OVITZ, MICHAEL

OVITZ, MICHAEL (1946–), U.S. talent agent entertainment executive. Born in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino to a father who was a liquor wholesaler, Ovitz attended Birmingham High School and was elected student body president. While at the University of California, Los Angeles, he became president of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity and worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios. After graduating in 1968, he briefly considered medical school, but went to work instead for the William Morris Agency, starting in the mail room. Ovitz hatched a plan with four other agents to start a new talent agency and in January 1975, they established Creative Artists Agency. Within four years CAA earned $90.2 million per year and had grown to become the third largest firm in Hollywood. CAA continued to grow and diversify its client base over the next two decades, becoming an iconic talent agency known for a team of agents dressed in black Armani suits who worked long hours in an I.M. Pei-designed Beverly Hills headquarters decorated with modern art. In 1995, after brokering the sale of Universal Studios and then refusing a position there, Ovitz accepted the position of president of Disney Studios. However, a short 14 months later Ovitz was fired and given a severance package worth $110 million – a decision which was questioned in a series of shareholder suits and chronicled in James Stewart's book Disney War (2005). Since leaving Disney, Ovitz has pursued a series of unsuccessful business ventures including forming Artists Management Group (AMG), a management and film and television production company which he founded in 1998 but was forced to sell three years later. (Adam Wills (2nd ed.)