Read The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up for Free Online Page A

job.
    HIRSHAN: I was always aggressive, ambitious; I’d volunteer to work seven days a week. I loved it.
    In 1952 I worked for George Morris, who handled theater. It was a year or so after our merger with the Berg-Allenberg Agency. We had accumulated a lot of agents and clients, but there was a recession that year and a lot of people were let go—including Morris. I went to see Nat Lefkowitz and said, “Where do I go now?”
    He said, “We have no room for you. You’re let go, too.”
    I said, “But I’m making forty bucks a week.”
    He shrugged. “If you find a desk, you can stay.”
    I did, with Hilly Elkins. Working for Hilly wasn’t bad. But he was more a Sammy Glick than I was, so I didn’t imitate him. My personality is more the lone wolf. I just did my job. I also kept watching my personal clock because I was prepared to go back to law school at any time. After about four months on Hilly’s desk he left and I replaced him. I left, too, to start my own business, but that took another fifty years.

     
WMA: THE NEXT GENERATIONS
     
    WEISS: Being an agent sounds great: you get an act, you book them, you get 10 percent. An easy job. But you don’t just become an agent. You have to start at the bottom and learn by osmosis. Minimally, it’s knowing the names: of theaters, of clubs, of club owners, of clients. You absorb information. Then you have to form relationships.
    It takes years for what you absorb to take hold. There’s no way today you’re going to jump from the mailroom and become a David Geffen. Even he didn’t. He worked for me. Every day he said, “Lou, why don’t we go into the music business?”
    I said, “David, your job is to do your job for me.” In those days I had to make sure our TV shows were covered properly. We used to read every episode of every show we had on the air. He was great at it, but he’d always say, “Lou, why aren’t we in the music business?”
    He was right, and eventually he was ready.
    Over the years I’ve watched the office boys, and I could always see which ones were the bright ones, how the cream rose to the top. Geffen was easy to notice. Barry Diller—the man was a hit the second you met him. Irwin Winkler. Scott Shukat. Bernie Brillstein. Bob Shapiro, Howard West, and George Shapiro.
    How could I tell? Energy. Street smarts. They got it.

     
A WAY OF LIFE
     
    AUERBACH: The business part of me grew up awful fast; I’m not sure I grew as well as a person in the early days. I shortchanged myself. My life became the business, and the business became my life. Most of my time was spent trying to stay abreast of things. Most of my meals were with show business people. Most of my evenings were spent catching shows. I didn’t spend enough time with my kids—and they’ve let me know that. We lived on Long Island, and by the time I got home, they were sleeping.
    WEISS: I’m lucky. I always knew I had a massive support system around me. Young people today don’t quite understand what a support system is. And if they do, they don’t appreciate it. I’ve seen more people leave this company through the years and quickly fall on their ass because they tried to function without a support system. An act has to be lousy someplace before it gets good. A person needs a place to learn.
    I never thought I’d not spend my whole career at William Morris. I’ve been offered every job in the business, believe me, but I always knew this was my job for life. August 2002 marked my sixty-fifth year with the Morris office. Originally I was going to retire when I was seventy, and I asked my uncle George, “What do you think?”
    He said, “Well, Louie”—he always called me Louie, and he’s the only one who did—“what do you want to do?”
    I said, “I thought I’d travel and play golf and tennis.”
    My uncle, besides being a huge talent, was a very, very wise man. He said, “That’s only good if you have something else to do.”
    LOU WEISS is based in New York