Carl Williams, the owner of Long Beach Breakers, a team in the semi-pro American Basketball Association, returned two weeks ago from a trip with his team to Singapore. The basketball was disappointing the Breakers lost two games to the Beijing National Team but Williams may end up as a documentary star as a result of the trip.
If so, it probably won’t be because of all the video cameras his players took. It was the first trip out of the country for many players, and they wanted to record the experience.
It would more likely be because Williams brought along a filmmaker to document the trip. The team owner plans to have a documentary made about his team that will include footage from the trip.
“I’m not really a reality show guy, but from the outside looking in, I’d watch this,” he said.
Donating Duo
Cheryl Saban is best known as the wife of billionaire media mogul Haim Saban and for her philanthropic work. The couple’s landmark $10 million donation last week to the Los Angeles Free Clinic (soon to be renamed the Saban Free Clinic) is the latest in a long line of charitable gifts to social causes in the United States and Israel.
But Saban, who has a Ph.D. in psychology, also has a long career writing books about improving the well-being of women and their families, the latest expected to publish this fall. She blogs on these issues at the Huffington Post Web site.
Saban has more than an academic knowledge of her subject. Twenty-five years ago she was a divorced mother of two, with a one-hour commute from her Encino home to her job as an office manager in L.A. that did not provide healthcare. She passed by the Free Clinic nearly every day, but never went inside until she was struck with a lingering viral infection.
“It took a long time to swallow my pride and go in,” she recalled. Once she did, Saban said she was struck with the caring and professional attitude of the staff.
That experience stuck with her long after she went to work two years later for her future husband, who at the time was writing songs for children’s cartoons.
Beach Bashes
As a real estate agent to the stars during Hollywood’s golden era, Mike Silverman hung out with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Jayne Mansfield. Last summer the 88-year-old got a taste of new Hollywood when the camera company Polaroid rented the beach house on one side of his property in Malibu and Paris Hilton took up residence on the other side of his home.
Polaroid threw wild parties as promotional events all summer. The smooth talking Silverman soon found himself at the events and very much the life of the party.
“It was a summer like I’ll never have again,” said Silverman, who expects that complaints from neighbors means that this summer’s party season will be more subdued.
Silverman became friends with Hilton, who invited him over for dinner often. And just to prove it to any naysayers, Silverman keeps a photo of himself and Hilton in his wallet.
Staff reporter Deborah Crowe contributed to this column. Daniel Miller can be reached at
dmiller@labusinessjournal.com
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