Lew Wasserman

(When Lewis Wasserman died at 89 on June 4, he was a legendary figure in the entertainment industry. But what was more unusual was how long the former president. CEO and later chairman of MCA Inc. had been a Hollywood icon. He had already achieved that status when Broadcasting profiled him three decades earlier, describing him as "one of those rare individuals who has become a legend in his own lifetime.' The son of Russian immigrants, Wasserman became involved in show business at age 12 selling candy in a burlesque house. In high school he was an usher at Cleveland's Palace Theater. In 1936, while managing a theater/nightclub, he was hired by Dr. Jules Stein, founder of Music Corp. of America, a Chicago -based band -booking agency. It was Wasserman who transformed MCA into a diversified global entertainment conglomerate comprising Universal Studios, MCA Records, television programming and station ownership, home video. consumer products and the back -lot tour of Universal Studios. Stein named him president in 1946. Wasserman proceeded to build MCA into one of the country's largest talent agencies and moved the company to Hollywood to focus on movie star clients that included Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. In 1950 he formed Revue Productions to syndicate Gene Autry and Roy Rogers westerns to There is a television, and in 1958 MCA paid a then -whopping $50 million for Paramount's pre -1948 theatrical library and another $12 million for the Universal TV production lot. constant But the Wasserman interest in television stretched back much earlier. In 1939. he recalled later, he was one of three people in Hollywood with aTV set. a mirrored contraption with a four -inch square picture. Many weren't impressed but he was, restructuring deciding that "television was going to be a market for our products." In 1962, following an antitrust suit, MCA was forced to divest its talent agency of television from its entertainment division and officially merged with Universal. Wasserman vowed to never let it happen again and began acquiring political influence by using going on. his Hollywood connections and influence to raise money for political campaigns. He was a major donor to the Democratic Party and raised money over the years for Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan (a former client) and Clinton. Wasserman moved MCA into the then -new home entertainment business in 1972 when the company introduced Disco -Vision, an early home recording/playback device for TV. While that technology didn't last. his ideas on the future were prescient. "The use of the television set within the home beyond its present utilization is inevitable," he told Broadcasting in 1973. "The American consumer is demonstrating quite dra- matically that he wants total convenience. That desire on the part of the consumer must logically apply to his entertainment requirements as much as to his eating habits -to watch a particular program when he wants to watch it or view it a second or third time." And he had a clear view of what role his company should play in this brave new world of television: "Whatever the marketplace, it is going to need product. And we are going to manufacture that product" MCA's many TV products included hits such as Kaiak, Columbo, Miami Vice and Coach. And the company's film successes included The Sting, Jaws, National Lampoon's Animal House, E.T. and Jurassic Park. In 1990, MCA was bought by Matsushita Electric Industrial, and while Wasserman stayed on as chief executive, the relationship grew contentious and led to Matsushita's secret sale to Seagram: Wasserman then retired to be chairman emeritus. Seagram rechristened MCA as Universal Studios and sold it in 2000 to France's Vivendi. That evolution continues. As does television's, with every passing year advancing the medium's connection with its audience. Just as Lew Wasserman said it would. HALL OF FAME