performing arts

Joe Eszterhas had it all, and more, and then blew it in a mysterious way. He found happiness with the woman he calls the sexiest on the planet (Naomi) and seems now to have retired from the business of screenwriting, a business which made him the highest paid screenwriter in the world--not once, but twice. He has left a legacy of interesting films, some good, some bad, but his memoir of writing them (and of his cathartic childhood, the son of Hungarian emigres) is just plain stupendous. It's one book that should have been two, or possibly three.

If you wrote, "Jagged Edge," "Flashdance," and or "Basic Instinct," to name only the hits, wouldn't you try to be more discreet about it? And the flops are a true laundry list of disaster. Only in Hollywood could such an auteur not only survive, but thrive. Very few screenwriters can boast of having sex with Sharon Stone, but Joe E. really rubs it in. For all that, his picture of Marty Ransohoff trying to destroy the life and career of Glenn Close is truly a memorable one. I guess Ransohoff won after all, because today one hears as little of Glenn Close as one does of Joe Eszterhas. If you like Hungarian sentiment, add a star. This is almost the Magyar version of Allen Ginsberg's "Kaddish."

This is a great book for anyone who loves frank tales about Hollywood and its creatures. It's 736 pages long but a very fast read, full of anecdotes and interwoven story lines.

One thing that I look for in an autobiography is the personality of the author pulsing through the words on the page. Sometimes this means that the author doesn't come off too well --read Joan Rivers' autobiography for a particularly unpleasant example -- but it makes for a much more involving read. Joe's personality roars off the page.

Joe Eszterhas' book paints a vivid, searingly honest portrait of a man who is smart, tough, talented, rude, brave, harsh, perceptive and surprisingly principled. He is a big family man who cruelly betrayed his first wife and paid a big price for that (literally and emotionally), only to start a new family with "the love of his life" -- Naomi (his wife's friend) who was dumped by her husband Bill (Joe's friend) for Sharon Stone. Yes, Bill is the guy that Sharon promised to marry and then dumped following all the Basic Instinct madness.

Joe has written some great stuff and some sleazy stuff. He poured his guts into his stories and yet managed to not have his heart broken (he claims) when some of what he wrote was mangled by others. Of course, sometimes he did the mangling -- anybody see "Burn Hollywood Burn"? Jeez! I felt bad for Joe when after writing the wonderful "Music Box" script, Joe learned late in life and most ironically that his own father was an anti-Jewish hate monger in WWII. How could a father who was so supportive and loving to his own family turn out to be so heartless toward his Jewish neighbors?

As a writer, I most appreciated Joe's insights into the writing and marketing aspects of his career. He's right about the unfair way that Hollywood treats most screenwriters. Not many writers (myself included) have the balls to fight for their due as Joe has done.

Joe's battle with cancer, and the way it changed his life, is something I will not forget. As somebody who has lost a lot of loved ones to the effects of smoking (two of them Hollywood natives), I most appreciated his decision to speak out against the glamorizing of smoking through movies. One of the things that writers do is convey character through "plastic expressions" -- behaviorisms or actions that imply personality. Joe points out that smoking is easy shorthand to convey sophistication, and is the refuge of lazy, uncreative writers.

Overall, this book is well worth the price because it is the kind of rich storytelling that you will want to read again at least once in your life.

This book is superb. It is hard to put down. I don't always agree with him but he appears to be very honest. He has the courage to tell it like it is and name names.