At 90, CAA’s Fred Specktor spends his days orchestrating the careers of A-list actors and looking for new talent: ‘You still need movie stars’
By guest Author Erich Schwartzel from the New York Times Magazine.
LOS ANGELES—Fred Specktor barely recognizes the Hollywood he entered as an agent in 1956.
It was the year “Marty” won best picture. James Dean’s last movie was about to come out. Most actors were under contract, subjects of studio chiefs who decided what parts they played and when.
With those chiefs dictating the arc of a star’s career, agents weren’t the combination of career counselor, therapist and shark they’re known as today. They mostly picked up paychecks from the studios every Thursday, took their commissions and then cashed them for the client.
But Specktor has lived through several Hollywoods, including today’s. At 90 years old, he is the oldest working agent at Hollywood’s top talent agency, orchestrating the careers of longtime clients who include Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons as part of the stable of talent representatives at Creative Artists Agency. He says they don’t need to worry about him retiring.
“I haven’t come close,” he said.
As new business models are turning Hollywood into an industry few veterans recognize, Specktor is simultaneously an emblem of a bygone era and a player in the current one. He still chafes at the client who turned down the lead in the 1970 smash “Love Story,” but he was taking calls from Danny DeVito on a recent Tuesday morning, the final flurry of communication that comes ahead of the next deal. He started his career two years before Alfred Hitchcock made “Vertigo” for Paramount and now books roles on Paramount+. He calls movies “pictures,” but still reads up to 10 new scripts a week.
“My wife says, ‘What would you do if you stopped working? You’d take an extra few minutes in the morning to read the paper,’” he said.
He wakes up around 6:30 a.m., lifts weights three times a week and drives himself into the office, wearing the unofficial agent uniform of slacks, jacket, button-down shirt. His silver hoop earrings, a gift from Freeman, are a distinguishing touch.
“I think they take 10 years off my age,” he said.
Some of Specktor’s clients have been so famous for so long that component parts of their very being—Freeman’s voice, for instance—have become iconic. But entertainment executives today question the future of the movie star, and whether audiences really care who acts in a movie when the real draw is the character, be it Batman, Bilbo or Barbie.
“You still need movie stars,” said Specktor, recalling the time Brad Pitt was anointed one in “Thelma & Louise,” and Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.”
Today, he sees a similar potential in Austin Butler of “Elvis.”
“Like looking at a young version of what Bob De Niro did,” he said.
Many of Specktor’s clients, in fact, are evidence that some of yesterday’s biggest stars are still today’s biggest stars. Freeman, 85 years old, is starring on the new Taylor Sheridan show “Special Ops: Lioness.” Mirren, 77 years old, was just in Rome for the premiere of her latest movie, “Fast X.” And DeVito, 78 years old, said he talks to Specktor often two or three times a day, all usually with the same message: Find me a job.
“He’s in the middle of the jungle, hunting, everyday,” said DeVito.
The actor is one of several clients who have worked with Specktor for longer than many CAA agents have been alive. In 1975, he received a call from Specktor, who’d read a rave review of “Minestrone,” a short film DeVito directed.
“Did your mother write this review?” the agent asked. They started working together a few years later, soon after DeVito was cast on the TV show “Taxi.”
Specktor’s office at CAA headquarters is decorated with artwork and mementos from onetime clients like Kirk Douglas and current ones like Geoffrey Rush. A pillow emblazoned with Freeman’s face adorns a couch in front of a window with a view of Los Angeles’s Century City, today a commercial district of skyscrapers and outdoor malls that started as a production outpost when a cowboy star named Tom Mix sold his ranch to Hollywood founding father William Fox in 1925.
Specktor was born eight years later. He grew up in Beverly Hills before it was “Beverly Hills,” and absorbed the industry by proximity. A neighbor was a cameraman under contract at Fox. His first girlfriend was Jack Benny’s daughter. But Specktor’s dad wanted him to be an accountant.
At a different girlfriend’s suggestion, he started in the mailroom of talent representation firm MCA. His salary: $1 an hour, to work as a glorified gopher, running scripts to agents and producers. MCA president Lew Wasserman was Hollywood’s A-list agent, commanding studio heads on behalf of clients like Clark Gable and Bette Davis.
“If he said something, it generally happened,” said Specktor.
In the late 1970s, he attended a wedding reception that would change his life. The groom was George Shapiro, a talent manager known for working with Andy Kaufman and Jerry Seinfeld. The usual Hollywood crowd was there; William Morris, where Specktor then worked, had a table at the reception, and so did CAA.
The William Morris guys weren’t having as much fun as the CAA guys. Specktor wanted to be at the fun table.
Since joining CAA in 1978, Specktor has had a hand in some of the past half-century’s most memorable show-business moments. He convinced the filmmakers behind “Fatal Attraction” that Glenn Close could “play sexy” and should read for the role of a villainous lover who will not be ignored. (When Jodie Foster beat Close for best actress in 1989, Specktor can be seen on the Oscars broadcast frowning as a jubilant Foster takes the stage.) He persuaded Clint Eastwood to call another client, Gene Hackman, and strongarm him into joining his movie “Unforgiven”—then pocketed $100 from Hackman when Specktor bet the actor at the Oscars that he would take home a statuette that evening.
Specktor said the Oscars don’t resonate as they did when seeing a star was a novelty, not a social-media mainstay. And studio consolidation has shrunk the number of companies making movies, with the survivors incentivized by shareholders to stay risk-averse.
“I don’t know what it’s going to be like in 20 years,” he said. “Perhaps I don’t have to care.”
Specktor’s boss, CAA co-chairman Richard Lovett, was once his assistant, discovered in the agency’s mailroom. Today he is among Hollywood’s most powerful agents, representing stars such as Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
“I will always be thinking that my job is to say ‘Fred Specktor’s office,’” said Lovett. (Specktor said Lovett was “arguably the best assistant I ever had.”)
About a year ago, Lovett suggested to his former boss that he relax a little. What if he started taking off early on Friday afternoons?
“He nodded and smiled and tried to make me feel better,” said Lovett. “It was a very hard negotiation for me.”
Specktor made it clear he wouldn’t be taking off early on Friday afternoons.
At a different girlfriend’s suggestion, he started in the mailroom of talent representation firm MCA. His salary: $1 an hour, to work as a glorified gopher, running scripts to agents and producers. MCA president Lew Wasserman was Hollywood’s A-list agent, commanding studio heads on behalf of clients like Clark Gable and Bette Davis.
“If he said something, it generally happened,” said Specktor.
Fred Specktor and actor Pierce Brosnan. Photo: Todd Williamson/Invision/AP
In the late 1970s, he attended a wedding reception that would change his life. The groom was George Shapiro, a talent manager known for working with Andy Kaufman and Jerry Seinfeld. The usual Hollywood crowd was there; William Morris, where Specktor then worked, had a table at the reception, and so did CAA.
The William Morris guys weren’t having as much fun as the CAA guys. Specktor wanted to be at the fun table.
Since joining CAA in 1978, Specktor has had a hand in some of the past half-century’s most memorable show-business moments. He convinced the filmmakers behind “Fatal Attraction” that Glenn Close could “play sexy” and should read for the role of a villainous lover who will not be ignored. (When Jodie Foster beat Close for best actress in 1989, Specktor can be seen on the Oscars broadcast frowning as a jubilant Foster takes the stage.) He persuaded Clint Eastwood to call another client, Gene Hackman, and strongarm him into joining his movie “Unforgiven”—then pocketed USD 100 from Hackman when Specktor bet the actor at the Oscars that he would take home a statuette that evening.
Specktor said the Oscars don’t resonate as they did when seeing a star was a novelty, not a social-media mainstay. And studio consolidation has shrunk the number of companies making movies, with the survivors incentivized by shareholders to stay risk-averse.
“I don’t know what it’s going to be like in 20 years,” he said. “Perhaps I don’t have to care.”
In the late 1970s, he attended a wedding reception that would change his life. The groom was George Shapiro, a talent manager known for working with Andy Kaufman and Jerry Seinfeld. The usual Hollywood crowd was there; William Morris, where Specktor then worked, had a table at the reception, and so did CAA.
The William Morris guys weren’t having as much fun as the CAA guys. Specktor wanted to be at the fun table.
Since joining CAA in 1978, Specktor has had a hand in some of the past half-century’s most memorable show-business moments. He convinced the filmmakers behind “Fatal Attraction” that Glenn Close could “play sexy” and should read for the role of a villainous lover who will not be ignored. (When Jodie Foster beat Close for best actress in 1989, Specktor can be seen on the Oscars broadcast frowning as a jubilant Foster takes the stage.) He persuaded Clint Eastwood to call another client, Gene Hackman, and strongarm him into joining his movie “Unforgiven”—then pocketed $100 from Hackman when Specktor bet the actor at the Oscars that he would take home a statuette that evening.
Specktor said the Oscars don’t resonate as they did when seeing a star was a novelty, not a social-media mainstay. And studio consolidation has shrunk the number of companies making movies, with the survivors incentivised by shareholders to stay risk-averse.
“I don’t know what it’s going to be like in 20 years,” he said. “Perhaps I don’t have to care.”
Hollywood 4 Fred Specktor advocated for Glenn Close to star in 1987’s ‘Fatal Attraction.’ Photo: Alamy Stock Photo
Specktor’s boss, CAA co-chairman Richard Lovett, was once his assistant, discovered in the agency’s mailroom. Today he is among Hollywood’s most powerful agents, representing stars such as Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
“I will always be thinking that my job is to say ‘Fred Specktor’s office,’” said Lovett. (Specktor said Lovett was “arguably the best assistant I ever had.”)
About a year ago, Lovett suggested to his former boss that he relax a little. What if he started taking off early on Friday afternoons?
“He nodded and smiled and tried to make me feel better,” said Lovett. “It was a very hard negotiation for me.”
Specktor made it clear he wouldn’t be taking off early on Friday afternoons.