Lore in my wife’s family says that her mother, a beautiful Jewish immigrant fleeing grief in the Ukraine about a century ago, ran into someone named Carl Laemmle on a ship crossing the Atlantic. As the story goes, Laemmle asked her to check in with his still-young Universal film company, as she might have a future in…

This week's whirl of parties celebrating awards season constitutes "an over-caffeinated exercise in suppressed schadenfreude," an analyst friend confided to me. In coming days scores of runners-up will be called upon to celebrate the triumphs of a tiny group of winners. The reality: Most of us will take greatest…

Michael Ovitz was ever the master of both confession and concealment — the shared confidence that really wasn't, or the backdoor whisper that had to be denied. When I was pursuing him, in a reportorial sense, for a 1986 Wall Street Journal profile, for instance, he struck a pose of complete resistance. But he also had…

“You don’t have to be an asshole to succeed,” NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Ron Meyer told students in his commencement address today to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts grads (see full video below). One of Hollywood’s most respected and longest-running executives advised: Lose your ego. Lose your pride. Don’t be…

Ron Meyer is headed back to school — for a day. The NBCUniversal Vice Chairman and CAA co-founder will deliver the commencement address for 2017 grads of the USC School of Cinematic Arts in May.

The film school also said today that Oscar producer Jennifer Todd and Bad Moms producer Suzanne Todd each will each receive…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this weekly column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business.

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"The bottom line is the Malibu thing is completely his fault," joked Michael Ovitz, to a capacity crowd at the DGA Theatre tonight for a Live Talks Los Angeles event. Appearing for the first time in more than 20 years alongside his one-time partner in the founding of CAA, Ron Meyer, Ovitz was setting the record…

A highly anticipated chat between former CAA partners and longtime rivals Michael Ovitz and Ron Meyer scheduled for September 7 has now been postponed to September 29 due to Ovitz recovering from recent back surgery.

The duo will be meeting for a live discussion of James Andrew Miller’s Powerhouse: The Untold Story Of…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this weekly column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business.

FLEMING: Since we agreed we would discuss it in this column, I waded through Power House, the oral history written by James Andrew Mil…

"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…

Ron Meyer is staying with NBCUniversal for a long time to come. The veteran executive has signed a contract to remain vice chairman of NBC Universal for an additional five years. His contract was set to expire in 2017.

Meyer, along with studio chair Donna Langley and Jeff Shell, chairman of the Universal Filmed Enterta…

As the Viacom melodrama nears its dubious climax, a growing sector of the creative community has come to accept this reality: bigger is not better. "Hollywood was far better off before the corporate giants annexed the studios and networks," argues one of the town's prominent players, who does not want to be identified…