In June of 1977, with Factors, Etc. continuing their fraudulent representations that their company was the producer of the Farrah Fawcett poster, I went to Hollywood to solidify my relationships with MCA Universal Studios and their Vice President of Merchandising, Steve Adler.

This was the first time since I had been in the licensing end of the poster business that I had gone to Hollywood.

While I had spoken to Steve several times over the telephone about our licenses with Universal Studios, I had never really met him personally and our first meeting was a good one.

Steve reminded me of the actor James Caan. Steve was a good looking man with a fit build and winning smile. While he had always dictated MCA's terms and conditions on all their contracts, he was easy to speak to and made you feel as if he had known you for much longer than he really had.

Steve had been approached by Harry Geisler from Factors about future licenses and Steve had told Harry in no uncertain words that MCA would not licenses their television or movie properties to their company because of Factors previous reputation as a "Bootlegger" of licensed properties.

A bootlegger in the industry is a company or individual that steals the licensed product without a contract and continues to sell the product without paying a royalty for its use. This continues until the Licensor either sues the bootlegger or until the value of the property is diminished by the lack of popularity with over-exposure in the retail industry.

Pro Arts had the reputation of suing every bootlegger that infringed on the Farrah poster and at the time when I was in Hollywood, Pro Arts had six or seven pending suits against infringers for the copyright on Farrah.

I found it necessary to place 5 days of full-page advertising in both the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER and DAILY VARIETY magazines to clearly state that Pro Arts was the originator of the Farrah Fawcett poster.

The ad was quite simple and direct: "Make no mistake about it!

While other companies are

representing that they are

the producers of the famous

Farrah Fawcett poster,

Pro Arts, Inc. of Medina,

Ohio is the producer." "Call (216) 725-7767

and ask for T.N.Trikilis. V.P., Sales and Marketing "

The ad did straighten out the lies perpetrated by Factors, but unfortunately, Factors had already signed their agreements with Twentieth Century Fox for "STAR WARS" and with Sylvester Stallone for his personal rights.

While I was in Hollywood, I met with Rick Hersh of the William Morris Agency and Sandy Brokaw of the Brokaw Company.

Rick was the agent that represented Farrah in the contracts for her licensing rights with Pro Arts. While the phenomenon was at its height, several manufacturers wanted other rights that Pro Arts did not have and they wanted to use the Farrah photograph that was the poster.

Sandy Brokaw was Rick's best friend and Sandy's father, Norman Brokaw was the co-chairperson of the William Morris Agency. It was Sandy's father that supposedly got Rick his job at the agency.

Sandy had just started working for his twin brother, David, and Pro Arts became one of Sandy's first accounts.

Sandy was responsible for getting me on many talk shows in radio and television. During his representation, I was on the Regis Philaben Show, The Jim Nabors Show, The Bob Braun Radio Talk Show and several magazine articles including three pages in Playgirl Magazine!

I like to think that Sandy, Rick and I are still good friends since we all benefited from the Farrah Exposure.

Since the copyright for the photograph belonged to Pro Arts, I had agreed to "license" the copyright to the other manufacturers providing Pro Arts obtained the notice on the product. So Rick would send the manufacturers to Pro Arts for the photography rights when this occurred.

Some of the items licensed by Farrah other than posters and T-shirts were Themo-mugs, puzzles, Coloring posters, towels, wall hangings, floor mats, buttons and erasable memo boards.

It was estimated that Farrah had obtained nearly $30,000,000.oo in contracts and licenses during the height of her phenomenon. She signed to do 3 movies: SUNBURN, SOMEBODY KILLED HER HUSBAND and SATURN THREE. Each one with an estimate $1,000,000.00 guaranteed up front payment. Farrah was also being wined and dined by Cary Grant for Fabrege. Her shampoo and body care line was reported to be a whooping $7,500,000.oo guarantee even though the line had a poor market entry and did not do well at the store level.

It was about this time that there was a rumor being reported in the industry and retail marketplace. I had heard from several customers from different parts of the country that Farrah was gay, Farrah was leaving Lee Majors and Farrah was leaving Charlie's Angels.

When I had told Jay Burnstein, Farrah's Manager, about this over the telephone, he laughed and said that it was nothing and that I should not worry about it.

Yet nearly a month later, Jay was denying this in the tabloids and the fact that Farrah had left Spelling-Goldberg Productions in a contract dispute only confirmed one third of the rumor. Shortly thereafter, Farrah and Lee had separated! Confirming another third of the rumor!

It was difficult to deny the rumor that Farrah was gay, yet I continued to deny this and thought so little of this particular aspect of the rumor that I did not even hesitate to renew our contracts with Farrah a year later!

After a very short trip to Hollywood, I returned to Medina with a totally new idea about our poster business!

When I was standing on the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and Beverly Drive, I must have seen hundreds of Mercedes-Benz automobile and dozens of Rolls-Royces! The glitz of the Hollywood hype on their billboards and the flash of the industry triggered a little voice in my mind that kept repeating: "Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment!"

What is a poster?

It is a "picture worth a thousand words!" For years I had stated that posters never become unpopular, it is what is on the poster that becomes unpopular!

Each year "something" new and interesting excites the population of a culture to the point where their impulsive nature disregards common sense and demands that the individual purchase this inexpensive article that ignites the imagination of the viewer.

Ever notice how a song on the radio triggers a memory of the time you first heard that tune?

A poster is a visual bullet that starts the whole daydream process for many of the posters viewers. If it's sexy, sensual and hot, the viewer fantasizes about it.

If it is a political poster, it portrays the commitment of the viewer and becomes a "billboard" for their commitment!

If it is decorative, it enhances the living or sleeping quarters of the owner.

Pro Arts posters established all of these things and more. It established a level of quality that made the competition compete for this quality. Pro Arts' posters were worth "ten thousand words!"

I immediately called a meeting with Mike and John to discuss this revelation and tried to explain that the poster was only a catalyst that could start the "hype" of a television program or movie release.

The poster rack in the store was like a record rack in a store. Some consumers were sound oriented while others were visually oriented. By having a permanent poster rack in a store, the poster manufacturer did not have to continually sell the Buyer of a retail chain over and over again on any new releases. The company had a permanent home for anything weeks or months ahead of any release of a movie or television series.

I even envisioned movie companies purchasing space for their "pre-release hype" to help create an interest in the movie soon to be released. This was evident with the movie, Dick Tracy. The merchandising was already in place before Warren Beatty appeared on the screen as Dick Tracy. Though the movie barely pulled a profit, stores were saturated with merchandise and even if the movie "bombed" there would be great revenues for the merchandising!

Disney's "Aladdin" was good, but not as good as the many posters that were sold to the retailer prior to its Christmas release in December of 1992! Many retailers are still sitting on these posters as of the reading of this book.

This was the message that I tried to convey to Mike and John. We needed to get our own racks into the retail stores and I felt that K-Mart was the key since they had enjoyed great profits and lost no money on their returns of unsold posters!

I estimated that Pro Arts could conservatively place 2,000 poster racks each year for five years. During this time, each rack would sell 4 to 5 times its inventory depending on the poster season.

With 10,000 racks in the field, selling a minimum of $2,000.oo per rack at wholesale, Pro Arts would do about $20,000,000 a year without a Farrah Fawcett poster!

Mike had asked me what I felt our "encore" would be after the past $6,000,000.oo year with Farrah. I said that rather than have one poster that sells five million copies; we should try to have five posters that sell a million posters each. This way we could insure a more reliable income rather than depend on hitting a "home run" each time we came to bat.

I had already signed contracts with Cherly Tiegs, Cherly Ladd (Farrah's replacement on Charlie's Angels), Lynda Carter (personally, not as Wonder Woman) Shawn Cassidy both as a Hardy Boy and personally, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (the first professional cheerleading poster in the industry, Billy Carter (President Jimmy Carter's brother), the cast from Saturday Night Live (Belushi as the Samurai Warrior, Akroyd as a Conehead, Gilda Radner as Roseanne Roseannadana) and there were new releases for Farrah, Jaclyn Smith, and Kate Jackson.

Additionally, Mike, John and I had started another corporation called Fan Club Corporation of America that would sell at mail order the fan clubs of each of our licensors that wanted their fan mail answered!

Mike and John had also negotiated a contract to purchase the Pro Arts building through our partnership and lease the building back to Pro Arts. Credit to our company was no longer a question. No one including Old Phoenix National Bank hesitated in giving us all the credit we needed.

Not only did we purchase the building, but another building across town to house our advertising agency, Dynamic Publishing Company, and our existing art department.

We purchased two color separators for doing our own film work; establish a photography studio and a separate mail order area for Fan Club.

It was about this time that we began testing K-Mart with 125 permanent poster racks that we had built at the Pro Art facility in the Medina Industrial Park. Our 20,000 square foot addition became our shipping and receiving area and the beginning of our first prototype automatic rolling machine was started.

I had renewed a relationship with a former competitor in the incense business that had gone into the mail order business. I had always like him, as he was a very likable man. His name was William Krupnick and he had gone from one business to another without really connecting on a big winning product like our Farrah poster.

When I explained my ideas about Fan Club Corporation of America, he became as excited about this potential as I was.

I convinced both Mike and John to bring Bill into the Fan Club Company to be its president and handle the day-to-day aspects of the business. Bill was very knowledgeable and had a good eye for designing the image necessary for Fan Club's success.

Unfortunately, Bill was also dishonest!

From June of 1977 to about January 3 of 1978, Bill worked for Fan Club. Bill purchased everything from advertising to printing of the Fan Club kits that represented each personality.

When I would travel to Hollywood, Bill accompanied me there and I introduced him to all my contacts.

Little did I know at the time that Bill was doing deals for his own benefit and planned to sink Fan Club and start a similar business in Hollywood!

In September of 1977, I wanted to hire three additional Sales Managers for Pro Arts to supplement Rick Mihalik's Sales Manager position.

While Pro Arts dominated the discount store business with the Farrah promotional, we neglected several other areas that potentially had as much sales potential as the discount store trade.

Pro Arts sold several inner-city distributors all over the United States.

In Boston, Bruce Miner Company sold the New England territory. In New York City, Pro Arts had Funkey Enterprises, Novelty Posters and Scorpio Posters. Occasionally, we received orders from Personality Posters, however since their inception as poster manufacturers in 1965, Personality primarily concentrated their efforts in retail stores of their own. Both Marty and Joan Geisler became friends of mine and I still see them whenever I am in New York.

In Chicago, Pro Arts sold Bi-Rite Enterprises the Farrah poster, but Gus Stevens and Bruce Sedlack had obtained the Charlie's Angels rights from Spelling- Goldberg Productions and they were trying to sell that poster concept instead of our Farrah. Gus and Bruce had the Starsky & Hutch license when it first entered the television marketplace and they had obtained decent distribution. However, it was not until 1982 when they obtained the Michael Jackson rights and sold millions of dollars worth of his merchandise on the heels of Jackson's "THRILLER" record album.

Unfortunately, Jackson's second attempt fizzled four years later leaving Bi-Rite on the verge of bankruptcy and Bruce and Gus closed their doors.

By all accounts, you can see that the poster industry is and was a very excited atmosphere. The daily happenings created an electrifying situation that required hours of intense effort to keep a "handle on the incidents" that occurred.

While I hired three Sales Managers and trained each one for a specific job, I still handled the Export Business, the Canadian Business through Ed Mauro and Kedd Enterprises, the Premium Business, the Marketing and Art Department and all contract negotiations related to obtaining licenses and licensing of our properties.

I hired Richard Burton to handle the Premium Sales for the Company.

I hired Paul "Tex" Elzy to represent the College Bookstore market.

I hired Joe Orlinsky to represent Pro Arts in the Record Shops and Gift Shops.

I spent a great deal of time from September of 1977 to the end of December of 1977 to train each for their specific areas.

While Joe and Tex were personal gambling friends of my brother's and socialized with Mike at the local country club, Richard Burton was the husband of my wife's friend and Richard had a very professional look about him. He was an account executive for Dun & Bradstreet and he always was dressed to the nines.

My brother Mike had a work ethic that seemed at the time to be adequate when reviewed with his track record. Mike was very smart and his ability to analyze problems and quickly arrive at a good solution was a contributing factor to the success of Pro Arts.

My Uncle John on the other hand was a considerate trusting man that tried to be fair with everybody. He was also very smart and the fact that he was the oldest of the three of us always made me respectful of his opinions.

Often Mike, John and I would hash and rehash problems that occurred regularly as we were growing.

My primary effort was testing the K-Mart stores for the permanent poster program.

If we were successful, Pro Arts would get a 1,800 chain wide order to place racks in all their stores.

In early December, I was notified that the two month test for K-Mart had been extremely successful and that subject to the rack meeting all their store requirements, Pro Arts would begin shipping 1,800 stores the super K Rack as it later became to be known.

After two or three trips to the Troy Headquarters with the Special K Gallery, we received the G-9 Purchase Order for all K-Mart Stores large enough to handle the four foot by two foot wooden display.

It was mid-December when my wife, Io, and I traveled to Europe to visit her grandparents in Athens, Greece. Io's father was on leave from Hiram University in Ohio and he had purchased a house in Northern Greece where Io's grandparents were born.

Since my first trip to Greece in December of 1976 was a direct flight to Athens, I wanted to go to places in Europe prior to going to Greece. As an Art Student at Kent State University, I had viewed several paintings and works of art by slide projection and my love for the fine arts drove me to stop "and smell the roses" since we were going to Europe on a Work/Vacation basis.

We first went to Dublin, Ireland to visit Io's sister Alice and brother-in-law, Panos. They were stationed there as part of Greece's diplomatic corps as Panos was a Consul for the Greek Embassy. After three days in Dublin, we flew to London where we visited all the sights including the Royal Museum. In was on these occasions that I not only saw the great works of art in person, but I acquired numerous slides for possible Fine Art Poster Reproduction!

From London we flew to Paris. There again we visited all the sights especially the Louve Museum where the famous Mona Lisa was hanging on a wall by itself. It was very strange seeing this small oil painting hanging there after hearing, reading and discussing it for several years prior to seeing it. Leonardo da Vinci's painting made me realize that except for the 400 or so years since it was finished by the great artist, I perhaps stood at the same distance he had stood when he viewed it after he had finished it.

From Paris we went to Athens and in December in spite of the sever pollution, the Acropolis stood majestically above the smog filled modern city.

We went to the Athens Museum as well as traveling throughout Greece by automobile.

Again, I reflect upon the memory of seeing the ruins at Delphi as the Sun was setting between the mountains drowning itself in the sea.

I perhaps stood in the same steps where the great Persian Leader, Cyrus the Great had asked the Oracle the question, "What will happen if I enter Athens?" And the reply being accepted as a favorable one, "A great nation will fall." became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Persia was the nation that fell.

After a week in Greece, my wife and I traveled to Rome to visit the Vatican Museum and the ruins that dominated the city's Aurora.

Our final stop was in Madrid where a Pro Arts distributor, Mr. Duartea, entertained us. The Prado is the famous museum that housed the best Goya art collection in the world.

In three short weeks I had seen the finest collection of the Masters that anyone could imagine. And I had obtained nearly 1,000 colored transparencies for a future fine art line if the opportunity ever became possible.