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Soon he made so much money that he could afford to be something of a dandy. ![]() Lazar, who grew up streetwise and hungry in Brownsville, N.Y., where "you were in combat training from the day you learned to walk," lived with his parents until he was 28, moving out only after his mother died. Squad cars frequently came by the Stork Club after midnight to take him to some godawful place where there was a shootout or a knifing") and booking such stars as Sophie Tucker, Eddie Cantor and Ted Lewis. His name is Johnny Pineapple"), of cultivating Walter Winchell ("(His) real passion was danger. He writes of ducking bullets and getting slugged by mobsters, of "inventing" acts when he didn't have any (to one nightclub owner looking for a Hawaiian band: "I've got a fellow who is sensational. There Lazar, in hot competition against other agents at MCA and rival agencies, discovered or booked such unknowns as Count Basie, Imogen Coca, Henny Youngman, Louis Prima, Desi Arnaz and dozens of others. His career, after all, spanned 60 years, beginning with the mostly Mafia-owned speakeasies featuring Harry James, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and others on 52nd Street in Manhattan during the '30s. Still, Tapert, who knew Lazar and understood how celebrities from Moss Hart and Frank Sinatra to Judy Garland and Richard Nixon could work with him and in many cases come to love him, appears to have brought Lazar's giant ego and comparatively small (5- foot-3-inch) physical presence to the page for one of the most intriguing show biz bios to come along in years. ![]() ![]() As we learn from the epilogue, written by collaborator Annette Tapert, most of the material did not come directly from Lazar himself but from magazine stories, letters and two other attempts by other collaborators to get the vociferous yet bashful Lazar into print. "Swifty" - the hated nickname came from Humphrey Bogart, who once bet Lazar he couldn't arrange three deals for Bogart in one day, and of course Lazar did - includes some of the great agent's classic Hollywood and Broadway anecdotes, but don't expect too much inside stuff. Since you won't be attending Irving Lazar's legendary Academy Awards party this year - his last was held in 1993, shortly after his wife passed away and eight months before he died - here's the next best thing.
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