Legendary Manager Bernie Brillstein Dead at 77

Bernie Briillstein, the legendary talent manager who pioneered the practice of talent agents branching out into TV and movie production, has succumbed to complications from double heart-bypass surgery at 77.

Briillstein, who memorably subtitled one of his memoirs You're No One In Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead, was one of entertainment's best-loved characters throughout his 52 years in the business. He was also one of the last remaining figures to bridge show business history from vaudeville--he was partly raised in the home of his uncle Jack Pearl, a Ziegfield Follies impresario--to modern-day film features.

(His greatest artistic success was Dangerous Liaisons, a 1988 Oscar nominee that he kept afloat by force of will when the studio sought to shut it down).

After catching on with the William Morris Agency mail room in New York, he came out to Hollywood to start his own company, and when he ultimately teamed up with now -Paramount Motion Picture Group Chairman and C.E.O. Brad Grey (both would end up in rancorous battles with then-kingpin Mike Ovitz), ushered in a era of management-driven successes that includes The Sopranos.

An early believer in Lorne Michaels and Jim Henson, he alluded to their ultimate successes when interviewed by Esquire in 1999: "I was 44 in 1975, when Saturday Night Live and The Muppet Show sold, and I had been struggling along, living the gambler's life, until then. If you believe you have to make it by a certain age, that's bullshit. Sometimes you're a late bloomer and you have to watch the bodies fall so you can step in."

The subject of detailed obituaries in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Variety, he was chronicled most insightfully by Deadline Hollywood Daily blogger Nikki Finke today.

Ultimately Brillstein, though he was always emphatic about the need to relentlessly scout for talent, made himself wealthy by packaging his clients cleverly. He co-invented the Hee-Haw show and raked in millions over that show's long run in syndication, and by making himself executive producer of a series of shows that ultimately hit, he corralled not only his producer's fee but a healthy chunk of back end money.

That said, his deft way of managing talent meant he earned the right to bemoan that moderrn Hollywood is dominated by clichéd ideas: "And the people running show business are too much business and not any show."