Agent and Studio Head
Born in New York City, Begelman worked at the Music Corporation of America (MCA) for more than 11 years, eventually becoming vice president. He left in 1960 to co-found the talent agency Creative Management Associates (CMA) with Freddie Fields. Their clients included Jack Carter, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minnelli, Woody Allen, Richard Burton, Peter Sellers, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Rock Hudson, Carol Channing, and others.
He left CMA in 1973 to take over the floundering Columbia Pictures. Begelman recruited big-name stars from his former company, dramatically changing the company's image by producing such hits as Tommy (1975), Shampoo (1975), Murder by Death (1976), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Begelman became among the first Hollywood agents to cross over and rise to the top of the studio system.
Read more about this topic: David Begelman
Famous quotes containing the words agent, studio and/or head:
“The agent never receipts his bill, puts his hat on and bows himself out. He stays around forever, not only for as long as you can write anything that anyone will buy, but as long as anyone will buy any portion of any right to anything that you ever did write. He just takes ten per cent of your life.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“The studio people want me to do “Good-bye Charlie” for the movies, but I’m not going to do it. I don’t like the idea of playing a man in a woman’s body—you know? It just doesn’t seem feminine.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)
“the focused beam
folds all energy in:
the image glares filling all space:
the head falls and
hangs and cannot wake itself.”
—Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926)