Swifty Lazar (rhymes with the czar) stands 5 ft. 3 in. in his elevator shoes, and he never picks on anybody his own size. Instead, as a literary agent representing playwrights, novelists and short-story writers in deals with movie producers, he competes with such titanic agencies as M.C.A., William Morris and General Artists. But year after year, when the dust jackets settle, Irving Paul Lazar walks away the winner.
From Edna Ferber to Vladimir Nabokov, Romain Gary, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, his list of clients reads like the world's best-kept book of unlisted phone numbers. "I call myself a literary agent," says Lazar, "simply to distinguish myself from actors' agents." He also handles composers (Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers), choreographers, etc. For Rodgers, he recently sold The Sound of Music to 20th Century-Fox for $1,250,000, and for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe he peddled Camelot to Warner for the same amount. He had a hand in the $5,500,000 deal for My Fair Lady with Warner, and he is now arranging the movie sale of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying—which may break Lady's alltime record—for Broadway Producers Cy Feuer and Ernie Martin.
Think It Over. Described by his clients as "a dehydrated giant" (Playwright Harry Kurnitz) and "a new kind of beach toy" (Novelist Irwin Shaw), little Swifty hides his genius under a pink bald head and behind thick-rimmed glasses. A bachelor, he dates tall, statuesque bachelor girls. He has written a will naming the wives of his favorite clients as the recipients of his considerable fortune.
All day long, he stays on the telephone, shouting at friend and foe, eating nothing but a small salad. His annual phone bill is roughly $20,000. A Swiss hotel once refused to put him up because on an earlier visit his calls had swamped their switchboard. To impress visitors, he shamelessly buzzes his secretary with orders to "Get me Dore," or "Get me Cole." Starting a typical deal, he will call up 20th Century-Fox and tell them he is asking $200,000 for a client's new novel, think it over. Then he calls Paramount and tells them that Fox is considering a bid of $200,000—and so on.
According to legend and some of his clients, Swifty Lazar seldom bothers to read manuscripts he sells, and some people even imply that he could not do so if he wanted to. "A vile canard," complains Swifty, insisting that he spends 90 minutes a day in intensive research. Actually well-educated, he is a lawyer whose practice is now limited to writing the impressive contracts he wangles for his clients.
Unsolicited Help. Now 54, Lazar was born in Stamford, Conn., the son of a German Jewish immigrant who ran a thriving butter and eggs business. Later, the family moved to Brooklyn, and Swifty took his LL.B at Brooklyn Law School. Sophie Tucker was one of his early legal clients, and he got into agenting when a nightclub impresario mentioned that he needed a Hawaiian musician. Swifty remembered one but could not recall the fellow's name. "I can get you Johnny Pineapple," he said recklessly. Then he tracked the Hawaiian down, told him his new name was Johnny Pineapple and booked him into the impresario's club. David Kaonohi is still performing as Johnny Pineapple.