It's So Hard to Find Good Help

YOU'LL NEVER NANNY IN THIS TOWN AGAIN

The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny

By Suzanne Hansen

Crown. 289 pp. $22

Here are three words I never thought I'd write: Poor Michael Ovitz.

Ovitz, of course, is the legendary Hollywood agent, founder of Creative Artists Agency, storied super-negotiator and, most recently as the deposed head of Disney, embodiment of all that is wrong in the obscenely overpaid and hubristic executive suites of the movie industry. A frequent subject of showbiz legend and lore, Ovitz has never come off as particularly sympathetic, with his ruthless tactics and preternaturally calculating demeanor.

It's taken a young, presumably naive rube from the sticks to make Ovitz seem vulnerable. In You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again , first-time author Suzanne Hansen recounts the year she spent caring for Ovitz's three children, by her lights a miserable period spent working without a contract, cringing under the constant criticism of Ovitz's wife, Judy, and holing up in her room during her weekends off.

A self-described rookie who traveled from her hometown of Cottage Grove, Ore., to Los Angeles right after graduating from a nanny training school, Hansen throws in an occasional dollop of self-criticism for allowing herself to be exploited and never negotiating a contract with her employers. But such asides are mere formalities in You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again , as bitter and nasty -- and finally unsatisfying -- a revenge narrative as has ever been penned. Clearly Hansen sold the idea to her publishers on the basis of all the dirt she had on the Ovitzes, once one of Hollywood's reigning power couples. But it's old dirt: She worked for them in the late '80s, when anecdotes about Michael eating chicken wings with a knife and fork, caring more about his art collection than his kids and handling a powerless nanny with the same bare knuckles he used for studio suits would have been delectable comeuppance.

Instead, in this workmanlike chronicle that bristles with self-pity, rage and class resentment, the Ovitzes come across as rather sad creatures, who eagerly navigate the echelons of power and stardom but seem far less confident when it comes to intimacy. What's more, as Hansen gleefully judges their relationships with their children and with each other, they can never hope to measure up to the good, honest folk back in Cottage Grove.

In one of the many self-serving journal entries that lard the book, Hansen fumes, "Why don't people with a great deal of money realize that their wealth is providing them with so many choices in life?" She continues, reminiscing about her friends' parents: "They would have given anything to never miss a Little League game or be able to volunteer each week in their child's classroom. It got me thinking about why Michael never drops by Josh's reading class or Amanda's ballet school. Why in the world would any parent miss that stuff voluntarily?" And why in the world would Hansen make so many knee-jerk assumptions in one short paragraph?

As a candid, upstairs/downstairs look at the lives of the stratospherically wealthy, You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again provides a few frissons of Schadenfreude; we can never tire, can we, of hearing that the rich and famous are phonier, meaner and cheaper than we are. (Judy quibbles over the purchase of a new iron.) But Hansen's book seems hopelessly dated, not only because the Ovitzes are no longer such tempting targets but also because, in this era of "Nanny 911," she so egregiously leaves out her own child-minding advice. (Rule No. 1, for kids at least, would be: Don't choose to be born in Hollywood.) She makes vague, disparaging remarks about her bosses' discipline tactics -- or, more commonly, the lack thereof -- but she never shares her own philosophy: Is she a partisan of time outs? Chore Charts? Sleep training? This is the hot dish most readers will be craving as the author re-heats yet another 20-year-old story about Michael's temper or Judy's passive-aggressive hauteur.

Hansen eventually, and quite precipitously, leaves the Ovitz household, leading Michael to blackball her among his friends and colleagues. (After all, as the author herself notes, his favorite book is The Art of War .) But she manages to land a gig with Debra Winger, a celebrity she finds much more down-to-earth and likable. (In addition to Winger, Hansen confirms that several other stars are as warm and genuine as their personae, including Goldie Hawn, Bill Murray, Sally Field, Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito.)

Winger, it turns out, has had her own run-ins with Ovitz, and she and Hansen become fast friends. But clearly Hansen has learned more from her former employer about the art of war than she admits. When she negotiates her new salary, she firmly states she wants to net $400 a week. "Why I threw in the net thing, I have no idea," Hansen writes with characteristic gee-whiz disingenuousness. Why, indeed.

Ann Hornaday is a film critic at The Washington Post.