By Elizabeth Cook Jenkins, BS鈥99
When Charles D. King, BA鈥91, first arrived in Los Angeles in 1997, his friends were shocked to hear that he had taken a job in a mailroom.
After all, King held degrees from Vanderbilt and Howard University Law School. His r茅sum茅 was bursting with experience at marquee companies, including AOL and MTV, and he鈥檇 built an enviable list of contacts going back to his days growing up in Atlanta. Plus, he鈥檇 turned down several other offers just to take this job.
鈥淚 remember him moving out there, and I was like, 鈥楳ailroom? You鈥檝e got a law degree! What are you doing working in a mailroom?鈥欌 recalls Michael Lee, BE鈥92, one of King鈥檚 closest friends from Vanderbilt. Even King admits he was initially skeptical at the prospect.
But the strange path to becoming a high-powered talent agent at the famed William Morris Agency (now called William Morris Endeavor) typically starts in the mailroom.
So King willingly accepted the post and everything that came with it: 90- to 100-hour work weeks, low pay and no guarantees. 鈥淚 knew it was where I was supposed to be,鈥 King says. 鈥淭he mailroom is where you really cut your teeth, and it鈥檚 a gold mine of information, relationships and exposure, which laid the foundation for so many things I鈥檝e been able to do up to this point.鈥
The plan worked. By 2010, King had become the first African American partner (and before that, the first African American to be promoted from the mailroom to a film/television agent) in the firm鈥檚 119-year history. He went on to work with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, including Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Janelle Mon谩e and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
FAST TRACK
Exactly as he鈥檇 hoped, King鈥檚 agency experience helped him achieve his larger goal: to lead a media company focused on developing content for multicultural audiences. In 2015, King left William Morris and started MACRO, which received financial backing from a number of industry leaders, as well as from Emerson Collective, the socially focused investment group run by Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The company鈥檚 first major project was the movie Fences, directed by Denzel Washington and nominated for four Oscars last year. Viola Davis won Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. 鈥淔or that to actually be our first studio film was an amazing result,鈥 says King, who served as one of the movie鈥檚 executive producers.
MACRO鈥檚 web comedy Gente-fied features an all-Latino cast and counts actress America Ferrera among its executive producers. MACRO financed seven episodes of the bilingual series, which follows seven characters as they deal with the effects of change in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. (Marvin Lemus created and directed the series and co-wrote it with Linda Yvette Chavez.) The company also has two more feature films coming out in November: Mudbound, the story of two men who struggle with racism after returning home to rural Mississippi following World War II, and Roman Israel, Esq., a crime drama starring Washington and Colin Farrell.
鈥淲e always had a big-picture, global vision for the company,鈥 King says. 鈥淲hat we鈥檝e been experiencing, pleasantly, is that many of the things we envisioned would happen with the company are happening sooner than we thought they would. The opportunities are coming to us more quickly than we originally contemplated.鈥
Those who鈥檝e known King since his Vanderbilt days aren鈥檛 the least bit surprised by his success. 鈥淗e always talked about going to Hollywood or New York and working in some form or fashion of entertainment, something behind the scenes, working with talent, controlling the story and the messaging,鈥 recalls Brett Hayes, BS鈥91, a close friend and fellow Kappa Alpha Psi member who鈥檚 now an executive at Nike. 鈥淗e was really, really focused in that regard.鈥
Even in the William Morris mailroom, King displayed an uncanny knack for building relationships across the agency. He also operated on the 鈥渁ct as if 鈥︹ principle, acquiring an Armani suit like the ones full-fledged agents wore and immersing himself in every aspect of the industry. 鈥淚 was definitely the trainee who was either going to get promoted quickly or fired鈥攐ne or the other,鈥 King says, adding that he 鈥渨ore the hell out of that suit.鈥
It didn鈥檛 hurt that he also tapped past connections to sign new talent, including rapper Missy Elliott.
鈥淚 brought in four or five clients way before I became an agent,鈥 says King, who had to prove himself all over again when, in 1999, there was a leadership change at William Morris. 鈥淭hey were firing people they didn鈥檛 think were a culture fit,鈥 he explains.
10-YEAR PLAN
Fortunately for King, Dave Wirtschafter, who moved from International Creative Management with Jim Wiatt to run William Morris, understood his vision. 鈥淚 had an eye to sign musicians and multi-hyphenates [actor鈥揹irector, for example] and was going to build a multisector business,鈥 says King. 鈥淚 explained how pop culture is driven by the multicultural marketplace, and Wirtschafter got exactly what I was talking about.鈥 Around the same time, clients like Spike Lee and Kenneth 鈥淏abyface鈥 Edmonds were asking why the agency didn鈥檛 have more diversity.
After those conversations King became the first person under the new management to receive an internal promotion, helping pave his path to further success at the firm.
When William Morris merged with Endeavor in 2009, King saw it as the wake-up call he needed to remind himself of his ultimate goal鈥攐ne he had spelled out in a commemorative book produced for his law school class at Howard. 鈥淭hey asked everybody, 鈥榃hat are you going to be doing in 10 years?鈥欌 King says. 鈥淎nd in mine I said, 鈥業n 10 years I am going to be at the helm of a diversified entertainment and media company.鈥欌
In 2011 he wrote his first business plan and started positioning himself to launch MACRO by expanding his network beyond media and entertainment. 鈥淚 began to cultivate and build my relationships in the financial sector, the tech arena, and in the political world,鈥 explains King. 鈥淥ne, just for business and being able to raise capital to actually go and do what we鈥檙e doing; and two, to have relationships in these other sectors and look at the intersection of what is happening with technology, new platforms, the whole innovation sector, and how that鈥檚 impacting the entertainment industry right now.鈥
The other key aspect King wanted the company to focus on was bringing more multicultural talent, particularly African American and Latino, into the entertainment mainstream. 鈥淥ne of my goals while I am still in the industry is to dispel this notion that movies that have people of color in them won鈥檛 work,鈥 King said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, citing the example of the film 12 Years a Slave bringing in more money overseas than in the U.S.
As a freshman at Vanderbilt in 1987, King was one of 64 African American students in his class, less than half of 1 percent of that fall鈥檚 first-year class. (This year the number of incoming first-year students who are African American is around 200, representing more than 12 percent of the class.) He formed a tight circle of friends, some of whom he first met at Black Student Weekend, an event hosted each year for accepted students to visit campus. He also grew close to Ray Winbush, the first director of Vanderbilt鈥檚 Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center, and got to know students at historically black Fisk and Tennessee State universities.
“One of my goals while I am still in the industry is to dispel this notion that movies that have people of color in them won鈥檛 work.”
鈥淚 definitely look back fondly on my four years at Vanderbilt,鈥 he says, adding that the university and Nashville have 鈥渆volved significantly鈥 since his time in school. 鈥淭he segment of the population that was from diverse backgrounds was fairly small. So that really brought those students together.鈥
Today, King casts the racial challenges he faced at school, as well as a first job after graduation at a paper company in Connecticut, as good preparation for his current role. 鈥淏y the time I got to Hollywood, it was literally a piece of cake compared to those two,鈥 he says, laughing.
Lee, one of the friends King originally met at Black Student Weekend who鈥檚 now an executive at the videogame company Electronic Arts, says King understates what he鈥檚 accomplished. 鈥淐harles won鈥檛 say this, but I鈥檒l say it: You take his talent and acumen and put it in a white shell, and he would have gone farther and achieved more, faster. He is very modest, very humble. If he won鈥檛 brag about himself, I will.鈥
He is also known for developing lasting relationships wherever he goes. When King worked for AOL during law school, he met Charlie Fink, who developed and produced Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Aladdin during his time at Disney. Fink encouraged King to move to Los Angeles and gave him the names and numbers of several people to contact when he got there. The two never crossed paths again until four years ago when King reached out to Fink through LinkedIn.
鈥淗e said something like, 鈥榊ou did me a real solid 20 years ago. I鈥檇 like to reconnect with you, and if there is anything I can ever do for you, please let me know,鈥欌 says Fink. 鈥淚 am 57 years old. I have helped dozens, if not hundreds, of people over the years, and only one of them has reached out to me across the decades. That was Charles King. That tells you something.鈥
Elizabeth Cook Jenkins, BS鈥99, is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. At Vanderbilt she majored in both human and organizational development and English.
Vandy-in-Hollywood
For many students, dreams of working in Hollywood have become a reality thanks to the partnership of alumni and the Vanderbilt Career Center.
Each summer the Vandy-in-Hollywood internship program brings 14 to 17 students to Los Angeles for internships in the entertainment industry, via a network of Vanderbilt alumni working in the industry themselves. The group
supports each other鈥檚 career development through networking events year-round and partners with other alumni networks to coordinate classes, seminars, mixers and panels.
In an industry where relationships are key, Vandy-in-Hollywood provides crucial opportunities for students to network.
鈥淩elationships are not just valuable鈥攖hey are currency,鈥 says longtime television writer and producer Chad Gervich, BA鈥96, co-founder of Vandy-in-Hollywood. 鈥淲hen you are hiring people to work on a creative team, the r茅sum茅 is less important. What really matters is that you find people who you click with on a personal, social and emotional basis.鈥
Vanderbilt鈥檚 Career Center educates and coaches undergraduate students, connecting them to numerous internships in the entertainment industry. Most, if not all, of those opportunities come through alumni working at companies like the APA Agency, Imagine Television, Smoke House Pictures, DMG Entertainment, Downtown Film Festival L.A., K.Jam Media and Paramount. Once on board, those same alumni nurture the students through the program.
Like all internships, the hands-on experience provides an invaluable advantage to students who later pursue careers in entertainment. However, the greatest benefit is the numerous industry contacts made throughout the summer.
The weekly Summer Speakers Series, held at the office of television and film producer Rich Hull, BA鈥92, co-founder of Vandy-in-Hollywood, features alumni from across the entertainment spectrum who share career insights in an informal setting.
鈥淪tudents learn about those professions and how each person navigated their path from Nashville to Hollywood,鈥 Gervich says. 鈥淏ut they also follow up with those speakers for lunch or coffee. They are planting what could be the very early seeds of a lasting relationship.鈥
Vandy-in-Hollywood was a transformational experience for Stacy Greenberg, BA鈥10. Her first internship with Gervich led to another with television executive Hayley Dickson, BS鈥05, and that opportunity led to her first paid job at Imagine Television. In seven years she advanced from an office production assistant to vice president of television. She is now president of Danny Strong Productions.
She credits those internships for her career. 鈥淰andy-in-Hollywood started it all,鈥 Greenberg says. 鈥淢y initial alumni connections led to more contacts that helped me grow my career without ever having to go on a job interview since the summer I graduated.鈥
Greenberg remains active with Vandy-in-Hollywood by attending the annual Summer Bash, speaking at the Summer Speaker Series, and often providing more than one internship for Vanderbilt students each summer.
鈥淚 always find them to be not only incredibly smart and hardworking, but also likable,鈥 says Greenberg. 鈥淚 believe there is something about the rigorous academic and social atmosphere at Vanderbilt that prepares students for a
job in Hollywood.鈥
鈥擬ATT ANDERSON