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Lew Wasserman
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Lew Wasserman (March 15, 1913 - June 3, 2002) was a Hollywood agent and studio executive credited with first creating and then taking apart the studio system in a career spanning more than six decades. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants in Cleveland, Ohio, Wasserman started out as a booking agent for the Music Corporation of America (MCA) under its founder Dr. Jules Stein.
Under Wasserman's watch, MCA branched out into representing actors and actresses in addition to musicians and in the process created the studio system, which drove up prices for studios. As an agency, Wasserman's MCA came to dominate Hollywood, representing such stars as Bette Davis and Ronald Reagan, whom Wasserman would later help become president of the Screen Actors Guild.
Following the rising postwar popularity of television and the resulting near bankruptcy of many studios, Wasserman purchased
Universal Studios from
Decca Records in
1958 and merged it with MCA in
1962. In 1966, he singlehandedly installed
Jack Valenti as head of the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). He ran the combined company for nearly thirty years before selling it to
Japanese consumer electronics conglomerate
Matsushita Electric in
1990.
Wasserman pocketed an estimated $350 million from the sale and remained as manager until Seagram bought a controlling interest in 1995. Wasserman served on the board of directors until 1998. He died in Beverly Hills in 2002 and was interred in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City.
His grandson, Casey Wasserman, carries on the family name in the agency business with Wasserman Media Group (WMG), which he started in 1998. Casey Wasserman also acts as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Wasserman Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Lew Wasserman and his wife Edie in 1952.
Wasserman was also an influential player in the
Democratic Party and had a close relationship with
Washington, D.C.:
