Everyone knows the archetypal Hollywood fantasy—the young hopeful arrives in town, takes a job in a hash wagon, and is soon discovered by a studio big-shot. It hardly ever happens, but you just canít kill a dream.
Son of a studio executive, writer Budd Schulberg grew up in Hollywood, and saw first-hand that Hollywood fantasies turned to Hollywood disappointments can be turned into Hollywood satire, as in the 1941 story, "A Table at Ciro's."
"Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) switchboard operators in training... Des Moines, Iowa," photographer unknown, 1942. Larger.
A telephone rings and the operator, who is suffering from delusions of looking like Ava Gardner, answers, "Ci-ro's. A table for Mr. Nathan? For six. His usual table?" This was not what she had come to Hollywood for, to take reservations over the telephone, but even the small part she played in A.D. Nathan's plans for the evening brought her a little closer to the Hollywood that was like a mirage, always in sight but never within reach. For, like everyone else in Hollywood, the telephone operator at Ciro's had a dream. Once upon a time, ran this one, there was a Famous Movie Producer (called Goldwyn, Zanuck, or A.D Nathan) and one evening this FMP was in Ciro's placing a million-dollar telephone call when he happened to catch a glimpse of her at the switchboard. "Young lady," he would say, "you are wasting your time at that switchboard. You may not realize it, but you are Naomi in my forthcoming farm epic, Sow the Wild Oat!"
Budd Schulberg's novel What Makes Sammy Run? has become a classic of Hollywood literature. He has also written many non-fiction works and he received an Oscar for his screenplay of On the Waterfront.
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