Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon

The fact that comedian Mike Myers really loves agent Shep Gordon is clearly evident from his adoring documentary about the legendary talent manager, who began—as Gordon ebulliently relates in interview footage—as the man who jump-started the career of Alice Cooper (a close friend) before taking on an entirely different sort of client, Canadian singer Anne Murray. Gordon also represented Teddy Pendergrass, whom he took into the mainstream against long odds and continued to nurture even after the singer's tragic 1982 auto accident. Myers also identifies Gordon as the man who created the celebrity chef and someone who played a key role in developing independent filmmaking in America. And he emphasizes Gordon's acquaintance with the Dalai Lama and his devotion to Buddhist ideals. But while Supermensch succeeds as a warmhearted tribute, structurally this is a ramshackle affair in which Gordon's difficult childhood isn't even mentioned until the halfway point—in connection with a wraparound segment about how his desire for a family led to his becoming a surrogate dad to the three orphaned grandchildren of one of his ex-wives. Gushing tributes from many who have benefited from Gordon's combination of uncanny skill at marketing and authentic personal concern for his clients—Myers, of course, but also Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Willie Nelson, Tom Arnold, and Emeril Lagasse—are dropped randomly into the mix. Myers is unwilling to go very deeply into any dark aspects of Gordon's personality, such as his inveterate womanizing, which is here pretty much treated as endearing, or his embrace of ‘60s drug culture. Still, even though Supermensch is hardly a warts-and-all portrait, it is a generally enjoyable profile of a canny showman and all-around nice guy. Recommended. (F. Swietek)