Scott Rudin‘s reputation for colorful behavior in Hollywood is well-deserved — that is, according to some anecdotes in screenwriter and New Yorker contributor Paul Rudnick‘s new Harper collection of essays, “I Shudder: And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey.”
In a piece titled “Enter Trembling,” Rudnick, who worked with Rudin on both “The Addams Family” and “The First Wives Club,” tells about a time he was driving with the famously hotheaded producer to a meeting in LA. “As we sped along the expressway, Scott’s phone buzzed,” writes Rudnick. “He answered it, and his face became a mask of rage. He yelled, ‘How did you get this number?’ and hurled the phone at the windshield. ‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘My mother,’ he replied, instantly calm.”
According to Rudnick, Rudin, who has produced “Clueless,” “There Will Be Blood” and “No Country for Old Men,” among others, is a less-than-tolerant boss. He claims Rudin once made an assistant get out of his car in the middle of traffic after firing him on the freeway.
But he wasn’t totally heartless. “[An] assistant in the office was legally blind,” Rudnick relates. “When Scott would fire him, which was often, this assistant would stand patiently out on the sidewalk, waiting for the handicapped van, at a bus stop in full view of Scott’s office window. Watching this . . . Scott would always relent and sent a lesser assistant out to rehire the blind one.”
In fact, “Scott is secretly and genuinely caring,” Rudnick says. “When any of his friends, his employees, or their family members are in real trouble, when someone gets sick, or a parent dies, or a writer or an actor or a director falls on hard times, Scott shows up and, very quietly, he offers everything: money, doctors, transportation, and hope. If people ever found out about this side of Scott, his reputation would be ruined.”