1997 NYTimes Article on Agents: McQueeney
dek26354
McQueeney (they haven't) and I ran across this article from 1997: very
interesting reading on agents and how fickle stars are when it comes to
staying with the people who helped them achieve success... of course,
Ms. McQueeney's experience is the exception, as she notes!]
Your Last Film Bombed? Simple: Get a New Agent
By BERNARD WEINRAUB
Published: March 11, 1997
Arnold Schwarzenegger is turning 50 and has suffered box office
disappointments. Sylvester Stallone's career is in the doldrums.
Madonna failed to get an Academy Award nomination.
So what do they do?
They switch agents.
Feelings of vulnerability among aging stars, the insecurities provoked
by Oscar snubs, the renewed aggressiveness of Creative Artists Agency
two years after its leaders, Michael Ovitz and Ron Meyer, abruptly left
-- all are combining to make the normally ferocious competition for
clients among talent agents almost cutthroat. Rarely have so many stars
jumped from agent to agent, some of them abruptly leaving people who
have built and nurtured their careers. Overnight, agencies can lose
millions in commissions.
"What's happening now is a reflection of the whole business," said Jim
Wiatt, president of International Creative Management, one of the most
powerful agencies. "The decline in the number of movies being made, the
normal insecurity about getting jobs, the multinationals which own
studios looking at the bottom line and rising costs are generating this
sense of upheaval."
Almost daily the Hollywood trade papers report defections from one
agency to another. The director Penny Marshall leaves her longtime
agent at Creative Artists Agency for I.C.M. after disappointments
including "Renaissance Man" and "Preacher's Wife." Nathan Lane
dismisses his William Morris agent of 17 years to go to Creative
Artists. Mr. Schwarzenegger dismisses his I.C.M. agent of 15 years, who
helped transform him from an Austrian body builder, and will probably
go to William Morris. Mr. Stallone rejoins Creative Artists, which he
left two years ago to go first to I.C.M, and then to William Morris.
Perhaps the most discussed defection was that of Cuba Gooding Jr.,
whose star is rising after his role as the football player in "Jerry
Maguire." In the film, Mr. Gooding remains loyal to his agent, played
by Tom Cruise. But life didn't follow art: shortly after his success,
Mr. Gooding left his agent at the relatively small Paradigm Agency to
join Creative Artists.
Three agencies dominate the movie business: Creative Artists,
International Creative Management and William Morris. The smaller
United Talent also has a strong client list that includes stars (Jim
Carrey and Sandra Bullock) and some top television actors and writer
producers. A fifth agency, Endeavor, is also emerging as a power.
Why clients leave is sometimes a mystery, sometimes not. People who
know Mr. Schwarzenegger said he needed to re-evaluate his career as an
action star as he turned 50, after his last film, "Jingle All the Way"
and others were disappointments at the box office.
Similarly, Mr. Stallone's career is sliding. (He is more popular abroad
than at home.) Madonna, industry insiders say, was upset not only that
she failed to win an Academy Award nomination for "Evita," but also
that scripts aren't piling up on her doorstep. She has returned to
Creative Artists, two years after leaving that agency for William
Morris and then I.C.M.
Rare are the actors who stay loyal. Clint Eastwood and Walter Matthau
have been with Leonard Hirshan of William Morris for more than 25
years. Bill Cosby has been represented by Norman Brokaw of William
Morris for decades. Beau Bridges and Bruce Dern have been with Fred
Specktor at Creative Artists for more than 25 years. Harrison Ford is
the sole client of Patricia McQueeney, who has represented him for 27
years.
"Harrison has always been so loyal, and I just can't understand what
goes on with these people who are lucky enough to find an agent who
cares about them and works really hard for them," Ms. McQueeney said.
"Wouldn't it be in their best interests to keep that agent?"
"We all know where the jobs are every day, we know what's out there,
and any agent worth his or her salt knows exactly what's going on at
any given moment," she said. "It's ridiculous to think one agent can do
it better than another one."
She described stars like Mr. Ford and Mr. Eastwood as "very rare guys,
very secure themselves." "People who make it big in this town are the
ones who find somebody to take care of them and who stay with them,"
she added.
Ms. McQueeney said it was also ridiculous for a client to blame an
agent for a failed film and leave the agent because of it. "Harrison
chooses his films, and so does every other star," she said. "If the
film does great, Harrison gets all the credit. If it doesn't do well,
he's grown-up enough to take responsibility for that."
Her job, she said, "is to bring projects to him quickly, before
somebody else decides to do it."
"That's the agent's function: to present the opportunity," Ms.
McQueeney said. (She works at an advantage, of course, since Mr. Ford,
as a top star, has more opportunities than he can handle.)
The turmoil isn't limited to actors and film makers. Agents themselves
have been leaving, notably those from I.C.M. who formed the agency
Endeavor two years ago. Since then they have been joined by film and
television agents from Creative Artists, to form one of Hollywood's
most aggressive smaller agencies.
"There's a great insecurity out there now," said Marty Adelstein, a top
television agent at Creative Artists who joined Endeavor last year,
bringing with him such writer-producer clients as David E. Kelley
("Chicago Hope" and "Picket Fences"). "People are looking for a safe
haven."
Only a week ago, the widely respected I.C.M. agent Steve Rabineau also
joined Endeavor as a partner. "At this stage of my career I wanted to
be able to shape my future and be a partner," said Mr. Rabineau, who is
39. He said he expected many of his clients, who include such directors
as Philip Noyce and Bruce Beresford, to join him.
Mr. Rabineau said that I.C.M. had been "extraordinary" to him -- "I was
neither unhappy nor mistreated" -- but that the talent agency business
itself had become more "predatory."
"There's a lot more turnover and turmoil," he said. "At times it seems
almost like it's less about servicing clients than disrupting other
people's business."
How agents compete varies, of course, but they tend to seek out two
types of clients: high-priced actors and film makers whose careers have
slumped, and so are vulnerable to change, and younger actors like Mr.
Gooding who believe that joining an agency like Creative Artists, with
its client list of top film makers, will help their careers.
By all accounts, the agent business turned especially predatory in the
1980's with the emergence of Creative Artists, whose founders included
Mr. Ovitz and Mr. Meyer. Not only were star actors and film makers
aggressively pursued, but the agency became so powerful that clients
were afraid to leave and studio executives were afraid to defy it, lest
they damage their careers.
The sudden departures of Mr. Ovitz and Mr. Meyer to top jobs at Disney
and MCA jolted the agency business. For months, Creative Artists was
beset by turmoil, showing signs of vulnerability for the first time as
such clients as Kevin Costner, Barbra Streisand and Whoopi Goldberg
left.
In the last year Creative Artists has emerged again as an extraordinary
powerful if somewhat less arrogant agency run by an eight-man board of
managing directors led by a 36-year-old, Richard Lovett. What makes
Creative Artists especially successful, even rivals acknowledge, is a
management style left by Mr. Ovitz: clients are covered by groups of
agents, and teamwork is demanded.
Ms. McQueeney, Mr. Ford's agent, deplored "all this nonsense" in the
agent business. "There's a great deal of poaching that goes on now, and
for the life of me I have no idea why," she said. "Why on earth leave
an agent whose worked so hard to build your career?"
-Dek26354
dek26354
dek26354 wrote:
> [I was searching NY Times to see if they had published an obit for Ms.
> McQueeney (they haven't) and I ran across this article from 1997: very
> interesting reading on agents and how fickle stars are when it comes to
> staying with the people who helped them achieve success... of course,
> Ms. McQueeney's experience is the exception, as she notes!]
>
obit, they didn't write one of their own (makes more sense that LA
Times would, although Ms. McQueeney's work in NYC in the 1950s and 60s
as a model and host on "Today" would seem to warrant an original obit
by a New York newspaper).
-Dek26354