Mailroom (eBook)

David Rensin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2007 | 1. Auflage
464 Seiten
Random House Publishing Group (Verlag)
978-0-307-41722-0 (ISBN)

Infos

It's like a plot from a Hollywood potboiler: start out in the mailroom, end up a mogul. But for many, it happens to be true. Some of the biggest names in entertainment--including David Geffen, Barry Diller, and Michael Ovitz-- started their dazzling careers in the lowly mailroom. Based on more than two hundred interviews, David Rensin unfolds the never-before-told history of an American institution--in the voices of the people who lived it. Through nearly seven decades of glamour and humiliation, lousy pay and incredible perks, killer egos and a kill-or-be-killed ethos, you'll go where the trainees go, learn what they must do to get ahead, and hear the best insider stories from the Hollywood everyone knows about but no one really knows. A vibrant tapestry of dreams, desire, and exploitation, The Mailroom is not only an engrossing read but a crash course, taught by the experts, on how to succeed in Hollywood.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Textauszug

KIDS AT WORKWilliam Morris Agency, New York, 1937-1951 LOU Weiss, 1937 , Sol Leon, 1938 , Larry Auerbach, 1944 , Hilly Elkins, 1950 , Leonard Hirshan, 1951 My sense of what I had to do was simple: get out of the mailroom as fast as I could. --Hilly Elkins lou weiss: My recollection of all this is unfortunately perfect. I was interested in the entertainment business because my uncle was George Burns. My mother was one of his seven sisters, and whenever he was in town, we'd all go to see him perform. I loved being backstage near talented people. My mother wanted me to go to college. I'd rather have hung out with the guys and played ball, or gone to a poolroom, or chased the girls, but school is what she wanted. When she died young, in July 1937, I immediately dropped out of school and went to work. Another uncle, Willie Burns--George's manager and writer--called Abe Lastfogel, the boss at the William Morris Agency, and asked him to give me a job of any sort. Nat Lefkowitz and Morris Stoller interviewed me, and in August 1937, when I was nineteen, I got a job as an office boy at twelve dollars a week. sol leon: I grew up in Brooklyn. My father was in the women's coats and suits business. He was able to put me through the first year of college at NYU-Heights, but when the Depression hit he said, 'Sorry. I can't afford to send you back.' I got a job and went to Brooklyn Law at night. I sat next to Nat Lefkowitz in class for four years, it was alphabetical. Morris Stoller was also there. Lefkowitz and Stoller worked at William Morris, Nat practically ran the place under Bill Morris Jr. When I became disenchanted with the law, I asked him to find a place for me. I started October 1, 1938, I was twenty-five. Nat made me head of the mailroom, while Stoller trained me in business affairs. I had nothing directly to do with handling mail. My job was to tear off the Teletypes and distribute them. Get theater tickets. Get train tickets for Mr. Lastfogel, he didn't fly to California then. Anything that had to be delivered or sorted, I'd delegate. I just told the kids what to do. weiss: Before Sol Leon came to oversee the mailroom, 'Uncle Henry'--Bill Morris Sr.'s wife's cousin--supervised the office boys. He was an elderly guy who didn't hesitate to crack the whip and make sure we weren't off playing cards someplace. I wish now that I had behaved myself better. I wasted a lot of time. I'd rather have gone dancing than deliver a script, listen to great bands and vocalists in Harlem than sort mail. I hung out at the Savoy Ballroom and watched Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald and Ellington. I was also hooked on comics and comedy writers. I loved to go to Lindy's and hang around, try to get myself recognized. leon: I wanted to fire Lou Weiss, but I couldn't because he was George Burns's nephew. weiss: Maybe because I always dressed better than Sol Leon [laughs]. He'd get very upset. larry auerbach: My father was in the dairy restaurant business in Brooklyn. After the stock market crashed, he opened a smaller place but he didn't own the building, and when the city built a new highway, they tore it down, leaving him to sell off his tables and chairs. He was dejected and sad, and the pain of watching him spend more than a year looking for another situation is still vivid. I had a work ethic early. When school let out for the summer, I'd always find a job. At twelve I helped my grandparents at their cleaning store, making deliveries. At thirteen I worked for a friend of the family, stacking cans neatly in the Epicurean Department of Gimbel's. The next summer a friend...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.12.2007
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Malerei / Plastik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• ISBN-10: 0-307-41722-0 / 0307417220
• ISBN-13: 978-0-307-41722-0 / 9780307417220