[3] At the age of eighteen he already had his degree and was studying law while working in the mail room at the William Morris Agency, quickly moving up the ranks to agent and then head of the theatrical department.
[4] After serving in the Korean War by making training films in Manhattan, he returned to agency work, but in 1953[3] left to open his own management company, where he represented James Coburn, Robert Culp, Steve McQueen, Mel Brooks, Herbert Ross, Charles Strouse, and Lee Adams.
The following year, he saw former client Sammy Davis Jr. performing at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, and approached him about starring in a musical version of Clifford Odets' Golden Boy.
Calcutta!, The Rothschilds, and Hedda Gabler and A Doll's House, the latter two with his then-wife Claire Bloom (they married in 1969 and divorced in 1972).
For television, Elkins produced the documentaries Pippin: His Life and Times (1981), Sex, Censorship and the Silver Screen (1996), An Evening with Quentin Crisp (1999), and Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool (2005).