Coming from Amory, Miss. -- population, 7,000 -- Sam Haskell held true to his small town Southern roots as his career ascended from the mail room to head of worldwide television at the renowned William Morris Agency.
Haskell's mother ingrained principles he took with him to Hollywood, known for the cut-throat entertainment industry.
"Sam's rule of thumb was: I don't care if care there is money to be made, I'm not going to represent somebody that we wouldn't have to our home for dinner," his wife, Mary Haskell, said. "I respected him for that."
Sam and Mary Haskell were in Blytheville Thursday, promoting his book, "Promises I Made My Mother."
Greater Blytheville Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Liz Smith interviewed the Haskells for 1 1/2 hours Thursday night on the Ritz Civic Center stage as part of the "Star Dust On Blytheville, An Interview with Famous People" series. The event was co-sponsored by the Chamber and the Blytheville Rotary Club with proceeds benefiting the "Books From Jan" program, the local Dolly Parton Imagination Library program. Haskell also donated proceeds from the books sold here to the local charity.
Named "One of the 25 Most Innovative and Influential People in Television of the Last 25 Years" by Television Weekly in 2007, Haskell has represented numerous celebrities from his close friend Dolly Parton to George Clooney, Kathy Lee Gifford and Ray Romano, who wrote the forward to his book.
Along with addressing some of the life lessons in his book with Smith, the Haskells offered a few anecdotes from working with some of Hollywood's biggest names.
Dealing with Frank Gifford
Sam Haskell said all the stars come with baggage.
"In Kathy Lee's case it was Frank," he said. "I usually consider myself to be the kind of person who can get along with anyone. As a little boy, my mother always called me, 'a child with a servant's heart.' She would tell me, 'you're a pleaser.' Sometimes that could be good and sometimes that could be bad."
Frank Gifford challenged that pleaser mentality.
Kathy Lee's became Sam's client in 1980, just a week after he had become agent with WMA. They had become friends long before she met Frank.
"I had gone through her divorce with her before she met Frank," Sam said. "Suddenly they're dating. Suddenly they're engaged. Suddenly they're married. And Frank, who had been so nice to me during the dating and engagement phase, the minute the ring was on the finger, I can't call the house after this particular time. I can't talk to Kathy here. When we're in public, we have to have her assistant with her because it can't look like it's a man and a woman having lunch together. The rules were unbelievable and he was so difficult. I finally tried to talk to Kathy about it and she said, 'I love him. He loves me. Just please try to work it out. He'll calm down.'"
Sam and Frank had a heart-to-heart talk over lunch, but things got worse, Sam said.
"Unfortunately they went through that very public scandal, but guess who could call anytime he wanted to after that? She took control again," Sam said. "I flew to New York immediately (after the scandal broke) and she cried in my arms over that. She never dreamed that would happen to her."
Sam said Kathy Lee and Frank are now on good terms, and Frank has much more humility, to his credit.
Painting Clooney's eggs
One of Smith's first questions was geared towards the ladies: "Does George Clooney really look as good as I think he looks?"
Mary Haskell: "Ab-so-lutely. It's the charm that he has. It's not just his physical looks, which are pretty fabulous. But he is without a doubt one of the most charming me that I've ever met, other than this man (Sam Haskell) right here."
Sam added Clooney is a real "man's man."
"Women might fall over him, but he really loves to hang out with the guys, and he loves to play one-on-one basketball and he's always playing pranks and tricks," Sam Haskell said. "I was subjected to one of those myself at one point."
Clooney, along with Parton, Kathy Lee and others, helped the Haskells with a charity in Tupelo once.
The charity bought 100 empty ostrich eggs and shipped them all over the country for celebrities to paint and sign before they were auctioned off.
The Haskells' children -- also named Sam and Mary -- painted the ones for Clooney and Parton.
"Mary Lane was thrilled because she just worships Dolly," Sam said. "Dolly is like an aunt to her ... George Clooney was really interested in what young Sam would paint for him."
Then 8, Sam IV painted a globe.
"George Clooney called and said, 'is anyone going to think I painted this?'" Sam said. "Thinking he might be embarrassed I said, 'well ...' He said, 'no, no, no, no I would love for them to think I painted this.'"
'None of Whoopi today'
Whoopi Goldberg was another client of Haskell.
Once the Haskells took their children to the premier of "The Lion King," which featured Goldberg.
During the after party, then-5-year-old Mary Lane was coloring when Goldberg walked into the room.
"She walked up and she was trying to talk to Mary Lane," Sam said. "Of course I'm trying to tell her, 'Mary Lane, it's Whoopi. Whoopi's here to see you.' She's coloring away and she's coloring away. 'Mary Lane, Whoopi is here.' She looks up (waives) and keeps coloring. Whoopi goes: 'She ain't having none of Whoopi today.'"
Sam called Goldberg "an incredibly generous human being."
She's also pretty entertaining.
Sam recalled when the show "Whoopi" was in its infancy.
"We had gone through four sets of writers and they weren't able to satisfy what she wanted to do," he said.
He knew the show would work because of Goldberg's stardom alone.
"We could make the changes in the creative staff later, but we had to get through it," Sam said. "I remember going into her dressing room, right before we taped the show. She was looking in the mirror and I just held her from behind by her shoulders and I said, 'Whoopi Goldberg could read the phone book and make it funny. You can do this. You can do this.' And she went in there and knocked it out of the ballpark. Of course we were ordered and NBC put it on the air."
Meeting his childhood idol
Sam grew up admiring Betty Davis.
He had an opportunity to meet Davis when recruiting her to introduce famed producer Hal Wallace, who was receiving the Lifetime Achievement award on the inaugural American Movie Awards.
Two weeks after the show, Davis invited Sam to her 74th birthday party.
Remembering etiquette from his mother, he made sure he arrived the exact time the party was slated to start, driving around the block 15 minutes to avoid being early.
Sam was the first to arrive, getting to spend about 30 minutes alone with Davis as the others were "fashionably late."
"She pulled out the Oscar from 1938, the one she had won from the role in "Jezebel" that Hal Wallace had produced," Sam said. "And she looked at me and handed it to me and said, 'Mr. Haskell, do you know what this is?' 'Yes, ma'am. That's the Oscar you won for 'Jezebel,' the one that Hal Wallace produced.' 'Wrong!' That is my consolation prize from Mr. Jack Warner of the Warner Brothers studios for not letting me out of my contract to play Scarlett O'Hara from 'Gone With the Wind.'"
Close friends with Dolly
The Haskells told a couple of stories about Dolly Parton, including one where she went unrecognized while getting ice cream in his hometown.
"If you love her for whatever you're reason, they are justified," Sam said. "She is the purest, dearest, sweetest, funniest, kindest, generous people I have ever known. She is everything you think she is and more."
Mary said Dolly is down-to-earth as well.
"She's standing, cooking bacon in the morning, just like anybody," Mary said, recalling an experience where the Haskells stayed overnight at Parton's home.
Thursday's event benefited a program Parton started -- the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which is near and dear to her heart, Sam said.
"I think it shows the philanthropic nature of Dolly Parton that she has put this together and is using her celebrity to help others," Sam said.
He stressed the importance of giving back -- and never giving up in life.
"I failed a lot, but I also succeeded," Sam said.
And he succeeded by keeping in mind values from his mother.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com