In this conversation, we are joined by a long-time innovator and entrepreneur in talent management — Harry Abrams. At the venerable age of 88, Harry reflects on a career where passion eclipsed paychecks, taking a step into adventure from lawnmower manufacturing in Indiana and instead taking a gutsy $40/week step into the glitz and competitiveness of Hollywood talent agencies.

After saying no to the storied William Morris Agency and yes to the illustrious MCA, Harry's journey has been anything but ordinary. Abrams not only grew his company to over 150 employees but also prided himself on nurturing the next generation of industry leaders. Our conversation traverses his pursuit of new territories in technology and social media, as well as insights into business risks and creating your own competition. We'll explore how Abrams has not only been a talent agent and business leader, but also an author, an arts community supporter, and a link to creative arts in LA and New York.

Guest: Harry Abrams, Founder and Past President/Chief Executive Officer, Abrams Artists Agency

After graduating with a B.S. in Business Administration from UCLA, in 1957, he worked in Indiana for a company that sold lawnmowers. In 1958, he joined MCA Artists, which was then a talent agency. Mr. Abrams started at an entry-level position in the mailroom of MCA for forty dollars a week and rose quickly to become an administrative assistant in its television department. He was promoted to become an agent in the television department and remained at MCA until 1962, when the company was forced to divest itself of its talent agency division due to an anti-trust action against MCA's parent company. It was at this time that Mr. Abrams and Noel Rubaloff decided to start their own specialized talent agency named Abrams-Rubaloff & Associates in Los Angeles.  Intrigued by the rich theatrical environment of New York City, Abrams opened a branch of the agency on the East Coast in 1966. The success of Abrams-Rubaloff & Associates propelled him to establish Abrams Artists Agency, a full-service agency catering to motion pictures, television, literary works, theater productions, and commercials.

Through the years, Abrams discovered and nurtured countless talents, showcasing his keen eye for spotting promising actors and performers. Notable names who have benefitted from Abrams' expertise include Jennifer Lopez, Kerry Washington, Liam Neeson, Sterling K. Brown, and Katie Holmes, among many others.

After selling Abrams Artists Agency in 2018, Abrams co-wrote with Rod Thorn his memoir and business book, "Let’s Do Launch: A Hollywood Agent Dishes on How to Make Your Business and Career Take Off'.

Recognized as one of "The 500 Most Influential People in Los Angeles" in 2016 and 2017 by The Los Angeles Business Journal, Harry Abrams continues to actively contribute to the arts community, serving on the Board of Directors of prestigious organizations such as The Center Theatre Group and The Los Angeles Fraternity of Friends.

Links of Note:

• Let’s Do Launch: A Hollywood Agent Dishes on How to Make Your Business and Career Take Off": https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Do-Launch-Hollywood-Business/dp/1899694129
• Abrams Artists Agency (now A3 Artists Agency): www.linkedin.com/company/a3-artists-agency and https://www.a3artistsagency.com

Harry, how old are you now? I'm 88.

Eightyat I don't really feel that I'm 88. I

don't act like I'm 88, but. How old were you when you

retired? How old when I. When I retired? I retired

five years ago. So I want to talk about several

things here. You are one of my favorite creative entrepreneurs because

you have, you have everything in one crazy

career lifetime. You created your own business from

nothing. You changed your own business repeatedly and kind

of repartnered and rethought about what you were going to do.

You had to think about your next generation leadership. You

had to think about training people and what the heartbeat is of an

entrepreneurial venture in the creative industries. You got to help other

people and you got to help figure out what was happening

next in changing sectors. All things I find really fascinating.

I want to try to hit heartbeats on that because

you've had to kind of shift gears many times. How

old were you when you did your first entertainment

doll? Well, I started out in a training program at

MCA, a talent agency, which was then a talent

agency. I came out of UCLA, went in the military for

six months, came out of the military, looked for a job.

I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. I'm not going to bore you

with. The story about, and it's in the. Book as well, couldn't get a job

in the midst of a recession. That country was. And

people were being laid off right and left in the entertainment industry.

Being at the business school at UCLA, I learned how to write

a letter of inquiry, a letter looking for a job.

And I wrote this letter to two agencies that

then had training programs. One was MCA and the other was the William

Morris Agency. I applied for position in both those

places, and I was able to get interviews with them,

with the personnel directors. Then I had to go through

a series of interviews with the department heads. There were ten

department heads, and I had to make myself available

when they were available. And so it took about another few months,

and you could be rejected anywhere along the way, and

this is, by the way, to get into the training program at either of these

places. And the pay was $40 a week. But I

desperately wanted to get in the entertainment industry, not as an artist, not as

a performer, but on the business side.

And I went through the process, went through all the interviews

and finished all the interviews, took about three months with each one of

them. And I got a letter from each of the personnel directors

saying, dear Harry, you've successfully passed our interview process.

And I assumed that when I opened this letter, I would be

offered a job. But they said, we're going to put you on a list

of approved applicants, and when your name rises to

the top of the list, don't call us, we'll call you.

And I said, well, how long is that going to take? A week, two weeks,

a month, six months, a year? We can't tell you,

is what they said. Just don't call us. We'll call you.

So I had to find a job at that point because I came from a

very poor family. My father worked in a print shop, and my mother

worked at Thompson, Ramo, Wooldrich,

TRW. I must admit, I've never known what

TRW stood for, so that's good to know. We come from a

very poor family, and so we had no contacts in the talent

agency or in the entertainment industry as a whole.

When I fainted dead away at pre med at the hospital and

went to UCLA, the counseling bureau, they came up with the idea

that I had no interest in fields of science, but that I had a strong

interest in entertainment and in business. And so that's what I decided to

focus on. And so I wrote these letters, got an interview with these

people, and my mother and father

said, entertainment. What was entertainment

then? Was it live theater, film? What year was this

live theater? It was feature film. It was television. They were all

three active areas of entertainment and

musical performers, the recording industry and all that. The

concerts. That's an area that I never got into that I didn't

want to get into personal appearances in concerts

anyway, so I. And my mother, father said, so get a job

already, for God's sake.

My uncle, he worked at Thrifty Drugstore, and

Thrifty Drugstore had a chain of 80 stores up and down

California. And he was in charge of housewares. He bought housewares

for the company and distributed them. And one of the

items that he bought were power lawnmowers.

And he dealt with a company. A man by the name of

Maury Loeber was his name. I remember his name vividly. And

he owned a power Lawnmower production company in

Richmond, Indiana, small farming town

70 miles due east of Indianapolis on

the Ohio border. Mr. Lober came into town, and

my uncle introduced me to him. And Mr. Lober said,

harry, would you. I'm going to offer you a job. You're looking for a position.

I'd like you to come to work for me at the power Lawnmower Company in

Richmond, Indiana. It was called the George W. Davis, G. W.

Davis Lawnmower Company. I took the job. I had

never been to that. I'd really not been out of Los Angeles

at all, with the exception of my six months in the

service, which was in San Antonio, Texas. I

had always heard about the Midwest and how people were. Their

values were really terrific, and wonderful people came out of the

Midwest. So I took him up on his job offer was $120

a week, a lot more than $40 a week.

And I moved to Richmond, Indiana. Small

town, maybe 15, 20,000 people, a farming

town. And I went to work at this company, and I worked at this

company doing everything and anything dealing

with manufacturing and production and sales and

distribution. And he had about 150 factory

workers there. And there was a superintendent who ran the

place. And I was kind of Mr. Lobers.

He didn't have any children. He was married, but he didn't have any children. And

he grew to take me in like his son. And I did

everything and anything to do with production of lawnmowers. I was in charge of

purchasing. I purchased all the raw goods that went into the

lawnmowers. I dealt with all kinds of suppliers around the country.

One day my mother calls me about 14 months a year, and two months

into my stay in Richmond, Indiana. She says, I got

a letter here from the William Morris Agency. So I said, we'll open it up.

She opened it up and said, dear Harry, your name has risen to the top

of the list, and you have 72 hours to

accept the position to come into our training program. The pay is

$40 a week. And during my. He said, you have

72 hours to accept the job or not. If you don't take the job in

72 hours, we're going to go on to the next person on the list. Well,

during my interview process with the ten department

heads, my perception of the caliber

and the quality of the agents at MCA versus William

Morris, I felt that the agents at MCA were far

superior, were brighter, sharper, more aggressive, et

cetera. And so I took a calculated risk,

and I turned the offer down. But before I turned the

offer down, I spoke to my mother and father, and they said,

$125. You're making $125 to take a job

for $40 a week? This is ridiculous. I called Mr.

Glover to tell him he was in New York, I was going to be leaving.

I was handing him my letter of resignation for two weeks

notice, and he said, you haven't accepted the job yet, have you? And

I said, well, why do you ask? He said, because

I'm on the airplane the next day. Of flying in to meet with

you. I'm going to try to persuade you to the contrary.

So he came in and took me out to dinner the next night, and he

said, you're going to take a job for $40 a

week. You're making $125 a week. He then began to

reevaluate just how bright I was, and he

said, you know what? I'm going to double his salary. I'm going to make it

$250 a. Week, which was a lot of money. At that time, which

was a lot of money at that time, especially for a young person like

myself. And I turned him down. I told him,

Mr. Loba, my heart is in the entertainment industry. That's what I want to get

into. So I've got to leave. And I left.

Two weeks later. I moved to Los Angeles. I went to work in a training.

Program at that NCAA that you ended up accepting. That

one called about four months later, and your name is written to the

top of the list. You have 24 hours to accept the position.

I said, I don't need 24 hours, Mr. Zuck, when do I start?

And I took that job for $40 a week.

I left the job for $250 a week, and that's

where I started. I started in the training program at MCA, which had a

very sophisticated, well structured training program.

Six guys worked in the mailroom. I came in as a number six guy,

and you had to work your way up. And when they got up to

the number one position, I'm going to pause. You a second and

ask a few questions. One of them is you've

three times talked about the people, the caliber of the

people, and very specific of remembering names. I know you've

working on your books. Some of those you remember possibly even more vividly.

Has that been a recurring thread thereafter, that the quality

of people has been a driving factor for

you? No question about it. I really enjoy

dealing with the quality of people, what kind of people they are,

what their education has been, what their degree of success has been,

what field that they're in. I'm always interested in people who

have developed, have moved themselves

along, have been motivated by success

and advancement and earning more money.

And so the quality of people has always been very

important to me. The caliber and the quality of the people at

MCA were far superior to the people at people can

argue with me about that. That's my opinion, and, well, you got. To live with

it afterwards as well, and spend a lot of time in this space. Let

me then sort of take you through one sort of sidebar question, which is the

getting started in entertainment? Sometimes it's who you know. You've

definitely told the opposite story here. You've told a story of

persistence. What skills did you find

really helped you in your first five years? Human relations,

getting along with people, being able to accept

just about anyone for whatever they do. I

enjoy talking to people. I enjoy seeing how people have

molded their lives and their

professional lives, their family lives. And I've always tried,

I've admired people who've had those successes.

And so I found myself being, getting

closer with people who have done that. And it

also instilled in me a desire to become

successful as they had become. I guess that's the way I would

answer that. Success is what success in

achievement, of type of work that you did and the caliber and the level at

which you did it. And success also in

financial success as well. And also

success in. I was in the talent agency business when

I could be successful of finding an artist

and helping move their career along

to where they became a star. That to me

was tremendous success and a great

deal of achievement. So you

left MCA to start what was the first

of your own sort of pieces of a company. What triggered your

departure? It wasn't that I left MCA. MCA

left me. Lou Wasserman ran the business company at that

time. And MCA, they bought Universal Pictures,

Universal Studios, all of the property, all the soundstages,

all of the library, everything that Universal owned. And

so they were buying all of their talent

at Universal from their talent agency for

several months, maybe even a year or

two. And the other agencies, like the William Morris Agency

and ICM and other talent agencies were having trouble

getting in the front door selling any talent to

MCA. So, I mean, too, at Universal. So what

happened is they felt that. They

become a monopoly of sorts. So they filed a

lawsuit against MCA saying that they were in

violation of the Sherman Clayton Antitrust Act. They were

a monopoly. And as a result, it took a long period

of time. The wheels of justice grind very

slowly, as they say. And it took two or three

years for that lawsuit to make its way through whatever

different levels of law that is in

existence. And they finally got to

Jack Kennedy was president at the time, Robert Kennedy

was the attorney general, and it was him, his

lawsuit against MCA. And finally they came to the

conclusion the government did U. S. Government that they

were in violation. MCA was in violation of the

Sherman Clayton Antitrust Act. They were a monopoly.

And they said to MCA, hex came down after

two or three years. You either have to stay in the talent agency

business, or you stay in motion picture and television production. You cannot

be in both. And so it was a fairly easy decision for

MCA, the parent company, to make at that time, because the gross dollar

revenue for Universal, I mean, for

MCA, was much smaller,

80 some odd million dollars. Whereas

I was going to say, though. The talent agency business hadn't yet grown to what

it's become and the various scales that it's

become. So at that point in time, what level of success had

you risen to at this point in time? You had your own clients, you

had your own expertise? You

mean, at that point in time. When split from, by the

way, the director from the government said to MCA, the parent

company, you cannot just dismiss and terminate all of your

employees, all your agents, you have to offer them all positions

in production, motion picture and television production at

Universal. And so all of the

employees there were, I don't know, a couple thousand around the world, if

that many. Everyone was offered a position, including myself,

to go into motion picture or television production. And

I'd say about 90% of the

agents all went into motion television production.

Yeah, they were immediate job with a salary, et

cetera. But I had been working with this gentleman

by the name of Noel Rubelov,

moved out of the mailroom into that division or that department of the

agency that dealt with commercials, radio and

television commercials. It dealt with MCs,

hosts of game shows, queer shows, audience participation

shows, radio personalities. It was an area of the

business that most talent agents didn't want to get into.

Most talent agency wanted to be a motion pictures and television

production or a theater production, much more glamorous.

But I liked working with Ruboloff. He was eight years my

senior, and I liked working with him in that

area of the business at MCA. And I'd been there for about, I

don't know, maybe four or five, six years roughly. At that point, I

had decided I went to him. He was eight years my senior. As

I say, I said, I think this is a great time for us to open

up our own shop. And because all the clientele that we were

representing were going to be without agents, they needed agency

representation. So I said, I think we should

not go into motion picture and television product and

open our own shop. And that's what we did. We opened our

own agency. It was called Abrams Rubeloffs and

Associates. And even though he was my senior

by eight years and had much more experience, when we

went to open our bank account, City National bank, they said,

what do you want to call your bank account? I popped up and I said,

well, my last name is AB. We'll be first on every

list. I think we should call it Abrams Ruboloff.

And Ruboloff readily agreed to that, or didn't move fast

enough anyway, so that's how it came to be known. And

we started our business in Los Angeles. And I used to fly to New

York to fly to Madison Avenue. I covered Madison Avenue. It

was like a blanket dealing with all kinds of ad agencies,

marketing our clientele. Radio and television commercials was our

biggest source of revenue and income in those days, although

we did do a healthy business in MCs and

hosts game shows, quiz shows, audience participation

shows. Bob Barker, for example, was one of our clients,

people like Gary Owens and Jack Nars and

Tom Kennedy. You won't recognize these names. Well, I

will, but not all of our listeners. Well, yeah, not all of the listeners.

And that specialization was special to

us. There weren't any other agencies. Well, there were smaller

agencies, one person, two person shops. When we went

out on our own, we had three or four employees. And so

we started building the company, and it was

successful. And I was the one in Los Angeles

who would travel to New York all the time

to go up and down Madison Avenue, could care

less about New York City. So you are someone who

steps into risk. Risk makes you happy

or you're comfortable with risk, or what makes it so that

you're willing to step into a new situation.

It's attractive to me because if I feel that I can, I manage a big

achievement and go into something new and

make it into something successful. So I didn't mind risk

at all. I really enjoyed the competition.

I enjoyed business as a whole. But I really was

fascinated by business in the entertainment industry. But

again, not, I didn't want to get into

production that I felt was too much of a risk.

But being that we had developed a terrific talent agency

with outstanding clientele in a specialized

area that most other talent

agencies were not in. So I enjoyed the

risk and the reward and, of course, the rewards.

Of course, yes, there's no rewards without

any risk. So in this saga, because the

saga, I think, moves as well into it, becoming Abrams artist,

what were the main struggles that you went through in having your own business?

Well, we did have competition.

William Morris Agency had a department or a division that did the same thing, that

DM had a similar CAA, didn't

have that department at that time. I

found talent. I found developed artists.

We became very well known. And eventually

Rubiloff and I were together for about 1415 years.

And at one point in our

partnership, we broke up

and I opened up Abrams artists. At that point, in other

words, instead of being Abram Schmugaloff, and I continued to build, and

I really enjoyed not only

finding talent, performing talent artists,

but I also enjoyed finding talented people. And

I liked to train them and give them opportunities for

growth and advancement like I had had

myself. And so that was the

biggest motivation for writing

my book, was to provide some sort of where people

would want to perhaps consider coming out with a

school with a master's degree in business, or maybe having gone

into business after, or gone into some form of employment

after college, and finding either with an

undergraduate or graduate degree and finding that they

ward that through, they're happy with their career choice. So

after three or four years, they began to look elsewhere.

When they want to get in the entertainment industry, they didn't even think about

the fact they assumed everything was in production. But the

key part of the entertainment industry that I think that drove it, in my

humble opinion, were the talent agencies.

And so I wanted to train people to become talent

agents and help people

find career choices, career paths in entertainment,

other than performing, other than as an artist.

When we first met, now was a few years ago,

and you, at the time, I remember, were really looking at new

technologies and getting your agents

involved in things like early internet, YouTube,

early social media, social media, early

influencer work. How did you figure which technologies were

ready for you guys to lean into? Well, I think it kind of

developed on its own, and social media

became important. I myself, if not,

I'm not in any of those forms of social

media myself, personally. In those particular

fields, influencers became very, very important.

Influencers are the outgrowth of social media, and

influencers are people that earn great sums of money, and

they have representatives, agents,

managers who manage them and help move their careers

along. And I felt that that was an area that I wanted

to dip my toe into. I dipped my

toe in, and I began to look for

people. I myself didn't do it. I hired someone

who was a younger person than I, who was much more

knowledgeable and conversant with social media than I was,

and I hired him to run that department

or division of the agency. It's interesting because not only

do those influencers

as influencers, they are very much in demand or

can become very much in demand as a result of social media,

but a number of them also were

hosts, potential hosts, MCs,

people of that nature. And so I felt it was

very similar to what our clientele were

all about. I spent time developing a

division or a department of the agency, and that department or division

of the agency grew to be the most productive

of the entire. Most productive of the entire

income or revenue of the agency was that department

or that division. So I invite my mother and my father to

come into my office one day and to sit there or stand

there and watch me work and see what I did every day

and how I dealt with people and not only our

clientele, but the people that we had to sell our clientele to

have meetings with people, our

clients, who were very

demanding. And at the end of about a week, my

father said to me, both of them said, at the same time,

Harry, you're actually practicing medicine every day of the week. You're dealing

with crazy people.

And so, yeah, my dad said, you can hang your shingle right outside

your office door. Harry Abrams, MD being an

agent, being a good psychologist and social psychologist, and

understanding how everybody's interior nuts and bolts

work. So I totally see that. When did you think you were

successful? Well, when I thought it was

successful when MCA broke up, it was very fortuitous

that they broke up, that we were able to go out. I figured we had

an area of the business we had very little competition in.

And so I felt we were. I don't know how one

measures success, but we were able to pay our bills

and employ people and still have money left.

Profit, always good. And have your own time, but your time

is oftentimes your clients. So

you retired later than a lot of people. How did

you considering that this business was in many ways tied in

with you, even though you hired great people and trained them to work for you,

how was that process of moving the company to

the next generation? And I know they're wonderful folks and they will hear

this, but how did you go through the process of thinking about

the next generation of the company? Well, first of all,

we started out in a particular area, which was a very small

area of the business. And the larger area of the

business is when One moves into

with performers. Because you ended up in almost every area of

the business by the time that you got to be a multi city,

multi space company, advertising, a commercial. End of our

business became a very small end of our business,

and we became a full fledged talent agency in,

I mean, in New York initially, where I was only

in New York to begin with, I used to fly out to Los Angeles and

sell that market, our talent in LA. And

eventually I felt we needed to have an office here. And

I hired a couple of people from

one of our competitors, the Gersh agency,

had two guys, Scott Harris and Howard Goldberg,

guys that I used to send my talent

to from New Yorkers. We didn't have an office. I'd

send them out there. And so they became an affiliate or

corresponding talent agency for us. And so we

were very close to them when they were at the Gersh office. And

then I hired them away and we set up an office in

LA under our title. It was

called Abrams. And I put their names on the door,

Abrams, Harris and Gold, because I was not

there. Under screen actors regulations, rules and

regulations, someone has to be name

value in each of the offices. So I

put their names on the door even though they had no

financial or equity interest in the company. And what

happened is we continued to grow and prosper. And first

year, there were two young guys, much younger than I

was. They didn't know how to run a business. So I would

spend a week in LA and a week in New York and help them

build the business in LA.

But again, they had their names on the

people, you know, respective artists

would assume that they were at an equity, even though they did not.

And what took place is continuing to grow and grow and

grow. After about five years, the two

fellows, Howard Goldberg and Scott

Harris, felt that they didn't really need me any

longer, so they went ahead and set up their own

business. And under the name of, originally,

Harrison Goldberg, until, unfortunately, Howard Goldberg

passed away at an early age from AIDS,

unfortunately. And so they changed the

name. Instead of it being Harrison Goldberg, they changed

it to innovative artists. And that's the name that

they have shared, they have kept today, Scott Harris,

who owns and runs that business today. So that was an example

of hiring people that then grew into their own business. How

did you grow your succession management? Eddie Brooms,

artists who. Well, and I continued to

grow. And adding more

agents from our training program, adding more important

clientele, developing them into important

stars in their own right, we would develop them. Wasn't

always me selling talent that we got

from another agency. And the agency continued to grow.

When I sold the business five years ago, now

there were about 150 people working for the company between

New York and LA, and in all kinds

of different divisions or departments. The only

area, including literary, including theater, motion

pictures, actors, actresses. The only area that we did

not get into was the area of music and concerts and personal

appearances. And I really just

enjoyed that growth. And we

also began to sell. We developed a literary

department as well. I wasn't running it myself. I

hired literary agents and built

a literary department to be very successful. And we would sell

talent, writers and directors,

producers, but also we would sell

packages where we would represent the entire

package of writer, director, producer,

actors, actresses, et

cetera. I'm going to keep

nudging people to get the book because you tell lots of stories and there of

people you moved into and helped along with their career.

What might be a couple things that you're the most proud of

from that work? Well, I've actually

fostered, parented many,

not many, but several successful talent agencies of their own

today. So I'm very proud of that. Even though they became

competitors, I grew trained agents

within our company. They worked there three, four, five years,

six, seven, eight years, ten years, and then they went out on their own

and grew their own businesses. So I'm very proud of

that. Even though they became competition, I was

delighted that I had been helpful

in teaching them, training them, providing

them with a career path where they could earn themselves a

good, make a good living. Is there anything we, of course, could talk for hours

on this long, wonderful career you've had and the great journey you've had,

what haven't we mentioned that might be a good thing to wrap us up here?

I'm very proud of that. I have found

a number of performers, artists, actors and

actresses, name talent have built them from

literally nothing up to becoming

valuable entities in their own right.

We may not represent them any longer

because the large corporate agencies would come and we were

kind of the people that built their careers, and then when they

got to be big enough, large enough and bringing in enough of an

income that a large corporate agency would come after them

and steal them away from us. And it wasn't always

the case. But I'm proud of the fact that there are

several artists name artists today that

I'm responsible for, even though I've been out of the business

for five years. But I helped build their

careers, and I'm very pleased with the fact that I played

a hand, a major hand, in

developing them into desirable, in

demand artists who are paid great

sums of. Money for their services and are

nice people as well. They're very grateful for the fact

that, I wouldn't say all of them are grateful.

I think they're grateful for the fact that

Abrams of law or Howard Abrams have played an important part

in their livelihood and where they're at today.

Well, you are at all sorts of interesting things now, including

being involved here at Arts in Los Angeles and

continuing to have a touch point of arts a bit in New York when you

get out there, if people would like to find your work, we're going to

put in the show notes, links to people to find your

book. Harry, it's great talking to you. I always

find joy in it, and it's been great to see this book to come

fruition and find success. So it's

wonderful. And if anybody wants to find the book, we'll have all the links in

the show notes. Thank you very much for joining us on the show.

My pleasure. Thanks for asking me.