Word: ovitz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When Dana Giacchetto was flying high, they called him the rock-'n'-roll broker. His client list was more Melrose Avenue than Wall Street: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Matt Damon, Michael Ovitz. For the club-hopping Giacchetto, the line between client and buddy was as thin as a supermodel. He put DiCaprio up in his SoHo loft and vacationed with Courtney Cox's family. He had a knack for wrapping himself in buzz. In a New York Times profile of Ovitz last May, Giacchetto dropped names the way most brokers drop bad stocks. "Get me Michael!" he reportedly shouted...
Giacchetto wasn't born in the fast lane. He grew up middle-class outside Boston, the son of a novelist-radio writer and a nurse. As a young money manager in New York City, he befriended Jay Moloney, a fast-rising Hollywood agent and Ovitz protege. (Moloney committed suicide last month, after years of battling drug addiction.) With Moloney's entree, Giacchetto--blond, boyish and exuding a vulnerable aura--charmed his way into the lives and bank accounts of Young Hollywood. His new pals were dazzled by his ability to straddle two worlds. As DiCaprio manager Rick Yorn once said...
...starmaking machinery. One of the most successful agents in show business and a part owner of the powerful Creative Artists Agency, Jay represented Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Uma Thurman, David Letterman and other major names. He had been the protege of CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz and was already being touted, at 30, as a future studio head. He dated models and actresses, drove a Ferrari, lived in a Hollywood Hills mansion stocked with Warhols, Stellas and Picassos. Before becoming addicted to cocaine, he had been living the kind of life many of us dream...
Rumors of the demise of Michael Ovitz's power in Tinseltown, it appears, are premature. Two weeks ago, speculation abounded--in the pages of this magazine, among others--that the former superagent might be having trouble making deals, because he had not sold the movie rights for MICHAEL CRICHTON'S new novel, Timeline, due out next month. Ovitz put such talk to rest last week when Paramount signed on for the film. It will be directed by a big name to boot: RICHARD DONNER (Lethal Weapons 1, 2, 3 and 4). Folks at Paramount weren't talking, but the film...
What is the sound of one agent's influence waning? In Los Angeles it sounds like a bad week for MIKE OVITZ. The onetime superagent, who co-founded Creative Artists Agency, suffered a setback last week when the NFL rejected his proposal to bring a professional-football expansion team to L.A. Ovitz had spent years on the project and secured the cooperation of stars such as Tom Cruise to spearhead the gridiron campaign, only to be outbid by organizers in Houston. This came amid reports that Ovitz, now a manager at his new firm, Artists Management Group, was having trouble...