Martin Baum, agent to Hollywood legends, dies

LOS ANGELES - Martin Baum, an old-time New York theatrical talent agent who became a veteran voice of experience for the upstart Creative Artists Agency in the late 1970s and who brought to the company such established star clients as Sidney Poitier and Peter Sellers, has died. He was 86.

Baum died Friday at his home in Beverly Hills, the agency announced. The cause was not given.

"To those of us in his CAA family, Marty was a hero," the agency's partners said in a statement. "He was not only a brilliant agent, but a generous mentor to so many."

Since the late 1940s, Baum's clients included Bette Davis, Richard Attenborough, Richard Harris, Julie Andrews, Blake Edwards, Joanne Woodward, Cliff Robertson, Maggie Smith, Red Buttons, Gene Wilder, Bo Derek, John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Rock Hudson, Dyan Cannon and Carroll O'Connor.

CAA founding partners Michael Ovitz, Ron Meyer, Michael Rosenfeld Sr., Rowland Perkins and Bill Haber invited Baum to join CAA in 1977. They coveted Baum's A-list talent roster, but they also saw his value as a shrewd deal-maker.

Baum was known as a "packager," someone who brought together actors, directors, writers and others he represented and then delivered the bundled group to a studio for a film production. One of his early film successes was gathering Poitier, director Ralph Nelson and screenwriter James Poe - all Baum clients - for "Lilies of the Field" in 1963.

From 1968 to 1971, Baum had been president of ABC Pictures, the television network's motion picture division. He was responsible for such films as "Cabaret," "Straw Dogs" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"