TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/021389/02138900.017

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 8KB | 138 lines

BUSINESS, Page 58

Pocketful of Stars

Michael Ovitz and his cadre of agents are Hollywood's new power

brokers

By Janice Castro


    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.