In an interview on Hollywood

Tell me about your first book.

I’ll start with An Empire of Their Own, because it’s just so difficult for us to understand what Hollywood was like then, particularly for these guys who were either first generation, or immigrant German, or East European Jews, who’d come largely from running things like nickelodeon outfits on the East Coast, and ended up creating this extraordinary confection out in California. Bearing in mind that they weren’t allowed in the country clubs and things like that, they ended up trying to suppress their Jewishness in almost every way.

Even in a town as new as Hollywood?

Absolutely! Because remember that what they were doing was effectively bringing into mass circulation an art form – what we now regard as an art form – that at the time was regarded as frightfully déclassé. Smart people went to the ballet and opera, and what the poor and lower middle classes did with their time didn’t matter. But these men in Hollywood had a vision and were creating this product that was loved by everybody of all different backgrounds. They were very intent that those people should have something for themselves, but they became very obsessed with elevating the public and doing something great with movies.

They ended up more or less creating a new establishment, because Hollywood was a place that they could really make their own. There wasn’t an awful lot there: at the time LA was a relatively small town, but it had masses of real estate. Having started out as fur traders and so on they built these studios that were really little principalities: you just think my God, these journeys that these people go on! They created the art form of the American 20th century, starting with these little pictures where people were just amazed by movement, or really early talkies, and which everyone had access to.