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Shep Gordon on Being a `Supermensch' (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: It has been a long journey for our next guest,
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  Speaker 1: Chef Gordon, journey from Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, to
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  Speaker 1: the upper echelon of Hollywood, filmmaking and the food industry.
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  Speaker 1: Chef Gordon is a talent manager. He's also the head
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  Speaker 1: of his own company called A Live Enterprises, and the
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  Speaker 1: author of a new book entitled They Call Me supermanch
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  Speaker 1: a backstage Pass to the amazing world of film, food,
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  Speaker 1: and rock and roll. It will be released tomorrow. Chef Gordon,
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  Speaker 1: thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me
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  Speaker 1: tell people, just at the very beginning, a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of your history so that they understand how you ended
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  Speaker 1: up pulling into a hotel in Los Angeles that really
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  Speaker 1: changed your life. I was I was raised in Long Island,
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  Speaker 1: got a Region Scholarship UM, and wanted to get as
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  Speaker 1: far away from my family as I possibly could, which
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  Speaker 1: was Buffalo, New York, and still use the New York
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  Speaker 1: State Scholarship Um and the school ended up being nomadic
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  Speaker 1: Jews from New York. Basically was the first year as
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  Speaker 1: an institution. I took sociology. I went to the New
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  Speaker 1: School for Social Research. I didn't like it. I was
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  Speaker 1: a long hair, um taking part of the part of
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  Speaker 1: the fabric of that time, burning rozy buildings, taking psychedelics
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  Speaker 1: and um. They came and recruited for probation offices in
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  Speaker 1: California when Reagan was a governor, and I said, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to go on my white horse and save kids
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  Speaker 1: in California. And I ended up working one day as
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  Speaker 1: a probation officer. UM. I sort of became the baseball
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  Speaker 1: in a softball game. I left, checked into a motel
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  Speaker 1: late at night, heard um, heard a girl screaming, thought
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  Speaker 1: she was maybe getting rape. Heard a guy went down,
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  Speaker 1: broke him up. They were making love, and she happened
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  Speaker 1: to be Janis Chaplin, which led to them discovering I
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  Speaker 1: was Jewish. Jewish guys should be managers. They introduced me
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  Speaker 1: to Alice Cooper, and forty five years later, I'm on
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  Speaker 1: the same highway. Well, there are a lot of stops
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  Speaker 1: along on on that highway. Tell us what what was
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  Speaker 1: it like to to meet people like let's say, Jimi
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  Speaker 1: Hendrix or Alice Cooper, because that they didn't know who
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  Speaker 1: you were, right, but they you know, it was a
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  Speaker 1: different time. First of all, they weren't Mountain Rushmore characters,
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  Speaker 1: and it wasn't the celebrity buzz that we have today.
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  Speaker 1: They were nice guys trying to make a living. Um.
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  Speaker 1: Alice wasn't making a living. Um. And you know, I
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  Speaker 1: think your journey through life. You only know your journey. UM.
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  Speaker 1: So that was just what was happening. I never thought
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  Speaker 1: of it as anything bigger than life, you know. Um.
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  Speaker 1: Now I look back at it and I realized, oh
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  Speaker 1: my god, how lucky I was. But that's all I knew. Um. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you seem to also know how to put people together
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  Speaker 1: with projects. And I'm wanting and what is it that
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  Speaker 1: that sort of excites you? What is it that connects you?
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  Speaker 1: Maybe give us an example of a project and connecting
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  Speaker 1: the right person. What I love to do is is
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  Speaker 1: um the termine, what the brand of an artist essences?
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  Speaker 1: What is it about the artist that really attracts his
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  Speaker 1: audience and trying to put a picture frame on it
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't compromise what they do, but makes it easy
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  Speaker 1: for people to look in. So, for example, Teddy Pendergrass
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  Speaker 1: a soul singer, A lot of soul singers. Al Green
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  Speaker 1: was around in those days, Marvin Gaye was, There's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of soul singers. What was Teddy's magic? Teddy's magic
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  Speaker 1: was sexual. He aroused women. It was a remarkable talent
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  Speaker 1: besides being a great voice, and he had all the acrements.
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  Speaker 1: He looked beautiful. How do I how do I tell
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  Speaker 1: that to the public? How do I take his artistry?
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  Speaker 1: Put it in a simple picture frame that makes it
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  Speaker 1: completely understandable without being arrogant? Um? And what I did was,
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  Speaker 1: I said, let's do concerts for women only. Let's do ads,
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  Speaker 1: that's say for women only. Let's only let women into
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  Speaker 1: the shows. Let's give that chocolate Teddy barrel lollypops so
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  Speaker 1: they can lick it at the shows. And we we
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  Speaker 1: defined who he was in what I think was a
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  Speaker 1: very effective way. After that, they started calling him the
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  Speaker 1: black Elvis. I'm also managed Luther Vandross, another soul singer.
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  Speaker 1: How do I separate him from Teddy? Luther was about romance?
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  Speaker 1: Teddy was about sex. So with Luther, I did in
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  Speaker 1: twenty cities around the country on the top radio stations
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  Speaker 1: b LS. Here in New York, um get married by Luther.
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  Speaker 1: We ran a contest. You came on the air, live
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  Speaker 1: Luther marriage, you live, defining romance? Um? And that's what
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  Speaker 1: I enjoyed doing, you know, with Alice, who was rebellion
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  Speaker 1: of kids against their parents. How do we define that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, killing chickens, doing disgusting things, doing anything to
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  Speaker 1: adhere at tator parents. And that's the part that I enjoy.
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  Speaker 1: I love when it works, looking in the mirror, high
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  Speaker 1: fiving myself and putting on Bloomberg News. I just I'm
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: gonna give you unfortunately only about forty seconds here. I
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  Speaker 1: just tell us a little about how your your food
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  Speaker 1: interests also blossomed. And then one word about the book. Um.
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  Speaker 1: In the book, I talked about how my life changed.
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  Speaker 1: I was. I was ready to hit a wall. I
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  Speaker 1: was too young, too successful, too rich, too many drugs,
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  Speaker 1: too many women. And a chef walked into a room
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  Speaker 1: and con and I said, this is the man I
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  Speaker 1: want to follow. He looked happy. And that led my
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  Speaker 1: journey into managing most of the great chefs of the world,
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  Speaker 1: Nobu and Wolfgang and I'm probably costly. And it's all
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  Speaker 1: in the book. It is all in the book that
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  Speaker 1: that I can published by Anthony Boydane by the way,
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  Speaker 1: Yes and Anthony boyde book a friend of yours and
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  Speaker 1: also a noted Chef, I want to thank you very
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  Speaker 1: much for spending time with us. You'll have to come.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Chef Gordon, talent Manager Alive Enterprises,
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  Speaker 1: most recently the author of They Call Me Superman Shape,
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  Speaker 1: Backstage Path as to the amazing world of film, food,
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  Speaker 1: and rock and roll. This is Bloomberg