Word: diller
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...course, if Diller wanted to do things the easy or obvious way he could have; he reputedly turned down offers in the past year from both Edgar Bronfman Jr. (to run MCA Universal) and Michael Eisner (to join him as No. 2 man at Disney). "Barry has had these unbelievable silver trays offered to him, and he's always said no," says his best friend, designer Diane Von Furstenberg. Why no? "He's not a pig," she explains. "It's not about greed with him. It's ambition, it's vision, and that makes him different and makes...
...Diller, others who know him speculate that his need to strike out on his own is to some extent born of necessity, given his inability, at this point in his career, to share power or work harmoniously for others. Diller himself doesn't sound unduly deferential when he describes his drive to succeed: "A lot of it has to do with willfulness, whether you're capable of imposing your will on the process. To the extent that you insist, you at least have a prayer...
Actually, that is a pretty nice way to put it: Diller has been "insisting" for most of his career. His notoriously aggressive management style has left subordinates humiliated and emotionally bruised. He describes it as "bashing idea against idea to get stuff out of yourself and other people" and admits that to those unused to the process, his methods can seem "nasty...No, that's overly harsh. Or not harsh enough...
Whichever, Diller's ferocity has stood him in good stead since his William Morris mail-room days; he attended a party thrown by childhood friend Marlo Thomas and got into a characteristically vituperative argument with Leonard Goldberg, then a vice president at ABC. The older man, impressed with Diller's "willfulness"--Diller's word (again)--eventually offered him a job at the network. There he helped invent the mini-series, popularized TV movies and had the perspicacity to hire young Michael Eisner away from his job as a CBS children's programmer...
...Diller was named CEO of Paramount Pictures. With Eisner, whom he installed as president, Diller made it the most profitable Hollywood studio, year in and year out. He was considered a lock for the chairmanship of Gulf & Western, Paramount's parent company. Then he lost a power struggle and jumped ship for 20th Century Fox in 1984. His reason for subsequently leaving Fox in 1992 was straightforward: "It's not mine," he said at the time. "I'm both young enough and old enough to want to own my own store ... It's the one thing I haven't done...