LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) Forget the recent tome about the founders of CAA: Michael Ovitz is going to write his own version of how things went down.
Ovitz, one of the co-founders of the famed talent agency and also arguably its most publicly known figure, is releasing his autobiography on Portfolio Sept. 28. The book promises to produce tales of Ovitz’s relationships with clients like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Robin Williams and David Letterman.
“But this personal history is much more than a fascinating account of celebrity friendships and bare-knuckled dealmaking,” Portfolio writes in its pitch. “It’s also an underdog’s story: How did a middle-class kid from Encino work his way into the William Morris mailroom, and eventually become the most powerful person in Hollywood? How did an agent (even a superagent) also become a power in producing, advertising, mergers & acquisitions, and modern art?”
The book will arrive about two years after “Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency,” a massive undertaking by James Andrew Miller, who also wrote the extensive history of “Saturday Night Live.” It chronicled the 1975 defection by Ovitz, Ron Meyer and three others from William Morris, to form CAA, and Meyer’s and Ovitz’s eventual exits from the company. That book is filled with tales of how David Letterman got Ovitz’s son to drink Tabasco for $100 and how Ovitz didn’t negotiate a fee with Coca-Cola when the company hired CAA in 1992 (as noted by Hollywood Reporter).
Both Ovitz and Meyer contributed to the book and helped promote it at an event at the DGA Theater in September 2016.
