A TALENT FOR LUCK An Autobiography Helen M. Strauss Hardcover - Helen M Strauss - First - 1979 - Hardcover - Random House

A TALENT FOR LUCK An Autobiography Helen M. Strauss Hardcover

This is the autobiography of one of the best and most successful literary agents of our time. Helen Strauss, who began her career in the motion picture business, had already begun to make a name for herself in the story departments of several major studios when, in 1944, she was asked to set up and head a literary department for the William Morris Agency, until that time strictly a show-business operation. It was a great opportunity and a challenge not to be resisted.

Miss Strauss was already liberated before Women's Lib became a household word, and by her own account she neversuffered from discrimination. Was it luck, or did she have an innate talent for dealing effectively with men in business? The impressive list of clients she represented during her spectacular years at the Morris Agency is convincing evidence of her preeminence. Among them were James A. Michener, Gore Vidal, Robert Penn Warren, Betty Smith, Ralph Ellison, Justice William O. Douglas, Archibald MacLeish, Gerold Frank, Edwin O Connor, Frank Yerby, Elizabeth Janeway, Carson Kanin, John Masters, Tallullah Bankhead, Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabon Fred Astaire, Sir Osbert and Dame Edith Sitwell, Dylan Thomas, Santha Rama Rau, Leon Edel, Bill Mauldin, Fred Allen and Eddie Cantor.

Miss Strauss relates lively and amusing stories about these and many others. Her surprisingly frank appraisals of some of her famous clients are delightful and revealing, as are her Accounts of well-known would-be clients whom she did not represent because she refused to reduce the agency s commission for them - Robert Kennedy, John Ciunther and Chester Bowles.

She always kept in touch with motion pictures, and after retiring from the Morris Agency, held three top-level jobs in the film industry Among her many friends in that world were such important personages as Walter Wanger, David Selznick, Harry Cohn and Samuel Goldwyn, whom she also tells about in A Talent for Luck - an intimate, behind-the-scenes story of the literary and entertainment worlds.

Through the years several publishers suggested I write my memoirs, but I never really thought they were serious. The idea of writing this book germinated during the first time I thought Fd retire. It seemed like an ideal way to spend the rest of my life. Not so. I was not ready to spend "those golden years/' nor to become a senior citizen, living in a warm climate and traveling in groups. I had too much energy and, blessed with good health and a very active mind, I took another job and another challenge, so the book idea lay dormant. I did, however, have some intimation that some day, perhaps, in desperation, "quiet desperation" to be sure, I would have to work on something which would keep me occupied. Now, having completed this book, I am embarked on another career�writing.

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