Swifty Paperback - 2007

From the rear cover

Here, at last, is the long-awaited book by one of show business's most notorious, beloved, and legendary figures, the man who elevated the deal to an art form. For over fifty years Irving Paul Lazar (known to the world at large as "Swifty") reigned supreme as the agent and deal-maker extraordinaire on both coasts, a tiny, fast-talking, gravel-voiced powerhouse who elevated chutzpah to a philosophy of life. Lazar's annual Oscar party became an event that threatened to outshine the awards ceremony itself, and his deals made headlines. Lazar's friends and clients included almost every star of the screen, stage, and celebrity worlds - as well as many distinguished authors and such political figures as Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. Witty, acerbic, irascible, Irving Lazar was - quite literally - a legend in his own lifetime, and stories about him were traded back and forth by his friends (and enemies) for decades. Swifty is Lazar's own story, in his own words, the fruit of over ten years of effort to capture himself in writing before it was too late (he died in 1993, in his eighties). Here is a show business classic, the story of how a bright, scrappy, tiny, tough kid rose from poverty in the streets of Brooklyn to fame and fortune through sheer guts, wit, and pugnacity. He got his start as an agent by dealing with the gangsters who ran New York's speakeasies and eventually became one of the most influential players in the city's thriving jazz scene. Lazar tells in vivid anecdotes the story of how he made his move on Hollywood, of his dealings with studio moguls, of his war service, of his gradual emergence as a force in book publishing, where he invented the instant seven-figure deal, often selling for vast sums of money unwritten books by authors who weren't his clients. . . .