Lew Wasserman, Old-Time Movie Mogul, Dies at 89

AP via NYTimes.com ^ | 6/3/02 | Gary Gentile

[GeneD]

Filed at 5:38 p.m. ET

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Lew Wasserman, one of the last old-time movie moguls who helped build an entertainment empire while keeping company with presidents and the most glittering of Hollywood stars, died Monday. He was 89.

Wasserman died at home from complications of a stroke, said Sue Fleishman, spokeswoman for Universal Pictures.

As chairman and chief executive, Wasserman was the undisputed ruler of MCA Inc., the parent of Universal Studios. He owned 6.9 percent of the company's stock and, through a variety of trusts, controlled more than 15 percent.

When MCA was sold in 1990 to Japanese electronics giant Matsushita for $6.6 billion, Wasserman's take was put at $350 million, and he was retained as a manager. When Seagram Co. took over the company five years later, Wasserman retired from management with the honorary title of chairman emeritus. But he remained on the company's board of directors until 1998.

During his more than half-century with MCA, he and its late founder, Jules Stein, built it into an entertainment giant involved in movies, television programming, home video, records, consumer products and broadcast station ownership, as well as running its successful back-lot tour of Universal Studios.

Wasserman, whose thick black-frame glasses dominated his tall, thin frame, marked his 50-year anniversary with MCA in December 1986 in a celebration at its Universal City studios.

During the 1980s, Universal's film and television studios produced some of the public's favorite hits, including ``Back to the Future,'' the mega-hit of 1985 starring Michael J. Fox, and the ``Miami Vice'' television show.

Though he was considered one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, the public knew little of Wasserman aside from his philanthropic and business dealings that often found him on society and business pages.

The one-time publicity director for MCA preferred to work behind the scenes -- he once claimed ``I'm just a paper-pusher'' -- and shied away from personal publicity. He rarely granted interviews.

But the depth of his influence was apparent at a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for Wasserman and his wife, Edie, in 1986.

Among the 700 friends attending the bash at Universal Studios were Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Charlton Heston, Carol Burnett, Audrey Hepburn, Lady Bird Johnson and her two daughters, a number of former U.S. ambassadors and the state's two senators.

During one of his rare interviews, Wasserman was asked about his reputation as a tough, ruthless bargainer.

``If negotiating in an attempt to arrive at a favorable deal comes under the heading of being hard, I would stipulate that I'm hard,'' he replied.

``Actually, I don't think the word `ruthless' fits our time,'' he added. ``It is outmoded. It's a carryover from robber baron days.''

Active in many charities, he was presented in 1974 with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. He also was a major donor to the Democratic Party and was listed in 1996 as one of 75 big donors to had spent a night in the Clinton White House, which a watchdog group likened to a ``fat cat hotel.''

Wasserman was born in Cleveland on March 15, 1913, and went to work at age 12 hawking candy in a burlesque house. During high school he was an usher in a movie theater, then managed a theater-nightclub, when he was introduced to Edith Beckerman, a clothing store clerk.

They were married in 1936, and three months later Wasserman landed a job as national advertising manager of Music Corporation of America, a talent-booking agency founded by Stein.

In 1946, Wasserman was named president of the company. Together, he and Stein built MCA into an entertainment empire, entering the growing field of television and forming MCA's own production company.

After MCA bought Universal Studios, federal regulators forced MCA in 1962 to abandon the agency business, uncomfortable that the same company was representing performers as their agent while at the same time its production company was hiring them.

While he kept busy by his duties at MCA's ``black tower'' corporate office complex in Universal City, Wasserman found time to keep company with presidents, serve on the board of other companies and numerous organizations, including American Airlines and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

He also maintained a decades-long friendship with Ronald Reagan.

It was that friendship that was the subject of a controversial 1986 book, ``Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob.'' The book said that during the early 1960s, Reagan was investigated and ultimately cleared in a federal criminal probe into allegations that payoffs were made from MCA to Reagan and other officers of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1950s. MCA was then Hollywood's largest talent agency.