Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me... (19 page)

While it was essential that everyone in showbiz know who she was, within “my” industry, both network and some studio executives were also starting to hear my name. I liked it; wanted more of it, and I had nothing but time to devote to our cause. Without either a husband or children to concern me, and no immediate interest in a social life, the open road loomed ahead, and there was no traffic jam in sight. I could drive at top speed. Work, and more work.

*   *   *

Judy, now aware of Liza's popularity, suddenly became interested in Liza's talent. It was an asset to her. Although she had featured Liza on one of her CBS shows, that was more a “mother” thing than an acknowledgment of Li's stardom. But once Judy's TV show was canceled, and with no new films on the horizon, Judy went off to her once-again new favorite place to live—London—whence not so long ago she had come.

While there, she announced a concert exploiting Liza's fame that Liza had not approved. As if that mattered. As Li's agent, I knew that the concert having been announced, Liza had to do it. Liza understood that, too. And luckily, where talent meets with adequate rehearsal, good things happen. The Palladium was a great triumph. For Judy, her brilliance so long recognized, her audience so adoring, it was just another triumph. For Liza it was the first ovation of that size and length. The overwhelming demand for tickets led to a second successful concert that gave Liza a big leg up in that market. She handled herself magnificently, and I think I was as proud as Judy. Although far from being motherly toward Liza, I did have enough of a strong impulse to protect her professionally, and I could do that without emotional involvement.

Judy also wanted to protect Liza, but I could see, clearly, that there was a competitive thing going on. It carried an edginess, wherein suggestions from Judy took on an acidic tone. Any suggestions I made—whether about wardrobe or songs—were always in Li's interest. Judy wanted everything done her way, and it came out disguised as suggestions. Liza had good instincts, but Judy always trusted her own more than anyone else's. However, bottom line, Judy very generously did share the limelight with Liza. Liza's stock shot up, and so did mine.

*   *   *

I dealt with many producers on Liza's behalf in the early and midsixties, some of them buffoons, some blusterers, but each in their own way taught me something about show business. The network and film company execs treated me like a princess because I represented stars. Even though Freddie or anyone else in the agency might have signed them, the stars were still my clients. Lest you have any doubt, there's a correlation in showbiz between the amount of respect one gets and the size of the talent one is selling.

I became skilled at oiling my way around a decent deal. I learned when to be bullish and when to walk away. I developed, as my experience increased, an instinct for how far I could press in a deal without losing it or hurting the other side. Someone recently asked me how one does that. My short answer: There is no formula. Every deal is a case of original impression. No two deals are totally alike. One can use a musical metaphor and play the buyers like a piano. Sometimes one treads softly, pianissimo. Occasionally one bangs all the notes with force and vigor. It's a judgment call. My salary was not going to change if I killed someone in a deal. The 10 percent commission to the agency might be a few bucks greater, but if you angered the buyer, causing him to flee forever, it wasn't a victory for anyone. You either have judgment or you don't. I have never enjoyed putting anyone's back against the wall for a few extra dollars (as David did). And I don't believe it makes for a happy working situation for the artist. There are many who would disagree with that. They need to squeeze the last dollar out. They are bloodsuckers, and I don't like them.

Sometimes one gets lucky. The first deal I ever made on Broadway, I made with one of the legends on that street, and he was a prince: Hal Prince. He is a wonderful producer, a great director, and a man of enormous integrity. Such words are thrown around a lot, but Hal is truly deserving of each one.

Hal was in his thirties and already very successful when he produced
Flora, the Red Menace.
In 1965 his partner, the late great George Abbott, both the writer and director of the musical, was approaching his eighties. They were a magnificent odd couple whose names were spoken in the hushed tones of reverence. They put Liza through the wringer, auditioning her four times—which saw both of us sitting around the office waiting to see if there would be yet another callback. She got the role, and although she was magical in it,
Flora
was a flop. Maybe that's why she didn't get the role in
Cabaret
that she ultimately made famous on film and won the Academy Award for.

In spite of its failure, Liza did pick up the Tony Award for
Flora
, and she did it wearing my beautiful black floral print gown with spaghetti straps. She might have afforded her own at that moment, but it was totally normal for her to borrow what I owned. We had walked into my closet and selected the one and only.

*   *   *

Interestingly, Liza's very first musical act was, for me, the most memorable. I clearly remember her taking me to a cold-water railroad flat on the West Side of Manhattan. It was as low rent as you could get in midtown Manhattan. We entered a dark hall that brought the mood, if not the intense cold, of winter inside. At the end of this cheerless tunnel was a kitchen where the stove was the only heat in the room. A young man sat at an old upright piano playing show tunes in his own wonderful way. He could play anything, in any key, in any manner or mode one requested: jazz, ragtime, boogie, or “give me ‘God Bless America' as Mozart would have composed it.” His energy and excitement were infectious.

Sitting at the oilcloth-covered kitchen table absorbing the warmth emanating both from her immensely talented son and the cast-iron stove was Mama Hamlisch. Her sunshine smile told me how she doted on her Marvin. Liza, too, could never resist the opportunity to show off when she happened to be in the same room with a piano and someone who knew how to use it. And as I watched these two great entertainers duet Gershwin, classic Broadway, marvelous old movie music, all great tunes that I loved, I knew I was witnessing something spectacular. Both Marvin and Liza adored performing, and an audience of two was enough.

“Marvin and I are going to do an act together,” Liza advised. I'd certainly seen enough of his talents to think it was possible. Liza also rounded up Fred Ebb and John Kander, who had been lyricist and composer on
Flora
, to do the grueling work of launching these youngsters. All of them were at the beginning of spectacular careers. Fred became her lifelong friend; he designed all her acts and wrote her wonderful “special” material. With this remarkable team in place, I went ahead and booked the dates.

What came out of this collaboration was the most original and charming nightclub act I'd ever seen. Liza had two backup dancers: one very tall and thin, the other very short and fat, equally talented and wonderfully nimble. The dancing threesome was pure fun. You couldn't forget the act once you'd seen it, and you'd never forget the West Coast opening night if you were lucky enough to have been there. It took place at the Cocoanut Grove in the old Ambassador Hotel. All of Hollywood society turned out that night to see what Judy's little girl could do. The Kirk Douglases, the Gregory Pecks, the Gene Kellys, George Cukor, Vincente Minnelli, and Judy herself all sitting front and center. Suffice it to say it was a superglamorous, A-list showbiz night.

Liza's act was not unlike Judy's in that both started with an overture. Of course all the songs in Judy's overture were well known and closely identified with her. Some were songs that became famous because of her. Not so in Liza's case.

At the end of Li's overture—again, as in Judy's show—there was a drumroll, following which a voice would boom out on mike from behind the curtain to announce the performer. I was standing backstage with an excited and nervous Liza, and I, too, was excited. When the overture was done, the drumroll started, right on cue, heightening the moment. Then the offstage announcement came from the wings opposite us: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Judy Garland!” The man on the mike had clearly been more nervous than we. What a horrible mistake! A great gasp rose up from the assembled biggies. I was speechless and had no idea what to do next. Not Liza. With consummate grace she took center stage and said, “That's an act I could never follow!” Then she turned to her conductor, Jack French, and asked, “Can we please start all over again?” Jack raised his baton as Liza walked back into the wings, and the music that followed was drowned out by the applause.

Had the moment been staged, it could not have worked better. The star-studded audience gave her a standing ovation that wouldn't quit. After the grace she had shown under fire, she could do no wrong. And she didn't. She was wonderful not only on that night but on all the nights that followed. She was turning into more than a merely good singer; she was becoming a great showman. She not only had all the right moves, she had a beautiful slim figure with curves in all the right places that made her moves look like classy choreography.

*   *   *

The stars in my dreamed-of firmament of clients were all movie stars. I was obsessive about my career and oblivious to the world outside, a world filled with political upheaval. The Vietnam War was raging at the end of the sixties, and entertainers of all stripes were making their political points of view known. I did not hear them. I was wrapped in a cocoon where I could see nothing but my own activities and how they impacted upon my immediate world. I would never have dreamed of going to Woodstock or embracing its message. I didn't understand what its message was. I mention it because my own limitations at the time strike me as ludicrous now. My interest was only in signing the young filmmaker Michael Wadleigh, who was undertaking the monumental task of documenting the rock festival at Max Yasgur's six-hundred-acre dairy farm. The film, I thought, might make some money.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

What Is an Agent?

Not many people outside the entertainment industry or media really know what an agent is. I was one, and I can tell you: An agent is a fraud, but a fraud with good intentions. An agent is someone who believes his or her own bullshit and can convince others of its value. An agent is someone with a great gift of gab and the ability to sell with deep conviction, even if one doesn't believe in the value. (But then one can convince oneself the sale is worthy.) An agent is someone who comes up with good ideas and allows her clients to believe the idea was their brainstorm. An agent is someone totally willing to sublimate herself to be the person the client wants her to be. Do you want me to be angry on your behalf? Here I am. Do you want me to be docile for you? Here I am. But regardless of what role-playing takes place, an agent must always maintain integrity and never lead a client knowingly in the wrong direction. An agent is a chameleon. I was one. By the midsixties I became a person who was agile on her feet, could see a strong wind coming, tack in a different direction, and maintain integrity throughout the process.

“The business belongs in the hands of the people who sign the clients.” Judy had left me with the feeling that if I survived her, there was nothing I couldn't do. Freddie now left me with the understanding that signing my own clients is what I needed to do. In 1963 he'd moved his family to California, where the pickings were lush, and had opened an elegantly decorated office in very expensive real estate, Beverly Hills. Having made such a great success with Judy, he was quickly the new kid on the block, something Hollywood is perennially interested in, on his way to becoming the hottest agent in lotus land, with a reputation for signing the hottest clients. We were now a full-service agency with new call letters—CMA, short for Creative Management Associates (surely a twist on the old familiar MCA)—and he was primed to take over the greatest of all West Coast company towns.

I missed his voice in New York more than he ever knew. He had always been so good, so patient, explaining everything to me. He was a fine teacher. Now I only heard that voice occasionally on the telephone, but it was always with the same message: Sign clients, sign clients—it became my mantra. I had the chutzpah to believe that if I did it well, I would one day become his partner. It might take a few years.

*   *   *

In 1964, after four years with the agency, I was made a vice president. At CMA the title didn't come with a raise, it came instead of one. But it brought with it a soup
ç
on of prestige. And I was now the head of the theater department, which was nonexistent prior to my grand elevation. It was also a department that had no activity whatsoever. I was told to make it happen. I was supposed to invest myself fully in the workings of theater and find the clients who would support this unit. CMA did have one client, Henry Fonda, who was willing and eager to perform onstage. Every few years Hank was sent a play he wanted to do. He was an experienced professional. Told that I was the “go-to guy,” he called and told me the deal he wanted. No sweat. I then made the deal, and he went to work in a comedy called
Generation
that was directed by Gene Saks and ran for three hundred performances, or one season. He was wonderful, compelling on stage. During the run we became professional friends (as in “not at all close”) and every so often we met for supper in Sardi's. That was big-time for me. He was always given one of the celebrity tables near the front, which helped secure a little recognition for me in theater. His lovely wife, Shirlee, was sweet and anxious to please; Hank was mostly silent and mysterious, not at all easy to get close to. I picked up the conversation and filled in the pregnant pauses. Hank picked up the checks.