When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent Into Power and Influence

Connie Bruck is a masterful biographer, one of the best. Her books read like political thrillers. She has multiple threads keeping the plot moving, and each thread reveals important information about the character. She outwrites most fiction thriller writers. "When Hollywood had a king" kept me rivited to my audiobook the entire time. Basically, Lew Wasserman is a constantly scheming, completely self-centered, with no interests except business dealings and enlarging his fortune. Bruck portrays him as a crass, nouveau rich executive. He and his wife hold parties, and only include those with the right social status. Yet they themselves come from lower-middle class backgrounds. Wasserman is ruthless in his dealings with everyone, both other business executives and his employees. This man is the epitome of the ugly businessman. Bruck does a spectacular job of showing how the origins of the Talent Agent business that Wasserman started in had mafia ties. wassermann continued to use the Mafia practices of intimidation, fear and punishment in all his business dealings, a true shark suit. If you worked at MCA and quit, it was viewed as an act of betrayal, and Wassermann would do his best to impede your career. Bruck shows how Wassermann kept you in your place, giving you small rewards for doing as he said, and big punishments for doing what was best for you. The book shows how JFK & Bobby Kennedy were influenced to make the anti-trust changes light the year they spun off the MCA talent agency business. Wassermann chose this division to spin off, then just fired all the employees who were loyal to him for 20+ years; no pension, no nothing. That was the kind of guy he was. Do what he wants and you're 'part of the family'. But he doesn't help you when it doesn't benefit him. I can't imagine a work of fiction being more engaging than this book. Plus, when you're done, you have a good understanding of the whole hollywood business scene, and how project (movies) get done in Hollywood. Wassermann was a talented business guy, no doubt. But in his brand of business, other humans have no meaning except how they benefit you.

Absolutely first-rate bio-history. It is the story of this remarkable man, but also the story of a great deal more. As I read this well-written biography, I thought of "Once Upon A Time In America," the film about the American Jewish mafia told by the Italian director Sergio Leone. This biography of Wasserman has all of the mythic power of that film chronicle of violence and dreams. Fear played such a role in the way Wasserman weilded power, it is a wonder that our political theorists have not included this book in their reading lists along with Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. There is something "Oriental" about the use of power, the willingness to ruthlessly destroy, the seemingly endless, insatiable greed. His connection to the mob and to American presidents, such as Johnson and Nixon, is terribly interesting, as is the continuing fascination of Hollywood with power. I can think of no comparable mix of dread and beauty than that of the relationship between Stalin and Russian poets. This book is haunting and scary. Sleep tight.

When Lew Wasserman was growing up in his native Cleveland the Horatio Alger books were popular. They traced the rise of often penniless young men to the high pinnacles of economic and social power. I do not know if Wasserman read any of these stories in his boyhood, but he certainly ended up living them.Beginning as a theater usher and later becoming a musician, Wasserman hooked up with Jules Styne and began booking musical acts. The dynamic duo recognized that the swing era of bands, which was their bailiwick, would have a limited life span. The Music Corporation of America then expanded into the world of motion pictures, retaining the name of an organization that sounds like and began as a company rooted in the movie field. One of Wasserman's clients in the late thirties was a young actor under contract to Warner Brothers by the name of Ronald Reagan. He would later be in a major position to assist Wasserman and MCA both as president of the Screen Actors Guild and beyond that as U.S. President. Reagan would always remain a bit miffed, however, that Wasserman, who developed solid relationships with presidents Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton, would retain his reputation as a loyal Democrat and hence supported Reagan's opponents. The firm was crafty, however, in keeping a foot in each camp, with Jules Styne and Taft Schreiber supporting Republicans assiduously. This factor helped when Reagan and Richard Nixon were in office.Connie Bruck has provided an impressive body of research, including numerous interviews with the late Wasserman as well as those who worked with him and knew him well. Her industry pays off in the form of a fascinating study of a man who rose meteorically through the agent's ranks to become the supreme giant of the motion picture industry, the man others feared and envied, often at the same time.

This fascinating book is not only a look at Lew Wasserman and the MCA Hollywood empire he created, but a stunning and incisively written piece of business history -- indeed, a look at U.S. commerce, politics, and entertainment in the modern era. Bruck has the great ability to write about complex business issues and deals in a lucid and readable way. This is a must-read book for those interested in business stories, in modern American politics (Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan play key roles in the book), in Hollywood history (the break of the studio system, the movie stars, the move into TV). Bruck's canvas is so wide, yet she manages to combine all these various elements in a dramatic and compelling narrative. It's a brilliant book.

Long ago, I recall someone suggesting that diplomacy is "letting others have it your way." (I forget who said it.) As I read Bruck's holograph (it's more than a portrait) of Lew Wasserman, I was reminded of that observation. According to her account, Wasserman had a special talent for achieving his objectives while preserving cordial relationships with a wide and diverse range of potential antagonists. For example, with the heads of various studios with whom he aggressively negotiated on behalf of MCA's clients; with James Hoffa from whose union Wasserman hired 15,000 members; and with other talent agents after MCA became a major producer of films and television programs. As I completed reading this book, I felt gratitude for the brilliant presentation of the material about Wasserman but I was also favorably impressed by Bruck's demonstration of skills which we normally associate with a cultural anthropologist. As we all know, "Hollywood" is far less significant (if significant at all) as a place than it is as a state-of-mind. Bruck appropriately establishes Wasserman as the gravitational center of her book but she also probes deeply into basic sources of power and influence within the evolving culture of the entertainment industry, sources which remain long after Wasserman was no longer actively involved. For me, the entertainment value of Bruck's book is derived much less from the glitz and glamor of stardom of "Tinseltown" than it does from her examination of all manner of business issues, relationships, and conflicts. It is impossible to understand who Wasserman was and to appreciate what he achieved without correlating his personality and career with the history, economics, art, politics, and psychology of the empire over which he reigned for so many years. Bruck makes such correlations with consummate precision while preserving, throughout her examination of Wasserman ("a shark you almost had to admire as he circled you") the nuances of his multi-dimensional humanity.