“Every waking hour, was a working hour.” Michael Ovitz
Over dinner at a Los Angeles restaurant in 1975, five men made a pact that would change the world. Only one of them had a credit card. All were hungry – literally and figuratively. They ate as little as possible. The food wasn’t the point. The pact was.
They were talent agents at William Morris Agency (WMA), which had long dominated Hollywood. When they left the restaurant, they had, at least nominally, started a new agency: Creative Artists Agency (CAA). They had no money for extravagances, hence the measly pickings at the restaurant.
Michael Ovitz at CAA (at right).
The Rise of Michael Ovitz
At WMA, they’d spend most of their time convincing clients to sign onto projects, mainly TV shows and films. But, these agents had a different view of how sales should work.
Instead of pushing clients toward TV shows or movies, they thought it better to ask clients what they wanted, and the agents would then try to make that dream into reality. If a client wanted to work at a particular network, wanted a particular role, wanted to sell at a particular label, they would make that happen. It was a more elegant method, they thought, potentially more lucrative but far more difficult.
The agent who paid for the meal at the restaurant – the only one of the five men with a credit card – was a man named Michael Ovitz. He was 28 years old.
When they heard about the restaurant meeting, WMA fired him and the other agents. If CAA failed, the five agents had a bleak future ahead.
Michael Ovitz, at bottom and centre of image.
Humble Beginnings
With his CAA co-founders, Ovitz borrowed, scrounged and begged for money, maxing out his credit card. Once they’d gotten 20,000 dollars together, they leased a small office and got to work. Instead of desks, they used card tables. Their wives worked as receptionists. They hired furniture, phones, and everything else they needed. Every dollar they had went back into the business.
For the first six months, things were so hard that the agents couldn’t pay the rent for their office or their apartments. Ovitz and his agents would, as he wrote in his memoir, meet “with prospects by the hour, from 8:00 in the morning till 10:00 at night, when we’d collapse with a delivery pizza”. Most days, they’d work till midnight. Life wasn’t easy, but they worked with an elegant intensity, guided by Ovitz.
The New York Times Magazine and their cover story about Michael Ovitz.
The Ovitz Enigma
In four years, they turned CAA into the third-largest agency in Hollywood. They kept working, and CAA kept growing. By the 1980s and 1990s, it was, by every measure, the premiere agency.
Early on, a reputation grew around Ovitz. He did no press at all, avoiding any interviews for the first ten years of CAA’s existence. He avoided red carpets. He’d go to parties, stay for five minutes and then sneak out. He was an intensely private man. At one time, Ovitz owned every photo anyone had ever taken of him. He drank seldom and didn’t use drugs. He didn’t dance or go to nightclubs.
He was viewed as something of a boogeyman. A spectre.
CAA’s name was known. Ovitz’s name was known. But rumours spread because he was so private. He became feared. It was the fear of the unknown, something ingrained in human nature. Celebrities refused to even mention his name without his permission. David Letterman, one of Ovitz’s clients, jokingly called him “the Godfather”. Letterman was overwhelmed and impressed by Ovitz’s eagerness.
The Man Behind the Myth
In reality, Ovitz was an intensely private man in the most public of industries. By his own admission, he was “ultrasensitive” and easily hurt. He worried. He was anxious. He spoke so softly that people would move their chairs closer so that they could hear him.
Michael Ovitz referred to himself as a “frustrated artist”. When given a cameo in a movie, he froze. But he admired creativity and creative people. The next best thing to being an artist himself was to help other artists fulfil their dreams. His loyalty to his clients came close to devotion.
He used his public persona to advance the interests of his clients without ever obscuring his client’s celebrity.
Michael Ovitz (left) and Steven Spielberg (right).
The Ovitz Philosophy
If you were a CAA client, the firm had a fundamental rule. It would, according to Ovitz, “protect you 24/7”. Every day, he dealt with much larger companies, firms and studios with almost unlimited cash. He fought to get the most for his clients in negotiations with tight-fisted corporations. If networks or studios offered roles to his clients, Ovitz would evaluate the shows. If the shows or movies were bad, he’d reject the offers. “We would,” he said, always, “put our clients’ long-term interests first.”
Ovitz came to despise his reputation as a relentless, tireless superagent. As he asked in his 2018 memoir, who wants to be known as someone who scares others? But the image was there, rightly or wrongly, so he used it.
Jurassic Park poster, an early packaged film, suggested by Ovitz, created with Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg.
The Art of Packaging
Michael Crichton, a CAA client, wrote Jurassic Park. Ovitz gave the book to Steven Spielberg (another CAA client), suggesting they turn the story into a movie.
They had a director, a screenwriter, and a producer, all represented by CAA. Ovitz approached studio executives. He had a film ready to go. He had a bestselling book, a director, and a producer on board, and all were ready to turn the book into a movie. He had actors and actresses on board as well.
The good news, he’d tell the studios, was that CAA had a film prepared. All the pieces were in place. The bad news for the studio was that CAA and the clients controlled the movie. It was a packaged movie. Ovitz demanded the highest payments for his clients. If a studio stalled or was unwilling to meet his financial stipulations, he could tell them he’d take this packaged deal to another studio.
He did this with Jurassic Park, Rain Man, Forrest Gump, Ghostbusters, and many more. Today, all agencies use movie packaging. Michael Ovitz was the pioneer. The originator of these modern bundled agreements.
The Power of Relationships
For Ovitz, leverage was a way of using relationships to get the most for his clients. Loyalty ran both ways: clients became as devoted to Ovitz as he was to them. This meant he could get clients like Spielberg to help sell television shows and other movies, even those in which Spielberg wasn’t involved.
He was a moderator, a collaborator, a manager, a caretaker and a keen student of human relationships. It is, he said, “human nature to resist being sold” and so avoided cold-calling prospective clients. Everything he did, he did with meticulousness and composure.
When David Letterman wanted The Tonight Show, but NBC gave it to Jay Leno, Letterman came to CAA for help. Letterman’s onerous contract meant he couldn’t negotiate with other networks. But, as Ovitz realised, other networks could pitch Letterman. So, Ovitz invited network executives to the CAA building, where they told Ovitz and Letterman why their network was best suited for the late-night talk show host. Eventually, Ovitz recommended CBS, who had a 10PM time slot available, and Letterman went there to compete with Leno.
David Letterman: his first press conference at CBS.
Michael Ovitz and his Guiding Principles
Ovitz’s guiding principles at WMA and CAA were honesty, creativity, and hard work. If a client needed a doctor, he’d find the best practitioner. If they needed their car fixed, he’d find the best mechanic. If they needed to sell a house, he’d find the best real estate firm. He wove relationships together. He refused to lie. If he didn’t have an answer for a buyer or a client, he’d say, “I don’t know but I will find out.”.
Hard work came in every form. When preparing for negotiations, Ovitz and his agents would run through every possible question, every possible price, and every possible outcome. They’d even do preparative roleplays, with some agents acting as hard-nosed executives unwilling to budge and others trying to convince them to buy a package or sign a client.
His key to productivity, as he said, was responsiveness. He prioritised responses by need. All CAA agents shared information. Every phone call he received, he’d answer by the end of the day, even if that was 9PM. He managed his agents using consensus rather than creating competition, so everyone worked together. No idea was ridiculous. If a singer wanted to make a movie, a literary agent would offer to help, even if the literary agent had no immediate financial incentive to help. (This, Ovitz has said, was how Purple Rain was made). Operating by consensus extended to clients and buyers and brought CAA to Hollywood supremacy.
Michael Ovitz and his autobiography.
The Legacy of Michael Ovitz
It continued growing when Ovitz broadened CAA’s scope, helping negotiate corporate mergers. By 1995, CAA was a company with international stature. That year, Ovitz left to become Disney’s president but left after two years. He built and sold several more management firms. Today, he is a philanthropist, art collector and private investor. In 2018, he wrote his memoir, ‘Who is Michael Ovitz?’.
Reticent to big-note himself, it seems incredible that such a quiet operator could gain attention in Hollywood, let alone become one of the most influential agents in history. Yet he did. While he has been a controversial figure, hardly faultless, his imaginative, meticulous business style, his adaptability and willingness to transform old methods into new ones helped him turn CAA from a one-room office into the world’s biggest talent agency.
His zealous fealty to his clients was essential to CAA’s expansion. His consensus style of management was equally important. A quiet, even shy person, he was intelligent enough to weave webs of relationships. Satisfied clients brought new ones to him and to CAA. He viewed sales as more than a zero-sum game. He viewed them as negotiations within the frameworks of thousands of different personalities. By conscientiously cultivating and navigating those personalities, Michael Ovitz was able to help others succeed, help himself succeed and help build CAA into a global business giant.
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