Research Catalog

The agency : William Morris and the hidden history of show business / Frank Rose.

Title: The agency : William Morris and the hidden history of show business / Frank Rose.
Author: Rose, Frank.
Publication: New York : HarperBusiness, c1995.

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Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Book/Text	Request in advance	PN2295.W56 R67 1995	Off-site

Description

532 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

For decades, hidden from the public eye, Morris agents made the deals that determined the fate of stars, studios, and networks alike. Mae West, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Danny Thomas, Steve McQueen - the Morris Agency sold talent to anyone in the market for it, from the Hollywood moguls to the mobsters who ran Vegas to the Madison Avenue admen who controlled television.
Led after Will Morris's death by the legendary Abe Lastfogel, a cherubic little man who treated agents and clients alike as family, the Morris Agency transformed the agent's image from garish flesh-peddler to smooth-talking professional. But when Lastfogel's successor brutally sacrificed his best friend - the man who'd brought Barry Diller and Michael Ovitz out of the mail room - the agency gave birth to its own nemesis: Ovitz's new agency, CAA.
Throughout the eighties and nineties, as the Morris Agency made - and lost - such stars as Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Kevin Costner, and Tom Hanks, Ovitz's power grew inexorably as Morris's waned. Lulled by the phenomenal success of Bill Cosby and the upward spiral of the Beverly Hills real estate market, Morris's politborolike board failed to act as death and defection thinned its ranks. Finally, with its flagship motion-picture department on the brink of collapse, the board was faced with the stark reality of having to buy its way back into the business it had once owned.

Subject

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

Processing Action (note)

ISBN

0887307493

LCCN

^^^95016739^

OCLC

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library