In today’s New York Observer, “You’ve Got Chutzpah!”: the tale of an AOL customer-service rep who reportedly mined AOL’s database for e-mail addies of celebrities, then used the pilfered data to chase fame and fortune in Hollywood. The tale is lifted from the recently-released book Hollywood, Interrupted by Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner .
[Heather] Robinson admittedly used the information to contact, befriend and, in some cases, achieve a creepy intimacy with these famous and influential targets. And now she’s working to parlay that proximity into her second movie deal of the past year. It’s a picture based on Ms. Robinson’s experiences. She’s calling it E-Girl.
“It’s going to be more a take on how these celebrities and politicians helped me. Mark [Ebner]’s chapter was more of a darker version,” said the 25-year-old Ms. Robinson with a staccato laugh. “This one is going to be more lighthearted,” she added, “showing how I went from a customer-service rep at AOL to selling a screenplay and now producing my first screenplay.”
According to Ms. Robinson, for the period of roughly a year and a half in 1997 and 1998, she used her position at AOL to gain access to private information regarding celebrities, then sought them out. Ms. Robinson said she approached her famous subjects as if she didn’t know who they were, then baited them with information she had gathered on them. “At first, I didn’t have a reason–I just was doing it to talk to them.”
Link to “You’ve Got Chutzpah!”; Link to a townhall.com column also lifted from Hollywood, Interrupted, this one on Scientology and the IRS — “L. Ron Hubbard has better lobbyists than God.”