Episode 14: Superagent Sue Mengers & the Groundbreaking Showrunners of TV and their heirs.

Guests: Brian Kellow & Tara BennettIn the 1970s, there wasn’t a Hollywood agent more successful than Sue Mengers.  Her client roster read like a who’s who of the hottest actors and directors of the time: Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Ryan O’Neal, Ali MacGraw, Diana Ross, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, Jacqueline Bisset, Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, and a glittering marquee of many other high- profile performers. Author Brian Kellow interviewed over 200 people, to collect all of wonderful moments in her often loud and abrasive life and career for his recently released biography Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood’s First Superagent. Image courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter. The last twenty years has been referred to as the second golden age of television. Shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks, and The Wire were breeding grounds for the showrunners who are now bringing us smash hits like Empire, Girls, Madmen, Unreal and many more. Tara Bennett, who interviewed showrunners Joss Whedon, Ronald D. Moore, Damon Lindelof, Terence Winter, and many more for her book Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show, joins us to shine the light on the people making this golden era come to life. Host/Producer: Christina Jeurling BirroProducer: Renee ViterstedtEditor: Tom HansenTheme Song: Carl Borg Seasoned biographer Brian Kellow interviewed hundreds of friends, enemies, and competitors for the recently released Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood’s First Superagent. Kellow is also the author of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, which was a 2011 New York Times Notable Book of the Year and also appeared on the Best of the Year lists of Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker and the Chicago Tribune. He is also the author of Ethel Merman: A Life, The Bennetts: An Acting Family, and the coauthor of Can’t Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell.  Tara Bennett is the NYT Bestselling author or co-author of several movie and TV companion books including Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show. She has also written nearly a thousand interviews and features for print and online publications such as: SCI FI Magazine,Total Film, Playboy.com, WSJSpeakeasy, Fandango/Movies.com, Fancast, Newsarama, and VFXWorld.com.Tara is also an adjunct professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, teaching Film and Television studies.