Innovative Director and Producer Julius Nasso

RAINE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW Q & A

Julius Nasso

RAINE: Can you describe your experiences and how they helped fine-tune your craft?

NASSO: I started working at a local drugstore as a delivery boy at an early age. Through that experience, when it was time to go to college, I decided to become a pharmacist. Eventually, I bought the drugstore, when the pharmacist I worked for retired. As I knew that I would not want to be behind the counter for my entire career, I decided to open and expand to other drugstores and, eventually, I started the BuyWise Pharmacy chain. During this period of time, I noticed that the big chain stores were buying up all of the independent drugstores; I sold all of my retail pharmacies in 1988.

Parallel to this, I created Universal Marine Medical Supply (UMMS), which gave me more of an opportunity to travel throughout the US. I called on shipping companies and cruise ship lines to allow my company to service their commercial vessels with medical supplies required by the World Health Organizations. After selling my chain of drugstores, I devoted all of my time to building up UMMS, opening offices nationwide. Today, the company is one of the largest maritime medical suppliers, servicing over 300 cruise ships and 16,000 commercial vessels, including those offshore. Today, the company has offices across the country and around the world.

RAINE: What's been a funny behind the scenes moment that you could share?

NASSO: The way I got involved in the entertainment business is a funny story! While opening an office in Los Angeles for UMMS, I would stay at the homes of my neighborhood friends that I grew up with that were in the entertainment business—Scott Baio, Jimmy Baio, Tony Danza, Billy Crystal, and Penny Marshall. At a certain point, Phil Goldbar, a friend of mine that I grew up with in Brooklyn, was producing a TV show called Hill Street Blues. He called and told me that a famous Italian director named Sergio Leone needed a bilingual interpreter, because he was coming to our neighborhood to scout locations for the film Once Upon a Time in America. I told him I would help him out, and for six weeks, I worked as his assistant on the production.

RAINE: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you have given yourself 5 years ago?

NASSO: I probably would have told myself to stick with it, relax a little bit, and that it was all going to turn out even better than I imagined.

RAINE: How would you describe a creative entrepreneur in your own words?

NASSO: A creative entrepreneur is a person that utilizes the same fundamentals in any type of business. The rules are really the same for any business that you start.

RAINE: If you had to relate what you do to sports, how would you describe how you have followed, changed or disrupted the game?

NASSO: Changed the game by not becoming pigeonholed.

RAINE: If someone asked you how they could stimulate their creativity, what advice would you give?

NASSO: You have to target what it is that you want to create. You don't give up; you keep pursuing your goal.