Jump to: navigation, search

New Pittsburgh Courier (22/Sep/1962) - MCA Was Example of Show Biz Control

Details

Article

MCA Was Example of Show Biz Control

Do you know what MCA was? I say "was" because MCA no longer exists, since recently having been busted by the Government for being in violation of the Federal anti-trust laws.

I learned something about how big an operation MCA was by reading articles by Bill Davidson, appearing in the February and March issues of Show magazine.

But to inform the unhepped, Davidson writes: "Very few people outside of show business have ever heard of MCA. It is great, gray amorphous mass which shuns publicity about itself and its operation the way CIA avoids appearances on 'Meet the Press.' Its basic business is what is known in the industry as flesh-peddling, that is, selling the talents of its 800-odd clients (actors, writers, directors, singers, band-leaders and the like) to producers of various entertainments who need them. MCA's fee for this service is 10 per cent of what the client earns. But in addition to this rudimentary selling of human talents, which is as old as the pyramids, MCA also is engaged in the production of some 40 hours' worth of television shows each week; it owns one of the largest motion picture and television studios in the world; it owns one of the most extensive collections of motion pictures in existence, and its somber. gray-clad legions sit in positions of power at the right hands of nearly all other important producers of entertainment throughout the world. So vast is its octopus-like bulk that often it sells itself in a sort of tentacle-to-tentacle feeding arrangement. If you can visualize General Motors combined with United States Steel into one company, that is what MCA is in show business.

"It is difficult to explain to the layman what MCA really means to entertainment, but let's put it in terms of what you wouldn't see or hear if some force — say a selective atomic bomb — were to hit MCA tomorrow and wipe it off the map, with all its involvements and all its clients. You would immediately be deprived of the pleasure of the company of most of the principal movie stars, such as Marlon Brando, Ingrid Bergman, James Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster. There would be no more movies made by directors of the caliber of Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, and no more plays by Tennessee Williams, William Inge and a host of other major writers for the stage. There would be 700 fewer old movies for you to see on television; most of the night clubs and hotel ballrooms would have to close for lack of talent; there would be a catastrophic gap in the recording business. Your television screen would be dark for more than half of every day. There would be no more Jack Benny, Jack Parr, Ed Sullivan, Robert Cummings, Ozzie Nelson, Bob Newhart, "Wagon Train." "Bachelor Father," "Wells Fargo." "The Acoa Hours," "The General Electric Theatre," among others.

"In all, about 60 per cent of American entertainment would be eliminated completely, and nearly all of the remaining 40 per cent would be crippled through the sudden removal of MCA clients and properties.

"MCA is both hated and admired in the entertainment world. David Susskind, a former employe, calls it 'the great spreading cancer of our business' and 'the equivalent of Khrushchev's Russia'; and an MCA competitor, Martin Baum of General Artists Corp., says. 'It is the most hard-headed, hardest-driving collection of geniuses in show business.'"

In his concluding paragraph in his second article, Davidson wrote: "Indeed, while the grand jury was sitting in Los Angeles, MCA President Lew Wasserman had as his Palm Springs house guest Milton Rackmil, the czar of Universal Pictures and Decca Records. They were discussing the merger of MCA Universal and Decca into one huge, unprecedented show business combine — as if nothing at all had happened."

But, of course, as we all know now, something did happen. The government chopped MCA up into little bitty bits and sent many of the "geniuses" scurrying, throwing the contracts of a large number of their clients up for grabs.

Retrieved from ‘http://the.hitchcock.zone/w/index.php?title=New_Pittsburgh_Courier_(22/Sep/1962)_-_MCA_Was_Example_of_Show_Biz_Control&oldid=180979’