EXCLUSIVE: It was a swell way to spend an evening. The champagne (and elderflower cocktails) flowed as did witty banter. At the center of it all was the imposing figure of Anthony Jones, “Agent Jones” as director Richard Eyre impishly called him, who has been like a human shield – all six foot four, probably more, of him, for his powerful array of clients including the likes of Alan Bennett, Mike Leigh, Richard Curtis, and Nick Cave, to name but a few.
Jones, 85, has retired after a career as a publishing executive and a fabled writers agent that has spanned, by his count, sixty years, and his colleagues at United Agents fêted him Wednesday night with a splendid soirée at BAFTA headquarters on Piccadilly. There was bubbly, inventive finger food such as pop -in-the-mouth steak and chips canapés, sushi, and parmesan potato puff creations. And for a blissful few hours there was no wailing over Netflix, Paramount and Warner Bros. Bliss.
Much was made of the fact that Jones turned breviloquence into an art form; one that often led to a couple of zeroes being added on to the figure being haggled over in a negotiation. Silence can indeed be golden.
L/R Nichola Martin and Anthony Jones. Baz Bamigboye/Deadline
True to form, Jones was brief in his own remarks to the packed crowd that included a lineup of clients, producers, directors, writers, friends and partners from United Agents and what looked to me to be one of the biggest gatherings of London agency bigwigs seen in an age.
“All I’ve wanted to say to you lot,” Jones said addressing guests “is thank you very much for giving me a seriously good life.”
His esteemed clients, he added, “are being passed on to – thank God – really good younger agents.”
St John Donald, United Agents’ managing director, said: ”I’ve worked with him for only 35 of his 60 years but I hope that qualifies me to say a few, very few words about him, knowing as I do his limitless patience and his love for long, preferably inaudible speeches.”
Donald hailed Jones as “the foremost agent of his generation …meticulous, industrious, ruthless, but also pragmatic. It’s no exaggeration to say on behalf of my fellow agents, that without him many of us would not be working together such has been the draw of his reputation and personality.”
The executive was warming up for the night’s best zinger. “What, perhaps you do not know of the man who manages to weaponize silence as a negotiating tactic,” – a line that had the crowd in stitches – “is that as a colleague, Anthony is generous to a fault. He is never happier than when celebrating the success of a colleague for having discovered some new or interesting work. He delights in the success of everyone he works with. This, you may be surprised to learn,” Donald said, pausing briefly then adding dryly, “is not a characteristic universally true of agents.”
Jones, Donald continued, “also never sees a distinction between art and money. That is to say, if he thinks something is good he backs it and then sells the hell out of it. So here is Anthony’s gift to us all – you don’t have to choose between being good, classy or successful, as he’s managed to be all three.”
Richard Curtis walked to the mic and quipped: “I’m only going to say a few words because he’s a man of few words.”
Nick Cave (left) and Richard Curtis. Image: Baz Bamigboye/Deadline
The screenwriter idly wondered whether others “found him chatty, chatty, chatty,” although few if any in the room could ever accuse Jones of being loquacious.
One of Curtis’s favourite reflections on their relationship “is the simplicity of his reaction to the three films of ours that turned out to be the most successful.”
Curtis recalled that when Jones read the first script “he came back with a lavish critique.” “I think I can sell it.” The second one, his reaction was, “Quite fun.” And the third went absolutely overboard with, “Not what I expected.”
The famed writer merrily wondered whether Jones “has been as detailed to all the rest of you?”
Curtis didn’t name titles during his tribute. Later, however he spelt them out for Deadline: “Four Weddings and a Funeral was the ‘I think I can sell it.’ Notting Hill was “quite fun” and Love Actually was ‘Not what I expected.’ Those are the three I remember. He was my agent through all my TV years as well. Not the Not the Nine O’Clock News but I joined him when I was doing Blackadder and the big triumph, there was all the deals he did on VHS cassettes because for the first time ever, people who wrote in television could make money because we used to be paid so meekly by the BBC… Fawlty Towers did it, and we did it and Anthony was ahead of that curve.”
But, let me get back to what else Curtis regaled guests with – it was standing room only, by the way. Must’ve been 250 or so in attendance.
“When we first met to see if he was the man for me and I was the man for him, he specifically selected a restaurant where we sat next to each other on a banquette because he said it would be too awful to have to sit opposite each other and talk to each other,” Curtis said, as Jones stood offstage seemingly hating every minute of it. Every once in a while, a smile would emerge, then he’d quickly wipe it away.
“It was like being in a railway carriage,” Curtis continued. “Just some silence. And then once in a while, if it would occur to us, we would casually turn to each other and say what occurred to us…”
Curtis looked up from his jotted notes and observed that Jones “has been by turn, sensible, ruthless, greedy and cunning, but always polite.”
Chuckling, Curtis said: “This may not be true for many of you but every house I live in, every holiday I go on, every child I educated: they are the children, houses and holidays that Anthony made for them. I owe him more than I can say. I’m definitely going to send him my next screenplay in the certainty that his reaction to this one would be: ‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you’.”
In conclusion he jested: “Anthony has great elegance, great charm, no body fat, a spooky resemblance to George Martin, and exquisite indifference to both success and failure. And, indeed, an uncanny ability to be paused in conversations so long that the people he’s negotiating with… make a better offer just to keep the conversation going… a spectacular blessing to all of us. He has been my real friend, my rock, my most passionate advocate and, I think everyone will agree, the best possible agent ever.”
There were cheers, and I detected some tears as Jones turned the final page of his illustrious career.
Timothée Chalamet was in the theater down the hall being interviewed on stage about all things Marty Supreme by Daily Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin. As much as I admire both Mr. Chalamet and his super new movie (it’s a wee bit long), I wanted to remain in the room with Anthony Jones because a legendary agent doesn’t retire everyday.
L/R Ruth Young and Lindy King. Baz Bamigboye/Deadline
I couldn’t keep up with all of the guests but these are just a few of the people I spotted: Nicholas Hytner, Duncan Heath, Ruth Jackson, Maureen Vincent, Guy East, Tor Belfrage, Ruth Young, Lindy King, Dallas Smith, Judy Daish, Olivia Homan, Danielle Walker, Andrew Eaton, Jonathan Cavendish, Richard Eyre, Sue Birtwistle, Gabby Tana, Alison Owen, Giles Smart, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Kirk Whelan-Foran, Jonny Geller, Andy Harries, Hilary Salmon, Sue Vertue, David Parfitt, Kevin Loader, Ray Connolly, Peter Bennett-Jones, Kenton Allen, Michael Kuhn and Nick Cave.