Pocketful Of Stars: Michael Ovitz

In Hollywood, they say, any bureaucrat can give the thumbs-down to a film proposal, but the ones with real clout are those who can flash a thumbs-up and make it happen. That power used to be the exclusive preserve of the studio moguls. Not anymore. While studios still control the financing, today the man with the golden thumb is Michael Ovitz, an agent and martial-arts buff who works in quiet but irresistible ways. Nearly everyone in show business agrees that Ovitz, 42, president of Creative Artists Agency, is probably the most powerful figure in Hollywood. Some think he may be a bit too powerful.

Michael who? Most people outside Hollywood would not recognize his name, but that’s the way he likes it. The Ovitz team’s credo: Don’t talk about us, talk about our clients. The 675 names on the agency’s roster include actors ranging from Paul Newman to Bette Midler, directors from Ron Howard to Martin Scorsese and musicians from Michael Jackson to Madonna. While CAA’s chief rivals — International Creative Management and William Morris — may boast longer lists of stars, the 14-year-old CAA has snatched most of the brightest lights in the business. Says longtime agent Irving (“Swifty”) Lazar, 81: “There hasn’t been a phenomenon such as CAA since 1947, when Lew Wasserman and MCA dominated Hollywood. Comparing CAA to its strongest competition is like comparing Tiffany’s to the A&P.”

Contrary to the unbuttoned, indulgent style at many agencies, CAA operates with the crisp, well-coordinated teamwork of a Japanese high-tech firm. What adds to the agency’s mystique is that Ovitz is extremely press shy. In the first extended interview he has ever given, he described his agency’s unusual philosophy to TIME correspondent Elaine Dutka: “Some companies believe that internal competition helps the bottom line, but I’m not of that school. We try to take the paternal approach of the Japanese, who take care of their own, and temper that with Western creativity and ingenuity.”

Ovitz, who shares power with CAA co-founders Ron Meyer, 44, and Bill Haber, 46, has shown an uncanny touch for putting stories and stars together. The agency had a hand in assembling the elements of four current box-office hits: Rain Man, Mississippi Burning, Twins and Scrooged. Among its TV successes are Golden Girls and Beauty and the Beast. Says Barry Diller, chief executive of Fox Inc.: “CAA represents a lot of good people, and is very aggressive in how they link them to each other. It’s all about selling, and they’re very good at it.”

Hollywood’s superagents have risen in power partly because takeovers and mergers have undermined the traditional influence of the major studios. Today very few actors and directors sign exclusive contracts with studios. Result: agents, who collect 10% of every dollar their clients earn, have become far more influential as matchmakers. Instead of merely peddling artists, they now help create custom-made projects for their stars.

Clients appreciate the fact that Ovitz not only pampers them but also teaches them to become more self-sufficient. Says actress Sally Field, a CAA client: “We used to be totally helpless, talking about what lessons to take or how thin we’d got our thighs while we waited for the phone to ring. Michael encouraged me to pick up the phone and develop my own projects. He told me, ‘Be your own studio.’ “

Since stories are the indispensable raw material of show business, CAA has built a development department that generates ideas for its clients. Ovitz has cultivated close ties with Manhattan gliterary agent Morton Janklow, who represents such best-selling authors s Judith Krantz, Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins. That collaboration has produced some 100 hours of network mini-series. Now Ovitz hopes to work an even richer literary vein. In December Janklow announced a surprise merger with longtime ICM literary agent Lynn Nesbit, whose clients include Tom Wolfe, Ann Beattie and Michael Crichton. According to sources close to the negotiations, the publishing coup was arranged by the invisible hand of Michael Ovitz.

The boyish 5-ft. 9-in. dynamo with the gap-toothed grin was reared in a $9,000 tract house in the San Fernando Valley. He originally wanted to become a doctor, but show business kept catching his eye. Sally Field, a classmate at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, remembers him standing quietly in the back of the room, watching her drama-class rehearsals.

While a premed student at UCLA, Ovitz worked part time at Universal Studios. After graduating in 1968, he landed a job in the mail room at the William Morris agency. Within a year, he was promoted to agent. Six years later, he and four other young colleagues quit to form CAA with only a $21,000 bank loan. Says Ovitz: “Of course I was scared. I was barely 27 at the time. We didn’t take a paycheck for almost two years. Our wives took turns serving as secretaries. In the early years, I couldn’t get a good table at a restaurant. I felt like an extra on a set.”

The days of making do are long gone. In the fall CAA will move into a new 65,000-sq.-ft. headquarters building in Beverly Hills designed by architect I.M. Pei. Ovitz, who lives in tony Brentwood with his wife Judy and their three children, often attends Los Angeles Lakers games, where he can keep an eye on one of his newest clients, star guard Magic Johnson. Every morning at dawn, he practices aikido, a Japanese form of self-defense that turns the attacker’s momentum against him. Says he: “We’re painted as aggressive, which is true to a point, but everything is balanced.”

Ovitz, who reputedly earns more than $3 million a year, rewards his 65 gung- ho agents with outsize salaries and a share of the agency profits. In exchange, he demands loyalty and discipline. CAA even has an unspoken dress code. Says Ovitz: “When we hire agents, we spend most of the time examining how they’d fit in. We agonize over our personnel.”

Critics say the agency’s clout has become excessive. Says a top studio executive: “CAA packages are a prefab, take-it-or-leave-it way of making movies. Some pictures get made that maybe shouldn’t be made.” Ovitz has had his share of feuds, most notably with David Puttnam, who lost his job as chairman of Columbia Pictures last year after alienating much of the Hollywood establishment. Insiders say the abrasive Puttnam’s most expensive gaffe may have been his brusque treatment of Ovitz and CAA client Bill Murray. Recalling a spat with Ovitz, agent Bernie Brillstein explains, “I didn’t pander ((to Ovitz)), which was probably the source of our fallout.”

In his own defense, Ovitz insists that his private feelings do not interfere with business. Says he: “We may be in a personal dispute with someone, but if they have a project that’s right for one of our clients, it will be analyzed on the merits. Anyone who says any different is kidding himself.”

Some of his colleagues think Ovitz may be getting restless. Says a friend: “CAA is just a bridge he is building so that he can take over Columbia Pictures, MGM/UA or MCA. Michael would like to end up as the Lew Wasserman of his day.” History records that Wasserman, who has headed MCA since its 1940s heyday, was known around Hollywood first as “the Octopus” and later as “the Statesman.” Most film aficionados would say Ovitz has already earned the first title and is working on the second.