Rich (right), who spent years at Paramount, Miramax, Columbia Pictures, Universal and MGM, is the latest Hollywood exec out with a book this fall. WireImage for Paramount Pictures - CA It’s the season of the Hollywood tell-all with books by Ari Emanuel, Bob Chapek, Michael Douglas and “Two and a Half Men” TV mogul Chuck Lorre all on shelves simultaneously.
Tomorrow a new tome also drops from Hollywood marketing vet Gerry Rich, who worked at Paramount, Miramax, Columbia Pictures, Universal and MGM, where he became the head of marketing at age 32.
In “Chasing Hollywood,” Rich reveals wild tales about stars and execs including Liam Neeson, Harvey Weinstein, Frank Sinatra manager-turned-power producer Jerry Weintraub, Johnny Knoxville, Paramount CEOs Frank Mancuso, Brad Grey and Sherry Lansing, James Bond gatekeeper Barbara Broccoli, Oscar winning director Mike Nichols and MTV co-creator Tom Freston, plus artist David Hockney, and many more.
The book, which Page Six obtained before its release, opens with a doozy.
At a secret screening of the 1993 Miramax film “Ethan Frome,” veteran marketing guru Rich finds himself sandwiched between (now-jailed) film mogul Weinstein and tough-as-nails “Taken” star Neeson who were on the verge of coming to violent blows.
Neeson was furious with Weinstein for recutting the period drama without telling any of the film’s principals — including Neeson, his co-star Patricia Arquette and director John Madden — and then organizing a screening to try and gain leverage.
Tipped off to Weinstein’s subterfuge, Neeson stormed into the screening at Robert De Niro‘s Tribeca Film Center.
“You don’t want to do this, Harvey!” Liam shouted.
“I do what I want. I’m a millionaire!” Weinstein bellowed back, according to Rich.
“Liam looked at him, perplexed,” writes Rich, then yelled, “‘I’m a millionaire too. What does that matter? You don’t want to fight me.'”
Cooler heads prevailed thanks in large part to Rich who includes the harrowing vignette as one of dozens in his newly released memoir from HarperCollins Leadership.
Word of the Neeson vs. Weinstein incident even made its way into Page Six at the time with the headline, “For him, the film Frome hell.” (Weinstein admitted to the famed gossip column, “Tempers did flare,” but, “If you think I’m stupid enough to shove Liam, I’m not.”)
In another illuminating anecdote, Rich goes gallivanting around the San Fernando Valley with Johnny Knoxville, Drew Barrymore, director Spike Jonze and former MTV President Van Toffler during the filming of the original “Jackass” movie. Thoroughly inebriated, the group ended up spray-painting a giant penis on a wall next to a wrought-iron stallion — with Knoxville including Toffler’s name in case anyone wondered who was responsible.
Rich also breaks down from a marketer’s perspective why films like “The Crying Game,” “Stargate” and “GoldenEye” were hits, and the book does a fine job of capturing the effervescence of the film industry in the ’90s and early aughts.
The book chronicles Rich’s growing up closeted in St. Louis and his determination to get to Los Angeles, find work in the entertainment industry and come out as his true self to friends and family. The bulk of the story centers on Rich’s remarkable career at nearly every major studio, affording him a front-row seat to the business’s transformation over the past 30 years.
Spoiler alert! The story ends on a cautionary note as he quits Amazon MGM in 2025, exiting the industry he adored as it gets swallowed by Silicon Valley — losing its vital humanity and creativity, according to the author.
“In the Amazon culture, we were all seen as cogs in the machine on a numbered, hierarchical, methodically aligned org chart. And if we wanted to survive there, we’d all have to get used to it,” he writes. But, “I know there are lots of people out here, like me, who hold on our shoulders the ideal of what Hollywood should be. Who have high hopes for what might come next, no matter how badly the tech giants or Wall Street wolves might mess with every legacy studios we’ve ever known.”
Unlike some other Hollywood memoirs that settle scores, “Chasing Hollywood” is upbeat and earnest. (Rich even includes chapter summaries with career lessons woven into them). The author seems to get along with just about everyone.
Well… not everyone. While working as head of marketing at Paramount, the exec recounts being the victim of an alleged secret coup that ultimately ousted him. “I’d been spooked by the jostling and shoving and backstabbing from the top down as well, and now felt it was coming up from underneath.”
The spate of current Hollywood tell-alls from execs, agents, stars and creatives hits at a time of even further sweeping change with the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger closing.
One entertainment veteran told us over the weekend when we asked them about the spate of books recounting the good ol’ days, “The ‘show’ part of showbusiness has faded. Now it’s just business. It’s all private equity and these big greenlight committees. When you were a studio chief, or a top executive, you used to make the decisions.”
