The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up (36 page)

I drove an old green Volvo with expired plates. Got stopped by the cops all the time. Disregarded the tickets. There was no wheel booting in those days, so I didn’t care. I sometimes drove up to three hundred miles a day making deliveries. I remember almost falling asleep at the wheel, then coming up the hill, opening my eyes, and seeing Century City. It was like Oz.

Personally, I was pretty wild. I had no life because my job was my life. I didn’t have a girlfriend; I hung around with girls from the company. And I partied. It was still acceptable; okay, put it this way, they looked the other way. One agent used to have a giant bag of cocaine in his drawer, and we all knew it. I’ve been sober for almost five years now. Had to go through the whole rehab thing. But then . . . everything.

Very soon after my arrival CAA held their annual retreat in Palm Springs. Ovitz spoke. Around the office he was called the King of Shadows because no one ever saw him come in or leave. His spiel was about CAA’s vision: “And you’re all going to be a part of it.” The message was “This place is special. Mike is special.” Afterward I thought, This guy’s got it. I’m gonna work for this guy. Most people were afraid of Ovitz, and he knew it, but I introduced myself. I was inspired but not intimidated; believe me, I’d already met people a lot bigger than Mike Ovitz. I said, “I’m really impressed with what you said, and I want you to know that I understand what you’re talking about. I’m here one hundred fifty percent to do whatever I can do to be a part of the future of the company.” Our moment was short and sweet. He said, “Thank you. When did you come here?” That’s it. But I left feeling like if CAA told me to shoot someone, I would kill for them. It sounds ridiculous now, but it felt like a highly energized family and a team.

After I introduced myself to Ovitz, his assistant, Rick Kurtzman, began to court me and ask me to do things. One day I drove Ovitz to Warner Brothers. My nickname, from being a tour manager in the music business, was Wheel Man. I got him to the studio very fast. Ovitz made phone calls and asked me about myself like you get questioned for jury duty. He was stern and serious.

It took me three months to become head of the mailroom, and Ovitz continued to ask me to do special things for him. I felt privileged. I guess he didn’t want some less mature, less presentable guy to deal with Redford or Hoffman. It wasn’t just dropping off a script or check. There were only two people that Ovitz was ever afraid of: Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford. Their attitude was always, “No fucking around. Don’t give us any agent bullshit.” I could handle that, and they were always nice to me.

I also made friends with Ovitz’s assistants. They tested me, too, asking me to pick up flowers, bring chicken soup. In fact, taking chicken soup from Nate ’n Al’s to sick clients was my idea. I also had a connection in New York for the Sony Walkman; they had just come out and were, like, five hundred bucks. I got them by the boxload from a friend who owned an electronics store, and for Christmas we’d do thousands of dollars’ worth as gifts. I also managed to get the Harvard Hasty Pudding Man of the Year awards sewn up for our clients. I went with Bill Murray one year. I went with Sean Connery another. That’s when I met Adam Isaacs—he was the star of the Hasty Pudding show, in drag; he’s now an agent at UTA—and Tom Strickler and helped Tom get a job at CAA.

I pretty quickly got the sense I’d one day be Ovitz’s guy. He knew I worked hard. He’d come back to the office at eleven o’clock at night, and I’d still be there. He’d come in on a Sunday, and I’d be there. I was in, both feet, plus 200 percent. I remember writing a note to myself: “Get anything, anywhere, anytime.”

For months I played my cards and they played theirs. In the end I played my cards right. Getting Ovitz’s desk was big news. Working for anyone else didn’t mean shit.

When my promotion was announced, things changed overnight. Agents kissed my ass. Others were afraid of me because of my access to Mike. We went everywhere together—Mike and I were
that
close. It was like brother to brother, like family. I sometimes slept at his house, took care of his kid. He was the first guy I talked to in the morning and the last guy I talked to at night. I didn’t even speak to my family like that.

I loved him. I worshiped the guy. And everybody knew it, so they all wanted to know me. And to be honest, I didn’t really care whose interest was real and whose wasn’t. Working for Mike was a turning point in my life. I realized I couldn’t look at older guys as father figures anymore. I hardly considered myself equal, but I saw Mike’s foibles clearly. His vulnerability. All the cracks from day one—the self-esteem issues, the insecurities. He was completely insecure: “What does he think of me? What does he say?” I would literally tell him to shut the fuck up. “What are you talking about, Mike? You’re out of your mind. Give me a fucking break; you’re at the top of the class.” No one talked to him like I did, but I saw that he was just a guy. I knew more than him in a lot of areas, was on top of things. I was the behind-the-scenes guy. I fed him information and kept him going on a daily basis.

In the end the job got to me. It became apparent to everyone that I lived a fast life. I never got to the depths Jay Moloney hit, but I did have some problems. I once went to a meeting with Mark Canton, who was at Warner Brothers then. He kept me after and said, “Listen, I need to talk to you about something. I think that they’re . . . a little concerned.” That upset me. Not only didn’t I know Canton well enough to talk about my problems, but Ovitz, the guy I worshiped, couldn’t even talk to me himself. He was like a parent who couldn’t face the idea that his kid was on drugs. I thought, Is our relationship really that impersonal? But, of course, that’s the thing about drugs: denial. Things
had
changed, and I couldn’t cop to it. I had began to distance myself from him, and he from me. The more involved I got in the partying, the less I was the company guy. I wore the suit and tie, but I wasn’t behaving. But instead of offering help or saying I needed help, they shoved it under the rug.

I picked David O’Connor to succeed me. I really liked him, but I made a mistake. He would agree. I thought he was more of a hustler than he really was. His brother, Bob O’Connor, was big at CBS, and I thought, Okay, this guy knows the business. Just as I eased him into the job I could see it wasn’t going to work. Ovitz hated David O’Connor—we called him Doc. When I trained him for the desk, Mike took his briefcase and threw it across the garage at his car because Doc had done something wrong. I had to calm him down: “You’ve got to give him a chance,” I said. “I’ll back it up, don’t worry about it.”

DAVID “DOC” O’CONNOR: In 1980 my oldest brother, Bob, was the head of comedy series development at CBS. I worked for public television stations in New York and New Jersey. I really wanted to do documentary work, but the timing was bad. With my brother in Los Angeles, I decided to move west and give the movie business a shot.

Bob opened a few doors, and I couldn’t believe how nice everybody was. I was just blissfully naive. People were nice, but no one offered me a job. I soon learned that in a business where things can turn around so quickly that your assistant one day is your boss the next, people don’t want to be overtly bad to
anybody
—at least when that person is starting out.

I kicked around for three or four months. The more I talked to people, the more I heard, “Go to a talent agency. It’s at the center of everything. Be a gofer. Deliver mail. You’ll meet a ton of people.” In other words, I had to start all over again.

I was supposed to meet Ray Kurtzman, who interviewed all prospective trainees, on a Thursday night. He kept me waiting in the lobby for an hour, where two assistants sat at the switchboard, answering phones, saying “CAA,” “CAA,” “CAA.” Everyone wore ties. I kept wondering what it would be like to work there.

I finally got into Kurtzman’s office and shook hands with this crusty, gruff guy. Conversation was tough because every couple of minutes someone buzzed him on the intercom and he was called away. Once, he left for a long time; it was all Ovitz-related stuff. Ovitz’s office was right down the hall, and Kurtzman was Ovitz’s consigliere.

In between calls Kurtzman kept telling me why I didn’t want to be in the mailroom at CAA. I reiterated that I
did
want to, very badly, though I think I worked harder to convince
myself
than him. Kurtzman said, “We don’t have any openings here, but we’ll put your résumé on file.”

I also met with Ron Meyer on the strength of his knowing my brother. His vibe was completely different from Kurtzman’s. Meyer was laid back, a great guy. We laughed and had a wonderful discussion. Maybe it was a good cop/bad cop sort of thing, but Meyer was someone I
wanted
to work for.

One Friday afternoon, while painting the house I lived in instead of paying rent, the phone rang. “Can you hold for Ray Kurtzman?” He told me to show up Monday at nine-thirty.

I began my trainee experience with an apology. I reported to Jim Caplan, head of the mailroom, at nine-thirty sharp. He looked me over and said, “This is the last time you’re coming in at nine-thirty. We get here at seven.”

Jim gave me a tour of the fourteenth-floor offices at 1888 Century Park East. The layout was roughly a square. Marty Baum had one corner, Michael Ovitz had another, Bill Haber a third. Ron Meyer was right next to Michael. Caplan introduced me to the assistants, and I met Richard Lovett. I vividly recall his big horn-rimmed glasses and that he was full of energy. He was immediately friendly. We talked, and he made a few wisecracks. He seemed like someone I could be friends with. Richard told me he had just gotten out of the mailroom and become Fred Specktor’s assistant.

Right next to Richard was one of the small kitchens in which the trainees were responsible for keeping the refrigerator stocked and the coffee made. While Jim showed me the routine, I met my first agent, Judy Hofflund, recently off Ron Meyer’s desk. I remember thinking, God, she’s so young! In fact, everyone was young. All the agents, all the trainees. At twenty-five, I was off to a bit of a late start.

I became pretty good friends with Ovitz’s assistant, Stuart Griffen, who brought me into Ovitz projects, like doing the
Ghostbusters
premiere. I didn’t know then that Ovitz empowered his assistants to find their replacements, or that Stuart was grooming me, but soon I was firmly in the Ovitz orbit, especially when it came to delivering films to his house on weekends. Usually it was a quick drop-off, but every once in a while Ovitz was there and we’d talk. And when things got fucked up, which they invariably did, I’d get the call from him at home—which was not very much fun.

Just when I began to get pissed that some people were being promoted out of the mailroom before me, Stuart said, “Ovitz has his eye on you. You’re being held back, probably to be on his desk.” I knew that was a plum job. Unlike other assistants, Ovitz’s assistant didn’t answer phones or type the phone sheet. He already had two secretaries. You even had your own office—a big perk—and got to go to the Wednesday staff meeting, which none of the other assistants could attend. I wanted it desperately, but nothing happened until one day when I was told to meet with Ovitz. I was on my way when I saw Robert Redford come out of the elevator and go straight into Ovitz’s office. I followed him, but Donna, Ovitz’s secretary, said, “It’s not going to happen now. But hang out.” I waited until about eight-thirty that night before the meeting was canceled.

Two weeks later they rescheduled. When I walked in, Ovitz was behind his desk, on the phone. He said, “Sit down.” I thought he meant in front of his desk, but he said, “No, no—over there,” pointing at the couch. Ovitz’s office got pretty heavy afternoon sun, so by the time he took a seat near me, he was brilliantly backlit. I couldn’t see his face, only his shadow, which I later learned was intentional. He also kept interrupting our conversation. He’d tap a phone next to him, and moments later Donna would come in. He’d say a few things, then she’d go. Then she’d come back. I later learned he was buzzing her in, for no real good reason other than to shake me up. He wanted to see if I could handle the distractions. He wanted to keep me on edge.

I had a speech prepared, but since he’d called the meeting, I waited for him to start. He did: “So, what’s up?” Totally threw me.

Later I heard, secondhand, I had the job. Ray Kurtzman said, “You’re going to be Michael’s assistant, but Stuart’s not being promoted yet. You two will do it together.”

I moved to Ovitz’s desk, and for the first month he never talked to me. He would interact only with Stuart. The reason: He didn’t trust anybody. He was very distant and always testing. All our interactions were on note cards. Every few hours, if he gave me a task to do and it wasn’t completed, I had to submit a card that said where I was in the process. I put it in his in-basket and he’d mark it.

As Ovitz’s assistant, you did a lot of grunt work. I had to fill up his car with gas. Or get his shoes shined at some place on Pico, over by Hymie’s Fish Market. Then there were the gifts: That killed you because he got them for people all the time. My first big test was his personal Christmas list. It was huge, and everything had to be perfect. But I did it well and finally broke through. From then on Ovitz and I interacted more. Sometimes he was even a little expansive and I could maybe joke around a bit. But it was always all about him, and our moments were hardly personal or intimate. He knew nothing about my life, which was fine except it seemed a little odd, given that I was with the guy twelve hours a day.

Ovitz wasn’t that way with everybody. Not Jay Moloney, for instance. Jay had this boyish quality about him that made everybody want to take care of him. He also had a curiosity combined with fearlessness, which allowed him to ask things of and get involved with people who were in positions of authority. He ended up having a closer personal relationship with Michael. I never had that quality or that ability and was always uncomfortable in Ovitz’s presence.