When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuas [Paperback]

Here is the story of Jerry Weintraub: the self-made, Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised impresario, Hollywood producer, legendary deal maker, and friend of politicians and stars. No matter where nature has placed him--the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood--he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door. All life was a theater and I wanted to put it up on a stage, he writes. I wanted to set the world under a marquee that read: 'Jerry Weintraub Presents.'

In WHEN I STOP TALKING, YOU'LL KNOW I'M DEAD, we follow Weintraub from his first great success at age twenty-six with Elvis Presley, whom he took on the road; to the immortal days with Sinatra and Rat Pack glory; to his crowning hits as a movie producer, starting with Robert Altman andNashville, continuing withOh, God!,The Karate Kidmovies, andDiner, among others, and summiting with Steven Soderbergh andOcean's Eleven,Twelve, andThirteen.

Along the way, we'll watch as Jerry moves from the poker tables of Palm Springs, to the power rooms of Hollywood, to the halls of the White House, to Red Square in Moscow-all the while counseling potentates, poets, and kings, with clients and confidants like George Clooney, Bruce Willis, George H. W. Bush, Armand Hammer, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, John Denver, Bobby Fischer . . .well, the list goes on.

And of course, the story is not yet over . . . As Weintraub says, When I stop talking, you'll know I'm dead. Jerry Weintraubhas spent more than five decades in show business, in the process earning a reputation as one of the savviest negotiators, smartest producers, and shrewdest film investors of our time. He has been praised and honored for his philanthropic work and,asUNICEF's Man of the Year, was presented the organization's Danny Kaye Humanitarilƒ)