“None of the editors I deal with would like this book.”

Before Lynn Nesbit became one of the most powerful literary agents in N.Y., with clients like Nora Ephron, Toni Morrison, Oliver Sacks, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion, she was my agent.  She represented my first hardcover novel, “Counterparts”—and then flatly refused to represent my sophomore effort.  She may have been right (eventually I shelved the manuscript), but at the time I was puzzled.  Why not send the book to editors you haven’t dealt with?

“See how you like it out there.”

Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Jodie Foster, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott—before he turned producer, Harry Ufland had the most impressive client list in Hollywood.  Without Harry’s input, his aggressiveness, and his clients (Keitel in the early stages, Jodie Foster later on), “Carny,” the first non-cartoon feature I wrote, would never have gotten made.  Harry hooked me up with his other clients—Elio Petri, Marty Brest, Cher—something few other agents do, and sent me on interesting meetings, including an audition to rewrite Norman Mailer’s 250-page script for “Once Upon a Time in America.”  But I was low on his totem pole, and eventually he handed me over to one of his under-agents.  I took it amiss, and demanded that Harry be my principal agent, or I was leaving.  The ultimatum fell on deaf ears, Harry got pissed off (he had a legendary temper), and I was on to the next.

“I don’t know how to sell you.”

The next turned out to be William Morris, which was the only agency I’d ever heard of before I got into the business.  I was proud to be a client, happy to be represented by Marty Bauer—who promptly left William Morris to co-found a new agency.  I was one of the clients who went with him.  We hung out, we played poker, we were friends.  Marty’s methods were unorthodox—he liked telling producers how cold his clients were.  One day, at a party, he told me he didn’t know what category to put me in.  “I tell them you wrote humor pieces for the New Yorker.”  I’d never done any such thing.  “You’re thinking of Marshall Brickman,” I said.  Never one for details, Marty had confused me with a former client, Marshall Brickman, a close friend and collaborator (we’d created the story for “Simon,” and later the script for “The Manhattan Project”), who had actually written humor pieces for the New Yorker and whom Marty was hoping to re-sign.    Soon after, I left the agency Marty had co-created—UTA, which became one of the powerhouse agencies in Hollywood.

“I thought you wanted to be a director.”

Melinda Jason gave off sparks.  She was famous for her energy, her enthusiasm, and her hyperbole.  “You’re my Luis Bunuel,” she told me.  I’d directed an episode of “The Hitchhiker” I’d written, and gotten Ace nominations (the pre-Emmy version of cable awards) for both writing and directing—but any resemblance to the genius Spanish director was purely rhetorical.  Melinda got me a deal to write and direct a TV movie for Fox that never panned out, and I attached myself to a couple of other scripts I’d written, but balked at the episodic TV I was offered.  (Any authority I felt on the “Hitchhiker” set flowed from the fact that I’d written the script.)  When I left Melinda for the Artists Agency, she accused me of not following her plans for me.  And I did more or less give up the idea of directing.  So maybe Melinda was right, or maybe we were both right.  I had trouble giving orders to the cleaning lady.

“Pick one thing you’re good at, and keep doing it.”

By and by I was back at William Morris, but now with a manager as well—Todd Smith, a former CAA agent who’d represented the likes of Jimmy Woods, Sean Penn, Madonna, and Sam Kinison.  Todd was a man who’d go to any lengths for his clients, and, unlike the agents I’d been with, got me a lot of meetings with actors.  Nothing really came of these meetings (not Todd’s fault), and we didn’t see eye to eye on the spec material I gave him.  He had a philosophy about the business I didn’t share—don’t spread yourself too thin.  But we were friends, and we parted friends.

“The phone isn’t ringing.”

I had three feature credits in the 80s, and a number of movie assignments, but in the 80s, the 90s, and the early aughts, TV movies were my bread and butter.  Then cheaper-to-produce Reality TV came along, and the networks stopped churning out TV movies.  Shortly before leaving the business herself, Carey Nelson Burch called me into her office and told me William Morris was “rethinking my representation.”  I was anything but surprised.  The writing was already on the wall.

“I greet you at the beginning of a great career.”

Geoff Sanford, a gentleman and a scholar, was my agent in the early 80s.  We broke up shortly after he caught me having an exploratory meeting at CAA; he was there that very day to discuss sharing talent with the larger agency.  His dad, Jay Sanford, as much a gentleman as his son, had represented me ten years earlier (which made me feel old at the age of 40).

When Lynn Nesbit refused to agent my second novel, she passed me along to Jay Sanford.  On my first novel I was Tom Baum.  Jay insisted Thomas Baum was more distinguished, and that’s who I was for the next thirty years.  (Now that I’m back to Tom, I realize I should have stuck with it—not that it made much difference one way or the other.)  And it was Jay Sanford who, the first time I walked into his office, welcomed me with “I greet you…”

A “great” career, maybe not, , thanks in no small measure to the agents I’ve mentioned, as well as those I haven’t, a varied one.  I’ve written, and been paid to write, marginalia, ad copy, jacket copy, speeches, filmstrips, newsletters, novels, children’s books, YAs, short stories, After School Specials, arts specials, movies, movie trailers, underground movies, TV movies, TV pilots, TV episodes, TV promos, and now plays; plus articles, acrostic puzzles, blog posts, and sample tests for social workers preparing to get their license.  Richard Rothstein, show runner on “The Hitchhiker,” when asked if he’d ever take an ordinary TV staff job, replied, “I’d rather take my life.” Find one thing and stick to it?  For better or worse, I’ve always been with Rothstein.