Innholdsfortegnelse for Women in Entertainment 2017 i The Hollywood Reporter

I started in this business when I was 3. From the beginning, I was co-starring or headlining with the major male and female acts of the day, and all of them treated me wonderfully and respected me and my talent. I believe because of how I began, I always walked into a job or an audition assured of my talent and expected to be treated like a lady and an equal. With one exception, I always was. That one exception taught me what was happening to other women in the business. It occurred when I was about to wrap filming on the 1954 musical Top Banana. The producer of the film came up to me after I’d run through the song called “I Fought Every Step of the Way,” which…

The Political and the Personal Years ago, I met with a director who was set to helm the screenplay I had adapted, Paint It Black. We had strong yet different visions, and after many talks, the director told me they didn’t feel they were the right director anymore. Because I was. My producer, Wren Arthur, called me to discuss; I balked, saying I had no real experience. “Don’t you, though?” she asked. Did I? There were very few examples for comparison. I’ve been an actress since I was 11, and in two decades-plus, I’ve only worked with two female directors. In almost every position in Hollywood — from the director’s chair to the writers room to the A.D. department — women are grossly underrepresented. As more allegations of sexual misconduct…

On Nov. 22, 2017, Russell Simmons wrote: “I have never committed any acts of aggression or violence in my life. I would never knowingly cause fear or harm to anyone.” Dear Russell: I met you around 1987, through Rick Rubin. Rick knew my sister from NYU and asked me, at a nightclub called the Palladium, to be in a movie you were producing that Rick was directing, starring Run-D.M.C. It was, frankly, a lousy movie, and I was terrible in it. Over the next three or four years, I would see you out and about, at a nightclub called Nell’s, mostly. We were always in groups, and we had many, many mutual friends. You were charming and funny and charismatic and self-deprecating. You were a fan of my grandmother [Lena…

FACEBOOK Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg tapped Sandberg as COO in 2008, four years before the social network’s IPO, to help it focus on profitability and growing its advertising business. Under her guidance, Facebook has ballooned to 23,000 employees and 2 billion users. She was the first woman to join her company’s board (which also now includes the Gates Foundation’s Susan Desmond-Hellmann). BOARD TIES Two years after she joined Facebook, Sandberg was appointed to the board of directors at The Walt Disney Co. The former Google vp and U.S. Treasury Department chief of staff also spent three years as a board director at Starbucks and currently serves on the board of SurveyMonkey, where her late husband was CEO. Her nonprofit ties include Women for Women International and V-Day. LEAN IN Sandberg’s…

When The New York Times published the explosive story about Harvey Weinstein and his sexualharassment accusers, I got a text from a friend. It read, simply: “About fucking time.” We texted each other, and I joked that if I had said “yes” all those years ago when he made advances, I wouldn’t be worrying about how to furnish my house on the cheap. Instead, I’d be figuring out how to properly display my Oscars. But then I read the article. It was so unreal. While I had heard the whispers of his sexual misbehavior, I was shocked by the extent and frequency of it and I had no idea that what had happened to me was exactly what had happened to so many of them. My story reads just like…

FRANCES BERWICK* President, Lifestyle Networks, NBCU Cable Berwick successfully rebranded two networks this year — Oxygen pivoted to all crime, and the 12-and-under-targeted Sprout became Universal Kids — while flagship Bravo continued to expand scripted inventory, launching its third series, Imposters (now in production on season two), with 15 returning series posting year-overyear growth. All of which helps to keep Bravo firmly in cable’s top 10; it’s ranked No. 8 among viewers 18-to-49. Hollywood woman I’d switch jobs with for a day Judge Judy How I’d spend an extra day “Write a novel, learn the piano and clean out my closet.” MEGAN ELLISON 31 Producer, founder/CEO, Annapurna Pictures In 2017, Annapurna became a full-fledged studio, releasing its first film with Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit ($17 million worldwide). The company’s two follow-up…

SAMANTHA BEE 48 Host, executive producer, TBS’ Full Frontal With Samantha Bee After launching into the teeth of the volatile — and misogynist — 2016 presidential race, Bee’s Wednesday program, which pulls in more than 4 million viewers an episode, continues to be a weekly therapy session for female comedic rage. VIOLA DAVIS 52 Actor, producer With two Tonys, an Emmy (for ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder) and an Oscar in February for her turn in Fences, Davis is only a Grammy away from earning an EGOT. The actress has branched into production, too, and already is adapting Terry McMillan’s I Almost Forgot About You, in which she’ll star, for Universal. For TV, she has teamed with Larry Wilmore to create an ABC sitcom titled Black Don’t Crack. ELLEN…

GABRIELLE CARTERIS 56 President, SAG-AFTRA As head of the industry’s top advocacy group for actors, Carteris — who has acted for 30 years (notably as school paper editor Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills, 90210) — is responsible for the well-being of some 160,000 thespians. She says she was “stunned and revolted” by the recent flood of sexual abuse scandals in Hollywood, “though sadly not shocked.” Thanks in part to her, SAG-AFTRA is one of the only guilds to have set up a 24/7 harassment hotline for its members. DAWN HUDSON 61 CEO, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences On Hudson’s watch, the number of women serving on the Academy’s 54-member board of governors has increased from six to 21. With a record 774 new members invited this year, women…

STEPHEN BLOOM cites a famous Tallulah Bankhead quote — “It’s the good girls who keep the diaries; the bad ones never have the time” — in summing up abortionist Inez Burns (1886-1976), who left behind few records of her activities. (An exclusive excerpt from his new biography on Burns is on page 128.) A former L.A. Times writer and the author of five books, Bloom has been working on the project since he innocently asked a woman three decades ago if she’d ever heard of Burns. “The woman dropped the phone,” recalls Bloom. “She picked it up, took a deep breath and volunteered that she went to Inez’s clinic shortly after World War II for an abortion.” That woman was one of an estimated 50,000 (including many Hollywood stars) who…

When I was 6, I decided I wanted to be Shirley Temple. I was set on it. Cut to years later, and I’m finally walking down the halls of a major Hollywood agency. The agent I meet informs me his assistant said that I had a “special look.” After a quick chat, he offers to mentor me. I agree while nervously bringing up representation. But he never had me read. He never checked on my education. What he did was ask me to have sex with him. I laughed it off and tried to veer the conversation in another direction. He was serious. He was engaged and wanted his last nonmarital sexual encounter to be with me. He was clear that having sex would not guarantee a role but wouldn’t…

The Political and the Personal Recently, after coming forward about experiencing sexual misconduct, a colleague advised that rather than taking meetings alone in hotel rooms, I should bring a friend. This idea assumes that a friend could stop such behavior. It speculates that most of us have a network of people willing to leave their lives to attend meetings. More problematic is the entrenched notion that those exposed to harassment are the ones to shoulder the responsibility of first-line defense. Let’s shift the focus to perpetrators. How will our industry protect us from them? How do we prevent this? Do policies in place ensure that the accused is entitled to due process? When I ask my unions what is being implemented, I get opaque replies. #Aftermetoo was formed by producer…

The Political and the Personal Molly McNearney never set out to be a recognizable face, never mind a voice of a movement. The recognizable face part came first. It began in late 2009, when the Jimmy Kimmel Live! producer and co-head writer started dating her boss. Every bone in McNearney’s body knew it was a bad idea, and not just because the St. Louis native was then the only female in the show’s writers room and was dead set on fitting in. “I remember telling Jimmy, ‘If this doesn’t work out, nothing in your life changes,’” she says, “but mine changes completely.” It was left to Kimmel, who had been married once before, to impart to her his confidence that this was something more than a workplace fling. That their…

PUTTING POLITICS ON THE TABLE Founded by Jamie Kantrowitz, Hannah Linkenhoker and Samantha Ettus in January 2017, the Los Angeles Women’s Collective — not Hollywoodspecific but mostly made up of industry women — functions as a PAC. To be a member and attend the events (the six held in 2017 ranged from policy breakfasts to larger evening gatherings), women must agree to contribute money annually. The collective, which counts Hannah Minghella and Keri Putnam among its 40 founding members, then identifies female candidates to support, with a focus on the Senate and getting more women into political power. Says Minghella, “It’s been sort of the thing that has given me hope in the climate we’re living in.” lawomenscollective.com. ASSISTANTS ON THE RISE The Group LA is a community of 50…

“It’s very accepted in our business that charisma with a person is how you get a job. It’s like, work your magic, do your thing. ‘She gives good meeting’ is one of the things they say.” Alice Evans, actress. She rejected Weinstein’s advances at a 2002 Cannes party, possibly costing then-boyfriend Ioan Gruffudd a role. “So many people who knew my story with Harvey sent me the [NYT] article. The stories started coming, and you realize you’re not the only one, and you start accepting that you’ve actually been victimized. I don’t like being a victim, or the idea of people thinking of me as weak. But to be a victim doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means that somebody did something bad to you. I had to come to grips…

Harvey Weinstein was one incident, and it was gross (he masturbated in front of me into a potted plant at a New York restaurant), but women have multiple stories of harassers, and I am one of them. I have worked in news since I was 19. My first job out of college was at Fox News. I thought it was normal, to feel like you had to be attractive to men to get ahead. Before I went on-air in a local market, I was a producer for eight years. I’d see it all from the production side: Female talent would show up for work and boss Roger Ailes would call down to the control room and say her skirt was too long, she’s not wearing high heels, tell her to…

VICTORIA ALONSO 51 Executive vp physical production, Marvel Studios Alonso is, along with Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito, one of the engines that keep Marvel producing No. 1 hits. This year was a zenith as, for the first time, Marvel put out three blockbusters — Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok. TV character I most identify with Peggy from Mad Men KRISTINE BELSON 53 President, Sony Pictures Animation SPA under Belson produced Smurfs: The Lost Village ($197 million worldwide), The Emoji Movie ($217 million) and Christmas tale The Star. But it’s 2018 that has her jazzed as SPA will release Hotel Transylvania 3 and an animated Spider-Man featuring black and Latino character Miles Morales. News escape Sex and the City ELIZABETH GABLER 61 President, Fox 2000…

MARA BROCK AKIL 47 Producer, Akil Productions While the fruits of her surprise move from BET to Warner Bros. TV — where she now has a rich overall pact with husband and producing partner Sam Akil — have yet to hit the screen, it isn’t for lack of dealmaking. The power couple behind The Game and Being Mary Jane has a midseason black superhero drama on The CW and recently teamed with OWN for a love drama based on their own relationship. News escape “Anything Ta-Nehisi Coates writes for The Atlantic. Oh, and On 1 With Angela Rye podcast.” GALE ANNE HURD 62 Executive producer, The Walking Dead Hurd remains TV’s genre queen — most notably with AMC’s The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. The flagship celebrated its 100th episode…

TALENT ATTORNEYS MELANIE COOK 68 Partner, Ziffren Brittenham LINDA LICHTER 66 Partner, Lichter Grossman Nichols Adler & Feldman JEANNE NEWMAN 53 Partner, Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman NINA SHAW 63 Partner, Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano Chadwick Boseman is returning to the big screen as Black Panther this spring thanks, in part, to Cook, who negotiated his deal and also launched director Stephen Daldry into the Star Wars universe, where he’ll direct the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi stand-alone. Lichter also closed big deals for director clients working with Disney: Mark Forster is filming Christopher Robin, and Niki Caro is helming the live-action Mulan remake. Newman’s clients Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino inked an overall deal with Amazon Studios, including the recently premiered The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Shaw’s friend, former Attorney…

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL “She came in for this tiny part she couldn’t have been more wrong for. It was a gag where she had to be pulled up with a crane. But she did this incredible reading of this three-line part.” MARGERY SIMKIN VIGGO MORTENSEN “He came in for [1995’s] Crimson Tide. It was not the biggest part, but he did a beautiful read. I knew he was somebody special.” VICTORIA THOMAS CAREY MULLIGAN “I was casting An Education, and Carey Mulligan was very talented, and it was a great process helping her get through all of that.” LUCY BEVAN CHRIS PRATT “He did an audition for me years ago, which I thought was very noble and kind of heroic. That made me think — even when at first he didn’t…

Memorable moments from a storied history 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 For Dorothy Arzner, the word “first” comes up frequently. She was the first woman admitted to the Directors Guild of America and the first woman to direct a sound picture (1928’s Manhattan Cocktail). She also directed Paramount’s first talking feature, 1929 box-office hit The Wild Party with Clara Bow. She’s credited with inventing the first boom mic when she attached a microphone to a fishing pole. She was the first film editor to receive a screen credit. And when she began teaching at UCLA in 1965, her first student to achieve major success was 1967 Master of Fine Arts recipient Francis Ford Coppola,…

Early on in my career, I tried to sell a spec script. If you had read it, you would have said, “Oh, I see how she wrote Girls Trip.” The feedback I got was: “We love this script. It’s really well written, but the characters are black, so we can’t do anything with it.” I was told there was not a studio or player in town that would buy it because it was so niche. But it wasn’t niche. My sensibilities have always been broad and commercial because the films I grew up loving were Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock movies. People would read what I wrote and say — and I don’t think they meant it in an offensive way — “Oh, wow, these characters could be white women.”…

Sheryl Sandberg has been chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008. She’s the best-selling author of Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead and the founder of the nonprofit Lean In. Her second book is Option B. Clearly, she’s a very accomplished person. So am I. Shondaland is my company. I run that mother. I am in charge. I am the leader. It’s fantastic. It’s also really hard. As it should be. I’m fortunate to work with an incredible team of people, but it’s not easy for them, either. I expect a lot from them. They expect a lot from me in return. But mostly what they expect from me is my leadership. That leadership takes the form of my imagination. Puffs of creative clouds sprouting from my…

THE DOULA Chelsea Peretti is a client of “nonjudgmental” Erica Chidi Cohen, who, with Zach Galifianakis’ wife, Quinn Lundberg, built Loom, a cool new reproductive wellness center. thisisloom.com THE CHIROPRACTOR Amanda Seyfried guested on Elliot Berlin’s podcast; Kim Kardashian dubbed him “the pregnancy chiropractor” when her son, Saint, was breech in 2015 (initial visit, $208). doctorberlin.com THE ACUPUNCTURIST Katya Mosely’s fertility, pregnancy and prenatal treatments (prices from $95; house calls from $300) regulate hormones, increase energy and help with breastfeeding. katyamosely.com THE COACH In-demand Lori Bregman has assisted Kirsten Bell and Kelly Rowland, among others, “whether it’s doing yoga or working through fears,” she says (from $5,500). loribregman.com THE MASSEUSE Desiree Freund’s prenatal massages (from $185) are renowned. Says Brittany Ishibashi (Marvel’s Runaways) of an induction massage: “Four hours later,…

“When I got my pictures hacked, I just thought, ‘I’ll never do that again. I’ll never share that part of myself ever, since it got shared against my will.’” Oprah Winfrey barely knew Jennifer Lawrence when the actress called and said she’d like to meet and then on Oct. 5 drove to see Winfrey at her Montecito, California, home. “I was excited to have lunch, and we were just like ‘girls in the garden,’” says Winfrey. “We probably talked for three and a half hours about life and fame and growing up and money and management and taking care of yourself and spirituality and philosophy. We drank rosé, and we laughed, and we talked about everything.” Almost everything. One thing they didn’t discuss was Harvey Weinstein, whose history of harassment…

As executive director of the L.A.-based nonprofit Echo Parenting & Education, I know about trauma and how to recover from it. If you’ve been physically or emotionally harmed when you had no control over the situation — which is what happened to all of us who had encounters with Harvey — the way to heal is to take back control. Get a handle on your narrative. What I didn’t expect, when the story broke, was that it would feel so big personally, even though it wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to me. What it did was bring up childhood sexual abuse that I had not thought about in a long time. If you experience sexual abuse as a child from the people you trust, your sense of what’s…

SAG-AFTRA 844-SAFER-SET Created for members to report violations including sexual misconduct, this hotline has a live person, 24/7, who will immediately notify appropriate authorities while maintaining anonymity and confidentiality. You will be connected to the LAPD, N.Y. Special Victims Unit, the L.A. district attorney’s Task Force on Sexual Assault or the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, among other resources. Women in Film 323-545-0333 On Dec. 1, this nonprofit launched the Sexual Harassment Help Line with seed money provided by WME. Anyone, male or female, can call Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST; after-hours calls will be returned during business hours. Callers will be referred to mental health counselors, law enforcement, and civil and criminal lawyers. Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network 800-656-HOPE RAINN, founded by…

MEREDITH AHR 38 President, Universal TV Alternative Studio Ahr’s first full year leading Universal TV’s nascent alternative studio saw her launch the genre’s biggest new show since The Voice. World of Dance, a collaboration with Jennifer Lopez, averaged 10.3 million viewers this summer. Ahr’s next projects come from pacts with Amy Poehler and Chris Hardwick. TV character I most identify with “A healthy combination of all of the Golden Girls.” BELA BAJARIA 46 VP content, Netflix Since joining the streaming giant in fall 2016, Bajaria’s built out Netflix’s unscripted division with several dozen forthcoming reality series while also managing major studio co-productions and co-licensing and striking international distribution deals for series including The CW’s Riverdale. Her new corporate home may be TV’s most prolific buyer, but the woman who spent…

CAA ROWENA ARGUELLES* Motion picture agent MAHA DAKHIL 42 Motion picture agent HYLDA QUEALLY 56 Motion picture talent agent SONYA ROSENFELD* Co-head of TV BETH SWOFFORD* Motion picture agent Rosenfeld packaged HBO’s Big Little Lies, which swept the Emmys, including a limited series honor for executive producer Reese Witherspoon, a Dakhil client. Dakhil also wooed Aaron Sorkin from WME, his longtime agency. Sorkin’s directorial debut, Molly’s Game, stars Queally’s client Jessica Chastain from the rep’s roster of high-wattage actresses, which since March has included Sarah Paulson, next up in Steven Spielberg’s The Post. Meanwhile, two of Swofford’s clients, producer Steve Kloves and director David Yates, are reteaming for the Fantastic Beasts sequel. And Arguelles is the only agent in Hollywood — man or woman — to represent not one but…

In 1992, Lucie Salhany was at the very top of The Hollywood Reporter’s inaugural Women in Entertainment power list. As the first female to head a broadcast network, the then- 20th Television chair’s future was bright. But behind the scenes, her Hollywood days were numbered. The man who had hired her, Barry Diller, would soon be gone, and she and her new boss, Rupert Murdoch, would not see eye to eye. “When Barry told me he was leaving, it was like the day when Kennedy got shot,” says Salhany, now 71, rolling her eyes as she adds: “Instead, we inherited Rupert.” She’s seated in the office of her 15,000-square-foot home in a posh Boston suburb, reflecting on her 12 trailblazing years in Hollywood and the abrupt decision, in 1997, to…

This case is going farther than anybody thinks,” San Francisco District Attorney Edmund G. (Pat) Brown teased reporters at an October 1945 press conference designed to snare as much publicity as publicity-hungry Brown could summon. Ambitious and enterprising, the 40-year-old was going gangbusters to put Inez Burns, one of California’s most politically connected women, behind bars. There was nothing illegal about knowing everyone who was anyone in California, but there was plenty illegal about exactly how millionaire Inez had joined the state’s wealthiest women. For two decades, she had owned and operated the largest and most successful abortion clinic in California. Spick-and-span sterile and hygienic, Inez’s clinic looked more like an elegant ladies’ tearoom than a facility for terminating pregnancies. Inez was able to stay open for so long through…

When I started my company in 1996, I had no experience in bringing a product to life or in how to run a company, but I made up for it with a crazy amount of drive. My dream was to make and market a unique earring organizer. Without a clue where to start, I went step by step, figuring it out. I truly believe if you have a dream and put your mind to it, you can make anything happen. It wasn’t money that drove me; it was a desire to create and help others. My idea came out of a need I felt all women had to store their earrings better. So I patented it, made a prototype, found a toolmaker and manufacturer and a book that listed retailers…