The Agent Dance: William Morris Loses Another One
This morning, Page Six notes another defection from William Morris, again ascribing this latest betrayal to unhappiness over the New Yorker profile of "unorthodox" WMA president Dave Wirtschafter. The way they're fixating, you'd think the Sixers are opening up an agency of their own, populated solely by former Morris clients:
THE clients keep leaving William Morris. Director Matthew Vaughn, Claudia Schiffer's husband who just signed on to helm "X-Men 3," ditched the talent shop for Endeavor. A Vaughn pal said, "He was angry at [agency president] Dave [Wirtschafter] because in The New Yorker article [Wirtschafter] ragged on Guy Ritchie. Matthew produced Guy's movies and took it as an insult."
Actually, the Page Six Agency sounds like a solid business model. Clients of the new shop could count on the publication of gossip items perfectly calibrated to help their careers—scandal during the slow parts, stock-boosting canoodling reports when things are good—and finally fire their now-redundant publicists. Sure, the flack-subsidized gift-basket industry would suffer, but brilliant new economic models like these tend to create jobs in unexpected places.