The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up by David Rensin Read Free Book Online Page A

head was down. “I missed it,” he said. “You were right.”
    About a year and a half after I arrived, I officially became a trainee, which meant being groomed to be an agent. A few years later I got out of the mailroom and worked as the secretary to three men: Moe Sackin; Murray File, who handled Mae West; and Joe Schoenfeld, who was later the editor of Variety. Eventually I worked only for Joe. By twenty I was a junior agent. I had dinner with Mr. Lastfogel on Monday and Friday nights, religiously, and sometimes during the week as well. One day he said to me, “We’re going to start working with something called television. I’d like you to start our TV Department.”
    I’ve made this business and this company my life. It’s exciting: running and building careers, making success happen. I like seeing results. I knew that by putting in the time and making sure my clients did well, I would make great progress. I wound up representing people like Loretta Young and Barbara Stanwyck, Susan Hayward, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Natalie Wood, Bill Cosby, Clint Eastwood, and President Ford. I just tried to do a good job every day. It wasn’t to impress anyone; I just worked hard so I could have a job.
    There’s a picture in my office today of Red Skelton, Joe Louis, Harpo Marx, George Burns, Frank Sinatra, Calvin Jackson, and me. I was very young. You don’t just stand with people like that unless they ask, which they did, because I made it a point to develop relationships early on. The picture was taken at a benefit by a paparazzo at the hotel; I still don’t know his name. I made copies for Burns and Harpo and Sinatra. They said they were glad to get it.
    Some people always look for ways to promote themselves and say, “I’m the greatest.” I never say that. Other people have said that I’m in the same category as Lew Wasserman, Myron Selznick, Abe Lastfogel, Jules Stein, and Charles Feldman—but I would never say that about me. I’m not self-aggrandizing. I’m just a guy who learned the agency business from the bottom up, became William Morris’s first vice president, became their cochairman of the board, became president and CEO, became chairman and CEO. When I turned seventy, I gave up being CEO because I thought it was time to give that to someone else.
    Along the way I was offered a studio to run; a network contacted me about being president. I always said no. I wanted to stay at William Morris because I respect and love the company. I appreciate what they did for me. We’re the oldest company in the business, and the sky was always the limit. Even now, nearly sixty years later, I still put in seventeen hours a day. I’ll stop by the office on Saturdays and Sundays, try to catch up on calls, read my mail, make deals.
    Once an agent, always an agent.

    THE THRILL OF IT ALL
     

    TRAFFIC
     
    Music Corporation of America, Los Angeles, 1942–1958
     
    HELEN GURLEY BROWN, 1942 • JAY KANTER, 1947 • ROBERT SHERMAN, 1952 •
FRED SPECKTOR, 1956 • RICK RAY, 1957 • MIKE FENTON, 1958
     
     
    Let’s face it, we were the world’s best-educated, best-dressed, lowest-paid messenger service.
    —Rick Ray
     
    HELEN GURLEY BROWN: I started working the instant I got out of high school. I got six dollars a week for answering fan mail at radio station KHJ in Los Angeles, and with that money I attended Woodbury Business College and learned how to take shorthand and type so I could make eighteen dollars a week. All my job moves were about earning a little more money to take care of my injured sister and a mother who didn’t work. My next employer was MCA, where I worked as a secretary for Larry Barnett in the Band Department for twenty-five dollars a week.
    MCA was quite seductive in terms of decor. Their building at 9300 Burton Way had chandeliers and winding staircases and antique English furniture. It was glorious. Of course, if you were a secretary, you were treated like hired help and used the back