They Can Kill You..but They Can't Eat You: They Can Kill You..but They Can't Eat You [Paperback]

Dawn Steel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1994

A collage dropout from a family in tumoil - a woman with no money, no connections, nothing but guts and ambition - Dawn Steel rose through the ranks to become president of Columbia Pictues. This is her story - of Hollywood glamour, hit movies and star-studded pages but also of hard struggles, difficult decisions and tears shed behind office doors. Most of all, it's about what it means to achieve success, power and happiness as a woman.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Steel humorously chronicles her rise from a secretarial job to president of Columbia Pictures.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Hypnotically frank, though not for the ages, the memoirs of movie producer Steel; or, Horatio Alger Walks through Lions in Darkest Hollywood--and gets killed but not eaten. Steel has major hair and was the first female head of production at Paramount and then, at Columbia, the first female president of a movie company. She tells her story straight out, with no urge to write finely, peppering it with just enough kiss- and-tell to keep faith with the Shelley Winters School of Confession while modestly not striving to outdo the founder. No one will read this for its hot sex among the famed; it's about power- -who gives it, who takes it away. As Steel says, ``...it's not a good idea to sleep with people you work with. Trust me on this...You can only sleep your way to the middle. It's not worth it.'' Whatever heights she reaches, Steel finds that power is illusionary--although for one brief shining moment she has it all- -and that power-without-creativity and its endless rounds of board meetings and executive decisions drains her soul, while working hands-on making one picture at a time (rather than 27) is sheer joy. Steel first hits big as a marketing innovator at Penthouse, goes on to market her own designer toilet paper and cute soaps, and finally is wooed into marketing in Hollywood and gets handed the first Star Trek movie to tie into promotions with Howard Johnson's, Coke, etc., a job at which she goes over the top. Affairs bloom with Richard Gere and Martin Scorsese, among others, but she always entwines with unmarriageable men because of bad memories of her depressed dad. When she finally lands at the top, she finds herself beheaded by Paramount during delivery of her first baby at 40. A winner for sure, but less blindly battered and pain-ridden than Art Linson's arias in A Pound of Flesh (reviewed above). -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (August 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067173833X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671738334
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,379,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Trip to Hollywood!, March 10, 2005

By 

Glenda A Bixler "Glenda" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: They Can Kill You... But They Can't Eat You: Lessons from the Front (Hardcover)

They Can Kill You...But They Can't Eat You (Lessons From the Front) by Dawn Steel. Some might call this a book strictly for women...but it's not. Dawn Steel, former, first, and only woman who ever became president of Columbia Pictures, gives us a fast-paced peek into the world behind motion pictures, sharing so many names of stars, producers, directors, writers, who was and is the "in crowd," that you can't possibly grasp the magnitude of what it takes to have those new movies appear before us each week.

The book, according to the inside cover, was written "For every woman (or man) who knows there's a great person in there dying to escape, but lacks the confidence or tools to truly express oneself...for every woman trying to get out of the typing pool...for every woman who wants to be valued for cherishing her role as a mother...for corporate vice-presidents who are as sick as Dawn Steel was of wanting to be one of the boys...for every woman who, just as she conquers the next step, wonders, "so what do I do now?" Dawn Steel offers hard-won insights to help accelerate the trip, eliminate some of the angst and pain, and create a spirit of optimism and hope."

Dawn Steel's book is fun--it makes you cry, it makes you angry, it makes you cheer when she succeeds. It makes you sad when one more job is lost, but over it all, it makes you realize your own potential. You realize that others have had those wild entrepreneurial schemes, and that they have gone out and did them! Dawn sold amaryllis as "penis plants" and created the advertisement headline to "Grow Your Own Penis. All it takes is $6.98 and a lot of love." Now, when you read about someone who comes up with such ideas, you just got to love her...right?

Dawn's life is anything but normal and traditional. Her book opens as she overhears in the "second-floor ladies' room in the Administration Building at Paramount" that "She's dead." While her first reaction is to paraphrase Mark Train, "The reports of my death had been greatly exaggerated," she shares that it actually "took another six months for them to kill" her.

From Paramount to Penthouse, to Columbia, to selling her own ideas, Dawn tells all of us that we can survive anything--being fired, having someone come in over or under us in the corporate ladder and sabotage us, being chased out because of being pregnant, or being referred to as "The Queen of Mean" in newspapers.

The life of Dawn Steel started in 1946 and as her story is told, Dawn highlights for the reader what was happening at that time. These little references takes us back through our own lives and we live her life along with her as songs like "Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah" that year, on through to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" in 1987, play through our minds. She helps us recall how the last thirty or so of our lives have gone, and you find you quietly do a comparison of where you could be if you had dared to "risk."

Underlying the story line of her life, the glamour of working at major motion pictures and for "men's magazines," Dawn inserts, casually, but effectively, all the lessons learned in these fascinating arenas. So in the midst of learning about the problems of making the movies, Fatal Attraction or Flashdance, or while negotiating or going to events with Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, et. Al., Dawn drops in her sage advice, like:

Sometimes you have to accept that there are bosses and colleagues whom you can never turn around. Instead of going home frustrated and torturing yourself and the people around you, move on and find another way. There are people with whom you pass a point of no return and you should give up on them...

You can't let your competition sway you. On of the most important things I learned is that you must be willing not to get it. You must be willing to let go. Then it will come back to you...or

Set your boundaries ahead of time. Set your appetite ahead of time. Then be ready to let go...I learned my job by doing and watching...

As these little nuggets sink in, you realize that this book is about power, personal power. But after all she accomplished, Dawn Steel closes the book with an image..."I had this image of my mother. She was going off to work, dressed in one of her suits. She had to go to work. She had to take care of her family. She didn't have a job with a fancy title, or a plush office, or her own parking space. The guard didn't know her; in fact, there probably wasn't even a guard where she worked. She didn't have a hundred calls a day to define her status. She wasn't looking for anyone to rescue her. She wasn't looking for power. My mother did what had to be done because the power was already in her." And Dawn shares her own realization that she, too, didn't want to look for power anymore...that it had been there, inside her, all along.

This book makes you feel good. It's definitely written for those in the business world, but is written from such a personal slant, where even how potty training for your daughter is handled during the work day, that you don't realize until you've completed the book how it has elevated your spirits and challenged you to look at your life and use that power that is there within us.

Take a trip to Hollywood with Ms. Steel--you'll have a wonderful time!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are a woman in the "business" you should read it., June 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: They Can Kill You..but They Can't Eat You: They Can Kill You..but They Can't Eat You (Paperback)

I greatly enjoyed Dawn Steel's book, "They Can Kill You, But They Can't Eat You." It's comforting to know that others have been before you knocking down walls. It was a great read. She gives great advice. I highly recommend it for anyone who is in the "business" who dares to do the impossible.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dawn Steel died in 1997, July 23, 2005

By 

New York skyline - See all my reviews

This review is from: They Can Kill You... But They Can't Eat You: Lessons from the Front (Hardcover)

Dawn Steel, Hollywood's first female movie mogul, died in Cedars-Mount Sinai Hospital on December 20, 1997,of a brain tumor after a long battle with cancer. She was 51. Steel was named president of Columbia in 1987, leaving two years later when Sony took over. Commenting on Steel's death in the New York Times, writer-director Nora Ephron said, "Dawn certainly wasn't the first woman to become powerful in Hollywood, but she was the first woman to understand that part of her responsibility was to make sure that eventually there were lots of other powerful women. ... The situation we have today, with a huge number of women in powerful positions, is largely because of Dawn Steel."