From NBC Page to Talent Agent: Jeff Lesh’s Career in Entertainment (Replay)

0:03 Hello and welcome to no Wrong Choices. Along with Larry Shea and Tushar Saxena, I am Larry Samuels, and this is a podcast about the adventures of life where each episode we'll talk to somebody who had a dream or a vision, chased after it and either got there or got close, and they're going to share their story back with us. And this week we're talking to a good friend of mine, talent agent Jeff Lesh, who's been in the business for decades working for William Morris, broke in through the legendary mailroom program, which he'll certainly dig into as we get into the conversation, but a good friend and a great, great storyteller. Maybe you know too, sherry, you've spent a lot of time with Jeff over the years.

0:46 Do you want to tell us a little bit about him? I think this is a great way to start us off too, speaking of Jeff Lesh, your good buddy, and I've known him. Like you said, I've only probably known Jeff for about 10 years and I realized that after speaking to him I really probably didn't know Jeff all that well at all. You know, this is all about the story about how you make it and how you get to the top, and it's partly luck, it's part opportunity, and then you know it's part hard work as well. So I'll tell you what I had a great time talking to Jeff. I mean, I always have a great time hanging out with Jeff and talking to him, but this was really probably one of the first times I actually had an opportunity to sit down and get to know Jeff a little bit better. That's really what I was really happy with. Yeah, we've been bumping into Jeff at Super Bowl parties and special events, for, you know, like, like he said, a decade or a decade and a half, yeah, and one of the things you always realize about Jeff is what a great storyteller he is, so what a perfect guy to bring on our program and talk about his amazing career, because he's had one.

1:42 And it's about, as you said, t, it's about opportunity and then being prepared once that opportunity presents itself. And one of the things you know that we're going to try to bring to our listeners on this show is how you can be prepared to enter the door as it's cracked for you, because you know, if you have that opportunity and you're not prepared to take to follow through with it, what good is it? You know? So we're going to bring you some entertaining stories, some interesting people, some great storytellers like Jeff, and I think it's a great way to kick it off and get the ball. Get the ball rolling with Jeff. Flash, I agree, and you know, the other thing that's so great about things like this is sometimes wonderful opportunities either find us or we happen to stumble into them by accident, and in the case of Jeff, I think there's a little bit of both.

2:29 That happens here. So with that, why don't we step into the interview? Everybody here is Jeff Lesh. Now joining the conversation is my close friend and veteran talent agent, jeff Lesh. Thank you for joining us. I am happy to be here and only just to spend some time with Tushar. That's the most important thing. It really is. That is how we feel all the time. So, jeff, as we were sort of putting the parameters together for a show about dreamers and people figuring out their path in life and sort of going after that dream and grabbing onto it, the first person I thought of was undoubtedly you, who wakes up at 10, goes to work at noon, comes home at 3.30, takes a two-hour lunch, like, if anybody's living the dream and has it figured out, it's Jeff Lesch.

3:22 I can't even explain how you just completely described my schedule so for you it's you're forgetting the yoga session. So for you, it's my baby takes the afternoon train works from noon till three and then works from works from noon to noon. Oh three, I love it so, jeff I, I guess I'll start off with the first question to you, which is did you always want to be a talent agent? hell. No, the answer is I had no idea what being a talent agent was. I had limited experience with it, didn't know. I wanted to be a pharmacist you wanted to be a pharmacist.

4:05 Why a pharmacist I? want. Well, my father had a pharmacy in jersey. It was a pharmacy and liquor store and I could have been either a drunk or a pharmacist. So I wanted to be a pharmacist and I turned out to be a. The pharmacist part didn't work out. Thank you, the uh clearly, clearly clearly, clearly. So I went to the university of of Rhode Island and I could not pass organic chemistry. So the good people at the University of Rhode Island suggested that I find something else to do with my time. You can either you can either find another major or go to a different school. Don't come back here. So I I switched to become a?

4:45 Uh a journalism and history major, and got some internships at local television stations and ended up um, uh. This time of year is like the perfect way of uh of talk this time of uh of of years, the perfect, perfect time to talk about it, because I uh got a job working at the 96 Olympic games in Atlanta for NBC. Oh, wow. And it was through a friend I, who's a friend of Larry's as well. Um, he went to Emory. He called me and said they're desperate for people to come down and work at the Olympics. And I said you know, desperate, perfect.

5:26 I and work at the Olympics. And I said, you know, desperate, perfect, I'm perfect, what I think, I think Jeff Lesh. Desperate when you were desperate for someone, clearly because of this interview, Larry, desperate. So I got into my father's 93 Buick Century and I drove to Atlanta that night 15 hours, and I ended up working for NBC for the whole of the Olympics. But it wasn't just, you know, just during the games. I was there for, I think, six or seven weeks, you know, with the prep and then with everything else. And I was a PA. I was, you know, run get me coffee. Uh, go get donuts. One box for the crew, one box for Al Roker. Um, it was, it was. Al was much bigger at the time, we would.

6:09 It was basically go pick up, uh, mary lou retton at the airport. Um, it was the craziest job. I met everybody. I was in the park when the bomb blew up. I remember that I, I was. I had breakfast with richard jewel that morning. Wow, you guys remember he was the guy who was accused of blowing it up and we all knew he didn't do it, you know. But it was like it was, you know, an absolutely crazy, amazing, awesome summer. So hold on, so let's back up to that moment, because this is the critical thing, this is what the crux of the biscuit is with this show is how did that happen? The crux of the biscuit. So was it a phone call? Tell us about them, cause that had to be the biggest break of your life in terms of your professional career right there, that phone call that drove you down to Atlanta to get this job, and then you were willing to do pretty much anything, correct?

6:58 Exactly Okay. So the background is I had I didn't know anybody in the entertainment business. So I grew up. I always loved television, right, I always loved TV. I'm an insomniac, as Larry will tell you, so I was up all night watching TV. After a while my parents gave up. I didn't have a bedtime, I would just be up watching TV all night. So it was always my favorite thing. But I didn't know someone could make a career out of it. It just never occurred to me. So um I, when I switched majors, I was able to get this internship at the local news station on my own. But that summer, uh, which you know, I didn't have a, I didn't have anything lined up.

7:38 So I figured out a way through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, which is what everybody does to to get an internship. Do you guys remember the MTV Beach House? Yeah, absolutely. Of course, sure Right. So I ended up getting an internship at the MTV Beach House and my summer was going to be spent I think it was at the Hamptons that year, just kind of being a gopher or whatever interns do at the MTV Beach House, being a gopher or whatever interns do at the MTV beach house. Um, and then our friend Craig calls me up and says hey, he gives me the desperation phone call and says they need people and I and they pay. So I wasn't going to get paid for the internship and it was with NBC at the Olympics and not MTV. I mean I'm sure there would have been other perks, but you know, I'm like, yeah, why not, let's do this.

8:27 So that phone call got me right into that car and down I went and I mean it was, it was awesome. I did everything. Uh, I was at every. I was at so many of the events. I met every famous person who was there. I was like I was bob costas's driver, like it was just wow, that's great, and I didn't know anything. We get there and they hand us keys to a brand new cadillac and a card where you can get a coke and a tiny little broadcaster in atlanta exactly that's good well, the relationships okay easy, easy, I mean. The relationships that you made through that experience must have been invaluable and you know, knowing your story as well as I do.

9:11 If I remember correctly from there, you became a page at NBC which must have, you know, accelerated, you know your network and opened up that many more doors. Did you jump right from the Olympics to the PAGE program? No. So at the end of the Olympics I became the. This is something that I kind of learned is always be there when someone turns around and needs something, no matter how stupid it is, and always be the first guy that someone thinks of. You want to be the person that says oh crap, get Larry. Oh crap, get Tushar. Oh crap, get Larry. Oh crap, get Tushar. Oh crap, get Jeff.

9:51 It's one of your best qualities, jeff. I must say I had very few, that's true. So they, you know you always want to be that guy. So I became that guy down in Atlanta and at the end of it they said listen, are you going home? Do you have any plans? Short story is I got hired to work at the Democratic National Convention, which was Clinton's second nomination, in Chicago, and I ended up going there and they were launching MSNBC. So I was there when the first broadcast and I was, you know. I was there when, you know, clinton got the nomination balloons fall, all that. And then I had plans to go overseas for a year abroad and they said, well, just keep in touch. And through that I got an internship at Dateline.

10:33 So my last year at school I was just barely doing any classes and I drove down to 30 Rock and I would work for Dateline and then, when I graduated With Stone Phillips. With Stone Phillips and Jane Paul Wow, who were very nice. They were lovely and they were really nice to the interns, which I've learned to judge people by how nice they are to the people that are below them. That's very interesting and every one of quality I ever met was like that. They were all the people that are nice to their assistants, that are nice to the interns and specifically nice to the pages at NBC which I'll get to. Those were the quality people. So I graduated on a Wednesday, thursday, I had a page interview which I don't know if you guys know about it, but it's a really complicated program to get into and if I didn't have these other jobs, I it, but it's a really complicated program to get into and if I didn't have these other jobs I never would have gotten into it?

11:30 I never would have heard of it, Jeff, for context, and I don't know how many people are familiar with the program. There are so many stars, so many celebrities, so many CEOs who have come out of that program. Just name a few to give people context. Oh God, Just name a few to give people context. Oh God, Brandon Tartagoff, Mike Eisner On the acting side, Regis Philbin and more recently, Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Recreation. They were pages, I think. Superman was a page, if I remember correctly. Oh, my God. Yeah, chris, they were all, but that's just the top of it. Most, like most of them are behind the scenes. People, like most of them, just, you know, they went on to not, you know, not the headline names, but the people running networks and the people doing, you know, doing the work of tv and film.

12:19 so many of them were paid it's a big deal everything you're talking about is relationships, right, it's like the people you knew and the things that happened along the way, right. It just seems to be a general theme in how you get from one point to another too and and you know larry, I know larry has this attitude too like if you were. You know, I don't know how much I can swear on this, but if you were a jackass to people along the way, everybody remembers you as the jackass. Yep, If you were cool everybody. Oh, I know, that guy bring them in, but but you, know. Interestingly, and I'll just throw this out there you learn from those people too, Like I'm a believer that you learn from every single experience in life, and when I look back as my time as a manager all those horrible people that I dealt with along the way they taught me just as much as the good people, and I'm sure you had those same experiences.

13:08 Oh God, yeah, I've, larry. You had a. Well, guys, this is I met. Larry had an internship. Did you have an internship there, larry? I started as an intern and then I just you know picked up every project I possibly could, similar to you, working in the studios. Eventually I was freelance PA and then I was a full-time PA who was paid like a freelance PA. So I just did everything I possibly could Well. the reason why I say that is because Larry had this boss, who will remain nameless, but he was a jerk-off. I almost fought him in a hallway. That is a true story. I really did Well, to be fair to be fair, it would have been a very short fight. Yes, who would have won?

13:52 Wait a minute. It would have been two hits. It would have been Larry hitting him and then Larry hitting him again. That's exactly right. This MF drove me out of NBC because I was going to kill him. I needed to do it for my own safety. So he didn't do time. But anyway, the point, going back to what Larry was saying, is I learned a lot from that guy because I saw how he acted, I saw how he treated people and, yeah, he was really good at his primary job. But eventually you become expendable in that primary job right right, and it's how you act to people, is how it is how you're judged, and good lord so at what moment, then you know, after all this, all these, all these experiences you've had, did you you say to yourself you know what I really love, what I'm doing here, this is the, this is the career I want to go for.

14:49 So I loved it. I was at. I was working at at the time it was Conan O'Brien show. I was working at Rosie O'Donnell show. I was working at Saturday night live. I was working at like I was at every single Saturday night live 90, you know 98, 97, 98, 99. I was like at every one, um, and it was like it was easily the greatest job in the world, because all the women were gorgeous and all the guys looked like me, which means I looked like you guys. Like it was, it was, it was. Hey thank you. So, uh, it was. It was absolutely great. So I made 10 bucks an hour, no health insurance, and we just never stopped working and anytime anybody turned around and need something, I would be there and everybody wanted.

15:34 Basically, what you do is you give tours to tourists. Right, you'd have people from Wisconsin come in and you'd be reading from a script. Like you know, this is where Seinfeld is on NBC and it makes a million dollars every 30 seconds for commercials. And NBC makes 95% of its money from commercials and some yokel would always ask well, where's the other 5% come? And I would mix it up. I'd say gambling and prostitution, and eventually they suggested that I don't do tours anymore. I was, I was scaring the tourists from wisconsin so so everybody was going.

16:17 Then you, what you do is you apply for assignments and you, you, you go and work for um of the shows SNL or Conan or whatever. And I looked around and saw that the people who got hired after they were done with their page program because it's only a year long all were doing behind-the-scenes stuff, like they weren't doing the glamour spots of you know being down at the SNL desk and hanging out with George Clooney. They were working in marketing, they were working in PR, they were working for news. They were doing that stuff. So I took all of the non-glamour assignments and I think it was around that time that someone came to me and said hey, look, I know you got a little while left in your page program, but do you want to work for news?

17:06 And I took a job as a news producer and I had, like, I spent the summer in Pittsburgh. I was working with Geraldo Rivera at the time and I was you know I was, I wasn't, I was a 23 year old news producer. It was stupid that they just gave me this job. I can't imagine what you learned from Geraldo. Geraldo, I learned never. No, you know what I learned from him? I learned never to be in anyone's shot Like get the fuck out of the way. Right and the truth doesn't really matter At the time, but it was mostly like you could do a montage of Geraldo, like you could literally do a montage.

17:51 Let's get out of my shot. You can literally do a montage. I love it, but he was a nice enough guy and it was, you know it was. But he was a nice enough guy and, uh, it was, you know it was. He was doing. This was before he kind of lost his mind with the, with the, with the right wing stuff, and he was, you know he was, he was cool, um, and I remember, before I forget, one of the greatest jobs I had at snl. I don't know if you guys remember this, but in 97 98 99, the hottest, hottest tickets in New York were Yankees, red Sox, the producers, on Broadway with Roderick and Nathan. Lane, nathan Lane.

18:31 Yeah, yeah, sure. And Rosie O'Donnell's show. Rosie O'Donnell's tickets were like gold. Really, did they know she was an asshole? Were they aware of this or no? Well, I can get back to that lady. Never mind, never mind. No, that's the one I can actually talk about. She was terrible she was a tyrant. She was awful to her people. She had people fired, whatever Remind me of that so I can get back to that because there's a mayor call button, so anyway, it was the hottest ticket in the world, so I became like the ticket guy. Someone decided I should be the one in charge of the tickets for Rosie O'Donnell. I was trading these things for everything under the sun, like front row seats at the producers.

19:18 I was like a concierge, like just getting. The executives at NBC would call me and ask me to get tickets for rosie o'donnell show, like high level people. Her brother once called me who larry knows, and asked me to get them tickets to her, to his sister's show yes did she not want him at the show? she didn't, she didn't, he didn't want to bother her, you know, yeah, so he bothered you um yeah but it was like I would. I would. It was the greatest thing in the world. It was like you had the keys to the kingdom. I only had the job for, like you know, two months, but it was like the greatest thing in the world. It's going to go on Jeff's tombstone it's going to be once was the keeper of the castle, exactly.

20:01 So to get back to that, she was a tyrant and she was terrible. Later in life, at William Morris, I met her and it was you know. It's 15 years later and she, like, acknowledged how horrible she was. She was navigating the halls of NBC. When does the moment come that you say, ok, I've been doing this? I've been paying my dues. There's got to be a little bit more, or is there something else that I want to chase? Wait before you answer that question, jeff. What was the time period we're talking about now? You know you've done all your experience stuff.

20:42 Now you're you've essentially had your keeper of the castle moment and then you're going to move forward again. So how many, how long of a time period are we talking about there? so I was at nbc, between paging and producing and whatnot, from 96 until may 2000. And in may 2000 so I was, I became a promotions producer. I was working on news and nightly, and I looked around and saw that everyone was in their 40s, everyone was divorced, everyone worked 9000 hours a day, everyone was miserable. Everybody was waking up. The only people who were married still were people who were married to other people in the same business.

21:25 Sure Right. So I didn't care about that. But I was kind of looking at my future. I'm like do I want to be waking up at four in the morning listening to NPR for that next story and trying to figure out how to produce it for NBC News? But I had this dilemma because I was basically living a dream. Like, I wanted to work at NBC. It's NBC, it's the best and the best of NBC News. So I was. I went to my boss and I said you know, what else can I do? And so she introduced me to. She liked me, so she introduced me to this guy and his name was Henry Reich and Henry was the.

22:08 He was the. He worked for William Morris Agency and he was the. He represented anchors and reporters and-air personalities. He was the agent for the on-air personalities and, uh, you know, his client list includes everybody from Joe Scarborough to Lawrence O'Donnell to to Jim Kramer, to, it's just he's, he's the best of the business. And I became friendly with him as he would come in and out. And after a while he turned to me and he said you know, what do you? What do you want to do? And I said you know, what you do sounds kind of interesting.

22:48 And he says well, you know, you seem marginally intelligent. Why don't you come work in our mailroom? And I said I am marginally intelligent, right. So so what? So what happened? So this is all right, this is it right here? Right because you're, you're about to make a leap. You know we can all feel that happening. And how does it happen? How does this? How does this, uh, transformation occur? uh, another friend of, actually of larry's introduced me to someone else where I was at the same time offered a job. This is 99. I'm sorry, this is like late 99, 2000, may of 2000, like around there. And the job was to work with NBC's new web services in San Francisco, which is like one of my favorite cities, making like at the time I was, you know, I still wasn't making a ton of dough dough, but it was making close to six figures car shares, like the whole thing.

23:47 Moving to San Francisco, which is one of my favorite cities, and I had that on the table, and then I was offered a spot in the William Morris Mailroom, making $17,500 a year, year and um, it is. I don't know if you guys know or know what it is or have heard of it, but it is a real as, as, as cool as the page program is. The way morris mailroom is like it's really the keys to the king, really, it's really it. It's harder to get into than harvard business school. It is. It is the, the. So I don't have the job yet, right? So so I was just offered an interview, it's all I was offered and I just you know so so I was.

24:28 So I was offered that one job in San Francisco which is a no brainer to take, like it's a total no brainer. And I remember I was talking to my, I was about to move out of my house, so I'm still living with my parents, I'm 25. And my son, I said to my father, you know well, anyway, I got the interview, um, I end up getting, I end up getting in. It was like a panel interview. There were like these six senior agents of like really famous people, um and um, I, I make it, I they, they offer me the job. I mean, henry was super helpful. That guy, you know just I guess, really went to bat for him. And I remember saying to my father I'm like, okay, this is the job in San Francisco, or I could do this job.

25:10 And my father, was a pharmacist in Jersey had. He didn't know from the internet, like he didn't know from NBCI or whatever, but he had heard of the william morris mailroom, uh, and he said, no, you gotta take that job the one at william morris, the one at william morris and he says I said yeah, pop, but it means I gotta stay home and live with you and mom. He goes don't leave me alone with that I've met your mom and I understand completely. There you go. So I took that gig and you know. A side note is have you guys ever heard of NBCI?

25:52 Well, that's exactly the next question. When he talked about inflection points, you chose to go right. You could have gone left. Yeah, but we know what happens after you went right. What would have happened? if you had made that other decision. Well, I always say like I made the best decision in the world. But who knows, I might have been in Silicon Valley and I might have met, you know—. That's true. I might have met Elon Musk. You know what I mean. You might have created. Google. Why would I be? talking to you? Yeah, exactly. If I were to have, it would have been. Jugal, it would have been Jugal. The Jewish Google Say. You're searching for Jews online. You're in the door, exactly, you're pushing the mail cart. You're literally pushing the mail cart, are you?

26:34 told beforehand that this is what you're going to be doing for the next six months, 12 months, three years. How long is your sentence going into this? There is no sentence. It is a sentence without end. So basically you work pushing a mail cart so I remember you guys sent me over a list of hazing and things like that. There's no hazing per se, okay, but you are making very little dough in the most expensive city in the world and you there is no prospect of making more dough because there's no guarantees. It's not like, you know, being a being an intern in a law firm, where you start off at a certain level and then you go up.

27:17 It's got like a 97 percent attrition rate. Wow, wow. So, excuse me, so, um, you do that for six months and then you become a floating assistant, which means you basically, whenever a regular assistant to an agent is not around, you fill in for that day. So after you push a mail cart around, you kind of meet as many people as you can, um, and you see the craziness that's going on people yelling at people, people screaming at people, people. You know it's not just like entourage, but it's a little bit like entourage right? did you ever see the movie swimming, swimming with sharks? so buddy ackerman was not an agent, he was a, he was a producer, right, so we didn't have a guy like that that he was based on.

28:00 Um, uh, shoot, who was the guy he was based on? uh, scott, scott rudin that sounds right yeah that sounds right he was based on him. Um yeah, where from the outside you think he's the greatest guy in the world, but when you work for him or had to work with him, you realize what a crazy person he was so that's part of the pay in the do stuff too that is talking about you know it is the paying, the do stuff. But 90 of the people were really not like normal people. You know you had crazies and they were fun, but they were, you know it's. It's the entertainment business there's going to be crazies.

28:40 You know you've been pushing the mail cart around for a while and you understand the culture. You're getting a feel You're a floating agent Like. When was the moment where you're like, ok, I can do this and I want to do this, and collectively with that? When did you know that you could do it and that you were the right guy? Well, I'll let you know. Like what made you different? What made you unique from? the others that were pushing the cards too. One of the comedy desks opened up and, honestly, one of the big things that made me different was privilege.

29:22 I was able to save my dough. I was able to live with my parents. I didn't have to go and take a job making tons of money. I was able to afford to to do things you know, because I'm lucky that I had the backup, um, so I was able to make very little money. You get on a desk. I got on a desk of a guy named um Brian Stern, who was a young agent in the comedy department and I was his assistant for, uh, three and a half years and in that three and a half years, everybody from my mailroom class went. They got jobs on wall street. They got jobs for Goldman Sachs. They went and got jobs for studios. They went and got jobs for, you know, they did a.

30:03 They did a whole bunch of different things. Most of them every one of them who wants to be in the entertainment industry is still in the entertainment industry, but for the, for the most part, they, you know they left. They got jobs where you could make dough. Uh, and I had the thankfully, the backup of my parents and the fact that I, you know, socked away every dime I made and bought a place, um, so I was able to do it. So, um, you know, and then so I worked for this guy, um, and we had this amazing roster of talent, um, you know, all tons of writers on Saturday night live, uh, we worked with Susie Essman, from, uh, from, curb your Enthusiasm, who was just, you know, getting huge.

30:47 And uh, uh, jennifer Jennifer Hudson, who was Dreamgirls and and blowing up and becoming a star, and there was some Samantha Bee, who was on the daily show and then, you know, you know, her now is having her own show. Um, and we were working with all of these, these amazing young kind of talent coming out of new york, and you know, we were. We were getting them jobs on tv and launching their television shows and and casting, and, you know, doing all that and my, you know, primary area of interest was comedy. Um, so, while my boss was getting them television shows, I started booking them in clubs and in theaters and for uh, corporations.

31:32 And I discovered that the corporations, you know, they ask Willie Sutton, you know, why do you rob banks? And he said that's where the money is. And I said, you know, these corporations want to have comedians in, especially clean comedians, and they have tons of dough. And you know, they ask how much someone costs and you can always say, well, how much do you have? And they would tell me, and I'd give them somebody you know, correct to put it. And I just started booking all of these you know comedians of corporations and eventually, you know, after three and a half years of doing this, my boss, who was this wonderful woman, came to me and said listen, I need your help because I I I've been going to Whoopi Goldberg's television uh, shows.

32:24 She hasn't been on the road and I've been going to her shows all this time and I have a family I can't really go anymore. Can you go and be kind of like her guy and cover shows? And I said, sure, because that's what I learned Always say yes, you know. Um, so I started going on the road with whoopie in 2002 or three and basically have been on the road with her ever since. And it was just because I was the right guy at the right place at the right time. So it's all luck to answer your question. It's like just always be there and always say yes. So it's all luck to answer your question. It's like just always be there and always say yes. And then the same thing happened with, you know, all of the other comedians we represented.

33:08 Like we just I was just always kind of in the room and there, which was cool. And then one of the one of the fun ones I got to do is I went out to LA when I was just out in the mailroom and I was just starting to do all of this stuff and, uh, we had become friendly and she introduced me to the comedian that night who was Mitch Hedberg, um, who you know is is an absolute legend. This is right before, uh, right before he passed away. It was like maybe three or four weeks before when he was on the show. But it was like, and like I'm in the room with these like guys who I just like idolize, and I'm like I want to be in this business.

33:50 This is fun, this is great, you know, and you know it's kind of funny because the work, the work is during the day, is sort of during the day, but the real work is like being with these people at night, going to the shows, being with the buyers, being with the comedians. That's the, that's the actual job, and you basically just want to be someone that can tolerate. So all that experience you had doing the behind the scenes jobs, all those you know, all those desk jobs, that really prepared you then for this portion of hey, you got to learn how to glad hand people Right Pretty much. It's like it that is.

34:31 I was the world's worst assistant. I was terrible, Larry, and I always joke that you know I don't know how to use a whiteboard and you didn't know what a whiteboard was. I don't know how to use a whiteboard and you didn't know what a whiteboard was I didn't even know how to use it. You didn't know what it was. It's true, and I was literally terrible at the correspondence, at the writing letters, at the, you know, but the clients loved me, the buyers loved me and the agents loved me and the buyers loved me and the agents loved me and could always trust me. So, even though I was terrible at all of the stuff, you know, like the actual job, like if you read the job description, you know of all the multitasking and the scheduling and the.

35:14 You know all the stuff. That's the actual job. I was abysmal and the one thing I learned is that all of the guys that made it guys and girls who made it to agent they were terrible at being an assistant. That's interesting. The ones that were really good at being assistants are shitty agents. This is great. This is great. So talk, talk about the job, because that's key. Like you know, we're talking about what a, what an amazing accomplishment and what a professional you became quote, unquote, professional and you know you have to do this job. So are you getting calls from people to book your talent, basically, or are you shopping your talent and when, when you make those deals, are they?

35:54 I'll take any deal for this client, but this one will only do you know. Radio. City Music Hall type of thing, money. And then there's gilbert godfrey, where someone calls me and said, gilbert, I have a job for you. Before I hang the phone up, he's like, and book me at the motel six, wait, wait, I. I got two gilbert. I got two gilbert stories that are fun. So, oh my god, he was a so you know again legendary comedian that everybody knows and he's he's been a william morris client his entire career, from the time he was I think he was 16 or 17 when he first got on stage so he's and he's like in his 60s now.

36:40 He's not a young man, right. No, no, he's been so anyway. But handsome, oh handsome. So I'll get to that. So he is notoriously cheap, like. Notoriously cheap, like, if you ever want to have fun, go watch his documentary. He leaves hotels. He, he has all the hotel soap from every hotel over the past 45 years. It's amazing. He has every dime he ever made. He has every dime he ever made. So, um, I, I, I had to. He was playing somewhere and I had to book him in a hotel. And I'm like Gilbert, where do you want to stay? The Marriott or the Hilton or anything? And he goes I don't know, book me in the cheapest place you can where I don't have to sleep with a rifle, which was great.

37:27 So my favorite Gilbert story is I'm working at the desk and I'm working, it's like it's a long day and you, you work 10 hour days. When you're at the, when you're at the desk, you, yes, you start it. You start at 9 30, but you basically work until whenever everybody goes home and you're working on la time, so it's, you know, could be nine o'clock or whatever. So it's late at night and, uh, I get a call. Do you guys remember the Boston Phoenix? They were like the village voice of Boston, not real. Not really, no, I don't know, I've heard of it, but for the purposes of this, conversation. I do absolutely so I get a call and they say you know, are you Gilbert Gottfried's agent?

38:10 I go, yeah, you know. Not who wants to know? I should have said I was like oh boy so they go um well, I'm, you know, so and so, so and so, from the boston phoenix, and we just want to let you know that we ran a contest and over all of greater New England and we have named Gilbert Gottfried as the least sexy man in the world. Wow, who did he run? against. Do you know? Was it a write-in ballot or were there other? contestants. Evidently he won, going away, I don't know.

38:52 All right. So I start cracking up. I go, okay, and he's like well, we would like to interview him, we'd like to do whatever. So I call gilbert and I go well, I have good news in bed. The good news is you won an award. So I tell him and he laughs, his, he thinks this is the funniest thing in the world. So he gets, he gets interviewed, it gets where I, I gets, he goes on conan promoting, he goes on, he's on stern all the time. At the time that he's talking about, yeah, I got so much booking, so many, so much play out of this. It's crazy. Like he started doing something.

39:34 So, anyway, it was like it was a huge, great thing. So cut to the following year. Um, you know that it all died down and I forgot about it a little bit. And I get a call from the boston phoenix and you know, hey, jeff, it's so and so. So I'm like, oh, how you doing? He's like, well, listen, I have bad news, uh. So, anyway, he gives me, he gives me the information he's going to give me. And then I call gilbert and I say gilbert, I have, uh, I, I have also bad news and good news. The bad news is that you didn't win the award for least sexy man in the world. He goes, oh, that is bad news and I go, well, the other news is that they've named the award the Gilbert Gottfried I felt where you were going.

40:22 I didn't mean to laugh at your punchline. It will be called this. So again I got him a new you know Wow, but that's just the fun with Gilbert. One of those guys was up for anything. So, jeff, look, obviously you've had a very, very, you've had a very, a very fun career thus far, uh up until this moment. Yeah, it's had its moments. All right, it's fine. Now everything is up at the end. Yeah, this is not that moment how else, you know, as we begin to, you begin to pivot towards giving you your day back. You know what are some of the other things you've seen along the way that that have changed, like how has the industry evolved along the?

41:04 way. That's awesome. That's the awesome part. It hasn't. It's the same business from when William Morris got off the boat in 1890. Wow. When William Morris got off the boat in 1898. Wow. Like here's a famous person. Here's a famous person I would like them to show up somewhere and then they will get paid for it. Now, how has that changed? Now they do it by Zoom sometimes. Now they might, you know, satellite in, but it's all the same thing. It's literally the same business and I almost think that, aside from that, it's one of those rare disruption proof businesses, because the disruptions only benefit the person doing it. Like it's not much of an outside disruption, like the only the only part of it that's like disruptable is.

41:48 You know you know people going directly to talent. You know you know people going directly to talent. But I have now worked with so much talent and the thing I have learned is they have no interest in that. They want someone to handle things for them, and it's been that way for 120 years. Like they just they just don't want to deal with it. It's like you pay for a service. If you have one piece of advice, let's put aside being always available. If you have one piece of advice, for someone who wants to get in. I have different advice for you than I would have for the other two. But it's a long separate private conversation that we really shouldn't have on the air.

42:31 No, no, there's an adage in the business which is um, you go through four, four or five stages of a career, which is which can be in any business, which is like who the hell is jeff lesh, and then get me jeff lesh, and then get me a young jeff lesh, and then who the hell is jeff, what stage are you? at now. Jeff Right, where are? you. Would you guys like to buy some supplements? I'm always looking for a salesman, jeff Exactly. Someone get me, jeff Lesh. My advice are that things haven't changed. You always want to be the oh crap, get me that guy. You always want to be. When someone turns around and they need something, you always want to be the person that can provide them with what they need, even if they don't know they need it Like you.

43:20 You, there should never be an instance the second you're not someone's first phone call, then it starts to fade Like. You want to be the person they call for the advice. You want to be the person that they call for um, the biggest thing to the smallest thing. If you're that person, you'll always be in demand, interesting and you know, that's kind of. That's kind of how I would say it. You just and and you want to be that guy, and I guess like if your friend calls you and says he wants to interview you for you want to say yes the. The question I'll end on if there is somebody out there who is 19, 20 years old and they're trying to figure out what their path is going ahead you know a you know would you recommend that they give it a shot and how would you recommend that they get started?

44:10 Okay, um, the. The. I saw again attrition rate of 99%. So many thousand people walked in front of me with a mail card and then went to do something else, or worked with me at NBC and then went to do something else else, or worked with me at NBC and then went to do something else. It is, it's really a perseverance game and you have to have the wherewithal and backing of you know, understanding family. We had Harvard lawyers come in, people who went to Harvard law school and they would last three months.

44:52 They would last three months and they'd walk in anybody ivy league, anybody who wants to go into the entertainment business who went to an ivy league school. I'm like get out of here, just go away. It's an industry of c students. It really is. It's an industry of really people who love entertainment but did crappy in school. Go do something. If you are a, an ivy league person with a, with an unbelievable pedigree who busted his butt, no matter where you were from, if you like, end up in the entertainment business. You failed like you should be, changing the world I really believe that, like, give me a guy, give me a girl from a state school who was a C student who busted her ass over someone from, like, a well-known college any day of the week?

45:41 Wow, because that's not the skill set. It's not the skill set. You want someone who's willing to bust their ass. You want somebody who's willing to put clients first above all else, to put clients first above all else. And you know, and and be a relationship person who you know is someone that you want to high five at midnight after, you know, at a comedy show. You don't want. You know it's not, it's not for everybody, um, and the money doesn't come until deep into it as opposed to other. You know, you, you, you. There's other perks. I mean, you get two weeks off at christmas and you know the whole industry shuts down and you know larry always makes fun of me that I spend the month of december in europe.

46:24 Um, well, you do right that's true, and you go to work at 10 and you leave at four and you read the New York Times from 1 until 3. I do and the perks are. You're at like I'll get a call from the head of music say meet me at my box at Madison Square Garden. We're going to the Rihanna concert tonight or we're going to the Tom Petty concert. May he rest in peace. But like all of that happens, like the perks are the fun of the job, there is not a financial reward for much longer than other high profile jobs, if that makes sense so I guess the the takeaway is hustle, perseverance, find a way to get to that door, but in the end it is absolutely worth it.

47:13 Uh, sure, to put words into your mouth, it feels like that's what you're saying. I have had nothing but fun, and if I didn't do all of these things, I never would have met you guys, right? so which is special part of it too. Um, that's what? Wait a minute. If I didn't do all of those things, I wouldn't have met you guys. I was about to say the same thing. Well, with that, jeffrey, you know, thank you for spending time with us today. You know it's. I've had the pleasure of knowing you for a long time. I know your story is a very interesting one and hopefully for everybody else, they appreciated you and appreciate you just as much as I do.

47:56 So what a sweet guy with that sweetheart. He is Jeff. He is a sweetheart. You guys should work with him on a radio. We'll get right on the podcasting thing first, or or or something like that, Jeff, thank you so much for calling. It has been an absolute pleasure. Bye, bye, thanks. Appreciate that, jeff. Thank you so much for calling in. It's been an absolute pleasure Bye-bye. Thanks, jeff, appreciate it, you're welcome. Well, that was my friend Jeff, as, again, you guys knew him previously, but his inside stories and a lot of the stuff that he ran through, I knew those stories. So I may have cheated a little bit in terms of pushing the conversation in certain ways, but you know, what did you think, larry? What were your thoughts?

48:37 I think I think when I, when I hear Jeff tell these stories, it's about that one little thing right, that one little break, and then it starts the long and winding road from one thing leading to another. And I think the most important things Jeff talks about in this interview are just being the person that everybody needs, right, like that is such an important thing is to be the person that people like where is Jeff Lesh? Get me Jeff Lesh, right. I mean, that's just the most important thing I take out of this interview. Who the hell is Jeff Lesh? Who the? hell is Jeff Lesh Right? That was a great story because, you know, I think that's what it's about. I mean, I look at today's, you know, young workforce people who are trying to find their dream job.

49:18 That's really who we're trying to reach here. And I just say to myself, you know, do they know how to get that opportunity? And when that opportunity presents, do they know how to take advantage of it? And I think that's the one thing that we've you know've all been able to do in our careers and I'm hoping that people do it today. And the other thing I want to mention about the interview, which is fascinating, is Jeff talks about the opportunity of privilege. Right, that he was given the opportunity because he had the support of his family to go and pursue these things, and I think that's important. But I don't think it should be a detriment when you're going after your dreams, Because if you want it, bad enough. Like Jeff said, just keep going after it.

50:00 You've got to want it, and if you don't want it, that's fine too. You can go find something else to do. But Jeff really took the bull by the horns when it was presented to him, and I think that's fascinating. And the one thing I'll pick up on that is say that not only did he, not only do you pick up on the opportunities that he had, but he had fun with them as well. That's an important part of any career that you have, right? So it shouldn't simply be a matter of, yeah, you're going there for a paycheck, etc. Part of it should be you know, you love what you're doing and he loves what he does. That there's, it oozes out of every statement he makes, which is which is why I having conversations. He's such a great storyteller, but he knows how to tell a joke and he knows that he's having fun and he understands that, yeah, he's a guy who's had a lot of opportunity come his way and he's taken advantage of that opportunity, but, most of all, he's had a great deal of fun getting to know the people he works with, which is basically what you're going to do.

50:51 If you're not going to have fun in what you do, why do it? Yes, absolutely. Got to love what you do yeah. And you know, the other thing that I'll share is you know, jeff is very entertaining. I make fun of him all the time that he works from, you know, 10 until 3, with two hours for lunch and plenty of time for the New York Times. But you know, Jeff is a really good person and he made a comment about integrity and things of that nature, and the thing that I'll express is you know, I think you have to have a little bit of ego to step into any competitive environment where you have to have the strength to persevere and push through, et cetera, et cetera.

51:32 But moving beyond you know, that little bit that you have to have. He really doesn't have much beyond that, meaning he doesn't take things too seriously. He rolls with things, as you know, they come his way and you know, I think his demeanor of being somebody who kind of rolls with it all the time in every walk of life has been incredibly, incredibly helpful to him. So he's just a genuinely a good guy. Yeah, and that matters with relationships, which we saw in all of his stories, right? Is that it's all about? I knew this guy and they told me about this job, and so when you talk about being a good guy, you can't emphasize that enough.

52:13 It's about getting along with people, because most of the jobs I've received, you know, have come from word of mouth a buddy telling a buddy and someone getting it to me. I mean, that's, that's just how life works. So you got to be a good person, even when no one's looking, and you know, opportunity will hopefully present itself. That's exactly right, and you know he. He is that guy where I would have parties and I'd be worried about. You know, there are all these different groups coming together or different factions, and this one likes this and this one likes that. Is everybody going to get along? When I would have parties like that, the first person I would call is Jeff and say Jeff, you need to come work the room. And he's a freaking genius when it comes to that.

52:54 You need to come work the room and he's a freaking genius when it comes to that. He's a glue guy. Yeah, he's a good guy to have at a party. That's for sure. So he is doing exactly what he should be doing for a living and loving every single second of it. Easy for you to say yeah yeah exactly, I'm tired. It was a long conversation. I'm worn out already. So with that, our thanks go out to Jeff for sharing his story with us and to all of you for joining this episode of no Wrong Choices we post about once a week, so please follow us here or on Twitter and Instagram at TheFellasNWC. You can also check out our website at NoWrongChoicescom for additional and classic content. Until next time, remember there are no wrong choices.

53:41 We learn from every experience.