Latest in Agents

After decades of trying, agents are finally getting their day at the Oscars. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors voted on Sunday to reclassify the membership status of Artists’ Representatives and now will allow them to vote like other active members. Previously they were Associates…

Late Friday evening, the Writers Guild of America West and Writers Guild of America East have sent out a joint letter to membership outlining two new ways to connect with a franchised agent or manager. Earlier this month, the WGA reached out to personal managers to connect them with writers who are looking for new…

When the major talent agencies—CAA, WMA & Endeavor (now WME) and UTA—started indie film departments, the idea was to help big clients get their passion—some called them vanity—projects made. That seems like a million years ago. These departments have become such prolific generators that they have become the life blood…

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it," runs the amended version of a thought once voiced by Winston Churchill. Michael Ovitz, Ron Meyer and friends must have had Churchill in mind when they decided to collaborate with James Andrew Miller on his massive oral history of the Creative Artists Agency, Power…

EXCLUSIVE: The Gersh Agency has upped a trio of assistants to agent status in their talent department. Louise Abnee Keshaviah gets the boost after three years at Gersh, where she started working for Nick Collins before moving to Leslie Siebert’s desk. The USC ’09 grad started her agency career at Abrams. Just shy of…

UPDATE: WME has just signed  one of Hollywood’s most famous scorers and Oscar-winner Hans Zimmer from the Gorfaine-Schwartz Agency which until recently enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the film music market as big name agencies had divested themselves of representing composers. But WME recently got into the composer rep…

EXCLUSIVE: The Rock is one hot rock right now following the big worldwide opening of Universal’s Fast Five. This major movie star had a longtime relationship with agent Darren Statt and followed the rep from Endeavor to UTA to CAA most recently. But now Dwayne Johnson has called it quits with Statt and signed with…

EXCLUSIVE: Cary Berman was a veteran William Morris agent who joined with Endeavor’s Jessica Thomas to co-head the new agency’s commercial department. Now Berman is leaving and Thomas is staying.

EXCLUSIVE: Live With Regis & Kelly co-host Kelly Ripa was with WME, and her husband Mark Consuelos was with Innovative. CAA’s Bryan Lourd not only signed them but also their production company Milojo Productions, which has made several shows for TLC. The question now is whether Consuelos might replace Regis Philbin as…

Rudy Altobelli, an agent who represented musicians and actors during the 1960s and ’70s and who owned the Beverly Hills mansion at 10050 Cielo Drive when the Manson Family killed Sharon Tate and five others there in 1969, died March 26. He was 82.

WME has signed Oscar-winning veteran designer and artist H.R. Giger, Footloose remake star Kenny Wormald, and Landon Liboiron, who’ll star in the Steven Spielberg-produced Fox series Terra Nova. Giger is the Swiss surrealist artist responsible for the groundbreaking visuals on the Ridley Scott-directed Alien, for…

UPDATE: WME will be pitted against rival agency UTA in the quest to set up projects about the Chilean miner rescue. Deadline previously told you that Kansas-based international drilling company Layne Christensen Company and chief driller Jeff Hart were signed by UTA to tell the story from their perspective, which…