Marcia Nasatir, Who Broke a Glass Ceiling in Hollywood, Dies at 95

“She asked me: ‘Do you really want the job? Then go back and put on a pair of hose.’ I said, ‘Marcia, I don’t own a pair of hose,’ and she said, ‘Good luck.’”

Ms. Nasatir began her path to Hollywood as a single mother in New York in the 1950s, when she was hired as a secretary at Grey Advertising. After successful stints as an editor at Dell Publishing and Bantam Books, she left for Hollywood to become a literary agent; her clients included the screenwriters Robert Towne and William Goldman.

In 1974, she approached Mike Medavoy, a former top agent who had just been named vice president of production at United Artists. “I hear you’re moving to United Artists,” she said, recalling the conversation years later in “A Classy Broad: Marcia’s Adventures in Hollywood” (2016), a documentary directed by Anne Goursaud. “I think he said, ‘I’m going to need a good story editor,’ and I said, ‘How about me?’”

They met soon after for breakfast, and he offered her a story editor position, in which she would look for books, scripts and plays to turn into movies. It was a traditional job for women in Hollywood. But, at 48, she wanted more and demanded that she be hired as a vice president. (Her title was vice president of motion picture development.)

“It seemed to me,” she told The Arizona Republic in 1985, “that I would be a more effective employee, and my opinions would be more respected by writers and actors, if I had the title of vice president instead of story editor.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/movies/marcia-nasatir-dead.html