10% of Everything

Most Americans have never heard of a huge and mysterious corporation called the Music Corp. of America. The mystery is intentional on the part of M.C.A.; it abhors publicity. Yet it is the nation's top talent agency in the publicity-loving world of entertainment, and is one of the most potent forces in determining what the U.S. sees on TV and movie screens—the General Motors of the entertainment world. Last week the Justice Department was investigating M.C.A. and its smaller rival. William Morris, which together reportedly control 80% of U.S. TV talent. The question: Are they too powerful?

M.C.A. has built its empire on a simple economic principle; it takes 10% on any contract it makes for its gold-plated clients. It gets 10% from movie stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando and Gary Grant; from playwrights such as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and William (The Dark at the Top of the Stairs) Inge; and from novelists such as James (From Here to Eternity) Jones, Irving (Lust for Life) Stone. It owns or represents such TV shows as Wagon Train, Tales oj Wells Fargo, Jack Benny, Ozzie and Harriet, Alfred Hitchcock, Dragnet and This Is Your Life. Revue Productions Inc., one of M.C.A.'s subsidiaries, is Hollywood's biggest producer of TV films, accounts for an estimated 25% of all television films. Another subsidiary, Management Corp. of America, bought Paramount's pre-1948 movie backlog several weeks ago for $50 million and will distribute the films to television.

M. (for Music) D. In the trade, M.C.A. is known as "the octopus," but it keeps its tentacles well hidden. Its gross income is also a closely guarded secret, but estimates range as high as $100 million. Secrecy is an M.C.A. policy because the firm believes that publicity is for clients alone. To further their anonymity, M.C.A. agents dress as conservatively as bankers; the M.C.A. black suit is legend. And no one tries to dodge the public eye more than M.C.A.'s small, greying founder, board chairman and boss, Jules Caesar Stein, 61.

Born in South Bend, Ind., Stein originally set out to be a doctor, got an M.D. at Chicago's Rush Medical College in 1921, studied ophthalmology at the University of Vienna, wrote a learned treatise ("The Use of Telescopic Spectacles and Distil Lensen") after he returned to Cook County Hospital as a resident. He organized a band in which he played the fiddle, made bookings for other bands for a fee, finally teamed up with William R. Goodheart Jr., who later retired, to found M.C.A. as a band-booking agency in 1924. This sideline proved so profitable that Dr. Stein took it up full time. He signed exclusive rights with hotels and ballrooms, thus forcing bandleaders to come to him. M.C.A. bandleaders who became unruly found themselves with poor bookings. Later he developed other sidelines—sold liquor to nightclub owners as part of the deal for a band, sold his musicians insurance, real estate and cars. He also became a successful stock market investor, bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in 1936, still holds it.