Book review - "Swifty: Life and Times of Swifty Lazaar"

One of those memoirs that were written up to the subject's death and completed by another writer, so it has a very up to date quality. Lazar was a legendary agent who always pops up in biographies and memoirs of people like Michael Caine and Betty Bacall. He hit his stride in the Golden Age of agenting after WW2 up until the 1970s, where he mostly worked representing writers (from the 70s onwards he concentrated on representing writers of autobiographies); he was also famous for his party on Oscar night.

His book is delightful - short, bright and to the point, like the man himself. He takes us through what was evidently an energetic life: poor childhood, college, working as a lawyer during the depression, becoming an agent for MCA (involved with many mobsters - including watching an assassination), moving to LA and becoming an agent, war service, launching a new career by befriending Moss Hart, becoming a super agent of authors.

Lazar is upfront about how he positioned himself - dressing well, aping style (he was short, bald and very short sighted but it didn't stop him), emphasizing his colourful past to give him an edge, being good company, being very fast and aggressive, sometimes unscrupulous (he often lie and could stick in the knife - such as telling the customer of a rival agent who represented the Nicholas brothers that there was a third Nicholas brother).

He was famous for not reading the books he sold and asking large prices. Part of him seems a bit defiant about this - knowing for all he did for his clients he did drive up prices and not really make the entertainment world a better place, just his clients a lot richer. And he never moved into production like a Lew Wasserman or a Charles Feldman. But he was obviously good company and made a lot of people a lot of money and genuinely loved being an agent.

His life offers useful advice - be self starting (Lazar initiated many deals himself, often acted for people who had other agents), don't say no, be tenacious but once it's over it's over, have fun with what you do, go straight to the top when making a deal. The last chapter is written by Annette Tapert about Lazar's final days and is sad and touching as most of these chapters are - Lazar unexpectedly outlived his much younger wife and died soon after. Michael Korda who wrote the intro also profiled Lazar for the New Yorker.