Who Is Michael Ovitz?

Michael Ovitz's memoir follows a middle-class kid from Encino who talked his way into the William Morris Agency mailroom without connections and left it quickly. He gave up a safe job to start Creative Artists Agency, which he co-founded in 1975 and chaired until 1995, building it from five men in a rundown office into the strongest agency in the business. Ovitz describes reinventing the agent's role by packaging actors, directors, writers and producers, his work for clients such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Bill Murray, and the deals behind Sony's and Matsushita's purchases of two major studios. After decades of near silence amid controversy, he now gives his full account. It is his first book.

Marc Andreessen endorsed it as a lesson in empire building and industry transformation from the man he called the Jedi master of modern Hollywood.