Bill Loeb

Bill Loeb spent his life in the entertainment business. He joined the giant talent agency MCA in 1946 and within a year's time he was put in charge of their San Francisco office handling virtually all of the major entertainment in Reno, Tahoe and Las Vegas. He was in charge of the entire West Coast area when he resigned from MCA in 1951 to become a personal manager and advisor to such popular talents as Lawrence Welk, Liberace, Frankie Laine, Donald O'Connor, Jack Jones, the Supremes, and dozens of others. He served as a talent consultant and producer for many industrial organizations as well, and during the late sixties, he formed the International Management Combine, which gave him the opportunity to represent such noted English musical acts as Donovan, Jethro Tull, Traffic, Humperdink and Ten Years After. In the late 70s he produced Bing Crosby's first live concerts in over 40 years. Loeb co-produced the Robert Vaughn one-man show FDR, which toured the country, and was made into a motion picture for major theatrical release. He also served as entertainment consultant to five major hotels through the country.

He was a past president of the Talent Managers Association and at various times managed Rosemary Clooney, Rose Marie and Margaret Whiting.

The genius behind "4 Girls 4"

It all started in the L.A. offices of the talent management company Loeb, Weems and Breecher.

Bill Loeb, who was then the manager for Rosemary Clooney, was casting about for ideas to get some work for Clooney after her tour with Bing Crosby concluded. By that time Bill had been associated with Rosemary for about twelve years.

He finally came up with the idea of combining three of his other clients, the television actress and nightclub singer Barbara McNair, former child star and TV personality Rose Marie and 1940s pop singer Whiting, together with Clooney for one large act. "Basically, I represented the girls as a manager for years – Rose Marie for 28 years, Clooney for twelve, Margaret for ten or fifteen," Loeb said. "In trying to keep them all busy and keep them all going and not get repetitive or going to the same places over and over again, I just kind of sat one day and pondered: What could I do to come up with an idea that would be interesting and new and hadn’t been done before. Instead of trying to sell or manage one individual, I’d put them all together and make one big act out of it. "So I talked to the girls. At the time everyone was working but nobody was setting the world on fire. I asked them if they wanted to try this and see if it works. It would work if they’re all compatible and they wouldn’t kill each other. You put four people together of that stature, and put them all in one place, you have to see if the mechanics, the temperments, the egos would all come together and meld into one interesting concept.

"It was just an idea that I thought of that nobody had done. Instead of trying to sell one name, I’d put four together to give it four times the impact. Each of them had a following; each of them had their own individual type of performance. There wasn’t a conflict in any way. I looked at all of the pros and cons and tried to weigh it all to see how it would come out. By the time I’d really worked it out in my mind, I finally came up with the conclusion that it was workable, and maybe worth pursuing."

Despite some early tension, the four "girls" got along fine and performed well together. Barbara McNair left after the first gig, and Loeb and the three remaining performers brainstormed over who would make a good replacement. They all came up with Helen O’Connell. Bill had known Helen for years, though he hadn't been as involved with her as the other three, who he'd been with for forty, fifty years total.

Helen O’Connell was offered the position of the Fourth Girl, and she accepted and the show went on to break records all around the country for many years.

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