Mike Zimring was an American entertainment agent. Zimring attended the drama school, Pasadena Playhouse, 1936–37, and was a radio actor in Hollywood and Chicago, 1938-41. He was a captain in the United States Army, 1941-46 heading the theatrical branch of the European Theater of Operations. In 1947, he was assistant to Orson Welles

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

 in the Mercury Theater. Zimring joined the William Morris Agency

William Morris Agency

WME is the largest talent agency in the world, with offices in Beverly Hills, New York City, Nashville, London, and Miami. WME represents elite artists from all facets of the entertainment industry, including motion pictures, television, music, theatre, publishing, and physical production...

 in 1948, becoming the senior agent in the motion picture department in 1950 and head of the literary department in 1959. He stayed at the William Morris Agency for several decades before becoming independent in the early 1990s. He lives in Beverly Hills, California.

His clients over the years have included Karl Malden

Karl Malden

Karl Malden was an American actor. In a career that spanned more than seven decades, he performed in such classic films as A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, On the Waterfront and One-Eyed Jacks...

, Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...

, Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

, Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

, Herbert Lom

Herbert Lom

Herbert Lom is a Czech film actor, best known for his role as former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movie series.-Life and career:...

, Frank Capra

Frank Capra

Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...

, Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...

, and his wife Connie Russell

Connie Russell

Connie Russell was an American movie actress. Born in New York City, she appeared in seven films from the 1930s through the 1950s. She played a lead role in the 1956 movie, Nightmare.-External links:...

. In his memoirs, Carl Reiner called Mike Zimring "the most civilized of all Hollywood agents."

Mike Zimring's older brother Maury (a.k.a. Maurice Zimm

Maurice Zimm

Maurice Zimm was an American radio, television and film writer whose most famous creation was the Creature from the Black Lagoon...

) wrote the story for Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 monster horror film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The eponymous creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and Ricou Browning in underwater scenes...

.

Mike died February 23, 2011 at Midway Hospital in Los Angeles