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You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again Paperback – February 14, 2017

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 211 ratings

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“The Hollywood memoir that tells all . . . Sex. Drugs. Greed. Why, it sounds just like a movie.”—The New York Times
 
Every memoir claims to bare it all, but Julia Phillips’s actually does. This is an addictive, gloves-off exposé from the producer of the classic films 
The Sting, Taxi Driver, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture—who made her name in Hollywood during the halcyon seventies and the yuppie-infested eighties and lived to tell the tale. Wickedly funny and surprisingly moving, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again takes you on a trip through the dream-manufacturing capital of the world and into the vortex of drug addiction and rehab on the arm of one who saw it all, did it all, and took her leave.

Praise for You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

“One of the most honest books ever written about one of the most dishonest towns ever created.”
The Boston Globe
 
“Gossip too hot for even the 
National Enquirer . . . Julia Phillips is not so much Hollywood’s Boswell as its Dante.”Los Angeles Magazine
 
“A blistering look at La La Land.”
—USA Today

“One of the nastiest, tastiest tell-alls in showbiz history.”
—People
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“One of the most honest books ever written about one of the most dishonest towns ever created.”The Boston Globe

“Gossip too hot for even the 
National Enquirer . . . Julia Phillips is not so much Hollywood’s Boswell as its Dante.”Los Angeles Magazine

“A blistering look at La La Land.”
—USA Today

“One of the nastiest, tastiest tell-alls in showbiz history.”
—People

“The Hollywood memoir that tells all . . . Sex. Drugs. Greed. Why, it sounds just like a movie.”The New York Times

About the Author

Julia Phillips was the Oscar-winning producer for Taxi DriverClose Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Sting.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (February 14, 2017)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 688 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0399590900
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0399590900
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.24 x 1.5 x 7.95 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 211 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
211 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book's stories engaging and compelling. They describe it as a great read for anyone interested in an insider's look at the era. Readers praise the honesty and value for money. However, some feel the pacing is depressing and the author's writing style is engaging, while others find it hard to follow.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

7 customers mention "Suspenseful story"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the story compelling and honest. They describe it as a fascinating, funny, tragic tale with cliffhangers. The book is described as an amazing adventure with flashbacks, ideas, strategies, and a sad ending.

"...This book was like a kaleidoscope of thoughts, flashbacks, ideas, strategies, and cliffhangers...." Read more

"...Phillips spares herself nothing in telling her amazing and painful story, leaving nothing out and letting the chips fall where they may...." Read more

"Look, this is a hilarious, honest, ultimately sad tale of ambition and frantic energy rewarded creatively and commercially...." Read more

"...Her stories are rich and penetrating...." Read more

6 customers mention "Readability"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They say it's a must-read for film buffs or business people interested in an insider look at the era.

"...This book is a rather bitter cautionary tale, but a rip-snortingly good read...." Read more

"...Her stories are rich and penetrating. A great read for anyone interested in an insiders look on the era when young directors were given the keys to..." Read more

"...Except, the other side of the lake. All in all, not a bad book. Just if you hope to find out anything new about the industry, get a different book...." Read more

"An amazing adventure. I love this book!!!!" Read more

5 customers mention "Honesty"5 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the author's honesty. They find the autobiography honest, funny, and tragic.

"This book is brutally honest and compelling, truly un-put-down-able...." Read more

"Look, this is a hilarious, honest, ultimately sad tale of ambition and frantic energy rewarded creatively and commercially...." Read more

"...she certainly wrote a fascinating, funny, tragic, and ultimately honest autobiography. Highly recommended." Read more

"...as talented or as important as she thinks she is, her honesty makes the book worth enduring...." Read more

3 customers mention "Value for money"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book offers good value for money. They say it's worth reading, even as a cautionary tale.

"...Very much worth the read, even only as a cautionary tale." Read more

"Lot's to read but worth it." Read more

"A+++ -- Fast, at a good price and exactly as described..." Read more

14 customers mention "Writing style"6 positive8 negative

Customers have different views on the writing style. Some find it engaging and quick to read, praising it as one of the greatest literary acts ever published. Others find the writing style hard to follow, annoying, and incoherent. The book can become tedious after a while, with the author switching between third-person and first-person narration.

"...After a while, the book gets quite tedious, as the author describes yet another spat, another drug scene, another morose mood...." Read more

"...But nice? No way. This book is one of the greatest acts of literary self-immolation ever published...." Read more

"I found the read annoying, as she slips from 3rd person to 1st person. It seems to me that should have been caught by the editor...." Read more

"...She is also a great writer and has an eye for detailed memory of her experiences as the co-producer of Taxi Driver, The Sting, and Close Encounters..." Read more

4 customers mention "Pacing"0 positive4 negative

Customers find the pacing of the book slow. They describe it as a depressing tale from a woman who did her best work while married to a man she disliked. The story is described as a bitter cautionary tale and an ultimately tragic self-portrait.

"...This book is a rather bitter cautionary tale, but a rip-snortingly good read...." Read more

"...What a profoundly bitter person. All in all, a self-destructive person who has contempt for all life...." Read more

"Depressing tale from a woman who did her best work while she was married to a man she would later divorce because she was no longer in love with him..." Read more

"A savage, bitter, ultimately tragic self-portrait...." Read more

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4 out of 5 stars
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i haven’t read the book yet but there was some stuff on the top. i already took most of it off but i decided to take a picture. but other than that it’s in okay condition
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2017
    Ah, Julia. I was sorry to get to the end of this book and my journey with you through this amazing record of your path through Hollywood as a smart, ambitious woman in the 70's. There are many key players who fell several notches in my esteem and several who behaved exactly as I would have expected. It was great to see the younger generation embrace you as you started writing; hope some of them made it to power positions to change things, but after the emailhacking scandal of a few years ago,I am not so sure. This book was like a kaleidoscope of thoughts, flashbacks, ideas, strategies, and cliffhangers. I loved it and ended up loving Julia, who is told repeatedly in the book nthat she is hard to love. Would anyone ever even think to say that to a man in business? Arghh, the chutzpah! So glad she wrote a sequel!
    19 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2013
    This book is brutally honest and compelling, truly un-put-down-able. The drugs are more evilly destructive, the sex-and-feuds-and-chaos more amazingly tempestuous, the rise and fall more precipitous. If you ever thought something is perhaps not quite right with Hollywood, these two books will forever confirm your suspicions. Phillips spares herself nothing in telling her amazing and painful story, leaving nothing out and letting the chips fall where they may. Along the way, she produced such great films as "The Sting", "Taxi Driver" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". She won the Oscar for "The Sting" at the age of 29, can you imagine? This book is a rather bitter cautionary tale, but a rip-snortingly good read. Enjoy it without guilt, perhaps even with a bag of potato chips at the beach. Or even popcorn.
    8 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2024
    They took out about 500 famous names from the original book. I have no idea if the author had anything to do with this change, as she is deceased. The revised book is cute, but nothing like the original.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2013
    Look, this is a hilarious, honest, ultimately sad tale of ambition and frantic energy rewarded creatively and commercially. Julia P. produced, THE STING, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, TAXI DRIVER and generally raised hell and money in Hollywood.

    She was a good looking woman with a good education, a marriage and a kid. Plus a house in Malibu which is all enough for most people. But the combination of the drugs, up to and including crack and the possibly even stronger drug of a voracious hunger for recognition and wealth plus the slippery trail of a business that is a capricious meritocracy at best, a bad odds gambling table at worst, brought Julia P. down to a sorry level of dependency and chaos.

    But she recounts her adventures with verve and self knowing and a crackling spirit and it , the book , is an entertainment in itself.
    16 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2002
    In her Oscar acceptance speech for Best Picture, Julia Phillips described herself as a "nice Jewish girl from Great Neck." Well, she got 2/3 of it right. But nice? No way.
    This book is one of the greatest acts of literary self-immolation ever published. It's hard not to feel sorry for Phillips at first, suffering as she does from a toxic mother, a workaholic father, insomnia and a Talmudic intellect.
    But you get over that feeling in a hurry, as Phillips bullies, maneuvers, sleeps and stomps her way to the top, winning an Oscar for The Sting at the unheard-of age of 29. Her motto: overcompensate; overachieve. If you can't be best, be first.
    As she notes, no young person is ever ready for massive success, and her career crashed just as quickly. After being more or less fired from Close Encounters by Steven Speilberg, her life became a broken record of drug abuse, failed relationships, financial problems and closed doors gleefully slammed by those she used and abused on the way up. Through it all she makes it all seem like a big game, but the human wreckage strewn across the landscape will give the reader pause.
    It's hard to know whether Phillips' broadsides at anyone and everyone with whom she had contact are simply through spite, or whether we'd all be better off if Hollywood simply disappeared in the next big quake. Phillips claims that she's just being honest, but snide remarks about a crewmember's physical deformity make her seem only nasty.
    Hate it as she did, Phillips revelled in the politics, the backstabbing, the lies and shallowness, the feeling of power that came with the title of Producer. She learned fast ("Always negotiate the height and WIDTH of your [on-screen] credit," she advises, after her on-screen credit for The Sting is "willow thin.") Her films (Taxi Driver, The Sting, Close Encounters, among others) were good, though one gets the sense it was in spite of her take-no-prisioners approach.
    One wishes at the end that Phillips would "get it," but instead she reaps what she sews. There was to be no Hollywood redemption for her. Phillips' death this january was untimely, but no human being could possibly survive for long carrying around so much bile. Very much worth the read, even only as a cautionary tale.
    91 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2023
    I know this was an old timey book but was interested in it as I was curious about her adventures in Hllyd. This was one of the weirdest books I have ever read -- I slogged thru many pages -- trying to get a sense of what it was all about and also curious about her comments about the famous people she knew.
    What I got is a very intelligent woman who probably overestimated her value as a Producer of some good films. She, however, was a very shallow lady who was focused on what expensive label clothes she would wear, how thin she was or how fat?, her very negative comments about everyone she met (under the guise of humour), and how she was so important that the trendy restaurants (in the day) always kept a table available to her. This was more important to her than anything else.
    Her descriptions of the drug use she and apparently most of Hollywood folks imbibed in was an eye-opener to me -- not sure now -----but??? Also so much of her back and forth was totally confusing to me -- I just moved on and didn't read of some of this stuff -- waaaay too boring. A very sad end for a woman who actually had a good brain but was too messed up to make a good life for herself!!
    4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Quick delivery.
    Reviewed in Canada on September 1, 2022
    For my reading entertainment.
  • crimeworm
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great stuff
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2013
    The stuff of legend, all the gossip you've been dying to hear about Hollywood in the 70s. Coke, sex, adultery....
  • Patricia Wilson
    4.0 out of 5 stars 2nd purchase of this book
    Reviewed in Canada on August 20, 2013
    I had this book before and lent it out and wanted to re-read it. The writing style is a little jumpy, like she jumps from her childhood to present day (at the time) but she does talk about the Hollywood mystique. It must have rattled some people when it was originally published. It is interesting for anyone who wants to get the vibe of the stars.
  • Kikinthenakas
    4.0 out of 5 stars Hedonistic
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2014
    Julia Philips drives herself through this biography fuelled by drugs, ambition and more than a little savvy and street smarts. The excesses of the era are captured as is the razor tongue comment on her contempories, actors, directors, drug dealers and movers and shakers. A woman who is ballsy but won't be everyone's cup of tea, her story is well worth a read, the first woman producer to win an oscar in a male dominated, sexist environment of back stabbers, wannabes, losers and winners, it is a great read and worth a movie in itself.
  • Shirley tait
    3.0 out of 5 stars Book not as juicy as it could have been
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 15, 2018
    Thought this book would be juicy , but it's not ,there are some interesting tales though that shocked about some famous people , but on the whole more about the author who I hadn't heard of and written in a way that's heavy and hard to read