Read Online The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up by David Rensin - Free Book Online
Authors: David Rensin
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I said. “I’d kill for the opportunity.”
“You’ve learned something in the last nine months, haven’t you,” he said.
“You bet I have,” I replied.
THE DIFFERENCE THEN BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS
BROWN: I was at MCA twice. The second time I stayed two years. I worked for Mickey Rockford, who was head of the Radio Department. I was earnest and I showed up on time, but I wasn’t desperately efficient. Still, they moved me up from the secretarial pool to outside Rockford’s door, in the hallway. Lew Wasserman’s secretary, Janice Halpern, also worked near him, but that was about it. It was a big deal for Jules Stein, the owner, to allow women upstairs. Secretaries and bosses did not fraternize. There was never a lunch date with your boss. The girls hardly talked to the agents.
If an agent wasn’t supposed to have lunch with or talk to one of the girls, he certainly wasn’t supposed to take her to bed, but nonetheless I began having an affair with an agent named Herman Citron. I didn’t feel too bad about it. Citron was very eligible: thirty-seven years old, very attractive, very sexy, and not married. I was nuts about him and I expected to marry him. I used to meet him after work. He’d park his car on Burton Way. When it was dark, I’d slip into the car and get down on the floor so nobody could see me waiting. Eventually I left Herman. He wouldn’t marry me because he was Orthodox Jewish.
Sometimes I also went out with Mr. Rockford, my boss. No sex, but it was a date with a lot of smooching. Eventually I got fired because I think he was a little irritated that I was having an affair with Herman but wouldn’t go all the way with him.
THE REAL TEDDY Z AND OTHER BALLSY MOVES
SPECKTOR: Jay Kanter was a hotshot agent who represented Marlon Brando. But Jay was so young that it became an industry legend. Years later there was a sitcom called The Famous Teddy Z, about a mailroom guy to whom a big star took a liking and insisted he represent him, so they had to make the kid an agent. People think the story was based on Jay.
KANTER: Here’s what really happened: I had just become an agent, the youngest, lowest man on the totem pole. As such, I got all the worst jobs, like covering a little studio on Cahuenga called the Motion Picture Center. It was home to a lot of independent producers, like Stanley Kramer, and I serviced his company on behalf of MCA. At the same time I’d developed a very good relationship with some of our theater agents in New York: Maynard Morris and Edith van Cleve. Edith represented Marlon, and I used to correspond with her quite often. One day she told me that Marlon had finished doing Streetcar and was living in Paris. However, his father wanted him to go back to work. It would have been easy; all the studios wanted him, but they wanted him to sign a seven-year contract and he wouldn’t.
Stanley Kramer was producing a movie written by Carl Foreman and directed by Fred Zinnemann called The Men . Stanley wanted Brando. I said, “Well, he won’t sign a long-term contract.”
Stanley said, “I don’t want a contract; I just want him for this movie.” He gave me a twenty-page treatment of Carl’s story, and I sent it to Edith, who sent it to Brando. Based on that, Marlon agreed to do the movie and came to Hollywood. His plan was to stay with his aunt in San Marino. I picked him up at the train station. We got on very well.
Later I took him to meet Stanley and Carl and Fred, and our friendship grew. A couple of times I said, “Marlon, why don’t you come in and meet some of the other people in the office?” He’d say, “What for?”
“Everybody wants to meet you.” He was about as hot a young actor as you can get.
Finally he let me bring him to the MCA building. Afterward he told me, “Look, I don’t want to be talking to a lot of different people. I’ll just do all my business through you, okay?”
I said, “Great!”
As it happens in this business,
“You’ve learned something in the last nine months, haven’t you,” he said.
“You bet I have,” I replied.
THE DIFFERENCE THEN BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS
BROWN: I was at MCA twice. The second time I stayed two years. I worked for Mickey Rockford, who was head of the Radio Department. I was earnest and I showed up on time, but I wasn’t desperately efficient. Still, they moved me up from the secretarial pool to outside Rockford’s door, in the hallway. Lew Wasserman’s secretary, Janice Halpern, also worked near him, but that was about it. It was a big deal for Jules Stein, the owner, to allow women upstairs. Secretaries and bosses did not fraternize. There was never a lunch date with your boss. The girls hardly talked to the agents.
If an agent wasn’t supposed to have lunch with or talk to one of the girls, he certainly wasn’t supposed to take her to bed, but nonetheless I began having an affair with an agent named Herman Citron. I didn’t feel too bad about it. Citron was very eligible: thirty-seven years old, very attractive, very sexy, and not married. I was nuts about him and I expected to marry him. I used to meet him after work. He’d park his car on Burton Way. When it was dark, I’d slip into the car and get down on the floor so nobody could see me waiting. Eventually I left Herman. He wouldn’t marry me because he was Orthodox Jewish.
Sometimes I also went out with Mr. Rockford, my boss. No sex, but it was a date with a lot of smooching. Eventually I got fired because I think he was a little irritated that I was having an affair with Herman but wouldn’t go all the way with him.
THE REAL TEDDY Z AND OTHER BALLSY MOVES
SPECKTOR: Jay Kanter was a hotshot agent who represented Marlon Brando. But Jay was so young that it became an industry legend. Years later there was a sitcom called The Famous Teddy Z, about a mailroom guy to whom a big star took a liking and insisted he represent him, so they had to make the kid an agent. People think the story was based on Jay.
KANTER: Here’s what really happened: I had just become an agent, the youngest, lowest man on the totem pole. As such, I got all the worst jobs, like covering a little studio on Cahuenga called the Motion Picture Center. It was home to a lot of independent producers, like Stanley Kramer, and I serviced his company on behalf of MCA. At the same time I’d developed a very good relationship with some of our theater agents in New York: Maynard Morris and Edith van Cleve. Edith represented Marlon, and I used to correspond with her quite often. One day she told me that Marlon had finished doing Streetcar and was living in Paris. However, his father wanted him to go back to work. It would have been easy; all the studios wanted him, but they wanted him to sign a seven-year contract and he wouldn’t.
Stanley Kramer was producing a movie written by Carl Foreman and directed by Fred Zinnemann called The Men . Stanley wanted Brando. I said, “Well, he won’t sign a long-term contract.”
Stanley said, “I don’t want a contract; I just want him for this movie.” He gave me a twenty-page treatment of Carl’s story, and I sent it to Edith, who sent it to Brando. Based on that, Marlon agreed to do the movie and came to Hollywood. His plan was to stay with his aunt in San Marino. I picked him up at the train station. We got on very well.
Later I took him to meet Stanley and Carl and Fred, and our friendship grew. A couple of times I said, “Marlon, why don’t you come in and meet some of the other people in the office?” He’d say, “What for?”
“Everybody wants to meet you.” He was about as hot a young actor as you can get.
Finally he let me bring him to the MCA building. Afterward he told me, “Look, I don’t want to be talking to a lot of different people. I’ll just do all my business through you, okay?”
I said, “Great!”
As it happens in this business,
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