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:
- Let’s Do Launch: A Hollywood Agent Dishes on How to Make Your Business and Career Take Off“: https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Do-Launch-Hollywood-Business/dp/1899694129
- Abrams Artists Agency (now A3 Artists Agency): www.linkedin.com/company/a3-artists-agency and https://www.a3artistsagency.com
Transcript
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.
