Word: ovitz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Even before his latest coup, he was regarded as the most powerful man in Hollywood. Michael Ovitz, the town's No. 1 talent agent, can make or break a movie project or an actor's career. But as the power broker behind Matsushita's acquisition of MCA, Ovitz has reached an international stature that even legendary moguls might envy. "He is the mega-dealmaker," says an industry executive. "Not only on a film-by-film basis, but on the very largest scale of buying and selling studios. That is the most significant thing you can do in Hollywood...
...Ovitz, 43, has pursued power with the fierce concentration of a student of aikido, the Japanese martial art that he practices each dawn. "He's an economic samurai," says a colleague. Starting in 1975, when he and four young colleagues left the William Morris Agency to form their own firm, Ovitz has managed to assemble the hottest stable in town. Creative Artists Agency has a roster of 675 clients ranging from superstars Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone and Madonna to directors Oliver Stone and Martin Scorsese...
...Ovitz prospered by matching such talent with CAA screenwriters and peddling the stars and stories to studios. But assembling the elements for such hits as Ghostbusters and Rain Man only whetted Ovitz's appetite for even greater power packages. His first real taste of corporate matchmaking came last year when Sony, impressed by his unrivaled Hollywood contacts, tapped him as a consultant for its $3.4 billion acquisition of Columbia Pictures...
...long after the Columbia deal, Matsushita sought out Ovitz to lead the company's search for a major acquisition. The Japanese company first sent a group of top executives to meet with Ovitz in Hawaii, where they talked about everything from world politics to prospective merger partners. A team of CAA experts then prepared a list three possible targets. The Japanese company rejected one studio, Orion, as too small. Another candidate, Paramount, was dismissed because some of its holdings, ranging from publishing (Simon & Schuster) to sports (the New York Knicks), didn't fit into Matsushita's strategy. Ovitz recommended...
...POWER BROKERS in letters 1 1/2 in. high and names 11 of them (10 men and Madonna). Inside is an almost nonstop stream of gossip, scuttlebutt and awestruck praise about the rich and famous, including 65 miniprofiles of such figures as financier Michael-David Weil and Hollywood superagent Mike Ovitz. The prose is burnished, but not much of the dish is fresh, save for two first-rate pieces -- one by Ernest Volkman and John Cummings about Mob leader John Gotti, the other by Richard Morgan about advertising mogul Burt Manning -- that are spun off from books. The juiciest item...