Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

TALENT AGENTS depends on how good a negotiator you are and how badly the network wants what you're offering." At one time office overhead, legal fees, taxes and such items were fair game for commissioning, but this agent pointed out it's harder to get these expenses into the package costs nowadays. "You don't quibble, you compromise," he said, qualifying for the hair-splitting championship of the week. "So instead of taking $3,000, you settle for $2,132.27." There is a standard assumption that in setting up a package, an agent gets as many of his own clients into it as possible. Within limits, there is some validity in the assumption, although certainly it is not 100% true in 100% of the cases. Some authorities estimate, however, that on the average package show approximately half of the talent consists of clients of the agent handling the whole package. Ashley-Steiner is credited with thinking up and doing a considerable amount of work on, as well as getting a fee on, the Cinderella spectacular with Julie Andrews on CBS-TV early this year. Yet, Miss Andrews is not an A-S client (she's MCA), nor are Rodgers & Hammerstein (they have no agents), to name just three key figures in the $450,000 to $500,000 production. This question of whether to give first priority to your own clients is a tricky one for an agent putting a package together. He's apt to find himself damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. First, he's trying to create as good a show as he can. To do this he needs the best talent he can get. Second (or first, in his clients' minds) he represents talent and in this capacity is obligated to get them jobs that will advance their careers. If he bypasses clients to hire another agent's talent, he becomes the target of the people from whom he derives his martinis and pheasant under glass. So he is a man between two fires. One agent described the dilemma thus: "The principal equity for the agent is in getting the package in the first place. The package has got to be good, so you use the best people who are available. "But you know your own people better than the others. And you have to live with them, too. So if all other things are equal, you use your own clients. But if you need a top-notcher who is not a client of yours, then you go out and sign up for the part — if his agent will let him sign. Usually the other agent is agreeable — unless his client is so big that the other agent decides to TALENT AGENT AND CASTING DIRECTOR: THEY TEAM TO KEEP CAMERAS ROLLING The burgeoning of tv film to cope with the evergrowing demand for network and syndicated programming has created one of the largest employment sources for talent. And here again, the agent, with his stable of talent, is the man constantly on call. Film spokesmen in Hollywood and other production centers estimate that up to 95% of their casting is done through the talent representatives. A typical week at Hollywood studios will find approximately 75 tv film programs on the production schedules, requiring hundreds of actors, from stars to bit players. With an eye on the clock that reminds of deadlines for shooting, processing, editing, printing and shipping the finished tv programs, the casting director amasses staggering phone bills in around-the-clock checks with talent agents. A direction finder for the casting director in her hunt for the agent with the appropriate talent is the Academy Players Directory, a fat volume containing, in uniform fifthpage ads, the names and pictures (usually two) of about 4,000 actors and actresses. The listings are alphabetical under general headings for each sex. For actresses, the categories are leading women, ingenues, character players and comediennes; for actors, they are leading men, character players and comedians. In addition, there are sections for boys and girls, orientals and colored performers, bands and specialty acts. With each talent listing is his or her agent's name — the most pencil-marked section of the casting director's Players Directory. Before the agent's talent is bought or sold there is a maze of integral planning that falls to the group of specialists known as casting directors. In Hollywood, casting directors number not more than 75 individuals and perhaps less. The qualifications of a good casting director, according to a top tv film producer, are (1) the memory of an elephant, which will respond to a character in a script with names of a dozen actors who have capably handled similar parts in the past; (2) the persuasiveness of a salesman, to convince the producer, director, writer and perhaps the talent agent and star, that the suggested player is right for the part; (3) the tact of a diplomat, to agree to a change when further argument would be futile, and (4) the willingness to spend countless hours watching all types of entertainment in a never-ending search for new talent. One of Hollywood's busiest casting directors is a brisk, affable woman with crisp iron-gray hair and an air of unhurried efficiency: Ruth Burch. The latest edition of the Academy Players Directory lists 98 studios producing films for use in theatres or tv or both. Of the 98 studio listings, 37 show the names of their casting directors, some of whom serve in that capacity for more than one studio. Miss Burch's name appears five times, more than any other. Asked by Broadcasting to act as spokeswoman for her profession, Miss Burch went directly to the heart of the subject. "The theory of casting a tv show, or any show, for that matter, can be expressed in a single sentence," she said. "It's just a question of getting the right people for the right price at the right time." If the Players Directory fails to turn up a suitable player for a specific role, Miss Burch said that her next recourse would be to agents specializing in that certain type of talent. There are agents, for instance, whose clients are primarily Latins, Britons or Continentals. Consuls of foreign countries in Los Angeles are another source of turning up actors of special national or racial types, she said, and schools and churches may be of help, especially in cases of juveniles. "When you've got a problem like this you just keep on trying one approach after another until one of them pays off." Problems like that are all in the day's work to Miss Burch. And her day's work is about as much as can be crammed into 24 hours to encompass all of the duties involved in casting about a dozen weekly tv shows plus a number of pilot films and an increasing number of tv commercials, not to mention three theatres (in San Francisco, Phoenix and Hinsdale, 111.) and an occasional theatrical motion picture. At a very rough estimate supplied by an associate where she refused even to try such a division, 20% of her time goes for casting leads for pilots, another 20% or a little more for tv commercials and most of the rest for casting supporting players for the weekly installments of the various series. Her day is apt to start before 7 a.m. with an hour of script reading before she gets out of bed. Days or weeks before, when the producer had decided to make a pilot film for a series, she'd been called in and given a description of the story line and the characters and had begun to think about actors lor the leading parts. Now, with the script before her, she reviews and perhaps revises her original thoughts in preparation for the next step in the casting process — a conference with the producer, director and writer to "talk out" each character until they agree on what kind of a person he is and what motivates his actions. "This is extremely important," Miss Burch declares. "If we agree on the character it won't be too hard to agree on the actor." By the end of the conference she has a mental list of actors who would be acceptable for each major part in the new series. Now it's a matter of checking availabilities and discussing the parts with the actors and their agents, a process in which the original list of possibilities shrinks appreciably. "Normally, I begin with about 20 people for each leading part, although the number has been as high as 50," she says, "and I wind up with from five to 10 that I want to have read for the producer and director. "From this point the decisions are up to them," Miss Burch continues. "If they agree on the individual they want for the part, my work is done except for cleaning up the business details with the agent. If they don't agree — well, I just keep trying until they do. With the leads set, she begins casting the Page 42 • October 21, 1957 Broadcasting