MARC record from Internet Archive

LEADER: 04490cam 2200493Ia 4500
001 ocm56082770
003 OCoLC
005 20211023054036.0
008 040803t20042003nyuac b 001 0beng d
040 $aTSU$beng$cTSU$dBAKER$dBTCTA$dYDXCP$dBDX$dOCLCF$dOCLCO$dOCLCQ$dA7U$dGILDS$dOCL
019 $a1155726316
020 $a0812972171
020 $a9780812972177
035 $a(OCoLC)56082770$z(OCoLC)1155726316
043 $an-us---
050 4 $aPN2287.W4525$bB73 2004
082 4 $a338.7
100 1 $aBruck, Connie.
245 10 $aWhen Hollywood had a king :$bthe reign of Lew Wasserman, who leveraged talent into power and influence /$cConnie Bruck.
260 $aNew York :$bRandom House Trade Paperbacks,$c2004, ©2003.
300 $axiv, 512 pages :$billustrations, portraits ;$c20 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$bnc$2rdacarrier
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 483-494) and index.
520 $aCounter In When Hollywood Had a King, the distinguished journalist Connie Bruck tells the sweeping story of MCA and its brilliant leader, a man who transformed the entertainment industry-- businessman, politician, tactician, and visionary Lew Wasserman. The Music Corporation of America was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Dr. Jules Stein, an ophthalmologist with a gift for booking bands. Twelve years later, Stein moved his operations west to Beverly Hills and hired Lew Wasserman. From his meager beginnings as a movie-theater usher in Cleveland, Wasserman ultimately ascended to the post of president of MCA, and the company became the most powerful force in Hollywood, regarded with a mixture of fear and awe. In his signature black suit and black knit tie, Was-serman took Hollywood by storm. He shifted the balance of power from the studios--which had seven-year contractual strangleholds on the stars--to the talent, who became profit partners. When an antitrust suit forced MCA's evolution from talent agency to film- and television-production company, it was Wasserman who parlayed the control of a wide variety of entertainment and media products into a new type of Hollywood power base. There was only Washington left to conquer, and conquer it Wasserman did, quietly brokering alliances with Democratic and Republican administrations alike. That Wasserman's reach extended from the underworld to the White House only added to his mystique. Among his friends were Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, and gangster Moe Dalitz--along with Presidents Johnson, Clinton, and especially Reagan, who enjoyed a particularly close and mutually beneficial relationship with Wasserman. He was equally intimate with Hollywood royalty, from Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to Steven Spielberg, who began his career at MCA and once described Wasserman's eyeglasses as looking like two giant movie screens. The history of MCA is really the history of a revolution. Lew Wasserman ushered in the Hollywood we know today. He is the link between the old-school moguls with their ironclad studio contracts and the new industry defined by multimedia conglomerates, power agents, multimillionaire actors, and profit sharing. In the hands of Connie Bruck, the story of Lew Wasserman's rise to power takes on an almost Shakespearean scope. When Hollywood Had a King reveals the industry's greatest untold story: how a stealthy, enterprising power broker became, for a time, Tinseltown's absolute monarch.
600 10 $aWasserman, Lew.
610 20 $aMusic Corporation of America$xHistory.
600 17 $aWasserman, Lew.$2fast$0(OCoLC)fst00416385
610 27 $aMusic Corporation of America.$2fast$0(OCoLC)fst00716722
650 0 $aChief executive officers$zUnited States$vBiography.
650 7 $aChief executive officers.$2fast$0(OCoLC)fst00854175
651 7 $aUnited States.$2fast$0(OCoLC)fst01204155
655 7 $aBiographies.$2fast$0(OCoLC)fst01919896
655 7 $aHistory.$2fast$0(OCoLC)fst01411628
655 4 $aBiography.
856 42 $3Publisher description$uhttp://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/random0413/2003041418.html
938 $aBaker & Taylor$bBKTY$c16.95$d12.71$i0812972171$n0004358848$sactive
938 $aBrodart$bBROD$n01560964$c$16.95
938 $aBaker and Taylor$bBTCP$nBK0004358848
938 $aYBP Library Services$bYANK$n2073701
029 1 $aAU@$b000054929630
994 $aZ0$bP4A
948 $hNO HOLDINGS IN P4A - 47 OTHER HOLDINGS