There's Something About 'Sammy.'
What have you done? Samuel Goldwyn, his face flushed with rage, had just ordered the young screenwriter into his office. What have you done? For a brief, naive moment, Budd Schulberg shrugged it off. Sure, most of the folks in Hollywood couldn't stand the gruff producer: Goldwyn was outrageous, tantrums were de rigueur. But Schulberg liked him just fine. At least Goldwyn seemed happy with his work. In fact, he'd sent Schulberg to Ensenada the month before to take a load off and tinker with the sequel to "Stagecoach."
But on this afternoon, Goldwyn was hot--much hotter than Schulberg had ever seen him before. What have you done?
Schulberg's equilibrium was upset by a creeping sense of terror. What in the world provoked the old man?
"I'm talking about that horrible book you wrote!" Goldwyn shouted. The book. That scathing Hollywood diatribe about the fictional Samuel Glickstein, a Jewish ragamuffin from New York who Americanizes his name and claws his way up to studio mogul. That savage saga that Schulberg wrote on the side while under contract to Goldwyn--no longer a studio head but still a producing force to be reckoned with. That just-published novel titled--uh oh--"What Makes Sammy Run?"
Schulberg thought fast. Goldwyn couldn't have read the book--that's what underlings are paid to do--so someone must have told him, wrongly, that "Sammy" was based solely on Samuel Goldwyn, the former Samuel Goldfish. Schulberg launched a weak defense: "Sammy" was a mere composite, "Sammy" was a work of fiction, "Sammy" wasn't Samuel. Goldwyn, his face now purple with anger, was unimpressed. The screenwriter was quickly unemployed.
Schulberg, 27 and fired, skulked off the Warner Hollywood lot that afternoon in 1941 and headed to Chasen's for a scotch and soda. Though he downed a few drinks, he still could see through the alcohol haze. Patrons showed him the backs of their heads.
The Goldfishes who'd reinvented themselves as the Goldwyns still reigned over the studios. The transformation of Samuel Glickstein to Sammy Glick--from overeager copy boy to none-too-bright newspaper columnist, plagiarizing screenwriter, conniving producer and inevitably, thanks to a well-plotted marriage to the boss's daughter, studio head--wasn't taken metaphorically. A short time after the Goldwyn episode, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper bumped into Schulberg at Lucy's, the Paramount hangout, and stormed out with a "Humph!" Lifelong friends stopped talking to him. Then--as now--there's no sound more deafening than silence in Hollywood.
