There were many stories that arose from David M. Agrela’s long tenure working in television in Hollywood. One recurring assignment was “wrangling” talent at awards shows like the American Music Awards®, the Emmys® and, of course, the Oscars®.
He worked closely with too many TV, music and movie stars to name here—or even keep track of, frankly. Many were contemporaries working during the time period in which this work is set, the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. Many more were stars from the classic eras of film and video.
It may seem like an extraordinary experience, getting to work closely with names everyone knows but only dreaming of ever meeting. But it was par for the course for television network pages, often working as “wranglers,” a term Agrela invented to better describe the nature of the assignment described in the pages of Under the Red Carpet of Babylon.
After working in TV for a decade, first as a page and wrangler; later for two years still a page but working as the de facto programming manager for the network’s local TV station in Los Angeles; finally helping to produce Movies-for-TV (a virtually extinct function anymore), Agrela spent a second career as an advertising executive where his extensive experience making TV programs informed his expertise making commercials for major brands.
When Agrela is not writing, he enjoys the inherent jeopardy of challenging his own admitted hubris with fast-paced contests of general knowledge, minutiae and trivia.
He has lived in idyllic Orange County, California for more than three decades.