Secret Agent
SECRET AGENT
If someone stands between you and success, knock them the fuck down and keep going. Next time they’ll be smart enough to get out of your way.
—SHEILA DAY, ON HER RISE TO BECOMING AN AGENT
1978
“Sylvan Light agents are coming,” Fish said with the breathless excitement he’d heretofore only reserved for all things Shalom. It was a Saturday evening in early June 1978, and Fish was about to do a monologue for one of the showcases his advanced acting class was sponsoring. Casting directors, producers, and agents had been invited, but a Sylvan Light agent had RSVP’d.
Everyone backstage was excited. Nervous. There was no bigger agency than Sylvan Light. They had all the stars, all the connections—hell, if you were represented by the Light office, it was almost a guarantee that you’d make it.
Sylvan Light had been established in 1944 when Schmuel Lichtenstein, a small man with big vision, went to the William Morris board of directors in the New York office and suggested they send him to the West Coast. Frustrated booking nightclubs, Lichtenstein wanted to expand into the new area of television. After all, William Morris already had a small office in Beverly Hills, and he thought he could fit in there just fine. Unfortunately, the board disagreed. So Lichtenstein packed up his life and headed to California, opening his own office right next door to Morris. That way when clients and buyers came to their offices, he could run into them. And he did. Taking many of the tenants and clients from his old agency, he set out to build a better mousetrap, one that celebrated young men with both vision and ambition. Within the first year Schmuel Lichtenstein incorporated as the Sylvan Light Agency.
And man did they shine.
Everyone wanted to “come to the Light,” so the idea that the Light was coming to Fish was humbling. “I mean, this is huge,” he whispered. Beanie nodded, not exactly sure why it was huge, but understanding it was very important to Fish, so it became equally important to her. She wished Fish luck and went out front, studying the audience, wondering who the Light agent was and how she could somehow influence him to meet and sign Fish. There was an urgency to her search. Much in the way she had delivered him Shalom, Beanie needed to be the instrument of that introduction, otherwise, she feared, Fish might discover he didn’t need her at all.
There were about fifty people in the audience, and they all looked regular, normal, unimportant. She studied them, trying to pick out the Hollywood heavyweight. Maybe the Sylvan Light agent doesn’t want to be noticed, she thought, eyeing a man in the back who sat alone, slumped in his chair.
Suddenly the acting teacher brought her focus back to the stage as he welcomed everyone and explained that the ten actors who would be performing monologues had left their headshots at the back of the room. “Take one, leave a card,” he told them, and then without further ado, he introduced the actors. “First up is Fisher Braverman doing a monologue from Grease. ”
Beanie had helped Fish choose the material. It was either that or Rebel Without a Cause, but they chose Grease because John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were coming out with a film version in a few weeks’ time, and there was a coolness to it that seemed to speak to who Fish was.
Beanie felt her heart wildly beating as the smattering of applause subsided and Fish became a distraught Danny Zuko conflicted about Sandy, a girl he’d met over the summer. She had worked with Fish after school for months running lines, discussing character, motivation, and when he got tense and couldn’t get into the right headspace, she’d let him fuck her up the ass. It was all worth it , she thought that night as she watched him disappear into the role. She believed Fish’s performance was brilliant and layered.
Unfortunately, the Light agent didn’t.
“Who cares?” Beanie said, pointing out that a few casting directors had left their cards in his box. But Fish cared. A lot. In fact, he was devastated. It wasn’t just that Sylvan Light didn’t want him: no agents had left cards.
“You don’t get it,” he said, taking a final drag off his Marlboro, and stubbing it out on the floor. “An actor needs an agent to get a job,” he said, then asked if he could borrow a dime so he could call Shalom.
That sent Beanie into a tailspin.
“What’s Shalom gonna do?” she asked in a panic, following him to the pay phone.
“Introduce me to her agent,” he told her, depositing a coin and punching out numbers he’d obviously committed to memory. She reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“No,” she said. “You can’t call her. It will ruin everything.”
He looked at her, confused. “What the hell does that mean?”
Thinking quickly, she blurted out that she was planning on introducing him to an agent. That was why she had been so flippant. “I’m going to help you,” she assured him.
He studied her, trying to ascertain the level of bullshit. He knew Beanie was threatened by Shalom and suspected this was just a stall tactic. “You don’t know any agents,” he said.
“No,” she agreed, “but Neiman Spitz does.” That got his attention. Neiman Spitz, Dr. Spitz’s cousin, was a world-famous composer. If Beanie could work that connection for Fish, he could really get somewhere.
Fish put the pay phone receiver back in its cradle. “You’re going to ask Neiman Spitz to help me?” he said, still somewhat dubious.
“Already have,” she told him, adding, “He said, and I quote, ‘No problem, kiddo, happy to help.’”
Fish was flabbergasted. “No bullshit?”
“No bullshit,” she confirmed. “It was a surprise. I was going to tell you after the show. That’s why I said ‘Who cares?’ earlier. I didn’t mean ‘Who cares?’ I meant who cares, you know?”
“Fuck,” he said, running his hands through his hair. This was huge. Really huge. “Who’s his agent?” he asked.
Beanie, thinking quickly, pulled the only agent’s name she’d ever heard of out of thin air. “Sheila Day,” she told him, adding that she wasn’t sure if Neiman was introducing Fish to Sheila—using her first name as if she and Sheila were familiar—or someone Sheila recommends.
Fish nodded. It sounded legit.
Even Beanie was impressed with herself. That was quick thinking. Sheila Day, the senior vice president at STC and Partners, was considered the most powerful female agent in the business, and had been profiled on 60 Minutes where she’d spoken about her “twinklies”—that’s what she’d called her stars—and her meteoric rise as a female agent.
“Honeeeey,” she’d said to the interviewer, “when I started, the men had the desks, and the women were under them.” In the interview, she’d been acerbic, aggressive, wickedly funny, brilliant, charming when she needed to be, and had left enough of an impression on Beanie that it was the only name she could think of with her back to the wall.
But it worked. Fish was floored. Sheila Day, while not an agent at Sylvan Light, was still a fucking legend, so if Beanie was recommending someone to Sheila based on Neiman Spitz’s request, well then, Jesus, it was way better than anything Shalom could do.
He looked at Beanie like she was some sort of wizard or goddess or both. Never mind that none of it was true, that she’d only met Neiman Spitz in passing, and that Sheila Day had just announced her retirement. Those were just details: little, small waves she’d have to navigate. Another time.
At that moment Fish was happy. So, she was happy. And that night they made out, which rarely happened since he didn’t like kissing, and he dry humped her until he came, which was almost like regular sex.
Afterward they held each other, and Beanie told him how good an actor he was, how much his Danny Zuko had moved her, had moved others, she was certain. In her arms, he saw his greatness. And she would make sure others would as well. She was, after all, his secret agent, selling, prodding, coaxing, and convincing everyone else to fall in line.
Now she just had to find someone who believed in him as much as she did.