Videoage International October 2017

56 October 2017 V I D E O A G E “I ’m old, you know,” said 87-year-old Claude Salle Perrier when explaining to VideoAge her difficulty in recounting some anecdotes of when she began working at MCA in 1953 in Paris. To the rescue came Roger Cordjohn, who started at MCA in 1964, first in London and later in Paris, and remembered how much of a stickler Claude was for penmanship, requesting all job applicants submit a handwritten CV. Cordjohn retired fromwhat became NBCUniversal in 2005, while Perrier retired in 1988 before it became MCA-Universal, when Japan’s Matsushita acquired it in 1990. However, during the course of the sevenmonths it took to complete this profile, Perrier came up with several anecdotes herself that helped VideoAge not only understand her as one of the pioneers of TV content distribution in France, and surely the first woman in the country in that position, but also as the likable, humorous and amusing person she has been all along: a bubbly executive worthy of her surname, which Claude Salle obtained in 1956 when she married Jacques Perrier, who later became a film production director (he passed away in 2010). Claude S. Perrier’s career followed the ups and downs of the Hollywood studios in France, and entwined with the career of Jules C. Stein, who co-founded Music Corporation of America (MCA) in 1924, later becoming Universal Studios. In 1953, after spending three years at an English school, Perrier joined the French office of MCA, then the world’s largest talent agency, as Stein’s assistant. In 1950, Stein had bought a house for himself and his wife Doris in Paris, near the Etoile , which was also made available to his brother David and, later, to his partner since 1958, Lew Wasserman, and his wife Edith (Wasserman had joined MCA in 1936 as a booking agent). In 1949 Stein bought into Ci.Mu.Ra, a French talent agency on Avenue Hoche (not far from his house), renamed it MCA and put his brother David in charge. David hired Perrier as his assistant in 1956. Here is how Perrier remembers it: “David was a gifted pianist, but Jules wanted him to work at MCA in Paris. It was David who hired me on the condition that not only was I to look after the foreign artists, but also to take care of Stein’s households in Paris, Ibiza and Algarve, Portugal. He preferred his music to working in an office, so at the office I was left more or less alone, reporting directly to Jules Stein and Lew Wasserman, who were in Los Angeles.” However, for film and TV distribution, Perrier worked first under Berle Adams, who in 1957 was sent to Europe to create MCA’s international TV syndication division. Subsequently, Perrier reported to division head Ralph Franklin (1969- 1980), followed by Bob Bramson (1980-1986), and finally to Colin Davis (1986-1997), before retiring in 1988. But even though Perrier retired from MCA-Universal, she continued to manage Stein’s family estates up until 1996 (Stein died in 1981). The special relationship with both the Stein and Wasserman families gave Perrier privileged status, which she did not abuse or even leverage, but was useful in stamping out potential threats, like being fired by Franklin, with whom she did not get along (like other MCA executives and Hall of Fame honorees, such as Colin Davis and Michael J. Solomon, who also worked under him); like the others, she wouldn’t go into details about Franklin. However, VideoAge is aware that when Perrier visited Hollywood, she was invited to Jules Stein’s home and at times to his sister Ruth’s home in addition to Wasserman’s. In this regard, Perrier would only say that she “assisted in the celebration of Wasserman’s 50 years at MCA on December 12, 1986, where Frank Sinatra appeared on tape singing special lyrics.” (Sinatra had a tumultuous relationship with Wasserman, who had been his agent.) Looking at archival photos, it is striking how in many of themPerrier is the only female executive. “Even though the industry was dominated by alphamales,” she acknowledged, “I never had any problems with most of them, possibly because they knew my work for Jules and Lew.” The trajectory of MCA-Universal began in 1958 when MCA took over Universal Pictures’ 1.70-square km lot and subsequently MCA acquired the pre-1948 Paramount features. Universal Pictures (or Studios) was founded by German-born Carl Laemmie and eight other partners in 1908, while Paramount Pictures was founded by Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor in 1912. In 1962, after MCA purchased Decca Records (the owner of Universal Pictures since 1952), Wasserman asked Adams, now an MCA vice president, to streamline the film studio’s 30 distribution offices around the world. Adams visited each of the domestic and foreign offices and managed to reduce the number of offices to eight. Perrier picked up from where she left off: “In 1962 to avoid U.S. anti-trust laws, Jules Stein decided to close the agency branch. By then, MCA covered all aspects of the same business, therefore they had to close immediately one branch of activities. Everyone was asked to leave (including David Stein), except me, who was requested to stay to liquidate the company (and physically close the office on Avenue Hoche). Later on, I don’t remember whether it was Stein or Wasserman, one of them asked me if I liked to work in television, and if so if I would contact their lawyer to start a new company to be called MCA Paris Ltd with me as the manager. “So, I moved to France Universal Studios’ office on Rue La Boetie, formedMCA Paris Ltd. and hired some of the personnel from the old MCA agency. Claude S. Perrier: The French Anchor to Jules Stein and LewWasserman’s MCA Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame By Dom Serafini Claude S. Perrier The MCA team at MIP-TV 1982: (l. to. r.) Colin Davis, Bob Bramson, Claude Perrier, Marion Gorton-Edwards, Kamal Sayegh, Don Gale, Roger Cordjohn, Hendrik van Daalen, Karl de Vogt Claude and daughter Valérie in a recent photo (Continued on Page 58)