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Author David Rensin included the story of Irwin Winkler in his 2002 book The Mailroom:

Irwin: I was going to be a salesman in Cleveland. Then I read The Carpetbaggers, by Harold Robbins. The glamour of the show business lifestyle he described seemed somehow...more interesting.

When I delivered an envelope to Zsa Zsa Gabor at the Waldorf-Astoria, she came to the door in a negligee. Immediately I had all these fantasies of her inviting me into her bedroom, where I would have this wild sexual encounter with the beautiful Miss Gabor. Instead she said, "Zank you," and closed the door in my face.

I felt misused and exploited in the mailroom. I knew I was just a messenger boy with a college degree. At first it didn't bother me because William Morris masked the job in this mystique that if you did well, you'd get promoted and be an agent someday. You were motivated by that hope. But only a handful of "trainees" ever got out and developed into talent agents, not to mention producers or writers or directors or managers. Meanwhile, the executives took advantage of those hopes and got young people to work a five-and-a-half day week for very low wages.