Background
Charles Kenneth Gould was born in New York City April 26, 1905.
Charles Kenneth Gould was born in New York City April 26, 1905.
At an early age, he was orphaned (along with five siblings), and went to foster parents at age seven. He was taken in by Mr. and Mistress Samuel Feldman of Bayonne, New Jersey. A few years later, the Feldmans moved permanently to California.
Charlie Feldman became a lawyer, finishing his law studies at University of California, Los Angeles and University of Southern California with honors.
He began his law career humbly as a law clerk for a successful Los Angeles attorney, but longed to be in Hollywood as an attorney. Eventually, he decided to become a combination lawyer and agent, and it worked very well to his advantage.
They divorced in 1947 but remained good friends. He managed the careers of Howard Hawks, John Wayne, George Stevens, Claudette Colbert, Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Lauren Bacall Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power and many others
C.K. Feldman (as he was known) pioneered several new tactics that eventually became the industry standard.
One was negotiating one-picture deals for a star, not a long-term studio contract, as was the custom. Another was combining several clients into one package and selling them to a producer or studio as one unit This was highly novel at the time, but when an original story was tied up neatly with a big name star or director on it, the producers couldn"t refuse.
Today, the "package deal" is a standard operating procedure in the film industry.
Another tactic was the use of overlapping nonexclusive contracts with clients like Irene Dunne and Claudette Colbert, demonstrating flexible alternatives to the so-called iron-clad studio contract in the classical Hollywood era. Feldman held considerable sway in the making of some films.
(1965), The Group (1966), The Honey Pot (1967) and the satirical James Bond film adaptation Casino Royale (1967). On his death in 1968, C. K. Feldman was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood.
Some of this content quoted from an article by Willard L. Wiener for Collier"s Magazine, August 6, 1949.