They Can Kll You but They Can't Eat You...And Other Lessons from the Front

by Dawn Steel

They can kill you but they can't eat you is the raw and personal story of one woman's American dream - of her dazzling, difficult, inspiring fight to the very top of the male ladder of success. A college dropout from a family in turmoil - a woman with no money, no connections, nothing but guts and ambition - Dawn Steel rose through the ranks to become president of Columbia Pictures in 1987, the first woman to run a major motion picture studio. This is a story of Hollywood glamour...of hit movies, starstudded parties, and celebrity friends...but it is also a story of tears shed behind a closed office door. It's about being labeled "tough, ballsy, aggressive, unfeminine," often by people who'd never met her; about deciding whether she should have a family; about learning how to be tough, not hard. Most of all, it's about what it means to achieve success, power, and happiness as a woman. After dropping out of college, Dawn Steel moved to New York City with little more than a willingness to improvise and be creative in order to succeed. She landed a job as a receptionist at a small company, went to work for Penthouse, got into a little trouble as an entrepreneur marketing Gucci toilet paper, and eventually soared to phenomenal success, moving from the president of production at Paramount Pictures to the presidency of Columbia Pictures in 1987. The hit movies she worked on include Flashdance, Awakenings, Top Gun, The Untouchables, The Accused, Flatliners, Ghostbusters II, Fatal Attraction, and the restored Lawrence of Arabia. In this riveting insider's view of Hollywood power, politics, and stars, Dawn Steel recounts her time at Paramount as one of the "Killer Dillers," the legendary few marked by brilliance, youth and ambition, who went on to run Hollywood. She absorbed strategies and knowhow from the powerful: Michael Eisner, Barry Diller, Mike Ovitz, Ray Stark, Herbert Allen, Victor Kaufman, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Her network of friends and business relationship

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Film

2 pages, Audio Cassette

First published October 1, 1993

Reviews

[Alexandra.Dudley_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

ok this might have been the pick me up I needed to keep going in the working world

[Lilian · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, this autobiography of Dawn Steel doubles as an inspirational book. I am really floored at all the opportunities she had, the obstacles she went through and yet she persevered. I wish I had read this book when she was still around, I would have definitely written her a fan letter.
(Plus she's a Leo.)

[J.H. Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating and entertaining autobiography. From her beginnings working in merchandising for Penthouse magazine, and her entrepreneur days selling novelty toilet paper (seriously), to her jump to the film industry working as a script reader for Paramount, and then working her way up to becoming the first female president of a major film studio, Dawn Steel was definitely a trailblazer. It is unfortunate that she passed away at the age of 51 because I’m sure she would have done more great things. This book was published in 1993 and some things do feel a bit dated – she downplays the sexism in the film industry by suggesting that women just need to learn to work “like men” and she periodically throws out cheesy inspirational aphorisms on how to succeed in business, most of which felt cliché and a bit try-hard to me (the title is a good example of this). But overall, this was a really fun read.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated the grit and resilience of the author that come through clearly. No wonder she empathized so strongly with Rocky - she wants to be powerful, she gets knocked down and gets back up. And she helps lift up others. It does feel a bit like a missive from another time, but I think reading it in the 1990's would have had some pretty sensational advice. Still, a fun read. As a book it's probably 3 star reading but I give Dawn herself 5 stars, so we'll average it out.

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dawn Steel had an absolutely ferocious reputation in Hollywood,reflected in what was written about her.She was one of the first female studio heads and she quite rightly sees herself as a trailblazer.However as the book gets towards the later stages there is too much name dropping and to much about the birth and early years of her daughter.

[Nina Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weirdly great. A memoir by one of the first female Hollywood moguls. Trashy, but also an amazing portrait of a woman fighting to be heard and respected.

I was sad to discover she died just a few years after writing this.

[RK Downs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this in the 90's, when I was living and working in LA, and it was genuinely inspirational. It is the one and only book I have ever saved random quotes from - tons of them, because she had so much to say to women everywhere, and she said it so well.

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest and fascinating look inside the studios in the 1980s etc. Dawn Steel wears her heart on her sleeve in the book, but don't forget what Jeffrey Katzenberg said: ''Maybe under the facade she was scared and intimidated by it all, but I didn't see a scintilla of that.''

[Christine Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got me through the hardest job of my life. The only woman producing professional wrestling. This was my bible

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A light, breezy look at Dawn's Hollywood experience. Thankfully short on early bio stuff, but then nothing goes too deep in this book.

[Marcel · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** 1/2 throwback to the eighties 😀

[Nick Melloan-ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iconic 90s tome

[Maggie]

No man, sane or sober, every gave power to a woman..... DAWN STEEL

[A Cesspool · Rating 1 out of 5]

Principle takeaway: Ab·so·lute drivel.

genuinely feel sorry for those who only read Dawn Steel’s abridged (audiobook) autobio.
Lisa Schwarzbaum’s mean spirted, 1993 EW book review is essentially spot on (albeit for this audiobook edition, specifically); Since those fugazi-motivational tropes, that annoyed Schwarzbaum most, are brought to the foreground here; resulting in its central thesis.

Publishers, Editors, content creators carefully choose which passages gets jettisoned (and which gets reassembled) when producing abridged editions. What’s plainly apparent here: the weakest, least-personal (i.e. heavily-ghostwritten; via Marcelle Clements) facets of They Can Kill You…: the agonizing, boilerplate self-help anecdotals, and worse, climbing-the-corporate-ladder (in a non-feme industry) observational banalities (e.g. 'Lessons from the Front') -- are given preferential treatment, while the few behind-the-scenes & making-of (feature film) trivia, anecdotals, insights [and sparse gaslighting] featured in her unabridged auto-bio, is cut out completely.
This audiobook edition is ultimately one-part backstory (pre-showbiz), and the rest: Triumphant Self-help ...which is pretty outrageous if you consider its source; The author notoriously lived and breathed industry gossip (literally until her last days, according to Rachel Abramowitz's essential Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?: Women's Experience of Power in Hollywood).
Infortunate.
Dawn Steel had the ammunition and aptitude to produce one of 1980's Hollywood most memorable tell-alls.

Everyone Needs an Editor

[Christine Boris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this on my shelf for over 15 years...bought on a remainder table. Very interesting, not only from the perspective of the movie business, but how a woman made it through the ranks of men to head a major studio. This book was published in 1993 and Dawn Steel died of a brain tumor maybe 5 years later...sad.

[Fleur Defries · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book - just shows what being a woman in the corporate world is like. Also interesting insight into Disney execs...

[Georgie Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my all time favourite books. It's such good fun.

[helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super candid and conversational. Fun read.

[fleur d’elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved her book-funny, great insight. She died too soon.