Celebrating Jenne Casarotto: ‘High Fidelity’ Writer Nick Hornby Pens Moving Tribute To UK Industry Giant, As Filmmaker Scholarship Launches In Late Agent’s Name

Baz Bamigboye
·4 min read
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The Oscar-nominated novelist, screenwriter and essayist Nick Hornby below writes a special tribute for Deadline commemorating Jenne Casarotto, his agent for nearly 30 years, who died on February 29 aged 77.

The industry titan, who co-founded leading British talent agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates in 1989, was eulogized today by family, friends and close colleagues at an event named a Celebration of the Life of Jenne Casarotto in the Queen Elizabeth Hall located in London’s Southbank Centre.

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Private Eye editor Ian Hislop welcomed guests. Agent colleagues Abby Singer, Mel Kenyon and Jodi Shields spoke of working with Jenne, her son Mark Casarotto commemorated his mother, and producers Jeremy Thomas and Tim Bevan and longtime director clients John Madden and Shawn Slovo told stories about the Jenne they knew and loved.

During the ceremony, it was announced that Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and the National Film and Television School have established The Jenne Casarotto Scholarship to honor the legendary agent’s legacy. All funds will go to support emerging filmmakers at the beginning of their careers, in the same way she did throughout hers.

According to a statement on the initiative, the scholarship will fund a number of writers, directors, producers and heads of department studying at the school, where so many of Jenne’s own clients started their journey thanks to the world-class teaching and creative collaboration that the NFTS brilliantly fosters.

Casarotto’s client list was extensive. It included Hornby, J.G. Ballard, John Crowley, the Dahl Estate, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sir. Stephen Frears, Matteo Garrone, Christopher Hampton, David Hare, Bob Hoskins, Neil Gaiman, Terry Gilliam, Hilary Bevan Jones, Neil Jordan, David Leland, John Madden, Steve McQueen, Cynthia Payne, Neal Purvis, Shawn Slovo, Robert Wade, Tennessee Williams and David Yates.

Many of the colleagues and friends have cited her sense of humor and gleeful sense of fun, a quality evidenced in the photograph at the top of this article. Look closely at the words in the frame, hand-stitched gift from her then soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Bree. When Casarotto opened it and saw the embroidered words, ‘DO NOT FUCK WITH ME’ in capital letters, she remarked “We are going to get on!”

Hornby captures that essence in his tribute, which we publish below. The author published several novels including High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, A Long Way Down, About a Boy, Funny Girl and Juliet, Naked, all of which were adapted for the screen.

‘Straightforward And Plain-Talking’ Jenne Casarotto
By Nick Hornby

Jenne Casarotto was one of the most straightforward and plain-talking people I have ever met. This sounds as though I am scratching around for something kind to say about her, but she was a film agent, and to find a straightforward and plain-talking film agent is rather like finding a five-leafed clover, or a right-footed footballer with two right feet, or a screenwriter without paranoia and envy.

You’d have thought that Jenne’s apparent guilelessness and sincerity would have been a disadvantage, but everyone who came across her, on both sides of the Atlantic, reacted so strongly and positively to these qualities that one might think she’d just invented them, and in the film world, she more or less did.

If you felt like you’d known her forever, it’s because you had: She was your aunt, your mother, your mother’s best friend. I have met many film agents, and they are all smart and thoughtful. But usually you cannot draw on your family to explain how they came into being. Jenne’s familiarity was immensely reassuring to all of us who worked with her. It’s a difficult, uncertain world, and she was a beacon of optimism and a kind of pragmatism.

Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby

I have worked with other people she represented – Stephen Frears, on State Of The Union, John Crowley, on Brooklyn – and Jenne’s pride in these collaborations made us want to work harder. But then, her list made it almost impossible not to want to work with her clients, which featured and still feature the cream of British screen talent. I was lucky enough to be represented by her for nearly 30 years, and I had come to regard the relationship we had as permanent.

She recognized talent, and was always attempting to further the careers of young people she believed in; she knew every writer, director and actor whether she represented them or not. It didn’t matter to her whether she understood the artistic impulses of her clients. She just wanted to help realise them. This, too, is an unusual quality in a sphere so nervous about budgets and predictability.

She knew about football and Formula 1, the 1960s and the theatre, parenthood and precedents. The eclecticism was typical of her generation, but her particular combination was unique and sadly irreplaceable. It is a comfort that her company will live on not just with her name, but in her image.

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