Serving Celebrities: The Complete Collection by Bill Ryan Read Free Book Online

show. It was a lot of fun and I got tons of material for this collection from those experiences.
    When Goodnight and Good Luck came out, the Guild presented it the Paul Selvin Award. The Paul Selvin Award is presented to that member whose script best embodies the spirit of the constitutional civil rights and liberties which are indispensable to the survival of free writers everywhere. Since Good Night and Good Luck is really about responsible journalism, George Clooney and his writing partner, Grant Henslov, were that year’s recipients.
    To be honest, the Writers Guild didn’t get all that many stars at their show and they very rarely have a chance to award a big star like George Clooney. Before the show started, backstage was filled with excitement that George was going to be there. We did get some big names but they usually were the award presenters; they would give a very short introduction and then hand the award to the writer or writers who won, but tonight a star was going to receive the award and unlike the other televised award shows, he could talk for hours and no one will stop him (believe me, we had writers talk for what felt like hours).
    My jobs on the show have differed; but for many of the shows I would be the person who coordinated the escorting of presenters and writers (it’s called wrangling talent, in the award show world) to the backstage area to prepare for their receiving of, or presenting of, an award. Before the show I would break down the show’s projected line-up by what time the talent should be taken from their tables and led to the green room, where they could review their lines on the teleprompter and make sure they are comfortable, until it’s their turn to take the stage.
    At this particular show, I had three other Guild employees working with me, in corralling the presenters. Before the show began we split up the talent and then assigned a person to “pull” each of the celebrities from the audience. Of course, everyone wanted to pull George. I usually volunteered to pull most of the writers since I had the most experience with the show and knew many of the writers who were presenting or receiving a service award. My friend Leigh was lucky enough to pull George and Grant. Leigh’s an attractive woman; she was the Guild’s receptionist at the time. I felt George would appreciate that.
    I instructed Leigh and the other two Guild employees how to approach the talent before the show began, reassure them that about ten minutes before they were scheduled to go on, we would come and walk them backstage so that they could prepare for their moment. Before dinner, the four of us went out into the audience and introduced ourselves to our celebrities and writers and told them that we would be there in time to take them to the green room.
    This show was actually going well. I had worked on about thirteen different shows and some were better than others, depending on the stars, recipients, lengths of speeches and sometimes the venue. Half way through the show, Leigh approached me backstage. “George Clooney won’t come back,” She announced. I was kind of tripped up; in all the time I worked on the show, we had never had anyone refuse to come backstage with us. Sure, we had lost celebrities, or they were really drunk or never arrived at the show, but we never had someone who refused to come when we asked. “Did you tell him that they would be going on soon?” I asked. “He said he wanted to watch the show,” Leigh answered. “Who really watches this show?” I asked. Everyone knew the only reason why any anyone came to the show was for business, or to hopefully get an award or a free dinner, or at least an hour of an open bar -- no one enjoyed the show.
    Usually people couldn’t wait to get backstage. We sometimes had presenters coming backstage to wait in the green room for hours. “He won’t come?” I asked, hoping the she was kidding. “Nope,” She said. “You can go look for