What Others Say About
Tom Elliott…
"Back in the mid-70s, a young, hotshot computer programmer developed a crush on a Cambridge street singer named RuthAnna. With typical hacker's ingenuity, he figured the best way to meet her was to offer his services as her manager. He did. The relationship bloomed and before long, word was out among her performer friends that Tom Elliott was the man to see if you were an artist who needed an agent...
"Before the year ended, he had acquired a stable of nearly 100 assorted novelty acts and was on his way to a nice income, handling such artists as Leonard Solomon and his Majestic Bellowphone, jester Alexander Feldman, a Fiddler and Dancing Bear, and of course, his old flame, RuthAnna. 'That's how it all started. It wasn't anything I'd planned - it just worked out,’ Tom grinned as he sprawled his lean frame across the cushioned leather sofa in the living room of his Beacon Hill apartment. 'I call it a home-town talent agency, because it's a viable business wherever you happen to live. Each wedding, fair, festival, Fourth of July parade, sidewalk sale, fund-raiser, and shopping mall is a chance to book an act. They're all 'hometown events', and if you represent talent, they're prime sales opportunities...
"There's a real need for this kind of business in most communities because the big-time talent agencies aren't interested in supplying inexpensive entertainment for birthday parties, company picnics, or Boy Scout gatherings. And it's tough for people to track down such entertainment on their own, especially if they want professionals, not just Uncle Louie in the clown suit once a year."
Jerry Vovscko, The Seattle WA Independent Times
"What do Cheezo the Clown, Sgt. Pepperoni's One-Man Band, UFO abductee Betty Hill, magician Peter Sosna, Gene Autry's sister Barbara, and sword-swallower Don Leslie have in common? The answer is simple - Tom Elliott, talent agent and crusader for the street performer. Elliott, a 43-year-old bon vivant and jack-of-all-trades, sat in his Beacon Hill apartment, surrounded by colorful pamphlets, record albums, and other promotional paraphernalia. 'I specialize in one-of-a-kind acts, from sideshow attractions to street singers - odd-ball entertainment, in other words,' he said. Fiddlers, clowns, jazz bands, ventriloquists, puppeteers, jugglers, organ grinders, fire-eating unicyclists, tattooed men who swallow swords, magicians, Shakespearean actors, witches, ghost hunters - all are part of Elliott's playbill.
"What made Elliott, a self-made business executive, enter the world of entertainment? 'I fell helplessly in love with a street singer who sang on Boston Common a number of years ago,' he sighed. RuthAnna, a beautiful, fragile-looking blonde, played her guitar and sang for her supper in the days when street performing was illegal. In 1975, Elliott decided he was going to take the vulnerable flower child under his wing and help her produce a record album and perform in concert halls. Once Elliott captured his fair-haired maiden and started to promote her, suddenly he found himself with a dozen more street performers who asked if he'd do the same for them. From that start, his list of clients quickly swelled to 60..."
Sheila Barth, Beverly-Peabody Times
". . . A small-scale agency like Elliott's has several things going for it. It requires no special schooling to run and little cash to start. Best of all, everything can be handled out of your home."
Entrepreneur
"...A talent agency is one of the most exciting businesses in the world, and it can lead to some fascinating sidelines. Add a speakers' bureau or modeling subsidiary, produce record albums, sponsor concerts, produce a TV series, write articles and books about what you're doing. Can any other business offer so many opportunities?"
Income Opportunities
"Elliott has done what many people only dream of: he has turned his hobby into a lucrative sideline. And he's become expert enough at agenting to write articles and books about it. Like a true entrepreneur he's never content to simply do one job at a time...
"Not all of Elliott's talent comes from the Boston area. One of his clients, for example, is the sister of Gene Autry, who lives in New Jersey and does a lasso act with her daughter. He once had Betty Hill, the New Hampshire woman who, along with her husband, was kidnapped and taken aboard a UFO back in the early 1960s, on his weekly cablevision series, Personal Perspectives. He's gone UFO hunting with her, and says he's seen a few - strange lights, anyway. But Elliott tends to get involved with his clients. And he recently visited a tattooed sword-swallower he books out of San Francisco, and came back with a tattoo himself. He hasn't tried sword-swallowing yet, but who knows?"
NewsWest
