Seymour Heller - Career

Career

While attending college at Case Western University in the late 1930s, Heller worked for MCA, then a thriving talent agency. Based in his hometown of Cleveland, he represented the leading artists of the day, including Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Sammy Kaye, Glen Gray and Count Basie, among others.

Heller joined the Coast Guard during World War II. His entertainment expertise became the foundation for his service in the military, where he acted as an advance man for Tars and Spars, a comedy show and recruiting vehicle starring Victor Mature, Sid Caesar, Gower Champion and Bob Fosse.

In 1945, after the conclusion of the war, Heller moved to Los Angeles and in 1947 partnered with associates Dick Gabbe and Sam J. Lutz to form the first coast-to-coast personal management firm, Gabbe, Lutz and and Heller. The launch of Gabbe, Lutz and Heller marked the beginning of Heller's lengthy association with The Treniers, whom he managed for nearly 60 years. In addition, Heller represented Ginger Rogers, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Helen O'Connell, Frankie Lane, Regis Philbin, The Standells, Jimmie Rodgers, The McGuire Sisters, and Lawrence Welk, among many others. Gabbe, Lutz and Heller was the preeminent personal management company of the time, and was considered a pioneering talent agency.

In 1950, singer Wladziu Valentino Liberace, known as Liberace, invited Heller to a performance at the Hotel Coronado in San Diego, California. Heller immediately agreed to represent the performer, who later called his first impression of Liberace “lightning in a bottle.” Heller is credited with “launching the Liberace rocket ride,” which included a weekly television show, an immediate success which was syndicated to more than 200 television stations by 1954. Additionally, in the early part of his association with Heller, Liberace broke records as he quickly sold out performances at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and Royal Albert Hall, among others. In 1954, more than 120,000 concertgoers came to a Liberace show at Chicago’s Soldier’s Field, setting a still-impressive attendance record, and in 1955, Heller negotiated the then unheard of sum of $50,000 per week when Liberace opened Las Vegas' Riviera Hotel.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Liberace was the highest paid performer in the world and he continued to break records into the 1980s, when he made a year's gross of $1,665,331 at Radio City Music Hall. Under Heller’s superintendence, Liberace achieved multi-platform success; according to a 1985 article in Billboard magazine, Heller shaped the strategies that would ensure a long and profitable career for Liberace, and that his “pragmatic vision made Liberace into what he is -- one of the longest-running success stories in show business today.” Heller managed Liberace until the entertainer’s death in 1986.

Heller later owned the renowned recording studio Producer's Workshop (now called Westbeach Recorders) in Hollywood, where Liberace recorded in his later years, as well as pop music luminaries Fleetwood Mac, Ringo Starr, Pink Floyd and many others. He also had a partnership with Ray Harris in the early disco record label American Variety International (AVI), which produced and released many records between 1974 and 1984 and also owned interests in music publishing. He did other business under the names Attarack/Heller and Associates in the 1960s, and Seymour Heller and Associates in 1984.

Heller died of natural causes in his Beverly Hills home on October 8, 2001.