Hotfoot Man

In Superior Court in Los Angeles, Producer Harry Joe Brown (Ceiling Zero) was sued for $49,954 (10% of his earnings for the past two years and of his hypothetical earnings for the next two) by the high-powered talent agency of Myron Selznick & Co., which claimed that it got Producer Brown his $2,250-a-week-and-up contract with 20th Century-Fox. Ordinarily for a talent agent to sue a producer would be comparable to a camp follower giving a general the hotfoot. Last week's suit was one more proof that the hotfoot is Agent Myron Selznick's specialty.

Several inches shorter, three years older, and much richer than his Producer-Brother David (Gone With the Wind), dumpy, belligerent Myron Selznick at 40 is not only Hollywood's No. 1 agent but one of its most influential individuals. He found his career by accident by getting his friend,

Russian-born Director Lewis Milestone, a job at $1,750. Today Myron Selznick & Co. (listed under both M and S in the Manhattan Telephone Directory as a concession to unsophisticated clients) represents some 200 performers and directors who include most of Hollywood's big names. For getting their jobs, boosting their salaries and performing a variety of other services from straightening out their household accounts to watching their income taxes, Agent Selznick collects a straight 10% of their earnings, binds them to five-year contracts. In Hollywood round numbers, the Selznick clients' payroll is annually $10,000,000, the Selznick Co. tithe $1,000,000. But Agent Selznick is also reputed to hold pieces in several rival talent agencies. His other investments include a piece of Brother David's Selznick International Pictures, a race horse named Can't Wait, and stud poker at sickening stakes.

From his father, fabulous Movie Pioneer Lewis J. ("L. J.") Selznick, who gave him a schoolboy allowance of $1,000 a week, Myron inherited a contempt for small sums of money ("peanuts" to Myron is anything under $5,000 a week), a feud with most of Father Selznick's contemporaries which is supposed to contribute to his professional zeal.

Like all dangerously powerful Hollywood figures, Myron Selznick is often rumored to be "slipping." In the ups-&-downs of the agency business, Agent Selznick has faced stiffer competition since his valuable partner Frank Joyce died two years ago and since Leland Hayward, Margaret Sullavan's husband, pulled out of the Selznick partnership. Last year Hollywood gasped when 20th Century-Fox's President Joseph M. Schenck, exasperated with Selznick's demands for Loretta Young, ordered him off the Fox lot. So far, the only person who has caught Myron Selznick napping is his friend and client, Carole Lombard. Renewing her contract with him recently, Cinemactress Lombard had printed a duplicate contract under which Selznick agreed to pay her 10% of his earnings, tricked him into signing it, jokingly demanded an accounting.

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