Thursday, May 10, 2018

Lew Wasserman, autrefois roi d'Hollywood: ses liens avec l'industrie du divertissement, le pouvoir politique, la mafia...

Probablement l'homme le plus puissant à Hollywood pendant plus de 20 ans. Il a tout de même personnellement sélectionné l'acteur minable Ronald Reagan pour diriger le syndicat des acteurs d'Hollywood et plus tard devenir le candidat présidentiel des Républicains...


Lien alternatif: The Last Mogul (2005) Lew Wasserman, MCA and the Hidden History of Hollywood


C-SPAN Interview with Connie Bruck: How an Enterprising Power Broker Became Hollywood's King (2003)

Jan. 1st, 2003. Cspan website description: When Hollywood Had a King Ms. Bruck talked about her book, When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent into Power and Influence, published by Random House. The book traces Wasserman’s life from his humble beginnings in Cleveland to a position of great influence in Hollywood. Through Wasserman, the book also tells the broader history of the interplay between Hollywood, politics, and the mob in the 20th century.


Lew Wasserman - MCA Universal Studios - Studio Head & Talent Agent (Excerpt from THE LAST MOGUL documentary)


The Last Mogul (2005) Official Trailer

When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent into Power and Influence
(à télécharger ou lire en ligne)
By Connie Bruck

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, Wasserman 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.



The Last Mogul | The Nation

The most hated man in Hollywood | Salon.com

MCA, the Mafia and the corruption of Ronald Reagan

The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood - Edward Jay Epstein - Google Livres

L'argent d'Hollywood | Cairn.info

PDF Moldea, Dan - Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob




Sur ce blog:

"Hollywood, D.C.": Hollywood et les grands médias américains non seulement grouillent d'agents de la CIA, ils sont entièrement au service de la CIA

SUPERMOB: How Sidney Korshak And His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers

En mémoire du journaliste d'enquête Robert I. Friedman (1950-2002)

De Reagan à Sanders

L'ère messianique reaganienne