Gary Dretzka
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Ray Pride

Sex, Lies & The (Premature?) Death
Of Agent Literature
Page 2

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In the last 18 months, whenever somebody in the entertainment or publishing business wanted to see me squirm, all they had to do was inquire about Polone, my "buddy." Polone is a former agent in the television business whom I profiled in a Buzz magazine article entitled, "The Infuriating Confidence of Gavin Polone." In the business of figurative fellatio, my Polone story ultimately became regarded as some sort of landmark. In fact, that's just the message from Polone's elated publicist that my chagrined wife retrieved from our answering machine when the story was published: "Incredible blow job, Ross. Let's do it again soon."

I never really intended Polone's profile to be a hummer. Like many an event in Hollywood, it just turned out that way.

When I was first introduced to Polone, he was a 30-year-old rising star at the United Talent Agency. Tall, thin, and bearded, he was being sold by UTA's p.r. people as an agent who spoke the truth and nothing but the truth; plus, he drove a Ferrari and was a black-belt in tae kwan do. Sort of a macho, Jewish Abe Lincoln with cash. Despite having an iddy-biddy misgiving about Polone's client list - he primarily repped TV writers, a no-no in the moviecrazy world of agent literature - I hopped on board the Polone train immediately.

The work was not exactly heavy lifting. I just turned on my tape recorder and started transcribing Polone's own interpretation of the Polone fable: Homely, lonely kid from the wrong side of the tracks of Beverly Hills becomes rich and famous by standing up to evil studio bosses who want to abuse his client list of cool writers. Along the way, he has to overcome evil adversaries at CAA and ICM, who - according to Polone - are just in it for the money and secretly want to screw the all the truly talented people of Hollywood.

And the capper to the tale? Polone was so busy working for his clients, he remained - despite the Ferrari and the $1 million annual salary - just a lonesome lad who could not find the right girl who would appreciate the real Gavin Polone.

Hey, it wasn't the Lou Gehrig Story, but it was good enough for me. All I had to do was plug in a few puff quotes from Katzenberg and the usual crowd, and I was done. Paid my piddly fee. See ya.

Until my Polone piece hit the newsracks, I never realized how so-called powerful men could get so out-of-whack after reading a favorable piece about an agent other than themselves. While Polone was being bombarded with calls from prospective clients and fielding offers from beautiful babes who wanted to ease his pain, I was catching a huge load of crap. "How could you let that asshole Polone use you the way he did?!" was one of the nicer criticisms. It came from a publicist at the William Morris Agency, who told me he was merely relaying the comments of WMA agents - agents who, by the way, were available for interviews.

I was in a quandary: Should I agree with the accusation that I was a naive toady, or should I cop to the truth - and thus risk being labeled a lying journalist?

Here's the facts: Polone is a salesman, one possessed of enough self-awareness to realize that agent literature, like the genre of detective fiction, is based on selling an utter falsehood. The lie being that agents, like private dicks, do something so intrinsically interesting that they in turn are interesting. Sitting in a stuffy office all day kissing up to men and women more powerful than you while simultaneously pissing all over some of the planet's most desperate people might make a man or woman rich. But it doesn't make Gavin Polone or Jeff Berg inherently more engaging to a magazine reader than an inner-city school teacher or a Kurdish refugee or a great skateboarder.

So Polone bent the truth into myth, something to make his story a better read. I didn't believe all of it, but I also did not question it. I printed the myth as he told it and got paid by editors happy for some hot copy. To those who called me a toady, I merely grinned stupidly and went on about my business. Until I started this article, I never wrote about another agent.

And Polone? He was fired last April from UTA for allegedly using his managerial position to harass a subordinate. Four days after his dismissal, UTA issued a Polone a public apology absolving him of any wrongdoing and reportedly paid out his remaining contract to a tune of $5 million. He now has a much lower profile as a personal manager.

But he's still getting ink. Polone recently entered the field of journalism by writing an article on Hollywood masseuses for the September, 1996, issue of GQ. It was a pretty good piece, actually, which did not surprise me in the least. I called him to compliment him on his work, and then asked if he ever regretted any of the considerable press he did when he was an agent.

"An agent is in the marketing business, so all press is basically good press - except the shit you wrote about my money and my car," responds Polone, who believes that portraying an agent driving a Ferrari is quite the cliche.

"Food is a function of need rather than desire, therefore I don't have any specific needs," said the agent Arnold Rifkin in the April issue of W. And Rifkin's opinion of sleep? "I don't rely on sleep, though I'm aware of its necessities." Vacations? Rifkin, 48, claimed that he had never had one, until he went to Africa last Christmas to meet Masai warriors with - you guessed it - Jeff Katzenberg.

It's a shame that the demise of agent literature is being played out on the back pages of a women's fashion magazine. With better timing, Rifkin could have been one of the greats. Currently the head of the motion picture department at the William Morris Agency, Rifkin is a former Frye boot salesman who represents Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg, et. al. And he is a journalist's dream.

Rifkin looks and dresses like a model (which he once was). He's quite vocal about his belief in the techniques of motivational guru Tony Robbins. That's right, a big Hollywood guy who swears by a walking infomercial. And Rifkin, an agent who sells on the phone all day, claims he had to labor for 12 years to overcome a speech impediment. Lou Gehrig lives!

Here's the bonus plan: Rifkin is not afraid to talk on the record. He does not ask for quote approval or for a reporter to submit a list of questions in advance. He does not rely on flacks to run interference for him during interviews. "He'll say anything. He doesn't care," says Anita Busch, a film reporter for Variety.

It was Busch who broke the story of Sony Corp.'s recent approach to Rifkin to run the motion picture division of the company. The offer fell through and Rifkin subsequently got a fat contract to stay at Morris for another five years. So now it's official: Rifkin has crossed the threshold of being perceived as a mere agent. Forever more, he'll be mentioned in the press whenever a studio plays musical chairs. He's a big-time comer.

But I can feel the hair on the back of my neck rise to attention as I sit across from him in his Morris office. Rifkin makes no attempt to be charming. He reminds me that my coffee could stain his desk by delicately sliding a napkin under the cup. The smoke from his Havana cigar rises to form a blue, heavy cloud above us. I sense the smoke is like Rifkin: It'll probably keep expanding to fill whatever room it's given.

I scan my list of questions, then decide to open the interview with, "What's this I hear about you being the biggest raper and pillager of them all before the Morris p.r. department started selling you as an eminence grise?"

This was my last stop on my agent trail. None of Rifkin's brethren seemed the least bit contrite about using desperate journalists to not write the truth; i.e., if a bomb fell out of the L.A. smog and blew an agency to kingdom come, the clients would merely shuffle down the street to the competition and do their deals there. Maybe I wanted Rifkin, a notorious poacher of other agents' clients, to throw me out of his office.

Rifkin takes a long pull on his Havana, then replies, "What's an eminence grise?"

I hesitate. Shit, this guy has a college education? (He does - University of Cincinnatti.) Then I hear myself giving a definition that sounds suspiciously like, "I know a grise when I see one." .

"A raper and a pillager?" Rifkin whispers. "When I started out in 1974, nobody showed me how to be an agent. I had no mentor. No writers knocked on my door and gave me scripts. No actors begged me to represent them. I support a wife and two children. If I'm a raper and pillager, whom have I hurt? I think I made a lot of people a lot of money."

Rifkin grimaces when he states the above. Then he meticulously runs down his WMA division's list of accomplishments since he took over in 1992. I cut him off. "How come agents are always going on and on in the press about what great friends they are with their clients, when the truth is they're usually not?"

"Look around you," replies Rifkin. "Do you see any pictures of my clients?

I examine Rifkin's office, which is small enough to fit in the side wing of Jeff Berg's digs. The only pictures on display are of Rifkin's family.

"All I want from my clients is their respect," says Rifkin. "They don't have to be my friend."

Then Rifkin sighs. He stares at me with a look that combines equal doses of pity and disgust. "A raper and a pillager?" he posits once again. The Arnold Rifkin interview is over.

For the next hour, I listen to a series of questions from Rifkin. Now it is the journalist who feels under attack. Rifkin questions my own views on what a man should sacrifice for his family. He questions the ethics of journalism. Interspersed with this are ruminations on what can only be called the World According to Arnold.

A little voice inside my head goes, "You're being sold something." It's all there. The infamous ferocity of Rifkin. The references to Tony Robbins and Pat Riley, Rifkin's other good buddy and the Mister-In-Your-Face of pro basketball coaches. Rifkin's commitment to his William Morris subordinates in the face of adversity. The Great William Morris Comeback - which is not form,
declares Rifkin, it's substance, podner.

And then it happens. I break. It begins as I wonder why I have to be the one tearing the clothes off guys like Rifkin now that their media stock has dropped. Maybe I got it all wrong. Maybe agent literature is on the verge of a tremendous resurrection. Maybe Tina Brown and Graydon Carter and the rest of S.I. Newhouse's culture mafia are lurking outside right now waiting to crown Rifkin The Next Cool Guy.(Hey, he had the guts to tell his former client Joe Eszterhas that Joe's writing needed improvement.) What if I'm destined to go down in history as the Lord Jim of agent literature, the wretch who jumped off the floundering boat a tad too soon?

Then I remember the words of the comedian Albert Brooks.

"These agents start doing press, and pretty soon they're so busy talking to the press that they can't take your calls," says Brooks. "Then the agents get so big that when bookings come in, they take the bookings. But, hey, that's America."

As Rifkin explains some chart that lists the six keys to success for the agents who work for him, it hits me. If Rifkin wants to hire some of the best press agents in the business to flack for him, who cares? He may not be curing cancer, but he's not ripping off subway funds or trying to shove liquor and cigarettes down our throats. He's just an agent. And if I get tired reading shit about Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone, why can't I read shit about the man behind the stars? When I get sick of reading bland p.r. about Bill Clinton, I should be able to read funky stuff about Dick Morris. It's America, right?! And if I want to read this stuff, then somebody's gotta write it. Who cares if the writer does it while on his knees?

Now Rifkin is silent. He's pointing towards his chart.

"Respect. Equality. Sharing. Unity. Loyalty. Trust," I read aloud as Rifkin's impeccably-manicured hand moves down the chart. Before I leave, I note that Rifkin has not tried to control the interview by hopping on and off the record or hiding behind the skirts of his publicists. I thank him heartily.

"You're quite welcome," Rifkin replies as he lights up another Havana and, with a look of contentment, leans back in his chair.

End
Copyright, 1996, Ross Johnson all rights reserved

The story behind the 1996 story and why it's never been published.

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