Many people go to Hollywood to find themselves. Having myself spent several years doing just that, I have wanted to include some of my Hollywood experiences as well as some of the larger-than-life characters I met along the way.
I was lucky to have an instructor, a Mr. Gelman, at UCLA where I was taking a course in Screenwriting. He introduced himself to the class, eyeballed us, and asked gruffly, "How many here want to be writers?" Each of us glanced at each other; a few began to raise their hands. Immediately the rest of us raised ours. Seeing this, he waved his hands wildly and said. "Then why the hell are you not at home writing?" That experience and class has always stayed with me.
I engaged in publishing short fiction for CBS TV and other television production companies while making a living as a TV repairman in Hollywood. I had just finished resurrecting a 12-inch RCA TV back to life for a well known screenwriter and when I mentioned I had hopes of being a screenwriter, he laughed. "Look kid, here's some advice I want you to always remember: Two screenplays that always sell are 'Westerns' and 'Easterns'. An Eastern is a Western with Arabs."