Sam Adams Dies: Literary Agent To Margaret Atwood, Peter Bogdanovich, Stephen J. Cannell Was 94
14.01.2022 - 07:15
/ deadline.com
Sam Adams, a literary agent whose career began in the postwar years at Warner Bros. and ended with the deal to bring The Handmaid’s Tale to the big screen, has died, according to multiple reports. He was 94.
Adams’ client list included Handmaid’s author Margaret Atwood, the recently-deceased Peter Bogdanovich, Saturday Night Fever director John Badham, TV giant Stephen J. Cannell, Oscar-winner Alvin Sargent, Casablanca star Paul Henreid and Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Adams got his start in Hollywood delivering messages at Warner Bros. while he was still at Beverly Hills High School. At Warners, he met the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Errol Flynn, Bette Davis and Edgar G. Robinson. His stint at the studio was interrupted by 18 months of active duty in the army.
After the war he turned to journalism, serving stints at the William Randolph Hearst-owned Los Angeles Examiner, the Armed Forces Radio Services, the Beverly Hills Press and finally The Hollywood Reporter.
“I wanted to beat the game and figured out to get around the trade contacts,” Adams told Forward in 2016. “I realized the agencies and law offices were a better source of show business news than the studios.”
He continued, “I got in with the agents, and Sam Jaffe saw I also wrote reviews of theater and opera, that my reviews were more literate than average, and in 1956 Sam offered me a gig as a junior agent at the Jaffe Agency. An agent? Okay, that wasn’t my plan. But Sam represented everybody from Lauren Bacall to Zero Mostel, and he saw a useful place for me at his agency making deals for those writing for TV.”
Adams later worked for Ingo (Otto’s brother) Preminger at PSF, which repped writers, producers and composers.
“Ingo was really my