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Paula Weinstein's husband and producing partner Mark Rosenberg, died of a heart attack in 1994. Paula's mother Hannah was a left-wing activist known as "Red Hannah." Paula's father, Pete Weinstein left when Paula was four years old. Her stepfather John Fisher died by suicide on November 22, 1963. (Gun, pg. 18) At Columbia in the 1960s, Weinstein was active in the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society. She became friends with obese activist Mark Rosenberg. "They'd slept together right after they met, but Weinstein found him too nice and available, and consequently didn't speak to him for another six months, until she relented and they became friends." (Gun, pg. 79) In 1973, Weinstein pursuaded Rosenberg to move to Hollywood. After her move to Los Angeles, Paula became active in left-wing causes like opposing the Vietnam War. Paula idolized Jane Fonda. (Gun, pg. 79) Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland visited Hannah to see how they could be movie stars and political activists at the same time. Paula went to work for Fonda's agent Mike Medavoy. When he left to become production chief at United Artists, Weinstein became Jane Fonda's ICM agent. Powerful Hollywood players began asking her out. Weinstein dated movie executives like David Field and Mark Canton. "She had a long, tempestuous affair with a married co-worker." (Gun, pg. 135) Her relationships were filled with power struggles and failure. "There was hellish competition amongst the women," Weinstein tells author Rachel Abramowitz. "Roz Heller and Marcia Nasatir and Nessa Hyams always argued about who was the first woman vice president, but one of the three of them was. We all tended to compete with each other, and to think of ourselves on this ladder for the one woman job at the studio." (Gun, pg. 131) Weinstein quit the Women of the Motion Picture League because it wasn't political enough. And one woman made the mistake of flashing her new engagement ring. (Gun, pg. 132) Writes Rachel Abramowitz: "Paula Weinstein was one of the new breed of Hollywood executives, nicknamed the baby moguls, baby boomers who had arrived in town with leftist credentials, informal, hippie manners, and a penchant for making fun of the stodgy ways of their elders. In the lexicon of young comers like Paramount's head of production, Don Simpson, or Universal's head of production, Thom Mount, the Polo Lounge had transmuted into the Polio Lounge. Cynics joked that the former student radicals had found the one business where they would never have to grow up. The next intoxicants were cocaine and work." (Gun, pg. 134) In 1983, Weinstein lost a lawsuit against Fox for wrongful termination. "She was great to some women, such as her protegee Lucy Fisher or her political comrade Roz Heller, and dismissive of others, namely those with whom she competed, or those who weren't useful to her." (Gun, pg. 136) Paula had a brutal fight with director Bob Rafelson on Brubaker. She vetod his choice of cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond, because she thought he was too much of a perfectionist. When Rafelson defended his choice by discussing Zsigmond's abilities with depth of field, Weinstein didn't know what the cinematic term meant. (Gun. pg 136) With Jane Fonda, Paula worked on the female revenge flick Nine to Five. A quote from Weinstein made the Bartleby book of Quotations: "Every day, in this mostly male world, you have to figure out, “Do I get this by charming somebody? By being strong? Or by totally allowing my aggression out?” You’ve got to risk failure. The minute you want to keep power—you’ve become subservient, somebody who does work you don’t believe in." (Ms magazine 12/77)
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