Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency

by James Andrew Miller

MICHAEL OVITZ: When people started losing to us, they started passing rumors that we didn’t pay full commission, like we took 5 percent or 2½ percent, and we’d get clients calling and potential clients’ business managers saying, “So-and-so will come but they want the special deal.” We used to laugh about it because we didn’t have a special deal. Nobody. No one. Aaron Spelling, Spielberg, Kubrick, all paid us. We asked for one thing: loyalty to the company and 10 percent if you’re a client. And we never, ever took less than 10 percent from anyone except in music and in TV packaging. So all these rumors that Sue Mengers spread around—“the boys take less than 10 percent”—we never did. Ever. None of us. Ron and I held that line. I remember I signed Al Pacino and he called up and said, “I’d like the 5 percent deal,” because William Morris told him to say that to us. And I said, “Al, we’d love to handle you, we don’t have a 5 percent deal. When you’re ready to pay what everybody else pays, call me.” He came back and paid us, and stayed with us.