Word: feld
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Feld got into the act in 1956, when John Ringling North, nephew of the founding brothers, was so beset by debt and besieged by TV that he announced the folding of his tents. The next morning Feld was on the phone, telling North, "Your methods are antiquated, and I have the solution." The solution was to get out of the big top and into the new arenas that were being built and that Feld, as a jazz and rock-'n'-roll promoter, knew how to book...
That idea alone saved the circus the salaries of 1,000 roustabouts. Feld, hired as a consultant, soon reduced the payroll even further, from...
Traveling to Europe, where great acts are still born and bred, Feld at one point scouted 46 Continental circuses in 35 days. He still crosses the Atlantic six times a year to beat Ed Sullivan to the talent. "Once in a while," says Feld, "after a couple of weeks on dusty lots in the midst of a blazing Italian summer, you get the feeling you've seen everything. Then, out of the blue comes an act so spectacular that you get shivers up your spine." Feld quickly signs it up. The Blue show this year alone added 27 acts...
...circus was worth $8,000,000, and Feld bought it, with financing from his brother Israel and Houston Astrodome Builder Roy Hofheinz. The deal, in a publicity stunt worthy of Barnum, was ceremoniously sealed in the center of the Roman Colosseum...
Payola Pioneer. Says Feld, 52 next week, "I began dreaming of owning 'the big one' when I was a kid. I'd just been bar mitzvahed when I went off with my brother to pitch snake oil on the Pennsylvania carnival circuit." At 13, Irv and Older Brother Izzie were pulling in $500 a week all summer. That led eventually to ownership of a drugstore in the black ghetto of Washington, D.C., where he took on a line of phonograph records and soon began to produce them. He helped to develop the now illegal "payola" system...