RISSMILLER: BACK ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET

When Jim Rissmiller was the new kid at the William Morris talent agency 21 years ago, he was asked to deliver a script to Robert Mitchum’s house. Rissmiller was a big Mitchum fan, and although he felt certain that the actor wouldn’t be home, he was still excited about being headed there.

“But when I rang the bell, Mitchum answered the door,” Rissmiller recalled. “It was pouring rain outside, so he asked me in for coffee. I told him I couldn’t, that I had to go. He insisted, and I said, ‘No, no, I can’t have a cup of coffee with you because it’s raining outside.’ I got back to my car and thought, ‘My God, Robert Mitchum just invited me in for coffee and I told him I couldn’t because it’s raining. ‘ How dumb!”

Rissmiller, now 42 and a grandfather, recently turned around that dismal beginning by coming full circle: He’s an agent again, this time heading up the contemporary music division of the Agency for the Performing Arts.

In between agency careers, he enjoyed many successful years as Southern California’s leading concert promoter--amassing personal wealth that peaked at $3.5 million. But there were also some disastrous years resulting from his running of the Country Club, the rock club in Reseda.

Rissmiller said his original plan was to buy the Country Club and the surrounding block, where he hoped to develop an entirely music-oriented complex. The problem was that the lease-to-buy agreement never worked out and the venture, which began as a heavy financial burden, only became heavier. He severed ties with the club in 1983 and eventually declared bankruptcy.

“Wolf & Rissmiller Concerts, as a corporation, and I, personally, funded the nightclub,” he explained, sitting in the APA offices in West Hollywood. “I put my house and other properties up as collateral to the bank so I could borrow money to get into the nightclub business. Once we got started, we ended up funneling money into the club to keep it going--the hotter we got with the club business, the higher the price of the deal went up.”

” I never wanted to be over the hill, never wanted to be like Willie Mays, who played too long.” Until joining APA, Rissmiller was happy to be out of the rock maelstrom, spending most of his time teaching at UCLA and serving as a marketing consultant to the school’s athletic department. Rissmiller, who grew up in Philadelphia, was also toying with the idea of moving to the East Coast (“The older I was becoming, the more I wanted to be in New England”).

Given this, Rissmiller is the first to admit it’s odd that he’s decided to rejoin the music business full time. But two days before he and his wife were to leave last summer on an extended European vacation, Marty Klein, president of the Agency for the Performing Arts, called to see if Rissmiller would be interested in opening a contemporary music division for the firm.

He had strong reservations, telling Klein, “I like the agency business. I just don’t like agents.” But Rissmiller agreed to meet with Klein when he returned. As a measure of his certainty that he’d turn down Klein’s offer, Rissmiller spent a week in Boston after the vacation and bought a home there.

But people change their mind, even people with a Boston house in escrow. Rissmiller met with Klein and others at APA--which represents such heavyweight performers as Steve Martin and Liberace--and liked what he heard.

“They told me they wanted to have a small, select roster, and nurture and develop the acts,” he explained. “It was a far cry from ‘Get a hit record and then call me, boy,’ which is the prevailing attitude in the agency business.”

Other encouraging discussions followed, and it wasn’t long before Rissmiller was head of--actually, the --contemporary music division, hunting for new bands.

“What I’m doing is signing bands that will break, record-wise and on the concert stage, and also acts that we can develop in other areas: producing, directing, writing, acting, scoring sound tracks--all those kinds of things,” he added.

Rissmiller’s hunt has yielded seven bands so far. They range from local rockers the Living Daylights to White Wolf, a Canadian heavy-metal outfit. Because the seven acts on his roster are stylistically dissimilar, Rissmiller has different ideas as well as big plans for each group. There is, however, one minor detail that stands in the way of Rissmiller executing some of his lofty strategies: Only three of his bands so far have landed a record deal.

“Well, I’m going to do something with these bands that I tried to do at William Morris 20 years ago to no avail: prove that a major agency has the ability to keep a band alive and working until that magic first record comes out,” he said.

When asked about the prospects for his bands down the rock ‘n’ roll road, Rissmiller, ever the promoter, said: “I think all of the bands that we represent will become arena-level acts.”

He paused. “When I first came to APA I was apprehensive. I’ve had this history, this reputation. But I never wanted to be over the hill, never wanted to be like Willie Mays, who played too long. But then I realized that I also have the youthful enthusiasm and energy and smarts to deliver whatever I promise.”