“New face of Boca Talent gears up for busy season”

 

By Lily Spamer

 

Boca Talent and Model Agency may already be one of the go-to model and talent agencies for major casting directors in South Florida’s entertainment industry.

 

But that isn’t enough for new owner and President Natalie Kahn Toewe.

 

Toewe wants to grow the 35-year-old-regional agency nationwide.

 

Her strategy for growth, however, isn’t obvious. Toewe actually wants to shrink her pool of 1,000 Florida actors and models to a far more intimate number.

 

 “I want to downsize the agency and to have the best connection with the best L.A. and New York-based agencies so that my talent is not just South Florida-based anymore, and so that I can get them the best work,” Toewe says. 

 

Toewe, who bought the business last June, would like to tailor her representation of actors and models to 500 within the next five years. That doesn’t mean Toewe is turning talent away – quite the contrary. Toewe continues to carefully sign on the talent that show promise from the hundreds of submissions she receives weekly.

 

The former actress and model says representing select talent is the ticket to establishing a name all over the nation and with agencies in bigger markets. But Toewe knows the only way to sign the best is to form solid relationships, especially in Florida’s non-exclusive market.

 

Hence, Toewe is striving to show the talent she signs that they mean more than just a face. She’s even developed the company’s logo, “Respect the Talent,” to reflect her mindset.

 

“I’ve made it more about the talent more than everyone else, that’s what respect the talent means,” Toewe says. “I’ve brought my empathy from being an ex-talent, and I’ve told everyone that works in my office to adhere to that same philosophy.”

 

Anita Spiegel, the founder of Boca Talent, agrees that talent relationships has always been the key to her success and kept her in business for over three decades.

 

Spiegel, who says she had to pound the pavement to find clients when she first started out in 1972, has a feeling Toewe will succeed in growing the agency. It was one reason Spiegel agreed to sell the agency to Toewe, she says.

 

“She’s been in the industry, and you’ve got to have that fire in you, I think she had that, still has it. That has a lot to do with it,” Spiegel says. Spiegel signed her as a talent in 1989 until Toewe retired in 2006.

 

And Spiegel, who has seen all the ups and downs, and is lately working on the other side of the business as a model, believes the industry is poised for an upswing.

 

“It peaked in 2000, and then it went downhill. But it started to come back up, I think it is going to come back. It’s been a good summer, and it’s usually dead in the summer,” Spiegel said.

 

Besides an unusually busy summer booking actors for jobs like the USA Network series Burn Notice and a new movie set for video release this winter titled Blackwater, Toewe has also juggled a renovation and expansion of her office space in Deerfield Beach.

 

It seems all Toewe’s hard work for the talent is paying off. Toewe says she has received a great deal of positive feedback from many casting directors and talent since she took over last year. “That’s what makes our day,” Toewe says.

 

Now Toewe is gearing up for the winter season.

 

“I know it will be a busy and successful season,” Toewe says.