A contributing writer for The New York Times, James Ulmer's 20-year journalistic career has included penning two national columns for Premiere Magazine, and writing for Variety, The Los Angeles Times and The Observer in London. He also served for eight years as international editor and columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, where he supervised a fleet of 35 foreign correspondents and regularly reported from the world's leading film festivals and markets. His twice-weekly international column, "In Transit," sported such far-flung datelines as Istanbul, the Amazon and Katmandu -- with detours to Hong Kong, Moscow, Cannes and Venice along the way. Ulmer is also the author of James Ulmer's Hollywood Hot List Ð The Complete Guide to Star Ranking, published by St. Martin's Press. Dubbed "the industry bible of star power" by The New York Post, this 300-page book features power rankings and insider gossip on the world's top 200 stars, and is the first publication to market the film industry's Ulmer Scale powerbases to a consumer audience. The book is based on Ulmer's professional film industry publications, the Actors Hot List and Directors Hot List, which have become the industry's most reliable and comprehensive tools for measuring the global value of stars and directors in a variety of areas. These include bankability, career management, professionalism, promotion, risk factors and acting talent. Numerous national publications and media outlets have featured interviews with Ulmer, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. On television, he has appeared frequently on "Entertainment Tonight, " "CBS This Morning," "CNN Showbiz Today," Voice of America, and on the HBO, BBC, Fox and E! networks. For Premiere Magazine, he penned the columns "James Ulmer's World View" and "Rank and Bank Ð The Ulmer Scale," which analyzed the star power of leading actors from around the world. Most recently, Ulmer served as a media writer for PriceWaterhouseCoopers and was as a senior analyst and executive producer for the Internet company Creative Planet in Hollywood. A graduate of Harvard College and an Iowa native, Ulmer first developed his interest in international business as a teenager in Naples, Italy, where he regularly negotiated his taxi fare home from school. At Harvard, he directed and produced theatre productions of Moliere and Shakespeare on campus and was an editor of The Harvard Crimson. After summer internships as a Nader's Raider and with the ABC White House press corps, his international pursuits took him to London, where he wrote and directed the network documentary "Lost Property" for the BBC. After overstaying his work visa by 12 months, he was politely sent packing back to the States, where he formed his own computer games company in New York City. Ulmer has regularly spoken on the film industry at international film festivals. He has been nominated for a Press Award by the Publicists Guild of America and served on the competition jury for the Cairo International Film Festival. He is currently working on a documentary about politics and religion in Hollywood, and enjoys playing ragtime piano.   Copyright © 1997-2008 The Ulmer Scale. All Rights Reserved.