![]() ![]() When he stayed in hotels, he had a path of towels laid out between the bathroom and the bed-the place where, telephone in hand, he made many of his deals. A hypochondriac, he had his sheets changed twice a day. The bantam-like agent’s distaste for dirt caused him to wash bars of soap before he used them. Over the years, Lazar’s eccentric behavior became legendary-a process that Lazar, knowing the value of a good story, did not discourage. “I could have sold Skouras $300,000 worth of stuff,” he grumbled to Time magazine. It was the last time Lazar ever skimped on travel. Once, while flying coach class in the 1950s, Lazar spotted Spyros Skouras, the head of 20th Century Fox, sitting beyond the partition in a first-class seat. To clinch a deal, he was said to have accosted one studio executive as he dined at Romanoff’s and another as he emerged naked from a steam room. The fete was just one example of how Lazar loved to mix business, socializing with the rich and famous-from Sinatra to Madonna-and never wasting a sales opportunity. To keep from elevating one room or the other to instant A-list status, Lazar had no assigned seat, preferring to roam back and forth between such personalities as Michael Jackson and Paloma Picasso, Elizabeth Taylor and Quincy Jones, Tony Curtis and Jimmy Stewart. To ensure that no one had to sit near an ex-husband or ex-scriptwriter, guests nibbled duck sausage pizza and toasted dill brioche in two rooms. The party kept the spotlight focused on Lazar long after some of his earliest big name clients, such as Truman Capote, Ira Gershwin, Vladimir Nabokov and Cole Porter, had died. The black-tie dinner, which lured hundreds of stars and star-seekers from the Motion Picture Academy’s official proceedings, was a magnet for legends and ingenues alike. “He made more out of ‘Itch’ than anybody else,” Axelrod told the Saturday Evening Post.īut Lazar’s knack for assembling the creative forces of Hollywood was perhaps best illustrated each Oscar night, when he and his wife, Mary, who died in January, hosted their exclusive, glitzy party. When he sold “The Seven Year Itch,” he collected commissions from George Axelrod, the author Charles Feldman, the producer, and Billy Wilder, the director. Serving as a liaison between disparate talents and the studios or publishers who sought their help, Lazar was among the first agents to shape entire productions-a job he found satisfying as well as lucrative. “A lot of towns, including London, New York and Paris.” “The town will be much poorer without him,” said dancer Gene Kelly, a Lazar friend for 50 years. ![]() Indeed, Lazar’s career traced the arc of ascendancy of the agent in America. ![]()
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