Latest news with #ClimbinginHeels
Daily Mail
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Jennifer Lopez's producing partner shares shocking information on Marilyn Monroe's 'murder' in tell-all book
Jennifer Lopez 's producing partner is sharing some of Hollywood's darkest secrets in a new book. Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has drawn from her years in show business to write her debut novel, Climbing in Heels. On Tuesday she talked to People about the page turner as she offered excerpts. And one of her stories has to do with the death of Marilyn Monroe at age 36 in 1962 as she offered a Hollywood insider's take on it. 'I was working in the theater department and one day an old man came shuffling up and said he was here to see my boss,' she recalled. 'He said to no one in particular, "They killed Marilyn." I said, "Excuse me?" 'He said, "I didn't want it to happen. I really liked the kid. She called me Uncle Milty." But she was just getting out of control ... so they killed her.' When Goldsmith-Thomas later asked her boss who the man was, she showed her a book with photos of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and JFK's brother-in-law, Peter Lawford and told her. 'Milt Ebbins. There was a time when his name could open any door in Hollywood. He was Peter Lawford's manager. He was the keeper of their secrets,' she said. Milton Keith Ebbins was an American trumpeter, bandleader, songwriter, talent manager and movie/television producer. He began his career as a trumpet player and bandleader in the early-1930s. He died in 2008 at the age of 96. Elaine used to be a secretary before she started producing movies. Her book follows three young women working at one of Tinseltown's biggest talent agencies and some of its biggest stars including Julia Roberts, Madonna and Nicolas Cage. Goldsmith-Thomas, who began her own career at the William Morris Agency in the early 1980s, told Page Six it was like working in the 'Wild Wild West.' 'You know, people like Harvey Weinstein were not the anomaly, they were the norm,' she told the outlet. Details in the book include a male assistant who is allowed to listen in on his boss while he is having sex with actresses auditioning for a role. 'That was a story I had heard from a trainee who was allowed to listen in as his boss, that was his bonus … his little treat. His boss let him listen in as he f***ed actresses.' Goldsmith-Thomas recalled her own close call when she met Bill Cosby. The Cosby Show star threw a luncheon for all the William Morris secretaries to show his thanks for the success of the sitcom. During a brief encounter, the Emmy winner asked her about her future plans. She had recently graduated from college and Goldsmith-Thomas told the comic she would love to represent him one day. 'Later, I got a call from the executive secretary on the first floor saying, "Mr. Cosby was very impressed by you. And we're going to give you contracts to sign, bring them over to his hotel, The Beverly Wilshire,"' she explained. 'And I went into the bathroom, I was really excited getting ready — oh my God, I felt seen, I felt really seen. 'And my friend who worked for the president of the agency happened to be there. I told her and she said, "Don't do it." I said, "Why?" She said, "Don't do it." 'Now she didn't say anything bad would happen … there was just something about the way she said it that frightened me enough that I didn't go.' Cosby has been accused by some 60 women of drugging and raping them. He was convicted of aggravated indecent assault in 2018. The conviction was later overturned, and Cosby, who has denied all the allegations, was released in 2021. Writing the book 'made me look back,' she recalled, revealing that when she was still fresh in the business when agents in Los Angeles would have their secretaries send cocaine cross-country in something called the 'New York pouch that went back and forth to New York overnight.' Sexual harassment was common in the workplace when the Second Act producer was still new in the business. 'I mean the guys in the mail room, they'd go, "Hey, could I have a little keppy?" — meaning, "Can I have a little [oral sex]?" I'd go, "How can you ask me that? We're friends" … "Well, you don't ask, you don't get," they'd say.' Lopez and her future producing partner met when they were both attending a performance of Cabaret starring the late Natasha Richardson in 1998 and the two connected 'on a very visceral level.' Together they have worked on more than a dozen projects together including Hustlers, Kiss of the Spider Woman, which will be released in October, and Office Romance, in which Lopez is starring with Ted Lasso's Brett Goldstein. It was the Hustlers star who insisted Goldsmith-Thomas write the book. 'Jennifer is extraordinary because here's a dancer who became an actor, who became a singer, who became a global brand, who is probably one of the biggest stars on earth and she's incredibly kind,' she said of her friend. 'I felt when I worked with Jennifer that I had a partner — that she put her shoulder next to mine and we'd push. It sounds funny, but the sky wasn't the limit; it was a resting place.'
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix Nabs Darren Star & David Schulner's Napa Valley Dramedy ‘Uncorked' With Big Commitment
EXCLUSIVE: Emily In Paris creator Darren Star and New Amsterdam creator David Schulner have teamed for Uncorked, a half-hour, single-camera dramedy that has landed at Netflix with a script-to-series commitment, sources tell Deadline. Details of the premise are being kept under wraps, but I hear the series is set in Napa Valley and, like many of Star's series, has a female lead. More from Deadline Darren Star Inks Big Overall Deal With Universal Television 'New Amsterdam' Creator David Schulner Inks Big New Overall Deal With Universal Television 'Extraction' Series Starring Omar Sy Ordered By Netflix With AGBO Producing Star and Schulner are co-writing and executive producing Uncorked through Universal Television, part of Universal Studio Group, where Star has an overall and Schulner a first-look deal. The duo recently pitched the show, which had five buyers pursuing it in a competitive situation, I hear. Uncorked ultimately landed at Netflix, home of Star's rom-com hit Emily In Paris, with a significant script-to-series commitment. Reps for Netflix and Universal TV declined comment. This is one of two projects Star took out in January under the multi-year overall deal at Universal Television he signed last spring. The other, Climbing in Heels, an hourlong adaptation of Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas' upcoming novel which he is co-writing with her, stayed at NBCUniversal with a similarly big script-to-series commitment at the company's streamer Peacock. The news of Uncorked's sale comes appropriately during Premiere Napa Valley, a major annual trade event featuring wine testings, receptions and a big wine auction. The project reunites Star and Schulner after Star hired then-up-and-coming writer Schulner on his NBC dramedy series Miss Match over 20 years ago. It was Schulner's third job in the business. Schulner went on to create several series on his own, most recently medical drama New Amsterdam, which ran on NBC for five seasons and also had a run on Netflix in the U.S. In addition to Emily In Paris, which is headed to its fifth season, Star's cult TV Land comedy series Younger also is currently available on Netflix in the U.S. where it has found new audiences, spending weeks in the streamer's U.S. Top 10. Also currently streaming on Netflix, where Star previously co-created and executive produced comedy series Uncoupled, is his Emmy-winning HBO comedy Sex and the City. Earlier in his career, Star created hits Beverly Hills, 90210 and spinoff Melrose Place. Wine has had substantial on-screen presence on Star's shows including an ongoing storyline involving the family Champagne estate of one of Emily In Paris' main characters, Camille. Meanwhile, Schulner has moonlighted as a sommelier. Star is repped by UTA and Ziffren Brittenham. Schulner is repped by UTA and Myman Greenspan Fox. Best of Deadline The 25 Highest-Grossing Animated Films Of All Time At The Box Office 'The Last Of Us' Season 2: Everything We Know So Far The Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Box Office
Los Angeles Times
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
A Hollywood insider has written her first novel — and Darren Star is adapting it
Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has been an agency executive, studio partner and producer for top stars including Julia Roberts and Jennifer Lopez over the course of her lengthy career. Now she's about to become a first-time novelist — with 'Sex and the City' and 'Emily in Paris' creator Darren Star lined up to adapt her book into a series for Universal Television. 'Climbing in Heels,' due April 29 from St. Martin's Press, centers on three secretaries at a talent agency in 1980s Hollywood. Big-haired, short-skirted and glamorous women in sky-high stilettos, they have sky-high dreams in an industry capped by a nearly unbreakable glass ceiling. The adaptation will be Star's first project under the multiyear deal he signed with Universal TV in March. 'I've been a writer for as long as I can remember,' says Goldsmith-Thomas, who began working on the novel at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, a period when so much of Hollywood's normal business activities paused. 'But I sort of kept it quiet. When I was an agent, my clients didn't want to think their agent was a writer, and when I ran a studio, I was so busy hiring, right? This is my way of saying, 'This is who I am.'' Goldsmith-Thomas says finishing 'Climbing in Heels' and signing a deal for its adaptation came together more quickly than she expected — even after her extensive experience in Hollywood. 'I guess I went into it a little bit blind and a little naive, as you have to,' says Goldsmith-Thomas, whose résumé includes high-powered roles at William Morris Agency, ICM and Revolution Studios in addition to producing. 'There isn't one part of my career I ever planned; it all just sort of happened. I suppose it's about how well you pivot, right?' After completing the book, 'I gave it to a few people. I was a little nervous because I really went for it. Most of it is made up, but it's informed by things I saw, and then I just sent it to a few people who I respect and I just thought, 'Well, let's see what they think.' And one of them was Darren Star, who I've known since the '80s when he was an assistant at a publicity firm, and I was a secretary calling myself an assistant. We both had aspirations to do more but really cloudy vision as to where we were going or how we would get there.' She says Star 'inhaled it, he loved it. He called me and said he wanted to option it.' At the same time, several agents representing her at CAA had read her manuscript and shopped it around to producers. Goldsmith-Thomas recalls, 'I was like, 'Wait, it's not coming out till next April.' I wish I could tell you that this was brilliantly orchestrated, but it wasn't. Like my career, it was just action and reaction, and so I entertained these offers from these other very big showrunners who had read it and really loved it, and I opted to go with Darren because I just think he is perfect for this.' When the deal was revealed late last year, Star called the novel a 'ballsy and bawdy love child of 'Mad Men' and 'Sex and the City.'' 'I don't know if being a producer helped me get this deal,' Goldsmith-Thomas says. 'I think everybody knew who I was, but then it just happened so quickly. Darren wanted it, he spoke to Universal, they read it, they preemptively made a big offer and took it off the table. Now, we still have to pitch it to streamers, and we're going to be doing that at the end of February.' Goldsmith-Thomas has one previous writing credit: co-scripting 'Second Act,' a 2018 film starring Jennifer Lopez. In addition to book promotion duties, Goldsmith-Thomas will be juggling roles as a producer of 'Office Romance,' the third Lopez feature film for Netflix, along with other Nuyorican Productions projects in her role as president of Lopez's banner. Among them: the streamer's series adaptation of Emily Henry's 'Happy Place,' which Goldsmith-Thomas will co-produce with Lopez and Benny Medina; 'Bridgerton' co-executive producer Leila Cohan is on board as showrunner. Henry is a bestselling author whose earlier novels 'Book Lovers,' 'Beach Read' and 'People We Meet on Vacation' are all being adapted into movies. Given the author-producer's ties to Lopez, it's tempting to look for the obvious part for the actor in 'Climbing in Heels,' which seems absent in the book. Goldsmith-Thomas laughs at this. 'I was getting razzed about this the other day. Jennifer has said, 'Elaine didn't put me in it!'' But the producer of films such as 'Mona Lisa Smile' and 'Hustlers' says there is no shortage of stars who are queued up for a part. 'We have gotten a lot of calls from actors and directors, and we have some ideas for casting the characters. We have an idea for some of the women but nothing locked in yet,' Goldsmith-Thomas says. 'We're not going to a streamer with a full cast. And we haven't written the pilot — we have to take our time. Everything else has been very fast, but we're slowing down at this point.'
