Hollywood: Swifty the Great

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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.