“YOU WERE A TOMATO! A tomato doesn’t have logic. A tomato can’t sit.”
That is one of my favorite lines from Tootsie, delivered perfectly by its director, the late Sydney Pollack, as the harried agent and friend of actor Michael Dorsey, played by Dustin Hoffman. I loved the relationship between client and agent in that comedy classic. I had a commercial agent for a little over ten years. Our relationship was, in a word, sublime. The work that she got me in local and national commercials enabled me to keep the bills paid. Linda McIntosh passed away a few years ago and I miss her a lot. She always wanted me to get a good broadcast agent to help me get more TV host and contributor work. I wanted to get one too. Unfortunately, I never quite hooked up with a broadcast agent who had her wit, imagination, common sense and heart.
If you’re a member of the major entertainment unions — like SAG and AFTRA — you can be an actor in New York City, Oklahoma City, Seattle or Santa Monica and find an agency to service your needs. But, for most of the 20 years I’ve been working in New York City, if you were basically a broadcaster — a TV host like a Tom Bergeron or a Mary Hart or a news, entertainment or sports contributor — there were only a few shops in the country that specifically could help you. Not every agency had a Broadcast Host department. Even though I’m a veteran TV performer with over 10 years of national work to my credit, I still do not have a broadcast agent — and I have met with agents in some of the top agencies of New York City. That means, I have had to work harder to get auditions and book national jobs like the one I had on Food Network and, in 2000, on Lifetime Television.
First meetings with agents are like blind dates that you pray will work out. Sometimes, they don’t. I won’t mention this particular agency, but I met with a sprightly young blonde rep in the commercial department who opened our meeting with “We do really well with black people.” I thought to myself, “Are black performers in the special needs category like autistic kids? Do you make us wear helmets and watch ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’?” I didn’t sign with that agency. Fortunately, Linda came along.
But back to the few broadcast departments and agents I’ve survived. I was with the very powerful and established N.S. Bienstock Agency here in New York for a year. I doubt that my agent ever logged on to this very website, read my bio or any of my reviews in the Press section. I’m not sure he even viewed my demo reels. We were in the last month of our one year contract and he’d not gotten me one meeting or audition for new broadcast work. This was after my VH1 stint when I’d become a very visible and, if I say so myself, popular member of a weekday morning show team on Fox’s “Good Day New York.” I’d broken entertainment stories that were later picked up by Liz Smith in her syndicated column and by Entertainment Tonight. Three weeks before our contract ended, he called with a possible new gig. He couldn’t tell me exactly where the job was because the news show position wasn’t yet available. All he could tell me was that the local newscast spot was (and I hope you’re sitting down) “…a sports anchor job somewhere in the Deep South.”
Could he possibly have been less aware of my work? That’s exactly what they’d want to see below the Mason Dixon Line — me festively saying, “Guess what, sportsfans?!?! Excitement’s coming to town and I can tell it to you in two words — Ice Capades!” I did not renew our contract.
The broadcast agent after that one was with Abrams Artists here in Manhattan, with offices conveniently located ten blocks from my apartment. I went to the agent in their Broadcast Dept when I’d just booked myself a network gig. I was the entertainment editor and weekly movie critic on an ABC News/Lifetime TV joint production called “Lifetime Live.” This live weekday afternoon magazine show aired on Lifetime TV. I had a Friday segment of about 6-8 minutes that I did without TelePrompTer — reviewing two new films, new DVD releases and highlighting a classic film that had strong images of women for the Lifetime audience. I loved that job. I was one of the few Black broadcasters in the 20th Century or this current one to have a weekly segment on a network show as a film critic. I got $500.00 a week for that job. The Abrams agent said, “You should be getting at least $1500.00 a week for that. It’s a network spot!” He called the producers. He could not get me one penny more. However, he took 10% of my $500 a week after he called unsuccessfully to negotiate. He had to that 10% per the union contract rules. Linda, my commercial agent, said that she’d wouldn’t have taken the 10% of that low salary. He did. So, there I was, breaking through a broadcast color barrier every Friday for the year that ABC News show aired, and I was taking home less than a counter clerk at Burger King.
I made excellent money when I auditioned for and booked the co host spot a free preview network cable weekend. I was asked back for another weekend at the same juicy salary. But don’t think those two bookings kept that broadcast agent from unexpectedly dropping me two days after he asked me for more demo reels. “If can’t get you work,” he said. “You’re getting older and you’re not a celebrity — like Kevin Nealon.” Kevin Nealon?!?!? I wanted to pull out a cartoon sledgehammer like in a Tex Avery feature and hammer him into the ground like the spike to a circus tent. Two months after Abrams dropped me, I was contacted to audition to be host of a new show on Food Network called “Top Five.” I booked it. The show aired from 2002 to 2008. When I got the news that I was the host, I called Linda and asked her to negotiate the contract. The Food Network reps loved dealing with her. We lost her to breast cancer the following year.
In early 2008, I was on national TV every week thanks to repeats of “Top 5″ on Food Network. I was also on national radio every week, as I was working with Whoopi Goldberg as a regular on-air member of her Wake Up With Whoopi morning show. I was invited to meet with the middle-aged head of the commercial department at…Abrams Artists, the same agency whose Broadcast Dept. head had kicked me to the curb in 2002. That’s show biz. I went in with a new attitude. The week before our meeting, I sent over the usual headshot/resumé along with info about this website plus a demo reel. I felt very good about that meeting. The agent graciously opened with, “So what are you doing?” I proudly and succinctly told her that I was doing national morning radio with Whoopi Goldberg — covering entertainment and adding laughs — and also still seen hosting a show every week on Food Network. The agent was holding my headshot/resumé in her hand when she asked, “How long has that been going on?”
I answered, “Top 5 premiered in 2002. We shoot 100 episodes. So it’s been on for about six years now.”
She replied, “No. Since when have you been doing TV host work?”
My eyes became the size of silver dollar pancakes as I waited for her to please say, “Joking! Just joking!” She wasn’t. I pointed to my resumé in her hand and said, “Nationally, I started in 1987/1988 when I had my own prime time talk show on VH1.”
I’m not making this up, you know.
That’s show biz. It’s a gamble. And a journey. If it’s meant to be, I’ll attract a broadcast agent who believes in me as much as I believe in myself.
www.youtube.com/BobbyRiversTV
