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The following is an excerpt fromSex and the City and Usby Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, out this week.
He had never met anyone more fun.
She personified all the cliches: A force of nature, he says.
She opened a lot of doors.
She took him to clubs, and of course to Bowery Bar.
Stara handsome gay man with brown, spiky hairconnected with Bushnell as a fellow suburban kid made good.
He used his bar mitzvah money to get himself a subscription to the show business trade publicationVariety.
While other kids partied or played sports, he made his own movies with his Super 8 camera.
Degree in hand, he took the classic first step toward a Hollywood career: He became a waiter.
He soon, however, got his first industry job.
It made little critical or commercial impact, but it helped launch Stars career.
He could now quit his job to write screenplays full-time.
Stupin asked if Star would write a high school show, given his teen-oriented script experience.
So at age twenty-eight, he moved right back to Los Angeles to make a show with Spelling.
The gamble paid off.
With the money Star made on the pilot, he paid cash for a Porsche.
Teenagers home from school for the season fell for it by the millions in July 1991.
But by now Star had little time to notice.
But Star wasnt content to stop there.
Fox once again followed its supersized90210strategy and ordered thirty-two episodes ofMelroseeach of its first three years.
In short, Star spent the early 1990s becoming rich and successful, and working too hard to notice.
Hed look back on it later in life and wonder how he did it.
He and his golden retriever, Judy Jetson, settled into a three-floor apartment owned by model-turned-restaurateur Eric Petterson.
He went to charity benefits and book parties for further research.
After meeting Candace Bushnell for that 1995 article, he had more material than he ever dreamed possible.
He loved to read about them in Bushnells new column.
He admired how she mixed journalism and her own personal stories.
He told Bushnell that he wanted to be the one to option the column.
He thought it might make a great follow-up project toCentral Park Westsomeday.
This seemed like the answer to Bushnells quandary as well.
She couldnt decide whom to give it toABC, HBO, or a movie company.
A broadcast connection like ABC seemed so sanitary.
HBO seemed so niche and male-centric, with its signature boxing matches and standup comedy specials.
She had no idea what a movie company might do with her work.
But Star was her buddy.
Star had witnessed the columns happenings and met the people featured in it.
With Star involved, shed be able to follow how the project was proceeding.
Reports put the price at a mere $60,000; shell only say it was a little bit more.
I wasnt in a position [to negotiate much], she says.
He described her as irreverent, vulgar, funny …a 90s Dorothy Parker.
He later told the New YorkTimes, Only 500 people in New York know or care about that world.
I needed to make it more accessible.
But that was for later.
For now, he took pride in the work he was doing for CBS onCentral Park West.
He had long wanted to make a glamorous show set in New York City.
At the time, TVs main vision of New York came via the grit ofLaw & Order.
Shifts in public life foretold the citys future: A smoking ban in restaurants.
An Old Navy discount chain store in the hip gay haven of Chelsea.
Neighborhoods were transforming faster than many residents could stand.
The Meatpacking District was shaking off its slaughterhouse past to become a nightlife hot spot as well.
Many longtime New Yorkers rolled their eyes at these developmentssigns, they said, that New York wasover.
They watched as a sultry Latin beat and crooning saxophones played over the opening credits.
Like all of Stars work, it was fun and glamorous.
But, she says, it missed the New Yorkiness.
Perhaps this, instead, could be his ticket to a respectable solo career.
He liked the idea of returning to film.
Forces began to align towardSex and the Citys Hollywood moment with Stars entry into the equation.
But momentum pushed him back in the television direction.
Plus, Stars name had more pull in the world of TV.
Star wondered if a show could even be calledSex and the Cityon a major broadcast connection like ABC.
He didnt want anotherCentral Park Westexperience.
Star loved his place in Manhattan and didnt want to give it up.
He also admired the one show he knew from HBO,The Larry Sanders Show.
But she understood HBOs advantage when it came to unfiltered content.
In the end, Star gave it to HBO.
In fact, he specificallydid not wantcommercial success.
He wanted to make something special that he could be proud of.
Tarses had lost, and she understood why.
They couldnt, if they wanted to survive.
Their business model had to prioritize commerce over art.
