Well, maybe not the scariest. The actual scariest words are probably, “The chef doesn’t believe in printed menus, so I’ll just describe what we’re offering tonight.” But “You don’t remember me, do you?” is right up there.
I heard those words recently at a meeting with the president of one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. And no, I didn’t remember him. At all. But we’re roughly the same age, so our paths could have crossed lots of times: school, college, film school–when you think of it, the past is filled with moments in which one is, to say the least, not at one’s best. And those moments are preserved in someone’s memory, like buried stink bombs, ready to be exploded with a simple, “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Think of the terrible possibilities: I’m the guy you threw up on in college. I’m the guy who was up for the job you eventually got. I was your waiter. Or, worst of all for someone who has worked in Hollywood for 14 years, I was your assistant.
This story, though, has a happy ending.
About a dozen years ago, when I was a just-hired young television writer and he was a just-arrived aspiring studio executive, his mom and my mom somehow met. Mothers being mothers, a couple of hours of my time was pledged to help the new kid figure out the town. Which I did, apparently. We had breakfast together, apparently. Advice was given and I, according to him, was nice and encouraging.
Lucky for me, because now the guy is a pretty powerful studio executive, the maker of the very crucial funds-disbursement decisions that I, as a writer and producer, like to be on the receiving end of. Which just goes to reinforce the only rule in Hollywood worth remembering: be nice to everybody. Because you never know.
The standard of good behavior in Hollywood is so low, though, that to be known as a nice guy is really more a matter of not being known as a not-nice guy. Arnold Schwarzenegger, now running for governor of California, has been battling rumors of past marital infidelity, but the truth, if it comes out, is more likely to center around flagrant acts of not-nice-guyness: rudeness, arrogance and the ever-popular assistant abuse. Even if he can’t remember every person he may have been not nice to, believe me, they do. And they’ve been waiting. I hope for his sake, and the sake of my property-tax bill, that his past is filled with a lot of forgotten nice-guy moments.
That would certainly make him a unique figure in Hollywood. I recently heard a story about a hot young producer and her assistant. Stuck on a story pitch, the producer decamped to Las Vegas, bringing along her assistant for some brainstorming. As she floated, blissfully, in the hotel pool, her hapless assistant clicked away on her laptop in the desert sun. As the heat approached 105 degrees, the producer looked up at her sweat-drenched, fainting assistant and said, airily, “You know, if you like, you can dangle your toes in the water. Just don’t get the keyboard wet.”
There’s a lot about the universe that’s unknowable, but there are three absolute certainties. One, there will come a time when that assistant, motivated by memories of heatstroke and a thirst for revenge, will rise to a high and powerful post; two, there will come a time when that producer will be temporarily down on her luck and in need of a friend in high places, and three, the two will meet again. And by then it will be too late.
Be nice to everybody. Or at least, in Hollywood, don’t be not nice to anybody. Because you never know.
