Fake it till you make it
Who is Michael Ovitz? is the autobiography of one of Hollywood’s most powerful and mysterious figures.
Ovitz was a principal founder of the CAA talent agency who represented famous actors, screenwriters and producers.
The book illustrates the numerous struggles associated with starting a company.
Ovitz had many falling-outs with his co-founders, and CAA nearly ran out of money on several occasions.
It also shares some excellent examples of creative thinking in the absence of resources.
One great example was his convincing the industry players that his new agency was worth dealing with.
Part of the company’s revenue involved selling screenplays.
Like many other things in Hollywood, it’s a highly competitive game, with thousands written every year, and only a small percentage are ever commissioned.
To create the illusion of popularity, he would copy the scripts in bulk and bind them in bright red covers, with the CAA written in bold on the front.
He then planted hundreds of them around Hollywood cafes, dentist waiting rooms and bars. Each one had handwritten notes and scrawls across it, giving it a ‘used’ look.
The savvy Ovitz knew that most had no chance of selling (and he made sure to keep the best ones a secret), but it communicated to his audience that CAA was busy and therefore important.
Thanks to inspired thinking like this, the agency survived its early years and made Ovitz a very wealthy man with an estimated fortune of $400 million.
The book is well worth a read, as it contains a wealth of other lessons he learnt from his career as one of the most successful Hollywood super agents.
