LIFE CYCLE

My first sharp awareness that I had to get out of show business came on a shuttle flight from Washington to New York. Anthea Sylbert and I had flown down to catch the matinee of a play in out-of-town try-out and the flight back was one of unusual turbulence and stark white knuckles.

Because my career required a great deal of flying, I had the habit on take-offs and landings of reciting to myself the Lord's Prayer. I did so now, as the lightning flashed outside the windows of the plane, which was bouncing like a yo-yo. I stopped in mid-phrase, when I realised that what I had recited was "Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hollywood be thy name."

The flyleaf tells me I bought my copy of Final Cut in May 1987. This was the third time I'd read it, and the story and the sleek prose seemed every bit as fresh as the first. Has anyone written a better book about the film industry? Two small things struck me this time, though. In that far-off era, before mobile phones and e-mail, it was still possible for grossly overworked, bi-coastal executives not to be able to keep in touch for hours, and very occasionally days, on end. How romantic. And reading about all that incessant travelling, which once seemed vaguely glamorous (Concorde, QE2, The Dorchester, etc, etc) now makes me groan with weariness.

One of these days I must get round to seeing the documentary version.