About the Author

Nancy Griffin is the West Coast Editor of Esquire magazine and the former Deputy Editor of Premiere. She lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

This unauthorized account of Tinseltown madness features the disastrous duo of corporate executives from Columbia Pictures and their alleged bilking of Sony. With the skill of a slick salesman, narrator Ron McLarty partially succeeds in palming off the hearsay testimony about Sony's ill-advised Hollywood venture. McLarty's off-the-cuff manner enhances the tantalizing, juicy gossip served up by authors Griffin and Masters. The convincing descriptions of the grotesque displays of wealth by the chairmen pitted against the staggering $3 million loss that Sony swallows will undoubtedly titillate some. However, the shock value this program packs can't make up for the lack of good journalism. Most libraries can pass on this one.‘Mark P. Tierney, The World Bank, Washington, D.C.

This is basically the story of two boys who never grew up, but ended up running Sony-owned Columbia Pictures into the ground. Peters, whom the Los Angeles Times described as a "seventh-grade dropout and reform school graduate who began his show-business career as Barbra Steisand's hairdresser-boyfriend-manager," was a master at self-promotion; only semi-literate but able to count well enough to make it big in Hollywood. Bostonian Guber earned several academic degrees before "going Hollywood," somehow managing to indifferently run several studios and make high profits and only a few good films. This book will leave film fans drooling at charges that Peters hired Heidi Fleiss's prostitutes as gifts and that he either bedded or assaulted his numerous conquests (Jacqueline Bisset and Lesley Ann Warren, among others). Guber, the quintessential New Age yuppie, is seen heading off his divorce because it would cost him too much, and participating in hand-holding group-therapy sessions with business-partner Peters. The business side of this book is also intriguing, recounting internecine financial twists and turns that finally have a top Sony executive exclaiming: "Huh! You bankrupt Sony!" Griffin, the West Coast editor of Premiere magazine, and Masters, a reporter for the Washington Post, present a shocking read that will have readers gasping at the obscene overindulgence of Hollywood. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (June)