The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood [Paperback]

Dennis Mcdougal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2001

The reviewer of the Boston Globe said point blank: "Over the years, I've read hundreds of books on Hollywood and the movie business, and this one is right at the top." As the elusive, tyrannical head of the Music Corporation of America (MCA) until the 1990s, Lew Wasserman was the most powerful and feared man in show business for more than half a century. His career spanned the entire history of the movies, from the silent era to the present, and he was guru to Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and Jimmy Stewart, and to a new generation of filmmakers beginning with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. For more than four years, Dennis McDougal interviewed over 350 people who knew the man with the giant dark horn-rimmed glasses—colleagues, relatives, rivals—and drew on tens of thousands of pages of documents to produce this extraordinary and first-ever portrait of a legend and his times, a book that the New York Times Book Review called "thoroughly reported and engrossing" and that the Daily News called, simply, "a bombshell."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"I run all the studios," 38-year-old Lew Wasserman boasted in 1951 when turning down an offer to run MGM. Indeed, he did. As president of MCA, the most powerful talent agency of its time, Wasserman gained unprecedented artistic and financial clout for Hollywood's top stars, hastening the end of the studio system. Not that he did it out of the goodness of his heart. The canny, ruthless Wasserman was famous for inventing new ways to increase MCA's percentage, most notably by bundling clients into packages the agency produced for the burgeoning television market--a glaring conflict of interest that finally prompted a Justice Department investigation. Veteran movie journalist Dennis McDougal (author of Fatal Subtraction: The Inside Story of Buchwald v. Paramount) uses Wasserman's career as a case study in how the entertainment industry has changed over the course of the 20th century. He chronicles MCA's evolution from a band-booking business in wide-open Jazz Age Chicago (where persistent rumors about the company's Mob ties began) to a postwar movie and TV powerhouse to a Japanese-owned subsidiary in the 1990s. Seamlessly blending biography, business reporting, and juicy celebrity anecdotes, this is first-rate showbiz muckraking. --Wendy Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Originally founded as a talent agency in 1924 by Jules Stein, an erstwhile Chicago ophthalmologist, the Music Corporation of America reached the pinnacle of its power from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, when it perfected the art of delivering complete "packages" to film and television companies. These pictures were not only produced by MCA but also featured stars repped by the "Octopus," as the company came to be known. MCA's market domination was so complete that in 1962, the U.S. Justice Department made the company to choose between the talent agency and its production facilities. It chose the latter. Lew Wasserman, named MCA president in 1946, often played bad cop to Stein's good cop by trying to milk every cent from any negotiation, while Stein excelled at soothing a star's or studio exec's bruised feelings. McDougal (Fatal Subtraction: How Hollywood Really Does Business) had no access to Wasserman, but here puts hundreds of interviews and secondary sources to good use, combining crack business reporting with plenty of Hollywood gossip. As MCA becomes a "rapacious behemoth," McDougal focuses on the dark side of its business dealings (e.g., its alleged ties to organized crime), at times veering into innuendo, as when speculating that MCA had a hand in the death of Marilyn Monroe. Although the company remained a force in the movie and TV business, its strength was never the same after the 1960s, and Wasserman's days as a true Hollywood power broker faded after he sold the company in 1990 to the Japanese electronics firm Matsushita. McDougal has produced a feisty behind-the-scenes account of the multimedia empire MCA was in its glory days?a status no Hollywood studio has attainedenjoyed since. Pictures not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; New edition edition (April 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306810506
• ISBN-13: 978-0306810503
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #494,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A history book of Hollywood December 29, 2001

By R. Spell VINE™ VOICE

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If you enjoy reading about the history of Hollywood, this is the book for you. But be forewarned, it reads like a history book and takes a real time commitment to finish. The author goes back to the beginning career of Jules Stein and booking of bands through the sale of Universal to the Bronfman's. Clearly the focus of the book is Lew Wasserman who led MCA from agency to studio with significant influences in politics.

Probably the most entertaining part of the book is the unique stories of the stars of the 40s and 50s since Wasserman was at his peak making careers. Stories are presented about Tony Curtis, Jimmy Stewart and Marilyn Monroe to name a few and are quite entertaining as well as showing Wasserman's power to destroy or make a career.

This book tries to intertwine politics, entertainment and the mafia, and while there may be a connection, sometimes he seems to reach too far and lose focus on the principals who grew MCA into the behemoth that it was. I recommend this book to anyone with an in-depth interest in Hollywood history and what it was like from mid-century.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A terrific history through the eyes of a lost generation August 11, 2001

By Robert Wellen

McDougal has written a monumental book. Exisquitely details and finely told, the story of Lew Wasserman is one for the ages. The history of hollywood is terrific. Some have called this an unfair bashing of a legend--I say it is a fairly balanced portrait of a complex and cold man. Lew is admirable in his own way. My only real issue with the book is the connections that McDougal draws between MCA and the Mob. Clearly, they did do some work together, but the endless sections about the later years (rudnick's work, etc)--get to be confusing (so many names and no glossary) and ulimately without revelation. Lots of accusations. Some of it is interesting (the Sidney Korshak stuff) and some dull. The book is best when focused on Lew and those around him (non-mafia types). A terrific read for the patient and fan of Hollywood behind the scenes books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Often Funny October 30, 2003

By A Customer

Good book, very funny and detailed. Read it
after listening to the interview on First Voice.
The interview is online at
http://www.7to7.net/mcd.html

There's a transcript for those using dial up.

--J. R.