Mike Fucking Ovitz…

Here we are, just ready to write five reviews and to get on with the Fourth of July weekend and BOOM!, Ovitz’s Vanity Fair profile screams for column inches.  Not only that, but it forces a guy like me who has nothing to gain and plenty to lose by writing about the “gay mafia” to write about the “gay mafia.”  ARGH!!!

Okay… deep breaths… any entertainment writer or industry insider who claims that the phrase “gay mafia” isn’t bandied about as freely as rumors about the sexual proclivities of certain movie stars is a liar.  I didn’t make it up any more than Mike Ovitz did.  Sometimes, it is used as shorthand.  Sometimes, it is used as a kitsch cliché.  And sometime, it is used in anger. 

My personal experience has been that the “gay mafia” is pretty much like every other group in the industry that feels like they are on the losing side of the class struggle, whether that’s true or not.  Jews ran Hollywood until stockholders and investment managers took over.  But it remained an open secret.  Jewish studio owners were not anxious to use their films to promote Judaism.  No doubt, a lot of the money made by these men made its way to Jewish causes.  And you can be sure that there was an advantage to being a nice, Jewish boy when you tried to get a job.  On the other hand, you can be sure that they suffered no fools for the sake of religious affiliation. 

Blacks have worked together to build a film community and to promote their own, though one of the most often heard complaints about the “black mafia” is that there is not enough loyalty shown after careers take off.   Women are often applauded for hiring other women on their movies.  And, indeed, gay Hollywood looks out for its own.

There are a few “gay mafias” in town.   I really don’t know what the crossover is like.  But gay men dominate the television business in Hollywood.  Sure, there are straight men and women working… plenty of them.  But TV, particularly the sitcom world, starts and ends with gay men.  Until Roseanne, those gay men (and women) were much like the Jews of early Hollywood, keeping to themselves that which might turn Middle America off.  Mr. Mooney, Uncle Arthur, everyone on H.R. Pufnstuff, Phyllis’ unseen husband, Lars, Speed Racer, Mr. French, even real-life variety performer Alan Sues, etc, etc, etc were all kept in the closet, however clear the subtext.  (Okay, I got Speed Racer on the perfect creases in his pants and the fact that he never closed with Trixie.)  The stylishness on all those 70s variety shows, seen as Hollywood glamour, was not just glamorous; it had a gay sensibility.  Then, with the first openly gay running characters, Roseanne changed the options. 

Around that same time as Roseanne, outing was all the rage.  It wasn’t happening to movie stars… macho lead actors being outed is seen as so bad for business that even in the most aggressive outlets, it just isn’t done, then or now.  But in the business, there were powerful, closeted men who had the money and prestige to make a real difference in the public battle to deal with the AIDS epidemic.   Through pressure and progress, most of these men became openly gay in the last decade.

It is this group of men that Mike Ovitz seems to have a problem with.   But I have a problem with that.  Even if some of the men he has troubles with are gay, Ovitz’s troubles, as far as I can tell, have zero to do with them being gay or with the idea of a gay mafia in Hollywood. 

People hate Mike Ovitz indiscriminately   If one takes Ovitz at face value and agree that David Geffen is his biggest enemy, one also must agree that David Geffen is Michael Eisner’s biggest industry enemy as well.  What does it have to do with Geffen being gay and Ovitz & Eisner being straight?  Nothing that I can see.  The biggest irritant in the Eisner/Geffen relationship is another straight guy, Jeffrey Katzenberg. 

Are Bryan Lourd, Kevin Huvane and Richard Lovett out to get Ovitz?  Maybe.  He is the king who walked away… they are his disciples, left behind to carry on, never to get the lavish press praise that Ovitz got.  What do you expect?   And that doesn’t even take into account any detailed business dealings that could have embittered them.

Bernie Weinraub from the New York Times?  Well, I do agree that the New York Times has been quite gleeful about tearing Ovitz’s empire as it crumbled.  But butt kisses and kicks are an inherent part of the press game in Hollywood.  Weinraub has theoretically been off the movie beat for years now, due to his marriage to Sony production topper Amy Pascal.   But his byline seems to creep in on movie side stories on a regular basis.   Besides, Sony, until this year, was also in the television business, the beat to which Weinraub was assigned. 

But forget Weinraub for a moment.  Long lasting industry writers have a clear history of building relationships that often lead to excessive generosity and/or excessive negativity.   You could see the attitude pendulum swing back and forth repeatedly at the L.A. Times during the Disney/Katzenberg separation process.  The trades show reverence for some and disdain for others, even though they aren’t supposed to be editorializing.  And do you think that Tom King’s solicitous attitude towards DreamWorks has nothing to do with making up for The Operator, his hatchet job on David Geffen?   Writers are just people, trying to get through.

So why did Ovitz do it?  Why did he accuse “the gay mafia” of destroying him?  I have no good answer.  The easiest way to explain it would be to say that he used the term “gay mafia” in a light way, short-cutting the conversation.  But Michael Ovitz is not known for making careless incendiary comments.  He makes comments intentionally.  Barry Diller had the Quote of the Day – “Wow. He said that on the record? Wow... Wow. I'm stunned. I'm stunned.”  I don’t think Diller was stunned about the comment, but about Ovitz letting it stay in the record.  

The biggest problem is that the way I read the quote, I can’t help but to hear Ovitz enraged by Geffen and Diller, but shaking his fist and raging, “Damn those faggots!”  It’s disgusting.  It’s no different than having a bad experience with a few people who happen to be black and then blaming not only their race, but also all black people.  Really, how could any gay person work with Ovitz ever again?  

Sue Mengers said something interesting about Ovitz leaving CAA and then attempting to return to talent representation.  “Once you show the talent that you really didn't love them that much, and that there was another gig, you can't come back.”  That same quote could now describe Ovitz’s relationship with all of gay Hollywood and with anyone who is in any way empathetic or sympathetic to gay Hollywood.

The only answer to the magical question of “Why?” that I have managed to come up with is that Ovitz already checked himself out of the industry asylum and that he is planning on writing a tell-all.  That would explain the combination of inflammatory language and a surprisingly limited amount of name naming.  This interview and all the press around it could be Ovitz’s way of assuring a mega-advance, eight figures maybe.  Does Ovitz really need another $10 million that bad?  Is this the last big chunk of money that he plans to take from this town before moving on? 

All we really know is that Vanity Fair is going to sell many more copies of their magazine in New York and L.A. than normal.  The Mike Ovitz interview now goes to the top of every single movie industry holiday reading list and will be discussed over fireworks and hamburgers for days to come.

P.S.:  The real point of this story was about the fall of Ovitz and Artists Management Group.  And that’s a lot simpler to figure out than his gay bashing comments.  Ovitz fell to the same troubles that almost brought down DreamWorks as well… buying high and selling low in the TV business.  Both DreamWorks and, later, AMG got into TV at the height of the sitcom craze, driven by the insane numbers generated by Seinfeld.  Sitcom showrunners like Crane & Kaufman could deliver not only a #1 show, but they could deliver multiple hits at the same time, much like the Lear/Marshall/Cannell/Spelling era of TV in the late 70s and early 80s. 

And so, the deals to bring these showrunners under any one company’s umbrella became insanely expensive.  Tens of millions of dollars were flying around all over town.  The same thing was happening with producers who were seen as consistent sources of tentpoles.   Most of those deals have been voided now, in both areas.  Bruckheimer at Disney, Joel Silver at Warner Bros., Scott Rudin at Paramount, Imagine at Universal… those are the majors on the movie side. 

On the TV side, things have gotten even worse.  In the last few years, the freedom of networks to air programs that they have produced, combined with five of six broadcast networks being owned by studios and the cable outlets owned by those studios growing by leaps and bounds, has turned independent production into an overwhelming challenge.  DreamWorks, Sony, AMG and MGM are all out of the ongoing business.   Deep pockets and massive film libraries at MGM and Sony assure solvency.  DreamWorks has scraped its way into a turnaround.  And AMG under Ovitz is no more.

On top of all this, there is history.  Brillstein/Grey and other managers who became producers successfully did it over a long period of time.  They were truly management companies first and then, slowly, evolved into producers.  The idea of going into business as, essentially, a production company, using management as a hook, just didn’t work.  Why?  Because if your clients’ commissions aren’t enough for you to get by, you are reliant on successful productions instead.   The odds on that suck.   Ovitz’s AMG walked an even thinner line, essentially paying some of their clients to be clients, betting on a return from hits.  Again, crap odds. 

Finally, there is the stock market and all that loose cash that suddenly evaporated.  Ovitz’s play was smaller than Vivendi’s or AOL’s, but it was equally doomed.  I keep reading about the failure of Messier’s vision at Vivendi and I don’t see a failure of vision, but a failure in trying to pay for that vision.  (AOL has no vision and had no vision, except to find the right sucker, which puts them a step ahead of Yahoo!)  If Ovitz had gotten Diller’s $150 million and/or AT&T’s $165 million, AMG may have survived.  Or maybe not.  When you are walking close enough to the edge that Barry Diller’s $150 million is your salvation, you’re in a dangerous place, given the size of Ovitz’s vision.  You can burn through that in a year and then you are in the same place again, unless you are lucky enough to have one o two of those mega-dollar hits. 

DAMN IT:  Since I am stuck writing about business instead of reviewing movies… they’re coming… I should mention the flood of e-mails I’ve been getting about the Key Art Award winning poster from Ocean’s Eleven.  It seems that The Smithereens were planning on robbing Las Vegas at some point… or something like that.  Click here to take a look at the original and the Key Art winner.  

PAGE TWO: And Now the Reviews ...