News & Reviews

WORD: Fifi Oscard Agency founder dies; represented top authors, actors

The Fifi Oscard Agency’s literary division took its second major blow in two years after agency founder Fifi Oscard passed away on November 12 at age 85. A memorial service was held at the Cosmopolitan Club in New York City on Friday, Dec. 9, according to local press reports.

Oscard established the Manhattan-based firm as a talent agency geared to actors in 1959 and added literary representation in 1978. Under her leadership, the Fifi Oscard Agency handled popular nonfiction titles including Donnie Brasco by Joseph D. Pistone with Richard Woodley, Arthur Ashe’s memoir Days of Grace and Mark Mathabane’s Kaffir Boy.

The agency’s literary division has eight agents still at the firm, according to its Web site.

While Oscard was well known in literary circles, she first established herself representing playwrights and actors including George S. Kaufman and Orson Welles during the 1950s. One of her former author clients told WORD’N’BASS.com that Oscard had also "discovered" actress Meg Ryan.

Oscard’s death comes after daughter Nancy Steinmetz-Murray, also a literary agent at the firm, died of cancer in June 2003, according to the Breast Cancer Alliance. A memorial service for Oscard was held at the Cosmopolitan Club in New York City on Friday, Dec. 9, according to The Vineyard Gazette newspaper.

WORD’N’BASS.com sends its condolences to Fifi Oscard’s family and friends.

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