Word: mca
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Memos. In this withering atmosphere of retreat and retrenchment, a brawny upstart is defying the trend. It is MCA Inc., the sprawling talent agency that controls a majority of Hollywood's biggest stars* and is thus largely responsible for the astronomical salaries they have forced on the older studios. MCA has grandly announced plans to "revitalize the film industry." Founded by dapper Jules Stein 38 years ago, MCA has long dictated casting to producers with "package deals" in which a buyer takes a mixed bag of stars and shows in order to get a few good ones...
Since 1946, MCA's operating head (and president) has been Lew Wasserman, 49, the austere and fanatically secretive protege of Founder Stein. Wasserman always dresses in black, and sees that his underlings do too. He is always accompanied by an aide who memorizes conversations so there will be a record of them in the event of Wasserman's death; in the best cloak-and-dagger style, MCA rarely keeps memos on any transaction...
...Nonsense. Now MCA is planning to move into moviemaking as a major producer. Key to its new role is a planned merger with Decca Records (which controls Universal Pictures). In the new combination, MCA will be the senior partner, thus making it overnight into a major Hollywood studio. At the same time, partly as a result of prodding by the Justice Department, MCA will probably divest itself of its talent-agency business, which last year amounted to only $8,400,000, v. $72.6 million from television films and studio rentals...
...Because it simultaneously acts as agent for most of Hollywood's top talent, is the nation's largest producer and distributor of TV films, and holds TV rights to Paramount's pre-1948 film library, MCA Inc. is uneasily known in the film capital as "The Octopus." Though MCA's elusive President Lew Wasserman, 49, has refused to admit it, show-biz savants have long suspected that the octopus would like to stretch its tentacles into movie production. Last week directors of New York's Decca Records, Inc. approved Wasserman's offer of MCA...