From veteran Hollywood writer David Rensin comes this one-of-a-kind account of what goes on inside Hollywood's secret training camp: the mailroom. Featuring personal accounts from legends such as David Geffen, Barry Diller, Bernie Brillstein, and Mike Ovitz among others, readers are taken on a trip through glamour and humiliation, lousy pay and incredible perks, killer egos and a kill-or-be-killed ethos, in which mailroom trainees at top talent agencies do anything they can to get ahead. The kids in The Mailroom have done it all: from hanging out with Elvis to delivering a senior agent's urine sample to the doctor; from crashing the Academy Awards ceremony to hoping to deliver more than just the mail to sexy actresses' homes. Full of revealing stories and delicious dish, The Mailroom is not only a non-stop engrossing read, but a crash course taught by experts on how to succeed in Hollywood through hard work, shrewd manipulation, and a hell of a lot of nerve. David Rensin travels behind the scenes and through sixty-five years of show-business history to tell the real stories of the marvelous careers that began, and in some cases ended, in the mailroom. Anyone who believes in the merit of hard work and wants to get ahead in business will want to read this book.

"Rensin...captures the ambition, manipulative plotting and hustler mentality of a few Hollywood mailroom employees in this series of raunchy, realistic interviews with some top agents who started out in the mailroom....Most notably, Rensin shows that the road from mailroom to mogul is a rough one. The stories are amusing, intriguing and sometimes horrifying, but Rensin, to his credit, never dilutes sordid details." Publishers Weekly

"Do readers dig the dirt on the David Geffens and Barry Dillers of the world as much as that on the Winona Ryders and Mickey Rourkes? Well, if they're money minded, they ought to. The goods Rensin's got on the likes of Michael Ovitz makes his ilk as exciting as the stars an Ovitz lucratively manipulates." Booklist

"[A]n oral history of a crucial Tinseltown institution, related by some folks who make Machiavelli look like a pussycat....Edgy, frenetic, and entertaining reports from the room that launched a thousand deals." Kirkus Reviews

The classic Hollywood success story--start in the mailroom and end up a mogul--is told in this first revealing account that takes readers through 65 years of Hollywood history to show the real stories of how careers have been made, and sometimes destroyed, with the turn of a mail cart.

It's like something out of a Hollywood potboiler: start out in the mailroom, end up a mogul. Only for dozens of Hollywood's brightest, it happens to be true. Some of the biggest names in entertainment--including David Geffen, Barry Diller, and Mike Ovitz--began as trainees in musty talent agency mailrooms. Now, in this fascinating new book, veteran Hollywood writer David Rensin travels behind the scenes and through sixty-five years of show business history to tell the real stories of the marvelous careers that began--and in some cases ended--in the mailroom.

Based on more than two hundred interviews, Rensin unfolds the never-before-told history of an American institution--in the voices of the people who lived it. Through seven decades of glamour and humiliation, lousy pay and incredible perks, killer egos and a kill-or-be-killed ethos, you'll go where the trainees go, do what they must do to get ahead, and hear the best insider stories from the Hollywood everyone knows about but no one really knows. The kids in The Mailroom have done it all: from hanging out with Elvis to delivering a senior agent's urine sample to the doctor; from pouring drinks for Sinatra to sending ice to Johnny Carson on the Nile; from crashing the Academy Awards ceremony to hoping to deliver more than just the mail to sexy actresses' homes.

The Mailroom reveals why Harvard MBAs fight to turn down secure six-digit corporate salaries to start work at a major agency for less than $400 a week; what it takes to appease impossible bosses, outsmart the competition, and agent the agents; and how a hungry, star-struck kid can become the next Geffen or Diller by sorting mail, eavesdropping on crucialconversations, and trying anything to get noticed.

Full of revealing stories and delicious dish, The Mailroom is not only a non-stop, engrossing read, but a crash course, taught by the experts, on how to succeed in Hollywood through hard work, shrewd manipulation, and a hell of a lot of nerve. The Mailroom is classic Hollywood--a vibrant and complex tapestry of dreams, desire, exploitation, power, and genuine talent. If you want to know who rules Hollywood and how they got their power, if you want to know how to start with nothing and get ahead in any business, this is the book you must read.