You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
Encyclopedia
You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again is an autobiography
by Julia Phillips
, detailing her career as a film producer
and disclosing the power games and debauchery of New Hollywood
in the 1970s
and 1980s
. It was first published in 1991 when it became an immediate cause célèbre
and bestseller
, and was reissued in 2002 following the author's death.
, Julia Phillips was one of the most successful film producers in Hollywood during the 1970s. Their second film, The Sting
, grossed almost $160 million and won seven Academy Awards, making Julia the first woman to win a Best Picture Oscar
. Their third film, Taxi Driver
, brought them a second Oscar nomination and won the Palme d'Or
in 1976. In 1977 they co-produced their most financially successful movie, Steven Spielberg
's $300 million-grossing Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. However, Julia had long indulged in a self-destructive lifestyle of excessive drug consumption, and it had begun to affect her work. François Truffaut
, one of French cinema's most iconic directors and a star of Close Encounters, blamed her for that film's budget difficulties, and she was eventually fired during post-production
because of her cocaine dependence
.
Phillips, by now divorced, spent the following years on a downward spiral which included, by her own account, spending $120,000 on cocaine, before entering therapy
to recovery from her addiction. Then, in 1988, having been out of Hollywood for eleven years, she sold all her assets to produce The Beat
, about a kid in a tough neighbourhood trying to teach poetry to local gangs. It was a critical and commercial disaster, grossing less than $5,000 at the box office, and Phillips turned to penning her scathing memoir
to escape her financial difficulties.
. It then covers her early life and first successes in the film industry: she and Michael earned $100,000 from their debut feature
, Steelyard Blues
, moved to Malibu, California, and had a daughter, Kate. The most notorious chapters follow as Phillips' enjoys her greatest career successes, perhaps most infamously when she recalls the amalgam of drugs she was under the influence of on the night she won her Oscar ("a diet pill, a small amount of coke, two joints, six halves of Valium, and a glass and a half of wine"). She also reveals the personal peccadillos and vice
s of the biggest Hollywood A-list
ers of the day, including Steven Spielberg
, Martin Scorsese
, Richard Dreyfuss
, Goldie Hawn
, and David Geffen
. Many of these people were pivotal figures in the emergence of New Hollywood in the 1960s and '70s, but Phillips disparagingly refers to them as "a rogues' gallery of nerds". Later episodes in her life, including freebasing, and her abusive relationship with a violent drug addict which caused her to miss her own mother's funeral, are also discussed candidly.
Most significant, from Phillips' own point of view, is her exposé of the "Boys' Club" in the higher echelons of Hollywood, where she claimed it was her gender that led to her ultimate ostracism. "If I had been a man, they would have closed ranks around me", she said, referring to her drug addiction. "They hated the woman thing. And I wasn't even regarded as a woman, I was a girl." Writing about her in The Independent
in 2002, film critic David Thomson
expressed Phillips' attitude as: "you [Hollywood] guys don't take women seriously; you like us around... [but] we aren't allowed to be players". Those same few men, like "Valley viper" Mike Ovitz who headed the Creative Artists Agency were, in her eyes, responsible for a qualitative decline in standards and the increasing banality of movies since the 1970s.
s at Random House
fourteen months to approve it for publication—and career-ending. Lewis Cole, in The Nation
, described it as being "[not] written but spat out, a breakneck, formless performance piece...propelled by spite and vanity". Newsweek
's review called it a "573-page primal scream", while one Hollywood producer said it was "the longest suicide note in history". In Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
, Peter Biskind
's 1998 anecdotal history of New Hollywood, Richard Dreyfuss
recalled his initial fury at Philips' revelations, before more circumspectly listening to "a little voice inside my head [saying] 'Richard, Richard, the truth was so much worse'." After Phillips' death from cancer
in 2002 the book was reissued in paperback
by Faber and Faber
, and gained renewed attention. Tim Appelo wrote in his Salon.com
tribute that it was "mordant, merciless, [and] outdid Capote in shrieking truth to decadent power", while David Thomson praised it as "compulsive, hilarious entertainment".
Commercially it proved enormously successful, quickly becoming #1 on the New York Times Non Fiction Best Seller list
and spending thirteen weeks on it, while several prominent Los Angeles
bookstore owners reported it to be the fastest-selling book they had ever seen. But Phillips was excoriated by Hollywood, and her autobiography's publication cost her the chance to adapt Anne Rice
's Interview with a Vampire
with David Geffen
. And in an example of life imitating art
, pre-eminent Los Angeles restaurant Morton's fulfilled the book's titular prediction by declining her future patronage.
Shortly before her death, when asked if she had been too cruel in her writing, Phillips replied, "We all have our standards. People behaved in an ugly and despicable fashion towards me. I felt no constraints. Nothing I did in my book is as mean as any of the people I wrote about." She was similarly unrepentant about her subsequent expatriation, saying "I wasn't a pariah because I was a drug-addicted, alcoholic, rotten person and not a good mother. I was a pariah because I hit them with a harsh, fluorescent light and rendered them as contemptible as they truly are."
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
by Julia Phillips
Julia Phillips
Julia Phillips was a film producer and author. She is remembered for being the first woman to win an Academy Award as a film's producer, and for a best selling tell-all memoir.-Early life:...
, detailing her career as a film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
and disclosing the power games and debauchery of New Hollywood
New Hollywood
New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood, sometimes referred to as the "American New Wave", refers to the time from roughly the late-1960s to the early 1980s when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, influencing the types of films produced, their production and...
in the 1970s
1970s in film
The decade of the 1970s in film involved many significant films.----Contents1 World cinema2 Hollywood3 List of films: # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z.4 Events-World cinema:...
and 1980s
1980s in film
The decade of the 1980s in film involved many significant films.----Contents1 Events2 Top Grossing films3 Trends4 List of films: # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z.-Events:...
. It was first published in 1991 when it became an immediate cause célèbre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
and bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
, and was reissued in 2002 following the author's death.
Background
In partnership with her husband MichaelMichael Phillips (producer)
Michael Phillips is a film producer.-Film career:Michael Phillips, his then-wife Julia Phillips, and Tony Bill received the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing The Sting in 1973. The Phillipses were the first husband-and-wife team to win the Best Picture award...
, Julia Phillips was one of the most successful film producers in Hollywood during the 1970s. Their second film, The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, grossed almost $160 million and won seven Academy Awards, making Julia the first woman to win a Best Picture Oscar
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. Their third film, Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
, brought them a second Oscar nomination and won the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
in 1976. In 1977 they co-produced their most financially successful movie, Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's $300 million-grossing Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
. However, Julia had long indulged in a self-destructive lifestyle of excessive drug consumption, and it had begun to affect her work. François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, one of French cinema's most iconic directors and a star of Close Encounters, blamed her for that film's budget difficulties, and she was eventually fired during post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
because of her cocaine dependence
Cocaine dependence
Cocaine dependence is a psychological desire to regularly use cocaine. It can result in cardiovascular and brain damage such as constricting blood vessels in the brain, causing strokes and constricting arteries in the heart, causing heart attacks specifically in the central nervous system.The use...
.
Phillips, by now divorced, spent the following years on a downward spiral which included, by her own account, spending $120,000 on cocaine, before entering therapy
Therapy
This is a list of types of therapy .* Adventure therapy* Animal-assisted therapy* Aquatic therapy* Aromatherapy* Art and dementia* Art therapy* Authentic Movement* Behavioral therapy* Bibliotherapy* Buteyko Method* Chemotherapy...
to recovery from her addiction. Then, in 1988, having been out of Hollywood for eleven years, she sold all her assets to produce The Beat
The Beat (1988 film)
-Plot summary:A new kid moves into a tough neighborhood controlled by gangs, and tries to teach them poetry.-Release:The movie was first shown at The Cannes Film Festival in 1987 and released into U.S. theaters the next year. In 1989, Vestron Video released the movie on videocassette...
, about a kid in a tough neighbourhood trying to teach poetry to local gangs. It was a critical and commercial disaster, grossing less than $5,000 at the box office, and Phillips turned to penning her scathing memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
to escape her financial difficulties.
Synopsis
The book begins by briefly introducing the reader to Phillips in 1989, before quickly travelling back to her childhood in 1940s BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. It then covers her early life and first successes in the film industry: she and Michael earned $100,000 from their debut feature
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
, Steelyard Blues
Steelyard Blues
Steelyard Blues is a 1973 comedy crime film starring Donald Sutherland, Jane Fonda and Peter Boyle. It concerns the lives of a group of misfits trying to find a happier life against the norms of society. Sutherland plays an ex-con with a passion for demolition derbies. He has wrecked almost every...
, moved to Malibu, California, and had a daughter, Kate. The most notorious chapters follow as Phillips' enjoys her greatest career successes, perhaps most infamously when she recalls the amalgam of drugs she was under the influence of on the night she won her Oscar ("a diet pill, a small amount of coke, two joints, six halves of Valium, and a glass and a half of wine"). She also reveals the personal peccadillos and vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...
s of the biggest Hollywood A-list
A-list
A-list is a term that alludes to major movie stars, or the most bankable in the Hollywood film industry.The A-list is part of a larger guide called The Hot List that has become an industry-standard guide in Hollywood...
ers of the day, including Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
, Goldie Hawn
Goldie Hawn
Goldie Jeanne Hawn is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969...
, and David Geffen
David Geffen
David Geffen is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990...
. Many of these people were pivotal figures in the emergence of New Hollywood in the 1960s and '70s, but Phillips disparagingly refers to them as "a rogues' gallery of nerds". Later episodes in her life, including freebasing, and her abusive relationship with a violent drug addict which caused her to miss her own mother's funeral, are also discussed candidly.
Most significant, from Phillips' own point of view, is her exposé of the "Boys' Club" in the higher echelons of Hollywood, where she claimed it was her gender that led to her ultimate ostracism. "If I had been a man, they would have closed ranks around me", she said, referring to her drug addiction. "They hated the woman thing. And I wasn't even regarded as a woman, I was a girl." Writing about her in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
in 2002, film critic David Thomson
David Thomson (film critic)
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...
expressed Phillips' attitude as: "you [Hollywood] guys don't take women seriously; you like us around... [but] we aren't allowed to be players". Those same few men, like "Valley viper" Mike Ovitz who headed the Creative Artists Agency were, in her eyes, responsible for a qualitative decline in standards and the increasing banality of movies since the 1970s.
Reception
On its release most critics agreed that the book was both scandalous—even with a quarter of the 1000-page original manuscript excised, it took lawyerLawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
s at Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
fourteen months to approve it for publication—and career-ending. Lewis Cole, in The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, described it as being "[not] written but spat out, a breakneck, formless performance piece...propelled by spite and vanity". Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
's review called it a "573-page primal scream", while one Hollywood producer said it was "the longest suicide note in history". In Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood is a book written by Peter Biskind and published by Simon and Schuster in 1998...
, Peter Biskind
Peter Biskind
Peter Biskind is a journalist, former executive editor of Premiere magazine, and the author of numerous books depicting life in Hollywood, including Seeing Is Believing, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Down and Dirty Pictures, and Gods and Monsters...
's 1998 anecdotal history of New Hollywood, Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
recalled his initial fury at Philips' revelations, before more circumspectly listening to "a little voice inside my head [saying] 'Richard, Richard, the truth was so much worse'." After Phillips' death from cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in 2002 the book was reissued in paperback
Paperback
Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
by Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
, and gained renewed attention. Tim Appelo wrote in his Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
tribute that it was "mordant, merciless, [and] outdid Capote in shrieking truth to decadent power", while David Thomson praised it as "compulsive, hilarious entertainment".
Commercially it proved enormously successful, quickly becoming #1 on the New York Times Non Fiction Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
and spending thirteen weeks on it, while several prominent Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
bookstore owners reported it to be the fastest-selling book they had ever seen. But Phillips was excoriated by Hollywood, and her autobiography's publication cost her the chance to adapt Anne Rice
Anne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
's Interview with a Vampire
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a 1994 American drama and horror film directed by Neil Jordan, based on the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. The film focuses on Lestat and Louis, beginning with Louis' transformation into a vampire by Lestat in 1791...
with David Geffen
David Geffen
David Geffen is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990...
. And in an example of life imitating art
Life imitating art
-The Philosophical Position:Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who held in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life"...
, pre-eminent Los Angeles restaurant Morton's fulfilled the book's titular prediction by declining her future patronage.
Shortly before her death, when asked if she had been too cruel in her writing, Phillips replied, "We all have our standards. People behaved in an ugly and despicable fashion towards me. I felt no constraints. Nothing I did in my book is as mean as any of the people I wrote about." She was similarly unrepentant about her subsequent expatriation, saying "I wasn't a pariah because I was a drug-addicted, alcoholic, rotten person and not a good mother. I was a pariah because I hit them with a harsh, fluorescent light and rendered them as contemptible as they truly are."