The Good, the Bad, And The Ugly

Out West, where movies and moguls are made, she’s the sheriff

Joseph Sohm/Visions of America/Corbis

"I've always thought that if I wrote a novel about Hollywood," says Nikki Finke, "it would start, '"That bitch!" the studio mogul cried, but the secretary didn't know which woman journalist he was talking about.'"

Finke—from her perch as the L.A. Weekly "Deadline Hollywood" columnist and queen of— has been poking, prodding, and often disemboweling movie executives ("Another Reason Why Bob Shaye Is a Prick," reads a typical headline) since the 1990s. She has zero interest in celebrities, instead going after the juicy business dramas of film moguls and agents. "I want to know who's doing what to whom and why in the boardrooms of Hollywood, not the bedrooms," she says. Consequently, Finke has created her own badass niche in entertainment reporting, which is both copied and criticized by her more mainstream colleagues. "I always felt there was something missing in showbiz coverage—what I call the culture of the moguls and the culture of the agents and just the inner workings of interconnected Hollywood," she says. Recently, she got on the phone to talk about power, putzes, and whether women will ever get ahead in the movie business.

ELLE: You are a powerful woman in Hollywood, Nikki. A lot of moguls there are scared of you.

NIKKI FINKE: Look, I'm not powerful, and no one is scared of me. But here's why I think women make the best reporters in Hollywood. It's such a testosterone-fest out here, such the preserve of alpha males, that when you have a male reporter interviewing a male mogul, it's basically swinging dicks aimed at each other. What the Hollywood guys like and respect is smart. They like a sense of humor. And they like women. Actually, being a woman and being Jewish helps. It's one of the great jokes out here that gentiles are handicapped when it comes to Hollywood. They can learn the Yiddish words. But they'll never have that, "Oh, I get it." So best of all for them is a smart, funny, Jewish woman. Frankly, there's a part of me that looks down on Hollywood because of the way I was raised—I mean, I went to a finishing school and then Wellesley. I'm not awed by money and power. How do I put this? I consider Hollywood money totally nouveau.

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