Director’s Block
Ever wonder why actors act and directors direct?
A very nervous Robert Altman, who directed such classics as “Nashville” and “M*A*S*H,” showed up at a Rodeo Drive block honoring Hermes 25th anniversary in Beverly Hills and the opening of its posh new stores last week.
Altman struggled to read a thank-you note to the Hermes family for an undisclosed donation to the preservation of old Hollywood films.
“I am reading this,” Altman haltingly told a gathering of more than 1,000 well-heeled shoppers. “I can’t read scripts. I leave that to actors.”
Altman, whose film “Ready to Wear” took a look at the French fashion industry, said the film repair effort is “a race against time to save the first 100 years (of Hollywood).”
Afterwards, Hermes, which began making saddles in France before becoming one of the world’s most elegant boutiques, opened its door and the first entry was a very hyper black stallion. “I hope they don’t need a silver shovel for him,” quipped one shopper. The steed was on its best behavior.
CNN Goes Hollywood
Synergism, synergism, synergism. There is nothing like hyping your own company’s to the unsuspecting. CNN caught flack earlier this year for having its correspondents show up in Warner Bros “Air Force One.” Both CNN and Warner Bros. are divisions of Time Warner. CNN, which said it would stop allowing its staff from acting like rent-a-reporters in Hollywood flicks, gets another dash of free advertising from another Time-Warner company, New Line Cinema. In its new thriller “Most Wanted,” a desperate Keenan Ivory Wyans downloads some secret documents to [email protected].
Techno Babble?
At the Sept. 12 meeting of the TechnoLink Association a networking group of tech and biomed companies Department of Corporations Commissioner Keith Paul Bishop promised to be a tireless advocate for the cause of new tech companies.
“We at the department have sponsored a number of proposals to make capital easier to obtain and I will continue to push those proposals on your behalf,” Bishop told the group gathered at the Jet Propulsion Lab in La Canada Flintridge.
But not for long: Four days later, Bishop announced his resignation, effective Sept. 30, to return to private law practice in Orange County.
Surf’s Up
As if the Port of Long Beach doesn’t have enough problems with anti-Communists and historic preservationists, now the Surfrider Foundation has launched a campaign to take down the eastern end of the breakwater that protects the port and bring waves back to Long Beach.
The nine-mile breakwater stretching from Point Fermin to Alamitos Bay was built in segments by the Army Corps of Engineers between 1899 and 1949. The surfers want to remove 2.5 miles of it down to 40-feet deep. The bottom rocks would form an artificial reef that would be a new home for fish as well as a new source of surf.
Needless to say, this does not exactly please port and shipping officials, who say it would be an accident waiting to happen.
Surfrider Foundation representatives no doubt out enjoying last week’s huge Hurricane Linda waves did not return phone calls to the Business Journal.
