Hollywood's Least Liked Exec List: A Who's Who Of Hollywood No Names
Being disliked in Hollywood isn't too hard, but usually you have to at least be universally known in order to be universally hated. Apparently not anymore.
Hollywood Temp Diaries just released their 5th annual "Brown List"—a roundup of Hollywood's least liked execs (paired with a list of most-liked execs, but really, who cares about that?). It used to strike fear (or maybe pride) into upper-level executive hearts. Now just reads like a list of nobodies.
This year's top hated executive was Andrea Simon, a manager with no famous clientele who once produced a Lifetime TV movie in 2007. The next two slots went to a creative ad exec and a part-time consultant at Fox. The only high profile executive on the entire list was seventh-ranked Paul Lee, president of ABC's Entertainment Group. The remainder of the top 10 were managers, agents and producers from boutique firms, as well as a CAA human resources exec. While Simon did garner 830 votes, it's unclear how much (or well, how little) her fledgling business will really be affected by this.
In its inaugural 2009 tally, the Brown List counted Harvey Weinstein, Scott Rudin, NBC Pres Ben Silverman, and WME's Ari Emanuel among its list of high ranking execs. Yet from 2010 onwards, the list has remained a collection of small names—which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This is Hollywood, even low-ranking executives enter this town with an overinflated sense of entitlement.
What is interesting is the disparity between the highest ranked votes and everyone else. While the top vote getters pulled in hundreds of votes, the majority of those who didn't break the top ten earned around one to two votes, max. Is there a case of ballot box stuffing in the stupidest election of all time?
Probably. Just ask Jenna Block, a not-so-well regarded exec at Sony based production company, Escape Artists. In 2010 she received 51 least-liked votes, but I'm told she also had friends nominate her aplenty to help her earn 44 most-liked votes as well.
The full list of this year's least liked execs are:
- Andrea Simon—Andrea Simon Entertainment (830 votes)
- Christopher Pawlak—20th Century Fox (561 votes)
- Antonia Coffman—Executive Consultant, Fox (516 votes)
- Christine Holder—Zero Gravity Management (389 votes)
- Alexia Melocchi—Little Studio Films (253 votes)
- Carlos Carreras—APA Agent (181 votes)
- Paul Lee—ABC Television Group (107 votes)
- Arnold Kopelson—Kopelson Entertainment (94 votes)
- Pamela Wolfe—CAA, Human Resources (93 votes)
- Mark Holder—Zero Gravity Entertainment (71 votes)
While the list is still a great way for beleaguered assistants to air their frustrations, the Brown List seems to be less of a barometer of who is actually liked and disliked, and a far better metric of who's pissed off a group of people with far too much time on their hands.
UPDATE: An earlier version of this post mistakenly listed three of 2009's most-liked execs under the least-liked list.