Chapter One

KIDS AT WORK

William Morris Agency, New York, 1937-1951

LOU Weiss, 1937 ; Sol Leon, 1938 ; Larry Auerbach, 1944 ;

Hilly Elkins, 1950 ; Leonard Hirshan, 1951

My sense of what I had to do was simple:

get out of the mailroom as fast as I could.

-Hilly Elkins

lou weiss: My recollection of all this is unfortunately perfect.

I was interested in the entertainment business because my uncle was George Burns. My mother was one of his seven sisters, and whenever he was in town, we'd all go to see him perform. I loved being backstage near talented people.

My mother wanted me to go to college. I'd rather have hung out with the guys and played ball, or gone to a poolroom, or chased the girls, but school is what she wanted. When she died young, in July 1937, I immediately dropped out of school and went to work. Another uncle, Willie Burns-George's manager and writer-called Abe Lastfogel, the boss at the William Morris Agency, and asked him to give me a job of any sort. Nat Lefkowitz and Morris Stoller interviewed me, and in August 1937, when I was nineteen, I got a job as an office boy at twelve dollars a week.

sol leon: I grew up in Brooklyn. My father was in the women's coats and suits business. He was able to put me through the first year of college at NYU-Heights, but when the Depression hit he said, "Sorry. I can't afford to send you back."

I got a job and went to Brooklyn Law at night. I sat next to Nat Lefkowitz in class for four years; it was alphabetical. Morris Stoller was also there. Lefkowitz and Stoller worked at William Morris; Nat practically ran the place under Bill Morris Jr. When I became disenchanted