Dream Chaser - The Business of Showbiz: The Illustrated Memoirs of Ralph Rivera

Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author recounts his exploits to achieve one of his many dreams during the 1970s by becoming a major financial executive in the entertainment industry… Thereby becoming the first Latino of Puerto Rican descent to be included as a team member in the Ivory Towers of Hollywood. Together with his mentor and his small company, they created an entertainment conglomerate that provided a turn-key operation for Hollywood personalities to make money in film, television, publishing, the Broadway theatre, rock and roll music, classical music; and ownership of radio broadcasting stations. We discover the financial tricks used and how the multi-million dollar entity was accomplished.

With 80 lavish illustrations, the author describes how he played with the financial numbers to value the company and with mergers and acquisitions it became publicly traded in the over-the-counter stock market exchange and everyone got rich. His interactions with the great actor Steve McQueen looking for a fast car are unforgettable. The horrific experience of the Towering Inferno , a major fire at ICM headquarters are like scenes from a movie. Cheering for Bruce Jenner at the 1976 Olympic Summer Games in Montreal and enjoying with the family was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The cultural agreement with Communist countries and the bombing of Lincoln Center by anti-Castro Cuban terrorists nearly cost the author’s life. v