Knock, knock, knock.
"Who's there?"
"Jerry Weintraub."
"Oh, yeah, hey, Jerry, come in!"
He probably thought I was the cigar boy.
He was sitting in a chair, napkin around his neck, looking in the mirror, dabbing a pancake pad all over his face. In those days, they all did their own makeup. He was an elegant man with a clean, vanilla way about him. The singer Eddie Fisher said that Godfrey was anti-Semitic. The hotel he partly owned in Miami Beach, the Kenilworth, did not allow Jews. But he was nice to me. "What can I do for you?" he asked.
I said, "Well, Mr. Godfrey, I've come to you with an opportunity to make fifty thousand dollars a week."
"Wow, what is it?"
"It's a show in Las Vegas," I told him. "It's called 'Arthur Godfrey's A Night in Hawaii.' "
"You mean a floor show?" he asks.
"Yeah," I tell him. "In one of the big hotels."
"No, sorry, kid. It's my policy. I don't work live."
"Yeah, but fifty thousand dollars a week," I say. "Maybe more."
"Nope," he says. "Don't work live."
"Yeah, but listen," I say, "you'll be on stage with fifty beautiful Hawaiian girls, and here is the best part: You and I will go to Hawaii and pick them out personally, right off the beach!"
He looks up, like, Wait, FIFTY Hawaiian girls? Frowns and says, "Yeah, but it would still be live."
I went on and on, but could not talk him into it. He was scared to death of a live audience. Well, he was then, anyway, because he did call me years later, when his TV career was on the wane, and said, "Jerry, I'm ready to play Vegas. And I want to bring my horse on stage. And I want you to book it." And I did book it, and he did bring his horse on stage.
In the end, I was able to put a show together without Godfrey that worked for Morris Landsbergh. Kimo Lee and the Modernesians, the girls in grass skirts, and the volcano erupting night after night. In other words, the fourth lemon dropped.
Kimo Lee died young. In his will, he left me the rights to a song that had not done much for him. But it was later recorded by Elvis Presley, and after that by just about everyone in the business. It was called "Blue Hawaii."
Fun with Jane
By 1963, I had amassed a stable of talent. There was Kimo Lee and the Modernesians, but also Joey Bishop, Jack Paar, the Four Seasons, and many more. In this business, it only takes one, but who wants to live that way, on a single throw of the dice, or by wrapping yourself in the fortunes of a single artist, no matter how brilliant-the point, as the chaperones used to say at the high-school dance, is to get out there and mix.
I represented two actors Walt Disney wanted for his upcoming Bon Voyage, starring Fred MacMurray and Jane Wyman. Mr. Disney flew me to LA first-class, then had a limousine bring me to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where I was set up in a bungalow. I was chauffeured to the Disney Lot, where I was given my own office and a secretary. Five days went by and all they said was, "Mr. Disney is not ready to see you yet." I sat forever. Now and then, my secretary buzzed, asking, "Don't you want to dictate a letter?" "Don't you want to make a call?" (I phoned my mother several times.) Finally, after five days, word came: The maestro was ready. As I remember it, I had to walk down a long hall with Oscars lining the walls on either side. By the time I reached the office at the end, I was intimidated, parched. I felt like I had come through the desert. I shook hands with Mr. Disney, sat down. He was at his desk, drawing, I imagined, a picture of Mickey (him) pounding Goofy (me) with a club. I was, in short, defeated before I heard the opening offer.
Mr. Disney said, "This is what we're going to do."
I said fine.
Mr. Disney said, "This is what your clients are going to get paid."
I said fine.
I learned a lot on this trip: about context, home field advantage, the cost of letting the other side establish its authority. I learned something else, too-about obsession, control. Before I left, I asked Mr. Disney what he was drawing. It was not Mickey hitting Goofy with a club. It was a design for the bathing suit Deborah Walley would wear in Bon Voyage. He did not have a costume designer do it. He did it himself. The man was intense, but in an admirable way. He believed he had to control his product, utterly, as the product was really just him in another way. It was a lesson I would learn myself years later, when I started my own production company.
Around this time, an agent and friend from William Morris called. "Jerry," he said, "you should go see Jane Morgan. Her manager died and she needs representation."
I knew Jane Morgan, had heard of her, anyway. She was one of the most talented singers in America. I had seen her on the Jackie Gleason and the Perry Como shows. She was a star. What's more, she had class. Jane Morgan was not Jane's real name, by the way. Her real name was Florence Currier. She grew up in Massachusetts, in an old American family. Her father played in the Boston Symphony. He was first-chair cellist for twenty-five years, which is a big deal. Jane was surrounded by music from the time she was a girl. She trained in opera, but made her name singing the sort of saloon songs that dominated the charts. She broke first in Europe, with hit records and hit shows in all the best clubs, including her regular gig at the Club des Champs Elysees in Paris. She worked with a guy named Bernard Hilda. First it was his name in big letters, with her name in little letters beneath-then it was the opposite. Her American breakthrough came in 1958, with a song called "Fascination." She had a huge career, with hit songs and shows, gigs at supper clubs, more appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show than any other singer-when that show was the show-and her amazing performance on Broadway in Mame. When I was twenty years old, Jane was crooning from every radio.
I went to see her at a theater one night in Pennsylvania. It was raining. The roads were wet. I paid at the door. I sat in back. People around me were talking. She sang in French, her voice sexy and strong. It got in my head and stayed there. She wandered across the stage, lighting up the room as she went. She had short blonde hair and almond-shaped eyes. She owned the crowd, but made the crowd believe they owned her. Whatever an agent looks for but almost never finds, Jane had it. I waited for her backstage. We went outside. The rain came down. We leaned in a doorway. Her hand touched mine. I told her my name. She said my name. I told her my business. My business was helping her business. We sat in a restaurant. We talked about her career. We talked about everything. When I came back to the city-I was always leaving and coming back in those years, the glass towers rising before me-I came back with a relationship that would change my life.
I managed many other clients, but from then on there was really just Jane. I did all the things a manager is supposed to do, booked her shows, negotiated her deals, sat in the audience and in the studio as she cut her records, but what could I really do for her? Of course, I thought I could do a lot. She was a big star. I could make her bigger. But the truth is, in the early years, it was Jane who was helping me. As I've said, my life has been a succession of mentors, but first among these, the person most responsible for making my career, was Jane Morgan. She was married when we met. I was married, too, but, at a certain point, those marriages seemed like nothing compared to what we had together. At that moment, those older relationships just sort of dissolved. We had fallen in love. Jane Morgan, this incredibly successful, beautiful woman whose family came over on the Mayflower, and Jerry Weintraub, the kid from the Bronx.
Jane was worldly. She had lived in Paris. She spoke French, Spanish, and Italian. She knew how to go into a restaurant and order a meal. No matter where I went, and no matter what I asked for, I always ended up with a cheeseburger and a Coke. But Jane brought me with her, taught me, broadened my horizons. She took me to Kennebunkport, Maine, where her family lived. She took me to Paris, to Switzerland, all over the world. I went with her on tour. Queens and aristocrats came back after each performance to shake her hand and kiss her cheek. We went to see a Beatles show, early in their career, before anyone knew who they were. They were performing as an opening act for Trini Lopez at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. We went backstage after the show, and they recognized Jane as soon as we came in. They stood up and, in perfect harmony, serenaded her with all her hit songs.