Swifty the Great

Swifty Lazar (rhymes with the czar) stands 5 ft. 3 in. in his elevator shoes, and he never picks on anybody his own size. Instead, as a literary agent representing playwrights, novelists and short-story writers in deals with movie producers, he competes with such titanic agencies as M.C.A., William Morris and General Artists. But year after year, when the dust jackets settle, Irving Paul Lazar walks away the winner.

From Edna Ferber to Vladimir Nabokov, Romain Gary, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, his list of clients reads like the world's best-kept book of unlisted phone numbers. "I call myself a literary agent," says Lazar, "simply to distinguish myself from actors' agents." He also handles composers (Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers), choreographers, etc. For Rodgers, he recently sold The Sound of Music to 20th Century-Fox for $1,250,000, and for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe he peddled Camelot to Warner for the same amount. He had a hand in the $5,500,000 deal for My Fair Lady with Warner, and he is now arranging the movie sale of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying--which may break Lady's alltime record--for Broadway Producers Cy Feuer and Ernie Martin.

Think It Over. Described by his clients as "a dehydrated giant" (Playwright Harry Kurnitz) and "a new kind of beach toy" (Novelist Irwin Shaw), little Swifty hides his genius under a pink bald head and behind thick-rimmed glasses. A bachelor, he dates tall, statuesque bachelor girls. He has written a will naming the wives of his favorite clients as the recipients of his considerable fortune.

All day long, he stays on the telephone, shouting at friend and foe, eating nothing but a small salad. His annual phone bill is roughly $20,000. A Swiss hotel once refused to put him up because on an earlier visit his calls had swamped their switchboard. To impress visitors, he shamelessly buzzes his secretary with orders to "Get me Dore," or "Get me Cole." Starting a typical deal, he will call up 20th Century-Fox and tell them he is asking $200,000 for a client's new novel, think it over. Then he calls Paramount and tells them that Fox is considering a bid of $200,000--and so on.

According to legend and some of his clients, Swifty Lazar seldom bothers to read manuscripts he sells, and some people even imply that he could not do so if he wanted to. "A vile canard," complains Swifty, insisting that he spends 90 minutes a day in intensive research. Actually well-educated, he is a lawyer whose practice is now limited to writing the impressive contracts he wangles for his clients.

Unsolicited Help. Now 54, Lazar was born in Stamford, Conn., the son of a German Jewish immigrant who ran a thriving butter and eggs business. Later, the family moved to Brooklyn, and Swifty took his LL.B at Brooklyn Law School. Sophie Tucker was one of his early legal clients, and he got into agenting when a nightclub impresario mentioned that he needed a Hawaiian musician. Swifty remembered one but could not recall the fellow's name. "I can get you Johnny Pineapple," he said recklessly. Then he tracked the Hawaiian down, told him his new name was Johnny Pineapple and booked him into the impresario's club. David Kaonohi is still performing as Johnny Pineapple.

Swifty worked as an agent for M.C.A. for ten years before serving in the Army Air Corps as an administrative officer during World War II. Hearing that the corps was anxious to produce a Broadway show to rival This Is the Army, he offered unsolicited help, announcing to the top brass that he could get Moss Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, etc.--none of whom he knew. Then he confronted Hart in Manhattan's Hotel Plaza and told him that General Hap Arnold needed his services. Then he told Arnold to wire Hart. The result was Winged Victory--eventually worth more than $5,000,000 to the Air Corps' relief fund.

Unhappy Tourist. Moss Hart persuaded Lazar to become an independent agent soon after the war. Swiftly, his list grew until it included George S. Kaufman. Herman Wouk, S. N. Behrman, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, Frank Loesser, George Cukor. And as his personal legend developed, Lazar found himself caricatured in the work of his clients: Hart lampooned him gently, and George Axelrod mortalized his little friend as Irving ("Sneaky") LaSalle, the Hollywood literary agent in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Working four-week stretches in Hollywood, then zipping off to New York and Europe, he "converges" clients wherever he goes. Next week he leaves for a Swiss skiing colloquium with Irwin Shaw, Peter Viertel, Anatole Litvak, Darryl Zanuck and Henri-Georges Clouzot. He never considers himself on vacation. Once, meeting 20th Century-Fox's Buddy Adler by chance in Paris, Lazar sold him Cole Porter's Can-Can for $750,000. On another occasion, he was saving money by flying tourist class when, looking beyond the partition, he saw Spyros Skouras sitting up forward in Firstville. "I could have sold Skouras $300,000 worth of stuff," he groans. That was the last time Swifty Lazar ever flew tourist.

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