Wednesday, January 17, 2018

EP55: Let’s Do Lunch!


Power lunches are a Hollywood tradition and this week Ken examines the rituals and which restaurants mean you have a viable career.    Ken also shares some personal lunch tales -- some good, some not so good but all entertaining. 

 


Listen to the Hollywood & Levine podcast!

5 comments :

Nina said...


Thanks a lot Ken:)

I had asked a Friday question on the subject
http://kenlevine.blogspot.in/2017/12/friday-questions_22.html

Dhruv said...


To me, the best podcast till date.

I was always fascinated about Lunches in America. My first exposure was John Grisham's books, where lawyers had long lunches with clients and billed them for that time and the clients paid for the lunch too. Or partners having lunches at fancy restaurants and billing it to one of their rich clients.

Then came Jackie Collins books, where almost every book would have a chapter in the beginning, where the main characters would have lunch - sort of a background explaining chapter. The chapter would also explain what a Hollywood power lunch was.

Amongst the latest was Joe Eszterhas's autobiography, where he discusses, how writers are treated at lunches if they are hot from a hit movie. His regular lunch with his agent and the Hollywood powerplay w.r.t. the tables one is seated etc... and also the first time he met Mike Ovitz.


It always fascinates me, that people take hours for lunch :)

Here we just run out of the office to a fast food restaurant and buy a token from the cashier and give the token to a person behind the counter, who will readily have a big stainless steel plate full of small cups. He will quickly fill it with an assortment of various food items and hand it over to us, which we gulp down and rush back to the office. The whole lunch bit takes place in just 10-15 minutes :)

And no sitting too, just bolting down our food while standing - Bangalore being the pioneer in Darshini type of restaurant - standing type tables, not sitting. All in the name of minimizing the time taken to have food.

The best part was to hear that you had lunch with my favorite villain of all time Clarence Boddicker! Great !!!

Roger Owen Green said...

The Frank Robinson story is painful because it's really understandable. People look different out of context.

Jeff said...


You didn't even ask Natalie for an autograph? You surely must regret missing a golden opportunity.

One correction - "young" Candice and Jacqueline? They were in mid 30s in 1980.

Have you seen Ann-Margret?

Anonymous said...

Had lunch at the Polo Lounge with David Frost (a few here might remember him) - terrible table manners. Worked for a TV station that had it's own section at Scandia - when it was hot - where the same captain took care of us. Worked for a radio station (KRLA) that had it's own table, in the Viking Room (again, Scandia) were we could come in anytime, no reservation needed, and eat or just drink, same arrangement in the Ship Room of the Huntington Hotel in Pasadena where the station was located.