Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has at all times had a knack for recognizing expertise, from the actors she signed a long time in the past as an agent at ICM to the celebrities she’s partnered with to provide impactful movies and tv. The most important would most likely be Jennifer Lopez (the pair’s relationship is almost 25 years previous). However there’s one shopper who has evaded her for many years, at all times on the verge of fulfilling her potential and showcasing versatility, and he or she’s been observing Goldsmith-Thomas within the mirror.

Goldsmith-Thomas — whose credit embrace “Maid in Manhattan,” “Hustlers” and the forthcoming “Kiss of the Spider Lady” —  has simply revealed her first novel, “Climbing in Heels.” It’s her long-held dream in a city that’s skeptical of established gamers making a pivot. She hasn’t strayed removed from what she is aware of. The e-book is a piece of fiction and a pseudo-memoir, about three younger ladies working on the hottest expertise company in Nineteen Eighties Hollywood. Because the characters grind for entry to the boys membership, a few of them will develop into “very very like the monsters who educated them,” she stated.

The producer remembers that period in present enterprise with a salty allure, like all the perfect insiders. The necessities to be a secretary within the days of the William Morris Company, the place she obtained her begin? “Tight sweater. No final identify.” However in dialog with Selection, Goldsmith-Thomas speaks with deep emotion about overcoming her insecurities and taking recommendation from multi-hyphenates like Lopez and guardian angels previous like Nora Ephron. And if she is her personal greatest shopper at this time second, she’s incomes that 10% fee. Goldsmith-Thomas is adapting her personal e-book for a Peacock pilot this summer time.

In the beginning, the issues that go on on the expertise company on this e-book would make any present HR govt bounce out of a window. However there’s an attention-grabbing sense of manifest future that I feel right this moment’s illustration enterprise lacks.

I did a studying at CAA lately for a pair hundred assistants. [Managing partner] Kevin Huvane and I had been speaking in regards to the previous days. We began on the similar time. I learn a scene the place my principal character finds an earring within the sofa of an agent’s workplace and learns that the agent “auditions” actresses and lets his assistant hear in. As my character is getting turned on by this illicit and horrifying story unfolding, Kevin’s eyes are boring into me, like, “What the fuck are you studying? It is a place the place in the event you have a look at somebody cross-eyed you’re fired.”

Look, this e-book talks about blow and blowjobs and brokers fucking actresses. However truthfully, the assistants had been lining up after the studying to speak about it. I met a woman named Claire, who stated she simply began within the mail room and he or she couldn’t wait to learn the e-book and see how life was totally different then. And I stated, “Properly, Claire, if this was 1983, you’d be relegated to being a secretary or a file clerk.”

I hold respectfully asking individuals to not choose my characters by the prism of 2025. There was no strong terrain for the three ladies on the heart of this e-book, ones who wouldn’t be contained by a world that needed to restrict them. I additionally discover the feminine brokers in energy at the moment, who found out a approach — on their knees or on their tiptoes — to interrupt by.

It looks like persons are embracing the truth that this story in untethered from fashionable Hollywood workplace tradition.  

The hair was huge, the shoulder pads had been huge, the telephones had been huge — so your desires needed to be greater. My lead character Beanie, who’s form of based mostly on me, talked her approach into being a file clerk within the lowliest nook of the business. However generally when life appears like shit, you’ve truly received the lottery. Each memo you typed in these days at William Morris — or Sylvan Mild, the fictional company in my e-book — needed to be made in triplicate on mimeograph paper. One copy went to the central recordsdata workplace. Beanie finds she’s sitting on this gold mine of data: purchasers coming and going, who’s a getting fired, transferred, getting a increase, who’s envious, who’s petty. She figures out a technique to navigate this world and use it to her benefit.

How did you get your begin as an agent?

It was the summer time after highschool. There was a man I used to be courting and head over heels in love with. He was 5’3, however stated he was 5’8. He needed a profession within the enterprise, and I believed if I may very well be an instrument to ship that for him, he’d see me in a different way. I had no idea of self love, clearly. However he requested me to get him an agent. I put collectively a listing of franchise brokers and spent that summer time going up and down Hollywood Blvd. The primary one I attempted I used to be the William Morris Company. I informed reception I used to be there to see Mr. Morris, and so they stated, “Strive Forest Garden [Cemetery].” Lastly, I get in entrance of an agent and inform him I solely want 10 minutes for him to fulfill with this man, and if he didn’t agree, he’d be driving down Sundown Blvd and see my man’s face for the remainder of his life. The agent stated, “You already know what the perfect half about this child is? You.” So I obtained the assembly. Nothing felt higher. He obtained a bit of position on “Joyful Days” as Chachi’s druggie cousin and ended up dumping me. Belief me, it got here again round. However that’s once I knew I used to be nice at promoting individuals on concepts and the issues I believed in. 

You’re a really profitable producer. How does it really feel to pivot to one thing so totally different?

It’s scary. I feel we’re all afraid of judgment, however it’s thrilling and emancipating. I’ve at all times been a author and it took me a very long time to face in my fact. A girl who was very pricey to me, Nora Ephron, famously stated, “All the pieces is copy.”

All the pieces is copy.

And he or she informed me years in the past that I wanted to essentially begin writing. All of those angels in my life who urged me ahead, I really feel like they’re with me now.

Who’re another angels?

I’ve realized an incredible deal from [my producing partner] Jennifer Lopez. She was a dancer who turned an actor, who turned a singer, who turned a global icon. She’s had 80 billion streams on her music and he or she’s an exceptional performer. Nonetheless, she’s marginalized as a result of she does multiple factor.

It makes me notice that I used to be actually good at being an agent. Getting a “sure” turned my trigger celeb. It gave me worth, however I used to be writing on a regular basis. I want I might have been smarter or assured sufficient to know then that being a author made me a greater agent. Ron Bass, bless his soul, was doing a rewrite on “My Greatest Buddy’s Marriage ceremony” within the mid-90s. I talked to him about an concept, and he stated, “write that down.” And truthfully, he was the one who gave me Remaining Draft and taught me the best way to use It. I wrote a scene and he shared it with the studio, and stated they need to give me credit score. Ron was a lawyer who simply needed to be a author. He made me notice I didn’t have to remain in a single field.