George Shapiro, the deeply respected talent manager, producer and co-founder of Shapiro/West & Associates, died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 91. Along…
, one of the top comedy series of all time. Born in New York, Shapiro spent summers during his teenage years as a lifeguard at the Tamiment Resort in the Poconos, where he met performers like Dick Shawn, Pat Carroll and Carol Burnett, singer Barbara Cook, and choreographer Herb Ross.
That’s when he also got to know talent agents.“These guys came up … I didn’t even know what an agent was, but they came to see the show, to talk to the girls, talk to the comedians,” said Shapiro in a past Television Academy Foundation interview. “I said, ‘This is your job? To watch the show, to have a nice dinner, to come to a resort with a lake? I have to look into that.” After graduating from NYU and a stint in the Army, Shapiro got an interview for a job in the mailroom at William Morris in New York through his uncle, Carl Reiner. He became a junior agent, making $38 per week, in the packaging department at the agency but stayed close to comedy, seeing Lenny Bruce, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Phyllis Diller perform in New York. He also recruited his PS 80 friend West to join him at the agency. After several years, Shapiro started to recognize that the big comedy shows and productions were moving to Hollywood. So he started a rumor at William Morris that he was going to be sent to the Los Angeles office. The rumor became a self-fulfilling prophesy, and Shapiro brought West with him as he moved cross country.The Steve Allen Show, That Girl,. He also put together a number of specials for Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, and Carol Channing that helped to catapult many of the cast members to superstardom. In 1973, Shapiro decided he wanted to become a personal manager in order to develop deeper relationships and producing partnerships with clients, so he left William Morris and opened a management company, later bringing West with him. Shapiro/West Associates was born.Andy Kaufman at Carnegie Hallfor ABC. He was also behind several other comedy specials for TV, including: Showtime’swith Elayne Boosler; HBO’s Stand-Up Confidential starring Seinfeld; and Reiner and Mel Brook’s animated milestonewith West that starred Jim Carrey in the role of Andy Kaufman. While Danny DeVito was cast as George Shapiro in the Milos Forman film, Shapiro played the role of Mr. Besserman, a club owner who fired Kaufman early in his career, while West portrayed a hard-nosed network executive. “George was one of the sweetest guys on the planet,” DeVito said in a statement. “We got to see that smiling face every Friday night during the “Taxi” days. He never missed a show. Peace brother.”
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