Word: ovitz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Much of the exodus can be directly linked to the departures last year of the agency's shrewd, ruthless chairman, Michael Ovitz, and its charismatic president, Ron Meyer. Both men left for studio jobs--Ovitz to Disney, Meyer to MCA. They took with them the agency's aura of invincibility and its ability to inspire fear in the Hollywood shark pool. Rivals, long resentful of the agency's No. 1 status, are smelling blood in the water...
Dominating the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards in Beverly Hills, CAA's forbidding I.M. Pei-designed headquarters stands as a Zen fortress guarding entry to the city's sparkling business district. For years the building has been show-biz ground zero, a hot zone where Ovitz--routinely referred to as "the most powerful man in Hollywood"--built up the town's most imposing list of talent. His masterful, softly menacing style, along with his courtship of nontraditional clients like Coca-Cola and Credit Lyonnais, transformed the old stereotype of the talent agent as a hustling flesh peddler into...
...will continue to be a very well-run, very powerful talent agency," says Stephen Singular, whose unauthorized biography, Power to Burn: Michael Ovitz & the New Business of Show Business, is set for publication this summer by Birch Lane Press. "But," he adds, "the aura and intrigue the agency once enjoyed were a direct result of Ovitz's personality...
...same time, however, several key agents have followed Ovitz and Meyer out the door, and a revamped management team has admittedly experienced some rocky times. One major faux pas occurred in March, when a top agent made a deal for Val Kilmer to star in The Saint, even though its filming schedule conflicted with the actor's commitment to reprise his caped-crusader role in the upcoming Batman and Robin--prompting Batman director and longtime CAA client Joel Schumacher to leave...
...addition, there is an obvious generation gap between CAA's Old Guard and the Young Turks who hold sway over many of the agency's most valuable clients. The awkward management structure Ovitz put in place before his departure had representatives of the younger generation in charge of operations, with oversight provided by three older co-chairmen...