Emilio "Mim" Scala (born 1940) was the co-founder, with Sir William Pigott-Brown, of the London-based television, film and theatrical agency Scala Brown Associates.

Early life and career

Born in London in 1940, Mim Scala attended St Augustine's School and Hammersmith and Chelsea Art School at Manresa Rd,

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament const ...

. He grew up in the Northend Road,

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandswo ...

, before moving to the

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents), is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

. He then travelled extensively before settling down to work as a theatrical agent. In 1963 he founded the theatrical agency Scala Brown Associates with Sir William Pigott-Brown. The agency was known for representing actors, directors and musicians, including

Richard Harris Richard St John Francis Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Irish actor and singer. He appeared on stage and in many films, notably as Corrado Zeller in Michelangelo Antonioni's '' Red Desert'', Frank Machin in '' This Sporting ...

Cat Stevens Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His musical style consists of folk, pop, rock, and, later in ...

Ben Carruthers Benito F. Carruthers (August 14, 1936 in Illinois, USA – September 27, 1983 in Los Angeles, California) was an American film actor, most notable for his role in John Cassavetes' debut feature film '' Shadows'' (1959). His other films inclu ...

and Jim Browne. Although not a film producer, in 1965 Scala bought the rights to the comic strip character

Modesty Blaise ''Modesty Blaise'' is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talen ...

with the intention of casting

Barbara Steele Barbara Steele (born 29 December 1937) is an English film actress known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. She has been referred to as the "Queen of All Scream Queens" and "Britain's first lady of horror". She played t ...

as the eponymous heroine in a feature-length production, before ultimately selling the rights to produce

the film The Film is a 2005 Indian thriller film directed by Junaid Memon also produced along with Amitabh Bhattacharya. The film stars Mahima Chaudhry, Khalid Siddiqui, Ananya Khare, Chahat Khanna, Ravi Gossain, Vaibhav Jhalani and Vivek Madan in lea ...

Joseph Janni Joseph Janni (21 May 1916 – 29 May 1994) was a British film producer best known for his work with John Schlesinger. He was born into a Jewish family in Milan, Italy and became interested in filmmaking while at university. He emigrated to Engl ...

(who brought in the fashionable Italian actress

Monica Vitti Monica Vitti (born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli; 3 November 1931 – 2 February 2022) was an Italian actress who starred in several award-winning films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni during the 1960s. After working with Antonioni, Vitti changed fo ...

to play Modesty instead).Mim Scala, ''Diary of a Teddy Boy: A Memoir of the Long Sixties'' (Surrey, UK: Goblin Press, 2009), pp. 75-6. Scala also packaged

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...

's film '' Sympathy for the Devil/One Plus One'' on behalf of Michael Cowdray's Cupid Productions, after being introduced to Godard's then rights holder, Eleni Collard, by the record producer

Alan Callan Alan Callan (1 August 1946 – 27 May 2014) was a British businessman, record producer and music executive. He worked as an executive for Swan Song Records (a record label established by English rock band Led Zeppelin in 1974), as a business manag ...

. In the late 1960s Scala took off to live in

Spanish Sahara Spanish Sahara ( es, Sahara Español; ar, الصحراء الإسبانية, As-Sahrā'a Al-Isbānīyah), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958 then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used f ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, and Switzerland, painting and recording ethnic music, including that of the

Dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from fa, درویش, ''Darvīsh'') in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage ...

Ganoua sect from

Tangiers Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the capi ...

. He returned to England in 1972 to work as head of promotion for

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, an ...

. Scala produced the first direct-to-disc album for the band

Warsaw Pakt Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...

, before founding ESP Music and Management, an agency which represented record producers Chris Kimsey (

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

), Stuart Levine (

Simply Red Simply Red are a British soul and pop band formed in Manchester in 1985. The lead vocalist of the band is singer and songwriter Mick Hucknall, who, by the time the band initially disbanded in 2010, was the only original member left. Since the ...

) and

B.B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shi ...

Other work

Scala is the author of the cult memoir ''Diary of a Teddy Boy: A Memoir of the Long Sixties'', as well as two novels: ''The Luckiest Man in the World'' and ''Bibi''. He now works as a sculptor in bronze, having had his first solo exhibition in 2014 at the 11 Gallery in

Belgravia Belgravia () is a district in Central London, covering parts of the areas of both the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Belgravia was known as the 'Five Fields' during the Tudor Period, and became a dange ...

References

External links

*http://www.mimscala.co.uk/ 1940 births People from Fulham Living people Talent agents Film people from London British expatriates in Ireland {{England-bio-stub