The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up by David Rensin Page B
Authors: David Rensin
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short—in the basement, and if you fit, you were in. Another joke going around at the time illustrates what I mean: In 1951, a few years before I started, Walter Wanger, a legendary producer who was married to the actress Joan Bennett, thought she was having an affair with Jennings Lang, her agent at MCA. Wanger saw Lang one Sunday in a parking lot in Beverly Hills, pulled out a gun, and shot him. He got Lang right in the nuts. The story was that Lang was left with only one ball, and I think that’s probably true. The joke made afterward was that had Wanger thought his wife was having an affair with Mr. Lastfogel, who ran the Morris office, Wanger would have shot him right between the eyes.
SAMMY GLICK BUT NOT SAMMY GLICK
LIEBERSON: We were all crammed into one room on the first floor, but we managed to get along, which was extraordinary because in those situations it can be very competitive and unpleasant.
PERKINS: I didn’t come in until the end of the year, and some of the guys were six and seven months ahead of me. Ed Levy in Personnel told me that with rare exceptions people got promoted in chronological order. “It takes time,” he said. “You’ve got to be patient.” Plus no one had been promoted for a while, so the prospect of rapid advancement looked bleak. One guy in the last ten had made it to a desk. Then literally within two weeks five guys got fed up and quit, and William Morris was running around trying to find people. Some of the departures were, uh . . . calculated; other guys in the mailroom wanted these people out of the way, so they encouraged dissatisfaction: “You’re right. It’s taking too long. Why don’t you quit?”
DEBLASIO: The mailroom was always about who would last. The idea was not to get discouraged and act stupid when some guy said, “This is bullshit. What are we doing this for?” I got the game early. Kill or be killed. If a guy said, “Gee, I have aspirations to be a comic,” even if he didn’t have any talent, I’d say, “Yeah, you’re really good. Keep at it.”
MARDIGIAN: To get ahead you often had to be pushy and get in somebody’s face and promote yourself. The squeaky wheel got the grease, sometimes without even being competent. I wasn’t a goody-goody; I’d screw someone over to get a job if I had to, if I felt I was more qualified, but I never encouraged someone to quit so I could move up a notch.
DEBLASIO: After I’d been in the mailroom awhile, I made an agreement with the switchboard that any calls that came in with no place to go—like someone looking for William Morris—would come to me. One day the switchboard buzzed and said, “Ron, here’s a doozy.” Turned out to be a guy who said he was a professor of economics at Harvard and he was in town with this political candidate and he needed help because he was afraid the candidate had blown his throat. He said, “You maybe have heard of him. He’s John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” I couldn’t believe it. I said I’d do whatever he needed, and rushed to meet him at the Shrine Auditorium. Backstage a guy stuck out his hand and said, “Hi. I’m Frank.” Sinatra. Sammy was also there. They were in their Vegas clothes. I was in my Brooks Brothers. I was so in heaven.
PERKINS: It’s not necessary to be a Sammy Glick to succeed. In fact, you’re probably better off if you’re not. More Sammy Glicks bite the dust when they’re found out. Of those who survived, many quit being agents early; they got so far and then looked for good opportunities elsewhere. They didn’t really want to be agents; they just liked the business. More to the point, they liked the money.
DRIVING MRS. LASTFOGEL
MARDIGIAN: The mailroom was Frances Lastfogel’s private collection of boys to take her around to the dressmaker, to the shops in Beverly Hills, to Hillcrest Country Club. We used agents’ cars or idle dispatch vehicles. I’d drop her off, and Mrs. Lastfogel would say, “Here’s a dollar, go
SAMMY GLICK BUT NOT SAMMY GLICK
LIEBERSON: We were all crammed into one room on the first floor, but we managed to get along, which was extraordinary because in those situations it can be very competitive and unpleasant.
PERKINS: I didn’t come in until the end of the year, and some of the guys were six and seven months ahead of me. Ed Levy in Personnel told me that with rare exceptions people got promoted in chronological order. “It takes time,” he said. “You’ve got to be patient.” Plus no one had been promoted for a while, so the prospect of rapid advancement looked bleak. One guy in the last ten had made it to a desk. Then literally within two weeks five guys got fed up and quit, and William Morris was running around trying to find people. Some of the departures were, uh . . . calculated; other guys in the mailroom wanted these people out of the way, so they encouraged dissatisfaction: “You’re right. It’s taking too long. Why don’t you quit?”
DEBLASIO: The mailroom was always about who would last. The idea was not to get discouraged and act stupid when some guy said, “This is bullshit. What are we doing this for?” I got the game early. Kill or be killed. If a guy said, “Gee, I have aspirations to be a comic,” even if he didn’t have any talent, I’d say, “Yeah, you’re really good. Keep at it.”
MARDIGIAN: To get ahead you often had to be pushy and get in somebody’s face and promote yourself. The squeaky wheel got the grease, sometimes without even being competent. I wasn’t a goody-goody; I’d screw someone over to get a job if I had to, if I felt I was more qualified, but I never encouraged someone to quit so I could move up a notch.
DEBLASIO: After I’d been in the mailroom awhile, I made an agreement with the switchboard that any calls that came in with no place to go—like someone looking for William Morris—would come to me. One day the switchboard buzzed and said, “Ron, here’s a doozy.” Turned out to be a guy who said he was a professor of economics at Harvard and he was in town with this political candidate and he needed help because he was afraid the candidate had blown his throat. He said, “You maybe have heard of him. He’s John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” I couldn’t believe it. I said I’d do whatever he needed, and rushed to meet him at the Shrine Auditorium. Backstage a guy stuck out his hand and said, “Hi. I’m Frank.” Sinatra. Sammy was also there. They were in their Vegas clothes. I was in my Brooks Brothers. I was so in heaven.
PERKINS: It’s not necessary to be a Sammy Glick to succeed. In fact, you’re probably better off if you’re not. More Sammy Glicks bite the dust when they’re found out. Of those who survived, many quit being agents early; they got so far and then looked for good opportunities elsewhere. They didn’t really want to be agents; they just liked the business. More to the point, they liked the money.
DRIVING MRS. LASTFOGEL
MARDIGIAN: The mailroom was Frances Lastfogel’s private collection of boys to take her around to the dressmaker, to the shops in Beverly Hills, to Hillcrest Country Club. We used agents’ cars or idle dispatch vehicles. I’d drop her off, and Mrs. Lastfogel would say, “Here’s a dollar, go
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