Publisher Description

Henry Wearie is a man with a brilliant future behind him. He arrived in Hollywood barely twenty-one, having escaped from a confusing family and New York University. He got hot fast, selling a big-money script. He was on his way up -- though not quite as far up as he had expected. Henry stalled in the middle, then fell from there. As he puts it, "I've been hotter and colder than my oven." It's All True maps Henry's odyssey through a tantalizing Los Angeles that he loves and resents, a place where he always feels one phone call, one script, or one break away from the brass ring that circles in and out of his grasp. He marries and divorces and never quite stops yearning for his ex-wife. He spends his days trying to resurrect the life that he let slip away. Then his faltering career gets an unexpected jolt from an old girlfriend who has been promoted into the upper reaches of a studio. She helps Henry, though she extracts a surprising price. When the money had been flowing, Henry bought a Jaguar that has gone from gleaming to dented, a constant reminder of his own fallen state.His life has careened from the glamorous to the quotidian, from erotic adventures on location to slow mornings spent with out-of-work buddies at Hollywood's venerable Farmers Market. His friends are a motley crew of wiseguy screenwriters, once-popular directors, obscure actors, and famous and highhanded producers and film stars identifiable to most everyone. In creating Henry's saga, veteran novelist and screenwriter David Freeman has written an intimate history of Hollywood over the last twenty-five years, viewed from inside the soundstages, the bedrooms, the fashionable restaurants, and the studio meetings where fortunes can turn on a chance word. This is a book studded with the delicious details of the folkways of the movie business and the romantic customs of its denizens. Enlivened by Freeman's corrosive wit, It's All True is hilarious and touching and, astonishingly, absolutely all true.

Author Biography

David Freeman is a recovering screenwriter and the author of two previous novels, two collections of short stories, and a memoir of his time writing a script for director Alfred Hitchcock. His play, Jesse and the Bandit Queen, was produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Public Theater and has since been performed around the world. He has contributed frequently to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Contents Now 1. Finding Home 2. A Place at the Table 3. Take the Backlight 4. You Know What I Mean 5. The Art Deco Widow 6. Tomorrowland Then 7. Down Mexico Way 8. Cut 9. Thank You for Everything 10. The House of Woe 11. Definitely Denim Now and Then 12. Felix at Home 13. It's All True 14. Old Times, New Times

Review

Eric Laxauthor of "Woody Allen: A Biography"No one knows the ups and downs and ins and outs of the Hollywood life better than David Freeman. He has written a poignant and hilarious novel about ambition and heartache. It is also a brilliant sociological text on the endangered species of writer that performs in the circus that is the movie business. What a touching book. "It's All True" is all too true. As Henry Wearie, the delightful, pragmatic dreamer at the center of this story would say, Oh, me-oh, my-oh.

Review Quote

Eric Laxauthor ofWoody Allen: A BiographyNo one knows the ups and downs and ins and outs of the Hollywood life better than David Freeman. He has written a poignant and hilarious novel about ambition and heartache. It is also a brilliant sociological text on the endangered species of writer that performs in the circus that is the movie business. What a touching book.It's All Trueis all too true. As Henry Wearie, the delightful, pragmatic dreamer at the center of this story would say, Oh, me-oh, my-oh.

Excerpt from Book

Chapter 1: Finding Home As he drove his aging green Jaguar through the Hollywood Way gate and onto the Warner lot, a bit of movie business folklore bounced through Henry Wearie''s head: If you have a hit when you''re young, you''ll never leave. The business was full of homemade salami like that. Because most everyone was flying blind, any ten-cent aphorism that had been around for a while took on an air of biblical infallibility. The Jaguar was about two dings away from being a used car that once was fashionable. Henry didn''t need reminding that he was once a fashionable writer who came to work through this gate every day. The guard didn''t recognize him and gave him a parking assignment that Henry judged to be a half mile away. Might as well park in Glendale and take the bus. Make it as hard as possible for the writers, Henry thought. That was the real Hollywood way. Just as well. It wouldn''t do for some studio pirate to see him driving a beat-up car. Henry was going to Projection Room Ten on the old part of the lot, the section that still looked like the 1940s with low-slung vanilla buildings and red tile roofs. The guard had offered a map to the distant parking space and directions to Room Ten. Henry passed on that and left the car in the first empty spot he saw. The hell with it. What were they going to do, arrest him for illegal parking? Henry knew well enough where Room Ten was and he climbed the outside stairs at the rear of the building. It might have been easier to go through the front door but using this shortcut would demonstrate his familiarity with the place in case anyone like the guard at the Hollywood Way gate was watching. Oh, me-oh, my-oh, he thought. Coming here is making me unhinged. Madeleine, his ex, used to say that Henry thought too much about things that didn''t matter. It never seemed like a fair complaint to him. He stopped for a moment and contemplated the cast-iron stairs of this fire escape, or whatever it was meant it to be, because the little ridges and bumps in the steel reminded him of a serrated bread knife. Oh, dear. Maybe later he could call Madeleine and tell her she was right after all, except they weren''t speaking. Maybe he could send her an e-mail and then pretend not to notice if she didn''t answer. Oh, me-oh, my-oh. Henry found his way to the booth and asked, "Do you have Finding Home?" The projectionist was a young guy who looked eager to please. That was new. When Henry first worked at Warners, the projectionists, who sometimes called themselves engineers, were a prickly bunch, usually older men, lifers at the studio who were only too glad to tell you how they used to run dailies for Ronald Reagan. The booth looked the same, though, still piled high with film cans and cartons and old paper coffee cups. "Got the studio print," the guy said. "From the original neg. I''m cued up." "Did you check it?" Henry asked. "Color''s perfect. You could eat it with a spoon." "I''ll remember that if I get hungry." "Mr. Desantis is on the way." "Thank you." Ah. Held up once again by a studio executive. No doubt because he''s busy writing cheesy notes for somebody''s script. Easy, Henry, he thought. Desantis is just acting like what he is. Don''t get your dukes up over any of this stuff. Henry let himself into Room Ten, a little theater with a red curtain in front of the screen that was more ceremonial than useful. Henry knew it would groan as it opened. He sat down in front of the control panel. It was one of the old-fashioned kind. Just a few buttons and switches. He tested the intercom and fiddled with the volume dial. Henry liked these old panels. He never did more than adjust the sound or tell the projectionist to skip to the next reel, but operating it made him feel as if he was in control. It wasn''t a feeling screenwriters often had on studio lots. Henry glanced around, feeling like a burglar in an old Warner Bros. picture. He was casing the joint, stealing a look. There were twenty well-padded leather chairs, though the leather was starting to crack in the ones next to the control panel. The screen was big enough to handle any format. The place had been painted since Henry was last here but other than that, the room looked as he remembered it, which was essentially the way it had looked since the days of Ronald Reagan and his dailies. The air had a damp and clammy feel. Henry remembered that as well. Probably from all the years of scared, sweaty people watching their fortunes rise or fall in all those formats on the screen in front of him. Now Warners was going to put Finding Home out in a DVD that would include an interview with Henry. Finding Home had been his first public success. At the time it felt as if it would be the first of many. Henry had arrived in Hollywood to join the parade when he had just turned twenty-one, young enough to squander a few years without noticing. He kicked around for a while writing scripts that didn''t get made and rewriting other people''s scripts until Streets of New York. He''d written it without a deal because no one had wanted it enough to hire him to write it. It wasn''t his first spec script, but it was the first one he sold. Henry was paid $250,000. He had repeated that sum to himself again and again. He''d find himself in traffic or at a screening and $250,000 would float into his mind. Sometimes he would think, $100,000 two and a half times in a row. Other times it would be, A quarter of a million. For all that, the script never became a movie, which was a great disappointment at the time. Despite that annoying detail, Streets of New York was a hit of sorts, though its reputation didn''t go past the city limits. Still, it took Henry from the fringes and put him in business. "A hit when you''re young" drifted through his mind again. The studio had sent Henry a tape of Finding Home but he had refused to look at it, telling Desantis that videotapes were tiny and blurry and not worth his time. Then, in case Desantis had missed the point, Henry told him videotapes looked like lousy impressionist paintings. They could interview somebody else for the DVD, which was no way for a screenwriter to talk to a film studio. It was just that anything to do with Finding Home still irritated him, all these years later. Desantis offered to set up this screening, saying he would watch it too. Henry stopped being so cranky and said, sure. Later, when he thought about it, he realized that they needed him because he was the likeliest suspect who could put a few coherent sentences together. Art Lesser, the director, would be interviewed. If Henry didn''t participate, whatever self-serving lies Art came up with would become the record. Henry knew Warners would edit whatever he said, but a screenwriter ought to be able to work around that. Art Lesser had been hired when the picture was already in preproduction. He shot it, but that was about all. Still, the press always wrote about "Arthur Lesser''s Finding Home." It irritated Henry, but it also amused him. Art was doing television now and whenever Henry ran into him he made a point of calling him Monsieur Auteur. Morty Elfman, who had produced the picture, would be interviewed. He''d do okay. At least he wouldn''t make any excessive claims for himself. The other candidate was Blake Porter, who played the lead in the damn thing. The picture had made Blake an even bigger star. DVD viewers would expect to hear from him. Even if Blake wasn''t stoned, without a script he''d just babble. He was probably in some other time zone anyway. They''d find him, they''d interview him. They''d interview the whole pack. Henry knew he''d best calm down and participate because whatever future life the picture might have would be in this DVD. The thought that Art Lesser would have the final word was appalling. So despite his unease with the movie, Henry was back at Warners, if only for a few hours. Bob Desantis finally rolled in, fifteen minutes late. He had been the executive on the picture and here he was, still at Warners, still tall and geeky, though now with a bit of a paunch that looked as if it had been strapped on, like a little pillow. "Henry, Henry," Desantis said as he plopped down. "So. ''Sup, bro?" Oh, me-oh, my-oh, Henry thought. He''s still using street slang. It worked for him twenty-five years ago when such terms were thought arcane and certainly unknown to studio executives. Now, for a movie executive, a season running with the Crips was as good a credential as the USC film school. Still, it sounded bizarre coming from middle-aged, pale-faced Bob Desantis. "Roll when you''re ready," Desantis barked into the intercom. As the lights went down and the credits came up, he said, "So here we go. Our triumph." "Yeah," Henry muttered, keeping his eyes on the screen. He knew he should be blas

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