The Last Mogul Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood

by McDougal, Dennis

• ISBN13: 9780306810503
• ISBN10: 0306810506
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-20
• Publisher: Da Capo Press

Summary

The reviewer of theBoston Globesaid point blank: "Over the years, I've read hundreds of books on Hollywood and the movie business, and this one is right at the top." As the elusive, tyrannical head of the Music Corporation of America (MCA) until the 1990s, Lew Wasserman was the most powerful and feared man in show business for more than half a century. His career spanned the entire history of the movies, from the silent era to the present, and he was guru to Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and Jimmy Stewart, and to a new generation of filmmakers beginning with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. For more than four years, Dennis McDougal interviewed over 350 people who knew the man with the giant dark horn-rimmed glassescolleagues, relatives, rivalsand drew on tens of thousands of pages of documents to produce this extraordinary and first-ever portrait of a legend and his times, a book that theNew York Times Book Reviewcalled "thoroughly reported and engrossing" and that theDaily Newscalled, simply, "a bombshell."

Author Biography

Dennis McDougal,an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times for more than a decade, has won scores of journalistic honors, including the National Headliners Award and several Associated Press awards. He lives in Long Beach, California.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
ACT I: MUSIC, 1896-1938
South Bend and Chicago, 1896-1924	9	(9)
Chicago, 1925-1928	18	(8)
New York, 1927-1930	26	(8)
Chicago, 1930-1936	34	(11)
Cleveland, 1913-1931	45	(11)
Cleveland, 1932-1937	56	(10)
Chicago and New York, 1937-1938	66	(9)
ACT II: CORPORATION, 1938-1960
Hollywood, 1938-1939	75	(11)
Bette, Betty, and the Big Time, 1940-1941	86	(9)
Hollywood Canteen, 1942-1944	95	(8)
Beverly Hills and Broadway, 1945	103	(10)
Octopus, 1946	113	(17)
Beverly Hills, Moscow, and Gangland, USA, 1947-1950	130	(19)
TV, Trantrums, and the Deal That Doomed the Moguls, 1950	149	(18)
Laughs and Loose Women, 1951-1952	167	(15)
The Waiver, 1952-1954	182	(10)
Equity, 1953-1954	192	(17)
Blondes and Big Spenders, 1955-1956	209	(15)
Octopus II, 1957-1958	224	(17)
Universal, 1958-1959	241	(15)
Monopoly, 1960	256	(17)
ACT III: AMERICA, 1960-1995
Kennedy Justice, 1960-1961	273	(16)
USA v. MCA, 1962	289	(20)
Blind Ambition, 1963-1964	309	(12)
Universal Studios Tour, 1965-1966	321	(14)
The Black Tower, 1967-1968	335	(14)
Palace Coup, 1969	349	(13)
The Heir Apparent, 1970-1973	362	(14)
The Heir Unapparent, 1974-1976	376	(25)
The Acting President, 1977-1980	401	(15)
Death of a Salesman, 1980-1982	416	(14)
The Legacy, 1983-1985	430	(13)
MCA and the Mob, 1986-1987	443	(17)
Cashing Out, 1988-1990	460	(19)
Banzai, 1990-1993	479	(15)
The End, 1994-1995	494	(34)
EPILOGUE: 1995-1998
The Lion in Winter	513	(15)
Afterword to the Da Capo Edition	528	(6)
Acknowledgments	534	(3)
Bibliography	537	(13)
Index	550