OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS One Man’s Starry-eyed Quest for The American Dream A Showbiz Odyssey

The World’s First Video-Enhanced Audio Book Memoir

Dear Substack reader:

Along with trying to keep up with, understand, reflect and report on the harsh realities of today’s troubling world, I've been writing a memoir recalling my two decades of intense problem-solving for some of the most famous people on earth: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Helen Hayes, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, and dozens of other celebrated icons of film, music, theater, television, dance, literature, art, fashion, and pop culture.   

As lawyer and business manager for movie stars and other showbiz luminaries, with offices in NY and LA, my practice extended from the jailhouse to the White House. It’s unlikely any of that would have happened if I hadn’t grown up a poor, lonely kid with a multiple sclerosis stricken mother in a wheelchair, a supersized sense of responsibility, and a yen for show biz and politics.   

After law school, with a name scrawled on a matchbook, I lucked into a job at a world-renowned entertainment law firm, and the very first week on duty, found myself gliding around Manhattan with a goddess-like 32 year old Elizabeth Taylor on my shaky 23 year old arm, mooching my Newports.  From there, it was uphill—or downhill— depending upon how you look at it.   

Inspired by this old geezer's lack of success in attracting the attention of a professional literary agent (because those I once knew are either long retired or pushing daisies), I reached far out of the box and devised a uniquely different approach—the result of which, it appears, is the world’s very first video-enhanced audio book!  

If you’ve enjoyed my commentaries here-- please check out my groundbreaking, on-camera, word-for-word rendition of Chapter 1 of my new memoir OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS  One’s Man’s Starry-Eyed Quest for the American Dream  A Showbiz Odyssey, at: 

Along with my own triumphs and travail, you’ll enjoy intriguing stories of the virtues and foibles of the famous and infamous, including: the humor, charm, and sadness of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; the gritty genius of Alvin Ailey, Melvin Van Peebles, Stevie Wonder, Michael Dunn, Sid Caesar, Joseph Heller, A.J. Antoon, John Dexter, John Wood, Jeremy Brett, Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack), Eddie Brigati, Roger Grimsby, and Ralph Lauren; the basic decency of Ramsey Clark, Henry Fonda, Robert Redford, Roger Vadim, and Jerry Lewis; the vivacity of Tammy Grimes, Sybil Christopher, Lynn Redgrave, Ruth Ford, Claire Bloom, Kathleen Quinlan, and Diana Ross; the dourness of Andy Warhol and Huntington Hartford; the pain and pathos of Phil Ochs and Truman Capote; the cynicism of Tom Hayden and J. Edgar Hoover; and the callous indifference to the Rule of Law from those sworn to uphold and enforce it, whose actions tragically foretold the wholesale erosion of ethics and values that plagues the world today.

Enlivened by sharp-edged commentary on 50 years of American culture, history, government, politics, economics, journalism, food, finance, the cosmos, and more, my coming-of-age in the entertainment industry story will evoke laughter, tears, surprise, shock and dismay, as my youthful naiveté and obsessive penchant for perfection continually cast me neck-deep in a river of relentlessly anxiety-inducing situations that had me surrendering my personal comfort, privacy, and peace of mind-- to assure them for others.

OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS embodying the best elements of narrative nonfiction, is rich in language, laughter, loathing, elation, and disbelief, with hard-earned, heartfelt lessons in how not to be seduced and betrayed by one's own illusions.