Categories
Background Checks Online Dating Industry Relationships Romance Uncategorized

Dating Hollywood Style

We found this article in West Magazine, a Sunday Supplement to the Los Angeles Times. The article was written by Charles E. Johnson, a screenwriter. Here are some of the excerpts:

In 1971, as a fledgling screenwriter from South-Central, I met Nate Monaster and Stanley Shapiro (who wrote “That Touch of Mink,” starring Cary Grant and Doris Day) and Walter Brown Newman (writer of “Cat Ballou”). They became my mentors and taught me everything I needed to know to make it in Hollywood.

Well, almost everything.

Armed with a screenplay that was circulating and getting some interest, my cigar-smoking guardian angels, Nate and Stanley, took me to an A-list party where I met my first agent, a pint-sized man. I also met a stunning redhead. Practically ignoring the agent, I went in search of Red.

I found her. But our conversation didn’t last long. It quickly became clear that my lack of a high-end car and upscale real estate in the best ZIP Code were deficits too glaring to overcome.

Poverty, I discovered, kills ardor in Hollywood faster than a bucket of ice water in the face.

Labeled a loser and feeling like one, I began dating neurotic, psychotic industry hopefuls. Pretty soon, I gave up altogether.

And then, after months of seclusion, I decided to stop wallowing and get busy. If women like Red were success groupies, I was determined to have some success. And within six months I’d written and sold my first screenplay….

For a hot minute, even my gnome of an agent stopped glaring at me, with his single eyebrow furrowed. I was on a roll.

There was a modicum of fame, money and grudging respect from my unproduced peers. And with all of that came the return of Red. She flew into my life like a heat-seeking missile, dripping sex like chocolate while promising unspeakable fantasies with her smoldering eyes.

But as swiftly as she came into my life, she went right out. And curiously, my agent suddenly turned cold. Really cold….

Three weeks later it all became clear. One of my vengeful unproduced friends (with whom Red and I had been on a double-date) informed me that my girl was my agent’s mistress.

I now have a new agent, but I’ve also thought from time to time about hiring a private detective. Before I spring for that first get-to-know-you Starbucks cup of coffee, why not have the object of my affection pass a background check? Call it paranoid. But it sure pays to be careful whom you date in Hollywood.

As one of the founders of Corra Group, a background checking service, and as someone who worked in Hollywood for over two decades, we find this well written story doubly amusing. In ancient times it would be considered a parable, a story with a message, designed to leave the author maybe wiser from the writing and you perhaps enlightened from the reading. Fortunately for you, it was the author in this case who did the suffering, and you who benefitted from the reading. So you re the lucky one, unless you, too, are fated to fall for someone whose avarice and career aspirations end up causing serious damage to your finances and self-esteem.

While the avarice and gold digging of Hollywood far surpasses similar motives in other parts of the world, this is not to say you are home free or invulnerable to the alleged romantic machinations that can most certainly lead to the deflation of your ego and the depletion of your bank account. If you follow the simple axiom that everyone is a sucker for love at some point in his or her life, than subsequent logic will dictate that everyone is open to duplicity.

While some of the best gold digging and some of the more notorious sociopaths may reside in Hollywood, there are more than enough of their kind to go around. There is a fair sprinkling in every city in every state, in fact in every part of the world. With the Internet so accessible con artists and gold diggers of every stripe and breed can cruise and choose, until they find you. For them the Internet and Online Dating is often the happy hunting ground.

In the end it really doesn’t matter that someone tells you. It only matters that what they tell you happens to be is true. Good con artistry and good gold digging is best served through the dishonest recital of the things you want to hear. Good relationships are built on truth and honesty, perhaps even a bit of candor, along with romantic chemistry and common ground.

So before you become too enamored with Mr. or Ms. Possible, before you expose your wallet, your pride, and your physical well being, do yourself a favor. Spend a few bucks and run a background check. You can’t keep from being infatuated, and you certainly can’t keep from falling in love. But for the price of a couple of latte’s you can protect yourself from being snookered by some gold digging con artist with a smooth entrance and a hasty exit.

As Corra says:Check them out before you date them.