Book review – “High Concept”

Don Simpson was the most legendary of the 80s and 90s producers, partly because he had a high profile while alive, mostly now because he’s dead. (And Robert Evans is still alive – freaky.) This is a decent enough bio, which concentrates perhaps understandably on the cocaine and hookers. It is footnoted, which make a nice change but you can’t help wish there was a bit more analysis on Simpson’s skills as producer – people talk about it a lot but we don’t see a lot of it except for Officer and a Gentleman and The Rock. More memos or case studies I think would have been useful. And putting Simpson in the context of people like Charlie Sheen and Christian Slater – that seems a bit wrong, most people in Hollywood work very hard and are kind of dull.