students and teachers are the cream of the crop,” she continued.
“No disrespect,” I said, “but it seems to me that all the teachers do around here is give out an impossible amount of homework so that we’re too busy to think. It’s a colossal waste of time, which, I’m sorry, is not something I have a lot of.”
“Oh yeah,” she said, sending me a skeptical look from over her bifocals. “What more important things do you have to do?”
Actually. A lot.
Not only was I running my own business, but my duties at my father’s agency, which had expanded beyond bookkeeping, occupied quite a bit of my time. My move from the quiet sidelines of managing the finances to the middle of the action had happened about a year earlier, when I was fourteen years old.
It had all started when the agency didn’t receive payment for the touring rights to an infamous German drama, The Deputy. The 1963 work, which charged Pope Pius XII with remaining silent during the Holocaust, was probably one of the most controversial plays of the twentieth century. It had theological implications and international diplomatic repercussions. It was even alleged that the author, Rolf Hochhuth, was part of a secret KGB plot to slur the anti-communist Pope Pius.
Whatever it was, The Deputy became an international sensation after it was translated into more than twenty languages. As the representative of Rowohlt Verlag, which controlled the international rights, my father licensed the American theatrical rights to Herman Shumlin, a prominent producer who looked like Yul Brynner because of his size and shaved head. Shumlin in turn brought the show to the Brooks Atkinson Theater in a flurry of protests and press. Despite the outrage from Catholic groups, the play ran for 316 performances and earned Shumlin a Tony Award for Best Producer in 1964. Its success on Broadway brought the show around the United States after we arranged for another producer to license the touring rights with the royalties going to Shumlin.
One day while I was in the office and my father was home sick with the flu, I answered the phone to find an unhappy Shumlin on the other end; the producer of the touring show, currently playing in Chicago, wasn’t paying up.
“We have to do something about this right away,” he said in his trademark booming voice. “I want you to go to Chicago and collect the money.”
“I will talk to my father and get back to you.”
“No. I want you on a plane tomorrow.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was Herman Shumlin. I couldn’t think of any bigger Broadway producer other than David Merrick. The son of a Colorado rancher, Shumlin had worked his way up from a high school dropout, then factory and railroad yard worker, to a press agent and finally award-winning producer. He gave Lillian Hellman (who had been reading scripts for him) her start when he produced Children’s Hour in 1934—an instant hit—and launched the careers of many actors. As Hellman put it: Shumlin had “made many an actor into a star, and many a star into a decent actor.” You didn’t say no to a legend like that.
So after getting the okay from my father (“He wants you to go, so go”), I flew to Chicago the next day for a meeting with the deadbeat producer. Separating me at one end of the conference room table and the producer of the touring company at the other were seven lawyers representing both sides.
The producer, who knew my father and me personally, said to my set of lawyers, “Do you know how old your client is?”
They didn’t have a clue. I was tall for my age and had a broad chest and full beard (all the rage in the early sixties). After they turned to me with uncomprehending expressions, I responded by pulling out the power of attorney that I had gotten from Shumlin, which authorized me to represent his end of the claim. Before leaving New York, I had learned that if somebody gives you power of attorney, you have legal authority—even if you are two years old. It’s that person’s decision whether or not you’re qualified, regardless of age.
“I don’t really see how that’s relevant. I think this gives me the legal authority to act,” I said, passing the piece of paper with my power of attorney around. His lawyers nodded and my lawyers nodded.
“Let’s get on to the business at hand,” I said.
The guy paid up and Shumlin was impressed. So was my dad, who soon after helped me start my own business exporting books after Karl Ludwig, a friend of Ledig’s and an employee of Bertelsmann, a major German book club, approached my father with the idea to sell English-language publications to book club subscribers in Germany, where he believed there were enough English speakers to make the venture a commercial success. My father felt the deal was a conflict with his relationship with Rowohlt Verlag but said, “Maybe my son can help you.”
It took a year or two after books came out in the US to be translated and published in Germany. That meant by the time they were out in Germany, the same books were going into paperback back in the States—and the hardcover publisher was “remaindering” its excess inventory. I saw an opportunity. Profit margins appeared in my head. I told Ludwig I’d help him out. The only hurdle left was to convince the American publishers.
During lunchtime at Halsey Junior High School, I skipped the cafeteria, headed to the pay phone near the nurse’s office, and put in a dime.
“Dick Snyder, please,” I said.
“Who may I ask is calling?”
“Francis Greenburger on behalf of Bertelsmann.”
“One moment.”
So far so good.
“Hello?” a gravelly voice said after a moment.
Going as deep into my register as possible, I launched into my pitch for Snyder, who would eventually go on to become a publishing legend. After he became president of Simon & Schuster in 1975 when it was a $70 million dollar company, he assumed a number of titles and transformed S&S into the largest book publisher in the world, with $2 billion in annual revenue. At the time of my call, however, Snyder was working in special sales and remainders.
“Look, I want to take five thousand copies of hardcovers off your hands,” I said. “But instead of thirty cents per book that the remainder guys pay, I’m willing to offer fifty cents.”
“What’s the catch?”
“They’re headed to Germany. This is a win-win. You’re remaindering the book anyway. This will get it out of your market, so it’s not going to compete with the paperback. And I’ll pay you almost double what the remainder dealers do.”
There was a pause while Snyder silently went through all the permutations of what could go wrong with this deal.
“Well, what are you looking for?” he asked, still cautious.
“Something popular. A best seller, nothing too heady. You know. The German market is saturated with that.”
Snyder laughed throatily.
“All right. Harold Robbins.”
The Carpetbaggers author was the surest bet in publishing. His track record was practically a best seller per year.
“Perfect.”
“You’re
