Go West … Man
GO WEST… MAN
The king is dead. Long live the king.
—THE ROYAL SUBJECTS
1986
Less than five months after Sam died, Garry Sampson—a person whom Sheila had begun to rely on and also a person whom she had really begun to enjoy—asked if they could talk.
It was never a good sign when an agent asked to talk. It usually meant they wanted a raise or wanted to leave. For a stalwart like Sampson, Sheila assumed it was the former.
She assumed wrong.
Garry sat across from her and told her he was a bit lost without Sam and that he’d been made an offer to run Orion Pictures, and had, after much deliberation, decided to take it.
“You can’t,” Sheila said, as if her vote or her voice mattered. “You can’t,” she said again, waiting for her vocabulary to catch up with the terror rising from her gut.
Garry smiled and shook his head, which gave her an indication that maybe he hadn’t made up his mind. Not completely.
It was an in, and she clawed at it with the will and the might of a person hanging on for dear life. Because that’s how she felt. If someone like Garry Sampson left—someone who had been so close to Sam, who had taken on many of Sam’s clients, and had, himself, the biggest star in the world with Scott Westman—that would be devastating, communicating that Sylvan Light hadn’t been good enough to keep him; that she hadn’t been good enough to keep him.
“Give me a year,” she pleaded, reasoning that moving a client once was tricky, twice was death. They were barely getting back on their feet. “Please,” she said again, her eyes filling with tears of desperation. “I can’t make it without you.”
Garry felt bad, and for a moment reconsidered. I could put it off for a while , he thought. Make sure the clients are solid; the agency on terra firma.
Sheila watched him wrestle internally with the dilemma.
“This is your agency,” she said, trying to push his decision over the goal line. “Don’t kill us while we’re down on one knee.”
She almost had him. She could tell.
“Name your price,” she said. “Everyone’s got a number.”
And that’s how she lost him.
There’s a balancing act in a negotiation, a moment where the other party might yield; a tipping point that you can feel, where you can gain the advantage. In this instance, Sheila, miscalculating her opponent, not only lost the advantage but solidified his decision.
Garry Sampson couldn’t be bought.
It was a mistake she made both in judgment and in character, and one she’d make again later, resulting in her own demise. He didn’t want to work for someone who valued money more than loyalty. And nothing she said after that would convince him otherwise.
She took a guess in the game of chance and guessed wrong.
Garry shook his head sadly and told her that his heart was no longer in it. Without Sam there, he was rudderless. It wasn’t just the offer; it was the echo of what and who had come before. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t walk the halls without the man who had taught him how.
He told Sheila that he respected her and all she’d done to right the ship, but it was time for him to try something new: He would be a buyer, the head of a new studio, fat with money and opportunity…
Sheila didn’t hear the rest. She was in a full-on panic as he explained that he would do his best to keep almost all his clients at the agency.
That snapped her back to reality.
“What do you mean, ‘ almost’? ” she asked, eyes narrowing, trying to understand what he wasn’t saying.
And that’s when he dropped the second bombshell: Scott Westman would not be staying.
The air left the room as Garry admitted that Westman had already had preliminary conversations with David Shipp at Alliance.
She didn’t hear the rest. Not clearly. She knew Garry apologized again, and he made some attempt at reassuring her, but he left a few minutes later.
For a minute, everything slowed down. Then she went into hyperdrive.
She was mad, spitting mad, and called an emergency meeting in Khan’s office, summoning Garry downstairs and asking him to repeat it all for the executive committee.
Garry swore to them that he had done everything he could to try to keep Scott Westman at the agency. He apologized to the group of agents Khan had assembled, including Amati, Jamie, Moze, with whom he shared many clients, Randy Fink, who’d once been accused of raping his sexitary and was now head of the television department, and a few of the heavyweights on speakerphone from the New York office.
“Have Westman meet with us,” Sheila said to Garry. “It’s the least you could do.” It was more a command than a request.
But he shook his head, explaining that Scott didn’t want to meet.
“Why not?” Sheila asked, adding that Scott didn’t know her enough to hate her.
But even her humor couldn’t mask her pain and then rage when Garry explained that Scott had been quite certain that with Sam and Garry gone, it was time for him to move on.
That was when Sheila lost it.
“Why the fuck would you tell him you were leaving before you told us?” she screamed.
Everyone shifted uncomfortably.
Harvey Khan tried to calm things down. They needed Garry’s friendship now more than ever, and until the rest of his clients were reassigned, they couldn’t afford to alienate him.
But Garry shrugged it off, and said simply that he and Scott were friends, best friends, and their relationship was such that he couldn’t keep something this big a secret.
“Honeeeey,” Sheila said, lighting a cigarette and gathering her wits, “they’re not our friends, no matter what you think. Just ask Alana.”
Garry apologized and promised he’d call the other clients when he was back from New York.
“Fuck me,” Sheila said after he’d left.
Stu Lonshien—on speakerphone—told her that they needed to cut their losses and make sure everyone else was secure.
But Sheila wasn’t giving up on Westman. Not by a long shot. “If one leaves, they all leave,” she said. They couldn’t just lay down like that. They couldn’t allow it to happen. Not without a fight. To lose someone as valuable as Scott Westman would open the floodgates. He was too big a star, too much an icon. She looked around the room accusingly. How was it possible that no one else had a relationship with him?
Everyone shrugged, looking at each other.
Finally, it was Amati who spoke. “He was a recluse, only close to Lesser, and Sampson,” Amati said, admitting that he’d invited him to countless dinners, Oscar parties, and that Westman only showed once to a private screening of a Bertolucci film, and then left before the lights came up.
“You should ask Ella,” Moze said, standing in the corner by the door.
Sheila looked at him blankly.
“Who?”
“Ella Gaddy. Garry Sampson’s secretary,” he explained.
Sheila screwed up her face. “That long-legged giraffe with the ruffled skirts up to her ass and the bad dye job?” she asked disbelievingly. Ella had always been disrespectful to Sheila, and the thought that she would ask her for help absolutely galled her. She looked at Moze like he was nuts, but he explained that Ella and Scott were close.
“Define close,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
He shrugged and said he wasn’t sure but told her they spent weekends together, vacationed, and spoke almost every day.
Sheila was astonished. “That tacky broad who walks around with her tits hanging out is the only other person at this agency who this guy listens to?” she asked, aghast. “Fuck me,” she said, taking one last drag off her cigarette.
The next day Sheila stopped by Garry Sampson’s office, where Ella Gaddy was packing up files. “I hear you’re close to Scott Westman,” she stated, trying to sound nonplussed.
Ella looked up without deference or surprise. “Yes. Very.”
Holy fuck, Sheila hated this broad. “Good,” Sheila said, adding that she knew Scott wanted to leave the agency and would appreciate the opportunity to meet with him. “Please,” she hissed, not masking her anger. Sheila turned to walk away, then turned back. “Oh, and honnneeeeey,” she said, “remind me to give you the name of my hair colorist. Maybe he can help.” Then Sheila left.
Two days later, after she hadn’t heard anything, she summoned Ella to her office.
“Did you do what I said?” asked Sheila.
“No,” Ella told her, unafraid and unintimidated.
“Are you going to?”
“Nope,” said Ella.
Sheila nodded and Ella left.
If Ella Gaddy wasn’t going to work with Garry Sampson in his new position, she’d have fired her right there. But Sheila was smart enough to realize that with Ella that close to Westman, firing her would only solidify his resolve.
Still she was floored and in truth a bit intimidated by Ella’s arrogance.
“Self-righteous kooze, ” she said to Moze, whom she called immediately. “Least she could have done was lie and say she’d tried,” Sheila told him. “But this fucking bitch wants me to know she’s not playing.”
“You can ask Beanie Rosen to ask Ella,” Moze said, explaining that they were best friends and roommates, and Beanie was one of the only people that Ella really listened to.
Sheila was momentarily stunned. “Roommates?” she said, turning the concept over in her mind.
She had no idea they were even friendly. After all, she’d considered Beanie to be part of her inner circle; a loyalist, a protégé, so to learn that Beanie was that close to someone so disrespectful, so arrogant, genuinely threw her.
Moze explained that Beanie was the hub of a wheel to which many people were connected, and that it was probably the only chance they had.
Five minutes later Sheila was demanding that Beanie get through to that cheap tacky numbskull roommate of hers and convince her to convince Scott Westman to have a fucking meeting.
Beanie could tell that Sheila wasn’t just angry, she was embarrassed. Her vulnerability made Beanie sad.
“Honeeeey,” Sheila said, eyes full of emotion, “you’re my last shot.”
That night Beanie reasoned and pleaded and practically begged Ella to help.
But Ella was resolute, telling her that the reason Scott Westman wouldn’t consider staying at Sylvan Light was because of Sheila. Garry had been too polite to tell Sheila the truth and he’d asked Ella not to as well.
“He fucking hates her as much as I do,” Ella said.
Which made no sense to Beanie. Scott barely knew Sheila Day. In fact, Sheila only met him once at the memorial. No, Scott hated Sheila because Ella hated Sheila.
“You haven’t even given her a chance,” Beanie said.
“Why should I?” asked Ella.
“Because she gave me one,” Beanie told her honestly. “And I owe her.”
And that was the one thing that Ella couldn’t argue away. All Beanie was asking for was a meeting with Scott Westman, just so the agency could save face, if not save a client.
“Please, ask him to think about it,” Beanie said. “Please.”
The following week Scott Westman came into Harvey Khan’s office. It had been decided that meeting in Sam’s office would feel disrespectful, and in Sheila’s might feel uncomfortable, and Amati was not important enough.
Mercedes Baxter walked Scott, Garry Sampson, and Ella Gaddy down the hall.
Upon seeing that Ella was joining the meeting Sheila thought, Sure, he brings the kurveh with him. But she smiled and welcomed them all, thanking him again for making time.
“I appreciate it,” she said directly to Ella, who nodded and looked away.
Fucking cunt, Sheila thought, hating the fact that this secretary would be witness to the groveling she knew was to come.
Stu Lonshien had flown in from New York, and Jamie Garland, whom Scott had met and liked, was also there. Noticeably nervous, Sheila chain-smoked while Harvey regaled Scott, who was a big Elvis fan, with stories of the early days when he used to look after the King and the Colonel. Garry was helpful in filling in the blanks for Scott on who everyone was, and Scott seemed engaged and interested, and he even laughed a little at some of Sheila’s jokes.
Finally Sheila got down to it, thanking Scott again for taking the meeting and telling him she understood he didn’t want to be there if the two people who’d represented him were no longer at the company. But she pointed out, both of those men loved this agency, and if he was going to start over, the question was: Would he be open to starting over at Sylvan Light? “If only to honor the legacy of what came before,” Sheila said, asking for three months, and assuring him that he could pick any one of them to be his agent.
“If it doesn’t feel right, if you’re not happy, then you leave,” she told him. “We might cry a little,” she joked, but then quietly added, “but we’ll never forget it.”
She had openly and earnestly begged for a fighting chance. It was a powerful plea, and Scott, deeply moved, looked around the room at the anxious faces, most of whom he’d never met before, and made an instant decision.
“Okay, I’ll stay.”
Then he added, “On one condition.” Everyone held their breath.
“All right, I’ll sleep with you,” Sheila joked, breaking the tension.
Everyone laughed. Except Ella.
“Tell us, son, what do you want?” Harvey Khan asked.
Scott got a kind of crooked smile on his face, as the thought became an idea and the idea caught fire.
“I want you to make Ella Gaddy my agent,” he told them.
Once again, Sheila felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.
This was a joke. A cosmic joke. Surely Allen Funt would pop out from behind the rubber tree and tell her it was a goof, that Ella was a goof. No one in their right mind would choose that tacky long-legged bird over one of the most powerful female agents in history.
Yet he had.
And he wasn’t joking.
“Who?” Harvey asked, confused.
“Garry’s secretary,” Jamie whispered.
“Ella,” Scott said, politely correcting Jamie, while walking over to Ella and extolling her virtues. He told them that she was the smartest person in any room, brilliant with material, and beyond reproach in terms of her ethics and her word. He swore if they made her his agent, he’d stay. And he wouldn’t be counting the months. This would be his home.
He’d never leave Ella.
“But she’s going with Sampson to Orion,” Sheila said, the words sticking in her throat.
Scott turned to her. “Would you stay instead?” he asked.
It’s like watching a proposal, Sheila thought, aghast. If he gets on one knee, I’m done.
Ella looked at him, then at Garry, then everyone in the room, and broke into a big smile.
“Heck, yeah,” she said. “That sounds fun.”
Harvey, overjoyed, jumped up, shook Ella’s hand, and said, “Welcome to the club, Ella Gaddy!” Lonshien seconded it, as did Jamie, who hugged her as Sheila sat frozen, swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat.
“Good. Good,” Sheila said, finally finding her voice. “You’re tough and shrewd and you’ll be a fine agent. But we’ll need a backup, obviously,” she told them.
Amati quickly agreed, explaining that every star had two agents. Jamie added that since Ella was new to the position, it made sense that there should be two agents, so nothing fell through the cracks. Amati gladly volunteered, as did Jamie, but it was finally Harvey Khan, acting as a kind of referee emeritus, who decided that Sheila Day made the most sense.
“I think with two strong women behind you, you’ll be well covered,” he said, pointing out that with Ella’s moxie and Sheila’s expertise they would be an unbeatable duo.
Scott nodded, looked at Ella and asked what she thought, which annoyed Sheila to no end. Does she hold his dick when he fucking pees? she thought.
But surprisingly Ella agreed with Harvey Khan. She thought that two strong women were a great idea, but instead of Sheila—respectfully, of course—she suggested Beanie Rosen join her, telling everyone that Scott already knew Beanie. “And honestly if y’all think I’m smart, you’ll just be blown away by the Bean. Wait ’til you see what we can do together,” she told the group, with a twinkle in her eye.
Twenty minutes later Beanie Rosen was summoned to Harvey Khan’s office with pomp, circumstance, and a glass of champagne.
Served to her by Mercedes Baxter.
And just like that, the Southern girl from Accounting and the Valley girl from Central Files became agents at the Sylvan Light Agency, representing one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.