Entertainment

June 25, 2007

‘Starter’ a Hollywood insider education

LYNN ELBER AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES — Gigi Levangie Grazer is a Hollywood insider who writes clever, sharply observed novels about the promised land of big money and bigger egos.

So what glamorous indulgence is this member of the industry elite, married to hotshot producer Brian Grazer, interrupting for an interview about the TV adaptation of her book “The Starter Wife” that’s airing this week?

Turns out Grazer is on her cell phone and in her car, parked down the street from a home where one of her two sons, the 7-year-old, is enjoying a play date.

“I’m like skulking around, making sure he’s OK. It’s ridiculous,” she says, with a laugh. “This is the most well-adjusted kid .... Obviously, the mother’s not so well-adjusted.”

A relentless satirist, Grazer doesn’t cut anyone — herself included — any slack. And she delights in brushing shoulders with the grasping, self-absorbed types who are part of the entertainment capital and her work.

“Hey, I don’t mind those people because I get to write about them. Bring on the bad behavior!” Grazer said.

Her printed candor hasn’t led to tense confrontations, she said; quite the opposite.

“I actually had more people coming up to me, especially after this book, because they saw people that they knew in it.” Grazer said. “And I’d think, ‘But you’re on page 32.’”

“The Starter Wife,” her 2005 best-seller, is the basis of a six-part miniseries debuting tonight at 9 on USA Network. It runs through June 30.

Debra Messing (“Will & Grace”) stars as a studio boss’ wife who is abruptly edited out for a younger woman and, in turn, is shunned by her social circle. Lose your status, lose your life, Molly Kagan learns — and maybe find yourself.

The series, directed by Jon Avnet, also stars Joe Mantegna, Miranda Otto and Anika Noni Rose. Stephen Moyer plays a free-spirited beachcomber who rescues Molly from the ocean and who could be her romantic savior.

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