in Westport, Connecticut, about fifty miles west of New York City. When I was about sixteen, I learned how to write my mother’s name on notes to get out of school—and then I’d take the train into the city to go to auditions.

My whole growing up consisted of me in front of a mirror playing records like West Side Story and Bye Bye Birdie. I really wanted to be Ann-Margret, to tell you the truth.

 

ERIC EDWARDS (PORN STAR): While I was in college in Waco, Texas, I got a scholarship from ABC Television to go to New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. They auditioned twenty thousand people from all over the country, and I think they picked sixteen people. I mean, this was the big point in my career, it was like a stepping stone—I was getting letters from Lillian Gish, from the president of ABC, from all these top executives saying, “You have received a scholarship to come to New York.”

In fact, Lillian Gish handed me my diploma. Henry Fonda was there backstage; I spoke to him in awe. I was, like, melting.

 

GEORGINA SPELVIN (PORN STAR): One of my first experiences in New York was when the state employment office sent me to see about a modeling job. It was a big, high-class studio, and I had to see someone with one of those hairdresser names: “Mr. Charles” or “Mr. Gary.”

After everyone else had left, he brought me into the studio and—through the course of taking many pictures—he eventually got me very drunk and nude and then he balled me. I don’t even remember how I got home; I passed out midway through the thing. But I never got the chance to tell him I had the clap, and I wondered how long it took him to find out and connect it to me.

Tales From The Script (2009)

This post title needs a rewrite: I'd thought of 'Write To Strike' before I spotted Patterson's piece.

Interesting article by John Patterson in yesterday's Guardian about the impending writers strike in Hollywood that will affect both the film and tv industry, but for the real inside track on what's going down - i.e. if this blogger was living in Harlesden rather than Hollywood, she'd be blogging about Respect - check out Nikki Finke's LA Weekly blog on why some media moguls aren't that devastated by the possible picket lines.

Being the main newspaper for an industry town, of course the LA Times is full of news of the strike action that is scheduled to start on Monday morning, and it was heartening to see the following excerpt from their press coverage about the dispute:

"Teamsters Local 399 leader Leo Reed this week urged his members to honor the picket lines, a call that was reiterated Thursday by Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. "If we abandon our union brothers and sisters now, we abandon the very core principles of trade unionism," he said.

Solidarity is the key to the winning of this struggle . . . That and the new series of 'America's Next Top Model' tanking. And we already know all about that show's murky history.