Tom Mooney

A bio is such a strange thing. Should I write the truth or should I make it more exciting? Who really cares about my past anyway, except for my mother? Yet, people need to know when you are either looking for a job or have been put into a position of high profile that you may not deserve. The latter is the case with me. So here is my bio for the Chairmanship of the Boards Summit:

I was born in 1947 in a log cabin in Brooklyn. My father, who is still alive at eighty -three and can’t figure out what I do for a living, was, and is, the most gentle man I have ever met. He spent twenty-five years as a NYC fireman and he should be the moderator, not me. I was a dull kid. I went to Catholic schools where all I learned was how to take a punch (from the nuns and brothers). I attended Power Memorial Academy and if I had any thoughts of basketball, a fellow student named Lew Alcinder (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) told me to get over it. I wanted a simple life, to be Mickey Mantle or Jerry Lee Lewis. Because I couldn’t hit the curve, I went into music. I played from 1963 (the high school hops) to 1979 (the bars and saloons) with two years off for the Army. Yes, I was in Vietnam, from 1967 to 1968. No, I was not a war hero. I got out a two star general and I went to Hunter College on the G.I. bill. You see, Hunter was free and I made money from music playing rock clubs and I got money from the G.I. bill. This is living!

After every act that opened for me became famous, (Blondie, Huey Lewis, Stray Cats, The Beatles) I realized that it might not happen to me. I began an acting career because I had majored in theater and film. I did some commercials with great directors such as Steve Horn, Bob Giraldi, Bill Hudson, Fred Levinson. I was awful but I made money. Finally, with a blank resume, Ray Lofaro gave me a job and my rep career began. I knew what a rep was because my agent ruined my career (now I can ruin someone else’s career). I then worked for Ray, Manny Perez, and Ed Bianchi, all men who helped me learn advertising and film. I will always be grateful for their help and trust in me.

I then teamed up with a guy whose company I always enjoyed at bid meetings because he had all the answers to the questions and I would simply agree with him. Production was (is) not my forte and I had great respect for him. Alex Blum was his name and he hired me to be Director of Sales for Spots Films and to work with many talented directors including a guy who has become my close friend, David Cornell. We worked well and played well and thus a partnership was born. Headquarters Films is now almost eight years old. It has been hard but rewarding. I would have given up and gone back to music if not for people like Alex and David. I have become close to new people like Adam Cameron and Simon Cole (aka Joe Public), Lloyd Stein, John Moore, and Eric Steinman, Andrew Denyer and Philip Fox-Mills. I’m a lucky guy. I like my job, I like people and I like money! It looks like they’re all coming together.

The most important part of this B.S. is that I found the best partner for me, my buddy and wife Cindy for 18 years and two new buddies, Paul, 14, and Kira, 11, who make it all worthwhile.