Sam Gennawey - JayBangs: How Jay Stein, MCA, & Universal Invented the Modern Theme Park and Beat Disney at Its Own Game

Chapter One:

Chapter Two:

Chapter Three:

Chapter Four:

Chapter Five:

Chapter Six:

Chapter Seven:

Chapter Eight:

Chapter Nine:

I received my undergraduate degree from MCA, Jay Stein in particular; my post graduate from Mickey Rudin, a prominent entertainment lawyer; and an advanced degree from Jerry Weintraub. A finer education is unimaginable.

But for Jay Stein and MCA, both Mickey and the presidency of Jerrys Management III and Concerts West and all that followed representing Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, Norman Lear, Groucho Marx, the Cary Grant estate, and others, and my running my own entrepreneurial business, would have been impossible. You see, Jay, besides his mentoring, arranged (after my graduation from UCLA and working four years for the Universal Studio Tour) for MCA to pay the tuition for me to go to Georgetown Law School in return for my agreeing to come back to MCA for three years after graduating. It is a rare privilege to be a part of introducing the public to this remarkable man.

In 1965, Mike Ovitz and I were roommates in college; we learned from Herb Steinberg that Universal Studios was hiring college students for summer jobs giving tours of the studio.

Tickets for the tour were $2.50. The tour started from a makeshift facility at the front lot. Cliff Walker was the operations manager and the face of the tour, as far as we were concerned. Cliff lived and breathed outdoor recreation and had his finger on the pulse of managing and understanding young adults. Jules Stein, Lew Wasserman, and Al Dorskind were seen at the tour from time to time, but the operation was an annoyance to the studio. We were forbidden from identifying Cary Grant if we observed him on the lot or from going to an actual filming location.

In time, we were told of plans to expand the tour and open the upper lot, and eventually heard about this relative of Jules Stein who was going to be involved with the Tour. This is my first recollection of the name Jay Stein; I guess that was 1967. The upper lot opened, with the stunt show, the make-up show, the Tower of London set, souvenir shops, and food servicenice but certainly not Disney standards.

Guests parked in the new upper lot parking and were directed to kiosks to purchase their tickets before entering the lobby area to board the tram. The tour was a success and attracting near capacity attendance. By this time I was a tour guide foreman who would often double on the turnstile taking tickets. Who was the man in the suit that stood for hours in the lobby just observing and observing what was happening and once in a while whispering in Cliff Walkers ear? This was my first visual introduction to Jay Stein, the new tower person responsible for the tour. (The whispering soon stopped). Jay was laser focused and you could practically see the gears of his mind working. While Cliff and Barry Upson were very engaging with all of the employees, Jay followed a careful chain of command, at least at first. You could feel Cliff musing how this suit from the tower was going to contribute to his outdoor entertainment domain.

The most important part of the ticket-taking job description became the hourly count. Jay, from his new perch in the tower, appeared to be myopically fixated on the count. What the hell difference did it make if the count was one thousand an hour or six hundredbusiness was good, and people still had to wait too long in line after they passed the turnstile (especially during the summer months). At that time I was not privy to Jays equal fixation with every other aspect of the tour, its minuet of numbers and margins. Lesson: numbers are critical. Untold additional business gems are revealed in Sam Gennaweys narrative of the MCA/Stein take-no-prisoners winning business acumen.

Jays suit/tower style morphed, somewhat, after he had absorbed all of the operational details of the tour. He would on occasion drop in after the operating day was over to Cliffs office where Cliff and the department heads would participate in a nightly review of the days and upcoming events with a cocktail, or maybe two. In hindsight, I think it was these off-the-clock but on-the-record gatherings that created the foundation of loyalty and camaraderie with Jay, even when he could be as demanding and speak at decibel levels above OSHA standards.

I became an assistant operations manager of the tour while attending UCLA. The tour was open on the weekend and UCLA was on the quarter system, so I could go to school Tuesday and Thursday and work full-time at the studio the rest of the week and weekends. Jay, Dorskind, and sometimes Wasserman would come up to the tour on weekends and I developed somewhat of a relationship with each of them, in particular, Jay.

At the time I was graduating from UCLA (1969), MCA had just started Landmark Services in Washington, D.C. So not only was MCA going to pay for my law school, but Jay arranged with Tom Mack (a tour guide when I first started and another recipient of Jays stewardship, now running the operation in Washington) for me to work at Landmark on the weekends.

Upon graduating law school, Jay placed me in an office on the 14th floor around the corner from his palatial office and next to Taft Schreibers. While I loved the law, Jay had instilled in me a passion for business.

It was now that my relationship with Jay became even closer and that I studied and observed, first hand, his amazing executive prowess. The tour, while very successful, was still in its adolescence. While I had some line responsibility, I attended almost all of Jays meetings. Jay was a circling lion looking for new opportunities and ways to constantly improve the tour. Most importantly, he was seeking to continually introduce new elements that he could promote and advertise. I was witness to Jays merciless grilling of the department heads on the numbers and the assumptions. Why didnt that fucking thing work? Under no circumstances was Jay going to get positioned with Wasserman or Sheinberg in not being able to answer any question or have proposed or implemented a solution before the question was asked.