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“The trail may be cold, but the stories are hot!”

By ivi blog Guest Contributor Dr. Rob Moore

Thus far in this series, we have discussed several important aspects of preparing for a film or stage career. Chief among them:

A) The need for personal maturity and perspective. Many successful performers have discovered that the journey toward stardom  is more satisfying than stardom itself. That is, many a performer has been surprised at the lack of freedom and privacy an accomplished star enjoys.

B) The importance of developing multiple performance skills (acting,  dancing, singing, playing musical instrument(s), stage combat, stunt acrobatics and others.) The more an unknown has to offer a casting director, the better the chances of being hired.

In this article, we will briefly discuss the roles played by personal managers and agents, relative to a performer’s career.

Definitions:

Managers: Show business managers tend to have few clients, sometimes a single performer. A manager’s role may include discovering opportunities, negotiating contracts, financial planning, favorable publicity, and damage control should that become necessary.

Agents: Show business agents tend to have a stable of clients and function primarily to search out and present offers to them.

Questions:

Why do newcomers find it difficult to obtain representation from managers and agents?

1) Newcomers have little box office following. That is, other than relatives and friends, few persons are likely to purchase tickets to see or hear an unknown perform. Since managers and agents are generally paid as a percentage of their clients’ incomes, representing a newcomer is unattractive financially — unless the newcomer has the personal resources to support such a manager or agent on salary.

2) Within the show business world, some managers, but especially agents, are rated (read: earn respect) based on the clients they represent.

For example, at one time or another, super-agent Sue Mengers’ stable of clients has included Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, Ali McGraw, Candice Bergen, Gene Hackman, Tony Perkins, Tuesday Weld, Directors Herb Ross, Peter Bogdanovich, Bob Fosse and writer Gore Vidal, to name a few.

Of what should a newcomer be wary relative to representation?

1) Newcomers should be wary of anyone claiming to be able to transform an unknown into a star in a short period of time. Scammers understand that newcomers are often in the position of seeing their savings (if any) dwindle rapidly. Such a precarious financial situation encourages scammers to circle.

2) It is not uncommon for a so-called manager or agent to a) Rent a small  office with a smaller waiting area, b) Hang a few touched-up photos on the walls showing the manager or agent in the company of various well-known stars, c) Let the newcomer gape at the photos in the waiting area for awhile, d) Finally, a receptionist (usually the scammer’s spouse or “close” friend) announcing, “Mr. Jones or Ms. Smith will see you now.”

Several weeks or months (and several hundreds of dollars later), after the manager or agent collects tens of thousands of dollars from dozens of unsuspecting stars-to-be, the office is vacated without notice, the photos gone. The scammer then turns up in another part of town or another community entirely under another name to start the process all over again. (Convictions for this type of representation are hard to come-by because newcomers are embarrassed they have been so easily taken, cannot afford to remain in the area to testify in court cases, and usually haven’t been swindled out of enough money to make aggressive prosecution worthwhile. In addition, a court might ask how much work the star-to-be expected for $500-$1,000 in the first place.)

3) Finally, a newcomer should be wary of going home with persons after a social event who  claim to be able to help his or her career, if only a certain bedroom production can be managed.

Someone once said that if all the sincerity in Hollywood were placed in the belly of a mosquito, there would be plenty of room for it to rattle around. That may be a bit harsh. However, given the thousands of attractive, financially desperate people who arrive in Hollywood or on Broadway every month attempting to be “discovered,” anything can, and usually does, happen.

So, what are the alternatives if the newcomer cannot attract a manager or agent?

Failing to secure personal representation, newcomers must find other ways of attracting the attention of producers and directors.

For instance, Bruce Willis spent hundreds of nights bar tending in New York schmoozing customers who he thought might be able to advance his acting career.  But, schmoozing was not Willis’ only talent, although in that category, Willis is a siddha level master.

Willis also plays a very “hot” blues harmonica, studied acting for  three years in school, and read for  hundreds of parts before his  big break opposite Cybill Shepherd in the TV series, Moonlighting. (Willis competed with 3000 other male actors for the part.)

All this to say that Willis served as his own manager/agent, prepared well, and succeeded big time.

Can you give us an example of a newcomer who did find a personal manager, and what the outcome was?

Let’s drop in once again on  Clark Gable who we mentioned in a previous article. He discovered a personal manager working as a theater manager in Portland, Oregon. Her name was Josephine Dillon. Josephine, seventeen years Gable’s senior, fell in love with the actor, and on that basis left her position to assist Gable full time.

Services Dillon, his manager, provided Gable (in addition to love):

• Changed his stage name from W.C. Gable to Clark Gable;
• Guided his diet and exercise regimen, building up his slim malnourished body;
• Paid to have Gable’s teeth fixed;
• Taught Gable how to stand on a stage with solid body control and posture;
• Spent months working with Gable to lower his voice. (Gable’s voice was naturally high-pitched, not a good situation  for the future Rhett Butler.);
• Taught Gable how to achieve better tone and resonance with his voice, in addition to lowering its register;
• Taught Gable how to achieve more natural and convincing facial expressions;
• Walked the streets of both Hollywood and New York, knocking on doors for Gable with some excellent success.

Ask yourself, how much it would cost today to hire a professional to manage  such a transformation.

Next time we will discuss Casting Agencies and their role in the process of creating a star.

Casting agencies are significantly more accessible to newcomers than managers and agents.

As we will explain, that very accessibility creates new and serious problems for unknown performers.