Tuesday, September 25, 2018

The Incredible Story of Michael Ovitz at Disney Reveals Who Michael Eisner Ruled Disney Back in the 90's



If there is one read to don't miss this week, it's this amazing article from the L.A Times, a chapter from Michael Ovitz memoirs released today. For those of you who don't remember the Michael Ovitz episode at Disney, here it is: Back in the 90's Michael Ovitz was at the head of CAA - Creative Artists Agency - and the most powerful agent at Hollywood. He was the agent of dozens of stars and directors like Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and many others. And after the death of Frank Wells who was ruling the Walt Disney Company with Michael Eisner, Eisner proposed to Ovitz to, basically, take the place of Wells.

One year later or so, Michael Ovitz was "out" and with a $150 Million check, something which made a lot of noise at that time as Michael Ovitz was supposed to have had no results at all during his stay at Disney. Except that the story is more complicated and in this chapter from his memoirs he reveals what exactly happened, and it's fascinating as it reveals how Eisner was thinking ( if we can call this thinking ) and all the insane mistakes when Eisner did when he was alone at the helm of Disney. The moment when Eisner asked Ovitz to fire Bob Iger ( at the head of ABC at that time ) is one of the amazing revelations that you must not miss, really.

Jump to the L.A Times HERE.

Picture: collection Michael Ovitz

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