The Interview That Changed My Life Forever

I was a naive young man, ambitious and uncertain about my future, when a powerful executive at Paramount Pictures called me in for an interview. It was a position that would forever change my life.

She was poised, delicate, and enigmatic — a mature brunette and guarded woman whose personal life most people knew very little about. Her reputation in the business was one of a tough negotiator and a vigilant defender of the brand. Some saw her as implacable, others as merciful, but nothing in between.

The maven kept me waiting for over an hour in her reception area before our first meeting. I sat anxiously in my new navy blue suit, listening to the clock tick.

On the wall hung a classic poster for The Graduate, which felt serendipitous because, in 1967, my mother Eleanor had her legs sketched for it — an alluring advertisement that turned out to be almost as noteworthy as the film. A well-known actress had claimed it was her gams and may have modeled for it. But that lady was notorious for telling fibs, and the only lie I'd ever caught Mom in was when she emphatically denied I was adopted. So, as far as I was concerned, Eleanor was the original Mrs. Robinson.

Seeing Me For Who I Was

But my mother wasn’t the only person I knew who’d worked on the famed studio lot. My estranged grandfather, Vic Mizzy, who composed The Addams Family, had scored countless features there. And Dad’s best friend, actor Michael Landon, had a son, Christopher, who wrote scripts for the studio. In 1975, Michael had invited them to a Little House on the Prairie screening at Paramount, where my parents were the tragic night they learned my brother Albert had been hit by a car and killed.

Still, I didn’t want to tell my interviewer about those connections that afternoon. I wanted her to see me for who I was.

Her door opened automatically.

“Go ahead,” motioned her young Irish assistant, directing me in.

With my resume in hand, I entered her modern office, sparsely decorated with glass-blown paperweights and one framed picture on her desk.

“Please, have a seat,” she said, finishing some paperwork.

I sat on her suede divan by a window overlooking a courtyard. Outside, the hallowed administration building adjoined the studio’s iconic arched gate.

The mysterious woman stood and walked toward me methodically. Sitting in a Barcelona chair, she crossed her legs and picked up a legal pad from the glass table separating us. Right away, we assessed one another, and despite our ages, there was an unspoken attraction—nothing overtly sensual but pleasant in its subtlety.

“Would you like some water?”

“No, I’m okay, thank you,” I replied, showing her a bottle her ginger-haired assistant had given me.

Breaking Into The Business

My prospective new employer let me gab for a bit about my work experience. But as much as I swore I would hold back, I couldn’t help but slip into a tangent about my grandmother Mary Small — a radio singer who'd made short films for the Fleischer brothers on that lot eight decades earlier. At that exact moment, the interview could have gone south, with her perceiving me as an opportunist trying to break into the business. But her ears perked up when I mentioned my adoption in the context of visiting my biological grandmother, Mary, on her deathbed.

“Oh, that’s interesting. I adopted a little girl myself,” she said, smiling toward the single frame on her desk—a black-and-white photo of a cute Asian toddler.

“Really? How did that happen?” I asked.

“Somebody left her on my doorstep in a basket,” she said unflinchingly.

I picked up on her appetite for evasiveness and took it as a sign not to probe further. For all I know, the woman opened her front door one day and found a Chinese baby. What did it matter? The same sort of thing happened to me.

Offer And Acceptance

I knew the woman would offer me the position, seeing in me a reflection of her daughter. She liked that I inquired but kept it at arm’s length. Within weeks, I’d have an office down the hall at a salary exceeding my asking. I was appreciative. My wife had graduated from law school only that past June, and there were bills to pay.

But while the next few years at Paramount brought prosperity, they would come at a price.

A week into the job, my new boss assigned me the first task: show up at the Burbank airport at ten a.m. and ask for “Benicia.” The trip was confidential, and nobody explained what I’d be doing or where I’d be flying. I packed a few changes of clothes and arrived early. Benicia was sitting by herself in the terminal, rifling through paperwork.

“Hello,” I said, looking down at her.

She was overweight but winsome, with olive skin and fake eyelashes.

“You must be Rafee-el,” she replied, judging my suit and crew cut.

“Yes, I work for — ”

“I know who you work for.”

She was HR and reported to my boss whenever the studio terminated employees.

“Do you understand why you’re here?” she asked, jotting down notes and checking boxes on a form.

“I was just told to show up.”

“Uh-huh. Okay,” Benicia said, pointing her pencil at a rotund gentleman reading the trades. “You know who that is?”

“No.”

“That’s Walter. One of our chiefs.”

Wet behind the ears, I didn’t think to acquaint myself with senior management. I’d heard about Brad Grey, the head honcho, but didn’t understand Walter’s span of control. He was top brass. Looking at me like he smelled something, he crossed over and introduced himself but didn’t say much else.

Downsizing And Table Stakes

The financially struggling studio had decided to shutter a subsidiary in Seattle, and I was along to help him do the dirty work. Within minutes of arriving at the satellite office, Walter had fired everybody unable to relocate to California.

When the layoff was done, Walter asked if anybody wanted to join him for dinner. I was one of only a few to accept his invitation. An hour later, his town car shuttled us to a seafood restaurant on the pier. I was almost dizzy at the table, realizing I’d gone from making cappuccinos for fake power players just a few years earlier to dining with real ones.

We were joined by a shipbuilder who’d designed Walter’s sailboat, our stodgy Chief Financial Officer, and a few other executives. I felt out of my league on some level, but by happenstance, the shipbuilder knew my uncle, a real estate developer in Seattle. As he expressed his admiration for him, the brass started to see me in a different light.

Then, halfway through dinner, Walter brought up The Godfather, produced by Paramount, and our conversation turned to film. I’d purchased it on VHS in the eighties and memorized every line. The CFO and I ended up sparring over quotes from the movie, and he became peeved when it was apparent that I knew the story better than him. The man took himself so seriously that he couldn’t even laugh when I told him I’d almost run over Michael Corleone once!

In the end, it didn’t matter. I’d won over the rest of the party, including Walter.

I came home invigorated and more seasoned. Executives began inviting me to lunches and asking for my take on projects outside my wheelhouse. I even joined the triathlon team and began quitting smoking. The studio’s prospects, however, weren’t rosy. They were undergoing a restructuring and toying with the idea of a merger. Everybody was skittish about the future, including creatives.

Fairweather Friends

Screenwriter Christopher Landon had a big film on that year’s slate. I’d never discussed our relationship at work, but colleagues had seen us chatting, and our family history wasn’t a secret. By the time he’d reached Paramount, it was on his merit rather than his father Michael’s name. He was a clever writer and had proven himself with the Paranormal Activity franchise. Now, the studio allowed him to develop his own material, and he was proud of his new movie.

I’d recently congratulated him when I ran into Walter on the Paseo, a cobblestone walkway behind Paramount’s gates. Christopher didn’t know it yet, but Paramount was about to slash his film’s publicity and advertising budget. They often did that when a movie didn’t look like a hit, which wasn’t uncommon. But I couldn’t believe Walter would divulge it. Either he didn’t care or was testing me.

Left in the thorny position of letting Christopher in on it or keeping the decision close to the vest, I chose the latter. I had a job to do at Paramount regardless of our friendship, which wasn’t nearly as close as our father’s.

I kept my head down and worked hard to soak in as much of the business as possible. I made blunders, which limited my advancement, but the steady income helped me shore up my finances and purchase a home with my new bride.

Still, the daily pressure was intense. My wife and I quarreled. I became absent and unloving, and so did she. We were pursuing our careers instead of planning for our family. I blamed her when I lost promotions and spent more time at the studio than necessary. She hid behind billable hours at her law firm, coming home late without good cause until a pregnancy limited her movement. When the baby finally arrived, we weren’t prepared for how it would change our lives.

And then Scotty Sterling died, which brings us back to where we begin my story...

Rafael Moscatel is the author of “The Bastard of Beverly Hills,” a new book available on Amazon, Audible, and Barnes & Noble.

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