Word: sheinberg
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...flourishing music division, helped by acquiring David Geffen's record holdings, and a folio of hit films, most of them produced by Steven Spielberg. And at first, Japanese-American relations were smooth. Then some of the Matsushita executives who were on good terms with MCA president Sidney J. Sheinberg were fired. Says MCA movie chief Tom Pollock: "I believe if the Matsushita administration hadn't changed, they would not have sold the company...
...Sheinberg, a brassy American entrepreneur, wanted to diversify his business, but the conservative Japanese refused. Like Godzilla in hibernation, Matsushita sat in its Osaka cave, occasionally emerging to roar No! "Sid would have bought Virgin Records, he would have bought nbc," says Irving Azoff, MCA's former music boss. "He was really frustrated that the Japanese wouldn't let him do any of that." The brokered marriage was soon looking as vulnerable as Lyle Lovett's to Julia Roberts. And Ovitz, the canny matchmaker, was apparently unwilling or unable to save...
When Spielberg formed DreamWorks with Geffen and former Disney movie czar Jeffrey Katzenberg, he realized both his value to MCA (he had kept Universal profitable with such hits as E.T., Back to the Future and Jurassic Park) and his personal debt to Sheinberg, whom he calls a mentor. So DreamWorks said some of its products could be distributed by MCA-in a deal that could be worth $1 billion over the next decade-if Matsushita would keep Sheinberg and chairman Lew Wasserman aboard. The Japanese never responded to the offer...
...buys MCA, would ask one of his friends, Ovitz or at-large media mogul Barry Diller, to run it. But either of them would surely insist on substantial equity, and last week both were denying any interest in the job. It is more logical that Bronfman would urge Sheinberg to stay on-not least because that would assure MCA of a Spielberg-DreamWorks connection-but that Edgar Jr. would run the show...
Could one of the three get sandbox envy? That seems unlikely, since they revel in one another's company--kids finally in control of a $2 billion game. For decades they have played, potently, under other men's aegises. Spielberg had Sheinberg and Ross, Geffen had Ross, Katzenberg worked under Eisner for 19 years, until their rancorous divorce last summer after Eisner refused to name Katzenberg his second in command. Now the lads must come of age--be ready to play daddy, not dutiful son, and do their own mentoring. The bet here is yes. Katzenberg was a paternal nudge...