Show Business Kills by Iris Rainer Dart Read Free Book Online

her days locked in a room from early morning to midnight, shepherding a
     film from its conception to its premiere.
    Nothing could beat those hours of being part of the process, when the director and the writer worked to make a product that
     was bigger, broader, grander than the sum of its parts. To watch each idea bring forth the next one, to see the product metamorphose.
    And then to be the one who could make words on a page come to life by finding the right stars, to give it what Ellen jokingly
     called Tina Turners, meaning not just legs, but the greatestlegs in the business. That part of the job meant so much to her that she could put up with the “boys club” to have it.
    Now the fucking panty hose were rolling over and sliding down her belly, goddamn it. She promised herself to have her secretary
     call Neiman Marcus to order a dozen pairs of panty hose without the control top. Then she could be comfortable and not care
     if her stomach stuck out.
    Schatzman was droning on about casting the male and female leads for
Out There
, a hot action-adventure film the studio was eager to make. Ellen knew these casting discussions could go on forever. Each
     of the men had his personal favorite actors, and hated the other’s favorites, so they could fight about casting for days on
     end.
    Names of stars were flying, careers were hanging in the balance. First they talked about the women. “You’d like to fuck her,
     wouldn’t you?” “Only with your cock, in case there’s something wrong with her.” “Hey, believe me, when I visit the set, I’ll
     bring my good dick.”
    Ellen was sure they sometimes overdid the childish male shit just to fry her. To see how bad they could make it before she
     fell apart and said, “I quit, you infantile assholes.” Probably they were wishing she’d walk, so they wouldn’t have to have
     a broad around, and more important, if she left on her own, they wouldn’t have to pay her off.
    Now they’d moved on to talk about casting the men, so what Bibberman called the “pussy factor” was being weighed, because
     they needed to lure the women audiences into the theaters. They were all ripping apart the available actors. One male star
     was a “wimp,” another a “wuss.”
    Ellen made what she thought was a great suggestion for the role.
    “No chance.” Bibberman sneered when he heard it. “He’s too high-maintenance.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning I’m not interested in being the one who goes to the emergency room to pull the gerbils out of his ass.” Big laugh.
    “Why gerbils?” one of them said. “Why not hamsters or mice, or maybe white rats?”
    “White rats would show the dirt!”
    Screams of laughter.
    “White rats never ask, ‘Was it good for you?’ ” More screams.
    Ellen sighed. Let them play, she thought. When they get serious, I’ll jump in. Her mind was wandering as she doodled with
     her Mont Blanc pen on the legal pad in front of her. She knew if she didn’t stand soon and start packing up her briefcase,
     she’d never get out of there. And she wasn’t going to disappoint Roger. It was his birthday, and she was meeting him at Adriano’s
     for dinner.
    Rogie, her gorgeous son, whose father left him and Ellen and Los Angeles when Roger was less than a year old. Today her divine
     boy turned twenty-four, and they would celebrate and reminisce. And for a few hours she’d forget about the scripts that were
     stacked on her night table, piled in her briefcase, sitting on the passenger seat of her car, and being delivered in a steady
     stream to her office every time the mail room gofer came by her studio bungalow.
    “Ellen?”
    When she looked up from her doodling, she realized that all of the men were not only looking at her, they were waiting for
     the answer to some question Bibberman must have directed ather, which she’d been too preoccupied to hear. All of their eyes glistened with glee. He had to have guessed she hadn’t heard
     the first