The story
Founded by Ted Ashley in 1951.1
Ted Ashley era
Ted Ashley had been working at the William Morris Agency (where he started off as a talent agent at the age of 20) when in 1945 he decided to break off and start his own talent agency at the age of 23. It started out in New York City as Ted Ashley and Associates.
In 1950, Ashley was joined by William Morris agent Ira L. Steiner and the agency was renamed the Ashley-Steiner Agency.
In 1962, Ashley-Steiner purchased the Famous Artists Agency from Charles K. Feldman and renamed the merged entity Ashley-Steiner-Famous Artists.
In 1964, Ira Steiner resigned to form his own film production company; Ashley's agency was renamed Ashley-Famous.
In 1966, Ashley-Famous signed a deal with Artie Ripp and his two co-principals to act as the exclusive booker for the majority of Kama Sutra Records' artists and all its writers and producers.
In November 1967, Ted Ashley sold Ashley-Famous to Steve Ross, an entrepreneur in charge of Kinney National Company, in exchange for $12,750,000 in Kinney stock because of personal reasons that involved not wanting to be an agent anymore. In an interview, Ashley said, "There’s something undermining to one’s sense of one’s self about that whole relationship" (referencing the agent and client partnership).
Ashley suggested to Ross that he buy out the cash-strapped film company Warner Bros.-Seven Arts;
the sale was completed in 1969. As a result of the sale, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Inc. was rebranded as Warner Bros. Inc.,
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and Ashley was named CEO.
Marvin Josephson era
The agency was sold again, to Marvin Josephson, in 1969, because of conflicts of interest that violated anti-trust laws (which prohibited a company from owning both a production studio and a talent agency); it separated from Warner Bros. and became known as International Famous Agency (IFA). Under Josephson, IFA became the first publicly traded talent agency.
In 1971, IFA acquired Jerry Perenchio's Chartwell Artists agency, which represented such stars as Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Henry Mancini, Elton John, Glen Campbell, Johnny Mathis, Donovan, José Feliciano, Sérgio Mendes, Rod Taylor, and Michael Landon.
IFA also acquired the British talent agency Robin Dalton Associates in 1971.
In 1975, Josephson merged IFA with Creative Management Associates to form International Creative Management.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ashley-Famous, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3