He was soon handling movies for Jack Nicholson ( Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces), hanging out with the fast crowd, and representing many of them. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Todd Fisher; “My father Eddie Fisher, and my mother, Debbie Reynolds, were both represented by Jim Mahoney during some of the most important times in their lives.

Wes finds all this out while he goes to Ohio with Laurel, where he begins to piece more on what his mother was involved with.Mahoney turns 95 in February 2023 and lives quietly in La Quinta, CA, on the course where he won the 1977 Bob Hope Celebrity Pro-Am.

Conversely, we had a few hole-in-the-walls where I knew they’d be safe from prying eyes… Some of those hide-outs were Chez Jay in Santa Monica (still there), when hardly anyone lived west of Sepulveda, the Holiday House (now Geoffrey’s) in Malibu, and the La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes. When that drug problem landed him in the hospital while he was on the road with a client, I flew to New Orleans to see him. He continued ranting and after what seemed like an eternity of his raving, I broke in, saying, “I did, you asshole. Mahoney provides a journey through Hollywood as only someone who worked behind the scenes of the studios.

Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters.

At the time, I was press (working for the Herald Express) and could have written about it in my column, but Cooper was an All-American leading man. Apart from entertainment Mahoney had life-long friendships with Barron Hilton (Hilton Hotels), and billionaire Las Vegas hotel and studio owner, Kirk Kerkorian, (he owned MGM three different times).The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. It is an anecdotal and often very funny picture of the flaws and frailties of our most beloved stars. I say "accidental" in my headline because I had no idea this book existed and just stumbled on it in the book listings. He represented the top entertainers in town and his behind-the-scenes stories are a fun read and are about the biggest stars in Hollywood’s Golden Age.