Katzman Taking Different Path in Rebuilding Image of Morris

Jerry Katzman, a television agent best known for giving America “The Cosby Show,” has spent the past week shoring up his relations with Hollywood’s leading movie executives.

As the William Morris Agency’s new president, it’s his task to persuade the major studios that the company’s film division can weather the recent defections of agents representing such valuable clients as Julia Roberts, Andie MacDowell and director Peter Weir.

Katzman’s moves are hardly in the tradition of the conservative firm, which was clobbered when six agents left for competing International Creative Management and Creative Artists Agency.

In one attempt at damage control, the 53-year-old president quickly signed long-term contracts with most of the company’s top agents, including Mike Simpson and John Burnham, its highly regarded film department heads.

At the same time, Katzman has raised salaries and benefits to make Morris more competitive with other agencies. The feasibility of a counter-raid on competitors or of buying a small talent agency with a strong film-based clientele is also being examined. Katzman is even rethinking the role of the company’s board--a preserve of older administrators whom younger agents blame for the decline of Morris’ film business.

“It was like working for your grandfather,” said one agent who left in the past two weeks.

While Katzman declined to elaborate on his expectations for the board in an inter view Thursday, the first he has given since being named president, he seemed to indicate that the board will either be dismantled or restructured to make it more responsive to agents’ needs.

“There are 50 ways of changing the board,” Katzman said. “We can’t overlook the fact that some of the members are among the most productive people in the history of the agency. So it must be done with heart, while realizing what’s going on in the modern business world.”

Modern is not a word often associated with the 93-year-old William Morris Agency. If Spago symbolizes the sensibility of the new Hollywood, Morris has been more closely identified with Chasen’s.

Richly profitable thanks to real estate investments and television successes, the company has long had a reputation for alienating young agents with its old-boy attitude. Michael Ovitz, Ron Meyer, Bill Haber and other frustrated young agents who left Morris in 1975 went on to build the powerful Creative Artists Agency around talent chipped away from their alma mater. Later, Ed Limato bolted to ICM with a group of clients that included Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Gere and Mel Gibson.

In those instances, Morris, which still ranks among the big three talent agencies with yearly revenues exceeding $60 million, absorbed its body blows stoically. But the recent exodus apparently shocked management into rethinking its policies.

Norman Brokaw, the company’s 63-year-old leader--who made a name with book clients such as Gerald R. Ford, Alexander M. Haig and Donald T. Regan--was hastily named chairman and chief executive, clearing the way for Katzman to assume control.

In addition to his other moves, Katzman said he intends to foster greater cooperation among agents, a longstanding problem, by making pay less reliant on individual accomplishment. Even some of the agents who abandoned Morris say Katzman has cultivated that kind of teamwork in his TV unit. “The TV department is like CAA in that respect. No one player stands out, but as a team, they’re great,” said one defector.

Still, Katzman’s appointment has generated mixed reaction among his peers. While he is widely liked and admired, many have questioned whether a television executive is capable of reviving the film department, since the two fields rarely cross paths. Some have even taken Katzman’s promotion as a sign that Morris was moving away from the film business.

Industry sources say Morris, whose star client list has dwindled to such people as Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks and director John McTiernan, is deeply damaged by its inability to “package” talent for films--the practice of matching star directors with star actors culled from an agency’s client list for a particular project.

“It takes years to build those relationships,” said one competitor. “One guy can’t turn the tide.”

Katzman, an affable man, is angered by the suggestion that he is too television-oriented. He said television has given him the skills needed to perform his job.

As worldwide head of Morris’ television operations, which placed an impressive 8 1/2 hours of prime-time programming a week on network television this season, Katzman packaged such popular fare as “The Cosby Show” and “Murphy Brown.” His clients include Burt Reynolds, Angela Lansbury and Shelley Long.

“Basically, I’m a winner, and because I’m a winner, people will believe in me,” Katzman said. “I would be crazy to think I will develop relationships with the 20- to 22-year-old film talent out there. But that’s not my job. That’s the agents’ job.”

One of the last people who tried to revive Morris’ film division was Sue Mengers. The onetime super-agent was brought out of retirement by Morris in 1988 but was soon history, an apparent victim of old-boy intransigence.

“It’s very hard when there are a lot of people running a company,” Mengers said in a telephone interview. “There’s a chain of command. The Morris office always worked under a system of the board of directors being very involved; therefore I had absolutely no autonomy.”

Mengers contends that Morris’ film business can be fixed, but only by strong actions. “Sometimes cold water wakes people up,” she said. “(The defections) may very well have that effect. It may give them some stimulus.”