She’s a ‘Tiger’ Among the Rock Managers

Backstage at a concert in San Francisco years ago, a prominent female manager was asked by a reporter, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a job like this?”

She shot back: “I’m not a nice girl. You can’t afford to be a nice girl in this job. You’ve got to be a shark.”

But Trudy Green, the hottest female manager in rock ‘n’ roll these days, doesn’t look like a shark. The slender, 5-foot-2 Englishwoman, who co-manages the superstar bands Whitesnake and Heart, looks and sounds very genteel.

“Don’t let looks fool you,” Green, 34, cautioned during lunch the other day. “I’m tough. I’m a tiger. I didn’t get where I am being a pussycat.

“You should see me in a business situation. This innocent-looking little person gets really tough. But I’m not as bad as I used to be. I used to attack right away and go for the throat. But I don’t get as crazy any more. But the point is I can handle myself in a business situation. Look at the results.”

She and partner Howard Kaufman, president of Front Line Management Co. Inc., have a small roster--Heart, Whitesnake, John Waite, Stephen Bishop and recent acquisition the Jacksons (minus Michael). But what they’ve done with Heart and Whitesnake has the whole music business buzzing.

Heart, led by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, was a veteran band cruising toward oblivion a few years ago. Whitesnake, featuring David Coverdale, was known in hard-rock and heavy-metal circles, but wasn’t making many in-roads with the pop masses.

Since signing with Green and Kaufman in 1985, however, Heart, switching from Epic Records to Capitol, roared back with one album (“Heart”) that has sold 4 million copies and a second (“Bad Animals”) that has sold an estimated 2 1/2 million.

In the music business, Green is well respected for pumping life back into Heart. Promoter Brian Murphy of Avalon Attractions noted: “What she did with Heart is remarkable. She got this band at a time when no one had a lot of belief in their ability to rebound. She helped resurrect this band--to bring them back when their career seemed over.”

Whitesnake’s sudden surge is even more impressive. While its last album before signing with Green and Kaufman (1984’s “Slide It In”) sold about 500,000, the group’s only album since signing with the management firm (the current “Whitesnake”) has sold more than 4 1/2 million. Green, though, does acknowledge that Kaufman has been the major force in the Whitesnake explosion.

Managers can’t take all the credit for such sales bursts. Aggressive record company promotion, more commercial music and/or simply a shift in radio programming emphasis can all help boost sales. Still, managers are often the ones who help orchestrate all these changes--and the success of Whitesnake and Heart has made Green and Kaufman industry stars in their own right.

Green, however, has become a bigger star than Kaufman, partly because of the rarity of being a woman manager in a male-dominated field and partly because she is newer on the scene. Kaufman has been a key, if somewhat media-shy management figure around town for years.

Though Green entered the management business more than a decade ago, she was a minor player until signing Heart two years ago.

“I was still working out of my house,” she recalled. “I wanted to sign Heart, but I didn’t have a solid organization to offer them. I was struggling. I wanted a partner. A woman on her own in this business is limited. I wanted to go with a big management firm. I met Howard (Kaufman) and said let’s find an act we can build together. So we signed Heart. Since then I’ve had the opportunity and resources to really build my own career as a manager.

“Let’s face it. I can take credit for being a successful woman manager and all that, but without Howard I’d be nowhere. The feminists might not like to hear me say that but it’s the truth.”

Green, who’s from an upper-class London family, started out to be a fashion journalist. But while waiting for a break in fashion, she got a job in the music business, gravitating toward publicity, traditionally the easiest avenue for women with executive aspirations.

She formed her own publicity firm, made it a success and then sold it, moving to America in 1975. One reason she decided to stay here was that she got married. Another was landing a job with Gibson and Stromberg--then the most prominent publicity firm in the business. From there she went to work for Irving Azoff, the man who now heads MCA Records, but was then the head of Front Line, whose management clients included the Eagles.

While working for Azoff as a publicist, Green was picking up managerial pointers. She was also getting fed up with being a publicist. “I hate it,” she said. “There’s so much (junk) involved. You’re just a salesman. And you take (junk) from everybody. It was too limiting. I had little control. I was ambitious. I wanted more responsibility I desperately wanted to be a manager.”

So she became a manager in 1977, with singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop as her first client. At first Green recalled, many men in the business didn’t take her seriously--not only because she’s a woman but because she was a young, short woman.

“I had to fight twice as hard,” she said. “You have to project to these men that you’re strong and you mean business. I was scared a lot of time. I did a lot of bluffing too. I had to come on strong. I’m a little soft inside but I couldn’t show that in business. The business world I’m in is a man’s world. These men will bury if you show weakness. Being weak is a luxury I don’t have.”

Though Green said she’s supportive of career women, she emphasized that she’s not an active feminist. “I’ll talk to young women who are looking for a career and offer some guidance but once a women is in business she’s on her own,” Green said. “She doesn’t need me.”

Nor is she into networking with other female managers and career women. “Getting together with a bunch of women to talk about business--how boring,” she observed haughtily.

Like any tough, successful manager, Green has made enemies in the music business. “That’s all part of doing this,” she acknowledged. “I’m not looking to be well-liked.”

Ask some people who’ve worked with Green for their opinion of her and you’ll hear considerable sniping. Veteran music publicist Bob Gibson, formerly of Gibson and Stromberg (Green’s first American employer) and now head of The Group, put it all in perspective:

“She’s a powerful, influential manager who’s helped build those two acts (Heart and Whitesnake) into big stars. She’s a good manager and good managers are usually not well-liked. Good managers make lots of enemies, particularly with people they work with on the middle-management level. Her job is not to be popular but to do the best job for her client. That often means being nasty and harsh and stepping on toes when you deal with people in marketing, promotion, booking agents and so forth.

“Being a woman has made it tougher for her. There are so few woman managers and very few that count. The ones that count are as tough and demanding as their male counterparts. But some people don’t like it when a woman behaves that way. They can tolerate that sort of behavior more from a man. Some people aren’t prepared to see a woman manager be as thorough and demanding as her male counterparts.”

Many of Green’s detractors in the music business are women. “They’re probably saying, ‘What a jerk; what’s she done to deserve all this?’ ” Green noted. “What I’ve done is work like a dog. I can’t worry about what people like that think.”

There’s a down side to her success, Green cautioned. Her complaint isn’t new. You hear it over and over from other career women.

“Your personal life suffers,” she griped. “When you’re yelling at people all day and being a tough businesswoman, how do you turn it off at night? Men don’t want a tiger at home. You’ve got to learn to be soft and not be the boss all the time.”

Green is a divorcee. She was married to manager-record producer Spencer Proffer for two years in the mid-’70s. Currently she’s engaged. In between there were a lot busted romances.

“I was infatuated with various people and then I got burned,” she said. “There were the men who were looking to use me. After I started making money, I had to be on the lookout for men who were looking for that. I got smarter after a while. If you’re looking for a relationship, it’s hard to do it and have a job like this.”

At some point Green said she plans to marry and have children. “I’ll be working mother,” she said. “I won’t stop working. I’d go crazy. I need the stimulation of work.

“But I don’t want to miss out on having children. I’ve already missed out on enough already.”