Word: mca
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Stein evacuated the MCA presidency and gave it to Wasserman, then 33, over a number of men who outranked him. As president, Wasserman moved forward on sensible creeds such as "It's better to have 10% of something than 100% of nothing," and "Planning ahead is the one advantage a businessman has." He was criticized for assembling packages of MCA clients-stars, writer, producer, director -and unit-ramming them down customers' throats on an all-or-nothing basis; but, as one of those customers admits, "there was never any question of getting an indigestible deal from...
Bell Helicopter. When the television scare came, Wasserman reacted early. He established Revue Productions, MCA's TV producing subdivision, which has now become Universal Television. He felt that TV should go to film and helped prove it with Armour's Stars Over Hollywood (1950-51), one of TV's first filmed series. When independent movie producers led the flight from Hollywood that nearly killed off the industry there, Wasserman sensed that the advantages abroad of cheap labor and low taxes would only be temporary; so he stayed in Hollywood, bought Universal Pictures, and began to build...
...MCA goes first class all the way, but it budgets the trip. Wasserman is the sort of man who will not, for example, use 20 helicopters when one would do. He will not use one helicopter if a telephone call would be good enough. He will pay a writer like Rod Serling $15,000 for a single one-hour script, and his Bob Hope Chrysler Theater frequently exceeds $200,000 a show, but this does not imply that he thinks money can write or act. "He has a genius for what people like," says Tony Curtis. "He wouldn...
Wasserman also has a conviction that MCA, as a company, will be healthier the more it diversifies-in fact, only 25% of its total income, he thinks, should derive from TV and feature movies. The new look of Universal City reflects this. MCA is not only in the film business, it is also in the tourist business. Wasserman reasons that when people come to Hollywood they first want to see a film studio, then they want to go to Disneyland. So he is giving them a Disneyland of a film studio. He is spending $50 million on tourist facilities alone...
Wasserman is worth more than $30 million in MCA stock, but he lives-frugally by some neighbors' standards-in a $400,000 one-bedroom house in Beverly Hills designed by Harold Lezitt. There is a Henry Moore beside the driveway, a Soutine on the dining-room wall, and a Bernard Buffet portrait of Wasserman himself, a gift from Alfred Hitchcock, in the foyer. Mrs. Wasserman sleeps in the bedroom. Wasserman sleeps on a couch in the study, where he gets up at 5 each morning and starts making phone calls to breakfasting subordinates in New York...