I went from being a big TV star on the lot, with my own parking space, my own table in the commissary, to a complete nobody! When I went to get my stuff, they wouldn't let me on the lot.
We live in an age of experts, and if you are a TV star... it is difficult, if not impossible, to gain respect as a writer of the kind of books I've written or the kind of film I wrote and directed.
The trouble with most stage plays nowadays is they are written by people who grew up not reading or seeing the great theatrical literature of the day, but watching network TV. And so they are more like TV sitcoms than stage plays.
There isn't a place on Earth with the amount of beautiful ladies as LA. When you're young and starring in a successful TV show and playing the ladies' man-well, it's a good thing the show was cancelled, or I would have been old before my time!