The Last Mogul

2005-06-28

Over the weekend I went to see a new documentary about the life of the legendary Lew Wasserman called "The Last Mogul." I get the feeling that if you don't live in LA or NY, you may have trouble catching this in the theater. But, with the advent of DVD, your opportunity to see it shouldn't be too far off.

Don't know who Lew Wasserman was? Well, that's just the way he would have preferred it.

Wasserman was probably the most powerful person in the history of Hollywood. Forget about the actors or directors, this man not only invented virtually every trick in the book, he held control over the industry from the top seat at MCA for almost 60 years.

Beginning as a promotion man in the mid-West, he had a brief stint in New York City before settling on a move to run MCA's office in Hollywood.

I don't want to ruin the story for anyone as it's a great rags to riches tale, but suffice to say, this man lived the American dream.

I've been a fan of Lew's since the first time I heard about him through my father. I remember seeing a picture of him in a magazine with his trademark large black frame glasses and asking who he was. My old man told me that he not only ran Hollywood, but was equally connected with the nation's top mobsters and politicians (wait, aren't they the same).

When I moved to LA in the early '90s, I would frequently go to a deli on Saturday mornings called Nate & Al's in Beverly Hills where Wasserman held court. I never had the balls to go up to him and just shake his hand. Kinda wish I had. He was certainly no saint, but there's something appealing to me about meeting the man who conceived of so much of what is now common practice in the entertainment business. I can't help it; I find people like this of great interest.

The movie tells of his rise, and interestingly, his fall (though it's hard to imagine that a man of such wealth and power had a fall), and while the film is not perfect, if you're a fan of the inner workings of the machine and those who pull the strings, it's a great peek behind the curtain.

Though Wasserman attained every goal we each aspire to, knew every famous person on the planet, and lived a life of opulence, what I took away from the film more than anything is that no matter how powerful anyone is, no matter how weathly, how connected, in the end its all ephemeral.

Forget about whether or not the public knew who Wasserman was, the industry not only knew him, but lived in fear of his presence. And now, several years after his death, and a decade beyond his grip on Hollywood, few people in the entertainment business speak his name, and an entire generation of entertainment professionals don't know who he is.

Within 20 years, he'll be a distant memory.

The older I get, and the more I work in this business, the more I realize that the most important part of the process is loving the work you do and creating great, long-lasting entertainment. In the end, that's the only thing that lasts and the only thing people remember. If a guy like Wasserman eventually goes down and is forgotten by most, it's going to happen to the rest of us.