Ten Interviews That Shook Hollywood

6. LYNN HIRSCHBERG VS. JAMES WOODS

("Introducing Jimmy Woods," Esquire, April, 1984)

Woods has been profiled several times since Hirschberg's piece, now more than seven years ago, and each time he's sounded like the same jabbering weasel, intense, high-strung and saber-tongued. Perhaps because Hirschberg's profile was the first to capture this manic side, it still enjoys a certain notoriety. Woods talked to her incessantly ("It was a relationship," recalls Hirschberg), revealing himself to be a control freak, relentlessly ambitious and miserable about his recent divorce. To say that he let fly is an understatement. Here's Woods on Jane Fonda and then-husband Tom Hayden: "[She's] a total fraud. She put 10 million dollars into her husband's campaign and kept his dick in escrow for the rest of their marriage." It's a favorite topic, apparently: "I'll tell you," Woods says, "if I have to look at Richard Gere's dick one more time in a movie, I'm going to be sick. I'm always wondering if the crew is thinking, 'His dick isn't as cute as it used to be.'"

At the end of the piece, Hirschberg talked with Woods's ex-wife about her social life. The ex, Kathryn Greko, refused to answer, explaining that "if Jim found out I was going out with someone else .... I mean, do you want me to get killed?" This, probably, is what sent Woods ballistic. "He was very upset about it," recalls Hirschberg. "He took it as a personal betrayal. He fired his public relations firm in retaliation. He talked to [Village Voice columnist] Michael Musto and said I was 'unmitigated pus ripped from the ass of a dead dog ... a whore giving blow jobs on Eighth Avenue for two dollars a pop and getting overpaid.' I mean, he's insane ..."

7. DAVID BLUM VS. THE BRAT PACK

("Hollywood's Brat Pack," New York, June, 1985)

Blum's profile of Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, et al. drew a picture of New Guys on the Make--girl-chasing, club-hopping dudes who put a high value on "selling tickets" and staying in the limelight. This is the article that coined the term "Brat Pack," and for that alone it became a hot topic of conversation. To the actors' chagrin, their collective efforts had the effect of trivializing their images and calling their "serious artist" credentials into question. Blum's piece also depicted the boys as world-class contenders for the title of Prince Charmless: "There is a line," Nelson declaims at the sight of pretty female fans closing in. "When someone crosses the line, I get angry .... You can let them get close--but you can't let them sit down."

Interestingly, this mid-'80s celebrity portrait is equipped with a subtext of dry social criticism, a comment on Reagan-era youth that comes through more clearly upon a second reading. Most telling of all is one Brat Packer's whispered wisdom after member Tim Hutton has walked away. "Tim's last three movies were bombs. It's going to get to the point where [his] Oscar doesn't matter. If you can't sell tickets, that's it." Talk about being able to read the handwriting on the wall but failing to figure out what it means.

Blum recalls, "The piece was originally going to be just a profile of Emilio Estevez. He invited me to come along with him one night to the Hard Rock, and he introduced me to his friends. Some of the others, not Estevez, complained after the piece came out that I'd quoted them after promising I wouldn't, which wasn't true. Estevez called me and said he'd gotten in trouble with his friends, that they blamed him because he brought me along. Possibly he told them that what they said at the Hard Rock would be off-the-rccord, I don't know. But he was very adult about the whole thing, a gentleman."

8. LYNN HIRSCHBERG VS. DON SIMPSON

("Gone Hollywood," Esquire, September, 1985)

Here he is, Don Simpson, the Hollywood Beast who co-produced (with partner Jerry Bruckheimer) Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop, profiled by Lynn Hirschberg in what is probably the most notorious celebrity piece of the last 10 years. All of the raunch, the mind games, the power politics common to Hollywood's inner circle--Hirschberg caught the flavor and then some, summing up the psychology not just of an industry, but of the bygone, vilified '80s.

"Gone Hollywood" is full of killer quotes and observations: Simpson picking up a framed photograph of his ex-girlfriend and throwing it across his office in the middle of a phone conversation; a fellow studio executive remarking that Simpson "just doesn't have patience with lower life-forms"; Simpson insisting that the ideas behind every project he's been involved with were his, despite evidence to the contrary; a Hollywood agent saying that Simpson "can be, at times, functionally psychotic." The best quote of all about Simpson was this doozy: "[Simpson] is a baby [who] ... wants to play with his toys for a while and then he wants new toys. And babies can be cute until they piss on you. Then they're not cute at all."

Simpson's own quotes still raise eyebrows after all these years: "People want me," he says. "They may hate me, but they want me. That's being a member of the club. And without that, you might as well be dead." Simpson might have preferred death to Hirschberg's noting his unforgettable remark, "I like trash. I am trash."

Not surprisingly, Hirschberg's masterpiece led to a difficult period in her career. Simpson was, of course, furious at what she wrote and is said to have launched a freeze-out campaign against her, with editors being told for years after that celebrities would not cooperate on interviews if Hirschberg was the writer. Whether he did so or not, Hollywood power players were understandably wary of being interviewed by Hirschberg at the time. Things have cooled off since, to the extent that she is now a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, but nevertheless she has little or nothing to say for the record: "I really don't want to talk about this. I wish you'd just drop it. I had a very difficult time after the [Simpson piece] came out. I lost out on a lot of work. I survived, but it was very hard. I'm just warming things over now."

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