Quick Facts
Biography
Abraham Isaac "Abe" Lastfogel (May 17, 1898 - August 27, 1984) was one of the first employees and a long-time President of the William Morris Agency, a large diversified talent agency.
Early life
Abe was the seventh son of "a Yiddish-speaking animal skinner who had fled Russia in 1889 to escape the pogroms and found work in the Gansevoort Street meatpacking district by the docks of the Lower West Side. Born in 1898, the boy had grown up in a cold-water flat on East Forty-ninth Street... He was a scappy kid, compact and solidly built...":34
Career
The William Morris Agency hired Abe Lastfogel in 1912 as an office boy. Finding success in the rapidly growing firm, Lastfogel ultimately moved to Hollywood in 1932 to manage WMA's Los Angeles office. He was Chairman of William Morris.
USO Shows
During World War II, Lastfogel served as President of the USO-Camp Shows, which produced wartime entertainment events featuring more than 7,000 performers—including Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore and James Stewart—seen by audiences of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines around the world estimated to total two hundred million.:82
Personal life
In 1927, Lastfogel married Frances Arms, a former vaudeville performer. They had no children.
Abe Lastfogel died of a heart attack in 1984 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery.