Today we're reprinting an article from The Museum of Broadcast Communications on Michael Ovitz, again for archival purposes. We'll be back shortly to regular postings and updates; the past few days have been devoted to establishing a digital archive of past articles and information.
The original link is located here.
The Museum of Broadcast Communications: Michael Ovitz
Michael Ovitz established himself as a major force in Hollywood while heading the powerhouse talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), founded in 1975 by a group of breakaway talent agents from the William Morris agency. Initially an important television packager, CAA under Ovitz's direction expanded into film, investment banking, and advertising, becoming the dominant talent agency in Hollywood. In 1995, Ovitz parlayed his dealmaking skills into a new position as President of the Walt Disney Company, where he will oversee Disney's vast empire of theme parks, films, consumer products, and its 1995 acquisition, Capital Cities/ABC.
Ovitz's career at CAA was multifaceted. As talent agent for major film stars such as Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, and Barbra Streisand, in addition to prominent directors such as Steven Spielberg, Barry Levinson, and Sydney Pollack, Ovitz was credited with putting together the major elements of hit films such as Rain Man, Cliffhanger, and Jurassic Park. But Ovitz's power and influence extended far beyond the creation of specific works of entertainment and into the very organization of the media industries in the United States and throughout the world. As a well-known broker between talent and financiers, he was hired as investment adviser for several significant industry transactions, including Sony's 1989 purchase of Columbia Pictures for $3.4 billion, the French bank Credit-Lyonnais' rescue of MGM in 1993, Matsushita's purchase of entertainment conglomerate MCA for $6.6 billion in 1990, and its subsequent sale of that organization to the Seagram Company in 1995. On another front, Ovitz and CAA shook up the advertising industry by winning Coca-Cola's global advertising account in 1991. Seeking to target fragmented television audiences with diverse and innovative commercials, CAA produced the "Always Coca-Cola" advertising campaign, which successfully popularized Coke-drinking computer animated polar bears.
Ovitz's canny strategies for winning clients and making deals are evident in his earlier work as a television "packager." Talent agencies often combine elements of a proposed program, choosing actors, script, and a director from among their stable of clients, then shopping this "package" to the networks for approval and financing. If a network accepts the package deal, the talent agency receives an overall packaging fee from the network, usually a percentage of the program's production budget and a percentage of the syndication profits. Packaging fees are more lucrative for a talent agency than individual clients' fees. In the 1970s, CAA packaged television programs such as the game show Rhyme and Reason, the Rich Little Show, and the Jackson Five Show.
To compete with other talent agencies, CAA set its packaging fee at 3%, undercutting the 5% charged by other agencies. Ovitz also developed close ties with entertainment lawyers, who brought new clients to CAA. Furthermore, Ovitz understood that good stories and scripts would attract important acting and directing talent. His cultivation of the literary agent Morton Janklow, whose clients include fiction writers Jackie Collins, Danielle Steele, and Judith Krantz, enabled CAA to package nearly 100 hours of successful television miniseries, including Rage of Angels, Princess Daisy, Mistral's Daughter, and Hollywood Wives. Recent CAA packages include Beverly Hills 90120 and The John Larroquette Show.
Under Ovitz, CAA applied similar strategies to the film industry. CAA has attracted top acting and directing talent, in part by representing successful screenwriters who produce desirable scripts, but also because CAA often "packages" film projects with client writers, actors, and directors before shopping the projects to film studios for financing and production. Despite film studio executives' accusations that CAA has driven up the cost of talent, CAA agents have had close relations with film studio executives, especially with those who rely on CAA to negotiate their own employment contracts with the studios.
Beyond talent brokering for film and television, Ovitz has also worked with companies developing the new technologies that may deliver tomorrow's entertainment. He has been a consultant to AT and T and to Bill Gates, head of the computer software giant Microsoft. In 1994 Ovitz consulted with Bell Atlantic, Nynex, and Pacific Telesis to create Tele-TV, a video programming service that may one day carry interactive services over telephone lines. As Ovitz has explained, at some point soon, "There will be a high-tech box on your television set that enables you to access a cornucopia of choices." Once in place, according to Ovitz, "There will be the most incredible shortage of product!" Consequently, Ovitz says, in a 1993 Time magazine interview, "I want to feed that box".
In 1995 Ovitz rattled the power structure of Hollywood when he agreed to sell his stake in CAA in order to become president of the expanding Walt Disney Company. Working with Disney chairman Michael Eisner, Ovitz is expected to oversee Disney's film studio, television production company, theme parks and resorts, and Disney's 1995 $19 billion acquisition, Capital Cities/ABC. His skill as a talent agent is expected to improve Disney's relations with top Hollywood talent, as well as help Disney integrate its products throughout Disney's diverse media holdings, which include film, animation, television programming, publishing, cable television, and the national broadcast network, ABC. As a leader of what appears to be the world's largest entertainment conglomerate, Ovitz will be well-positioned to "feed that box" with Disney entertainment, whatever shape the box may eventually take.
-Cynthia Meyers
MICHAEL OVITZ. Born in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., 14 December 1946. Graduated from University of California, Los Angeles, 1968; briefly attended law school. Married Judy Reich, 1969; children: Christopher, Kimberly, and Eric. Joined William Morris Agency, first as trainee, then as agent, 1969-75; co-founder of Creative Artists Agency, 1975, and served as chair until joining Disney; president and member of board of directors, Walt Disney Company, since 1995.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Michael Ovitz Article Archive
Today we're posting the text from a few articles in the archive. Links are included for each if you'd like to read them in their entirety. Enjoy!
Michael Ovitz
A Tough, Innovative Superagent Emerges as King of the Hollywood Deal
People Magazine
In the new buttoned-down Hollywood, power and access are more important than prestige and pay—and yet there is a single man who has cornered all four. He is neither director nor star but a dealmeister extraordinaire, a Lubitsch not of film but of finances, who in November brokered the sale of Universal Studios' brand equity along with the King Kong ride, Bruce the shark, publishing's Putnam Berkley Group and MCA's mat-black skyscraper to the Japanese electronics giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. for $6.9 billion.
Michael Ovitz added the top line to his credit crawl by providing a service usually performed by Wall Street investment houses. His take on the MCA deal: a reported $40 million. Last year, Ovitz did a push-up to this task by marrying Sony to Columbia Pictures Entertainment. "Hollywood is about relationships," a well-connected TV producer once said, "and everybody today wants an even warmer relationship with Mike."
So as Hollywood slides across the Pacific Rim to Japan, the man greasing the wheel is Ovitz, the 44-year-old superagent who. as chairman of Creative Artists Agency, has assembled an unparalleled stable of actors, directors and screenwriters. Among them: Madonna, Kevin Costner, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, Cher and Ovitz's former aikido instructor, Steven Seagal.
Much of Ovitz's most-powerful-man rep still comes from "packaging" clients-actors, directors and writers—to make films like GoodFellas (Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, director Martin Scorsese and writer Nicholas Pileggi). And he pulls all these strings with consummate skill. Says Disney Chairman Michael Eisner: "He's among the most tenacious people one would ever meet."
The spotlight rarely shines on the publicity-shy agent, who started out as a mail boy in the William Morris Agency. Devoted to Judy, his wife of 21 years, and their three children, Ovitz spends much of his time at their art-filled Brentwood home. Some think he may take over a studio. But why bother? He is already the shogun of Hollywood.
Michael Ovitz
By: Liz ZackOctober 31, 1999
Fast Company
Hollywood talent agencies never functioned the same after Ovitz sunk in his teeth. Now crunching the industry for the second time, the titan of talent intends to surpass his own reputation.
Back when Michael Ovitz ran the Creative Artist's Agency, hailed as the most powerful talent agency in the world, he would hand out copies of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" to his staff. In 1995, Ovitz parted amiably with the company he had founded two decades earlier and the industry he had revitalized, and ascended the throne of the Disney empire as president. It was a career move he hoped would catapult him to the top of an even older and larger entertainment kingdom than the one he built himself. But instead, 14 months after unsuccessfully casting himself as Disney's president, Ovitz clashed irrevocably with Chairman of the Walt Disney Company Michael Eisner, collected an estimated $128 million in compensation, and boomeranged back to Hollywood. Last winter he formed AMG, the Artists Management Group, and is now testing his ex-employees on their knowledge of Chinese philosophy.
Same job different company: Sometimes it's best to Boomerang back an alternate route
Ovitz could have waltzed back into CAA like nothing happened, but he really had nothing to gain from returning to his old stomping ground. He left as founding father and king of the hill. By returning after his failed stint at Disney, he might have marred his reputation as a brilliant and brutal businessman. For Ovitz and for a war-gamed Hollywood, a return to CAA would not be a return to grandeur; instead, it would appear a whimpering retreat.
Ever the forward thinker, Ovitz chose the braver route. He realized that he should return to the business he knew best, but he conceded that he had learned all he could from his 20-year career at the I.M. Pei building on Wilshire Boulevard. Ovitz decided to move on to a new big, and perhaps even better, project.
During his tenure at CAA, Ovitz had reinvented the talent agent world by charging the lowest commission in the industry and beating out all the competition. He had shaken up the studios by demanding previously unheard of salaries for his actors. When word got around about the new game in town, everyone followed suit, and Ovitz succeeded in effectively changing the center of power in Hollywood from studios to agents.
After bidding farewell to Mickey and Friends, Ovitz was ready to move back to the industry he had helped to create, and subsequently formed a monolith one-stop talent management shop: AMG. Whereas CAA agents are legally prohibited from producing projects with their clients, AMG talent "managers" are largely unregulated and have a much more flexible role. They can be financial partners with their clients and usually earn hefty commissions for providing more one-on-one hand-holding services. In his comeback company, Ovitz aims to create a powerhouse that not only manages the careers of stars but also produces and distributes movies -- he reportedly wants all agents and managers to work for him.
If you can't join 'em, fight 'em
Ovitz has the distinct advantage of having done right by his clients, and he therefore has talent that trusts him. This trust has enabled him to go head-to-head with his old company -- and emerge victorious. Already many big CAA names have crossed the line in the sand to join AMG. Claire Danes, Laren Holly, Minnie Driver, Marisa Tomei, Mimi Rogers, Syndney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, and Robin Williams all have been plucked from the CAA waters.
Ovitz is now poised to hoist his newest big project even higher than CAA. The opportunity requires a huge amount of industry expertise, a fantastic reputation, and some hefty nerve. But if the past is any predictor of the future, Hollywood had better take shelter: Ovitz is back in town.
Pocketful Of Stars: Michael Ovitz
By Janice Castro;Elaine Dutka/Los Angeles and Janice C. Simpson/New York
Monday, Feb. 13, 1989
Time Magazine
In Hollywood, they say, any bureaucrat can give the thumbs-down to a film proposal, but the ones with real clout are those who can flash a thumbs-up and make it happen. That power used to be the exclusive preserve of the studio moguls. Not anymore. While studios still control the financing, today the man with the golden thumb is Michael Ovitz, an agent and martial-arts buff who works in quiet but irresistible ways. Nearly everyone in show business agrees that Ovitz, 42, president of Creative Artists Agency, is probably the most powerful figure in Hollywood. Some think he may be a bit too powerful.
Michael who? Most people outside Hollywood would not recognize his name, but that's the way he likes it. The Ovitz team's credo: Don't talk about us, talk about our clients. The 675 names on the agency's roster include actors ranging from Paul Newman to Bette Midler, directors from Ron Howard to Martin Scorsese and musicians from Michael Jackson to Madonna. While CAA's chief rivals -- International Creative Management and William Morris -- may boast longer lists of stars, the 14-year-old CAA has snatched most of the brightest lights in the business. Says longtime agent Irving ("Swifty") Lazar, 81: "There hasn't been a phenomenon such as CAA since 1947, when Lew Wasserman and MCA dominated Hollywood. Comparing CAA to its strongest competition is like comparing Tiffany's to the A&P."
Contrary to the unbuttoned, indulgent style at many agencies, CAA operates with the crisp, well-coordinated teamwork of a Japanese high-tech firm. What adds to the agency's mystique is that Ovitz is extremely press shy. In the first extended interview he has ever given, he described his agency's unusual philosophy to TIME correspondent Elaine Dutka: "Some companies believe that internal competition helps the bottom line, but I'm not of that school. We try to take the paternal approach of the Japanese, who take care of their own, and temper that with Western creativity and ingenuity."
Ovitz, who shares power with CAA co-founders Ron Meyer, 44, and Bill Haber, 46, has shown an uncanny touch for putting stories and stars together. The agency had a hand in assembling the elements of four current box-office hits: Rain Man, Mississippi Burning, Twins and Scrooged. Among its TV successes are Golden Girls and Beauty and the Beast. Says Barry Diller, chief executive of Fox Inc.: "CAA represents a lot of good people, and is very aggressive in how they link them to each other. It's all about selling, and they're very good at it."
Hollywood's superagents have risen in power partly because takeovers and mergers have undermined the traditional influence of the major studios. Today very few actors and directors sign exclusive contracts with studios. Result: agents, who collect 10% of every dollar their clients earn, have become far more influential as matchmakers. Instead of merely peddling artists, they now help create custom-made projects for their stars.
Clients appreciate the fact that Ovitz not only pampers them but also teaches them to become more self-sufficient. Says actress Sally Field, a CAA client: "We used to be totally helpless, talking about what lessons to take or how thin we'd got our thighs while we waited for the phone to ring. Michael encouraged me to pick up the phone and develop my own projects. He told me, 'Be your own studio.' "
Since stories are the indispensable raw material of show business, CAA has built a development department that generates ideas for its clients. Ovitz has cultivated close ties with Manhattan gliterary agent Morton Janklow, who represents such best-selling authors s Judith Krantz, Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins. That collaboration has produced some 100 hours of network mini-series. Now Ovitz hopes to work an even richer literary vein. In December Janklow announced a surprise merger with longtime ICM literary agent Lynn Nesbit, whose clients include Tom Wolfe, Ann Beattie and Michael Crichton. According to sources close to the negotiations, the publishing coup was arranged by the invisible hand of Michael Ovitz.
The boyish 5-ft. 9-in. dynamo with the gap-toothed grin was reared in a $9,000 tract house in the San Fernando Valley. He originally wanted to become a doctor, but show business kept catching his eye. Sally Field, a classmate at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, remembers him standing quietly in the back of the room, watching her drama-class rehearsals.
While a premed student at UCLA, Ovitz worked part time at Universal Studios. After graduating in 1968, he landed a job in the mail room at the William Morris agency. Within a year, he was promoted to agent. Six years later, he and four other young colleagues quit to form CAA with only a $21,000 bank loan. Says Ovitz: "Of course I was scared. I was barely 27 at the time. We didn't take a paycheck for almost two years. Our wives took turns serving as secretaries. In the early years, I couldn't get a good table at a restaurant. I felt like an extra on a set."
The days of making do are long gone. In the fall CAA will move into a new 65,000-sq.-ft. headquarters building in Beverly Hills designed by architect I.M. Pei. Ovitz, who lives in tony Brentwood with his wife Judy and their three children, often attends Los Angeles Lakers games, where he can keep an eye on one of his newest clients, star guard Magic Johnson. Every morning at dawn, he practices aikido, a Japanese form of self-defense that turns the attacker's momentum against him. Says he: "We're painted as aggressive, which is true to a point, but everything is balanced."
Ovitz, who reputedly earns more than $3 million a year, rewards his 65 gung- ho agents with outsize salaries and a share of the agency profits. In exchange, he demands loyalty and discipline. CAA even has an unspoken dress code. Says Ovitz: "When we hire agents, we spend most of the time examining how they'd fit in. We agonize over our personnel."
Critics say the agency's clout has become excessive. Says a top studio executive: "CAA packages are a prefab, take-it-or-leave-it way of making movies. Some pictures get made that maybe shouldn't be made." Ovitz has had his share of feuds, most notably with David Puttnam, who lost his job as chairman of Columbia Pictures last year after alienating much of the Hollywood establishment. Insiders say the abrasive Puttnam's most expensive gaffe may have been his brusque treatment of Ovitz and CAA client Bill Murray. Recalling a spat with Ovitz, agent Bernie Brillstein explains, "I didn't pander ((to Ovitz)), which was probably the source of our fallout."
In his own defense, Ovitz insists that his private feelings do not interfere with business. Says he: "We may be in a personal dispute with someone, but if they have a project that's right for one of our clients, it will be analyzed on the merits. Anyone who says any different is kidding himself."
Some of his colleagues think Ovitz may be getting restless. Says a friend: "CAA is just a bridge he is building so that he can take over Columbia Pictures, MGM/UA or MCA. Michael would like to end up as the Lew Wasserman of his day." History records that Wasserman, who has headed MCA since its 1940s heyday, was known around Hollywood first as "the Octopus" and later as "the Statesman." Most film aficionados would say Ovitz has already earned the first title and is working on the second.
Michael Ovitz, Top 100 People of the Advertising Century, Ad Age
Creative Artists Agency, Hollywood, CA
List No. 87 of 100
Ad Age
One of the most powerful dealmakers in Hollywood with his innovative talent "packaging" company, Ovitz personally changed film industry dynamics in 1990 by brokering huge studio mergers for Japan's Matsushita and Sony. Then, in September 1991, he rocked the advertising world by signing Coca-Cola, ostensibly for marketing and media aid. That partnership set off bicoastal shockwaves and embarrassed longtime Coca-Cola agency McCann-Erickson, especially after the soft-drink giant began airing CAA's commercials featuring high-tech, animated polar bears and a catchy "Always" jingle. Such a la carte options still affect agency-client relationships.
Michael Ovitz
A Tough, Innovative Superagent Emerges as King of the Hollywood Deal
People Magazine
In the new buttoned-down Hollywood, power and access are more important than prestige and pay—and yet there is a single man who has cornered all four. He is neither director nor star but a dealmeister extraordinaire, a Lubitsch not of film but of finances, who in November brokered the sale of Universal Studios' brand equity along with the King Kong ride, Bruce the shark, publishing's Putnam Berkley Group and MCA's mat-black skyscraper to the Japanese electronics giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. for $6.9 billion.
Michael Ovitz added the top line to his credit crawl by providing a service usually performed by Wall Street investment houses. His take on the MCA deal: a reported $40 million. Last year, Ovitz did a push-up to this task by marrying Sony to Columbia Pictures Entertainment. "Hollywood is about relationships," a well-connected TV producer once said, "and everybody today wants an even warmer relationship with Mike."
So as Hollywood slides across the Pacific Rim to Japan, the man greasing the wheel is Ovitz, the 44-year-old superagent who. as chairman of Creative Artists Agency, has assembled an unparalleled stable of actors, directors and screenwriters. Among them: Madonna, Kevin Costner, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, Cher and Ovitz's former aikido instructor, Steven Seagal.
Much of Ovitz's most-powerful-man rep still comes from "packaging" clients-actors, directors and writers—to make films like GoodFellas (Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, director Martin Scorsese and writer Nicholas Pileggi). And he pulls all these strings with consummate skill. Says Disney Chairman Michael Eisner: "He's among the most tenacious people one would ever meet."
The spotlight rarely shines on the publicity-shy agent, who started out as a mail boy in the William Morris Agency. Devoted to Judy, his wife of 21 years, and their three children, Ovitz spends much of his time at their art-filled Brentwood home. Some think he may take over a studio. But why bother? He is already the shogun of Hollywood.
Michael Ovitz
By: Liz ZackOctober 31, 1999
Fast Company
Hollywood talent agencies never functioned the same after Ovitz sunk in his teeth. Now crunching the industry for the second time, the titan of talent intends to surpass his own reputation.
Back when Michael Ovitz ran the Creative Artist's Agency, hailed as the most powerful talent agency in the world, he would hand out copies of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" to his staff. In 1995, Ovitz parted amiably with the company he had founded two decades earlier and the industry he had revitalized, and ascended the throne of the Disney empire as president. It was a career move he hoped would catapult him to the top of an even older and larger entertainment kingdom than the one he built himself. But instead, 14 months after unsuccessfully casting himself as Disney's president, Ovitz clashed irrevocably with Chairman of the Walt Disney Company Michael Eisner, collected an estimated $128 million in compensation, and boomeranged back to Hollywood. Last winter he formed AMG, the Artists Management Group, and is now testing his ex-employees on their knowledge of Chinese philosophy.
Same job different company: Sometimes it's best to Boomerang back an alternate route
Ovitz could have waltzed back into CAA like nothing happened, but he really had nothing to gain from returning to his old stomping ground. He left as founding father and king of the hill. By returning after his failed stint at Disney, he might have marred his reputation as a brilliant and brutal businessman. For Ovitz and for a war-gamed Hollywood, a return to CAA would not be a return to grandeur; instead, it would appear a whimpering retreat.
Ever the forward thinker, Ovitz chose the braver route. He realized that he should return to the business he knew best, but he conceded that he had learned all he could from his 20-year career at the I.M. Pei building on Wilshire Boulevard. Ovitz decided to move on to a new big, and perhaps even better, project.
During his tenure at CAA, Ovitz had reinvented the talent agent world by charging the lowest commission in the industry and beating out all the competition. He had shaken up the studios by demanding previously unheard of salaries for his actors. When word got around about the new game in town, everyone followed suit, and Ovitz succeeded in effectively changing the center of power in Hollywood from studios to agents.
After bidding farewell to Mickey and Friends, Ovitz was ready to move back to the industry he had helped to create, and subsequently formed a monolith one-stop talent management shop: AMG. Whereas CAA agents are legally prohibited from producing projects with their clients, AMG talent "managers" are largely unregulated and have a much more flexible role. They can be financial partners with their clients and usually earn hefty commissions for providing more one-on-one hand-holding services. In his comeback company, Ovitz aims to create a powerhouse that not only manages the careers of stars but also produces and distributes movies -- he reportedly wants all agents and managers to work for him.
If you can't join 'em, fight 'em
Ovitz has the distinct advantage of having done right by his clients, and he therefore has talent that trusts him. This trust has enabled him to go head-to-head with his old company -- and emerge victorious. Already many big CAA names have crossed the line in the sand to join AMG. Claire Danes, Laren Holly, Minnie Driver, Marisa Tomei, Mimi Rogers, Syndney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, and Robin Williams all have been plucked from the CAA waters.
Ovitz is now poised to hoist his newest big project even higher than CAA. The opportunity requires a huge amount of industry expertise, a fantastic reputation, and some hefty nerve. But if the past is any predictor of the future, Hollywood had better take shelter: Ovitz is back in town.
Pocketful Of Stars: Michael Ovitz
By Janice Castro;Elaine Dutka/Los Angeles and Janice C. Simpson/New York
Monday, Feb. 13, 1989
Time Magazine
In Hollywood, they say, any bureaucrat can give the thumbs-down to a film proposal, but the ones with real clout are those who can flash a thumbs-up and make it happen. That power used to be the exclusive preserve of the studio moguls. Not anymore. While studios still control the financing, today the man with the golden thumb is Michael Ovitz, an agent and martial-arts buff who works in quiet but irresistible ways. Nearly everyone in show business agrees that Ovitz, 42, president of Creative Artists Agency, is probably the most powerful figure in Hollywood. Some think he may be a bit too powerful.
Michael who? Most people outside Hollywood would not recognize his name, but that's the way he likes it. The Ovitz team's credo: Don't talk about us, talk about our clients. The 675 names on the agency's roster include actors ranging from Paul Newman to Bette Midler, directors from Ron Howard to Martin Scorsese and musicians from Michael Jackson to Madonna. While CAA's chief rivals -- International Creative Management and William Morris -- may boast longer lists of stars, the 14-year-old CAA has snatched most of the brightest lights in the business. Says longtime agent Irving ("Swifty") Lazar, 81: "There hasn't been a phenomenon such as CAA since 1947, when Lew Wasserman and MCA dominated Hollywood. Comparing CAA to its strongest competition is like comparing Tiffany's to the A&P."
Contrary to the unbuttoned, indulgent style at many agencies, CAA operates with the crisp, well-coordinated teamwork of a Japanese high-tech firm. What adds to the agency's mystique is that Ovitz is extremely press shy. In the first extended interview he has ever given, he described his agency's unusual philosophy to TIME correspondent Elaine Dutka: "Some companies believe that internal competition helps the bottom line, but I'm not of that school. We try to take the paternal approach of the Japanese, who take care of their own, and temper that with Western creativity and ingenuity."
Ovitz, who shares power with CAA co-founders Ron Meyer, 44, and Bill Haber, 46, has shown an uncanny touch for putting stories and stars together. The agency had a hand in assembling the elements of four current box-office hits: Rain Man, Mississippi Burning, Twins and Scrooged. Among its TV successes are Golden Girls and Beauty and the Beast. Says Barry Diller, chief executive of Fox Inc.: "CAA represents a lot of good people, and is very aggressive in how they link them to each other. It's all about selling, and they're very good at it."
Hollywood's superagents have risen in power partly because takeovers and mergers have undermined the traditional influence of the major studios. Today very few actors and directors sign exclusive contracts with studios. Result: agents, who collect 10% of every dollar their clients earn, have become far more influential as matchmakers. Instead of merely peddling artists, they now help create custom-made projects for their stars.
Clients appreciate the fact that Ovitz not only pampers them but also teaches them to become more self-sufficient. Says actress Sally Field, a CAA client: "We used to be totally helpless, talking about what lessons to take or how thin we'd got our thighs while we waited for the phone to ring. Michael encouraged me to pick up the phone and develop my own projects. He told me, 'Be your own studio.' "
Since stories are the indispensable raw material of show business, CAA has built a development department that generates ideas for its clients. Ovitz has cultivated close ties with Manhattan gliterary agent Morton Janklow, who represents such best-selling authors s Judith Krantz, Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins. That collaboration has produced some 100 hours of network mini-series. Now Ovitz hopes to work an even richer literary vein. In December Janklow announced a surprise merger with longtime ICM literary agent Lynn Nesbit, whose clients include Tom Wolfe, Ann Beattie and Michael Crichton. According to sources close to the negotiations, the publishing coup was arranged by the invisible hand of Michael Ovitz.
The boyish 5-ft. 9-in. dynamo with the gap-toothed grin was reared in a $9,000 tract house in the San Fernando Valley. He originally wanted to become a doctor, but show business kept catching his eye. Sally Field, a classmate at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, remembers him standing quietly in the back of the room, watching her drama-class rehearsals.
While a premed student at UCLA, Ovitz worked part time at Universal Studios. After graduating in 1968, he landed a job in the mail room at the William Morris agency. Within a year, he was promoted to agent. Six years later, he and four other young colleagues quit to form CAA with only a $21,000 bank loan. Says Ovitz: "Of course I was scared. I was barely 27 at the time. We didn't take a paycheck for almost two years. Our wives took turns serving as secretaries. In the early years, I couldn't get a good table at a restaurant. I felt like an extra on a set."
The days of making do are long gone. In the fall CAA will move into a new 65,000-sq.-ft. headquarters building in Beverly Hills designed by architect I.M. Pei. Ovitz, who lives in tony Brentwood with his wife Judy and their three children, often attends Los Angeles Lakers games, where he can keep an eye on one of his newest clients, star guard Magic Johnson. Every morning at dawn, he practices aikido, a Japanese form of self-defense that turns the attacker's momentum against him. Says he: "We're painted as aggressive, which is true to a point, but everything is balanced."
Ovitz, who reputedly earns more than $3 million a year, rewards his 65 gung- ho agents with outsize salaries and a share of the agency profits. In exchange, he demands loyalty and discipline. CAA even has an unspoken dress code. Says Ovitz: "When we hire agents, we spend most of the time examining how they'd fit in. We agonize over our personnel."
Critics say the agency's clout has become excessive. Says a top studio executive: "CAA packages are a prefab, take-it-or-leave-it way of making movies. Some pictures get made that maybe shouldn't be made." Ovitz has had his share of feuds, most notably with David Puttnam, who lost his job as chairman of Columbia Pictures last year after alienating much of the Hollywood establishment. Insiders say the abrasive Puttnam's most expensive gaffe may have been his brusque treatment of Ovitz and CAA client Bill Murray. Recalling a spat with Ovitz, agent Bernie Brillstein explains, "I didn't pander ((to Ovitz)), which was probably the source of our fallout."
In his own defense, Ovitz insists that his private feelings do not interfere with business. Says he: "We may be in a personal dispute with someone, but if they have a project that's right for one of our clients, it will be analyzed on the merits. Anyone who says any different is kidding himself."
Some of his colleagues think Ovitz may be getting restless. Says a friend: "CAA is just a bridge he is building so that he can take over Columbia Pictures, MGM/UA or MCA. Michael would like to end up as the Lew Wasserman of his day." History records that Wasserman, who has headed MCA since its 1940s heyday, was known around Hollywood first as "the Octopus" and later as "the Statesman." Most film aficionados would say Ovitz has already earned the first title and is working on the second.
Michael Ovitz, Top 100 People of the Advertising Century, Ad Age
Creative Artists Agency, Hollywood, CA
List No. 87 of 100
Ad Age
One of the most powerful dealmakers in Hollywood with his innovative talent "packaging" company, Ovitz personally changed film industry dynamics in 1990 by brokering huge studio mergers for Japan's Matsushita and Sony. Then, in September 1991, he rocked the advertising world by signing Coca-Cola, ostensibly for marketing and media aid. That partnership set off bicoastal shockwaves and embarrassed longtime Coca-Cola agency McCann-Erickson, especially after the soft-drink giant began airing CAA's commercials featuring high-tech, animated polar bears and a catchy "Always" jingle. Such a la carte options still affect agency-client relationships.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
An hour with Michael Ovitz about the entertainment industry - Interview with Charlie Rose
In 2002 Michael Ovitz sat down with Charlie Rose for a comprehensive interview. (For those who are unfamiliar with Charlie Rose and his famous round oak table, his program has been called by Journalist Morley Safer of CBS' “60 Minutes, “the last refuge of intelligent conversation on television.”
The entire interview is available for viewing at Charlie Rose's website, located here. We have also embedded it on this page for viewing, although the original location allows for full screen and thus may be a better experience.
View the Michael Ovitz guest page on Charlie Rose's site here.
Enjoy the video!
The entire interview is available for viewing at Charlie Rose's website, located here. We have also embedded it on this page for viewing, although the original location allows for full screen and thus may be a better experience.
View the Michael Ovitz guest page on Charlie Rose's site here.
Enjoy the video!
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Advertising Century and Michael Ovitz
Adage.com's recent rankings of the top 100 most influential people in advertising over the last century includes Michael Ovitz at number 87. Considering Mr. Ovitz has never headed an advertising agency or worked directly in the advertising industry, this may come as something of a surprise. It shouldn't. The recognition stems primarily from the revolutionary deal Mr. Ovitz orchestrated in 1991 between CAA and Coca-Cola. Leveraging the film industry's talent and creativity, CAA created an ad campaign featuring "high-tech, animated polar bears" and the now ubiquitous "Always" jingle. The overwhelming success of the suite of polar bear commercials forced a reexamination of the traditional advertising agency-client relationship, and infused a new spirit of innovation within the industry. In order to remain competitive and relevant to their clients, advertising agencies had to raise the creative and technical bar; it is fair to say that from this specific event television advertising entered a new era of innovation.
Read the Michael Ovitz Ad Age entry here.
Read the full list here.
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