Risk, Reward, and Representation in Hollywood with Harry Abrams

December 11, 2023

In this conversation, we are joined by a long-time innovator and entrepreneur in talent management — Harry Abrams. At the venerable age of 88, Harry reflects on a career where passion eclipsed paychecks, taking a step into adventure from lawnmower manufacturing in Indiana and instead taking a gutsy $40/week step into the glitz and competitiveness of Hollywood talent agencies.

After saying no to the storied William Morris Agency and yes to the illustrious MCA, Harry’s journey has been anything but ordinary. Abrams not only grew his company to over 150 employees but also prided himself on nurturing the next generation of industry leaders. Our conversation traverses his pursuit of new territories in technology and social media, as well as insights into business risks and creating your own competition. We’ll explore how Abrams has not only been a talent agent and business leader, but also an author, an arts community supporter, and a link to creative arts in LA and New York.

Guest: Harry Abrams, Founder and Past President/Chief Executive Officer, Abrams Artists Agency

After graduating with a B.S. in Business Administration from UCLA, in 1957, he worked in Indiana for a company that sold lawnmowers. In 1958, he joined MCA Artists, which was then a talent agency. Mr. Abrams started at an entry-level position in the mailroom of MCA for forty dollars a week and rose quickly to become an administrative assistant in its television department. He e was promoted to become an agent in the television department and remained at MCA until 1962, when the company was forced to divest itself of its talent agency division due to an anti-trust action against MCA’s parent company. It was at this time that Mr. Abrams and an MCA co-worker decided to start their own specialized talent agency named Abrams-Rubaloff & Associates in Los Angeles. Intrigued by the rich theatrical environment of New York City, Abrams opened a branch of the agency on the East Coast in 1966. The success of Abrams-Rubaloff & Associates propelled him to establish Abrams Artists Agency, a full-service agency catering to motion pictures, television, literary works, theater productions, and commercials.

Through the years, Abrams discovered and nurtured countless talents, showcasing his keen eye for spotting promising actors and performers. Notable names who have benefitted from Abrams’ expertise include Jennifer Lopez, Kerry Washington, Liam Neeson, Sterling K. Brown, and Katie Holmes, among many others.

After selling Abrams Artists Agency in 2018, Abrams co-wrote with Rod Thorn his memoir and business book, “Let’s Do Launch: A Hollywood Agent Dishes on How to Make Your Business and Career Take Off’.

Recognized as one of “The 500 Most Influential People in Los Angeles” in 2016 and 2017 by The Los Angeles Business Journal, Harry Abrams continues to actively contribute to the arts community, serving on the Board of Directors of prestigious organizations such as The Center Theatre Group and The Los Angeles Fraternity of Friends.

Links of Note:

Transcript
Speaker:

Harry, how old are you now? I'm 88.

Speaker:

Eightyat I don't really feel that I'm 88. I

Speaker:

don't act like I'm 88, but. How old were you when you

Speaker:

retired? How old when I. When I retired? I retired

Speaker:

five years ago. So I want to talk about several

Speaker:

things here. You are one of my favorite creative entrepreneurs because

Speaker:

you have, you have everything in one crazy

Speaker:

career lifetime. You created your own business from

Speaker:

nothing. You changed your own business repeatedly and kind

Speaker:

of repartnered and rethought about what you were going to do.

Speaker:

You had to think about your next generation leadership. You

Speaker:

had to think about training people and what the heartbeat is of an

Speaker:

entrepreneurial venture in the creative industries. You got to help other

Speaker:

people and you got to help figure out what was happening

Speaker:

next in changing sectors. All things I find really fascinating.

Speaker:

I want to try to hit heartbeats on that because

Speaker:

you've had to kind of shift gears many times. How

Speaker:

old were you when you did your first entertainment

Speaker:

doll? Well, I started out in a training program at

Speaker:

MCA, a talent agency, which was then a talent

Speaker:

agency. I came out of UCLA, went in the military for

Speaker:

six months, came out of the military, looked for a job.

Speaker:

I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. I'm not going to bore you

Speaker:

with. The story about, and it's in the. Book as well, couldn't get a job

Speaker:

in the midst of a recession. That country was. And

Speaker:

people were being laid off right and left in the entertainment industry.

Speaker:

Being at the business school at UCLA, I learned how to write

Speaker:

a letter of inquiry, a letter looking for a job.

Speaker:

And I wrote this letter to two agencies that

Speaker:

then had training programs. One was MCA and the other was the William

Speaker:

Morris Agency. I applied for position in both those

Speaker:

places, and I was able to get interviews with them,

Speaker:

with the personnel directors. Then I had to go through

Speaker:

a series of interviews with the department heads. There were ten

Speaker:

department heads, and I had to make myself available

Speaker:

when they were available. And so it took about another few months,

Speaker:

and you could be rejected anywhere along the way, and

Speaker:

this is, by the way, to get into the training program at either of these

Speaker:

places. And the pay was $40 a week. But I

Speaker:

desperately wanted to get in the entertainment industry, not as an artist, not as

Speaker:

a performer, but on the business side.

Speaker:

And I went through the process, went through all the interviews

Speaker:

and finished all the interviews, took about three months with each one of

Speaker:

them. And I got a letter from each of the personnel directors

Speaker:

saying, dear Harry, you've successfully passed our interview process.

Speaker:

And I assumed that when I opened this letter, I would be

Speaker:

offered a job. But they said, we're going to put you on a list

Speaker:

of approved applicants, and when your name rises to

Speaker:

the top of the list, don't call us, we'll call you.

Speaker:

And I said, well, how long is that going to take? A week, two weeks,

Speaker:

a month, six months, a year? We can't tell you,

Speaker:

is what they said. Just don't call us. We'll call you.

Speaker:

So I had to find a job at that point because I came from a

Speaker:

very poor family. My father worked in a print shop, and my mother

Speaker:

worked at Thompson, Ramo, Wooldrich,

Speaker:

TRW. I must admit, I've never known what

Speaker:

TRW stood for, so that's good to know. We come from a

Speaker:

very poor family, and so we had no contacts in the talent

Speaker:

agency or in the entertainment industry as a whole.

Speaker:

When I fainted dead away at pre med at the hospital and

Speaker:

went to UCLA, the counseling bureau, they came up with the idea

Speaker:

that I had no interest in fields of science, but that I had a strong

Speaker:

interest in entertainment and in business. And so that's what I decided to

Speaker:

focus on. And so I wrote these letters, got an interview with these

Speaker:

people, and my mother and father

Speaker:

said, entertainment. What was entertainment

Speaker:

then? Was it live theater, film? What year was this

Speaker:

live theater? It was feature film. It was television. They were all

Speaker:

three active areas of entertainment and

Speaker:

musical performers, the recording industry and all that. The

Speaker:

concerts. That's an area that I never got into that I didn't

Speaker:

want to get into personal appearances in concerts

Speaker:

anyway, so I. And my mother, father said, so get a job

Speaker:

already, for God's sake.

Speaker:

My uncle, he worked at Thrifty Drugstore, and

Speaker:

Thrifty Drugstore had a chain of 80 stores up and down

Speaker:

California. And he was in charge of housewares. He bought housewares

Speaker:

for the company and distributed them. And one of the

Speaker:

items that he bought were power lawnmowers.

Speaker:

And he dealt with a company. A man by the name of

Speaker:

Maury Loeber was his name. I remember his name vividly. And

Speaker:

he owned a power Lawnmower production company in

Speaker:

Richmond, Indiana, small farming town

Speaker:

70 miles due east of Indianapolis on

Speaker:

the Ohio border. Mr. Lober came into town, and

Speaker:

my uncle introduced me to him. And Mr. Lober said,

Speaker:

harry, would you. I'm going to offer you a job. You're looking for a position.

Speaker:

I'd like you to come to work for me at the power Lawnmower Company in

Speaker:

Richmond, Indiana. It was called the George W. Davis, G. W.

Speaker:

Davis Lawnmower Company. I took the job. I had

Speaker:

never been to that. I'd really not been out of Los Angeles

Speaker:

at all, with the exception of my six months in the

Speaker:

service, which was in San Antonio, Texas. I

Speaker:

had always heard about the Midwest and how people were. Their

Speaker:

values were really terrific, and wonderful people came out of the

Speaker:

Midwest. So I took him up on his job offer was $120

Speaker:

a week, a lot more than $40 a week.

Speaker:

And I moved to Richmond, Indiana. Small

Speaker:

town, maybe 15, 20,000 people, a farming

Speaker:

town. And I went to work at this company, and I worked at this

Speaker:

company doing everything and anything dealing

Speaker:

with manufacturing and production and sales and

Speaker:

distribution. And he had about 150 factory

Speaker:

workers there. And there was a superintendent who ran the

Speaker:

place. And I was kind of Mr. Lobers.

Speaker:

He didn't have any children. He was married, but he didn't have any children. And

Speaker:

he grew to take me in like his son. And I did

Speaker:

everything and anything to do with production of lawnmowers. I was in charge of

Speaker:

purchasing. I purchased all the raw goods that went into the

Speaker:

lawnmowers. I dealt with all kinds of suppliers around the country.

Speaker:

One day my mother calls me about 14 months a year, and two months

Speaker:

into my stay in Richmond, Indiana. She says, I got

Speaker:

a letter here from the William Morris Agency. So I said, we'll open it up.

Speaker:

She opened it up and said, dear Harry, your name has risen to the top

Speaker:

of the list, and you have 72 hours to

Speaker:

accept the position to come into our training program. The pay is

Speaker:

$40 a week. And during my. He said, you have

Speaker:

72 hours to accept the job or not. If you don't take the job in

Speaker:

72 hours, we're going to go on to the next person on the list. Well,

Speaker:

during my interview process with the ten department

Speaker:

heads, my perception of the caliber

Speaker:

and the quality of the agents at MCA versus William

Speaker:

Morris, I felt that the agents at MCA were far

Speaker:

superior, were brighter, sharper, more aggressive, et

Speaker:

cetera. And so I took a calculated risk,

Speaker:

and I turned the offer down. But before I turned the

Speaker:

offer down, I spoke to my mother and father, and they said,

Speaker:

$125. You're making $125 to take a job

Speaker:

for $40 a week? This is ridiculous. I called Mr.

Speaker:

Glover to tell him he was in New York, I was going to be leaving.

Speaker:

I was handing him my letter of resignation for two weeks

Speaker:

notice, and he said, you haven't accepted the job yet, have you? And

Speaker:

I said, well, why do you ask? He said, because

Speaker:

I'm on the airplane the next day. Of flying in to meet with

Speaker:

you. I'm going to try to persuade you to the contrary.

Speaker:

So he came in and took me out to dinner the next night, and he

Speaker:

said, you're going to take a job for $40 a

Speaker:

week. You're making $125 a week. He then began to

Speaker:

reevaluate just how bright I was, and he

Speaker:

said, you know what? I'm going to double his salary. I'm going to make it

Speaker:

$250 a. Week, which was a lot of money. At that time, which

Speaker:

was a lot of money at that time, especially for a young person like

Speaker:

myself. And I turned him down. I told him,

Speaker:

Mr. Loba, my heart is in the entertainment industry. That's what I want to get

Speaker:

into. So I've got to leave. And I left.

Speaker:

Two weeks later. I moved to Los Angeles. I went to work in a training.

Speaker:

Program at that NCAA that you ended up accepting. That

Speaker:

one called about four months later, and your name is written to the

Speaker:

top of the list. You have 24 hours to accept the position.

Speaker:

I said, I don't need 24 hours, Mr. Zuck, when do I start?

Speaker:

And I took that job for $40 a week.

Speaker:

I left the job for $250 a week, and that's

Speaker:

where I started. I started in the training program at MCA, which had a

Speaker:

very sophisticated, well structured training program.

Speaker:

Six guys worked in the mailroom. I came in as a number six guy,

Speaker:

and you had to work your way up. And when they got up to

Speaker:

the number one position, I'm going to pause. You a second and

Speaker:

ask a few questions. One of them is you've

Speaker:

three times talked about the people, the caliber of the

Speaker:

people, and very specific of remembering names. I know you've

Speaker:

working on your books. Some of those you remember possibly even more vividly.

Speaker:

Has that been a recurring thread thereafter, that the quality

Speaker:

of people has been a driving factor for

Speaker:

you? No question about it. I really enjoy

Speaker:

dealing with the quality of people, what kind of people they are,

Speaker:

what their education has been, what their degree of success has been,

Speaker:

what field that they're in. I'm always interested in people who

Speaker:

have developed, have moved themselves

Speaker:

along, have been motivated by success

Speaker:

and advancement and earning more money.

Speaker:

And so the quality of people has always been very

Speaker:

important to me. The caliber and the quality of the people at

Speaker:

MCA were far superior to the people at people can

Speaker:

argue with me about that. That's my opinion, and, well, you got. To live with

Speaker:

it afterwards as well, and spend a lot of time in this space. Let

Speaker:

me then sort of take you through one sort of sidebar question, which is the

Speaker:

getting started in entertainment? Sometimes it's who you know. You've

Speaker:

definitely told the opposite story here. You've told a story of

Speaker:

persistence. What skills did you find

Speaker:

really helped you in your first five years? Human relations,

Speaker:

getting along with people, being able to accept

Speaker:

just about anyone for whatever they do. I

Speaker:

enjoy talking to people. I enjoy seeing how people have

Speaker:

molded their lives and their

Speaker:

professional lives, their family lives. And I've always tried,

Speaker:

I've admired people who've had those successes.

Speaker:

And so I found myself being, getting

Speaker:

closer with people who have done that. And it

Speaker:

also instilled in me a desire to become

Speaker:

successful as they had become. I guess that's the way I would

Speaker:

answer that. Success is what success in

Speaker:

achievement, of type of work that you did and the caliber and the level at

Speaker:

which you did it. And success also in

Speaker:

financial success as well. And also

Speaker:

success in. I was in the talent agency business when

Speaker:

I could be successful of finding an artist

Speaker:

and helping move their career along

Speaker:

to where they became a star. That to me

Speaker:

was tremendous success and a great

Speaker:

deal of achievement. So you

Speaker:

left MCA to start what was the first

Speaker:

of your own sort of pieces of a company. What triggered your

Speaker:

departure? It wasn't that I left MCA. MCA

Speaker:

left me. Lou Wasserman ran the business company at that

Speaker:

time. And MCA, they bought Universal Pictures,

Speaker:

Universal Studios, all of the property, all the soundstages,

Speaker:

all of the library, everything that Universal owned. And

Speaker:

so they were buying all of their talent

Speaker:

at Universal from their talent agency for

Speaker:

several months, maybe even a year or

Speaker:

two. And the other agencies, like the William Morris Agency

Speaker:

and ICM and other talent agencies were having trouble

Speaker:

getting in the front door selling any talent to

Speaker:

MCA. So, I mean, too, at Universal. So what

Speaker:

happened is they felt that. They

Speaker:

become a monopoly of sorts. So they filed a

Speaker:

lawsuit against MCA saying that they were in

Speaker:

violation of the Sherman Clayton Antitrust Act. They were

Speaker:

a monopoly. And as a result, it took a long period

Speaker:

of time. The wheels of justice grind very

Speaker:

slowly, as they say. And it took two or three

Speaker:

years for that lawsuit to make its way through whatever

Speaker:

different levels of law that is in

Speaker:

existence. And they finally got to

Speaker:

Jack Kennedy was president at the time, Robert Kennedy

Speaker:

was the attorney general, and it was him, his

Speaker:

lawsuit against MCA. And finally they came to the

Speaker:

conclusion the government did U. S. Government that they

Speaker:

were in violation. MCA was in violation of the

Speaker:

Sherman Clayton Antitrust Act. They were a monopoly.

Speaker:

And they said to MCA, hex came down after

Speaker:

two or three years. You either have to stay in the talent agency

Speaker:

business, or you stay in motion picture and television production. You cannot

Speaker:

be in both. And so it was a fairly easy decision for

Speaker:

MCA, the parent company, to make at that time, because the gross dollar

Speaker:

revenue for Universal, I mean, for

Speaker:

MCA, was much smaller,

Speaker:

80 some odd million dollars. Whereas

Speaker:

I was going to say, though. The talent agency business hadn't yet grown to what

Speaker:

it's become and the various scales that it's

Speaker:

become. So at that point in time, what level of success had

Speaker:

you risen to at this point in time? You had your own clients, you

Speaker:

had your own expertise? You

Speaker:

mean, at that point in time. When split from, by the

Speaker:

way, the director from the government said to MCA, the parent

Speaker:

company, you cannot just dismiss and terminate all of your

Speaker:

employees, all your agents, you have to offer them all positions

Speaker:

in production, motion picture and television production at

Speaker:

Universal. And so all of the

Speaker:

employees there were, I don't know, a couple thousand around the world, if

Speaker:

that many. Everyone was offered a position, including myself,

Speaker:

to go into motion picture or television production. And

Speaker:

I'd say about 90% of the

Speaker:

agents all went into motion television production.

Speaker:

Yeah, they were immediate job with a salary, et

Speaker:

cetera. But I had been working with this gentleman

Speaker:

by the name of Noel Rubelov,

Speaker:

moved out of the mailroom into that division or that department of the

Speaker:

agency that dealt with commercials, radio and

Speaker:

television commercials. It dealt with MCs,

Speaker:

hosts of game shows, queer shows, audience participation

Speaker:

shows, radio personalities. It was an area of the

Speaker:

business that most talent agents didn't want to get into.

Speaker:

Most talent agency wanted to be a motion pictures and television

Speaker:

production or a theater production, much more glamorous.

Speaker:

But I liked working with Ruboloff. He was eight years my

Speaker:

senior, and I liked working with him in that

Speaker:

area of the business at MCA. And I'd been there for about, I

Speaker:

don't know, maybe four or five, six years roughly. At that point, I

Speaker:

had decided I went to him. He was eight years my senior. As

Speaker:

I say, I said, I think this is a great time for us to open

Speaker:

up our own shop. And because all the clientele that we were

Speaker:

representing were going to be without agents, they needed agency

Speaker:

representation. So I said, I think we should

Speaker:

not go into motion picture and television product and

Speaker:

open our own shop. And that's what we did. We opened our

Speaker:

own agency. It was called Abrams Rubeloffs and

Speaker:

Associates. And even though he was my senior

Speaker:

by eight years and had much more experience, when we

Speaker:

went to open our bank account, City National bank, they said,

Speaker:

what do you want to call your bank account? I popped up and I said,

Speaker:

well, my last name is AB. We'll be first on every

Speaker:

list. I think we should call it Abrams Ruboloff.

Speaker:

And Ruboloff readily agreed to that, or didn't move fast

Speaker:

enough anyway, so that's how it came to be known. And

Speaker:

we started our business in Los Angeles. And I used to fly to New

Speaker:

York to fly to Madison Avenue. I covered Madison Avenue. It

Speaker:

was like a blanket dealing with all kinds of ad agencies,

Speaker:

marketing our clientele. Radio and television commercials was our

Speaker:

biggest source of revenue and income in those days, although

Speaker:

we did do a healthy business in MCs and

Speaker:

hosts game shows, quiz shows, audience participation

Speaker:

shows. Bob Barker, for example, was one of our clients,

Speaker:

people like Gary Owens and Jack Nars and

Speaker:

Tom Kennedy. You won't recognize these names. Well, I

Speaker:

will, but not all of our listeners. Well, yeah, not all of the listeners.

Speaker:

And that specialization was special to

Speaker:

us. There weren't any other agencies. Well, there were smaller

Speaker:

agencies, one person, two person shops. When we went

Speaker:

out on our own, we had three or four employees. And so

Speaker:

we started building the company, and it was

Speaker:

successful. And I was the one in Los Angeles

Speaker:

who would travel to New York all the time

Speaker:

to go up and down Madison Avenue, could care

Speaker:

less about New York City. So you are someone who

Speaker:

steps into risk. Risk makes you happy

Speaker:

or you're comfortable with risk, or what makes it so that

Speaker:

you're willing to step into a new situation.

Speaker:

It's attractive to me because if I feel that I can, I manage a big

Speaker:

achievement and go into something new and

Speaker:

make it into something successful. So I didn't mind risk

Speaker:

at all. I really enjoyed the competition.

Speaker:

I enjoyed business as a whole. But I really was

Speaker:

fascinated by business in the entertainment industry. But

Speaker:

again, not, I didn't want to get into

Speaker:

production that I felt was too much of a risk.

Speaker:

But being that we had developed a terrific talent agency

Speaker:

with outstanding clientele in a specialized

Speaker:

area that most other talent

Speaker:

agencies were not in. So I enjoyed the

Speaker:

risk and the reward and, of course, the rewards.

Speaker:

Of course, yes, there's no rewards without

Speaker:

any risk. So in this saga, because the

Speaker:

saga, I think, moves as well into it, becoming Abrams artist,

Speaker:

what were the main struggles that you went through in having your own business?

Speaker:

Well, we did have competition.

Speaker:

William Morris Agency had a department or a division that did the same thing, that

Speaker:

DM had a similar CAA, didn't

Speaker:

have that department at that time. I

Speaker:

found talent. I found developed artists.

Speaker:

We became very well known. And eventually

Speaker:

Rubiloff and I were together for about 1415 years.

Speaker:

And at one point in our

Speaker:

partnership, we broke up

Speaker:

and I opened up Abrams artists. At that point, in other

Speaker:

words, instead of being Abram Schmugaloff, and I continued to build, and

Speaker:

I really enjoyed not only

Speaker:

finding talent, performing talent artists,

Speaker:

but I also enjoyed finding talented people. And

Speaker:

I liked to train them and give them opportunities for

Speaker:

growth and advancement like I had had

Speaker:

myself. And so that was the

Speaker:

biggest motivation for writing

Speaker:

my book, was to provide some sort of where people

Speaker:

would want to perhaps consider coming out with a

Speaker:

school with a master's degree in business, or maybe having gone

Speaker:

into business after, or gone into some form of employment

Speaker:

after college, and finding either with an

Speaker:

undergraduate or graduate degree and finding that they

Speaker:

ward that through, they're happy with their career choice. So

Speaker:

after three or four years, they began to look elsewhere.

Speaker:

When they want to get in the entertainment industry, they didn't even think about

Speaker:

the fact they assumed everything was in production. But the

Speaker:

key part of the entertainment industry that I think that drove it, in my

Speaker:

humble opinion, were the talent agencies.

Speaker:

And so I wanted to train people to become talent

Speaker:

agents and help people

Speaker:

find career choices, career paths in entertainment,

Speaker:

other than performing, other than as an artist.

Speaker:

When we first met, now was a few years ago,

Speaker:

and you, at the time, I remember, were really looking at new

Speaker:

technologies and getting your agents

Speaker:

involved in things like early internet, YouTube,

Speaker:

early social media, social media, early

Speaker:

influencer work. How did you figure which technologies were

Speaker:

ready for you guys to lean into? Well, I think it kind of

Speaker:

developed on its own, and social media

Speaker:

became important. I myself, if not,

Speaker:

I'm not in any of those forms of social

Speaker:

media myself, personally. In those particular

Speaker:

fields, influencers became very, very important.

Speaker:

Influencers are the outgrowth of social media, and

Speaker:

influencers are people that earn great sums of money, and

Speaker:

they have representatives, agents,

Speaker:

managers who manage them and help move their careers

Speaker:

along. And I felt that that was an area that I wanted

Speaker:

to dip my toe into. I dipped my

Speaker:

toe in, and I began to look for

Speaker:

people. I myself didn't do it. I hired someone

Speaker:

who was a younger person than I, who was much more

Speaker:

knowledgeable and conversant with social media than I was,

Speaker:

and I hired him to run that department

Speaker:

or division of the agency. It's interesting because not only

Speaker:

do those influencers

Speaker:

as influencers, they are very much in demand or

Speaker:

can become very much in demand as a result of social media,

Speaker:

but a number of them also were

Speaker:

hosts, potential hosts, MCs,

Speaker:

people of that nature. And so I felt it was

Speaker:

very similar to what our clientele were

Speaker:

all about. I spent time developing a

Speaker:

division or a department of the agency, and that department or division

Speaker:

of the agency grew to be the most productive

Speaker:

of the entire. Most productive of the entire

Speaker:

income or revenue of the agency was that department

Speaker:

or that division. So I invite my mother and my father to

Speaker:

come into my office one day and to sit there or stand

Speaker:

there and watch me work and see what I did every day

Speaker:

and how I dealt with people and not only our

Speaker:

clientele, but the people that we had to sell our clientele to

Speaker:

have meetings with people, our

Speaker:

clients, who were very

Speaker:

demanding. And at the end of about a week, my

Speaker:

father said to me, both of them said, at the same time,

Speaker:

Harry, you're actually practicing medicine every day of the week. You're dealing

Speaker:

with crazy people.

Speaker:

And so, yeah, my dad said, you can hang your shingle right outside

Speaker:

your office door. Harry Abrams, MD being an

Speaker:

agent, being a good psychologist and social psychologist, and

Speaker:

understanding how everybody's interior nuts and bolts

Speaker:

work. So I totally see that. When did you think you were

Speaker:

successful? Well, when I thought it was

Speaker:

successful when MCA broke up, it was very fortuitous

Speaker:

that they broke up, that we were able to go out. I figured we had

Speaker:

an area of the business we had very little competition in.

Speaker:

And so I felt we were. I don't know how one

Speaker:

measures success, but we were able to pay our bills

Speaker:

and employ people and still have money left.

Speaker:

Profit, always good. And have your own time, but your time

Speaker:

is oftentimes your clients. So

Speaker:

you retired later than a lot of people. How did

Speaker:

you considering that this business was in many ways tied in

Speaker:

with you, even though you hired great people and trained them to work for you,

Speaker:

how was that process of moving the company to

Speaker:

the next generation? And I know they're wonderful folks and they will hear

Speaker:

this, but how did you go through the process of thinking about

Speaker:

the next generation of the company? Well, first of all,

Speaker:

we started out in a particular area, which was a very small

Speaker:

area of the business. And the larger area of the

Speaker:

business is when One moves into

Speaker:

with performers. Because you ended up in almost every area of

Speaker:

the business by the time that you got to be a multi city,

Speaker:

multi space company, advertising, a commercial. End of our

Speaker:

business became a very small end of our business,

Speaker:

and we became a full fledged talent agency in,

Speaker:

I mean, in New York initially, where I was only

Speaker:

in New York to begin with, I used to fly out to Los Angeles and

Speaker:

sell that market, our talent in LA. And

Speaker:

eventually I felt we needed to have an office here. And

Speaker:

I hired a couple of people from

Speaker:

one of our competitors, the Gersh agency,

Speaker:

had two guys, Scott Harris and Howard Goldberg,

Speaker:

guys that I used to send my talent

Speaker:

to from New Yorkers. We didn't have an office. I'd

Speaker:

send them out there. And so they became an affiliate or

Speaker:

corresponding talent agency for us. And so we

Speaker:

were very close to them when they were at the Gersh office. And

Speaker:

then I hired them away and we set up an office in

Speaker:

LA under our title. It was

Speaker:

called Abrams. And I put their names on the door,

Speaker:

Abrams, Harris and Gold, because I was not

Speaker:

there. Under screen actors regulations, rules and

Speaker:

regulations, someone has to be name

Speaker:

value in each of the offices. So I

Speaker:

put their names on the door even though they had no

Speaker:

financial or equity interest in the company. And what

Speaker:

happened is we continued to grow and prosper. And first

Speaker:

year, there were two young guys, much younger than I

Speaker:

was. They didn't know how to run a business. So I would

Speaker:

spend a week in LA and a week in New York and help them

Speaker:

build the business in LA.

Speaker:

But again, they had their names on the

Speaker:

people, you know, respective artists

Speaker:

would assume that they were at an equity, even though they did not.

Speaker:

And what took place is continuing to grow and grow and

Speaker:

grow. After about five years, the two

Speaker:

fellows, Howard Goldberg and Scott

Speaker:

Harris, felt that they didn't really need me any

Speaker:

longer, so they went ahead and set up their own

Speaker:

business. And under the name of, originally,

Speaker:

Harrison Goldberg, until, unfortunately, Howard Goldberg

Speaker:

passed away at an early age from AIDS,

Speaker:

unfortunately. And so they changed the

Speaker:

name. Instead of it being Harrison Goldberg, they changed

Speaker:

it to innovative artists. And that's the name that

Speaker:

they have shared, they have kept today, Scott Harris,

Speaker:

who owns and runs that business today. So that was an example

Speaker:

of hiring people that then grew into their own business. How

Speaker:

did you grow your succession management? Eddie Brooms,

Speaker:

artists who. Well, and I continued to

Speaker:

grow. And adding more

Speaker:

agents from our training program, adding more important

Speaker:

clientele, developing them into important

Speaker:

stars in their own right, we would develop them. Wasn't

Speaker:

always me selling talent that we got

Speaker:

from another agency. And the agency continued to grow.

Speaker:

When I sold the business five years ago, now

Speaker:

there were about 150 people working for the company between

Speaker:

New York and LA, and in all kinds

Speaker:

of different divisions or departments. The only

Speaker:

area, including literary, including theater, motion

Speaker:

pictures, actors, actresses. The only area that we did

Speaker:

not get into was the area of music and concerts and personal

Speaker:

appearances. And I really just

Speaker:

enjoyed that growth. And we

Speaker:

also began to sell. We developed a literary

Speaker:

department as well. I wasn't running it myself. I

Speaker:

hired literary agents and built

Speaker:

a literary department to be very successful. And we would sell

Speaker:

talent, writers and directors,

Speaker:

producers, but also we would sell

Speaker:

packages where we would represent the entire

Speaker:

package of writer, director, producer,

Speaker:

actors, actresses, et

Speaker:

cetera. I'm going to keep

Speaker:

nudging people to get the book because you tell lots of stories and there of

Speaker:

people you moved into and helped along with their career.

Speaker:

What might be a couple things that you're the most proud of

Speaker:

from that work? Well, I've actually

Speaker:

fostered, parented many,

Speaker:

not many, but several successful talent agencies of their own

Speaker:

today. So I'm very proud of that. Even though they became

Speaker:

competitors, I grew trained agents

Speaker:

within our company. They worked there three, four, five years,

Speaker:

six, seven, eight years, ten years, and then they went out on their own

Speaker:

and grew their own businesses. So I'm very proud of

Speaker:

that. Even though they became competition, I was

Speaker:

delighted that I had been helpful

Speaker:

in teaching them, training them, providing

Speaker:

them with a career path where they could earn themselves a

Speaker:

good, make a good living. Is there anything we, of course, could talk for hours

Speaker:

on this long, wonderful career you've had and the great journey you've had,

Speaker:

what haven't we mentioned that might be a good thing to wrap us up here?

Speaker:

I'm very proud of that. I have found

Speaker:

a number of performers, artists, actors and

Speaker:

actresses, name talent have built them from

Speaker:

literally nothing up to becoming

Speaker:

valuable entities in their own right.

Speaker:

We may not represent them any longer

Speaker:

because the large corporate agencies would come and we were

Speaker:

kind of the people that built their careers, and then when they

Speaker:

got to be big enough, large enough and bringing in enough of an

Speaker:

income that a large corporate agency would come after them

Speaker:

and steal them away from us. And it wasn't always

Speaker:

the case. But I'm proud of the fact that there are

Speaker:

several artists name artists today that

Speaker:

I'm responsible for, even though I've been out of the business

Speaker:

for five years. But I helped build their

Speaker:

careers, and I'm very pleased with the fact that I played

Speaker:

a hand, a major hand, in

Speaker:

developing them into desirable, in

Speaker:

demand artists who are paid great

Speaker:

sums of. Money for their services and are

Speaker:

nice people as well. They're very grateful for the fact

Speaker:

that, I wouldn't say all of them are grateful.

Speaker:

I think they're grateful for the fact that

Speaker:

Abrams of law or Howard Abrams have played an important part

Speaker:

in their livelihood and where they're at today.

Speaker:

Well, you are at all sorts of interesting things now, including

Speaker:

being involved here at Arts in Los Angeles and

Speaker:

continuing to have a touch point of arts a bit in New York when you

Speaker:

get out there, if people would like to find your work, we're going to

Speaker:

put in the show notes, links to people to find your

Speaker:

book. Harry, it's great talking to you. I always

Speaker:

find joy in it, and it's been great to see this book to come

Speaker:

fruition and find success. So it's

Speaker:

wonderful. And if anybody wants to find the book, we'll have all the links in

Speaker:

the show notes. Thank you very much for joining us on the show.

Speaker:

My pleasure. Thanks for asking me.