Where Hollywood Hides… it’s the weekly conversation about all things Hollywood, because, as Irving Berlin so famously wrote “There’s no business like show business!”
Join the fun on these weekly iTunes podcasts as Bob McCullough and Suzanne Herrera McCullough–industry veterans of TV and film with over 200 primetime television and movie credits–share their intimate memories of the Classic Years of TV and the entertainment industry from the inside out.
Subscribe to Where Hollywood Hides podcasts on iTunes for automatic weekly updates, or just click here to drop in on the conversation right now…
Wherever you are on this site, any Amazon.com link or banner or image will get you the best possible pricing while supporting Where Hollywood Hides–Why “Where Hollywood Hides” ?
Butterfly Beach, Montecito
Santa Barbara…just 90 miles north of Hollywood, Burbank, and Culver City…feels like it’s a thousand miles away.
For us, the attraction of Santa Barbara’s foothills, quiet streets, and uncrowded beaches was simply too hard to resist. What better place to escape from the hectic world of “working lunches”, “business dinners”, and the obligatory weekend party circuit?
And so we found ourselves living in Santa Barbara, raising a family, and working just as efficiently as ever on all of our studio projects.
Sure, there was some commuting involved, but when the commutes involved overseas productions, Santa Barbara was just as good a place as any to have our home.
Before email…modems!
Now, the truth is that plenty of agents, producers, and studio execs initially told us that moving to Santa Barbara would put us “out of the business”. But as technology took a firm foothold in the Hollywood production community, quickly moving through generations of fax machines, modems, computers, conference calling, and eventually the Internet, we found ourselves entertaining our showbiz friends on weekend visits…who invariably asked “So who’s your real estate agent?”
Jeff Bridges
Lucky’s…downtown Montecito
The rest is history. While it has always had something of a Hollywood connection, Santa Barbara is now a “bedroom community” for the Entertainment Industry. On any given day we’ll bump into actors, producers, writers, directors, executives, and the entire gamut of showbiz contacts practically anywhere in town. Whether it’s the local grocery store, the car wash, or at our favorite Montecito restaurant, we’re no longer surprised to see A-level celebrities and movers & shakers on a daily basis.
And why are they here in Santa Barbara? The same reason we are, the same reason it’s long been the haven of celebrities ranging from Jean Harlow and Gloria Swanson to Oprah Winfrey, Steve Martin, and Jeff Bridges. The casual, elegant, and private lifestyle only this place can offer. So maybe we’re all hiding out…but after all, this is Where Hollywood Hides.
Getting into “showbiz” is not an easy thing to do. Even selling a single TV show or script…or getting cast in a single show is a significant accomplishment. Consider the fact that there are more than 20,000 members of The Writers’ Guild of America, and at any given time, most of them are either unemployed or working on their next “spec” project. The same is true of members of the Directors Guild of America (15,000+ members) and the Screen Actors Guild (100,000+!).
Auditioning for “American Idol”
Those can be daunting numbers if you’re seriously thinking about building any kind of a lasting career. The truth is, most reasonable people would look at the very slight odds of success and run in another direction. The world always needs plumbers, teachers, dentists, and auto mechanics. The world does not need another writer, director, or actor. Yet somehow we managed to ignore those odds.
We sim
ply took some bold first steps (blindly, perhaps) and then followed our instincts and the siren call of creative opportunity…and before long, we’d actually built fairly substantial writing, directing, and producing careers that have continued to this day. Subscribe to Where Hollywood Hides podcasts at iTunes (it’s sooo easy even Bob can do it)… and we’ll do our best to share our stories with you, right down to the nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes realities and pitfalls we encountered along the way. (And don’t forget to do your Amazon.com shopping right here… and then maybe we can break even on this enterprise): We might lapse into a little nostalgia over TV’s Classic Years, but we won’t be pulling any punches, and you’ll have some fun!
