
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 31, 1993                   TAG: 9312310188
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Short

SUPER TALENT AGENT `SWIFTY' LAZAR DIES

Irving "Swifty" Lazar, a legendary talent agent in the entertainment community known for his lavish parties the night of the Academy Awards, died of kidney failure Thursday. He was 86.

His client list included Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, Vladimir Nabokov, Truman Capote, former President Richard Nixon and director Franco Zeffirelli.

Irving Paul Lazar got his nickname from Humphrey Bogart in 1955 after the agent got five screen properties for Bogart in just one day.

Lazar said he didn't actually like the name and only a few friends, such as Lauren Bacall and Arthur Schlesinger, were allowed to address him that way.

Lazar got his start in the 1930s as an attorney for the MCA talent agency. He became an agent when he learned the cut was 10 percent to his then 1 percent.

He once spent a summer with Hemingway following a bullfight season in Spain.

Lazar once said: "Every good writer has two agents: their own and Lazar."

by CNB