Henry Willson "The Man Who Invented Beefcake"

In episode 3 of “Variety Confidential,” host Tracy Pattin and co-host Matt Donnelly unearth the story of Henry Willson, an aggressive, midcentury Hollywood talent agent and manager who succeeded in both spotting and taking advantage of young actors within whom he saw potential for fame.  

Willson, a closeted gay man, would lure dozens of handsome young men, or “beefcakes” as they would come to be known, to his Los Angeles home after wining and dining them and promising fame. “He seems to have insinuated himself into their lives,” Pattin explains. “He became their friend, the parent, the protector, and in many cases, their lover.” 

 

For a full list of sources and citations for this episode, visit https://variety.com/h/variety-confidential/.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This show contains mature content and adult themes. It may
not be suitable for young audiences.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
In twenty seventeen, Harvey Weinstein was outed as a serial
sexual abuser. Many brave women came forward and told their stories.
They exposed one of Hollywood's most powerful moguls as a
vicious sexual predator who operated horrifically and seemingly without consequences.
But Weinstein was standing on the shoulders of monsters. For

(00:34):
so many years, those monsters remained unchecked in Hollywood, shielded
by the millions of dollars they made for their studios.
Sex for fame is not new. In fact, it's as
old as Hollywood itself. Today, we'll look at the career
of Henry Wilson, the Hollywood agent who specialized in spotting
young actors with star potential. He would whine and dine them,

(00:57):
and then if they wanted stardom badly enough, he would
take them home to bed. Legend has it that Henry
Wilson used the promise of fame to lure dozens of
handsome young men onto his casting couch. He made stars
of more than a few, and created a whole new
genre of male eye candy. That came to be called Beefcake.

(01:18):
Henry's legend faded after he died, but recently he was
given another fifteen minutes of fame in Ryan Murphy's Netflix
series Hollywood. Jim Parsons won an Emmy nomination for his
highly fictionalized portrayal of Henry Wilson and his discovery and
sexual coercion of Rock Hudson. In today's episode of Variety Confidential,

(01:39):
will open Variety's archives to separate fact from fiction about
Henry Wilson, a deeply closeted, sexually abusive agent and starmaker
in mid century Hollywood. From Variety and iHeart Podcasts, I'm
Tracy Patton. This is the secret history of the Casting Couch.
Today's episode Closet Monster, The Man who invented Beefcake, and

(02:03):
with Me Today's Matt Donnelly, Variety Senior Entertainment and Media writer. Welcome, Matt.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you so much for having me, and it's great.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
To have you here to get your Hollywood perspective and insights.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
You know the cliche of there's nothing new under the sun. Yes,
I think that's particularly true in terms of the methods
and the mechanics of the casting couch. For instance, there's
a term we use in journalism. Catch and kill. Has
become so prominent in the past few years that that
was actually the title of Ronan Pharaoh's book about sexual
predators in the entertainment industry. What it basically means is
is that a power broker will trade the cover up

(02:35):
of one piece of very salacious information by trading another
incredibly slatious piece of information. In this Henry wilson saga
catch and kill has an especially sort of odious place
in his career. He practically patented a technique to do
this nearly three quarters of a century ago.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Indeed, and for those unfamiliar, Henry Wilson was a talent
agent and manager who worked in Hollywood from the nineteen
thirties to the sixties. Wilson had scored big as an
agent with stars like Lona Turner and Tab Hunter, but
Rock Hudson was the jewel in his management crown. He
couldn't afford a whiff of scandal to damage the luster
of this major leading man. There was a problem, however,

(03:14):
rock Hudson's homosexuality. Inevitably, stories about Hudson's gay trysts surfaced
and Confidential magazine was eager to expose Rock's gay relationships,
so Henry Wilson swung into action with catch and Kill,
and he sacrificed the careers of lesser stars or those
who had parted ways with him. Among the victims were

(03:35):
Tab Hunter, who had severed his business ties with Wilson,
and his important but more expendable TV star Rory Calhoun.
Wilson leaked Calhoun's criminal record to Confidential magazine, and he
provided proof that Hunter had been caught at a gay party.
Rock Hudson's secret remained safe thanks to Wilson's methods, but

(03:56):
these two other actors saw their careers hugely damaged by
his catch and kill methods.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Well, let's dive in. Tell me about Henry's early life.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yes, he was born in nineteen eleven in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania,
outside Philadelphia. His father was Horace Wilson, vice president of
the Columbia Phonograph Company, a precursor to Columbia Records.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
So they were pretty well off.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yes, they were wealthy enough to send him to boarding
school and then to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and then
after college he went to work writing gossip items for
Variety in New York. He got a byline on some
of them, which was good for a kid right out
of college. He moved to Hollywood in nineteen thirty three
and found work writing for Photoplay, The Hollywood Reporter, and

(04:39):
New Movie Magazine. In nineteen thirty four, that experience led
to work as a talent agent for a small firm
in Beverly Hills. He was twenty four then, and his
job was to find young talent.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Oh, it's a little embarrassing. He worked at Variety. That's
a pretty good entry level job, though, so, which obviously
would give him some visibility in the industry.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, he apparently did very well. Variety announced two years
later that Henry had been hired by the Zeppo Marx Agency.
Before he opened the agency, Zeppo had been the fourth
brother in the world famous Marx Brothers comedy act, along
with Graucho, Chico and Harpo. Zeppo got tired of playing
the straight man to his brother's zany antics. He quit

(05:20):
the act in nineteen thirty three and opened what became
a successful talent agency.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
But his next job was even more fastigious, wasn't it.
He went to work for David ozelsnig Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
From Variety again. On June thirtieth, nineteen forty three, Henry
Wilson had joined Vanguard Films, Selznick's new production company as
head of the talent division. Selznick had produced some of
the biggest movies in Hollywood history, the original King Kong
in nineteen thirty three, the original A Star Is Born
in nineteen thirty seven, and Gone with the Wind in

(05:51):
nineteen thirty nine, one of the highest grossing movies of
all time. Not bad, yeah, but he was infamous for
his out of control spending in his compulsive gambling. By
April nineteen forty nine, Vanguard was underwater. Selznik closed it
that spring and auctioned its assess for five hundred thousand dollars.
Henry went to work in new talent development for the

(06:13):
Famous Artists Agency, one of the top agencies in town.
Later he handled new talent for Worldwide Management. He also
operated several independent agencies over the years.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
So Henry made quite a name for himself as an
aggressive agent. He was incredibly committed to his clients. Is
that right?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yes, it is, and he seems to have insinuated himself
into their lives. He became their friend, the parent, the protector,
and in many cases their lover.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
And by the way, some of them became huge stars.
I mean, it doesn't get bigger than Lana Turner, Rock
Hudson or Natalie Wood.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Absolutely. Henry was Lana Turner's first agent. She was Judy Turner,
a student at Hollywood High School when she was signed
by the Zeppo Marx agency and assigned to Henry. After
a makeover, her name was changed from Judy to Lana.
The camera loved her, and Henry easily found walk on
rolls for her, but none of those small, non speaking

(07:06):
parts resulted in a contract. Eventually, a producer at Fox
told Henry she can't act. Henry said, I didn't say
she could act. I said she could be a movie star.
And that summed up his approach. The acting can be
added later, he would say. Henry knew that sex appeal
was often more important on screen than acting ability. He

(07:29):
also knew that that was true only up to a point.
To achieve stardom, young actors would have to study acting,
which is what Lana Turner did. After she learned the ropes,
MGM put her under contract. She appeared in more than
fifty movies over the years, almost always in the starring role.
Many of them were hits like The Postman Always Rings

(07:50):
twice in nineteen forty six and Imitation of Life in
nineteen fifty nine. She was nominated for Best Actress for
Peyton Place in nineteen fifty seven. Natalie Wood was twelve
years old when Henry became her agent. She already appeared
in a dozen movies by then. Her breakthrough was at
age nine in Miracle on thirty Fourth Street. Eventually, Henry

(08:12):
helped her land the role of James Dean's love interest
in Rebel Without a Cause. Natalie Wood appeared in twenty
five movies after that. They included hits like All the
Fine Young Cannibals in nineteen sixty, Splendor in the Grass
in nineteen sixty one, The Original West Side Story in
nineteen sixty one, Gypsy in nineteen sixty two, and others.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Now Henry's first important discoveries as an agent were two
men who later made it really big on television.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
And before Henry renamed them, they were Robert Moseley Junior
and Frank McCown. Afterward, they became famous as Guy Madison
and Rory Calhoun. Both men were muscular and beefy and
incredibly good looking. Guy Madison was photographed shirtless dozens of times.
A gossip columnist coined a new term for Guy's physique

(08:59):
photo He called them beefcake. Guy and Rory were inexperienced
in acting, but loaded with sex appeal. In both cases,
the acting did come later. Both men had successful careers
in television in the nineteen fifties. Guy Madison starred in
Wild Bill Hiccock from nineteen fifty one to nineteen fifty eight,
and Rory Calhoun in The Texan. In the late nineteen fifties,

(09:23):
Henry Wilson had a run of good luck placing his
clients as leads in television series. Along with Guy and Rory,
Henry represented Guy Williams, who starred in Zoro, Don Durant
starred in Johnny Ringo, Nick Adams in The Rebel, and
Craig Stevens and Peter gunn So.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Two of Henry's later discoveries, were both blondes who became
teen idols in the nineteen fifties and sixties. He discovered
Troy Donna Hue formerly Merril Johnson Junior in the fifties,
and he signed tab Hunter formerly Arthur Glean in nineteen
forty nine.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
And Troy Donahue had a surfer boy look that made
him a teen heartthrob in the early nineteen sixties. In
nineteen fifty nine, appeared in Imitation of Life with Lana
Turner and A Summer Place. In nineteen sixty two, he
starred in Rome Adventure with Suzanne Pluchette, who he later
married briefly, and he appeared in Palm Springs Weekend with
Connie Stevens. Tab Hunter had acted in high school plays,

(10:16):
but had no acting ambition until he was discovered. In
his case, the acting followed fairly quickly. He eventually appeared
in more than fifty movies, often in lead roles, and
then in nineteen fifty seven he became a teen idol
with the release of Young Love, a number one pop
hit in both the US and UK. Other hits followed.

(10:38):
Tab Hunter hosted his own television show in nineteen sixty
and sixty one. He returned to movies in nineteen eighty
four when he appeared in John Waters's Lust in the Dust,
playing opposite a fearless drag performer called Divine.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
And Yet Henry's biggest discovery was, of course, Rock Hudson.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yes, Rock said later, it was September nineteen four seven.
I don't think anything important ever happened to me until
I walked into Wilson's office that day. His name was
Roy Fitzgerald before Henry gave him a makeover. He had
exceptional good looks and, like the others, no acting experience
or natural talent. But Henry believed in him. He spent

(11:19):
thousands of dollars on turning the former truck driver into
a movie star. He paid for acting and vocal lessons
in capped Rock's teeth. He also paid for Rock's room
and board, and bought him a whole new wardrobe. But
Rock's first big audition was a disaster. The casting director
at MGM and Henry were friendly. She told him she

(11:39):
couldn't cast Rock because he was too effeminate. Henry taught
him how to be butch, how to smile, how to walk,
cross his legs, even how to smoke a cigarette. When
he was done, Henry Wilson really had invented Rock Hudson.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
But with Rock, the acting part really did come later.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yes, yes, At first, Rock was cast in a series
of adventure films, cowboy pictures, and war movies, and then
he had a major breakthrough in nineteen fifty four with
the melodrama Magnificent Obsession. That movie made him a bona
fide star, but it was his role in the nineteen
fifty six epic Giant with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean

(12:19):
that made him an A list movie star.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Both Rock and James Dean got Oscar nominations that year
for Best Actor, and the ap named Rock number one
at the box office that year.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
And later he made romantic comedies co starring Doris Day
that were big hits. He moved to television in the
nineteen seventies and became the highest paid actor in TV,
starring with Susan Saint James in McMillan and Wife, which
ran from nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy seven. In
nineteen eighty four, he joined the cast of Dynasty. He

(12:51):
began to drink heavily again and then quit all together
when he was diagnosed with HIV.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
So Henry had many other clients, and arguably he had
sex with most of them. Like almost all casting couch
abuse back in the day, Henry's went unreported. He was
never held accountable.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, and it was complicated by the fact that he
was deeply closeted, like all gay people were back then.
But it is possible that Henry's sexuality and his casting
couch abuses were an open secret in Hollywood. The powerful
men who depended on him for a steady supply of
fresh talent had good reason to protect him, and of
course many of them had casting couch abuses of their own.

(13:30):
But that dynamic changed after nineteen fifty eight, when Rock's wife,
Phyllis Gates, hired a private eye to bug their home
above the Sunset Strip. She planned to use the recording
as leverage in their divorce.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
So three years earlier, rumors about rock sexuality had put
his career at risk, and Henry sprung into action. He
convinced Rock to marry Phyllis, the secretary in Henry's office,
and that wedding took place in November nineteen fifty five
at the Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, and it probably seemed like a brilliant plan at
the time, but the strategy quickly fell apart in the
aftermath of the divorce. Henry's sexuality was exposed, he became
radioactive to his most important prospective new clients, handsome young men.
A new actor hoping for stardom could not afford to
be associated with homosexuality without a robust ci and tell

(14:20):
of new potential stars. Henry's value to the industry slowly evaporated.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
So Phyllis's recording may have well brought him down right. Yes.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
By nineteen fifty eight, Phyllis could no longer tolerate Rock's
addiction to gay hookups. He was putting his career and
their movie star lifestyle at risk, so she decided to
sue for divorce. Phyllis knew she needed leverage, otherwise it
was her word against theirs. She said, he said. She
hired legendary Hollywood private investigator Fred Otash to bug their house.

(14:53):
Although the transcript was not made public until nineteen seventy six,
it is likely that word got out that Rock had
admitted on the tape that he'd slept with Henry to
help his career. Phyllis got almost everything she wanted in
the divorce, so there was no public expose of Rock
Hudson's sexuality or his sham marriage. The majority of his

(15:14):
fans never knew any of it, and it didn't affect
his career. Inside the industry, it was a different story.
The scandal led to a gradual erosion of Henry's value
to producers. It tainted his agency's reputation and exposed his
male clients past and present to accusations of homosexuality. It

(15:35):
gradually reduced Henry's access to new talent and drove prospective
new clients to other agencies. Troy Donahue said that he
didn't sign with Henry until after he was under contract
with Universal. Henry was still very well connected in Hollywood,
he said, but I didn't want to be indebted to him.
He had this reputation.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
So there are very few first hand accounts of Henry
Wilson's casting couch abuses, which is you're in most cases
before the me too movement.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
But Tab Hunter wrote about Henry and his autobiography, tab
Hunter Confidential. The book was published in two thousand and five,
the same year he came out as gay. In the book,
tab wrote about his time as Henry's client and described
Henry's casting couch tactics. He said Henry's routine was to
whine and dine young men his prospective clients at a

(16:23):
list night spots like chasen' Ciro's or the Macombo. After
dinner and drinks, he would make a pass. If the
guy was unreceptive to his advances, Henry would get out
of it by saying, come on, you know, I was
only joking. But if the young actor was receptive, they
would adjourn to Henry's house. Tab wrote that's how Henry

(16:43):
earned his less than sterling reputation as Hollywood's lecherous gay Svengali.
I wasn't comfortable with his sexual shenanigans, he said, but
I did play along up to a point. Henry had
a magnetic personality, but it certainly wasn't strong enough to
lure me up onto the casting couch. I knew exactly
where my line was drawn. Late in his life, Troy

(17:06):
Donahue denied rumors that he was gay. He blamed them
on the fact that he and tab Hunter looked similar
and had similar names. He said, people confused meet with
tab Hunter. His being gay created problems for me, and
that's where the story started interesting.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Neither Guy Madison nor Rory Calhoun never commented on whether
Henry demanded section them but Rory did accept Henry's invitation
to spend two weeks with him in a cabin in
the San Gabriel Mountains, And.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
There were rumors about them back then, but they both
had active romantic lives with women.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Well, there were straight actors who slept with Henry. Dennis Hopper,
who was not Henry's client, said that wanta be actors,
both gay and straight, had sex with Henry hoping for
a chance at stardom.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, and Henry's assistant confirmed that. He said Henry had
gay clients who did not sleep with him, and heterosexual
clients who did, And I thought this was interesting. Henry
advised his straight clients to sleep with male and directors.
He said, it will take you longer if you don't.
If they objected, Henry would tell them you're an actor,

(18:07):
so act, you know.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Tony Curtis, who was also not Henry's client, said, the
whole town knew what Henry Wilson represented. Everybody who went
with him had to sexually express himself to Henry. I'm
putting it nicely. With Henry, it was almost mandatory.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
And Roddy McDowell, the British actor, who also was not
a client, was disgusted by Henry's casting couch tactics. I
often think what would have happened if I signed with him,
McDowell said. Farley Granger, who came out as bisexual in
two thousand and seven, agreed it was awful what he
made his clients do. Men like Rock and young actors
weren't the only victims of Wilson's callous approach to career management.

(18:46):
Before he was the Beefcake King. Wilson biographer Bob Hoffler
notes that Wilson served as a virtual pimp for studio
bigwig Darryl Zanik and played a role in trying, unsuccessfully,
as it turns out, to recruit young actresses to Xanik's
casting couch. During the shooting of nineteen forty four's romantic

(19:06):
drama Since You Went Away, Selznik tried to bet all
three headliners, Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, whom he would later wed,
and even Shirley Temple, but Wilson's efforts warn enough to
procure their sexual favors for his lecherous boss.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
You know, abuse, especially sexual abuse, often takes a toll
on the victims in the form of alcoholism or drug use.
You know, for gay people living in the closet back then,
there was also potential for psychological damage caused by stress
from fear and rejection.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, and Henry Wilson was both a product of his
time and a promoter of a toxic system that he
profited from. One could speculate it destroyed him, along with
the many gay people whose lives were damaged by being
forced to live in the closet. He won't be gay
when I get through with him is a famous Wilson
quote that says it all. Tab Hunter, who claimed he

(19:56):
fended off Henry's advances, was a social drinker. He didn't
me experiencing alcoholism or drug abuse in his book. On
the other hand, Troy Donahue, who denied he was gay,
succumbed to alcohol and drug abuse. He did get sober
in nineteen eighty two when he was forty six, and
lived another nineteen years. Rock Hudson was a heavy drinker

(20:16):
and smoker. After a heart attack in nineteen eighty one,
he cut his fifteen drinks per night to two, but
only for a while. He began to drink heavily again
and then quit altogether when he was diagnosed with HIV.
Henry Wilson did abuse drugs and alcohol. His substance abuse
problems became worse after the Rock Hudson scandal affected his business.

(20:38):
He continued working into his sixties, but his business failed
in the end. Eventually, Henry Wilson lost it all. He'd
spent everything he'd ever made. In nineteen seventy four, with
his health failing, he moved into the motion picture and
television country house and hospital. He died there on November two,
nineteen seventy eight, from cirrhosis of the life liver. He

(21:01):
was sixty seven years old. So, Matt, after hearing all
of this, what have you learned about Henry Wilson that
you might not have thought about before?

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, first of all, thank god he's not working now
all I can say. But no, honestly, I think it's
an incredibly sad story. And I also think that what's
really worthy about telling a story like Henry Wilson's is
that we see that victims come in all shapes and sizes,
and there are probably a lot of young men whose
careers and hopes and identities were dashed because of this

(21:31):
sort of predation and also playing on their worst fears.
It's just a really yet another incredibly dark chapter in
the history of this town.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, and as we said at the top, a lot
of people know Henry Wilson because they watched Ryan Murphy's
Hollywood series on Netflix. But first, for those who haven't
seen the series, Matt, can you give us a gist
of the plot?

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Sure? So, Ryan Murphy cast Jim Parsons, you know, the
beloved star of the Big Bang Theory, to play Wilson,
and I think a pretty brave role as the sort
of lecherous you know, all the things that we just heard.
Henry Wilson was Jim sort of embodied, and we saw
laid bare the horrible practices he used to manipulate, control
and ultimately bully promising young men in this town to

(22:12):
fit his sexual predation, to sort of abuse and to
also profit from.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
And you know what's so interesting to me about Ryan
Murphy's series is he has said this that he created
a what if scenario so people who don't know the
real history of what it really was like back then,
this is a fantasy of what could life have been
like if gay men were allowed to walk the red

(22:41):
carpet right as a couple and if a black gay
man could be the writer of a series.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Sure be under contract at a major studio. Yeah, it is,
it is. It's a sort of a wonderful but again
pure fantasy in that way, especially for the time period
had set in. But I'm glad that the one thing
Ryan Murphy preserved though, you know, before sort of letting
it drift off into as you said, what if I
was immortalizing and being very factual about someone like Henry

(23:11):
Wilson and how he absolutely sort of destroyed a lot
of young men that came into his path, and so
much of it I think too when you watch the
series and even hearing about Henry's life comes from a
self loathing, which I think is common in closet and
gay men two, but it's a real his real self loathing,
like not even being able to stomach himself, and projecting
that onto hopeful in Hollywood has just been terrible.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
I mean, he really was Henry Wilson really was the
ultimate in the casting couch of that era. I mean,
he really was such an integral part, and so many
people have never heard of him, including Jim Parson, did
not know who he was before he got the role. Yeah,
and also, what do you think about Ryan Murphy combining

(23:54):
the fact and fiction calling it faction. I think that's
pretty interesting.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
It is. I mean, I think that for a younger audiences,
which you know, Ryan Murphy tends to attract, that it's
a good way to reframe history and to maybe give
it a little bit more positive a spin. I don't
know that it ultimately serves anyone at the end, not
telling the truth about how these things pan out. For instance,
I didn't know Henry Wilson is buried in an unmarked grave,
But in a way, I think it's a very fitting

(24:18):
end for someone who perpetrated such crazy crimes and also
was just such a scourge on so many young men's lives.
Like that, to me is poetic justice. But you know,
Ryan Murphy is going to do what Ryan Murphy's going
to do. At least he's surfacing in these conversations, which
I think are really important to have.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
And I think so because I do think young Spring
chickens like you, please, well look at this and think
about what it was like for somebody like raw Hudson,
and it really gives you that you really get a
sense of the struggle even though Ryan Murphy made it
all kind of work out in many ways. I think
it opens just like me too. It opens people's eyes

(24:59):
to the struggles.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Absolutely, and I think it ultimately makes you a question
like what is worth it? What is stardom really worth
it at the end of the day for what people
have to give away for it?

Speaker 2 (25:09):
And that is a whole other conversation. I wish we
had an hour because I find that super fascinating. What
lengths would people go to become successful in Hollywood? Because
it's so competitive, you're kind of forced to go to
great lengths, we'll say, to find success and get an
opportunity and get the audition and all those things.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Not to sound super academic, but I think the rules
of stardom have changed a bit. I think a lot
more of it now is about sort of how much
you're personally willing to exploit yourself. You know, if you
think about the role of reality television, of social media,
it's sort of about how far you're willing to go
to sort of carve out a personality on your own terms,
maybe not at the best of somebody else. I think that,
you know, many people have said and keep saying that

(25:52):
the movie star is a dying concept, but in this
context and the architecture of this town, this is the
era we're talking about. I don't know if it's worth it.
I think some people would say it was. I'm sure
Rock you, Rock had one of the most incredible Hollywood
careers I think anyone's had. But look at what cost
it came out.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
I wonder what Rock would say today.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
I do too. I hope he would. I hope he
would say fire my agent.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Well.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
I think that's a great place to end our episode today.
Thank you Matt Donnelley so much.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Thank you again to Matt Donnelley, Variety's senior Entertainment and
Media writer, for joining us. We'll be back next time
with another episode in the six part series The Secret
History of the Casting Couch from Variety Confidential. This has
been Couch Monster, the man who invented Beefcake for Variety
and iHeart Podcasts. I'm Tracy Patton. Variety Confidential is a

(26:48):
production of Variety Content Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It was
produced by Sidney Kramer, John Ponder, and Tracy Patten and
written by Stephen Gatos with John Ponder and Tracy Patton.
Research by John Ponder and Tracy Patton with Karen Mizogucci.
Executive producers are Da Lawrence and Stephen Gatos. Variety confidentials recorded, edited,

(27:10):
and mixed at the Invisible Studios, West Hollywood. Recording engineer,
editor and mixer Charles Carroll