Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe HOLLYWOOD, June 4 (UPI) -- Kingmaker Lew Wasserman, who died at 89 this week, did not signify the end of an era in Hollywood; he introduced a new and unfortunate epoch in Tinseltown. Wasserman, an acknowledged major force in the world of show business and behind-the-scenes politics, was essentially a brilliant businessman. Advertisement But he was NOT a filmmaker in the traditional sense. Wasserman was, in fact, an agent, a 10 percenter who raised the ante to 100 percenter. As the head of the heavyweight Music Corporation of America (MCA), Wasserman became the first agent to take over a movie studio and convert it into a giant corporate entertainment business. Movies were reduced to almost minor status after Wasserman's MCA bought Universal-International Studios and promoted it into a show biz colossus. Under Wasserman's leadership Universal became the chief source of early television shows, series and TV films, which earned more income than Universal Pictures. Advertisement He brought in professionally slick music executives who developed wildly prosperous recording stars. Under Wasserman's aegis Universal built the biggest and best studio tour attraction, bringing megamillions into MCA/Universal coffers. Still exercising his unlimited business acumen, Wasserman established the Universal Amphitheater featuring live theater, musical concerts and rock 'n' roll explosions. Businessman Wasserman left no entertainment stone unturned in his determined drive to make MCA/Universal the undisputed leader of packaged entertainment. No single executive held more power and clout than Lew Wasserman, as Universal also opened a simulated "studio tour" in Orlando, Fla., to include copies of his California studio tour. A major power in national Democratic Party affairs, Wasserman was a smooth operator who donated millions to Democratic candidates and earned the kingmaker sobriquet by helping elect presidents, senators, congressmen and governors to office. He was a personal friend of such disparate men as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, helpful to both in achieving their ends. Wasserman was deft in playing both ends against the middle. For many years his second in command of MCA/Universal was Taft Schreiber, who was as strongly encamped in the Republican party as Wasserman was in the Democratic camp. Advertisement In any case, Wasserman covered all the bases as his financial empire grew to be the most dominating entertainment hippodrome on the planet. But MCA/Universal was not an unqualified success story. It contained the seeds of its own shortcomings in Wasserman's roots as an agent. Here was a nabob who had spent his early years making outrageously successful deals for his clients, demanding more money for his stable of actors, directors, writers and producers at every level. He even introduced what would prove an almost fatal blow to filmmaking when as an agent he won James Stewart the right to partial ownership of "Winchester '73" at, of all places, Universal-International long before MCA bought the studio. That set a precedent for actor participation in movie profits -- a percentage of the gross -- that has made multimillionaires of many a ham actor. It has led to the fulfillment of the Hollywood adage that "the inmates have taken over the asylum," which is currently the case and which has led to drastic financial disasters for all the studios. In this respect, Wasserman was hoisted by his own petard. Wasserman surely is worthy of all the praise that was his due during his lifetime. For all that, however, he was never a filmmaker in the true sense of the word. Advertisement Yes, of course, Universal made hundreds of movies under his stewardship, but he assigned competent men, or lured them into cooperative deals with Universal, to make pictures under the studio banner. Such a one is Steven Spielberg, whose headquarters for his Amblin Entertainment organization were especially built on the vast Universal lot in the San Fernando Valley. Wasserman's many faceted talents did not include the imaginative genius, the creative capacity for making movies, which sets him apart from genuine movie moguls of the past. They were mostly creative Jewish immigrants who founded studios: Joseph and Nicholas Schenck, Louis B. Mayer, Sam Goldwyn, the Warner Bros., Harry Cohn, William Fox, Adolph Zukor and Carl Laemmle, who founded Universal Pictures in 1912. Lew Wasserman was a Johnny-come-lately to movies, not fundamentally an empresario or showman. He was an intellectual entrepreneur who hired creative talent to help build his monolithic corporate structure, an altogether different discipline than the creation of motion pictures. He was master of "the deal" rather than the architect of specific visual arts that summon emotional and imaginative response from millions of spectators, audiences and viewers. Wasserman was more tycoon, heavyweight administrator than a true movie mogul; he was bigger than that. Advertisement Lew Wasserman hired and fired moguls. He wielded a sovereign's scepter in Hollywood.
