Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Some media took my words out of context. I first met Ray at the Cannes Film Festival in the 1970s, and I had seen his Apu trilogy before.

Ray was invited by Hollywood in the mid-1960s to shoot his alien movie here. At that time, many copies of the script were mimeographed. Twentieth Century Fox was very close to reaching a cooperation with him. At that time, the script was widely circulated in major studios."

Scorsese denied supporting Ray's accusation on the phone. He just expressed his admiration for Bangladeshi director Ray.

This plagiarism incident was widely mentioned by people in the film and television industry, but Universal seemed to have made some efforts to suppress the domestic media's reports on the plagiarism accusation.

The American media generally did not report this accusation from an unknown small country director as news to attack their young hero Spielberg who saved Hollywood.

The ones who really reported Spielberg's suspicion of plagiarism were some tabloids and magazines on London Fleet Street. They seemed to ignore the silence of the American media and wrote many reports in succession.

Among them was the entertainment magazine "Star Weekend" under the "Daily Star" that Ronald bought.

Spielberg denied that he plagiarized Ray's script. His main reason was that when Ray's script was approved in Hollywood in 1967, he was still in high school and had no chance to see Ray's script.

The report of "Star Weekend" did not directly compare the similarities between the two scripts, but seized Spielberg's rebuttal and began to verify Spielberg's real date of birth.

"Mr. Spielberg graduated from high school in 1965 and started working as a director in Hollywood in 1969..."

The magazine also had his high school graduation photo and transcript. I don't know how much effort these bastards spent to dig out these old stories.

"What's the point of listing Spielberg's high school graduation time like this?" Ronald didn't quite understand the mystery of the British tabloid report, so he asked Richard for advice.

"If this graduation photo is real, then he would have been over 30 when Jaws was released in 1975, and he was not the genius who was promoted as the one who made the No. 1 box office hit that changed Hollywood before the age of 30.

There is such a rumor in Hollywood that Steven reported his age two years younger."

Richard pointed out the key point.

If Spielberg was 31 instead of 29 when he filmed Jaws, then he would not have the halo of making the best-selling movie in history before the age of 30.

Ronald found it difficult to understand these people's thoughts. Spielberg was two years older and made Jaws at the age of 30, which was also a rare genius in film history. What's the big deal?

"Because in that case, British director Alfred Hitchcock would have the honor of making a masterpiece before the age of 30. Hitchcock became famous in Britain when he was 27 years old by directing "The Tenant", and then came to Hollywood."

Ronald finally understood the strange vanity of the British. Bangladesh is also a member of the Commonwealth. The American genius, the script of his most popular movie, was actually borrowed from the Commonwealth genius.

"This is really a bit boring. We Americans don't care about this at all."

"Ring, ring, ring"

After hanging up the phone, Ronald's doorbell rang.

Two workers-like people brought three boxes, two large and one small, into Ronald's house.

"Is this the IB personal computer (PC) you ordered, Mr. Ronald Lee? Please sign it." One of them took out a receipt and asked Ronald to sign it.

Ronald, who had signed, saw the two open two large boxes, took out two white plastic boxes, and put them on his desk.

They put a flat box in the debugger and turned on the power of the monitor.

With a "buzz", the monitor lit up and there was movement on the black screen.

"Here are two floppy drives, you can put floppy disks." He took out a boot floppy disk and inserted it into the A drive on the front of the lower host. Then he turned on the red power switch at the bottom right of the chassis.

After a series of squeaking sounds, the system successfully started up, and the a:\\\u003e mark appeared on the monitor.

"Turn on the monitor power first, then turn on the host power. Do the opposite when shutting down."

"Okay."

Ronald sat next to the monitor, typed the "dir" command, and pressed Enter.

The A drive floppy disk appeared on the screen

After playing with it for a while, Ronald nodded to show his satisfaction.

"This is the PC-DOS version of the word processing software 'Wordstar'." Another worker opened the small box, which also contained a floppy disk and an instruction manual.

Ronald took it and put it into the B drive, then started Wordstar, tried it, and signed for it.

A latest personal computer plus a typing software cost Ronald a total of 1,800 US dollars, 1,600 for the computer and 200 for the software, which was very expensive.

However, using a high-quality mechanical keyboard, typing with crackling, Ronald felt it was worth it, much more convenient than the Commodore keyboard.

The configuration of two floppy drives also allows Ronald to save without switching floppy disks.

Looking at the sentences he typed on the monitor, they were not dazzling at all. It seemed that his eyes would not feel dry even after typing for a long time. Ronald felt that his shopping was quite cost-effective.

Anyway, I have made a lot of money with my personal computer and WordStar, so I will buy this machine as a reward for myself.

A few days later, Ronald was at home with his agent Eddie and a female editor from the publishing house, looking at the proofs of a book, when a piece of news on TV caught their attention.

"Grace Kelly, the Princess of Monaco, suffered a head injury in a car accident yesterday, September 13, and unfortunately died in the hospital today..."

"Oh, my God." Eddie cried out, and the TV showed a photo of Grace Kelly,

"Grace Kelly died in a way that didn't seem to belong to her. Fifty-two years old, the daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia businessman, a Hollywood actress, an Oscar winner, the Princess of the Kingdom of Monaco, and more news about her life will be brought to you by Rainer."

The TV played the video of Grace Kelly announcing her engagement to King Rainier of Monaco, and then a review of her film career, with scenes of movies such as "Rear Window", "High Noon", and "The Country Girl" flashing by.

"Is Hollywood cursed? It lost two superstars in two weeks." The female editor also interjected.

Ronald knew she was talking about Ingrid Bergman, who died at the end of last month.

The two most dazzling female stars in the 1940s and 1950s in America died within two weeks of each other.

These two can also be regarded as two of the most beautiful and elegant female stars in the golden age of Hollywood. I wonder what kind of beautiful actresses will join Hollywood in the next 20 years of the 20th century?

"Mr. Ronald Lee, your manuscript is like this. If you have no objection, we will prepare to deliver it to the printer next month, and you can see your book in the bookstore in October."

After spending more than an hour flipping through the proofs of the book page by page, the female editor finally completed the final comparison work of Ronald's first published book and stood up to say goodbye.

"Thank you, this is thanks to your patient proofreading." Ronald saw the editor out.

"Ronald, I was here when I signed you, but I didn't expect you to write works other than scripts and publish them."

Agent Eddie smiled happily. Ronald's agents other than film business were handed over to him in New York. According to the editor, this published book is the first book of this type on the market and may achieve good sales.

"This is all thanks to Ms. Hinton. If it weren't for her recommendation, the publishing house wouldn't have thought highly of my book."

Ronald smiled and simply made a long-distance call to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to thank Hinton, the author of the novel "The Unruly Boys".

"Ms. Hinton? This is Ronald."

"Hi, Ronnie. Is your book ready to be published?"

"Yes, I called to thank you for your help."

"Haha, I think you have a talent in this area. At that time, I was on the set of "The Unruly Boys" in Tulsa. Without your help, I couldn't write the script of "Fighting Fish" well on the computer."

Hinton smiled heartily. Seeing Ronald's talent, she helped contact the publishing house to publish a book based on what Ronald taught her to help authors like her.

"Thank you, how is your "Fighting Fish" going?"

"Director Coppola's progress is relatively smooth, and it is expected to be completed at the beginning of next month."

"Now they are not fighting, right?" Ronald asked with a smile.

"No, unlike The Naughty Boys, which has two gangs and a dozen guys, Douyu only has three male protagonists, Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, and Francis' nephew Nick. They can't fight without your help, with Diane around. Hahaha..." Hinton also laughed.

"By the way, I haven't congratulated you on the big sales of your movie yet. Is there a hope of breaking 40 million?" Hinton remembered Ronald's movie "Fast Pace" which was a big hit. The assistant of the crew at that time has become a hit director.

"Universal said that there are still four to six weeks of release time, and whether it can break 40 million is still uncertain." Ronald replied.

"Anyway, congratulations... Ronald."

"Thank you too."

After hanging up the phone, Ronald looked at the proof of the book in his hand. The title of the book was "Wordstar For Dummies" written on the large cover.

This is a book for authors who use the Wordstar software on the computer to write. It tells how to install and use the Wordstar software to write novels or documents.

There are also many pictures with instructions, and a list of shortcut keys is included, which can be cut out and pasted next to the personal computer.

Not only IB computers, but also other computers such as Commodore and even Apple II computers have detailed installation tutorials.

Ronald looked at the book and fell into deep thought, thinking about the filming of "The Unfair Kids" in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and how he came up with the idea of ​​writing this book.