After a four-month search, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani last Friday appointed Patricia Reed Scott to fill the vacant position of commissioner of the Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.
It's the second tour of duty for Scott, the former wife of actor George C. Scott; she held the job for seven years under Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat who crossed party lines to support the Republican Giuliani.
This being New York, Scott had less than 24 hours before critics lined up to take potshots at her the following morning.
Chief among those was her predecessor, Richard Brick, who had surprised the community by resigning several months ago because he felt the incoming mayorwas unresponsive. In Saturday's New York Post, Brick called the appointment a political debt to Koch, and Scott angrily retorted that her predecessor's brickbats were little more than sour grapes.
It sounds as if she has the right spirit to take a post that's under far more scrutiny than it was when she first held the job.
"My record is there and it's quite real," she said. "I'm getting tired of being treated as the ex-Mrs. George C. Scott, or some person who was owed a favor. Ed Koch never met me before I worked for him and neither did Rudy Giuliani. But the main thing California wants to know is if we're going to run hard and if we've solved our problems.
"The labor unions are more reasonable than they ever were. (Hollywood producers) know that already, but they're going to know it even more," said Scott, who's planning a trip to Hollywood to get reacquainted.
Scott, whose production experience is in public TV, had been under consideration for the last month and made it onto a short list submitted by a committee headed by Billie Tisch, wife of CBS chief Laurence Tisch.
Scott, who most recently was director of development for the Literacy Volunteers of New York City, was originally contacted by politico David Garth to meet with Giuliani adviser Elliot Cuker to suggest candidates.
"I was very enthusiastic, and felt some of the things I'd done had made a difference. In the middle of the conversation, he said, don't you want to be considered?"
Later, Koch called to talk her into taking the job, and the next thing she knew, she was meeting with Giuliani.
"I was delighted to find he's a real New York movie buff," she said, "and he had a good briefing in the arts and economics. When I said I was interested, it was with one caveat: that I could work directly with the mayor when necessary, because it's the shortest distance between two points and can save the day."
Koch was known for getting directly involved with filmers. Once Scott had an understanding that her new boss would be as receptive, she agreed to take the post.
Scott acknowledges that she has a lot of catching up to do. Since the studio boycott of 1990-91, many of the financial obstacles cited by producers for avoiding Gotham, such as union overtime, have been alleviated.
The East Coast Council, a collaborative effort by unions to attract low-budget films with bargain rates for union crews, has been a smashing success.
Scott becomes commissioner just as the office moves into its new headquarters , several floors above the set of "The Late Show With David Letterman."
Scott might travel to Cannes to try to drum up new business. For her trip to California, she hopes to have ready a proposal aimed to help secure funding for independent films at discount rates, provided they shoot in Gotham.
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