Limo Scene

The view from the front seat

It was the first sunny week after all that rain. Middle of the day, I got an emergency call to run a client home from Fox. The client was a longtime executive producer, a major player by any stretch of the imagination. You've probably heard of his wife. She wrote a string of hit books.

I didn't notice at first, but the whole way back up Beverly Glen the client leaned back in his seat next to his pudgy assistant and held a cloth to his nose. By the time we reached Sunset I could see the cloth was stained red.

"You saw what he did," the executive producer said finally.

"Frank, why won't you let me take you to a doctor?" his assistant answered.

Frank didn't seem to hear. "My nose is broken, Stanley," he groaned. "The little bastard sucker-punched me. He's off the picture."

"I'll call everybody," Stanley said. "I already got a list in my mind. I promise you he will eat dirt."

"This is my project. I say we edit reel eight, we edit eight. Not six, not three, not what he wants! What I want. I say a two-shot goes here, that's where it goes!"

"You're the one with the track record," Stanley said.

"How much business have his pictures done?" Frank screamed. "This is his first time out."

Frank spit out a tooth. "I want the studio to know there was no legitimacy to his vision on this."

Stanley fixed another cloth with fresh ice cubes and handed it to Frank. "Another two minutes and the kid would've been mincemeat," Frank said.

"When you fell over the desk I was sure you weren't gonna get up, Tiger," Stanley smiled.

"He took me by surprise. Big deal."

"It was a sucker punch, Frank."

Frank sat up and took the cloth off his face and blinked his left eye. "I don't think the socket's broken," he said. "The kid's a nothing."

"An unemployed nothing," Stanley said. "As soon as we get to your house I'm calling the lot. I'll tell 'em they have no right saddling a man with your product history with some green kid. You've produced in this town for years. Frank doesn't work with snotnoses who start punching each time there's a creative difference! Frank demands total authority on this picture! Either they shove the little putz or you walk.

They'll get an earful, Frank."

Frank listened and then he was quiet a long time. And then he sighed. "Hold off on the call, Stan," he said.

Well, you hear egos out here are big, but let me tell you they're no bigger than a pea next to the kind of guts and class a man of vision like Frank brings to his work. The man sights from both ends of the barrel. I watched him look off out the window.

"Maybe he just got carried away," Frank said after a while. "You'll send him something."

"Sure, Frank," Stanley said. "Tilt your head way back, kid."

Stretch