Nat Lefkowitz Gravesite

William Morris Agency, Inc. History The Morris Agency found an unlikely savior in Mae West, who went on to become the top grosser at the box office in the 1930s. After its initial dip, entertainment proved a Depression-hardy industry. Over the course of the decade, revenues multiplied from about $500,000 to $15 million as the agency's client roster grew to number in the hundreds. While big-name film and radio deals contributed two-thirds of this turnover, the other third came from lesser known departments, including vaudeville, nightclub, and literary management. For not only did the agency represent well-established stars but it also nurtured what it called "the stars of the future." As a William Morris Agency advertisement once stressed, "Our Small Act of Today Is Our Big Act of Tomorrow." In 1938 the agency moved its West Coast office to posh Beverly Hills. Its early real estate purchases throughout the area would become a major source of wealth in the decades to come. The Morris Agency's contribution to the Allied World War II effort was as showbiz-oriented as anything it had ever done. Abe Lastfogel organized USO shows featuring more than 7,000 entertainers, including such luminaries as Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Marlene Dietrich, James Stewart, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart. Post-World War II Expansion into Television In the postwar era Morris's roster included Mickey Rooney, Laurence Olivier, Danny Kaye, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, and Rita Hayworth. The agency also discovered and launched Marilyn Monroe's steamy career. Morris merged with the Berg-Allenberg Agency in 1949, bringing in such Hollywood luminaries as Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Frank Capra, Edward G. Robinson, and Robert Mitchum. It also branched into television during this period. According to Frank Rose, author of a 1995 history of the agency, "in the early years the talent agencies essentially produced the shows, even lining up guests, taking care of all sorts of details." In fact, Morris agents were responsible for packaging such immensely popular productions as "The Milton Berle Show," "Texaco Star Theater," and "Your Show of Shows." "Make Room for Daddy," starring Danny Thomas, was another Morris vehicle of the 1950s. When Bill Morris, Jr. retired from the agency in 1952, Abe Lastfogel became de facto head of William Morris. During the decade, the group represented Elvis Presley and revived Frank Sinatra's career. The agency also sparked the quiz show craze with the 1955 launch of "The $64,000 Question." Other agents booked comedy and variety acts to the nightclubs and casinos springing up in Las Vegas. These venues continued to serve as "feeders" to the film and television operations, fleshing out new talent and molding it into the next generation of movie and TV stars. Film stars of the 1960s on the Morris roster included Anne Bancroft, Carol Channing, Katharine Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, Sophia Loren, Walter Matthau, Kim Novak, Natalie Wood, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, and Barbra Streisand. The agency also expanded into the music industry during this time, representing such diverse acts as folk artists Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, British rockers the Rolling Stones, Motown divas the Supremes, and teen idols The Beach Boys. But it was television that became William Morris's biggest moneymaker in the 1960s, contributing around 60 percent of revenues or more than $7 million by the end of the decade. According to a 1989 article in Forbes magazine, "In the mid-1960s Morris was the undisputed kingpin of the television business, with some 9 hours on network prime time." When Abe Lastfogel retired in 1969, he generously divvied up all the agency's voting stock among its key executives and employees. He was succeeded by an attorney/accountant Nat Lefkowitz. At that time, the Morris agency was bringing in an estimated $12 million annually, and it boasted hundreds of employees at offices in New York, Chicago, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Munich, Rome, and Madrid. Though the transition from Lastfogel to Lefkowitz appeared to have been a smooth transfer of power, William Morris was fraught with internal strife. For while the agency's corps of young, eager talent brokers multiplied, positions at the top remained filled by sexagenarians. Only Phil Weltman, a high-ranking executive in the television division, was in favor of grooming a cadre of younger men for top positions. Weltman's ideas were anathema to the Morris corporate culture, which prized long-term loyalty and rewarded it with promotions, but only after decades of service. The agency was becoming a training ground for other Hollywood professions; music industry executive David Geffen, television producer Aaron Spelling, and television executive Barry Diller all got their starts in the Morris mailroom. When Lefkowitz unceremoniously canned Weltman in 1975, several of Weltman's young apprentices saw the writing on the wall. That year Rowland Perkins, Bill Haber, Mike Rosenfeld, Mike Ovitz, and Ron Meyer left to form Creative Artists Agency. The agency and other defectors soon lured more than a dozen major clients, including Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Brian De Palma, Goldie Hawn, Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kevin Costner, Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, and Chevy Chase. Back at Morris, Lefkowitz was bumped up to the newly established--and dutiless--post of "co-chairman," a title shared with the octogenarian Abe Lastfogel. Lefkowitz was succeeded as president by Sammy Weisbord, who had joined the agency in 1931 at the age of 19 as Lastfogel's assistant and had risen through the ranks of the television division. December 1980 brought another management reorganization. While Weisbord remained president, the two aging past presidents were dubbed "co-chairmen emeriti" and the board was expanded to include seven new members--the first newcomers since the early 1950s. It was not exactly an influx of new blood, however; not one director was under the age of 50. Weisbord went into semi-retirement in 1984 and was succeeded by Lee Stevens, who guided the company until his death in February 1989. At that time, Norman Brokaw ascended to the top management position. The frequent management upheavals of the 1980s did not do much to spruce up the Morris Agency's dulled reputation. Before long, it had become the butt of an oft-quoted joke: "How do you commit the perfect murder? Kill your wife and go to work for the Morris Agency. They'll never find you." Trade rags like Los Angeles Magazine and Variety sounded the death knell with headlines like "Whither William Morris?" and "R.I.P.?" Of course, the obituaries for the William Morris Agency were premature, for although the business did rely heavily on past glories and the residuals they generated, it retained several big stars, including Bill Cosby, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lemmon, Tim Robbins, Uma Thurman, Tom Hanks, and John Malkovich. Moreover, estimated revenues had doubled from $30 million in 1984 to more than $60 million by the end of the decade, when the company represented about 2,000 clients.Nat Lefkowitz, a former co-chairman of the William Morris Agency, the theatrical talent agency with which he was associated for 56 years, died Sunday in New York University Medical Center, where he had undergone heart surgery. He was 78 years old. Mr. Lefkowitz held the title of chairman emeritus at the agency and also was an officer of a number of theatrical philanthropies. Born in Brooklyn, he attended New York public schools and was graduated from City College and the Brooklyn Law School. He went to work as an accountant, joining William Morris in 1927 and serving as comptroller, treasurer, executive vice president and president before moving into a share of the chairmanship in 1976. He was chairman of the Jewish Theatrical Guild for a number of years and served in various capacities with the United Jewish Appeal, the Federation of Jewish Philantropies, the Actors Fund, the Will Rogers Hospital, the O'Donnell Memorial Research Laboratories and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He is survived by his wife, the former Sally Feigelman; a brother, Julius of Beverly Hills, Calif.; three daughters, Dorothy B. Litwin of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.; Rona Pinkus of New York and Helene Andrea Nachtigall of San Francisco, and five grandchildren. A funeral service will be held Tuesday in the Riverside Chapel, 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.