On Display with Melissa Gorga - Climbing in Heels (w/ Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas)

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

She has been instrumental player in the success of some of the biggest names in Hollywood, and now she’s on the show to share more of her story, spill a few more dirty secrets, and talk about her brand-new book, Climbing in Heels.This week Melissa welcomes agent, producer, and writer, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, back onto the show to talk about her crazy start in Hollywood in the 80s, the shocking ways that certain execs treated women, why women either banded together or tore each other apart, and how every step in her career led her to writing her new book.To learn more about how fact meets fiction, grab a copy of Climbing in Heels: A Novel, available now!This week’s sponsors:Koala Sofa Bed – Designed for Pure Comfort: http://us.koala.com/melissa ($100 off!)Naked Wines - Quality Wine Straight To Your Door: Get 6 bottles for $39.99 with shipping included at www.NakedWines.com/melissa - click Enter Voucher and use code MELISSA for both the code and passwordPluto.TV - Streaming TV: www.Pluto.TV (Free!)Progressive - "Name-Your-Price" Tool: www.Progressive.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I had to find somebody to hire me who wasn't threatened and didn't care if my wiggle was more waddle. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of On Display. I hope you have enjoyed your week so far. I am super super so ecstatic to welcome a very good friend of mine today. She's an accomplished producer, writer and a former agent who has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. She's a powerful advocate for telling the female side of the story about an industry that wasn't always welcoming to

powerful women like herself. And she has a brand new book out called climbing in heels. That is a fictional account of what it's like to be a female in Hollywood in the 80s. But knowing her it's not too far from reality. Please welcome my really, really good friend, Elaine Goldsmith Thomas. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Hi. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be talking to you. You are one of my favorite people, and I couldn't be happier to have you on the podcast. You were one of my first three guests that I've ever had on this podcast, and that was three and a half years ago. Gosh, I can't, that's crazy.

I don't remember yesterday, but wow. Listen, it's great to see you, and I'm excited to talk about, you know. So we're gonna talk about all things Elaine right now and everything that you're working on. All things Hollywood, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, you're my Hollywood guru. You're my go-to for advice, but tell me first off,

what have you been doing for the last three and a half years? Tell us what you've been working on, what's going on? Well, I've been writing this book. Yes, we are gonna get really into the book, guys. It's called Climbing in Heels. We're going to get into that. Look ahead. I mean, I've been pushing boulders up hills.

That's what I do. It's very kind of Sisyphusian. You roll the boulder and then it rolls back on you and then you get up and then you roll it again. And you never look too far because then you'd realize how far you have to go, so you just push. And I've been pushing boulders. I've been making films.

I mean, I don't know. What did I talk to you for? Hustlers? Was it hustlers? Was that what I did? You know, I'm trying to remember exactly. I mean, and for my listeners that don't know, let me just tell you guys, she is, you know, you have produced so many movies, Made in Manhattan, Hustlers, Second Act,

Marry Me, right? Like, the list goes on and on. I think it might have been Marry Me. I might have been the mother. It might have been the mother or a shotgun wedding or one of those. But yeah, so what have I been doing? I've been making movies that people have seemed to love and I'm excited. I've been partnering with Jennifer, who is just amazing, an amazing supporter of women, an amazing force. Like, you know, I only wish people knew her the way I knew her or know her.

And that's what I've been doing and writing and writing. I've been writing and doing movies and going back and forth between LA and New York, it feels like. Someone said, do you take a vacation? I went, never. No, but I love what I do. I really love what I do. And I love that I am sort of coming into my own,

because I've been a writer for way back when I was an agent, but nobody wants their agent to be a writer. So I sort of kept it on the DL. And I've been able to sort of announce my presence with an authority, live out loud and say, yeah, guys, I'm a writer. And, you know, I think I pitched this book at the dawn of the pandemic. Okay, it was because people were just starting to wear masks. It was crazy. And I'd had this idea about secretaries in the 80s when they called them, at least at my

agency, sexyterries. And they weren't allowed to. And if you weren't the, as I like to say, if you weren't the, if you were running the maze in a mousetrap, but you weren't the cheese they wanted, if you were Lindberger and they wanted Swiss, you had to figure out a different way to get through. And I was not the cheese they wanted. If you were Lindberger and they wanted Swiss, you had to figure out a different way to get through. And I was not the cheese they wanted. I was probably too loud and probably, I don't know, too fat. And I was probably maybe too ambitious. And they didn't want their secretaries to be ambitious. They wanted them to be secretaries. There was a route and the women were secretaries or file clerks, the men, it was the M-A-L-E room.

So it was the male room for guys. And the male room guys got to be agents. And then there were the agents. And if you were a female agent, and there were female agents, you started somewhere else as a secretary. So as a secretary, the way you got your job there was you said, I just want to be a secretary. That's all I want to do. I'd like to be a secretary.

Because if they smelled ambition, they wouldn't hire you. Threat. They saw it as a threat. Well, yeah. And certain agents wanted their sexy terriers to be, oh, I don't know, there were spinners, there were leggies, there were different qualifications you needed. So I had to find somebody to hire me who wasn't threatened

and didn't care if my wiggle was more waddle. And yeah. For sure. I mean, listen, you've honestly, you've obviously earned the respect since those days, which I really want to get into the nitty gritty of this book and what it's about. And it is a fiction story, so she says, but I feel like she's might've experienced some of these things in life. But the fact that you have earned the trust and respect of so

many major actors, right? Where I would say 90% of Jennifer Lopez's projects are with you, are side by side with you. And there's other huge actors that you've worked with. How was it going from being an agent to going writing and producing? And how do you get that respect and that trust from huge stars like that? Well, I mean, first of all, careers aren't planned, Melissa Gorga, they happen.

And I think life is about the pivot. And that's what I would tell anybody. You think you're driving and God laughs, right? Sometimes you have to look at the opportunities and try them and take them. And I think that it's not a science. You have to trust your gut. And that's what I learned very early on. Like Beanie Rosen in my book, I was from the Valley.

You know, I lived in Pacoima. My mother called it Arlita. Then we moved to Sepulveda. My mother called it Northridge. I never knew where I lived. I just knew it wasn't good enough. My mom always wanted, I call it in my book, I call it the Zamboni. She kind of polished the truth until it became her reality. And I learned early on that you needed to strive. I guess in a way it was good. She was my fuel, but maybe in a way she was my kryptonite.

And, you know, it's the, like nobody can get you like your mom and oddly in my book, the three women that I focus on are all formed and informed by really strong mothers who either live through them or are infuriated by them or try to Zamboni their own past. live through them or are infuriated by them or try to Zamboni their own past and hope that their child doesn't blow it up.

And in each of those cases, these three women who are fictional are driven to succeed. They cannot take no for an answer. who are fictional are driven to succeed. They cannot take no for an answer for different reasons. One is rebellious, one finds great value in the yes, like yes means love, yes means I'm accepted, and one, it's just about survival. And so each one of these women climb in, well, in my case, it was wide-toed flat shoes, but each one of these women climb to their ambitions

in the book for different reasons. For me personally, no just meant try again. No just meant figure out a different way. There used to be a cartoon character in the 60s named Baboum and he would sort of unhinge his, it was a little Eskimo and he would unhinge his mouth and he would go to a mountain and he'd go, Baboum and the mountain would blow apart, right?

And I have that image in my mind. It's just the sheer will that you're not gonna stop. Breaking through, you were breaking through that you're not gonna stop. Breaking through, you were breaking through. You're not gonna stop me. And for the characters in this book, it's a story about friendship and survival and betrayal, but it's also a story of standing up when they pass you by

and saying, I won't quit when they want you gone. And it's also finally the story about how some of those women become very much like the monsters they worked for. So it's not exactly a feminist manifesto. I mean, some of them learned to become these monsters. And I'm sure at a certain point in my life I was too. So you know. Well climbing in heels and it just came out last week guys so you're able to grab the

book. I love the subtext which is a tale of sex, drugs and power in heels. First of all you got me right there. I'm into it. I want to know what goes on in these offices and how it was back then. The eighties is like, first of all, when you think of the eighties, it's so nostalgic.

It's such a vibe. I feel like the whole world is into the eighties. Whether you were born in the seventies or in the nineties or in the two thousands, you're into the eighties. It's such for some reason. Or the sixties. Right? Or the sixties. Right. We're gonna

keep going. But everyone has such a feeling about the 80s. So tell us about it because I don't think anyone really gets to hear this side of Hollywood much. So it's a little like Valley of Dolls, isn't it? It's like the Valley of Dolls. It's very much like Valley of the Dolls. It's a lured tale. It's sort of, as Darren Star says, it's mad men meet sex in the city. It's the 80s and the 90s. It's lots different women. There's Beanie Rosen, a Jewess from the Valley. Is that you, Elaine? They're all versions. They're not, none of them are me.

Although I will tell you, my dear friend, Kevin Huvane, who runs CAA and who absolutely insisted that I write this book. When I kept going, I can't do this. And what do you, and he just was, talk about not taking note for an answer. He put me on that course and then he'd call me once a week and say, I hope you're doing this and God bless him.

Anyway, he read an early copy and he called me and he said, wow, I'm at that part where so-and-so is going down on so-and-so and you walk into the apartment. And I went, it's not me. And there's two parts of Beanie that are me. I did try to get my boyfriend in high school, an agent. He wanted an agent so badly and I wanted him to like me so badly. I wanted

him to be my like official boyfriend, not like closet boyfriend, right? I wanted to sort of stand next to him, though he was, you know, seven inches shorter than me, and, you know, and be proud. And I was sort of like a cat with a mouse. I kept bringing him things that he wanted, even if it was other women, just to make him like me. Yeah, pretty sad, right? And he wanted an agent. And I kind of knew what an agent was.

Circuitously, I'd had a cousin who was a very famous composer. I kind of knew, and I said, Gaffa, I'll get you an agent. What did I know? And so I was working at a card store in Northridge Plaza in the Valley. And I had all the girls arrange the list of franchise agents. I got them from the Screen Actors Guild. There must have been 5,000.

It was tiny, tiny print on two sides of the, and they arranged them with me by location. And I began, and it was all before I was going to school up North in Northern California. So I had a time limit. And the first place I went to was the William Morris Agency. And I said, hi, I have an appointment with Mr. Morris. And she said, try Memorial Park Cemetery.

I said, no, no, I just have to get upstairs. She wouldn't let me go. But I learned pretty quickly that you had to get friendly to the receptionist to get to the secretary and friendly to the secretary to get to the agent. It was just about getting this guy, getting him an agent. It was just about it. I had to him an agent. It was just about it.

I had to do it. And meanwhile, I had to keep tap dancing because he was getting impatient. Where the fuck is my agent? What's going on? And I was like, you know, they're out of town. Don't worry, I'm doing it. I'm working on it.

Like I had to get the yes. I had to deliver. And I was determined. And I went everywhere with his headshots that I had paid for, taking money from my parents' drawer. I was sort of citing every short actor I know, like I've got Al Pacino in it, Dustin Hoffman, anybody that was like, you know, minute.

And finally I went to someone, it was right at the end of summer, and I went to this agency on, I think it was Hollywood Boulevard, and there were some famous people in the lobby, you know, pictures of them, and I saw the agent walking behind the scrim, and I just thought, fuck. So I started jumping up and down, I went, excuse me, can you see me? What do you have to lose? It'll take 10 minutes. And he looked at me and he came out and I had hair down to my ass. You know, I was like, whatever. It was like, I don't know, 1980. So I said,

can you see me for five seconds? So we are for 10 minutes. And he came out, I said, what do you have to lose? He said, 10 minutes. And I said, he said, what is it? And I said, I have the best actor. He's smart and sexy and great and amazing and Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino. And he said, and I said, and if you don't meet with him you're gonna see his picture on Sunset

Boulevard and you're going to say, I could have represented that guy. And he looked at me and he said, you know, the best thing about him and he's looking at his pictures. I said, what? He said, you. Wow. And I agree. I mean, we need, everyone needs an Elaine in their life.

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Cowalla, comfy, easy, sustainable. Did this guy appreciate that you did this? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, And he ended up getting him a tiny little roll and chips and then another little roll on happy days. But, you know, by that time this guy was like, you know, stop calling me, you know, Anson Williams is my friend now, I don't have time for you. So I went away to school and I was brokenhearted and I was convinced that his face would be chiseled in the Mount Rushmore of Hollywood.

And I was like, what have I done? Oh, well, at least I contributed to greatness. But I went away and I ended up repairing my broken heart and my ego. But I never forgot how great it was to get the yes. When I called him, when that guy said he'd meet him and I called him from a payphone, because it was before mobile phones.

And I said, I've got a meeting for you. It was such a high. It really was an adrenaline high. And oddly, had that not happened, I might not have become an agent. So isn't it strange how people put us on a road that we never thought we'd find? And the worst experience in life is the best.

And so I ended up going to the William Morris Agency. The same receptionist who was there then was there now. I ended up writing one of the characters in my book about a receptionist who's a gatekeeper. And I rose at the William Morris Agency. And that's where I was a secretary. And that's where a few people called them sexy terries. And that's where people like Harvey Weinstein,

he wasn't an anomaly. He was the norm. The bad boys club where they'd slap your hand publicly but encourage you privately, where the men on the first floor ran the fiefdom, where they had the money and they had the power. And the girls were the secretaries and the file clerks. So yes, Beanie has a similar experience.

And then there's a rebellious Southern debutante named Eligaddy, whose mother believed that separate was equal, but she didn't. She was an activist when she was young, and she experimented in bisexuality and interracial couplings, didn't, she was an activist when she was young. And she experimented in bisexuality and interracial couplings, and she finds her way to Hollywood. And then there's Mercedes Baxter, who learns at a very young age that her sister is her mother.

And her sister relies very much on the kindness of patrons. And so Mercedes Baxter learns to do the same thing. She relies on the moneyed friends of her moneyed friends' parents, and she finds a foothold in Hollywood. And it's really about how these three women come together in the 80s and scale the mountain that is the Sylvan Light Agency in the book.

It's such a powerful story that even you just telling that real life story scale the mountain that is the Sylvan light agency in the book. It's such a powerful story that even you just telling that real life story of what you did and how you kind of were breaking boundaries before women were even doing that. Elaine, that is so powerful. And that's why you are the only one, the perfect one to write a book like this, because I feel like you have so much personal experience with all of this too and you yourself you are you're that girl you've always been that girl so like we're all talking about women in business now and

how we have you know broke through but you really think we've broken through Melissa I I mean I I think we're doing a good job these days. No, do you think it still exists? Like talk to me. Yes. I think that, I think it's still difficult. I think the reason so many young women are interested in this book and it's overwhelming to me how many young women, I mean women in their twenties who are kind of obsessed with

the eighties and you know, they're interested and yes, it's different. I mean, because of me too, it's certainly different. You know, I remember walking down the hall and a guy who was a friend of mine in the mailroom said, hey, can I have some head? I said, oh, God, come on. Really? Yes. And this is a true story. They just asked me that. And he said, you don't ask, you don't get. It was just the way it was. They, the, the, a lot of the agents,

I remember them mocking this one trainee who was gay by day, but by night they would call him. So there was a double standard. There was, you know, there was, there was a lot of smoking, a lot of blow, a lot of people with pictures around, with their arms around famous people as if the fame would somehow rub off on them. I'll tell you an interesting story that happened to me because this book, Climbing in Heels, is really about background people.

It's really not about the movie stars. It's about the people who desperately want to be close to the movie stars. It's about people whose identity is linked to the yes. Getting the yes, at least for me and the people I knew, somehow made me feel more valuable, somehow made me feel accomplished. And maybe it's still trying to get the yes from my mom, or maybe it was my father who was a salesman

teaching me that no just meant try again, but it was about self-worth. But let me tell you this story because it's really about the people and back of the people. I was a secretary for a wonderful woman named Gail Nackless, rest in peace, who just passed away way too young.

And she was in the theater department in Los Angeles, which is an oxymoron, but she was. And I was typing at my desk and this old man comes dottering up and he says, I'm here for my appointment with Gail. I said, okay, just have a seat. And I'm just, you know, typing and he's almost talking to himself, but kind of to me, he says, they killed Marilyn, right? I said, huh? He said, they killed Marilyn. I didn't wanna kill her.

I didn't, I loved her. She used to call me uncle Melty, but they really, we couldn't control her. I said, yeah, what are you gonna do? She'd call in the middle of the night. She just went on and on and she was making threats. I said, yeah, what are you going to do? She'd call in the middle of the night. She just went on and on and she was making threats. I said, wow. He said, so really there was no choice, he said,

but me and a couple of guys, we did the cleanup. I said, hmm. So then he went in to see my boss and afterwards he left. And I said to her, who was that guy? Right. And she said, who was that guy? I said, yeah. So she pulled down a book, might've been on MGM,

was before Google and she looks at the index and she finds page numbers and she goes to the page, she goes, there he is, there he is, there he is, there he is. And he was in the back of all of these pictures, pictures with Frank Sinatra, pictures with Sammy Davis Jr., pictures with Peter Lawford. Turns out he was Peter Lawford's manager. But he was never looking at the camera.

He was looking this way or this way or this way. She said, there was a time when you, if you wanted to get to the famous people, he was the guy you'd call to get to the guys. I said, oh, she said, background people, Elaine. She said, they're the ones who know the secrets. They're the ones who keep the legacies. They're the ones.

And suddenly it occurred to me. I said, wait a second. He was saying that they killed Marilyn. And she said, he'd know. They know everything. He'd know. Suddenly I was like, what? Yes, they know everything.

It's the people behind the people. It's the- They have the most juice. They have the most info. They have the most connections. They're zealot. They're in every room, but they're in the rooms where it happens, but they just stand in the background. So this is about bringing the background people forward. This is about how hard it was to become one of those people. And maybe it is different now, but I think when you look up at the glass ceiling, I still think you see men's loafers. I think that for women to break through,

it's still difficult. I think it's still harder. I think there's still a double standard in pay. For sure. So yeah, I think that's true. I think it's true. If we're going to talk about like the Boys Club of Hollywood, why do you think it first existed in the first like how it like, do you think we've evolved from the dark days? I mean, basically, you're saying you don't think we've evolved much. We've definitely evolved a little bit, but we're not fully there yet. I think Me Too helped a lot.

And I think it in some ways, I mean, in every way, it emancipated women. In some ways, it overcorrected. I think it helped a lot, but babe, it didn't start in the 80s. I mean, Shirley Temple tells a story about how she was 12 and she was meeting with Arthur Fried at MGM while her mother was meeting with Louis B. Mayer because she wanted to do The Wizard of Oz. And she was meeting with Arthur Fried and she was 12 years old and she tells the story, you can look on YouTube, where Arthur Fried exposed himself to her,

because he could, she was 12. Louis B. Mayer, in the meantime, she told her mother and her mother said that Louis B. Mayer came onto her when she was meeting with him. Wow. It was the wild, wild West in a way that it was candy. People wanted fame, they wanted this new business, they wanted in. And I think that it was controlled very much by men back at the, you know, 20s and 30s.

And it was a group of men who, many of who zambonied their last names, zambonied their histories so that they could fit into the idea of who they were supposed to be. And then zambonied their truth so they could be kids in a candy store. And I think it was very much alive in the 60s and 70s and 80s, the Equal Rights Amendment didn't pass. And look, women wore shoulder pads, they carried big phones,

they had Rolexes wrapped around their wrists, but they were still not given a seat at the table. Not the big table, not the powerful tables. They were expected to serve. So has it changed? Yes. Does it still need to change? Yes. Is there a disparity in pay?

Yes. I was the first agent to get my client $20 million and And she had more than earned it back in the 90s. And it was hard. It was a hard thing to do. So there are mountains to scale, but this isn't a judgment. It's really a look back. And what you realize is that we all are facing

different terrain with each generation, whatever that terrain is, AI or, yeah, whatever that terrain is, we're facing different terrain. In the 80s and 90s, it was women busting into a club that the men pretty much fought hard not to welcome us. It was an interesting time. It's so interesting. I can listen to you talk about this and all of this backstory for days, honestly, because I feel like there's just so much content there. There's so much that went on in the 80s and during this time. This podcast is sponsored by Naked Wines.

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you. Give it a try after this episode at progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. You know, there was another part in the book that, you know, and I don't want to spoil or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. There was another part in the book that, and I don't want to spoil it, but there are some dark sides to the book too, because one of them being said that the women became very

similar to the monsters that train them. Without giving too much away, talk to me about that part of the book. Well, there's a woman in the book who is modeled after a woman that I worked with who mentored me, a woman named Sue Mangers. And she's modeled after Sue. I mean, she isn't Sue. But sometimes to get people to listen to you or to pay attention, you emulate and imitate that which you've seen. And some of the women, not Sue, but Sheila Day in my book

and other women did what they had to do to show their strength and to hold their own. to show their strength and to hold their own. And yeah, Beanie in my book, Beanie to get a job working for a misogynist, working for a guy who likes sexitaries and wants a spinner and doesn't want a girl that looks like a yeshiva girl. She lies and tells them that, you know, she knows Nicolas Cage.

She says, I can get you a meeting. I'm going to get you a meeting. And then of course sets out to find Nicolas Cage so she can try and do that. Fake it till you make it. Fake it till you make it. There is something in the book called Abracadabra. You know, Abracadabra translates literally to say it, see it, be it. The chant itself means that if you say it, you can manifest your own destiny.

The chapter is Abracadabra Girls. I believe in manifesting. It's huge. I always, I manifest the day you're going to give me a role in something. It's going to happen. You never know. Climbing in heels is very 80s. There's a lot of, like I say, blow and blow jobs, Melissa. You know, I can do it.

Oh, don't tell Joe that I said that. I'm not going to tell Joe you said that. He'll be like, what? You know, I'm already getting a little practice acting. So, you know, I'm just gearing myself up for you one day. Yeah, tell me what you're doing. Tell me what you're doing. Well, I can't really talk about it fully right now, but I'm dabbling a little bit into acting in a show that also takes place in the 80s,

which is so funny. Yes, but we'll get into it another time just because not ready to fully tell everyone about it yet. But just getting my feet wet a little bit in the acting world. You are in Jersey filming a lot now too. You guys are shooting out here because the world, Jersey is now Hollywood basically. Jersey is amazing. The tax credit is amazing. I told the governor's wife she was on the set. Yes, I'm shooting a movie called Office Romance with Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein

and Betty Gilpin and Tony Hale. It's an Amy Sedaris. It is so funny. Brett wrote it with his partner, Joe Kelly. All Parker's directing it. It's kind of about what we're talking about. The world has become so woke that we're not allowed to have a romance with people we work with,

but what happens when we do? Do we lose our jobs, our places, our sanity, our dignity, or are we allowed to just live out loud? Have we overcorrected is what the movie kind of comically looks at. It's a comedy basically. Big comedy, raunchy, fun, very, very fun. And we're shooting that here until the end of April

and then we do a week in the tropics and it should be out I guess next March or something like that but could not love Jersey more. I think I'm doing my next film in Jersey I believe this summer and then we'll be writing Climbing in Heels which got picked up it got picked up for series. I mean Melissa this is so is so exciting. It's going to be a series. Can you say where it got picked up? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Darren Star read it, an early version, because he's a friend of mine. I used to represent him. I was involved back when with Sex and the City. And so Darren Star read it and went, I'm optioning this so quickly. He gave it to Universal, they optioned it,

and we sold it in the room to Peacock, and it's going straight to Siri. So we are gonna, but this summer be writing, be writing the adapting Climbing in Heels. Crazy, right? I'm so excited. You'll be with our whole little NBCU family over here. So that'll be exciting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Couldn't be happier. And love, love, love Donna Langley and Perlina and all the people at NBCU and Peacock. So very exciting. So this book's going to turn into a series. It's going to be a whole series. This book will be a series. We're taking some license with it, but all the characters will be in there and then we're inventing others,

which is another reason you guys have to go out and buy climbing in heels. I'm beyond excited. And yeah, I can't wait to see you. I want you to come to my book signing. I mean, this is not- I'm coming. It's the 21st.

Come into this book signing. We'll, this is coming. It's the 21st. Come into this. Come to this book signing. We'll post it throughout. It's at Barnes and Noble and the 21st on the Upper West Side. I am going to be there. Make sure you guys are all there with us. Guys, just in case you don't know, Elaine's like my secret agent. So like I secretly call her behind the scenes. And I'm always like, Elaine, I need advice, Elaine, what should I do next? I know you're, you know what's going on with the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

We're kind of like in limbo a little bit right now. But if for some reason, Joe and I end up not staying on The Housewives, right? You never know, we don't know what's gonna happen. We're waiting for final decisions. Like give me my advice, tell all my mal listeners, we call them mal listeners. Tell them what your advice is to Joe and I, because you always give me such great advice. So I want you to say it out loud what you think I should do.

Okay. I believe in the... I think they'd be foolish to lose you and Joe, because I think you guys are delicious and open and real. But if they do, I would say, look at the pivot. I think there's strength in both of you together. I want a show called Design Intervention or something. Where you're- I know you do. Where you're either doing like a, I mean, Joe is funny.

I wouldn't just make it in though, in terms of design, though he's an amazing contractor. I wouldn't just do it on that. I do it on him being a contractor and a standup and you helping him in his business and wanting to act. In other words, I would illustrate the climb of wanting to invent and reinvent, because if anything that I've learned is that,

look, I was an agent, I ran a studio, I'm a producer, I'm a writer, that you don't have to just do one thing. And part of the life is the experience, the journey of trying to become. So wouldn't it be fun for them to document you going on auditions as you're helping Joe in his business, as you're running Envy, as you're doing all of this,

going with Joe to his comedy clubs, work when they don't, having him try out bits while he's a contractor. I think there's a life within there that would be really fun to show and also kind of inspiring for people who want second acts. Right. And just like, it's true. There is a piece of me that sits there and I'm like, it would be a good time to pivot. Like it's, it feels like the right time to pivot, but I've also been on this show for so long that I'm like, if it- I think doing the show would be great. It's not, and again, you can't, we're not driving our pivots.

I think doing the show would be great and it would be fun for you and fun for them as you explore new terrain that's a little less toxic, right? But I think if not, it would be great to do a show about the reinvention, about the pivot and show at warts and all how hard it can be, how frustrating and scary, because in some way that it's the effort that would inspire. That would be my Hardy recommendation.

Okay. Well, you know your recommendation is always like the key to me. So, Elaine, thank you so much for coming on today. You are so insightful. Your story is always so powerful and Everyone you guys need to grab your copy of climbing in heels. You can get it everywhere It's gonna turn into a series on peacocks So make sure you read all about it before you even see that series enjoy enjoy my sprinkle cake eat everybody I can't wait to get your sprinkle cake when I start coming today

Enjoy my sprinkle cake. Eat every bite of it. I can't wait to get your sprinkle cake. When I saw Andy Cohen eating his sprinkle cake, I was like, where the F is mine? It's coming. You're getting it today. Maybe it'll be a good rainy day. Have like some cake and coffee for me today.

There you go. I'll bring it to the set. All right, love you. Okay, love you. Thanks for coming on. Bye guys, bye. Okay, love you. Thanks for coming on. Bye guys. Bye. Okay. Bye I'm Tucker and I'm Becca and this is a podcast where we take a break from climbing the absolute corporate ladder that is being a tick tocker

That's right This is the most corporate podcast for the least corporate girlies in this pod We're in the break room with you guys our gorgeous gorgeous co-workers And you may be wondering what goes on in the content factory give us the agenda Tucker Well each episode starts with a performance review where we talk about what's going on in the week content We're making DMS We're getting. A little peek behind the curtain of the content creator life.

We also will be doing an HR report. Where we ask you guys during the week what is some workplace drama you got going on. And we'll end each episode with a rapid fire and hire. Things we want to get rid of and things we want to keep. For example, Becca, what do you want to fire this week? Mmm, my IBS. Absolutely. Okay. keep. For example, Becca, what do you want to fire this week? My IBS.

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