Mar 13, 2006 02:45 PM
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Hollywood, 5:36 PM
Tue Feb 9
57 posts in the last 24 hours
Today's LAT takes a look at the seemingly inevitable, unholy marriage of two or more of the Big Five talent agencies, which may be forced to combine evil forces to adapt to the needs of a rapidly consolidating studio marketplace. Picking through some of the quiet personal relationships that may lube the painful path to a merger, they tell behind-the-scenes tales of secret tennis partners, former keg-tapping college buddies, and buried hatchets. Of course, official Agent Dance mascot and merger rumor-magnet Ari Emanuel of Endeavor must figure prominently in any discussion. Reports the LAT:
The friendship between Endeavor's Whitesell and ICM's Rizvi is little known, but countless personal relationships between bigwigs are common knowledge. Some have speculated, for example, that William Morris chief Jim Wiatt's friendship with UTA Chairman Jim Berkus formed while both were students at USC bodes well for a merger.
Meanwhile, Wiatt and ICM Chairman Jeff Berg, who worked in tandem at ICM for 20 years, are now bitter rivals. Each is believed to be eager to best the other, a desire that could motivate either to build up his empire.For his part, Berg long resented Ari Emanuel, who was one of ICM's top agents until he and three others defected in the dead of night to start Endeavor in 1995. Since that incident, which is still known as the Watergate of the agency world, the two are said to have buried the hatchet a statement that gained credibility last week, when they were photographed together at the Vanity Fair Oscars party.
Still, Emanuel is such an ego-driven hardball player that some doubt he would be able to share the throne in a merger. Emanuel's forceful personality (which is on display in his blog on the Huffington Post website) inspired the maniacal agent played by Jeremy Piven in the HBO comedy series "Entourage."
Given the number of available whores working a lobby full of lonely businessmen with fat wallets, it seems pretty difficult to predict who will get it on first. Based on the the latest, most-whispered rumor (haven't we all learned our lessons about gossip by now?), we half-expected to be woken up this morning by the headboard-banging action of a UTA and Endeavor coupling (possible names for the still-fictional new agency: United Endeavor, ETA, Ari's House Of Fuck You ICM), but it seems that no one got lucky over the weekend.
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