James Frey rocketed to national attention as the memoirist who was anointed, then eviscerated, on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." But before that, Frey spent nearly a decade in Hollywood, hanging out at industry barbecues, hustling movie ideas and co-producing a few indie flicks.

Frey had become the New York-based best-selling author of "A Million Little Pieces" by the time he returned to Los Angeles over the holidays to throw what one observer described as a classic Hollywood fit. A screenwriter wanted to change the details of Frey's memoir of addiction for a film script being written for Warner Bros.

Frey said they didn't have the right to alter the facts in the book, the observer recalled. "How could they do this? This was his life! How could they change the facts of his life?" Eventually, Frey fired his agency.

"In light of what we now know, the reasons that James left our agency are certainly ironic, and it's nice being on the right side of irony," said Jeremy Zimmer, a top agent at United Talent Agency and one of Frey's agents before the confrontation.

Reached by phone, Frey said: "I can't comment on any of that stuff. I'm sure I know what you're going to write." Pressed on details, he interrupted: "I can't comment on anything."

A few minutes later, Frey added, "All I wanted to do was write a book that would help people get through tough times, and I never meant for any of this to happen, and I'm sorry that it has."

Frey's own story line is rooted in Hollywood. He is listed on the Internet Movie Database Web site as the director and writer of a small 1998 film called "Sugar: The Fall of the West," and he has a writing and story credit on the 1998 David Schwimmer movie "Kissing a Fool." He's also listed as a co-producer of 2001's "See Jane Run" and as a producer of the 2000 Luke Wilson film "Preston Tylk," which also was released as "Bad Seed."

And when he decided to shop his memoir around to agents, he settled on Kassie Evashevski, the respected literary manager of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment. Unlike a traditional literary agent, Evashevski represents both book and film projects. Some believe this hybrid approach creates a built-in temptation to see a book as a stepping-stone to a film deal.

"Generally speaking, the big money is to be made on the film side," said prominent West Coast literary agent Sandra Dijkstra. "The temptation would be to counsel the author to write a book that would have enormous film appeal, and that might compromise some of its integrity."

Evashevski's friends and associates in Los Angeles said she was devastated by Frey's breach of trust, though she declined to comment.

The Frey affair has been a train wreck, with debris strewn from the genteel corridors of Manhattan publishing houses to Oprah's VIP lounge.

According to sources, Brillstein-Grey warned Frey not to go on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on Jan. 26. But after firing Zimmer, Frey signed with the Creative Artists Agency. Winfrey is one of CAA's biggest clients. Frey did the show.

MORE FREYS OUT THERE?

And yet, if one idea continues to resonate, it's that the scandal could have happened to anyone in the book business. "I think the James Frey embarrassment could have occurred any time in the last 900 years of publishing, because the industry is built on trust for a writer's integrity," said Harold M. Evans, former publisher of Random House.

Publishers and editors do not have the resources to verify every single fact in a book, he added. "But I only have 80 percent sympathy for them, because we should also be sensitive to things that ring false. If an author makes an outlandish claim, somebody has to take the time to find out if it's really true."

The incentive to do that may be diminished with a writer like Frey, whose dramatic, redemption-themed memoir, suggests author David Halberstam, "is precisely the kind of book that many publishers are hungry for now."

"With the marketing pressures driving the book world today, it's much easier to get the author of a memoir on a television show than a serious novelist," Halberstam said.

Frey's deal to write two more books, for Riverhead, is "under discussion" because "the ground has shifted," publicists there say. The ground has also shifted in Hollywood, where the future of Frey's projects is under debate.

There's his Fox TV story about the surfer turned private investigator. There's the Hell's Angels script he was going to write for Tony Scott. There's the Jake Coburn book about New York prep schools he was going to adapt for Paramount and MTV Films.

And then, of course, there's the movie version of "A Million Little Pieces" at Warner Bros., where some people had wanted to start shooting as early as spring (publicists had no comment). Frey actually had written a version of the script with Laurence Dunmore, but the studio didn't like it.

The studio hired Mark Romanek, writer and director of the thriller "One Hour Photo," starring Robin Williams. The new script that emerged touched off Frey's year-end confrontation.

In Los Angeles, where "relationships" are paramount, the future of these projects may depend on how people feel about Frey. More than a few feel burned. Brillstein-Grey has dropped him as a client. Warner Bros. president Alan Horn has said the studio is "re-evaluating" its plans for "A Million Little Pieces."