It wasn’t until yesterday that we finally realized that some of the recent discontent we’ve been experiencing was a direct result of not having had enough of Vulture hero Ben Silverman in our diets. Ever since he quietly exited the hallowed halls of NBC sometime in September to our knowledge, there wasn’t even a low-key goodbye gathering held for him in some random conference room, let alone a monster bash filled with white tigers and Fisher Stevens harmonica solos that would befit his unforgettable legacy at the Peacock Network there has been a noticeable void in both our hearts and our minds. However, in the roughly 24 hours or so since a triumphant Ben Silverman re-emerged on the scene with his new company Electus, we’ve felt a little bit like Joan Allen after she met Jeff Daniels in Pleasantville. In other words, it’s like someone returned the color to our black-and-white world! Hot on the heels of news that his new company is flush with $125 million of Barry Diller’s greenbacks comes the discovery that he gave a wide-ranging interview to Worth magazine, one in which he discusses the infamous white-tiger bash, how Hulk Hogan caused him to quit his first job, and what he really thinks of Vulture buddy Nikki Finke.
Reading the interview, we were genuinely thrilled to discover a treasure trove of Silverman-related trivia we never knew existed. For example, did you know that:
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• He packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles after “volunteering to drive a rich girl’s Jetta cross-country.” (!)
• His first job involved working at a production company where he would attend “meetings where Robert Altman would come in and be smoking a joint and pitching us a show — something extraordinary, like Short Cuts meets The Player. And everyone would be like, ‘We can never do that.’ I’m like, ‘Why?’” He ultimately quit this job simply because that company decided to greenlight the syndicated Hulk Hogan smash, Thunder in Paradise. (!!)
• At his next job, he was promoted three times on his first day on the job. (!!!)
• Regarding the infamous white-tiger party, he had this to say: “Someone else threw the party for me. I didn’t know that there was going to be a tiger there. Once I was there, I went with it.” (!!!!) Why, of course he did! Wouldn’t you?
And honestly, it goes on and on like that. It makes us wish that some enterprising writer would up and quit their job to pen the definitive Ben Silverman biography or, perhaps, to help him ghostwrite a memoir. But as great as these details are, the thing that the article makes us realize is that there is one thing that will always keep us infatuated with him: his brass balls.
As we recently learned in the New Yorker profile on Nikki Finke, nearly everyone in Hollywood is scared shitless of her. Not Ben Silverman, though! When asked about the abuse he took on the pages of Deadline Hollywood Daily, he calmly replied, “You’re either in the business, moving the business, or you’re sitting at home with your left-over food bitching about the business. I’m like, ‘Who cares’?” Leftover food cracks? Wow, talk about brass balls. Marry us, Ben!
THE BEN SILVERMAN SHOW [Worth via Deadline.com]
