Do the Right Thing

Ben Goldhirsh is zipped into his wetsuit, at the wheel of a cluttered old Ford. He pulls into the parking lot at Topanga Beach, kills the ignition and checks the surf. "Do you know Biggie's 10 Crack Commandments?" he asks. (That's the Notorious B.I.G.) "Interestingly enough, a lot of the life lessons my dad tried to pass on to me bear a striking similarity to Biggie's 10 Crack Commandments." He laughs, a little uncomfortably. "Rule No. 1 is never let anyone know how much money you have."

I had asked about money, because Ben is getting a reputation in Hollywood as a rich guy. But something is off when you try and cast him in the role. For one thing, you don't hate him. You don't even envy him, really--though his life is enviable enough. Just a few weeks after his 26th birthday, he is financing half a dozen films at his production company, Reason Pictures; getting ready to launch a national magazine, called Good; eyeing television, book publishing and the music business; and running a private foundation that gives millions a year to charity. That, and he just moved out of a small, bland studio apartment and into an airy farmhouse with a Guernica-sized TV, a stone fireplace that could double as a climbing wall, a guest cottage and hiking trails on five rugged acres in the middle of Beverly Hills. ("My Realtor kept showing me these slick L.A. places with fountains and marble tigers spitting water onto Venuses," he says. "Finally I was like, dude, you're going to get fired. Think calloused hands and dirty fingernails.")

You don't hate him because, except for the house, it takes a real effort to remember that he's richer than everyone else you know put together. Most days, he wears a plain button-down shirt, tucked into the same non-designer jeans he had on the day before, and scuffed, brown suburban-dad shoes. "What the Rockports bring to the table is a level of honesty," he says in a deadpan that manages to be dry and goofy at the same time, "They say, 'I wear Rockports, I'm not trying to pull a fast one on you.'" The Ford truck is the same one he drove as a teenager, when he had to borrow the keys from his dad.

Then there are his friends. They are guys he met in high school or college, guys with credit card debt and ordinary last names. When a bunch of them moved to Los Angeles, and he was camped out in the tiny guest cottage so crews could gut and rebuild the main house, he bought bunks, and the guys shared his bedroom for months while they hunted for jobs and apartments.