The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood (44 page)

I had an agent who was one of the coldest people I’ve ever met and one of the smartest. We had nothing to talk to each other about besides business—our conversations usually lasted thirty seconds or less. I finally fired him because, although he was very good as an agent, I just couldn’t tolerate his coldness anymore. He wrote me an affable postcard after I fired him, wishing me the best of luck. It was the warmest communication he’d ever had with me. He also said that sooner or later he knew I’d rehire him because I’d realize just how good he was as an agent. A couple years after he sent me the note, I rehired him. I was with him for a couple years, until his coldness got to me again and I fired him once more.

Don’t let your agent give you creative advice
.

W
hatever he tells you will be stupid.

It’s what George Bernard Shaw said to Sam Goldwyn: “Mr. Goldwyn, all you want to do is talk about art and all I want to do is talk about money.”

I knew an agent who not only hired a reader to read all scripts for him but then hired another reader to read that reader’s reports and compress them into one paragraph—or no more than thirty words.

A Rainmaker

An agent who makes a lot of money (with successful clients) for an agency.

Agents have their own agendas
.

T
he morning that we began the
Basic Instinct
auction, I asked the head of my agency, Jeff Berg of ICM, who he thought was going to buy it and how much he thought it would sell for.

Jeff said he thought Mario Kassar at Carolco would wind up buying it for
3 million.

Jeff ran the auction himself. Everyone in town except Fox played and bid against one another. And at the end of that long day, Mario Kassar of Carolco bought it for
3 million.

How did Berg know? Was there a side deal between ICM and Carolco that I didn’t know about? Was there a kickback to ICM? Not that I was ever able to uncover, but I was suspicious.

Of course it’s also possible that Jeff Berg is more than just one of the smartest people in Hollywood. It’s possible that Jeff is a genius and a seer.

The
Ubermenschen
of Hollywood

What CAA agents, led by Michael Ovitz, were known as in the 1990s.

How you can tell that your agent cares about you
…

H
e calls you three times a week at least. He has nothing really to say to you, so he says, “I’m just checking in,” thinking, maybe, that you’ve turned into a hotel.

He kisses you on both cheeks every time he sees you. He tells you he loves you every time he sees you.

How you can tell that your agent doesn’t care about you
…

H
e calls you three times a week at least. He has nothing to say to you, so he says “I’m just checking in,” thinking, maybe, that you’ve turned into a hotel.

He kisses you on both cheeks every time he sees you. He tells you he loves you every time he sees you.

You’re part of the ebb and flow
.

T
here is an ebb and flow in the client business,” agent Jeff Berg once told me. “You lose a client and you ask yourself, How can I get a new one?”

You don’t want a sweet and adorable negotiator
.

L
egendary former agent Freddie Fields: “What excuse do you have, what defense against a proper negotiator, when you’ve been bettered? You call him a killer, a cold-blooded guy. They’re all overused terms. There’s no such thing as a sweet, warm, adorable good negotiator.”

Try to find an agent who’s seen it all
.

L
ike my longtime agent Guy McElwaine—studio head at Warner Bros., Columbia, and Rastar; married seven or nine times; represented Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Peters Sellers, Yul Brynner, Burt Reynolds, Sharon Stone, Richard Pryor; married on three separate occasions to separate women at the Splendido Hotel in Portofino, Italy; once made love to Natalie Wood on top of a pool table in a bar where the jukebox was playing Sinatra; once won a white Lincoln Continental in a poker game from golfer Johnny Miller; once pulled producer David Geffen off a conference table when he was about to duke it out with Warner Bros. head Ted Ashley.

Be a pain in your agent’s ass
.

S
creenwriter Anna Hamilton Phelan (
Gorillas in the Mist
): “My agent gave me the best advice an agent had ever given me. He said, ‘I represent a lot of big people. I’m going to forget about you unless you bug me. You have to call me. You have to call me three, four times a week and you have to make me crazy. Make me hate you. If you don’t, I’m going to forget about you, and this is not going to go anywhere.”

Tumeling

Where agents want to be: at the center of the action.

If you’ve written a new script and want to give it to your new agent
…

W
ait until the next time he’s flying to New York and give it to him the day before he leaves. He’ll be captive for five hours, and that means:

1. He’ll probably be able to finish the script before he lands.

2. He won’t stop reading it to take any phone calls.

ALL HAIL