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Ross Johnson

Links to work samples (prior to Aug., 2005)

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links to work (prior to Aug., 2005)
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National Newspapers  
Fully Loaded With What?
(New York Times, July 6, 2005)
Selling the Big Ape

(New York Times, 9/11/2005)
Lawsuit of the Rings
(New York Times, 6/27/2005)
Funny is Money with Blue Collar
(New York Times, 6/13/05)
What Hollywood Needs: A Few Good Jesuits
(New York Times, 5/22/2005)
The Movie Midas
(New York Times, 3/7/05)
Hollywood's Best-Kept Secret
(New York Times, 1/31/2005)
Actors Fight For a Piece of the DVD Pie
(New York Times, 12/13/2004)
Scott Greenstein Bets on Stern to Save Sirius
(New York Times, 10/11/2004)
Hollywood Nepotism? Tell It To the Judge
(New York Times, 10/15/2004)
High Noon in Hollywood as Lawyers Deal for Clients
(New York Times, 10/6/2004)

National Magazines
Kirsten Dunst (jpeg of cover)
(Esquire, 6/1/2002)
Sometimes writing about a cover subject is as easy as going bowling in Hollywood with Kirsten Dunst. Smart girl. Quite pretty. Good bowler.
What I've Learned: James Caan
(Esquire magazine, 9/1/2003)
I've done a number of these interviews for Esquire over the years. Here, Jimmy Caan talks about what's really important in life: Little League!

What I've Learned: Suge Knight
(Esquire magazine, 5/1/2002)
I interviewed Knight a day after he got out of prison in 2001 (after his first stretch). The former rap mogul talked about the secrets of solitary confinement, the women who walk around Mule Creek State Prison, and why his father never left the family.
What I've Learned: Haley Joel Osment
(Esquire magazine, 3/1/2000)
Andy Ward, then a junior editor at Esquire (he's now at GQ), came up with the brilliant idea of interviewing the juvie star of "Sixth Sense" for the What I've Learned section. Here's Haley on agents, auditions, babes who chase movie stars, and never having seen dead people.

Profiles  
Tequila Sunset
(Los Angeles magazine, 10/1/2000)
A man-bites-celeb tale about a wild Malibu hippie and his paparazzo son who lived down the street from Barbra Streisand in Malibu. The story is set on Point Dume, one of the most isolated stretches of Southern California wealth where all is not well with Bob Dylan, Nick Nolte, and Marty Sheen.
The Enforcer
(Los Angeles magazine, 9/1/2000)
Allie Mayorkas, then the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, was all set to run for the U.S. Senate when this came out. But when he tried to help a dope dealer get a pardon, it was all over.
Raging Bulls
(Los Angeles magazine, 6/1/2000)
One of the most requested service pieces ever published in L.A. magazine, and it was all about the meanest lawyers in town! The star of the piece, and making his debut performance, was press lawyer Marty "Mad Dog" Singer, who waxes with fond memories of terrorizing dirt diggers like John Connolly.
John Ridley
(USA Today, 5/14/2002)
This is a piece I did on screenwriter/director/novelist John Ridley before the debut of "Undercover Brother." John is a complex man who uses his anger at the system to make a lot of money off it. I've interviewed him three times, and he tells nothing but the truth.

Shmoozer Take All (jpeg of cover)
(Premiere, 5/1/2001)
For the past three years, I've written about Elie Samaha, the film financier who was recently found liable for $106 million in damages for defrauding his German partner. But give Elie this: He's an honest thief. Here's the first story I did on him.

Robert Redford (jpeg cover)
(Buzz, 1/1/1996)
My first ever national magazine profile. It took me seven months of phone calls. Then I had to write how Bob getting a baseball scholarship to the U. of Colorado was utter b.s. He never even made his high school team. Bob still bought me a drink at Sundance, and we blamed it all on a publicist.

Enterprise  
Twenty Questions: Miramax
(New York magazine, 12/8/1999)
On the 20th anniversary of the the founding of Miramax Films, I looked up British author Angus Finney, who had signed a deal to write an unauthorized bio of Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Then Angus got an offer from Harvey that he couldn't refuse.

Grumpy Old Producers (jpeg of cover)
(Buzz, 5/1/1996)
"You'll never work in this town again," said Sumner Redstone. I believed him. Sumner had his then-girlfriend stashed on Bob Evans' payroll, and I had just started my profile of Evans with this quote: "Francis Coppola? That cocksucer!" Evans, to his credit, backed me.


Investigative  

Andy and Elie Go to the Movies

(Los Angeles Daily Journal, 5/1/2001)
This is an incredible story filled with death threats, shady lawyers, and bizarre interrogation scenes. Andrew Stevens, then the partner of Elie Samaha in Franchise Pictures, got the idea of going to Munich to try to settle the mess caused by Elie stealing from his German partner. Achtung, baby!