Michael Steven Ovitz was born on December 14,1946 and is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist.
16 Facts About Michael Ovitz
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Michael Ovitz was a talent agent who co-founded Creative Artists Agency in 1975 and served as its chairman until 1995.
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Michael Ovitz was born to a Romanian Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a liquor wholesaler.
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Michael Ovitz was promoted, eventually becoming a highly successful television agent.
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Michael Ovitz reportedly had three new film packaging deals sold in the first week.
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Michael Ovitz was known for assembling package deals, wherein CAA would utilize its talent base to provide directors, actors and screenwriters to a studio, thus shifting the negotiating leverage from the studios to the talent.
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Michael Ovitz served as talent agent to Hollywood actors Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Costner, John Belushi, Michael Douglas, Bill Murray, Sylvester Stallone, and Barbra Streisand, as well as directors Steven Spielberg, Barry Levinson, and Sydney Pollack.
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Michael Ovitz's signing of Coca-Cola as a CAA client from agency McCann-Erickson had a significant impact on the advertising industry.
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Michael Ovitz negotiated David Letterman's move from NBC to CBS, chronicled in the book The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night by Bill Carter.
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Michael Ovitz disliked publicity with the Times reporting that "Ovitz is one of the very few people in the world who own almost all the photographs ever taken of them".
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Michael Ovitz quickly grew frustrated with his role in the company and vague definition of duties.
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In January 1999, Michael Ovitz formed CKE, comprising four distinct companies: Artist Management Group, Artist Production Group, Artist Television Group and Lynx Technology Group.
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In 2002 Michael Ovitz sold AMG to Jeff Kwatinetz for an undisclosed amount, which was merged into his management group The Firm.
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Michael Ovitz is considered among the world's top 200 art collectors.
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Michael Ovitz owns works by Pablo Picasso, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and many others.
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Michael Ovitz married Judy Reich whom he met in college; they have three children, including New York fashion designer Kimberly Ovitz.