ASK me: The Killer Agent

Mike W. asks…

I'm looking for someone to agent my writing. Tell me a true story that ends with the phrase, "And that's when I knew I shouldn't sign with that agent!"

With your kind permission, I'm going to change it to "And that's when we knew we shouldn't sign with that agent." The "we" is myself and my partner at the time, Dennis Palumbo. We had accomplished something that few beginning writers were able to do. We had gotten a script assignment for a prime-time series from Norman Lear's company and we did it without having an agent. True, it was The Nancy Walker Show, which was canceled sometime during the middle commercial of the debut episode. And also true was that none of what we wrote got in front of a camera.

But at the time we got the job, it was a big thing. And suddenly, every agent in town wanted to meet with us and pitch us on hiring him or her to represent us. So in one amazing week, Dennis and I went to see nine or ten agents. The first five or six all did their best selling job, telling us how they'd get us jobs galore and fulfill our every dream about Show Business. That's, after all, what agents do: They sell. You wouldn't want an agent who wasn't a skilled salesperson.

So we go see the sixth or seventh one, already a bit weary of telling our life stories and explaining where we saw our careers going. This one agent greets us warmly, sits us down, offers us refreshments and then begins his "pitch" with, I swear to you, the following words…

"Now, I'm not good at getting you work…"

Honest. He said that. He said that to two beginning writers he was hoping would become his clients. Dennis and I looked at each other like we were Abbott and Costello in one of those monster-meeting movies of theirs meeting the monsters. It was like a guy who wants to be your dentist telling you, "Now, I have no idea how to fill a cavity…" or a pilot welcoming you on his plane by saying, "Now, I don't have the slightest clue how to fly this thing…" We were both waiting for the "but" and what would follow.

Which is when the agent guy added, "But when you do get a job, no one will get you more money."

He went on, getting increasingly animated as he said, "I will kill for you. I negotiate like John Wayne storming the beach in war movie, only I take no prisoners. I will leave them bleeding…bleeding and begging for mercy! I will hurt them for you and hurt them bad and get you every fuckin' cent there is to be gotten. I have never left even a nickel on the table…"

That was when one of us — I think Dennis — said, "Boy, you're some tipper." But the agent didn't hear it and went on for five minutes more saying things like, "Did you ever see one of those movies where the hero slaughters two dozen opponents and steps triumphantly over their bodies, all lying there in a pool of blood? That's me after I negotiate with those Business Affairs guys!"

I guess there are some writers who want that. We sure didn't, especially when we were starting out. Not that this ever happened to me at least, but you don't want to walk into your first creative meeting once the deal is set and have the producer say, "After what we went through to get you, you'd better be fucking brilliant!" If it ever happens to me, I'll probably say, "If I give back some of the money, could the goal just be for me to write a good script?"

Dennis and I made polite conversation for a few minutes with the bloodthirsty agent and we said we'd think it over and get back to him. We thought it over for three seconds in the hallway outside his office and then never got back to him.

But that moment when he said, "I'm not good at getting you work"…that's when we knew we shouldn't sign with that agent. Is that kind of what you wanted, Mike?

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