Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

How can I bear telling him his father doesn’t want to hold him? Dr. Mitch says I should let it go, that Jeremy will “work through it,” and I hope he’s right. But how do you “work through” abandoning your ball of butterscotch, your firstborn, your Life? And how do I “work through” his cold contempt, bordering on the sadistic? How does Samson “work through” all the crap Jeremy’s sending his way through the ether? He can’t help but pick up on it, as a sentient being — that he’s blind, Hol, makes him even more so. He’ll “work through it”…through the door and out of our lives. And I’ll slam it shut behind him. Why, Holly, does he hold sightlessness against him, against us ? We don’t even sleep in the same room anymore. When I brought Sam to the Palos Verdes production office, Jeremy hid away in a meeting. I know now he is embarrassed , insane as that sounds! Oh, Holly, I hate him for this! You saw Samson! Is he something to be ashamed of, or stigmatized by? To discard with a wince and a shrug? The horror of it colors my life. But I will not let it. I cannot.

Sorry to dump on you — see, that’s what you get. A funny thing happened on the way to best-sellerdom: Holly got slimed!

P.S. I’m a free woman! I gave Warners my walking papers and Shelby said I’m in . Adios to the Vorbalidian System — up, up and away, warp speed! Isn’t it wonderful to be working together? Can’t wait for rehearsals to begin. Harvey Keitel’s back from Copenhagen, mid-week. Anxious to start working soon.

P.P.S. What do you think of the title Sight Unseen ? Overused? And please don’t tell Vidra what I said about her writing; I really think she is an amazing talent. Too exquisite for lowly me to apprehend, that’s all. XXX OOO

Maps to the Stars

Kiv Giraux here. I’ve become embroiled in a minor soap opera at work. I share my shift with a girl named Ursula from San Diego. I think Ursula’s trying to be an actress but she never quite comes out and says it. She’s pretty but a little gaunt, reminding one of Sondra Locke. She has a daughter named Tiffany. I get the feeling Ursula is of a spiritual bent because of her frequent talks about camping trips and outings taken in the past with families that don’t seem to quite be Christian but have a New Age leaning. She’s encouraged me to go on a “study” weekend based on the teachings of a book of URANTIA that she brings to work and keeps in her purse. {She hides it from Rodrigo because he hates that, he’s probably the most UNSPIRITUAL being on the planet. Not that Ursula would get on a soapbox or anything, she’s not that way. She’s really very smart.} URANTIA, she said, is actually about the planets themselves and our relationship to them. There may be some UFO stuff in there and that makes me leery. It’s all very California — and very Hollywood too, by default!

Anyhow, all the mucky-mucks from ICM come in and that would include a red-haired gentleman named Donny Ribkin, who is, I believe, a veep there. {In Hollywood, VEEPS are as plentiful as actors and screenwriters {{sounds like something on a UFO: VEEP! VEEP! TAKE ME TO YOUR AGENT!!}}.} Donny is MUCHO flirtatious, which certainly isn’t unusual — ALL agents and lawyers are, with some more aggressive than others. Donny got a hold of my home phone (Rodrigo the manager gave it to him) and started calling at very late hours, I might add. He’s a very seductive man who has been through the ringer; his mother recently passed on and that really tore a hole in him. We talk for hours and sometimes don’t even say anything — or much, anyway — just like high school {don’t be jealous, Diary! I will ALWAYS luv only U}. He will be the first man I have dated in L.A. {if it comes to that and I still don’t know if it will though it’s pointing in that direction}. Trying hard to play my cards right and hope that doesn’t sound too contrived — don’t want to appear “available” and let me tell you, that’s a struggle! Donny is an extremely powerful man, accustomed to getting what he wants. “WHATEVER DONNY WANTS, DONNY GETS…AND LITTLE GIRL, LITTLE DONNY…WANTS YOU!!” When he said he could easily secure an audition for TEOREMA, I could hardly contain myself. {He’s old friends with its producer, Phylliss Wolfe.} And now, I must move my story along: I was having a drink with him at Dan Tana’s {no, we still haven’t done anything yet, not even really kissed} and suddenly, from out of the blue appears Ursula Sedgwick! And she is LIVID. It seems they {SHE and DONNY!!!} have or HAD something GOING and Ursula FOLLOWED Donny to Dan Tana’s from the agency — a bit weird. I didn’t like being put in that position at ALL, because I would NEVER have agreed to see someone who was still seeing someone—“as IF,” as ALICIA would say. According to Donny, it was a fling that ended months ago and I tend to believe him. It’s not like they were married or anything. The next day at work, Ursula wasn’t there and Rodrigo said she was sick. He didn’t smirk, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what happened, unless Ursula the Sometime Drama Queen told him, which is more than possible. She can be quite the loose cannon. Ursula hasn’t been back all this week and I think she’s pretty much moved on to greener pastures. I hope she finds something even better, jobwise, for the sake of Tiffany — the child’s the part I feel bad about. I have no other reason to feel guilty, not that I even do over that because there is no just cause. Though the incident HAS left me feeling a notch on the scarlet side {AS ALWAYS!}. It shook me a bit but if that’s as choppy as the Hollywood waters have got so far then I have to count myself lucky.

Footnote: ACTING SCHOOL RULZ!!!!! MUST go to Samuel French and pick up Tenn. Williams play, Small Craft Warning {?}

GIRAUX’S LIST — PANTHEON OF THE ELITE

I wanted to write about SANDRA BULLOCK but I think I may be too tired. I am asking you, dearest Diary, to forgive my brevity. SANDRA is on a Cinderella trajectory and does not need my help, of that I can assure. She is a dream story for all of us who struggle. We must not forget that before the brilliant blockbusters SPEED {CIRCA 1994} and WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING {CIRCA 1995} there was WHO SHOT PAT? {CIRCA 1990}, THE VANISHING {CIRCA 1993}, THE THING CALLED LOVE {1993} and LOVE POTION #9 {CIRCA 1992}. Sandra reminds me of MARISA TOMEI, in that both have such changeable looks — like well-tanned chameleons, they go from blue-collar “broadiness” to Audrey Hepburn delicacy without a hitch. Sandra’s nose and mouth sometimes remind me of LAURA SAN GIACOMO {SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE {{CIRCA 1989}}. Sandra is legendarily loved by film crews {frequently dating members thereof but not promiscuously}; a notorious junk-food junkie {that’s because her mother, a German opera singer, was a health nut. Sandra has been known to slurp Fresca through licorice straws}; and, I believe, is receiving twelve million $$$ for her next outing. I hope one day she gets over Tate {Donovan} and finds her Prince Charming. {Probably someone on the camera crew! That’s what Holly Hunter did!} {TWO IF BY SEA {{CIRCA 1995}} will do her no harm.}

You’ll Never Eat Me During Lunch …

Taping this on the plane back from Illinois. Wish I hadn’t gone to the funeral. Good to see Mom, though. Calliope talked me through a lot of it, long-distance. I am such an asshole. Better watch out or she’ll fucking fire me. Even therapists have their limits::::::::::Airline food never gets better. There’s a Billy Crystal movie on. God, how I hate him. What is he?::::::::::Think we’re over Kansas — a mid-air collision with Dorothy’s house would be a beautiful thing. That’d be a busman’s holiday; the house already fell down on me. Father died the day I arrived. Three years since I’d last seen him — cancer made him all gray skin and sharp bones. I kept a distance from the bed. Carrie kept going through my mind, the part at the end when Amy’s at the grave and the hand reaches out to grab her — just looked under my seat with a shiver, then remembered the sonofabitch wouldn’t be caught dead in First Class::::::::::Donny Ribkin’s on the plane, coming back from the John Hughes thing. We talked about Obie. (She was supposed to leave the hospital but now she has pneumonia.) He wanted to know what was happening with Teorema and I said Nexus wasn’t involved anymore, that the Gisela Group was financing. Hopefully. Then he gets this creepy agent look on his face and says he heard one of the major Gisela partners was murdered in Milan — someone just told him that on the Airfone! E, my life is insane ! I remain cool, awaiting a vacant phone. Of course my credit card won’t work so I borrow Donny’s, oy vay. I call Saul who isn’t there but his assistant says it’s all over CNN::::::::::Vidra’s gonna be pissed. She’s a mercenary cunt — likes the personal shit to offset ShowbizWorld and thought the funeral would be great for some poignantly savage musings on the Bad Father (has anybody actually had a good one?). Maybe I need to get home and, uh, process::::::::::To the Spirit Awards, with Cat-boy. Our very own Katherine won for Imitations ! We — Katherine, Pargita, Becky Johnston, Holly and husband, Buck and Gus and like fourteen others including this Hungarian animator Gabor (as in Zsa Zsa) and his girlfriend (a total match for Polanski and Sharon T — she’s Jeanne Crain’s granddaughter. Never mind, you’re too young) limo’d to the Sunset Plaza digs where we talked cybersex (yawn) and Luddites (yawn yawn), drank Stoly and scarfed cups of microwaved cioppino while I called my shrink from the media room and wept. Upped my Zoloft to three-quarters a tab.