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Best Place to Find Model Behavior
TalentPlus
By Christy Marshall
Photograph by Frank Di Piazza

Beautiful people sashay in and out, comedian Joe Marlotti stands around cracking jokes, members of the singing group Captivation croon in the back room and actors wonder aloud about their next gigs. Every Tuesday and Thursday, there’s a half-hour open call for models ages 13 and up, and who knows when an Angelina Jolie lookalike will saunter into the TalentPlus loft?

But day in and day out? “What happens on the inside is far from glamorous,” says agency writer Victoria Parker Satchell, one eyebrow wryly arched.

The office, located just west of Tucker, is a large open space with desks arranged in pods of three. Centro (pronounced “chen-tro,” thank you very much) is the modeling arm; the next pod is for actors; the third is for Spotlight, the music division and speakers’ bureau. Sharon Lee Tucci, TalentPlus’ founder and president, has an office behind a partial wall. “I can hear everything,” she says dryly.

Not that she has all that many people to eavesdrop on. The staff totals 11—once the size of a good Catholic family—and the comparison is apt. “We live, love, fight like any family,” says Parker Satchell.

Chris Hansen, the head of the music division, joined four months ago, the first man in a sea of women. “The office definitely doesn’t have that corporate feel,” he says. “There is a lot of laughter and a lot of passion. Everyone is really excited to be working here.”

The only turnstile job at TalentPlus is receptionist: Both Parker Satchell and Molly Ried, who coordinates the child models and fashion shows, started there before being promoted.

The dress code is casual but hip (lots of designer jeans) and, in Tucci’s phrase, “put together.” The kitchen is well stocked with life’s essentials: espresso and Godiva chocolate.

Other perks? “The people you meet,” says Centro director Christina Klobe, blithely dropping the names of Leonardo DiCaprio, Aaron Eckhart and Justin Timberlake. Other niceties include birthdays off and passes to movies, parties, clubs and fashion shows. When gas prices soared, Tucci footed the tab for a tankful a month per employee.

The hours? How about every hour, every day? “We all have cell phones, so we are all accessible all the time,” Klobe says. “It’s not a 9-to-5 job, that’s for sure.”

When hiring new employees, Tucci takes her time. “I date them before we get married,” she says.

 “Everyone wants to be part of this crazy industry. They think it is really glamorous. We tell them we work 24/7. The management of people is constant.”

The pressure is equally unrelenting. TalentPlus’ livelihood relies totally on commissions, so each model or talent is screened carefully to be sure that he or she will be getting bookings and generating income. Diane Schorsch, head of the broadcast division, spends her days on the phone, chatting up actors, learning about all their abilities and occasionally making one’s day with news of a gig. “It’s all pretty much fun,” she says. “You’re kind of up all the time. You just have to be.”

In fact, the company’s only taboo is bad moods. “Everybody feeds off everybody’s energy, and if somebody’s off kilter, it affects the whole office,” Tucci says—so there’s an office “crab hat” for the sourpuss. And if someone’s rockin’ with unfettered exuberance, TalentPlus has a “super Wonder Woman” chapeau as well.

The interdict extends beyond the employees to those who walk through the front door. “I have a policy: Let’s do business with people we like,” Tucci says, and, reinforcing the notion, a sign hangs on her office wall: “Be Nice or Leave.”