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In his book “The Mailroom: Hollywood History From the Bottom Up,” just published by Ballantine, writer David Rensin has compiled an oral history of that classic Hollywood proving ground -- the talent agency mailroom. There, as high-profile alumni describe it, generations of would-be agents and execs have honed the work ethic, survival skills and ability to climb and connect that became the foundation of their careers. The stories sometimes have the almost apocryphal ring of tales told by survivors who know they’re burnishing a legend: tales of unknowingly carrying an agent’s stool sample to a doctor’s office; being invited in by a megastar in her bathrobe; sex and drugs in the office. But most are about character -- the storyteller’s or the subject’s -- and the way it was revealed in the low-glamour, high-pressure world of the mailroom and the talent agencies’ lowest rungs. Some excerpts:

TOM STRICKLER

(Creative Artists Agency mail room, 1984), founding partner, Endeavor talent agency: “My first Christmas at CAA I had to deliver [Mike] Ovitz’s gifts. It took six or seven days, and the gifts were quite elaborate. I delivered a brand-new Sony television to Wolfgang Puck, an expensive stereo to Ovitz’s litigator.... Typically you would go, ‘This is from Mike Ovitz,’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, great -- put it over there.’ Very late one evening I got a gift basket and an address with someone’s name I didn’t recognize.... I realized this was Ovitz’s driver. I said, ‘Hi, I’ve got a delivery from Mike Ovitz,’ and I handed him the gift basket. ‘Oh, that’s great,’ he said. ‘Wow, that’s so nice. Tell Mike thanks.’ Then he said, ‘Hold on a minute,’ and came back with a ten-dollar bill. I said, ‘I can’t do that. Mr Ovitz wouldn’t want me to take a tip.’ He insisted, but I wouldn’t take it. On the drive back to the office I realized that I’d delivered to two hundred people, most of whom were multimillionaires, and nobody -- nobody -- offered to give me a tip except the one guy who probably couldn’t afford to do it. I was very moved. It was an O. Henry Christmas moment.”

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ADRIANNA ALBERGHETTI

(Endeavor mail room, 1995), motion picture literary agent, Endeavor: “I was supposed to start on Ari [Emanuel]’s desk on Monday morning.... He walked up and said, ‘We have an over/under bet on how long you’re going to stay. Three months is the time limit. I want you to know, I bet against you. Let’s see how quickly I can make you cry today.’ ... I had no idea what I was in store for. None, none, none.... The first two hours that Monday I let him yell at me. Not after. From then on, if Ari yelled at me, I yelled right back.... Ari taught me a lot. How to never let them see you break, or reveal your real emotional state or the cards you’re holding, because then you lose all leverage. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be human.... He also taught me that there was nobody I couldn’t talk to, couldn’t call, couldn’t ask out to lunch. He said I had just as much right, just as much to say, and just as interesting a point of view as somebody who had been in the business for 10 years.”

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BEN PRESS

(ICM mail room, 1991), co-head of the Motion Picture Talent Department at the Paradigm Agency: “You never know what to expect when you’re listening in on the phone -- for business.... Usually my reaction was less ‘Wow, this blows me away’ than ‘Nobody knows this.’ When Steven Spielberg cast Schindler’s List he was very interested in Mel Gibson. He met with Mel but ultimately chose Liam Neeson -- not because Mel wasn’t right, but because he thought it would turn into a Mel Gibson picture, not a movie about the Holocaust. Nobody knew about that.”

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PAULA BESIKOV PRESS

(ICM mail room, 1992), independent producer: “ICM was structured to make everyone hate each other so they’d be competitive.... No one told anyone anything except for what was public knowledge. They’d say the agenda was to get Mel Gibson a project. Everyone would say okay, then run to their offices and dial for their own clients. If you heard an agent calling for a project for their client, you’d be dialing for the same project at the same time.”

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DAVID GEFFEN

(William Morris mail room, 1964), executive, DreamWorks SKG: “Every office I walked into, as I delivered the mail, I saw some person who didn’t look that much different from me, talking to somebody famous on the phone. It seemed so cool. I thought, I know how to do that; I can talk to famous people on the phone.... The work was more tedious than it was tough. I had to change toilet paper in the bathrooms and fill the soap dispensers. It wasn’t challenging, just what I had to go through to get to the next step -- and I was always willing to do that.... It’s a test. It’s about humility. Lots of people complained, though, and quit because they thought it was demeaning. I kept hoping everybody would quit, because the more people who quit, the higher up on the list I got.... “