"We had an interesting thing at that first dinner. It was prior to the availability of several new hotels in Los Angeles, and we were more or less committed to the old Ambassador Hotel that has the famous Coconut Grove"
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Nostalgia is doing a lot of quiet work here, but so is power. Wasserman’s “interesting thing” is classic dealmaker understatement: a loaded phrase that sounds like small talk and functions like a curtain being gently pulled back on how Hollywood actually operated. He isn’t describing a dinner so much as reminding you that, in that era, logistics were destiny. Before the “availability” of new hotels, there were fewer neutral stages in Los Angeles where the right people could be placed in the right light. So you didn’t just choose a venue; you inherited one.
The passive voice matters. “Committed to the old Ambassador Hotel” makes it sound like an obligation imposed by circumstance, not a decision by a man who helped shape the modern entertainment industry. That’s the subtext: the system presents itself as tradition and convenience, even when it’s really about control and continuity. The Ambassador, with the Coconut Grove’s celebrity mythology, isn’t merely famous; it’s a legitimizing machine. You hold a first dinner there to signal you belong to the lineage of deals, premieres, and access.
Contextually, Wasserman is talking from inside a mid-century studio ecosystem where the social ritual (dinners, clubs, hotel rooms repurposed as offices) was inseparable from business. The line about new hotels reads like urban development, but it’s also about competition: more venues mean more fragmented influence. His memory lingers on the moment when Los Angeles had fewer options, and that scarcity made the gatekeeping cleaner, the choreography tighter, the town smaller.
The passive voice matters. “Committed to the old Ambassador Hotel” makes it sound like an obligation imposed by circumstance, not a decision by a man who helped shape the modern entertainment industry. That’s the subtext: the system presents itself as tradition and convenience, even when it’s really about control and continuity. The Ambassador, with the Coconut Grove’s celebrity mythology, isn’t merely famous; it’s a legitimizing machine. You hold a first dinner there to signal you belong to the lineage of deals, premieres, and access.
Contextually, Wasserman is talking from inside a mid-century studio ecosystem where the social ritual (dinners, clubs, hotel rooms repurposed as offices) was inseparable from business. The line about new hotels reads like urban development, but it’s also about competition: more venues mean more fragmented influence. His memory lingers on the moment when Los Angeles had fewer options, and that scarcity made the gatekeeping cleaner, the choreography tighter, the town smaller.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nostalgia |
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